Real Gabinete Portugês de Leitura (mas não de livros pessoais)

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Just look at it. Why in the hell did it take me so goddamn long to visit this place?

I swear I’d written down “Real Gabinete Português de Leitura” on some notepad with a list of things to do in Rio, but it must’ve gotten lost in the predeparture shuffle. Anyway, today, , I cruised up to Centro to see the RGPL for myself. It was either that or the Museu de Arte Moderna, but the RGPL won out after I dawdled long enough in Jardim Botânico that there was no time to give the museum a proper visit.

My landmark to get off at, according to Google Maps (without which I would probably never have successfully left Humaitá) was the Catedral. I almost ended up missing it, as a matter of fact, because a) I was still rubbernecking at the streetcar atop the Arcos, which was undergoing some barrage of safety tests, and b) I was looking for some St. Paul’s-esque baroque construction. São Sebastião looks, to be frank, kind of like a grungy steampunk cross between a spaceship and an Aztec temple. I was staring out the window, expecting some sort of domed Duomo, and was just thinking Well, that can’t possibly be it, what the hell kind of building is that, when I spotted a massive honking cross on the other side. Okay then.

I made my way over in the general direction that Google Maps had indicated for R. Luis de Camões. I had intended my route to be a straight shot, more or less, but it ended up looking more like a honeybee’s sun dance; I’d stumbled into a nest of sebos (used bookstores), and couldn’t resist stopping in at every second one to poke through the dusty piles. The collections were very odd, and reminded me less of traditional bookstores and more of the trailer at the recycling center where people leave old books. No curating touch was evident, that is; most of them had huge stacks of Harlequin novels out front which they were evidently trying to offload, and inside there were sections for everything conceivable from self-help to astronomy to literary criticism.

The first few were a bust, and after declining to pay R$30 for a scribbled-on copy of O Som e o Sentido, I headed a few more blocks and realized that I was lost. Wandering nonchalantly in the way I do best, I stopped in at another sebo and combed through the books in their R$1 pile. Mostly junk, but I found a great-smelling (and don’t tell me that’s not an important criterion) and pretty well put-together collection of Machado de Assis stories. The second most important criterion, after the smell, was the book costing R$1. I still tend to get awfully and mysteriously tongue-tied with store employees, but at the register I asked how to get to R. Luís de Camões. The two women broke out laughing. ”You’re on it!”

The RGPL, as it happened, was less than a block away. Hey, I’m an idiot savant! I skipped over and signed my name in the visitor’s book. The place is stunning, as you can see – 3 stories of gorgeous books stretching up to the ceiling in the main reading room, twisting gold-studded columns of dark wood, and light streaming in through a vaulted stained-glass dome. Posted everywhere along the shelves at eye level were stern signs reading “NÃO MEXER NOS LIVROS” (hands off the books), which was heartbreaking but eminently reasonable. I didn’t need to get any particular book from the archives, but I decided I’d break out my new acquisition. I sat down at one of the desks and got half a paragraph into “Trio em lá menor” before a white-gloved employee came over. ”Bom dia. Reading personal books is not permitted.”

Well, bless my buttons, a library where you can’t read! I was too stunned to ask why, but at the woman’s insistence sat down at a computer terminal and ordered a book from the RGPL collection – something completely at random, a collection of Drummond’s poetry. Poor Machado, as well as the rest of the contents of my bag, was relegated to a locker. A few minutes later, the book was brought out of a back room: an unassuming little paperback, the only indication of its grand provenance being a stamp on the flyleaf. If I worked in Centro, I’ve decided, I’d come here every day and read one book at a time, bit by bit, on my lunch hour. Today I devoured the entire volume in one sitting (it was short), copying down lines or whole poems that struck me.

Do lado esquerdo carrego meus mortos ./ Por isso caminho um pouco de banda.

I’ll definitely be coming back to this corner of the Centro, which I somehow hadn’t stumbled upon before. If there’s room in my suitcase for anything, there’s room for more R$1 books.

Flora Thomson-DeVeaux

É escritora, tradutora, brasilianista e diretora de pesquisa na Rádio Novelo