“I’m looking for something,” he said.
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “I have to keep looking.”
“You should go home,” she warned.
“Maybe I am looking for what makes a home, senhora.”
The car that she knew to belong to Tio Amato was wending its way through the busy morning foot and automobile traffic. The driver must have slammed his fist on the horn because a loud blast disrupted the heat of the day.
“Go, please,” she said.
“I will see you again, senhora.”
He turned and headed down a side street, joining the throng of humanity, as she made the sign of the cross over her chest, praying silently.
God keep him, she thought, for only God could watch over fools and crazy men.
And the lost.
CHAPTER 1
River Roulet knew the strange whistling sound—it was far too familiar.
The sound heralded the arrival of a bomb.
His body instantly flinched as his natural instincts for survival set in.
The bomb fell. The earth shuddered and exploded into a violent storm of debris. Men screamed and missiles seemed to hurl around the dusty desert landscape.
The missiles were men—and body parts.
He felt himself breathe; he hadn’t been hit. His hearing was numbed and he was blinded for several seconds and then the debris began to clear.
He saw them—the woman and child—standing atop a small rise in the dry and brittle landscape far beyond the bombing. They were there … a distant blur in the distance, as the mist of dust and dirt began to clear. He struggled to stand, to warn them there was danger, but they were gone, and when he looked around, he was alone in a sea of death.
He let out a hoarse cry.
And he woke himself up from the nightmare that plagued him far too often.
There was no desert around him; the air was rich, his surroundings verdant with the foliage that grew in profusion on the outskirts of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
For a moment, he lay shaking, trembling. He took a deep breath, fighting the confusion that made it seem as if the mist from the imagined explosion had crept into his mind when he first awakened from the dream. War was behind him; he had come to Brazil to explore what was beautiful and different in nature, far from the past and far from memories of the past. The battle was over; he had let go of everything except that which he could carry on his back.
There was no regimen to be followed, there wasn’t anything he owed to anyone, and his days were now free; he’d vowed to forget the bombs and violence that had plagued the years gone by.
He’d had a glorious bath in the fountain—something he could manage because it was Brazil—and the morning stretched before him with a magnificent sun overhead, a touch of cool moisture in the air, and this new world to be explored.
For a moment, he felt a sharp pain in his head. The dream awakened memories; memories he didn’t want to have, memories he had come here to lose. They were there somewhere, he knew, at the back of his mind, but if he pressed his temple between his thumb and forefingers, the threat that they would erupt in full subsided.
The past seemed to tease. It would return in the nightmares, but if he awakened, if he pressed the nightmares back, nothing bloomed into truth in his mind. He’d come here to bury the horrors that had gripped him, to begin anew.
He forced himself to feel the ripple of the breeze and hear the lilting, tinkling sound of the nearby stream as water danced over pebbles and rocks.
The pain faded.
He’d slept under the canopy of the jacaranda trees; the earth had been soft enough and it had been good to sleep in the open, but tonight, he’d head to the hostel owned and managed by Beluga, the massive African-Brazilian he could count as one of his few real friends in the Rio de Janeiro area. Beluga’s place was outside the city, surrounded by foliage and rich farmland. It was a beautiful place to sketch, and a pleasant place to stay.
He paused for a moment to take in the quiet. He loved Rio at any time of the year, and it was particularly hectic now that Carnaval grew near. The city felt supercharged. The horns blaring in the busy streets were enough to deafen. No matter—samba bands vied with them now at all hours of the day and night.
Being here right now, where the jungle retained a tenacious hold, he could hear the sound of the leaves rustling as birds swept by. It was a nice change.
Just as Beluga’s would be nice tonight.
River rose and stretched, shaking off the remnants of the dream. He paused for a minute and listened again to the sound of the jungle that encroached upon the city. As he looked up, a parrot took flight and soared over the trees; he wished he knew more about the birds and other creatures here, but he had time to learn. He had all the time in the world.
Rio de Janeiro was wonderful—one of the most wonderful cities on earth. On the one hand, it was massive, with a population of more than six million of the world’s most diverse people—twelve million in the larger metropolitan area. While Portuguese was the primary language, people could be heard speaking any language known to man. They were black and white and every shade in between. River thought that was one of the things he loved most about Rio and Brazil—the diversity of people and the way that skin tones and backgrounds had become so multitudinous that only the very rich or incredibly snobby ever noticed any difference between white, brown, black, or red—or any color in between.
Two things were incredibly important in Brazil: samba and soccer. Not that there weren’t world-class museums and theaters and concert halls. But the people loved their soccer teams and their music. Samba schools were everywhere. And, at any time, when music could be heard through an open doorway, people might be seen dancing in the streets—practicing their newest moves.
And the streets were constantly filled with that music beneath the ethereal shade of the mountains, the blue skies, and the deeper blue seas. The city was magic and River loved it, from the beaches of Ipanema to the jungle forests that encroached upon the city.