The Name of Death

The First Contract

FOR MORE THAN three hours, Júlio Santana had been spying on the fisherman Antônio Martins in the middle of the Amazon jungle, on the border between Maranhão and the north of Goiás (in what today is the state of Tocantins, created in October 1988). Despite the intense heat, Júlio felt strangely cold. His stomach was churning. Hidden among the age-old trees, some of them more than 130 feet tall, he kept the fisherman in the sights of his rifle. From the undergrowth, Júlio could see Antônio seated in his canoe, floating on a branch of the river Tocantins. He knew exactly what to do. A single shot to his heart. End of story, he told himself. But for a boy just turned seventeen who had never before fired at a human being, it did not seem such a simple task.

At five feet nine and weighing 143 pounds, Júlio was skinny, his cheeks still smooth, with a long nose, thin lips, and black, thick, curly hair. His dark skin contrasted with his light brown eyes. That afternoon of August 7, 1971, he was trying to follow the instructions his uncle, the military policeman Cícero Santana, had given him the previous night: Aim for his heart and imagine that you’re shooting an animal, like when you’re hunting. But shooting at a man made the boy feel strangely uneasy. It was not the same as killing pacas, peccaries, monkeys, or deer, as Júlio was accustomed to do in order to put food on the table at home. Disturbed by this unnerving situation, he sat on the ground, still damp from the night’s rain. Placing the rifle between his knees, he leaned back against a Brazil nut tree and reflected on how he had got here.

IT HAD ALL BEGUN two days earlier. Around five in the afternoon, Júlio was returning from the jungle. After almost four hours’ hunting, he was coming home with a young deer slung across his shoulders. Its flesh would feed the family for at least a week. The boy felt proud of himself. He had killed the deer with one well-aimed shot to the forehead. Júlio lived with his parents and two younger brothers: Jorge, aged forty-three, and his wife Marina, thirty-eight years old; Pedro, who was fourteen, and Paulo, aged eleven. The family lived in a wooden house in a riverbank community on the river Tocantins, in the municipality of Porto Franco, in the southwest of Maranhão state. In the early 1970s, the region was completely isolated and covered in virgin forest. Porto Franco had roughly 1,500 inhabitants—since then the number has risen to eighteen thousand. The family house had no internal partitions. The wood fire was on the left of the entrance. A raised plank on the floor separated the fire and the kitchen utensils—three pots, some cutlery, two large knives, and five glass cups—from a piece of furniture made by Seu Jorge which was sometimes used as a closet. No table or chairs. Electricity had not yet reached this far—even today, many communities in the region still have no access to it. There were five hammocks that were always slung, where the members of the family slept. Júlio also had an older brother, Joaquim, aged twenty-one, who had left his parents’ home at eighteen and traveled to São Luis, the capital of Maranhão, where he thought he could find a better life. The family never had any further news of their firstborn.

BEFORE HE REACHED home after hunting, Júlio saw, tied to a tree trunk, the voadeira or aluminum motorized canoe belonging to his uncle Cícero. Aged thirty-one at that time, Cícero Santana had grown up in the same region. At fifteen, he had gone to Imperatriz, another town in Maranhão state, to try his luck. Then one day he turned up in Porto Franco in a uniform and told them he had joined the military police. The family was very proud of him. Cícero loved to hunt and fish, to explore the jungle. He was the one who taught Júlio to shoot. By the age of eleven, the boy could hit an animal on the far side of the river at a distance of a hundred yards. The many hours he and his uncle spent together roaming the forest, practicing shooting, hunting, fishing, and swimming in the muddy waters of the river Tocantins led to a close friendship everyone praised.

WHEN HE SAW his uncle’s canoe, Júlio shifted the deer on his shoulders and quickened his pace. Cícero had not been to visit the family for two weeks. He usually spent a few days resting up at Júlio’s house at least once a month. Before entering the house, Júlio dropped the deer carcass by the door, then ran proudly toward his uncle.

Uncle, come and see the animal I shot. It’s a young deer. I killed it with a bullet to the head, just like you taught me. Its meat must be delicious, said Júlio.

Well done, kid, Cícero replied, smiling at his brother Jorge. Let’s see it, he said, putting his arm round his nephew.

That night a full moon lit up the forest, reflecting on the waters of the river and making it seem like dawn. During their supper—fried fish with rice and manioc meal—Cícero commented on the presence of soldiers from São Paulo, Brasilia, and Pará in the region between Porto Franco and Marabá in the southeast of Pará state. The small towns in the area were teeming with army personnel.

They say they’re searching for the communists hidden in the jungle round the river Araguaia and near here as well, said Cícero.

There’s no talk of anything else around these parts, said Júlio’s father, but the boy didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what they were discussing.

The army says the communists want to destroy Brazil and that we can’t let that happen. The army is calling on the people of the region to help them in this war.

And how are the people supposed to help, Cícero? Marina asked her brother-in-law.

I have a friend who is the police chief in Xambioá [a town in the north of Tocantins state, on the banks of the river Araguaia]. He says the army needs people who know the forest in that region really well and can serve as guides in their operations in the jungle. They also need people who can shoot to help them in their hunt for communists, Cícero replied.

When he heard this, Júlio, who until then had shown no interest in their conversation, spoke up:

I can shoot, and I know the jungle like the back of my hand. Will you take me with you to do that, Uncle? asked the boy.

Don’t be silly, son. Do you think it’s a joke? snapped Dona Marina, scolding him.

AFTER SUPPER, seeking refuge from the intense heat, Cícero and Júlio went out for a ride in the canoe. It was just after seven in the evening. They went down a branch of the river Tocantins for twenty minutes, then landed the canoe on a beach some hundred yards long in the heart of the forest. Taking off their clothes, they entered the warm water. They could hear the din made by the creatures of the jungle: the cries of the toucans and macaws never stopped. They could even hear the growl of a puma. Accustomed to living in the Amazon, they knew they had no reason to worry about this wild beast. A puma would never enter the water to attack a person. Still less in the Amazon rainforest, where a predator of that size would have no difficulty finding food.

CÍCERO PICKED UP the bottle of cachaça he’d brought and offered it to Júlio. Don’t have too much, or you’ll get drunk. I don’t want your mother giving me a lesson again, said Cícero, who had already been told off several times by Dona Marina for giving his nephew alcohol. But Júlio really liked cachaça: he had learned to appreciate drink with his uncle from an early age. He never liked the taste of beer, but could not do without cachaça. The two of them stood in the water chatting for more than an hour, mostly about soccer, drink, and women. Cícero was the only member of the family whom Júlio had told that he was in love with Ritinha, a fourteen-year-old girl with dark hair, big eyes, and a plump mouth. She lived in a village an hour’s canoe ride from his house. Their adolescent romance had begun two months earlier.

She’s beautiful, Uncle, said the boy.

And does she have a beautiful body as well?

And how! Ritinha has got legs and an ass that drive me crazy.

Have you done it already?

Done what, Uncle?

You know what, Julão, said Cícero, using the nickname big Júlio he’d given him because he was almost six feet tall. No one else called Júlio that.

No, Uncle. We haven’t done that yet, the boy replied with a wry smile. But only because she wouldn’t let me. I’ve already tried twice. She lets me touch her little breasts and her ass. But when I try to move my hand there, she pulls it away and says it’s too soon.

Great. Keep trying, and one of these days she’ll open her legs.

Even today, Júlio remembers he did not like the way his uncle referred to the girl. Despite this, he thought it was funny and felt more confident that sooner or later he would lose his virginity with Ritinha. They were still in the water when his uncle suddenly said he felt cold.

Are you sick, Uncle? It’s hot as hell and you say you’re cold! said the boy.

I think we’ve been in the water too long, Julão. Let’s get out onto the sand.

So they climbed out of the water and returned to the beach. Even after drying himself on his shirt, Cícero kept complaining about the cold. He also said he had a headache: I think bathing like that wasn’t good for me. Let’s go back to the house. When they got there, Cícero headed straight for his hammock. Seu Jorge and the other two boys—Pedro and Paulo—were already asleep. Dona Marina got up from the hammock where she was lying down beside her husband. The first thing she did was sniff her son’s breath. She could not smell the cachaça, but knew Júlio and Cícero had been drinking. Both of them had been chewing ginger to disguise the smell of rum, and Dona Marina was well aware that there was only one reason for chewing ginger at night after a trip in a boat.

You’ve disguised the stink of cachaça with ginger, haven’t you? Do you think you can fool me? she said. At least you don’t look drunk, like the last time, she said, addressing her son.

I only had two swigs, Mom, said Júlio, who was always very respectful toward his parents.

Okay. But it looks as if your uncle drank the rest of the bottle. He can’t even stay on his feet.

No, it’s not that, Mom. He doesn’t feel well. He says his head aches and he is cold.

Dona Marina went over to her brother-in-law, who was groaning and complaining of pains all over the body. She placed the palm of her right hand on his forehead, then ran it down his face and chest. He had a high fever.

Where does it hurt, Cícero? she asked.

My whole body, Marina. My whole body, he replied.

Dona Marina covered her brother-in-law with her sheet and Júlio’s. She put a piece of cloth soaked in cachaça on his forehead and declared: It’s malaria. What she said worried Cícero, but he didn’t have the strength to get a word out. Dona Marina went back to her hammock and gave Júlio the responsibility of keeping an eye on his uncle. If he gets worse, call me, she told him. The boy spent the rest of the night at Cicero’s side. His uncle couldn’t stop moaning. In the early hours, Júlio fell asleep seated on the wooden floor, leaning against his uncle’s hammock.

By seven in the morning, the whole family was awake. Cícero was still in his hammock, complaining of a fever and an aching body. He said he felt nauseous. The family ate breakfast—bread, manioc, and fried fish, with coffee. Seu Jorge took a piece of bread and a cup of coffee to Cícero. He did not want to eat, but his brother forced him to. Cícero thought he must have caught malaria on one of his work trips into the depths of the rainforest. Now there was nothing to be done except wait for the symptoms to subside—even today, there is no cure for malaria. Dona Marina was dealing with the deer Júlio had hunted the day before. Seu Jorge had left to catch some fish for lunch. And Pedro and Paul had paddled their canoe to the community school: a wooden hut built in a village thirty minutes by boat from their house. The school taught up to fourth year, which Júlio had finished at fourteen. But with Cícero ill, he felt bound to stay at his side.

The two of them were alone in the house. It was then that Cícero began a conversation that was to torment Júlio ever afterward. Lying in a hammock next to his uncle, the boy was complaining about the intense morning heat when Cícero suddenly said:

Julão, I need you to do something very serious and important for me. But you mustn’t tell anyone. Not your parents nor your brothers. Not even Ritinha. No one.

You can tell me, Uncle.

This is very serious, Julão.

Okay, Uncle, I heard you! You can tell me. You can trust me.

I know I can. That’s why you’re the only person I can ask to do this.

Why all this talk? Just tell me what it is, Uncle.

It was then that Cícero revealed something that surprised and frightened Júlio. In order to increase his earnings, his uncle combined his work as a military policeman with a very unusual activity. He was a hired killer. He had become part of the world of gunmen almost two years earlier. Júlio could hardly believe his ears. The uncle he loved so much was an assassin. Someone who killed others for money. He listened to Cícero’s story with eyes wide open and his heart racing. He even thought his uncle must be joking or was delirious from his fever. But Cícero was talking so calmly and collectedly there was no room for doubt. It was all true. Even stranger was the way in which he had first got involved in this world.

HE TOLD JÚLIO that once, in October 1969, after he had been with the military police for two years, the battalion he belonged to caught three men suspected of executing four rural workers near the town of São Francisco do Brejão, in the west of Maranhão state. To Cícero’s horror, one of the suspects was someone he knew, by the name of Arnaldo da Silva, a fruit seller in Imperatriz. When he asked Arnaldo why he had got mixed up in the business of murder, he told Cícero something that piqued his interest. The people who had hired them paid almost 1,000 cruzeiros—more than four times the minimum salary at the time, which was 225 cruzeiros, and more than twice what Cícero earned each month as a military policeman.

You became a bandit for money, Uncle? asked Júlio, dumbfounded.

I’m not a bandit, my boy. If I didn’t do it, others would take my place. In other words, the poor guy would die anyway. And this way at least I earn a bit more money.

But you’re a policeman! How can you be a policeman and a bandit at the same time?

I already told you, Júlio: I’m not a bandit. And it’s thanks to those jobs I do as extra that I can get cash to buy certain things. What money did you think I used to buy my motorized canoe?

Cícero struggled to say all this. His breathing was labored and slow. He went on to tell his nephew he had traveled from Imperatriz to Porto Franco—a distance of sixty miles—not just to see his brother and nephew again. He had been hired to kill a local fisherman. The victim was thirty-eight-year-old Antônio Martins, born in São Geraldo do Araguaia in the southeast of Pará state. With ancestors from the south of Brazil, the fisherman was known as Amarelo or Yellow because of his fair hair and light-colored skin. Antônio used to boast that he’d left São Geraldo do Araguaia after he stabbed to death the man his girlfriend was seeing. Everyone in the region knew this story about him. Even Júlio. This left him even more terrified.

You’re going to kill Amarelo, Uncle? the boy gasped. He got up from his hammock.

Sit down, Júlio. Why are you so upset?

Why am I so upset? Are you mad? You must be. You’re going to kill Amarelo and you expect me to stay calm? said Júlio, pacing up and down the room that was little more than sixty-five square feet.

Keep your voice down, my boy. Do you want your mother to hear what we’re saying?

Mom is outside on the riverbank, cleaning the deer. She can’t hear us.

If you carry on shouting like that, she’s bound to hear. Sit down in the hammock and stay calm. I’m not going to kill Amarelo. I don’t have the strength to get out of this hammock, still less to kill that bastard.

That’s good, said Júlio, sitting down once more. He was still settling into the moving hammock when Cícero said something that seemed to explode inside his head.

You’re the one who’s going to kill Amarelo.

Júlio was left speechless. He remembers that his uncle went on talking, but he could not take in the words. He looked away toward the door at the rear of the house. The forest was glinting in the relentless sunshine. Accustomed to lengthy hunting trips in the jungle, his sharp eyes spotted a sloth clinging to a tree in the distance. The animal’s gray fur stood out from all the surrounding greenery. Júlio suddenly felt envious of the peaceful life the sloth seemed to lead. He lifted his left leg out of the hammock, pushed against the wooden planks of the floor, and began to swing. The creaking of the hammock sounded almost musical to him, as he continued to stare at the sloth. He was trying to imagine how good it would be to live as a wild forest creature when Cícero suddenly grasped him with his right hand and stopped the hammock from swinging.

Do you hear what I’m saying, Júlio?

I don’t want to hear, the boy replied, threatening to get out of the hammock.

Cícero held onto his arm. He said he understood his reaction. A good boy like him could not accept the idea of killing someone. Cícero said he was proud of the fact that his nephew rejected his proposal so vehemently. But the situation was much more complex than he could imagine. Cícero had been hired to kill Amarelo. And he’d already been paid 700 cruzeiros in advance. As well as the cash, he was to receive thirty kilos of rice, twenty of beans, ten kilos of coffee, ten of sugar, five of cheese, ten cans of oil, and twelve bottles of cachaça. The payment in food and cachaça was part of an agreement between Cícero and the man who had hired him to kill Amarelo: Marcos Lima, whom Júlio also knew. Aged thirty-six, Lima had a profession that is still very common and important in the riverbank communities of the Amazon region. He was a trader who used his boat to travel and sell mass-produced goods to the inhabitants of the most isolated areas. As he did not have the 1,000 cruzeiros Cícero was demanding to kill Amarelo, Lima had suggested he be paid part of it in the foodstuffs he sold in the region.

And all that food is going to stay here, in your house, Cícero told Júlio. I’ll take only the cachaça and the cheese.

Uncle, I don’t want to hear this. I’m not going to kill anyone. I can’t even believe you’re asking me to do something like that. You want me to become a killer like you? God forbid.

"You’re not going to become a killer,