On Not Meeting Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro: In quest of the indigent

Dear Senhor Ubaldo:

Alice and I have visited Brazil three times in the past four years, traveling around the northeast, researching a book on cordels, improvised street poetry. When we were preparing to visit Itaparica, our Salvador friend Dr. Diaz told us you lived there. He knew that Sergeant Getulio had introduced me to the drylands of the northeast. Far from being emboldened by the chance to see you, even from afar, I almost canceled the trip. I’m more comfortable with admired authors a foot from my face, preferably in hardback.

Pedrinho Diaz was at pains to assure me that you were approachable and even encouraged visits from English-speaking aficionados: since you translated your own books for the American market, you liked to try out the dialogue. But I could only be a disappointment. I’m Irish, and my idiomatic accuracy cannot be vouchsafed. Still, we decided to go. Seeing you from afar would be enough. Secretly, of course, I hoped for a word and a handshake.

Diaz told me you lunched every day at the Balnearie bar in Itaparica, parrot on shoulder, leg in plaster after a recent accident. Accompanied by a young girl. Wife Lilian not far behind. I took this description with a grain of salt. It made you sound like Oedipus crossed with Long John Silver.

The night before we left, Diaz produced a video of a Portuguese film adapted from the Sergeant. We watched it through, fortifying ourselves against its infelicities with cachaca. The bottle of firewater was labeled with a red scorpion. Afterward we drove to a spot overlooking the Bay of All the Saints and watched—vibrando con tudo—the lights on Itaparica flicker. Diaz remarks, “One of them flickers for Ubaldo, the foolhardy author who welcomes strangers with open arms.” I’m skeptical. That’s Jorge Amado’s designated role in Brazilian letters, and he holds court for foreign tourists in Salvador. “Ubaldo is a working writer,” I say. But we agree that you would recognize kindred spirits in Diaz and myself. Cachaca has a lot to answer for.

Alice and I were recuperating in Salvador from a journey into the interior. On the first visit we were just back from Jeremoabo. Bandits like Lampion once hid out in its vicinity. Nobody would come after them. Jeremoabo, hell without redemption in the desert. We kept going on cachaca to ward off the worms and sapping heat. What we imbibe for survival in the outback makes us sots anywhere else.

The next day we went to the island, and so began the stalking. Three visits to your village in four years. In between I gathered enough material for my book, Lampion and His Bandits. But that’s another story.

Alice is relaxed about you. Reads you in Portuguese. Says storytellers need constant renewal through casual contact. If he doesn’t like the look of us, Ubaldo won’t waste time being polite. This does not bother her—a working writer has rights over his material.

I’m the one with the prickly pride, wanting to hide and put myself forward at the same time. It’s not a problem, Alice says, unless you want to make it one. I have made you a problem.

It is November. By the time we reach Itaparica it is siesta. Neither the month nor the time of day is auspicious. Humidity is at its height. Sensible people rest at home in hammocks. The only people out and about are vagrants and tourists.

We talk under a tamarind tree in the square with a goofy boy and his hobo friend. Nobody else about, nothing to do. Hard-luck stories dispatched over a couple of red scorpions (the hobo claims to be an ex-landowner disinherited by his mother). Alice mentions you. Our new friends cheer up. “Ubaldo—everyone knows Ubaldo. He’s in his house now, reading the papers.” They point out a bungalow basking in vines. “He will be coming out any minute for lunch.”

The Balnearie bar. The four of us sit on...