Free The market maker by Michael Ridpath

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    room She grabbed Isabel and kissed her hard on both ,
    cheeks. Isabel beamed and spoke to the big woman i
    rapidly They exchanged laughs and hasty comments ;
    and then the woman caught sight of me. She wtepered ,
    something that made Isabel blush, and turn and hit her .
    playfully on the shoulder.

    ''Maria has been my maid since I was a little girl/' Isabel said. "She still thinks she can tell me what to do."
    I held out my hand to her. " Tudo hem ? " I said, using up fifty percent of my Portuguese vocabulary. Maria's grin somehow widened farther, and she regaled me with a torrent of Portuguese. I settled on "Ohrigado" or "Thank you" as an answer, which sent her into hysterics.
    Luis looked on in amusement. "Can I get you a drink? Have you tried a caipirinha yet?"
    "Not yet."
    "Well then, you must try one now." He spoke quickly to another maid who was hovering at the door, and she disappeared.
    Luis led us out onto the balcony. Although the table and chairs were in the shade, the glare of the midday sun reflecting off the nearby white buildings hurt my eyes. We could look over them, to Ipanema Bay, an astonishing blue, dotted with lush green islands. Brightly colored tropical flowers spilled out of tubs on the terrace, and a bougainvillaea in full purple bloom framed the view. The gentle murmur of traffic, sea, and people drifted up to us on the breeze.
    The maid returned with the drinks. The caipirinha turned out to be some kind of coarse rum in lime juice. The sweetness of rum, the bitterness of lime juice, the coldness of the ice, and the kick of alcohol created a delicious mix of sensations.
    Luis was watching me and smiled. "How do you like it?"
    "It goes down very well."
    "Be careful," said Isabel. "You should always treat a caipirinha with respect."
    Luis chuckled.
    "It must be hard to take London after this," I said to Isabel, taking another look out at the bay.

    She laughed. ''It's true. As a Brazilian, you need courage to get through a London winter."
    "Isabel tells me you work with her at Dekker Ward," said Luis.
    "That's right. I have nearly one week's experience in banking. But you're a banker yourself, aren't you?"
    "Yes. My family were landowners in the state of Sao Paulo. Through the generations they have shown a consistent ability to turn a large fortune into a smaller one. I suppose you could say I've changed that record." He glanced at Isabel. "In fact, it looks as if banking is now firmly in the blood."
    Isabel flushed. "Papal, I enjoy it, OK? I have a good job, I do it weU."
    "I'm sure you do," said Luis with just the barest hint of condescension. Isabel noticed it and scowled. "Isabel tells me you used to teach Russian."
    "That's right. At the School of Russian Studies in London."
    "Ah, I wish I could speak the language. I have read many Russian novels, all the greats, but I think it would be wonderful to read them in the original."
    "It is," I said. "Russian prose is a marvelous thing. It seems almost like poetry. The sounds, the resonance, the nuances which writers like Tolstoy and Dostoyev-sky can achieve are extraordinary. Beautiful."
    "And who is your favorite?"
    "Oh, Pushkin, undoubtedly, for just that reason. He does things with the language that no one has managed before or since. And he tells a good story."
    "I often think Brazil is a little like Russia," said Luis.
    "ReaUy?"
    "Yes. Both countries are vast. Both peoples seem to live for the present. We're both used to poverty, corruption, great potential that is always just beyond our

    reach. You know they say about Brazil that it is the country of the hiture and it always will be." He chuckled. "But we don't give up. We have a drink, a dance, we enjoy ourselves, amd perhaps the next day we die."
    I thought about what he had said. He had described exactly the strange mixture of exuberant good humor and melancholy that had attracted me to Russian literature in the first place. "Perhaps you're right. I'm afraid I don't know enough about