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I ask the reader to bear in mind that I am dealing with the three
characters at one and the same
time. Answering The Inquisitor,
correcting The Know-All and bringing The One-Worder's seeds to
some
sort of fruition. It is no wonder that I break into a sweat
and start to stumble over my Portuguese.
By
David Alexander Robert
I am always most flattered by the interest and attention given to me purely due to the fact that I am English.
Wherever I may be, whatever I may be doing, someone is always eager to chat about my country and my culture. I have, moreover,
started to notice a pattern in the dynamic of such exchanges. It is this: I find myself confronted by three men: three men in a
bottle of pinga. Perhaps this is because of the nature of Brazilian culture, which often puts three men together with a bottle
of Pirassununga 51, "The Brazilian Original."
Or, on the occasions that the four likely comrades (that is three made flesh, one made glass) find themselves
enjoying one another's company, they reach a state where communication with a stranger, whatever his nationality may be,
becomes a more probable event. Whatever be the reason, and I shall dwell upon it no further, it is proving to be a common
occurrence in my life in Brazil.
Thus I have baptised the scene in honour of its frequency: "The Pinga Triumvirate." The most interesting aspect are
the personalities of the three protagonists, a word I have chosen carefully as they resemble stock characters, like those
found in a Commedia dell'arte drama. The first is "The Inquisitor": moderately drunk, he is usually the one to break the ice with
me. He only talks in questions, fired at me with such velocity that no sooner have I started to answer one, he lets out another.
"So is it always winter in your country?"
"Têm quatro estações bem demarcadas. Durante o verão pode chegar até temperaturas de ......."
"So are you British or English?"
"Isso é um assunto que confunde mesmo os britânicos. Meu passaporte diz que eu sou um cidadão do Reino Unido
da Grã-Bretanha e da Irlanda do Norte. Isso quer dizer que, politicamente..."
"How much power does the Queen have?"
"De um lado ela é somente uma chefe nominal, mas de outro...."
"How did you British feel when Brazil knocked you out the World Cup?"
All very interesting and worthy questions, even though some are obviously designed to get me slightly riled. But oh
how The Inquisitor goes on, machine-gunning out interrogatives without even listening to my answers or giving me time to
complete them.
The second member of the threesome is "The Know-All", for he too attempts to answer the Inquisitor's questions, at
exactly the same time as I do and with, I am sorry to say, a significantly less degree of accuracy. He is usually the least pissed of
the troupe, perhaps in an attempt to hold onto a modicum of lucidity to assist his memory when addressing these
challenging issues. He is normally the fattest of the three, and will often be found, in lieu of filling his glass with further Velho
Barreiro (aguardente de cana), filling his face with a portion of
passarinho or carne seca com aipim.
Whatever delight he is punctuating his answer with, he always manages to miraculously balance a small piece of
food upon his bottom lip, which moves vigorously up and down with the enthusiasm of knowing something about the topic,
without allowing it to drop off during the course of the entire interaction. Now don't get me wrong, his knowledge is impressive.
He will come out with some obscure fact or date which leaves me impressed:
"Her Majesty The Queen was born in London on April 21, 1926 and later christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. She
was the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth."
Where his knowledge comes from I can only guess: years of eating TV dinners in front of The Discovery Channel, or
of dropping crumbs onto the open pages of Super
Interessante. The problem is all the information has become a bit pickled
in pinga and covered in farofa:
"Well Great Britain is made up off the British Isles and Eire, as the Irish call it."
The third is the most pissed of all, accentuated by the fact that he will not sit down, but stands swaying and
bobbing in the thunderous pororoca of the meeting of gastric juices and
cachaça. He is "The One-Worder", so named as he is
unable to talk to you in anything vaguely resembling a sentence. He merely shouts single, random words at you, only
connected as they all have something to do with Britishness. And I, in my misplaced politeness, try to construct some intelligent
sentence for him through the use of word association:
"Liverpool!"
"Ah, uma cidade maravilhosa que tem uma catedral que parece a catedral de Oscar....."
"The Beatles!!"
"Da cidade de Liverpool, que tocaram a primeira vez juntos num clube que se chama......"
"Hooligans!!!"
"Uma grande vergonha do meu país. Sabe que foi aprovada uma lei recentemente que..."
"David Beckham!!!!"
And so it goes on. Each question being spat out with greater velocity as he sways forward breathing highly
inflammable fumes into my face. And like "The Inquisitor", he does not allow time for me to complete a sentence. Nor does he pay
the remotest bit of attention as I struggle to make something concrete out of his gaseous, single-word utterances.
To fully appreciate the task that I am undertaking, I ask the reader to bear in mind that I am dealing with the three
characters at one and the same time. Thus, simultaneously, I am answering The Inquisitor's questions, paying attention to and
correcting The Know-All's answers and creatively bringing The One-Worder's seeds to some sort of fruition. It is no wonder that I
break into a sweat and start to stumble over my Portuguese. Normally, at this point, one of my Brazilian friends tactfully takes
me by the arm, saying:
"Come on David, we have to go now," or "The film is about to start."
He or she safely leads me away from the firing squad, mumbling beneath his/her breath:
"I don't know why you bother."
And I start to wonder why I bother. Is it because it's really pleasing that people give me so much time and energy?
Is it because it's impressive how much people know about my culture and how much interest they have in it? A damn sight
more than the British know about Brazil. Is it the shear joy of speaking Portuguese? Perhaps a cocktail of all the above.
I too feel drunk now, drunk from all the "above-abothers", my own cocktail of numerous motives for lubricating the
wheels of conversation. So I am led away, staggering in a haze. But then I've been mixing my lubrications. Perhaps I should
have stuck to the one, like my three associates.
David is a freelance writer and English Language Consultant who has been living in Brazil, mainly Rio, since
November 1997. He can be contacted on davealexrob@yahoo.com
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