THE NIGHT BEFORE Alfredo Monteverde died, Laurinda dreamed that she had fallen down the main staircase at the redbrick house on Rua Icatu. It was Alfredo himself—tall and handsome, in his pinstripe suit and his favorite pink and white striped shirt, smelling of sandalwood—who rushed to her rescue in the dream. “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked her, staring intently into her eyes. But before she could answer him, she woke up crying. “When you wake up crying from a dream, it always means death,” said Laurinda. “The dream told me that Seu Alfredo was going to die. It couldn’t have been clearer what was about to happen.” On the morning of Monday, August 25, 1969, Laurinda woke at dawn, prepared her children for school, and set off from her modest home in the hillside shantytown where she lived. By the time she hopped on the series of crowded buses that would take her to Alfredo’s home, Laurinda had forgotten about the terrible dream that presaged the death of her beloved boss.
