That was also the night of Yemanjá, Goddess of the Sea, and her worshipers crowded Copacabana and the other beaches. Cabalistic-patterned trenches had been dug at high-water line and thousands of white candles set in them. The sand was strewn with white flowers, mostly lilies, and quantities of “white” alcohol, called cachaça, were drunk. Lines of girls and women, all in white, holding hands, and men in white, singly, waded into the surf singing hymns to Yemanjá and throwing their sheaves of flowers out as far as they could.
All together, the city’s activities were a completely Cariocan — that is to say, a Rio de Janeiran — mixture: Latin and African, Catholic and pagan; mildly military, with a touch of progress; a bit disorganized, but with a great deal of unexpected beauty.
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Now the year’s biggest festival — Carnival, the four days preceding Ash Wednesday — has come and gone. As always, the first night, Saturday, was devoted to fancy-dress balls, with the most ostentatious being held at the Municipal Theater. These balls are really costume competitions. No expense is spared, and the winners are invariably dressed in the height of extravagant bad taste.
On Sunday night came the parades of dancers — first, the frêvos, in a wild, crouching dance from the north, then the dozens of samba “schools,” each with hundreds of members in green and pink, silver and blue, red and white. In the tradition of Carnival, the parades lasted all night (and it should be remembered that this is the rainy season in Rio), with the best schools saved to the last, bravely dancing down the avenue at sunrise.
Tuesday night brought the ranchos, huge allegorical floats, many of them mechanized with revolving wheels, opening flowers and giants with rolling eyes. This year, in honor of the quatercentenary, many depicted real or imaginary scenes from Rio’s history.
Through all this no work was done. Public buildings, banks and shops all were closed. Though it is now the fashion for the wealthier and more sophisticated to leave Rio during Carnival, the streets were packed each night. By day, the population recuperated at home. Yet there was remarkably little drunkenness or disorder. This year, the traditional perfume throwers, flasks that shoot a fine jet of scented ether, giving a smart shock and a sensation of icy cold on the skin, were officially banned as dangerous. They had been banned before — with equally little effect.
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Visitors to Rio de Janeiro usually exclaim: “What a beautiful city.” But sooner or later, the more thoughtful are likely to say: “No, it’s not a beautiful city; it’s just the world’s most beautiful setting for a city.”
Guanabara Bay is one of the largest landlocked harbors in the world, and many travelers say it is the most beautiful. Sharp granite peaks rise around it almost directly from the water in a series of fantastic shapes that suggested rather simple names to the Portuguese mariners who first came here: Sugar Loaf, Crow’s-nest, Rudder, Two Brothers, Hunchback (or Corcovado).
Because the mountains are so close to the ocean the moisture in the sea winds condenses quickly and clouds float unusually low about them. This makes for considerable humidity; fussy people complain that their silver tarnishes quickly and their shoes mildew in the closets. But the dampness also gives a softness to the atmosphere that is one of Rio’s charms. Although distant objects are clear they are bathed in a pink or bluish light — dreamy and delicate.
The granite peaks still bear all manner of tropical vegetation. Lianas hang from them, and wild palms wave on their tops — between and over city blocks — with a romantic effect unlike that of any other city.
Beautiful as it is, this setting does not lend itself to city planning. For 400 years, the city has probed slowly between the peaks in every direction — until it has grown like a lopsided starfish.
* * *
As in most capital cities (of which Rio was one until the capital was moved to the newly constructed Brasília in 1960), most of the population seems to come from somewhere else. The very poorest Brazilians — those from the north and northeast — have arrived in increasing numbers for 20 years or more. Now they come packed in old buses or in trucks filled with benches called arraras (“macaw perches”).
Some find work; some are unemployed. Some move on. But very, very few go home, because city life — wretched as it may be — is still more diverting and satisfying than life in the dead little towns or villages they come from.
These people swell the sad and notorious Rio favelas (slums). More ambitious and prosperous people, bright young men seeking university degrees, young bureaucrats and politicians also flock to Rio. Many of the “real” Cariocas themselves are Cariocas from only one or two generations back — when the family left the old fazenda (or estate) and moved to the city for good.
Even if São Paulo is now a much bigger and richer city, many intellectuals prefer to live in Rio. It is still at least the intellectual capital of the country. In its extremes of wealth and poverty, it mirrors the inflation brought on by former President Juscelino Kubitschek’s breakneck drive for industrialization, and by the graft that flourished under both him and his successor, João Goulart. It is a city that reflects the uncertainties of the entire nation since an army coup last March and April ousted Goulart and installed Marshal Humberto Castelo Branco as President. Finally, after 400 years, it is a city that has grown shabby.
There has been a “Paint Rio” campaign, with photographs in the newspapers of the presidents of paint companies handing gallons of free paint to the mother superiors of orphan asylums. House cleaning is needed badly; even the reputedly glamorous section of Copacabana is full of stained and peeling 10-story apartment houses.
Some parts of the city have new street signs, also badly needed. These light at night, helpfully, because Rio is a very dim city these days, but they bear advertisements as well as street names, and are criticized for being commercial and in bad taste.
In contrast to the general decrepitude, there is the brand-new Flamengo Park, with a new beach, gardens, an outdoor bandstand and dance floor, a marionette theater and rides for children. It is by far the city’s best birthday present to its citizens, and although it is only about three-quarters finished, the citizens are embracing it by tens of thousands.
Flamengo Park is narrow, but almost 4 miles long, reaching from the edge of the commercial section of the city southwest along Guanabara Bay. It now looks like a green tropical atoll just risen from the water, but it is really the result of three years’ hard work on an unpromising, hideous stretch of mud, dust, pipes and highways long known as “the fill.” It is the one esthetic contribution of Gov. Carlos Lacerda’s administration of the city and its suburbs.
Most of the beaches have been refurbished a little. Copacabana has just had its lifeguard “posts” taken down — as suddenly as landmarks vanish in New York. For years, Cariocans have said: “I live between posto three and posto four,” or: “Meet me at posto six,” and it will seem strange not to have these points of reference any more.
* * *
Because of the quatercentenary, hotels have been booked solid by out-of-town Brazilians and tourists. Elderly American ladies in print dresses and sunglasses walk the mosaic sidewalks determinedly, looking for something to do. The trouble is, there isn’t anything to do or not much. Rio is not really ready for large-scale tourismo. The bon mot of the moment is to refer to the 4th Centenário as the 4th Sem Ter Nada. Spoken fast, they sound much alike, but the second phrase means “without a thing.” Meanwhile, two or three luxury liners arrive every week with more tourists.