Gifts of Bananas

Last week death came to the best loved man in Brazil: Pedro Ernesto Baptista. Years ago, when Getulio Vargas began his revolution, Pedro Ernesto, a surgeon, used his own hospital's ambulance to run machine guns to the Vargas contingents massing at Minas Geraes. When Vargas became President, Pedro Ernesto became prefect of the Federal District (Brazilian equivalent of mayor of the District of Columbia). This was a job which gave Pedro Ernesto the chance he had wanted: he labored to improve conditions in Rio's slums; he built schools, free clinics, city hospitals.

A people's man, Pedro Ernesto watched fearfully while the fascist Integralist Party waxed strong and bold under the nose of Vargas. Joining the socialistic Allianca Nacional Libertadora, Pedro Ernesto got wind of an army revolt it was planning and hurried over to Getulio to warn him. No traitor to the Allianca, Pedro Ernesto advised Vargas to nip its revolt in the bud by combining forces in a popular front. But fiercely anti-Communist Vargas smashed the revolt. Army bigwigs clamored for Pedro Ernesto's head.

This posed a problem for Getulio, who had a very soft spot in his heart for his oldtime friend. Besides, Pedro Ernesto had saved the leg of Senhora Vargas when it was crushed in an automobile accident and other surgeons wanted to amputate. Vargas' Minister of War ordered Pedro Ernesto imprisoned, but he was taken to the Military Police Hospital instead of the jail. When it was announced that visitors might call on Pedro Ernesto, a long line of friends queued up at the hospital's door; next to a bemedaled general stood an old Negro woman from the slums, clutching a chicken she had roasted for her friend.

Five years ago Pedro Ernesto was set free. Exiled temporarily to Minas Geraes, he returned, when things quieted down, to Rio and his own hospital and patients. He shunned politics. On his birthday last year the Candelaria church, Rio's biggest and smartest, sang masses for Pedro Ernesto at each of its nine altars. Today, in the vestibule of the Municipal Hall, stands a bust of him which slum mothers point out to their children, telling them that all they paid for Pedro Ernesto's services were small gifts of bananas.

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