Pink with white trim, and built in the Portuguese colonial style, the building is a fifteen-minute stroll from the mightiest of Iguaçu’s 275 waterfalls, a U-shaped, 82-meterhigh, 700-meter-long chasm called A Garganta do Diabo, the Devil’s Throat. Almost half of the river’s water tumbles over it; a cloud of mist sometimes rises above it, and the roar that emanates from it can often be heard within the rooms of the hotel. That day, the river was high from the rains, and the wind was blowing toward them, carrying with it a thunder so constant, and so loud, that Hector’s voice was proving difficult to hear. Arnaldo got up from his seat on the couch to close the window; Danusa gave him a thankful nod, but Silva, sitting closer, and hanging on his nephew’s every word, seemed oblivious to the reduction in noise. “. . . what the news reader said was sketchy,” Hector was saying, “so I called Mara and asked her to contact the cops on Ilhabela for more details. She wasn’t able to get back to me before we took off.”
