“THE BEST THING is to let her sleep,” said Dr. Arnoldo. “Alice isn’t well. She’s deeply depressed. I’m going to call her husband.”
“She’s separated from her husband,” Mattos said.
“Legally?”
“Not yet.”
“I always take the precaution of communicating with the family, in case of certain treatments—”
“What treatments?”
“Electroshock. This isn’t the first time it’s been considered in Alice’s case.”
“But can’t electroshock cause harmful effects, like loss of memory?”
“You just told me she said she wanted to forget, and that’s why she burned the diary she was writing. Don’t you find that significant?” Pause. “In any case, any amnesia provoked by the treatment is always transitory.”
“Don’t do it, doctor, I’m begging you, please. When she wakes up, maybe she’ll be better.”
“This state of depression and melancholia only tends to get worse.”
“She wasn’t depressed this morning when I left. Please, promise me you’ll wait a few days.”
“All right. I’ll wait a bit. In fact, as a rule that’s the procedure I adopt. In any event, I’m going to have to advise the husband. They’re still not legally separated. She doesn’t have any relatives, understand?”
“Can’t I be responsible for her?”
“You’re not anything to her — you’re a good friend, I know — but she has a husband.”
“I’ll come back later.”
“Come tomorrow. She’s going to sleep all afternoon and all night. She’ll be well taken care of, don’t worry.”
“No shock treatment, please.”
“That’s a layman’s prejudice, sir. Historically, every medical advance meets hostile objections based on ignorance and superstition. There are people who for religious reasons refuse to accept blood transfusions. Others, out of ignorance, refuse to take allopathic medicines. Et cetera.”
“Doctor, I go on duty tomorrow at noon. But I’ll stop by here first.”
IT WAS ELEVEN AT NIGHT when General Zenóbio asked Marshal Mascarenhas to come to the War Department.
“The situation has gotten worse,” said Zenóbio. “More than forty army generals signed the brigadiers’ manifesto. I’ve asked Mendes de Morais to go to the Catete to speak with Alzira. I’m waiting for the general to return.”
The two sat, downcast, in the brown leather armchairs in the secretary’s office. They had served together in the FEB. Mascarenhas, then a three-star general, had commanded the 25,162 men of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force sent to Italy in 1944. Zenóbio, then a two-star general, had commanded one of the five echelons into which the Force was divided.
“In Italy it was easier to make decisions,” said Zenóbio, rising impatiently. “I think we’d better go to the Catete and speak with the president. I’m going to ask Denys to go with us.”
It was past midnight when they arrived at Catete Palace. The children and other relatives of the president were at the palace. Vargas received Mascarenhas and Zenóbio in the presence of Secretary Oswaldo Aranha. In silence, he heard Zenóbio say that he, the president, had lost the support of the military.
“Tomorrow I’ll call a cabinet meeting,” said Vargas.
Mascarenhas proposed calling the meeting immediately, and the suggestion was accepted by the president.
A little after two a.m., all the cabinet secretaries were in the meeting room of the palace. Only the secretary of foreign affairs was absent.
Vargas sat in the dark, straw-bottom chair at the head of the table in the meeting room. The secretaries were in their places, silent. All the lights were on, but at meetings held at night the room was always dark, gloomy. Vargas contemplated, for moments, the painting by Antonio Parreiras on the opposite wall, an oil in tones of gray that the artist had titled “A Day of Sadness.”
In a tired voice, the president, after recounting the information given him by his military secretaries, asked those present for their opinions. The military secretaries confirmed that the navy and air force were united in wanting the president’s resignation; the army was divided. The military secretaries advised resignation.
While they were speaking, Alzira Vargas came into the room, along with Deputy Danton Coelho, the president’s son-in-law Amaral Peixoto, and others.
The president then asked the civilian secretaries for their opinion. The acting labor secretary, Hugo de Faria, said that the Constitution must be respected and maintained, and that the president should not resign. Oswaldo Aranha and José Américo shared the opinion of the military secretaries, favorable to resignation. The rest were hesitant, none of them offering an objective view.
At that instant, Alzira came from the back of the room and stood beside the president’s chair.
“What about you, General Caiado? I want your opinion,” said Vargas.
“Mr. President. Don’t accept any imposition. I favor armed resistance. The army, even divided, as the secretary claims, will prevent any subversion.”
“If you give me the name of the regiment that’s going to resist, I, with due authorization from the president, will issue the command,” said Zenóbio.
“So be it,” said Caiado.
“General Zenóbio,” shouted Deputy Danton Coelho from the back of the room, “it’s your fault if the army is divided.”
“I reject your false and rude assertion. I will not permit anyone to address me like that,” Zenóbio responded.
“General,” Alzira said, “I was surprised and disappointed when you suggested that the president resign. I ask you: why can’t we resist? I think the only thing missing is the will to fight.”
“Resistance will lead to bloodshed. We will be defeated,” said Zenóbio.
“Then let us be defeated, but fighting,” said Alzira.
There were two alternatives on the table: armed resistance or resignation. Amaral Peixoto added a third: a furlough. The president would take a leave of absence until the PMI investigating the Tonelero crime was concluded.
Several of those present, both the cabinet members and those who had intruded into the meeting, began to talk at once. Lourival Fontes, head of the Civilian Cabinet, seated beside Mascarenhas, turned to him and said, “This is becoming a circus.”
In the middle of the tumult, Vargas looked at the J.B. Deletrezz grandfather’s clock standing between the gray-and-scarlet curtains of the large doors opening onto the garden, totally dark. The hands on the white porcelain dial showed 4:15 a.m. Vargas felt spent. From the beginning he had not expected solid support for a fight; he knew human nature. He had participated, in his political career, in intrigues, revolts, conspiracies, coups, revolutions. Thus the cautious faces of the majority of the cabinet members, and their evasive words, cloaked in abdicative metaphors — José Américo had suggested a “grand gesture” on his part, almost an echo of the “elegant gesture of the vanquished” proposed by José Bonifácio of the UDN — had not come as a surprise but merely added to his weariness.
With one final effort he spoke, silencing the voices, bringing an end to the uproar. “If the military members of the cabinet guarantee that the institutions will be maintained, I will take a leave of absence.”
After saying this, accompanied by his daughter, Vargas withdrew from the room, to applause. On the third floor, before entering the bedroom where he slept alone — his wife, Dona Darcy, slept in another room in the palace — his daughter embraced and kissed him.
Tancredo Neves, the secretary of justice, was charged with drafting the note expressing the presidential decision to take a leave of absence and hand over the reins of government to his lawful replacement. Seeking to preserve the president’s dignity, it would state that this was a spontaneous decision that had received the full support of his cabinet. Tancredo would further say that the president had demanded that order and respect for the Constitution be maintained and the commitments solemnly assumed before the nation by the generals of the armed forces be honored. The note would end by saying that if such were not the case, the president would persevere in his unshakable objective to defend his constitutional prerogatives by the sacrifice of his very life. Tancredo, Oswaldo Aranha, Mascarenhas, and the other friends of the president believed that this compromise solution, in the declaration to be promulgated immediately, would avoid resignation, civil war, the humiliation of the president.