14 March 2019. I decide to visit the Arquivo Nacional in Rio. The Arquivo Nacional holds a copy of every passenger list of the vessels that arrived in Brazil between 1875 and 1964.
To leave the house and go somewhere takes me at least an hour of preparation. I look up the necessary vocabulary to explain my inquiry and I practice my initial sentences. I research how to get to the archive with public transportation. I’m also trying to memorize the map so that I don’t have to take my mobile phone out on the street.
Then comes the body: First a layer of sunscreen, wait a few minutes, then a layer of mosquito repellent. Then I stow my passport in my security belt that goes around my waist under my skirt. When I’m finally ready to leave I realize that I only have 100 reais notes, but to take the bus I need smaller bills. So I walk to the closest grocery store and I buy a bottle of water to have change for the bus.
The Arquivo Nacional is a grand building at Praça da República. Its doors are guarded by two security persons and the entrance hall is dark and gloomy. I explain the purpose of my visit at the reception and the woman starts the registration process. After a few minutes another woman takes me to the lockers and asks me to lock everything away except for my mobile phone and my wallet. I’m not allowed to take my paper notebook into the archive so I have to take a photo of my notes. Then the woman starts another registration process for me at the computer. She seems relieved that I speak enough Portuguese to answer her questions.
Quando soletro meu endereço de email, ela ri por eu conhecer a palavra "arroba". Ou talvez ela ria da minha pronúncia. Ela me entrega o registro e me diz que agora eu posso pesquisar no banco de dados online. Entendo que ela quer que eu vá embora. Mas isso não é o que eu quero, então eu insisto e explico tão bem quanto eu consigo que já pesquisei online e que até mandei um email para a "Sala de consultas".
Isso parece fazer ela mudar de ideia, então ela se senta novamente no computador e registra alguma outra coisa.
Alguns minutos depois, me permitem entrar no arquivo.
Behind table number 7 a mid-aged man awaits me. I sit across from him. He asks me to write down the full names of Sorel and Choromanski. He searches the database and can’t find anything. I tell him that Sorel and Choromanski arrived in 1940 by ship and I ask him if he can search the lists of the passenger ships. He agrees and doesn’t find anything. He seems discouraged and asks me if they really lived in Brazil. I say, “Yes.... as far as I know”. – “So what did they do here?” he asks. – “Nobody knows what they did here! That’s why I’m here!” I answer. There is a moment of silence. The fact that I came to Brazil to do research about a person I know almost nothing about, seems to bring him around at least a little. He asks if I know the date when they arrived. – Yes, I do, I have that somewhere in my notes, however not in the ones I took a photo of. But I feel that it’s important to say something concrete, so I say: 4 of September 1940. He checks. Too many entries for ships that arrived in 1940. “Do you know the name of the ship?” he asks. – Yes, I do: The name was “Highland Monarch”. He seems pleased. He types and for a while nothing happens. Then his expression changes and he reports from behind his desk: “Four passenger ships with the name Highland Monarch arrived in Rio in 1940. One arrived on the 5 of September.” From my side of the table I can’t tell what he is doing, but I assume (or hope) he accesses the list of this ship. For two or three minutes he is scrolling and reading on his screen and his face seems to loose interest again. Then he suddenly poises and says “Cheguei”.
I smile and now he asks me to move my chair over to his side of the table and look at the screen with him. Yes, there are their names. Michal Choromanski and Ruth Ella Choromanska. So Ruth Sorel didn’t use her maiden name Abramowitsch or her artist name “Sorel” but entered Brazil under her married name “Choromanska”.