May 28, 1974: A group of armed men
breaks into my apartment. They start going through drawers and cabinets —
but I don’t know what they’re looking for, I’m just a rock songwriter.
One of them, more gentle, asks that I accompany them “just to clarify
some things.” The neighbor sees all this and warns my family, who
immediately panic. Everyone knew what Brazil was living at the time,
even if it wasn’t covered in the newspapers.
I
was taken to the DOPS (Departamento de Ordem Politica e Social), booked
and photographed. I ask what I had done, he says they will ask the
questions. A lieutenant asks silly questions and lets me go. From that
point on I’m officially no longer in prison — so the government is no
longer responsible for me. When I leave, the man who took me to the DOPS
suggests we have coffee together. He stops a taxi and gently opens the
door. I get in and ask to go to my parents' house — they need to know
what happened.
On the way, the
taxi is blocked by two cars — a man with a gun in his hand exists from
one of the cars and pulls me out. I fall to the ground, and feel the
barrel of the gun in the back of my neck. I look at a hotel in front of
me and think, “I can’t die so soon.” I fall into a kind of catatonic
state: I don’t feel afraid, I don’t feel anything. I know the stories of
other friends who have disappeared; I will disappear, and the last
thing I will see is a hotel. The man picks me up, puts me on the floor
of his car and tells me to put on a hood.
The
car drives around for maybe half an hour. They must be choosing a place
to execute me — but I still don’t feel anything, I’ve accepted my
destiny. The car stops. I’m dragged out and beaten as I’m pushed down
what appears to be a corridor. I scream, but I know no one is listening,
because they are also screaming. Terrorist, they say. You deserve to
die. You're fighting against your country. You're going to die slowly,
but you're going to suffer a lot first. Paradoxically, my instinct for
survival begins to kick in little by little.
I’m
taken to the torture room with a raised floor. I stumble on it because I
can’t see anything: I ask them not to push me, but I get punched in the
back and fall down. They tell me to take off my clothes. The
interrogation begins with questions I don’t know how to answer. They ask
me to betray people I have never heard of. They say I don’t want to
cooperate, throw water on the floor and put something on my feet — then I
see from underneath the hood that it is a machine with electrodes that
are then attached to my genitals.
Now
I understand that, in addition to the blows I can’t see coming (and
therefore can’t even contract my body to cushion the impact of), I'm
about to get electric shocks. I tell them they don't have to do this —
I’ll confess whatever they want me to confess, I’ll sign whatever they
want me to sign. But they are not satisfied. Then, in desperation, I
begin to scratch my skin, tearing off pieces of myself. The torturers
must have been frightened when they saw me covered in my own blood; they
leave me alone. They say I can take off the hood when I hear the door
slam. I take it off and see that I'm in a soundproof room, with bullet
holes on the walls. That explains the raised floor.
The
next day, another torture session, with the same questions. I repeat
that I’ll sign whatever they want, I’ll confess whatever they want, just
tell me what I must confess. They ignore my requests. After I don’t how
long and how many sessions (time in hell is not counted in hours),
there’s a knock on the door and they put the hood back on. A man grabs
me by the arm and tells me, embarrassed: It’s not my fault. I’m taken to
a small room, painted completely black, with a very strong
air-conditioner. They turn off the light. Only darkness, cold and a
siren that plays incessantly. I begin to go mad. I have visions of
horses. I knock on the door of the “fridge” (I found out later that was
what they called it), but no one opens it. I faint. I wake up and faint
again and again, and at one point I think: better to get beaten than to
stay in here.
I wake up, and
I’m still in the room. The light is always on, and I’m unable to tell
how many days or nights went by. I stand there for what seems like
eternity. Years later, my sister tells me my parents couldn’t sleep; my
mother cried all the time, my father locked himself in silence and did
not speak.
I am no longer
interrogated. Solitary confinement. One fine day, someone throws my
clothes on the floor and tells me to get dressed. I get dressed and put
on my hood. I'm taken to a car and thrown in the trunk. We drive for
what feels like forever, until they stop — am I going to die now? They
order me to take off the hood and get out of the trunk. I'm in a public
square filled with kids, somewhere in Rio but I don't know where.
I
head to my parents’ house. My mother has grown old, my father says I
shouldn’t go outside anymore. I reach out to my friends, I look for my
singer — nobody answers the phone. I’m alone: If I was arrested, I must
have done something, they must be thinking. It’s risky to be seen with a
former prisoner. I may have left prison, but prison stays with me.
Redemption comes when two people who were not even close to me offer me a
job. My parents would never fully recover.
Decades
later, the archives of the dictatorship are made public, and my
biographer gets all the material. I ask why I was arrested: an informant
accused you, he says. Do you want to know who reported you? I don’t. It
won’t change the past.
And it’s these Years of Lead that President Jair Bolsonaro — after referring in Congress to one of the most heinous torturers as his idol — wants to celebrate on Sunday.
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