Bolo ou Morte? (Cake or Death?)

BACKGROUND:

During the height of the Cold War, an American-backed coup d'etat (insurrection) was instigated by the political elite and the military in Brazil on March 31, 1964, as a means to oust left-wing president João Goulart and to eliminate "communist" ideology in the country.

In this turmoil, the new military dictatorship censored anything that was deemed contrarian to the government, targeting artists, journalists, writers, musicians, and any other forms of artistic expression. Programs on TV had to be approved by the government's censorship committee before they could be aired. Schools discouraged critical thinking and focused on a model of ideological control and nationalism.

Anyone who was found to be against the dictatorship's interests was met with dire consequences, such as forced disappearances, torture, and even death. The dictatorship wanted to get its point across, and they weren't ashamed to disappear and kill 434+ people.

Matheus Almeida, a 20-year-old aspiring journalist, risks his life doing his utmost duty, while making a drastic decision, bolo ou morte? (cake or death?)

Bolo or Morte (Cake or Death)
by mourningdovesoap

Monday, June 24, 1968, Sao Paulo, Brazil

I explained to my boss that I was leaving for a few days on an assignment to Rio to report on an asset dispute of the Moreira family, an influential family in the hospitality business. It is a story that I have been following for weeks now, since the main inheritor of their business's funds recently died in a plane accident while on a business trip to London.

My boss and I never really thought much about the ordeal, assuming it was just a slow news day at Gazeta Global (the newspaper), giving me five days to cover the story. As I boarded the bus east later that day, I never expected to have another story to cover while I was there, until Wednesday came.

I never expected to have a dilemma that would challenge my beliefs and morals until then.

Wednesday, June 26, 1968, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the heart of Cinelândia (a historical neighborhood in Rio), as I exited the Moreira Hotel, I noticed this commotion I was never aware of until stepping out of the hotel lobby. Crowds gather by the hundreds of thousands in the streets of downtown Rio, making up almost 100,000 people with signs, chanting abaixo a ditatura (down with the dictatorship). Police with riot gear on their horses and batons lined the streets, beating anybody they saw with a sign or a political shirt.

All of these people of all different backgrounds, upbringings, careers, and endeavors had one thing in common: someone in their family or circle was forcefully taken away and brought back injured, killed, or never seen again. It is not as rare as the government makes it seem.

In my brown satchel, I pulled out my Kodak camera and tried to snap a few pictures, with a huge, contrasting vibe behind it. Some pictures had the faces of popular artists marching along, such as Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, chanting their award-winning songs. Some had the faces of the mortified protestors being arrested and manhandled by the stoic, monotone police. It was almost as if those same policemen never had a soul, while the rest had something to live and believe in.

I understood at that moment that I was playing with fire, since I wasn't assigned to cover this at all. In my line of work, these issues were never mentioned or published, even in the world of journalism. These events occurred in the background while we were focusing on more 'important' topics, such as the Miss Universe baiana (beauty pageant from the state of Bahia, Brazil). I never really thought about these events, not until they became more pronounced this year.

I was just doing what every sane journalist would do: cover the obscure and hidden. How dare I try to do my job? I quickly put my camera away, afraid some police would notice, and went back to my hotel room until the march ended later that evening. In my room, I received a phone call from my boss, urging me to come back to São Paulo as soon as I could to sort out some other business.

I never planned to leave Rio so early at this time, but I was already done with what I had to do.

I decided to go down to the nearest bus terminal around evening, and, with my luck, there was a bus just headed to São Paulo, departing in ten minutes. With my brown satchel and my sweat-covered handkerchief, I head to a dusty window seat, far from anyone's presence.

Once situated on the back of that bus, all emotions were running through my head about what I saw that day. The thoughts of somberness, anger, hatred, and helplessness were rushing through my bloodstream, similar to the bloodstreams of the coked-up dignitaries who, in return, had blood on their hands. O sangue do próprio povo. (The blood of their own people.)

I look out through my window to see O Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) shining down in his glory, when I wonder to myself,

"Would Jesus approve of what I saw earlier today?" "Whose side would Jesus be on?"
"I know Jesus would disapprove of those who constantly praise him blindly, such as the religious elite, who are the same ones who instigated this violence, right?"

After seeing the only thing keeping me safe that day, I lay my head on the window, tired and unsure of what to do. I felt powerless, but also complicit in this regime simultaneously. I felt like the naïve young boy from back then--knowing about some of the things the government was up to, but never realizing how brainwashed I was.

In that instant, I had a flashback from back home at secondary school, where we were told that our country was the greatest and best, and this, that, and the third, over and over again. We were told how the military takeover in 1964 was a "liberating" event in our country; hell, even our textbooks praised it.

Unfortunately, at the time, my peers, including myself, believed it all.

Back to reality, I just wallowed in solitude in the back of the dust-filled bus, wondering how I was going to go about this manner in my career. I mean, if I dared to write about something so taboo, would I be marked as a persona non grata, an enemy of the regime? Would my career be over?

Right then and there, I reminisced again--now back to the time I got the first internship at Gazeta Global (the newspaper) in São Paulo around two years ago. I was surprised to even receive the offer, considering that I was just a guy who wrote about local chit-chat gossip in a backwoods town in Minas (State of Minas Gerais, Brazil). Getting on that bus to go to São Paulo felt jubilant, leaving everything I detested and knew at the end of the exhaust pipe.

Now, it seemed like those fumes never left the exhaust pipe--the fumes that I detested have transformed into what was going on in my country. The hate. The pain. What could I do?

On the other hand, however, I wanted to make that naïve person proud. I wanted to make his hard work worth it, and if I could do it discreetly and in honor, I damn sure would. Why sit back and be complicit in silence? I'm a journalist for fuck's sake.





Thursday, June 27, 1968, São Paulo, Brazil

I woke up shaken up by one of the other passengers on the bus, informing me that we were at the Terminal Rodoviário da Luz (bus terminal), not too far from the Gazeta Global offices. It was the crack of dawn, with a little breeze coming from up north, engulfng the city in fog before the traffic turned it into smog. I had just decided to get a cup of coffee at a local cafe nearby to wake me up a bit.

I went to the restroom that the cafe had and looked at myself in the mirror, already knowing what I had to do. I wash my face full of sleep with water and fix up my suit and tie so that it doesn't look too wrinkled once I'm at the office.

Getting out of the restroom, I noticed something that could help me in this situation--cake. Yes, the dessert that was just sitting on the display for anyone to get with a coffee. Exactly what I need. A slice of chocolate cake was my indicator of the plan I had in mind.

As I entered the offices of Gazeta Global( the newspaper) with a small box of a slice of chocolate cake in hand, I met with my boss, who was just wanting to tell me about building renovations and new printers and equipment and this and that and yada yada yada. I was pissed that he was just urging me to come to São Paulo so badly just for him to tell me this. But whatever.

I just wanted to publish my stories for anybody to see, just in an 'open secret' type of way. My boss told me that if I had done my assignment with the Moreira family, which I did, and much more. After his blabber, I didn't want to hear from anybody at that point and just wanted to get to my workstation and write this story in Thursday's evening edition.

Sitting there was I, my thoughts, my typewriter, and my slice of chocolate cake. I started to write about the Moreira family and their asset dispute, which took about three hours nonstop. It was news, just for other "high-society" folks who sought to expand operations through the means of exploitation and bureaucracy.

Now, a new page starts up. I now have to make my decision about what I should write next.

Should I write about what truly happened at Rio that yesterday afternoon and risk my career and possibly have the D.O.P.S. (Department of Political and Social Order) take me away and disappear me, meaning morte? (death) I mean, the censors would immediately throw the story out, and my hard work and dedication would be thrown in the trash.

or...

Write about three nice chocolate cake recipes-- the ones that call for a kilo worth of salt. The ones that are all the same, while also ending abruptly--with little mistakes that, if regular citizens read it, they can notice something is wrong, but already know it was maybe done that way for a reason. The censors will never know and would just assume it was simple receitas de bolo (cake recipes).

Bolo ou morte? (Cake or death?)


After making my decision, I just went about my day as normal and waited until the censors approved of my story. Later that day, I was walking back home from work when I saw a group of four older women at a newsstand, already purchasing the new evening edition of Gazeta Global (the newspaper).

I can overhear them talking about the recipes for cake in the back of the paper, complaining about its mistakes, until I heard a collective "aaahh" from all of them, when one of the ladies said,

"Eu sei o que aconteceu. Isso não tem nada a ver com bolo." (I know what happened. This is not about cake.)

Knowing that these ladies knew about the truth, I was extremely ecstatic about what happened right there. I knew someone was going to pick up on it, and for it to be in front of me was the cherry on top--of the slice of chocolate cake, of course. In which I indulged after a long day's work.

Knowing that these injustices are still persisting, I used my power as a publisher to spread the word, even if it was in the name of cake. It was great to know that what those protesters suffered that day was shunned entirely in secrecy instead of being stuffed in the hall of mystery.

I was happy to make my younger, naïve self proud, still knowing that the journey was not over yet.

However, along the way, some adjustments were made, like I can't use the same chocolate cake recipe for every column, so on some days, it was a cornmeal cake, a carrot cake, etc.

On some occasions, it was no longer about cake.

Sometimes it was old, repetitive, colonial poems from the Portuguese crown that I had to type out.

Sometimes it was weird recipes for traditional stews that I wouldn't dare eat as a joke.



Present-day, 2026

Yet they all served their purpose, and I was glad to serve one too. I was also glad to know that I was on the right side of history, awakened from all the sing-songy lousy nationalism that this regime preached about. Proud to be a free-thinker and not a mindless drone.

History proved my point once my old columns and photographs from the march in Rio became proudly exhibited in the Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo (Memorial of Resistance), roughly forty years later in 2009, housed in the former D.O.P.S. (Department of Political and Social Order) Headquarters.

The same place of torture and punishment for government "undesireables" and "dissidents" now became a beacon of what history could teach us in the future. The power of being in touch with the world is now easier than ever before, thanks to social media and mass communication. The power to inform the public of the obscure and hidden should be the utmost goal, even in times of uncertainty.