Read Online The Mystery of Rio by Alberto Mussa, Alex Ladd - Free Book Online Page A

upset, did not make a big deal of it. She concluded that the lie was well-intentioned, and that it was not worth provoking disagreements with a nurse already so well established in the House and who had shown herself to be so good-natured.
    Madame Brigitte regretted having told the expert that Fortunata’s admission process had deviated from the norm. It was a rare occasion—perhaps even the only time—that such an oversight had occurred: a nurse hired without a corresponding job opening, without a demand for a new nurse. For this reason, Madame Brigitte blamed herself for the secretary’s murder. Miroslav Zmuda, of course, did not know any of this, and asked no questions when he saw her, soon after the expert’s departure, writing a letter whose content he had no interest in knowing.
    Madam Brigitte, in fact, was more than simply a house administrator. She first met the doctor at the old clinic in Glória, shortly before the court order transferred to him the ownership of the Marquise of Santos’ house. At the time, Madame Brigitte was a recent arrival from Espirito Santo, residing on Lapa Street at a boarding house for young actresses, and she had not yet adopted the French moniker.
    When she took her clothes off and lay naked before the doctor, she felt she could not resist; she ended up betraying herself, unable to conceal the subtle contractions in her gluteals. Dr. Zmuda, experienced in these matters, understood the offer. And, without neglecting to examine her, he satisfied her in just the right spot.
    Miroslav Zmuda visited the Lapa street address and became a client, and made of her a kept woman, taking her away from that life once he became a widower. By the time he took possession of the House, Madame Brigitte—already going by that name—was his sweet concubine.
    The Marquise’s House was a find, for both of them. Ever since she had first moved into the boarding house, the dream of that humble girl from Espirito Santo had been to be French and to own a brothel. Not only for the money: the future Brigitte was fascinated by the sexuality of others. She loved to know the small perversions that made up personalities. She believed that it was possible to predict the behavior of people based on their sexual character.
    Miroslav Zmuda, for his part, was what we would today call an obstetrician or gynecologist: he performed abortions, sterilizations, and treated venereal diseases. Although not a sexologist in the classical sense, he had a special interest in the physiology of coitus. He was one of the first Western scientists to study the phenomenon of sexual attraction. Born in Krakow, he naturally preferred Rio de Janeiro.
    And so the House of Swaps came to be, and Madame Brigitte was its prime mentor. The architecture of the building lent itself perfectly to its purpose: to the left of the imposing main entrance there was a gate for carriages, which drove down a lane lined with giant strangler figsand royal palms, all the way to the rear, where two elliptically curved iron staircases took guests directly to the second floor. There were so many trees between these staircases and the small lake that graced the garden that visitors who exited there could rest assured they would not be seen by anyone outside the House.
    Madame Brigitte wanted the House to be a secret institution whose existence was known only to those whom it served. Thus, she was not merely satisfied with copying similar establishments, whose doors were essentially always open. She devised a space both open and closed, where women and men could give free rein to the most abstruse desire, immune from social disapproval.
    Therefore, discretion was the basic rule. The most common type of clients—men seeking prostitutes, for example—never knew that boys were also available, unless they requested them. Group nights were also promoted in secrecy, and nurses who were not invited did not even suspect they