The month was mid-July, the year 1971. I had just turned seventeen, still thirteen months shy of my high school graduation. Unsure of what to do, unclear as to what path I might lead, I struggled with the thought of what the next four years would be like. Fortunately, another trip to Brazil was planned. That was good. Once again, I would meet up with our relatives and friends, most of whom I had not seen or heard from since 1965.
However, the years had not been kind to our family. Grandpa Chico had passed away in 1967. Other relatives and not-so-near relations had gotten older, much older in fact. Both grandmothers were still around, thank goodness, but some previously married couples had split. Others had tied the knot or gotten engaged, but had not chosen their mates wisely. On the brighter side, the next generation had begun to mature, giving hope to people that a younger crop of Brazilians - new leaders, new singers, new artists in general - would be capable of filling the weighty shoes left vacant and behind by their antecedents' demise.
With age, comes maturity. But maturity, as I later learned, is a relative thing. Some people mature early on in life, while others do not. Some never reach that point of adulthood, no matter their physical age. Some refuse to let go of the past, never profiting from their mistakes. The error of their ways, the wrong turns, and the bad company they kept continued to stalk their paths regardless of how much time had elapsed. That is sad.
My father, for one, suffered greatly from the past. Anxiety neurosis, that was his problem, along with perfectionism. In times of stress, dad lashed out at whoever was present. It took an unreasonably long time for him to come down from the "high" his fixations had left him with. In the interim, recipients of his wild mood swings (my mom, myself, my brother, dad's brothers and sisters, and principally his mother) would either suffer in dumb anguish or lash out in equal measure - not a wise choice, under any circumstances.
Dad was never more volatile than when we vacationed together as a group. I was told, by those who knew him well, that when he was a traveling salesman for the Confiança Company he would be unable to sleep the night or two before a trip. Too worried about some misplaced document or leaving behind something important, dad would waste hours of precious time needlessly fussing over the slightest details. He carried this defect over into his personal life, in that he made every plane ride, every bus journey, every family outing a living hell, no matter where we went or who we had gone to visit. We had to watch what we said to him, too, or there would be a tongue-lashing the likes of which would have made a longshoreman blush.
There were times when I wanted to bust out of this mind-numbing confinement. In Brazil, where I was surrounded by others less troubled by dad's bouts of nerves, I found relief. We could go out on our own, explore the neighborhood, chat with people of our age group. We could forge new relationships, build better associations with some of the younger members of our family. In other words, we could finally enjoy ourselves by, basically, just being ourselves instead of minding our every spoken syllable.
It was during this time that I was introduced to two distant cousins, Ana Maria and Suely, sisters of roughly similar age (perhaps a few years apart and a little older than I was). The daughters of my father's ex-partner "Noca" and his wife, Lisbete, one of mom's first cousins, they were openly pleasant to me and my brother. Ana Maria had two girlfriends, Márcia and Edna, who were a foot or more from each other in height. Márcia was the tallest (I nicknamed her girafa) and the most personable - man, what huge eyes; Edna was the shortest (we called her formiga, or "ant") and the more serious of the two. I paired up with Márcia, while my brother took charge of little Edna.
One evening (it might have been either a Friday or a Saturday night), all five of us (with the exception of Suely, who was engaged to a fellow named Flávio) went out to the movies. It was my first double-date; in fact, it was the first double-date I had ever been on with members of the opposite sex. I can't for the life of me recall if we paid their way or if mom and dad had reimbursed them later for the tickets. It wouldn't surprise me if they had, since I was completely unaware of the finer points of dating.
Nevertheless, there we were, locked arm-in-arm, escorting Ana Maria and her friends to the local fleabag theater. Ana Maria had told our parents that we were going to see a Gordon Scott picture, the title of which was Corionlanus: Hero Without a Country. It was one of those Italian-made sword-and-sandal epics from the mid-sixties. Luckily for me, I was absolutely captivated by these types of films; anything relating to Hercules, Samson, Machiste, and Goliath was right up my alley. Steve Reeves was my favorite strongman, but Scott would do in a pinch.
After a fifteen- or twenty-minute stroll down endless winding paths, whereby I engaged in flirtatious banter with my date - Márcia was certainly a chatterbox, which helped ease my apprehension somewhat - we arrived at our destination. And there it was, a big color poster of the musclebound Mr. Scott, a former lifeguard and movie Tarzan, as our titular Roman general. Was this really happening? I started to tense up. Being completely naïve about feminine wiles it never occurred to me that muscleman pictures were not the sort of thing that bright-eyed young ladies were into.
Well, well, was I in for a surprise! Instead of leading the charge to screen glory with Coriolanus, Ana Maria stepped up to the ticket-booth and handed over our money to where they were showing something called O quanto amor, o qual amor ("How Much Love, Oh What Love"), the Brazilian Portuguese equivalent of the Italian sex comedy La Matriarca (translated in the U.S. as The Libertine) from 1969. The film starred French-born Belgian actress Catherine Spaak, who I wrongly assumed to be American (and associated with Star Trek' s resident alien, Mr. Spock), and French leading man Jean-Louis Trintignant. An Italian sex comedy, of all things! Where the characters spoke Italian and French. With Portuguese subtitles. And nudie shots of T and A ("tits and ass," for the uninitiated).
What was Ana Maria thinking? What fancy ideas had gotten into her head? I couldn't tell. I was too disheartened (and not very amused) by this last-minute bait-and-switch my cousin had pulled on us. I didn't hold it against her, though. Really, what choice did I have? Maybe it was Ana Maria's way of getting her and her friends to see something foreign and unique. Remember, this was years into Brazil's military dictatorship. Censorship of television and the press was customary and to be expected. The movies, especially foreign-dubbed ones (including those made in the USA), were practically the only means where some kind of freedom of expression was exercised, but to a limited degree. The other reason was more practical: unescorted girls at the movies were easy prey for wolves on the prowl. Although this was undoubtedly a bold move on her part, I couldn't blame my cousin for doing it. I just didn't have the heart to reproach her. She was family.
After the film had ended, the girls walked me and my brother back to our Aunt Iracema's house, where our family had been staying. Boy, what dopes we were back then! Neither of us had the slightest clue about etiquette, never mind the social graces. The truth is, we boys, as the "gentlemen" of the group, were supposed to have escorted the girls to their homes. Then, and only then, could we return to our dwelling. I'm sure the girls didn't mind returning us to our roost. After all, we were their guests, we did not officially reside in São Paulo, and we were not familiar with the surroundings. Nor could we have found our way back if we wanted to, so many were the twists and turns we confronted that it would have taken half the night to get to where we needed to be. If you ask me, this was a blessing in disguise.
We went on one more date, this time with two of our visiting cousins, Dario and Dan. There might have been one other person involved, but I can't remember. All I know is that I was pleased to see Márcia again - and I sensed the feeling was mutual. And where did we go? Why, to the movies, of course, to the same fleabag arena that good old Coriolanus had been playing in. Except this time, the main attraction was a recently released first-run feature, Brother John, starring Sidney Poitier, which was more my style (and with the dialogue in easier-to-follow English).
I felt more at ease this time around. And when it was over, we did the right thing: my cousins and I, along with my brother, escorted the girls to their homes. I have no recollection of how we did it, but we also managed to find our way back to Aunt Iracema's house. Nothing like prior experience to help pave the way.
I learned something else about those two date nights: that girls have a mind of their own; that they know what it is they want; and, most startling of all, they know exactly how to go about getting it.
Copyright © 2021 by Josmar F. Lopes
