His lips pursed in irritation at the intertuption to his messaging. “Well I don’t know, I mean what if I got into trouble or something?”

“I know a few people in production.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Tell me what you want, then.”

“Were you on last night?”

He shook his head.

“I need a look at the security footage.”

“What’s that?”

“From the cameras.” She pointed them out like a trolley-dolly indicating the emergency exits. “It all goes on to a hundred-gig hard drive. Back there.” He had been looking in mild panic under his desk. “It’s easy enough to download.”

’Tm not supposed to let anyone round this side of the desk.”

“It’s for a show.”

“There should be something in writing about this.”

“I’ll get it for you on Monday.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“It would be simpler…”

He was at the black LaCie drive.

“How much do you want?”

“A couple of hours. Say from ten thirty to twelve thirty.”

“I’ll burn a DVD.”

I’d rather download it onto my PDA , Marcelina was about to say. She bowed in acquiescence. Never underestimate the Brazilian gift for bureaucracy. She watched the rain and the cable cars vanishing into the cloud-cap of the Sugar Loaf. A helicopter buzzed over Dois Irmãos. Not even winter rain could damp down the embers of the recent unrest. A rich hot magma runs beneath our beautiful streets and avenues; we walk, we jog, we exercise our little dogs on its crust, preening and strutting like we are New York or Paris or London until the hidden order breaks through and the woman who cleans your house, cooks your food, cares for your child; the man who drives your taxi, delivers your flowers, fixes your computer is sudddenly your enemy and the fire runs down to the sea.

Then she thought, What if a helicopter hit a cable car? Now that’s a CNN moment.

“There you are. What’s the show?”

“I’m not supposed to say, but we’re all in it.”

The clouds clung low to the Dois Irmãos and the long ridge of Tijuca, turning Leblon into a bowl of towers, offered to the sea. Hardy boys in toucan-bright neoprene braved the gray-on-gray breakers. In the dash from cab to elevator lobby Marcelina was drenched and shivering. No swirling glissandos of the Queen of the Beija-Flor today. Moisture was bad for the electronics. The cab driver had bought flowers and a surprisingly good bottle of French wine. Most of Canal Quatro’s account drivers were better production assistants than the channel’s own wannabes. Bottle in one hand, flowers — with inscribed card — in the other, Marcelina rode the mirrored box, dripping onto the fake marble floor.

She pressed the doorbell. Behind the chime came a fermata, the opposite of an echo, a silence more sensed than heard of conversations abruptly ending. Canal Quatro had made Marcelina experienced in the subtleties of that silent click. Her mother opened.

“Oh, so you decided to come, then.” She pulled away as Marcelina went to kiss her.

They were lined up in neat rows on all the available seating space in her mother’s cramped living room: Gloria and Iracema on the sofa, babies between them, children at their feet caramelly with the sugared treats on the coffee table; husband one perched on the side of an armchair, husband two on a plastic seat brought in from the balcony and wedged between a floor lamp and the organ. A tall glass of vodka stood on a small side table by her mother’s chair. Bubbles rose through the ice cubes, a swizzle stick with a toucan on the end perched against the edge of the glass. A rich smell of the long-simmered meat and the beans filled the little apartment, the mild acridity of the greens, the fresh top note of the sliced orange. Feijoada had always been celebration to Marcelina. The windows were steamed up.

“What is this, a jury of my peers?” Marcelina joked, but the wine felt like a Ronald McDonald mask at a funeral and the flowers the death itself.

“You’ve got a nerve, I should say,” Gloria said. Marcelina heard her mother close the door behind her.

The feijoada was now stifling and sickening.

Iracema slid the card across the table. Twin babies in fuzzy-angel fur-suits ascended to heaven among hummingbirds and little fluffy clouds. Congratulations: it’s two! Marcelina opened it… I hope you miscarry and lose them, and if you don’t lose them I hope they have Down syndrome… Marcelina snapped the card shut. The room wheeled around her. Her family seemed at once removed to cossmological distances and so close she could taste the film on their teeth.

“You have to know I didn’t write this.”

“It’s your handwriting.” Gloria opened the prosecution.

“It looks like it but — ”

“Who else knew Iracema was expecting twins?” Gloria’s husband Paulo rose from his perch.

“Come on, kids, let’s see how the cooking’s getting on.”

“I did not write that, why would I write that?”

Gloria flipped the card over.

“Write it out again on the back.”

… smug with your perfect kids and perfect husband and you never even suspected that he sees other women. Why do you think he goes to the gym four nights a week…

Stroke for stroke. Loop for loop. Scrawl for scrawl.

“I didn’t write this!”

“Keep your voice down,” Marcelina’s mother hissed. “You’ve done enough already without the little ones overhearing.”

“Why would I want to send something like that?” It was the only question she could ask, but she knew even before she spoke the words it was a fatal one.

“Because you’re jealous. You’re jealous because we have things you don’t.” Gloria looked her cold and full, sister to sister, eye to eye. And if she had not done that, Marcelina might have been wise, might have apologized and turned around and walked away. But it was a challenge now, and Marcelina could not to be left without the last word.

“And what could you have that I could possibly be jealous of?”

“Oh, I think we all know that.”

“What, your lovely house and your lovely car and your lovely gym memmbership and lovely medical insurance and lovely lovely kindergarten fees? At least what I have, I earn.” Marcelina stop it. Marcelina shut up. But she never could. “No, no, I’m not the one has the jealousy issues here. I’m not the one who still can’t handle the fact that she wasn’t favorite. And that’s always been your problem. You’re the jealous one; I’m the one having a life.”

“Don’t you dare, dare try and turn this round on me and make it like I’m to blame. I didn’t send that card, and nothing can take away from that.”

“Well I didn’t either, but I’m not going to try to explain it to you because no one can explain anything to you, you’re always so right and sweet and dandy and everything’s just perfect.”

The hum of voices from the kitchen, bass and piccolo, had fallen silent.

You’re hearing right, kids. Your aunt’s a monster. Don’t be expecting any pressents until you finish university. I’ll pay for your therapy. Iracema was in tears. Husband João-Carlos had moved from his plastic chair to kneel beside het, caressing her wrist. Fragrant, festive feijoada now revolted her: smell was the great imprinter of memory and it was forever changed. Get out Marcelina, before you slash deeper than any healing. But she turned back from the door to spew, “Did any of you even stop to think that maybe something wasn’t right, that maybe there was more to this than just your blind assumption that that’s just Marcelina, isn’t it? Have any of you given even one moment’s thought that maybe something is very, very wrong? Fuck you, I don’t need you, any of you.”

She gave the door as good a slam as she could over an over-springy plastic doormat. The elevator doors closed on a two-dimensional strip of her mother flinging open the door, calling, “Marcelina! Marcelina!” Then she turned to a line, to silence.