Contemporary Jewish Writing in Brazil: An Anthology

Excerpt from The Third Testament

1 Whatever is revealed in confidence sooner or later ends up in the public domain, especially when keeping secrecy pertains not to one or two people but to the entire community. Therefore, it is impossible to explain how, for years at a time, our neighborhood kept the secret. Treatises have already been written on the subject of the secret or on its violation; sociologists wrote theses; psychologists explained its workings; historians researched its origins. The malicious ones, in order to shorten the story, say that the secret only has value when it is shared by many, and would rush to point to our neighborhood as a typical case. But how would they explain the secret’s rigorous boundary within the physical borders of the neighborhood? The river that ran abundantly and poured forth bubbling with life, just like an Amazonian river stream suddenly dries up to the point that, a few meters away, nobody conceives of its existence? Scholars would shrug their shoulders and between being resentful and surprised would say that our situation was merely the exception to the rule. After all, just like coffee, carnival, and soccer, gossip is a national institution, and what our neighborhood never lacked was gossiping busybodies, ready to blab about everything: there isn’t a soul who doesn’t know how many lovers the owner of the bakery, Mr. Paiva, keeps; or that Dona Terezinha’s daughters are not really such virgins ; or that Pedrinho, the sales clerk at the grocery store, fooled his boss by passing behind his back first-class merchandise to the fiery Solange, under the complicit eyes of her mother, Dona Teodora, who insisted on accompanying her daughter everywhere, since it did not look good for an adolescent girl to walk the streets alone. One Francisco Dzialovsky excerpt from The Third Testament 132 francisco dzialovsky suspects that Pedrinho was sleeping with both of them, in collusion with Mr. Rodrigues, husband and father. That’s merely malicious gossip, a field in which our busybodies possess a know-how that would make anybody else envious. All the same, the secret was another story. It was born and it died within the neighborhood, maybe because it was a secret of life and death. The lives of some people began to have new direction, the death of others a certain meaning. Imagine if in some way the secret leaked out and the newspapers got wind of it! Pandemonium would break out in the neighborhood; our lives would be transformed into a hell with the invasion of strangers and adventurers, who would certainly take advantage of the situation. One of the last peaceful spots in Rio de Janeiro would become a stage for disorder and chaos. But each of the inhabitants was perfectly conscious of the problem, of the delicate character of secrecy. Precautions were taken, the four cardinal rules were checked before making any commentary, always in a low, whispering voice, and when one noticed the presence of a stranger, the discussion of the subject ended. Not even relatives, no matter how close they were, lovers, childhood friends, who unfortunately lived beyond the borders of our select neighborhood, suspected that we were maintaining such well-guarded secrecy. So why not let the subject die right there? Why not act pragmatically and pretend that the impenetrable doesn’t exist? Seeing that what is obvious and calling our attention is not always detected, imagine a secret that by definition is something hidden, covered with mystery. It so happens that our secret had substance; it was palpable; it would conform to the greedy hands that caressed it. It had color, and what a color! Yellow, specifically a golden yellow. Gold. That’s the secret. Our neighborhood was swimming in gold. It is known that we Brazilians have a very special inclination for this noble metal. A paternal tenderness, an unselfish love that makes us protect and keep it safe every time we fondle it in our hands. A constant and unshakable fidelity that gives us a feeling of spiritual superiority and makes us feel better as we accumulate it. This passion has roots in our childhood; in school we learn to revere Excerpt from The Third Testament 133 those who destroyed our jungles in search of brazilwood; those who razed our forests gathering medicinal species; those who tore down our woods, imprisoning and enslaving the Indians; those who burned our...