He arrived there in 1985, just before his twenty-ninth birthday. By then the dictatorship had softened, some political rights had been restored, there was an amnesty program for people accused of political offenses, and censorship had been relaxed. More importantly, the government had allowed the opposition to triumph in the 1982 legislative elections.
Richard was present for the first free presidential election. For a student of politics like himself it proved to be a fascinating moment. The military government and its followers were rejected, and the opposition candidate won, but in one of history’s low blows, he died before he could take office. It was his vice president, Jose Sarney, a big landowner close to the military, who was called upon to usher in the “New Republic” and consolidate the transition to democracy. Brazil was facing huge problems on all fronts: it had the largest foreign debt in the world and was mired in a recession; economic power was concentrated in a few hands while the rest of the population suffered inflation, unemployment, poverty, and inequality that condemned many to permanent hardship. There was more than enough material for the topics Richard wanted to research and the articles he intended to publish, but alongside these intellectual challenges was the permanent temptation to enjoy his youth to the fullest in the hedonistic atmosphere in which he found himself.
He rented a student apartment in Rio de Janeiro, exchanged his harsh Portuguese accent for the softer Brazilian one. He learned to drink caipirinhas, the national drink of cane liquor and lime that hit his stomach like battery acid, and cautiously ventured out into the city’s vibrant life. As the most attractive girls were on the beaches or dance floors, he began to swim in the sea and decided to learn to dance, something he had never felt the need to do before. When Anita Farinha’s dance academy was recommended to him, he enrolled to learn the samba and other popular dances, but like so many white men he was too stiff and self-conscious. Although he was the academy’s worst student, his efforts proved worthwhile, because it was there that he met his true love.
ANITA FARINHA ATTRACTED Richard at first sight, with the exuberant shape of her body, her narrow waist, sturdy legs, and rounded butt that swayed with every step she took, although there was no hint she was flirting. Music and grace were in her blood. In the academy her splendid nature was evident, but outside work Anita was a formal, reserved young woman who behaved impeccably and was extremely close to her extended, noisy family. She practiced her own religion, but not fanatically: a mixture of Catholic and animist beliefs, seasoned with female mythology. Every so often she went with her sisters to a ceremony of candomble, an African slave religion that had been limited to black Brazilians in the past but was now gaining followers among the white middle class. Anita had her guardian orixa, her divine guide in the realization of her destiny: Yemaya, the goddess of motherhood, life, and the oceans. She explained this to Richard the only time he accompanied her, but he took it as a joke. Like many of Anita’s customs, this paganism seemed to him exotic, enchanting. She laughed with him, because she only half believed in it. It was better to believe in everything than in nothing: that way she ran less risk of angering the gods, just in case they did exist.
Richard pursued her with a crazy determination totally unexpected in someone so levelheaded, until he had been accepted by the thirty-seven members of the Farinha family and finally succeeded in marrying her. To achieve this he had to make countless courtesy calls without mentioning the reason for them. He was accompanied by his father, who traveled to Brazil especially for that purpose, as it would have been improper for Richard to have gone to Anita’s family alone. Joseph Bowmaster wore strict mourning clothes due to the recent passing of Cloe, the woman he loved so dearly, but wore a red flower in his buttonhole to celebrate his son’s engagement. Richard would have preferred a private wedding, but Anita’s family and close friends alone came to more than two hundred guests. On Richard’s side there was only his father; his friend Horacio Amado-Castro, who arrived from the United States by surprise; and Maria Thereza Goulart, who had developed a maternal affection for the handsome American student.
The president’s widow, who was still young and beautiful—she had been twenty-two years younger than her husband—captured all the guests’ attention and was a valuable support for Richard in the face of Anita’s overwhelming clan. It was she who made him see the obvious: by marrying Anita he was also marrying her family. The wedding was not arranged by the bride and groom but by Anita’s mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law, all of them gossipy, affectionate women who lived in permanent communication and poked their noses into every aspect of each -other’s lives. They attended to everything, from the wedding banquet menu to the butter-colored lace mantilla Anita had to wear because it had belonged to her deceased great--grandmother. The role of the men in the family was a more decorative one; their domain, if they had one, was outside the home. All of them were so friendly toward Richard that it took him a long while to realize that the Farinhas as a whole did not trust him. None of this affected him, because the love he shared with Anita was the only thing that really mattered. At that moment he could never have imagined the control the Farinha family would exert over his marriage.
The couple’s happiness redoubled with the birth of Bibi. Their daughter arrived in the second year of their marriage, just as Yemaya had predicted in the buzios, the fortune-telling conch shells. She was such a gift that Anita feared the price the goddess would demand for this wonderful child. Richard laughed at the quartz bracelets and other safeguards against the evil eye that his wife wore. Anita forbade him to boast of their happiness; it was dangerous to stir up envy.
The best moments of this period, which years later still set Richard’s heart racing, were when Anita curled up on his chest like a gentle cat or sat astride his knees and buried her nose in his neck, or when Bibi was taking her first steps with all her mother’s grace, a broad smile displaying her milk teeth. Anita in an apron chopping fruit in summer; Anita at her academy writhing like an eel to the sound of a guitar; Anita purring fast asleep in his arms after they had made love; Anita heavy with her watermelon belly, leaning on him to climb the stairs; Anita in the rocking chair with Bibi at her breast, singing softly in the orange glow of evening.
Richard never allowed himself to doubt that those years were the best for Anita as well.
Lucia, Richard, Evelyn
Upstate New York