The Dancer Upstairs Read Online Free

had disembowelled his country, he said not a word.
    â€œWhat are things like here now?” Dyer enquired at last.
    â€œThere’s an uneasy peace,” said Hugo cagily. “It’s real because it’s happening, but maybe something more is going to happen.”
    â€œYou were brave to go on living here. Why in heaven’s name didn’t you leave?”
    â€œIt’s not me. It’s Vivien,” said Hugo, and not for the first time Dyer was conscious that few conversations he conducted with Vivien’s husband ever hit the nub of the matter.
    â€œWhen is she coming back?”
    Hugo had been adroit so far in steering away from this subject and he remained vague. “I was expecting her home by the weekend. Or maybe she’ll stay in Pará some more.”
    â€œI forgot Pará had an opera house.”
    Hugo raised what had once been an eyebrow. The stroke had removed both brows and given to his features, already bald, an unprotected air. “Pavlova danced there.”
    By Sunday there was still no sign of Vivien. “She’s bound to be back tonight,” said Hugo, who had spent all day at the race-track. But she did not reappear.
    Nor did she turn up on Monday.
    On Wednesday morning, Dyer joined Hugo for breakfast in the conservatory. Before going to bed, he had been rereading Vivien’s letter.
    â€œHugo, what is it with this slipper?”
    â€œIs that the shoemaker in Rio? She swears by his shoes. I discovered him by chance, when I was staying with you that time.”
    Hugo accepted the letter from Dyer and studied it. His face was normally difficult to read, but not on this occasion. “If you ask me – and this is just a hunch – it’s Vivien’s way of saying she’s not going to come back until she is sure you’re gone.”
    â€œWhy would she behave like that?”
    Dyer sensed his uncle’s reluctance to hurt him. “I didn’t want to tell you,” said Hugo. “But perhaps it’s not such a bad thing you know.” The truth was, his last article had made Dyer persona non grata in one or two circles. “It frightened Vivien quite a lot. I’ve also had my share of barbed remarks at the club.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œSomething you wrote upset Calderón. From what I understand, he intimated to Vivien that there might come a time when she is going to have to stop talking to you. He finds it disconcerting to have people around who are so well informed.”
    â€œI was hoping to get an interview with him.”
    â€œWell, exactly, but you can put that out of your mind. You’re a good journalist, Johnny, and that’s what makes you dangerous. For some people in our society, the whole practice of journalism menaces their peace of mind. Half the dinner parties Vivien goes to, she’s terribly proud to be your aunt. The other half, she keeps very, very quiet about it.”
    There followed two fraught days. Dyer, his options running out, spent his time in the library of the Catholic University, using the opportunity to read early explorers’ accounts of the Amazon. By Thursday, it was obvious that Vivien was going to stay on in Brazil. Hugo spent conspicuously more time at the Jockey Club, but continued to behave with unflagging hospitality on the few occasions they met.
    Unwilling to be more of a headache to him, Dyer announced his intention to go upriver. There was research on the Ashaninkas he needed for his book. Not to alert Vivien, he told Hugo he would be spending a few days among an Indian tribe near Satipo. But he had decided to smoke out his aunt in Pará.
    The Pará opera house is a coral-pink building across the Praça da Republica from the Hotel Madrid. On the morning of his arrival, Dyer walked down an avenue bright with mango trees to an entrance swathed in scaffolding.
    The young woman in the administration office confessed herself perplexed. She had, of