Brazil : The Fortunes of War (9780465080700) by Lochery Neill

Author:Lochery, Neill
Language: ara
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus Book Group
Published: 2014-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

12 Lights Out Over Rio

On September 6, 1942, while President Vargas was working alone in his small, dimly lit study in the Guanabara Palace, lights began winking out along the boulevards of some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. That night, the beaches of Leme, Copacabana, and Leblon, as well as the adjacent streets in the federal district of Rio, were experiencing their first total blackout.

Witnessing the event from the bar at the Copacabana Palace Hotel, Jefferson Caffery pronounced the blackout “very successful.”1 As the shadows grew longer and the sky turned first a deep purple, then black, the only visible light emanated from the stars in the clear night sky that hung over the ocean panorama. The unusual darkness over the city skyline was matched by a strange silence, interrupted by the gentle sounds of the waves breaking onto the soft sandy shore. In the distance, occasional shouts were heard echoing down the avenues that ran from the heart of the city to its beaches as tired, grumpy policemen reminded blackout breakers of the fines that awaited them if they didn’t immediately comply with the order. Along Rio’s coastline, which moments before had been brightly lit, it was as if all of the city’s inhabitants had suddenly gone to sleep, or had hidden themselves behind closed doors and drawn curtains.

Wartime in Rio resembled nothing the city had known before. Hotels all along the Rio coastline hosted “blackout parties,” which provided a popular amusement for their wealthy foreign guests and local customers. There was even a blackout cocktail, which was supposed to be jet black but more often than not resembled an unappealing, sooty gray. Revelers must have cared more about forgetting the war than about the color of their drinks, however, as they downed the cocktails in large quantities. Jazz quintets played mid-tempo, slightly off-key dance music to add to the atmosphere at these parties, although guests seemed to be unwilling to be seen enjoying it. Rio was finding it hard to dance to the new tune of war.

Everybody in the city was trying desperately hard to take the war seriously, but it took some time for the local authorities to get the city onto any kind of a war footing. Cariocas had long thought of the war as being far away, in Europe and Africa, but—as Caffery was fond of reminding people—parts of Brazil were within range of German bombers operating out of West Africa. And the entire Brazilian coast, Rio included, was in range of German submarines. Rumors circulated in the city that Axis submarines were lurking just over the horizon, and, at night, they came close enough to check out the nightlife in Rio through raised periscopes.

The blackout’s apparent success on September 6 had come after several false starts and half-hearted attempts by the government to impose it. Initially, regulations issued by the government had called for elimination of only half the lights facing the sea, and only those streetlights that were at right angles to the coast.

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