On Main Street

You never know what you might encounter walking down Main Street.  Some years ago during  a noontime lunch break I was walking down Main Street toward a popular three story bookstore that was a local  landmark at the time (it no longer exists), when I encountered a group of  happy, singing and joking young Brazilians.  You knew they were Brazilians by their yellow football jerseys, their national team was in town playing our national team in World Cup eliminations, a game which they won, though not as easily as expected.

They were friendly, talkative, were walking in the same direction, and I joined them conversing with those nearest me, soon passing the bookstore I was going to visit.   They were football fans plus a couple of players from the team, I learned, though I didn't recognize any stars among them.   Gilberto was one who spoke excellent English, and we got to talk about our lives.

The subject of our respective  families  came up when one of the other Brazilians approached Gilberto, saying something to him in Portuguese, pulling out a Leica camera and snapping a picture of the two of us.  "He said we look like brothers," explained Gilberto, "he's a substitute goalie."  While I was older, there was perhaps some resemblance to be found between us.

 As we talked, to my everlasting surprise,  Gilberto turned out to be a grandson of my father's long lost half-brother, an adventurer and multilingual rake, who produced children on three continents, before dying at the age of 32 in a duel in Japan.  Gilberto never knew him, and neither did I, but in his version of the story, the grandfather did not die, but faked death to change identities and serve the Emperor of Japan as a spy. (It happened prior to World War II.)

I had to get back to my office, and Gilberto continued exploring the city with his colleagues.   We were to meet later at the game, he gave me the name of his hotel, but somehow or another we never caught up with each other, and I was left with the story you've just read, while Gilberto returned to Brasil with  the story of my father that I told him.  I never saw the substitute goalie's Leica photo.