Rio Noir by Tony Bellotto

Author:Tony Bellotto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2016-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

Blind Spot

by Victoria Saramago

Tijuca Forest

Annie was recovering. Slowly, said some friends who obviously had no idea how much time a long and painful recovery process takes. Precisely because they thought Annie’s world should have the same smell and texture as before, she found no solution other than to leave her life in Kansas and go somewhere far away. A place not totally unknown and that had some appeal for what others understood as tourism, perhaps, but that didn’t recall the snow, the open fields where you could walk for hours without seeing a tree. Some city, maybe one in South America, about which she knew very little—I’ll always be a foreigner, she reminded herself—but a city that would welcome her anyway. A place whose language I’m not going to speak, because that will be easier, a city full of trees. Like those long-ago days of childhood walks in Central Park where certain dense areas of bushes gave the impression of being far, far away in some forgotten land where the horizon of New York buildings could no longer be seen.

So Annie, upon arriving in Rio, had rented a room very close to the Tijuca Forest and indulged in long walks to the lakes and peaks. People passed by the trails and cascades with children and bottles of water, appearing to not have a care in the world. Annie envied them: they would return home after a few hours and not have some scowling guy offering them more blow.

But what Annie saw in front of her now was a coati. Not very small and probably old, the coati, like all the inhabitants of the urban forest, was obsessed with a trash can. With its hind legs at the base and its tiny hands stuck into the opening that might be hiding the remains of cookies and sandwiches, the animal let its long, striped tail slide along the base of the trash can while it impatiently slipped into the orange box. Of course, the children and the tourists nearby didn’t miss the opportunity. “A coati in the trash,” they said, and smiled, though slightly perturbed by the intrusion of all that street garbage into the routine of a wild animal. As if they weren’t precisely the ones, Annie thought, who made the trash can what it is. The coati, dizzy now, with a final effort succeeded in grabbing the contents out of the top part of the trash can—that is, an enormous wad of plastic bags, cups, and bottles smelling like a rotting picnic—which exploded and scattered onto the ground. The children clapped and the tourists accelerated their picture taking until the animal left with its morsel and the audience dispersed in boredom.

Annie was disturbed. They’re amused by the mess the coati makes and never think about the fact that it’s not the coati who’s going to clean it up. They find it reasonable, as long as they don’t have to bother with anything besides transferring the photos to their computers. Because

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