1. The escape

It was 6:03 p.m., on May 5, 2006, Friday when my cell ringed.
As the doors to the subway train opened and I stepped out of it
in Botafogo Station, Rio de Janeiro, I recognized my ex-wife number. “This can’t be good”, I thought, remembering all the
fights we’ve had, fights that led us to court and prevented me
from having any doubts when things like these happened.

I answered after it rang twice, and she asked, sounding nervous: “Can I keep Henrique tomorrow? I’m having lunch
with my mother, we’ve had it scheduled for sometime…”.

Even with a lot of practice, Roberta didn't know how to lie.
Aside from the nervous tone in her voice, I knew that the
emotional bounds connecting her to her parents weren’t strong.
And she would never call me on a Friday night to tell me about
a lunch the very next day. Even though it was obvious she
was lying, there was no reason to say no to her.

That was supposed to be my weekend with Henrique, our 5 year
old son, but I hadn’t had anything planned for Saturday. Besides,
a judge from the 4th Family Law Section, Antônio Iloízio Barros Bastos, had decided the week before, on April 27th, that
Henrique couldn’t leave the country, rejecting a preliminary
order she had placed, as she wanted to move to Australia
with her new husband, José Alves.

A quick thought, as it usually happens to me, came to my mind,
but it soon went away. “Ok”, I answered. And I left the platform trying to figure out what she was up to. After all, there was
so much going on recently...

I was never a fan of conspiracy theories, and my paranoid sense wasn’t really accurate after my victory in court. Then I naively envisioned this scenario: her husband, who would have gone to Australia two days before, was already back and she wanted to welcome him with Henrique, staging the “happy family” scene
she had been recording and photographing to use in court.

I didn’t know that this trip was another lie Roberta — with the help of some “assistants” — had spread throughout the newspaper office she worked in, knowing someone would tell me about it. This fake trip rumour, the couple thought, would impress me in two good ways: I would think the guy had gone to work on a job and would
only come back by the time Roberta was about to have their baby;
or, possibly, that he went to decline the offer or gain some time
due to their failure in court.

And, indeed, I fell for it. Although I had enough proof to think otherwise, I still hadn’t fully realized that people with, let’s say, their profile, would never give up simply because they have no guilt, sense of caring or responsability — unless they are thinking about their ambitions. As to myself, I learned the hard way, the joke
was true: just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re
not after you.

(You may ask: haven’t you wondered something serious was being set up? If I was able to figure out what was going to happen, it would mean I was just like them, and none of this would make any sense. There’s no place for me in this world gone mad of theirs, and I think there’s no place there for my son, either. That’s the problem).

On Sunday, at 10 a.m.,
the time scheduled for me
to pick Henrique up, I ringed her building buzzer, in Leme, where he lived with his mother and stepfather. That’s the
same neighborhood I have lived since 1994. I had my two sisters with me — after being verbally assaulted by Alves in June, 2005, I always asked at least one of them to go with me
to be a witness or even to
stop him while I was picking Henrique up.


After an argument that took place on October 3rd, the worst
of all we’ve had, I couldn’t (nor wouldn’t) get into that building.
The doorman would call the apartment and then someone would come down with Henrique. But, that Sunday, no one answered
and Henrique did not come down. Thinking straight and quick,
I realized it was a scam.

Let’s start the search: when I called the Justice Court asking
for anything under Roberta’s name, the answer was positive.
There was a provisional justice order signed by the appeal court
judge Vera Maria Soares von Hombeeck. The employee who
answered the phone wasn’t allowed to read it to me, but
I could go there and read it myself.

The court order, with a few lines on it, authorized, on Saturday,
that Henrique boarded 7:30 a.m. Sunday. While we read it,
he was already in Chile waiting for a flight connection to Australia. Explanation: when she watched the DVD sent by mother and stepfather, the judge realized the harmony expressed in those images couldn’t be threatened. She never consulted me or my lawyer. The appeal court judge hasn’t even consulted the judge
who decided against the trip.

Friday’s phone call, which was made three minutes after the court closed for the day, indicated they foresaw their victory on Saturday. Later I learned that most of their stuff had already been sent to Australia, even before their victory in court. I also learned that Roberta spent time out of her office on Thursday in order to attend a meeting with her lawyers; and that she didn’t even show up Friday. And, of course, the tickets were bought in advance.

There was no problem to them. No problem at all that Roberta
was pregnant and was going to spend more than 20 hours traveling. It only mattered that the job offered to Alves was there and that their baby would be born in Australia, not Brazil.

My son was abducted on May 7, 2006. I wish to clarify that I don’t mean abducted (raptado) in the sense that the Brazilian legal system understands the verb raptar, but rather in the dictionary sense. According to the dictionary, it means “removal of someone from where they were to somewhere else by the means of violence, threat, fraud or mistake”. Henrique was taken to Australia thanks to “fraud or mistake”. And I’m sure this was also an act of violence.

Henrique is autist. He can only say a few sentences, doesn’t engage in conversations and, although he understands most of what’s said (in Portuguese), it’s hard for him to comprehend abstract situations. Like moving to a completely different place, where a different language is spoken and having to stop seeing people he lived with, specially his father, with whom he slept ten nights a month, spent alternate weekends and had always had a very affectionate relationship. Henrique was treated like an object you move to
your new house and, as an object, does not have to say goodbye
to whatever he’s leaving behind.

He now lives in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. That’s
“the most isolated capital of the world”, the internet says, because the nearest metropolitan area, Adelaide, is located 2.780 km from there; and there’s no greater distance in the world. The region (an administrative center and suburbs) population is about 1.5 million and Perth encounters the Indian Ocean.

There are three oceans between me and my
son now. But, if there’s any faith left in me,
I believe that there are feelings that neither distance, absence nor manipulation can kill. I’m alive because Henrique is alive and
I know I live inside
him because he lives
inside me.

2. On Court

Roberta and I got divorced by the end of February, 2002. Even though we had been having terrible fights and there was a mutual incomprehension, for three years we hadn’t think about going to court to fight over Henrique’s custody. Too bad, for it would have prevented some of the terrible fights.

Things changed in 2005. On January 1st, she started dating Alves, a guy I knew from the university where I studied journalism; he was returning to Brazil after sometime in Australia and the USA, where he worked as an oceanographer. In February, Alves moved in with Roberta (and Henrique). The dog Roberta had bought Henrique was sent away.

Alves took Roberta to visit his place in Washington. They were in the USA from February 18th to 28th. During this period, I slept with Henrique for seven nights — the other four he spent with his nanny, to whom I spoke every day.

This trip was enough to made me suspicious. The confirmation came on April 20th, in the form of a memorandum sent to me by Roberta's lawyer. She was requiring a parenting plan, and there it was, on the sixth and last item: “(...) if, by any chance, the person who pleas moves to another brazilian state or abroad, the parenting plan is, since now, altered”. And it informed that, in the case of that surprise happening, I’d see Henrique twice a year.

Things were already weird, the future of a child being written in a trap designed for morons. As she had chosen to try to scam me instead of speaking openly, I hired a famous lawyer to represent me. She immediately hired a famous lawyer herself, but her tactics did not change. On June 2nd, another memorandum arrived. At the end of the blabber, an item that said “both parts give one another total, reciprocal release so that one will protest against anything, be it written here or not.” The moron here was not going to be trapped again.

On June 9th, then, Roberta required a parenting plan. As to the first item, there was nothing to argue about, because I never doubted — at least until we were parted — that Henrique should live with his mother. About my visitation rights, it was said that “the father is an alcoholic”, has “emotional discontrol” and, because of that, he could “irreversibly harm phisically and emotionally his child”.

Despite her “kindness” (none of them proved, for they were false), Roberta wanted Henrique to spend eight nights a month with me and two weekends. For a mother who feared so much what the father could do to their son, she was full of generosity. The judge from the 7th family law section not only granted it, but also gave two more nights every month. With an angry face on, Roberta signed the deal on August 16th.

On October 8th, she and Alves got married in a religious ceremony. They were legally married since April. As the judge from the 7th law section was on vacation, they asked the substitute judge an authorization so that Henrique could join them in their Australian honeymoon. There was no reference to the fact that Henrique was an autist, to the impact a trip that long could have on him nor to the tests he was going to be submitted to on Australian institutions. During 15 days, Henrique crossed the world twice and, considering he went to Johannesburg, in South Africa, and to a lot of places in Australia, he spent almost 60 hours inside airplanes. He went without my authorization.

On November 3rd, his stepfather sent me a message informing that he, Roberta and Henrique (!) were planning to move abroad — after 8 months of planning, that was the first time they talked to me about it. He was asking for my authorization. Only he wouldn’t tell me where they were going, did not mention schools, therapies or anything of this sort. He wanted me to authorize it, just like that. On the 8th, he insisted, by e-mail: “I’m still waiting for you to answer my simple question”. On the 11th, it was Roberta’s turn: “Do you authorize your son to travel abroad with his mother? Until this simple question is answered, please do not send me any more messages (...)”. That’s a funny idea of simplicity...

As I did not authorize it, I just had to wait for them to submit to court a big pile of letters and brochures about the Australian paradise, showing that Henrique should leave Brazil. That happened on December 16th, casually just before judicial recess and a vacation trip I had planned with Henrique. Despite such an unhappy coincidence, I was able to answer them on time.

It’s worth of note that were part of the big pile: compliments (theirs and from others) to the stepfather, who described himself as Henrique’s “socioaffective father” and who thought his Australian job was an offer one couldn’t refuse; emphasis on the “family cell” and “sane and well-structured ambient” Henrique couldn’t do without, even though it lacked his father, who wouldn’t have to spend a dime with his son and would still have the right to see him once a year; and a whole bunch of statements, some questionable and one corrupted (from Henrique’s phonoaudiologist and psychomotricists, who later said Roberta changed their words in a biased way and far from their original meaning).

The so-called “conciliation audience” was scheduled for January 25th 2006. Roberta was three months pregnant, her husband had this great job offer, Henrique’s classes in his new school were about to start, the tickets were scheduled, the situation had to be solved. My chances of reverting it, according to experts, were minimum. But Antônio Iloízio Barros Bastos, judge from the 4th section, and Américo de Oliveira Filho, public attorney, understood that the urgency alleged by the mother wasn’t more important than Henrique's best interests. I was determined, then, an examination to help the judge decide if the trip was the best option.

A week later, Roberta’s lawyer protested against the decision and asked for a revision. The petition is a masterpiece, but, unfortunately, I’m not allowed to reproduce it here. It was rejected and the examination went on for a month and a half, between March and April.

It’s also a shame I can’t publish its results. In less than 20 pages, the whole case is summarized. There are 18 interviews with me, Roberta (both with and without Henrique), his stepfather, his grandparents and with professionals so that the psychologist would understand what was going on. In a sentence dated April 27th, which is public and it’s on the Justice Court site, the judge wrote:

“(...) Nonetheless, it will be extremely difficult for the father to visit his son on the other side of the world, since the mother has disrespected more than once the parenting plan, as stated. And the investigator states that serious consequences may be expected for the minor if the link between father and son is broke. It is also important to stress there are authoritarian traces in the stepfather behavior, as stated. The damage probability will increase if he goes to another country; besides, it will more difficult to revert it. If he stays with his father, at least for now, it will be easier to re-examine the situation in some months. If, by then, the absence of the mother proves to be too harmful, this court may revert the sentence".

The sentence was reverted on a Saturday evening by an evening shift appeal court judge without me being listened to.

It doesn’t matter what Roberta's new lawyer had said to get the preliminary order, because it is clear it was not decisive. But there are some meaningful excerpts:

The professionals assisting Henrique in Brazil unanimously stated that moving to Australia was good for him. (It’s a remarkable case of a unanimity of one.)

I was, without thinking about the benefits offered in Australia, refusing their moving by egotism and feelings that doesn’t “elevate” me as a father. (In other words, it’s not enough to be a father, you must renounce your child. And what I think it’s the best for him.)

I wouldn’t have conditions to establish a relationship with my son because I see a psychiatrist and I take prescription drugs. (I think if other people did the same, more children would live better.)

And it is stressed, in bold letters, that I was trying to “separate the minor from his mother”. I wonder where I said, wrote or act in accordance to that. The only time I mentioned it was November 2005, when I wrote to Roberta that, if she wanted so much to move abroad, she could let Henrique stay with me for a while, and later we would decide it. But I never wanted to separate him from his mother.

On May 29th, 2006, it was protocolled my request against the preliminary order, so that Henrique would come back to Brazil. The drawing took the case to the 12th Civil Chamber. As a preliminary order ("measure that precedes the main object of the action”, according to the dictionary) which dealt with an autistic child taken to the other side of the world by a seven months pregnant mother, there was a clear sense of urgency in it.

Fourteen months later, July 2007, my appeal was denied and the injuction granted that authorized the journey (or trip) was sustained. However, it was dediced that Henrique must come twice a year to Brazil.

In 2006, I only earned the right to spend the school holidays with my son. I requested it on October 3rd. Strangely, the whole lawsuit disappeared from the notary's office of the 4th Family Section that same month. We had to turn it into another one, which took a few weeks.

By the beginning of November, it was confirmed I could pick Henrique up in Australia on December 9th and be with him until January 29th, 2007, spending, this way, school holidays with him. I bought tickets (for both of us), and got an Australian visa (in the last minute). By e-mail, I informed Roberta I was leaving — she didn’t answered me. The Brazilian Embassy also informed her, by phone, about my trip.

On December 6th, after the initial check-in for the marathon Rio-Buenos Aires-Sydney-Perth, my lawyer called me saying Roberta’s lawyer had advised me not to board, for she was bringing Henrique to Brazil. Unnecessary to say this information was not trustworthy. I boarded.

On the morning of December 9th, I went to pick Henrique up. The house was all locked up. Behind the glass door, an unopened letter from the Australian justice — probably informing about my trip — was visible, even though on the envelope I could read “by hand”. On the left there was a small pile of garbage, some leaves and objects. I went closer and noticed those were the toys I had sent Henrique for his 6 years old birthday, on September. Those were toys he used to play with at my place. On the top of the small pile, facing it, what looked like a small camera.



For five days I didn't know where my son was. In Australia? In a neighbor country, waiting for me to leave? In Brazil? By e-mail and face to face, I spoke to Brazilian and Australian authorities, I tormented them a lot, their immigration services were contacted, but only on Thursday 14th, I had the confirmation Henrique was already in Rio. There was even a “special audience” scheduled for the 18th, because Roberta would only hand me over Henrique on court. On the 16th, already in Brazil, I got a message from her saying she was “deeply sorry for what had happened”.

After eight months, I saw my son on a courtroom. He was a little confused, kept staring at me while having an ice cream and, after three minutes, he stood up, touched the nape of my neck and said “wake up!”. To him, “wake up!” also means “stand up!”.

We left that place together and we spent the next 5 weeks almost entirely together. He would be with Roberta on Mondays, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and between Thursdays mornings to Fridays afternoons. Almost every time his mother went to pick him up at my place, Henrique looked at me and started to cry, for he would feel he was being taken away from me again. On the last time, since I had already told him about the trip, he cried a lot, from the moment he was in the apartment until he saw his mother. She made him say "Bye, daddy!", which he did with the saddest look I’ve ever seen Henrique with. Unhappily, some people pretend not to see. Or doesn't care. That was one of the worse moments of my and his life.

On the days before the trip, there were a series of strange attitudes, like I could avoid Henrique going back to Australia. If I could, I would obviously do it. I had to sign a boarding authorization and make a deal so I can see him twice a year in person — one time there, at my costs, and one here, paying for his ticket — and once a week via Skype. The wound between me and Henrique is still open and the escape is still unpunished.

3. In Brazil

The first time Roberta and I ever spoke was in an opera rehearsal,

when she was working for a newspaper and I for another. I asked
her a trite question and was given a rude answer. It was a sign
from the gods, but I didn’t understand it then. On March 30,
1996, we started dating.

During the course of that same year, she realized the dream of leaving her mother’s apartment and moved in to a place five stories below mine — in the same building, yes. On September 9, 1997, we moved in together. I was 27; she was 25.

Our nest: three bedrooms, 180 square meters, overlooking the sea, costly rental. Major emblem of a fantasy I mistakenly embraced. Not having the adequate profile of a bourgeois-preppy-provider, I often stumbled on it, incurred debts, left home for five months, had other relationships; by and large I was a bad husband — though Roberta’s concept of a good husband can be disputed.

Still, there were good moments during those four and a half years when our lives were wrought together (or apart). The best of it all was undoubtedly the pregnancy and Henrique’s first year of life.

Our marriage was crumbling down, for a change, when Roberta told me at lunch that she was pregnant. She had confounded her pills. It was the first time in years she was so distracted, and it did happen right when I was about to leave home for good — or at least, so I thought. We segued into two weeks of discussions, where I did bring up the potential for an abortion. But we decided to go on. And, to parry any misinterpretation, I never regretted that.

In every single argument along those two weeks, a not-so-unreasonable doubt never slipped past the tip of my tongue: was he really my son? But then it did when Roberta was already into the seventh month, and I had been along in every ultrasound exam, bought stuff for the baby’s room, made plans. So, I really wasn’t genuine when I asked, but I did utter that which was one of the most unfortunate sentences of my life — however tough the competition!

Apart from that, the pregnancy was fine. After nine years in a management position at a newspaper and a reasonable salary, I quit it in order to start my own business. My drivers: have more free time, stop working nights and weekends, and quit mixing my job with my personal life, because Roberta was then at the same newspaper and our senior-junior relationship was not exactly harmonious.

Peace and quiet ended on September 16, 2000, when a medical exam showed the umbilical cord to be wound around the baby’s neck. The obstetrician decided to proceed with a Caesarian cut that very same Saturday, and Henrique was born a month early. I was deeply moved and cried profusely in the delivery room; I got scared when I saw him come out with the cord around his neck, but the pediatrician reassured me that he was all right; and, so, his early days were quiet and easy. There was reflux for a while, sleepless nights, but it all came to pass and the future loomed jubilant like in margarine ads: Henrique was a happy child with his handsome features already showing.



Our marriage ended when he was one and a half. I no longer believed in our relationship and therefore took to seeing someone from days of yore; Roberta found out and had me leave home, as it follows suit. When I went back for my stuff, Henrique held me tight. That was our first farewell.

Up until then, to me and Roberta there had been no sign of autism. Henrique became a toddler at 11 months of age, showed no signs of apathy or hyperactivity, interacted with us and even uttered a few words. Later on, some people claimed to have noticed something different about him. Well, they should have said so. Roberta and I were first-time parents; we didn’t see any reason for concern.

In time, Roberta started to directly or indirectly blame me for Henrique’s autism. Searching the Internet, she read that, however rare, it is possible to perceive autism around the 18th month of the baby’s life, and that may have been the reason why she associated it to our separation. Though I understood it was Roberta’s own personal limitations that led her to say so, the clearly untrue association hurt me tremendously. Now, a proud resident of a “major autism treatment center”, she must have learned that the syndrome is largely due to genetic mutations, and an alleged trauma would never trigger the disease like a magic spell. Furthermore, such trauma wasn’t even there, for I kept very close to my son. As a matter of fact, closeness between me and my son was only discontinued as a result of the escape, which indeed causes deep psychological wounds to a child.

At 22 months of age, Henrique went to school for the first time, in Leme, near home. There were some adaptation problems, the perception that he took too long to speak, signs of the first tensions, but no red light warning yet. Around that time, a homeopathic pediatrician started seeing him because of his allergies. To my frequent questions about his late start in speech, her usual reply was, “You’re spoiling parents, that’s all; it will come in time”. I later learned that most pediatricians haven’t got a clue to what autism is all about, let alone to diagnosing it.

Remarkably enough, this is not exclusive to Brazil, but to developed countries as well. There are several possibilities to diagnosing and treating autism in Brazil, but there is no public policy or any major communication efforts about the syndrome. As a result, parents of autistic children usually find themselves in a true pilgrimage towards appropriate diagnosis first, and then searching for potential schools and likely therapies. That doesn’t mean, though, that parents in other countries are not faced with similar scenarios or that there are no success stories here. The latter actually depend, among other things, on the parents’ persistence and love for a child which have to be greater than other ambitions.

Unfortunately, the Leme school closed down. I visited several such schools in early 2003 but none was totally satisfactory. Roberta eventually liked one in Copacabana but still pointed at how difficult it was to cover the distance on foot. I hesitated, but finally agreed. Another mistake! It turned out to be one of those schools with a liberal outlook but a rather conservative approach. Evidently, we should have taken him to another option right away, but inexperience played an important role again.

The school’s very lousy psychologist only did us one good: She gave us the warning that there was something more serious than we had anticipated. To her mind, Henrique did not catch up with the other children, he was inferior and needed doors to be closed so he would stay in the classroom. Utter nonsense, but it helped us decide we needed to seek professional advice.

Starting in the summer of 2003, Henrique’s first ever therapy had no connection with his communication problems. I took him to a sensory motor expert because of his arching legs, that resembled mine. Besides improving his posture and walking poise, this excellent professional indicated he had hypotonicity (reduced muscular tonus), as he somewhat frequently fell backwards, and a fragility to the facial muscles that interferes in speech. During the eight months of weekly sessions that followed, Roberta only took him there once, which was nevertheless in response to my mother’s insistent calls. I took him to all the other visits. The effort was discontinued because the therapist went on maternity leave.

Having been warned by the school, I told Roberta we had to take Henrique to a good psychologist. “What will people say when they learn Henrique sees two therapists?” she argued during a conversation I am never to forget, while I spoke on the cellular phone from the gate to my office building and she spoke from her office. “Before age 3 nobody takes children to therapy” and “don’t you dare say my son has a problem” were but a few gems coming out of this dialog, which she later denied.

After some major efforts, my mother and I managed to convince her to permit a preliminary examination by a psychologist cousin of mine who had experience in the educational field. Four sessions were conducted at Roberta’s place which made clear that his development (as well as his speech) was slow to progress and that there was need for long term treatment, which could not be undertaken by my cousin for ethical reasons.

We were referred to a psychologist who followed a psychoanalytical line. What took us aback at first was her rather formal office, with an orthodox couch (used in heterodox fashion by Henrique) and the fact that she saw adult patients as well as children. Our first conversations were fine, though, and we decided to go for it. We settled for two weekly sessions and I was in charge of taking Henrique on Mondays.

In late 2003, during the sensory motor expert’s maternity leave, Roberta made arrangements for two weekly sessions with a speech therapist, without letting me know, on the belief that the problem could be restricted to his speech. I accepted it and started to take him there on Tuesdays. Given that she was also a relational therapist, with connections to psychoanalysis, results were not immediate but rather in the long run. Her work and that of the sensory motor expert who started to see him as of late 2004 contributed largely to Henrique’s self-reliance and self-esteem, encouraging him to be even more affectionate than he already was — not all autistic children achieve that! Visits to those therapists were only brusquely discontinued by the escape.

Henrique’s speech was slow to come and the phantom of autism was ever more real. We asked the psychologist and she spoke of “autistic characteristics”, “autistic features”, but she was never straightforward. It is not hard to understand why Roberta and I never demanded a firm response from her: reading about autism on the internet, unsure of the symptoms, and scared to death of a potential positive diagnosis, we only sought to postpone the pain. We wouldn’t say it out loud, but, sure enough, that was it. Any father of an autistic child will understand.

So, in 2004 we started with the whole lot of exams. Electroencephalogram: nothing abnormal. MRI: same. For both, Henrique had to be sedated, which further increased our pain. The third step was to seek a geneticist. She said, as we knew, that there was no exam capable of diagnosing autism other than clinical observation; however, we could have his blood examined in order to check whether Henrique had the X-fragile syndrome, an abnormality caused by a defective gene leading to retardation, among other consequences. Roberta froze when she learned that, for male children, the defective gene always comes from the mother. From June, month when we consulted the geneticist, to October, when I could wait no longer and took Henrique on my own for the exam, she raised a lot of barriers to keep from collecting his blood. Eventually, the result was negative.

In 2004, Henrique was already attending a much better school, a truly liberal one, which made real efforts to include him in the activities and did not hide from us how hard a challenge it was, however stimulating it could also be. Henrique was really pleased to go there every morning, a wonderful thing, as it was. He soon became very fond of the teacher, fond of her assistant — who would perform an important mission in the next year as his facilitator, the one who works towards integrating an autistic child to his/her environment — and was liked by both children and adults. There were obvious difficulties, but the love surrounding Henrique and the many steps forward he could actually take thoroughly overcame any such obstacles. Those professionals still ask about him and express their love in a way that only translates how special those twenty-eight months were to Henrique.

The whole thing went down the drain in 2005. Alves’s entrance on the scene brought about tension that hit everyone, especially Henrique, who, after three years as the man of the house — sleeping, as it was, in Roberta’s bed longer than advisable — started to share his mother with a man he had only met one month before. Talking to the school as early as March, Roberta said there had been no change to Henrique’s routine. I was the one who had to communicate the change to the coordinator and the teacher.

I threw a tantrum on February 13. I went depressive over some double-sided jealousy, the naughtiest one being the impression that my son was being abducted by another man — a depressive vagary that only time would prove it was not so erratic. Roberta’s trip on the 18th, leaving her child in the hands of an “emotionally unstable” father, as she put it, was the tipping point wherefrom I did not succumb. I saw it was high time I broke up with this insane connection and started to look exclusively at Henrique, which is, despite the personal and objective difficulties, one thing I am sure to have been doing ever since.

Upon returning from her 10-day trip, Roberta seemed taken by an angry sense of guilt. She had a fit at school because Henrique had been allocated to a different group from those kids with whom he had shared the previous year. The problem was that they were already into the third week of classes and the coordinator calmly explained all the reasons to me (Henrique’s difficulty to keep up with the group and the strong bond he had developed with the smaller children’s teacher). That fit was but the beginning of a sabotage process against Henrique’s school development, perhaps under the influence of an idea that he would have better care overseas, where she was moving to just as soon as I signed some mischievous draft document.

After the psychoanalytic therapist finally mentioned autism, and complying with a reiterated suggestion from my psychiatrist — whom she would later present to Court as evidence that I cannot look after my child — Roberta accepted to take Henrique to a children’s psychiatrist. In two sessions, the physician straightforwardly offered Pervasive Developmental Disorder — Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). That is also known as atypical autism, when not all symptoms are severe enough as for classical autism but where the individual does not have the communication skills and the social adequacy to be a high performing autist.

Grievance was thus complete, but at least now there was a clear enemy to be fought. We decided that Henrique would be seen by a behavioral therapist, who would perhaps do more objective work instead of waiting for his subconscious mind to come forth. As for myself, I started reading more about autism, which actually led to some, why not, misunderstanding. When I introduced myself to a theme-list on the Internet, I said I was beginning to read about the matter. Roberta then started to use this message in her legal petitions as “evidence” that I only started to take an interest on the syndrome after she had found herself another man. As one looks forward into the darkness, one forgets to watch one’s back!

In the year of our separation (2002), I used to sleep with Henrique on Wednesdays and Fridays, which were later replaced with Thursdays at Roberta’s request that he were not subjected to many and often back-and-forth trips, and spend entire Sundays with him. As of 2003, weekends were so changed: I’d spend one day with him, either Saturday or Sunday, and she’d spend the other. In April, 2005, she decided to change to alternate weekends. I then requested to have Henrique sleeping with me on Mondays following her weekends in order not to go seven days without seeing him. Thursdays remained as they were. She agreed.

But then the Corpus Christi holiday came and she traveled, leaving Henrique with me for four subsequent days. Upon returning on May 30, her angry guilt strain was in full gear. She said I’d no longer have him on Mondays nor would I have any extra day in June, though that was when I would have my vacations, as previously notified. Moreover: in very rude manners, she discontinued relations with my mother, who had always been a mediator between herself and myself, and definitely supported us in bringing up Henrique.



On June 14, 2005, she sent a message to one of the editors at the newspaper where I am employed asking whether I really couldn’t go on vacation in July because of a literary event to be covered. So, she wanted to know why I’d retire for the month of June. How ethical, hey! During this period I eventually had very little contact with Henrique, owing the very few encounters to the speech therapist and the sensory motor expert, who opened up their sessions that I might watch.

Curiously enough, in July, when I was back at work, Roberta offered me a week with Henrique, when she would, paradoxically, be off her job. Some very odd events took place during those days. There is a witness to at least one such event. Roberta called me at 7:30 to ask whether I could take Henrique on his visit to the sensory motor expert an hour later. I said yes, of course. As I arrived at the professional’s office, lo and behold, there was the couple, who had arrived earlier without notice and made a point of participating in the session. When we all left, Roberta bid farewell to Henrique, who cried, as any loving child would do to his mother; so she held him and said, “I know it hurts, son.” Now, talk about the Geneva Convention!

Despite his mother’s “wisdom”, Henrique had a fine week, apart from some mild food poisoning one day and the fact that he had to go a few hours without me, when he nevertheless played with my mother and sisters while I worked. He would open up a broad smile every time he saw me!

These latter tales took place after — and as a consequence of — an argument between myself and Alves on June 9. One hour before I picked up Henrique to come spend the night with me, Alves had called me to say, in a blatant tone, that I should leave his woman alone. I told him he should do the same about my son, because he was striving to destroy Henrique’s life as he tried to separate him from me. His response was rather revealing: “Watch what you’re saying because I am recording everything.”

When I arrived at the building, he came downstairs on his own and imposed himself upon me for almost half an hour, thereby putting off my right to be with my son. Amongst a lot of silly stuff, he said Henrique would have much better treatment in “my country” (his own words — now bear with me: he was referring to the United States, where he then lived; not to his native Brazil, nor to today’s home in Australia or who-knows-where tomorrow) and alluded to alcoholism, “madness”, the usual clichés. He only heard two adjectives from me: obnoxious and sucker. What a surprise indeed it was to hear him some months later say in a mournful tone of voice that I had called him such names.

The much more severe October 3 row had other preceding occurrences. For instance, after insisting, to no avail, that the speech therapist and the sensory motor expert sign a report favoring Roberta and Alves’s intent on moving abroad, the latter resorted to yet another rather renowned professional, who, in turn, submitted Henrique to some assessment sessions, one of which included me, and wrote a number of superficial remarks about Henrique’s ages concerning different aspects of his development. The couple prohibited that professional from letting me have a full copy of the report and instead included a mere excerpt in a December petition towards their trip.

In July, Roberta asked me for an authorization to take Henrique on a trip to Chile. I refused, because back then any travel abroad was dangerous. In May, 2006, it was from Chile that they left and made their way to Australia.

Well, then, on October 3, as I was late writing a singer’s obituary for the newspaper, my sister went ahead to pick up Henrique. To the utmost surprise of both parties, she was there without me and Roberta and Alves came downstairs without my son. The couple was obviously discomposed by an extremely polite letter I had sent four days before to Roberta with copies to the school and to the therapists. The letter contained a number of potential lines for dialog, which were fully understood by the professionals. But on that 3rd day of October, when I arrived and asked Roberta whether she had read it, her reply was: “No, I haven’t.” Which one was worse, the lie or the disregard for dialog?

Standing before my eyes, Alves addressed my sister in extremely rude terms whereby he extolled his own “normality” for “not consuming alcohol, for doing exercises, for taking care of himself”. In order to show off his “superiority”, he told her, “Just look at yourself and look at me!” A rather taken aback Andréia replied, “Roberta, this guy is a Nazi!”, to which he replied, “Better be a Nazi than a nutsy!”

Being aware of everything that was going on, I was outraged to learn this and could not hold my peace as they went on about us three having a conversation. I started to shout I wanted my son, because it was my day with him, that my right could not be curbed by so much insanity… Alves called upon the local security guards, who were a lot more polite than him, and after a full hour’s delay my sister and I finally received Henrique. Scared by all that shouting, the boy held tight to my arms and did not let go until we arrived at my place. Not for a single second was he willing to let go of his grip on me!

Five days later, there was a party at school. It was my weekend with Henrique, but since that was also Roberta and Alves’s religious wedding ceremony, she asked me if she could have her son on Saturday — I would pick him up on Sunday. Though Henrique was, possibly, the only child with three adults around him, everything ran smoothly until pretty close to the end. When I started to say goodbye, Henrique said “embora” (meaning “let’s go”) and tried to drag me along. I very quietly said that he was going to stay with his mother and, on the next day, we would play together. Apparently scared at us being so close to the gate, as if I were one of these people who keep breaching agreements and escaping children, Alves ran to take Henrique in his arms and said, “Today you will stay with papai Zé” — Zé is short for José, and papai is daddy.

I counted up to 20, turned around and went away, wondering where had that epithet come from. On Monday, October 10, I inquired at school and they told me the step-father had already used that expression there, which led the coordinator to consult with Roberta and the behavior therapist on the issue. The former said it had been spontaneous, a type of miracle. The latter said she thought nothing of it, since it was not only “papai” alone but rather another expression, so it was not likely to confound Henrique.

I told this lady, whom I still trusted back then (less and less, however), that it was not to be accepted in any terms whatsoever because it could indeed cause confusion to Henrique and, furthermore, he had a father who played a very active father’s role to him. To the newfound step-father, another nickname should be given: Superman, Supermouse, Aquaman, anything that did not have father stuck to it, for reasons that were more than obvious to any human being in a sound mind.

The couple’s woeful artifice proved to be sadistic when my sisters, my mother, and myself realized that Henrique had taken to add “papai Zé” to the end of each utterance, elaborating on the “té” (for Zé) which we had already been fearfully hearing since the end of August. Henrique started to talk like that to anyone: “Want egg, papai té”; “Want coke, papai té”; and so on. In short, he had been given, as the result of extensive training, a verbal key to open up the doors to satisfy his whims. By voicing the magic utterance, he obtained whatever he wanted. He confused the expression so much that once, as he wanted to play with a mongrel dog lying half asleep on the curb, he said, “Wake up, papai té!”

The school, serious as it was, started to correct it, and so did the speech therapist and the sensory motor expert. But the behavior therapist, who showed to connive more with Roberta’s designs, did very little, if anything, to fight it back. The hard efforts that were being made for a few years to show Henrique that he needed to construct correct sentences in order to gain things got wasted in a matter of months.

I had better not talk much about that therapist. Concerning the work she did with Henrique, she practiced — and still does to unwary parents who look her up — the Anglo-Saxon line of a psychology of results: child must do exercises on table, score points and gain chocolate if child gets right answer, not having necessarily understood why child is doing that. Since Henrique is intelligent (he has no mental retardation, unlike some 70% of the autists), he seemed to have taken to his benefit the few good things (the chocolate) and gotten around the bad and boring ones. The therapist, for instance, spent an entire month showing him colored circles that he would remember the names of the colors “by heart”. I told her that wasn’t going to work, because Henrique needed to be stimulated by something related to his life and the things he liked, not by something as abstract as that — after all, autists by definition have problems with abstractions. It didn’t work, like many other exercises. Sometimes he said “cocô” (Brazilian version of “pooh”) so he could escape the boredom of the moment and hide in the bathroom.

As to the rest, it is always worth informing that she produced a number of reports favoring the trip to Australia (starting with the first one, in October 2005, when Henrique spent 60 hours on airplanes), a portion of which were written without my knowledge and no copies were sent to me. Also without letting me know, and on her own, she cancelled a number of Henrique’s appointments when I was scheduled to take him. And, to sum things up, she started acting as an advisor to Roberta’s plans, even though I was the one who was paying her. The couple, by the way, spent several months trying to pay more and more sessions, which they eventually managed to do only in the last month, when I said that, after her collaboration to escape scheme, I would cease to pay.

I have also paid for Henrique’s school. But, in January, 2006, Roberta brought some court document to school which said she had her son’s custody and was therefore the one to outlay for any of his expenses. I had already covered for the school’s enrollment fee but had to stop paying the monthly tuitions. Roberta’s purpose soon came out of the dark: besides trying to prove I spent virtually nothing on Henrique, she wanted him out of that school just because she thought it favored me — for this nasty thing, the truth, was what they spoken there! One such truths, much to her discomfort, was the report of Henrique’s first utterance in the classroom: “I want daddy”.

When she carried out her plan in February, with the support from that therapist’s report to the effect that it was unnecessary for Henrique to attend a school since he was soon going to move abroad (though the situation was still open, as the judge had commanded an investigation), I went to court and regained my son’s due right to return to school. Still, Roberta kept moving heaven and earth to sabotage the effort (spent an entire week inside the school premises, forced the school to accept the nanny in the classroom…), she did everything she could to keep Henrique from integrating. The worse off he was, the better it would be for her purposes. However good the school intentions may have been, it was already clear that, given the way things were going, there would be no atmosphere for Henrique to continue in the second term — exactly what Roberta wanted in order to gain yet another trump in the struggle for her trip!

All along this macabre period, which ranged from April 2005 to May 2006, I received several phone calls and email messages that could make up a “case” for psychologists — and maybe other professionals. Many of these calls and messages have given rise to anger that is hard to restrain — and often wasn’t — and others have given rise to laughter, for the absurdity in them, especially on account of the Alves style. “Delusional beliefs” and “crystal-clear egocentrism” are two of the expressions he used in the midst of texts that mixed a countryside mayor’s formalism with blatant lies.

What’s most serious about all that happened during this period is that Henrique had his voice and his personally usurped upon. Because he is an autist and cannot fully express what he feels, a number of desires and speeches were being attached to him, a strategy whose most visible moment was the use of “papai Zé” as exchange currency, which nevertheless hit deeper spots. If he cannot say how much he enjoys the school, why stay there? If he cannot say how much he likes Rio, the places he knows, the language he hears, why not write up reports and petitions stating that he loved to spend 60 hours on airplanes and that living on the other side of the earth will be wonderful for him? If he doesn’t use words to show how much he loves his dad, his aunts, and his grandmother, though he makes it absolutely clear in his laughter, tears, and hugs, why does he have to live close to these people? The escape was the corollary of a full year of continuous massacre against Henrique.

4. In Australia

After crossing the world one third time in seven months, Henrique arrived on May 9, 2006, in Australia to live there — by default judgment. Shortly afterwards, on the 31st, his brother was born. Within a period of three weeks, therefore, 5-year-old Henrique, who has difficulties expressing his feelings because of autism, was severed from his father, moved to another country, started listening to a different language, and started to share his (also new) physical and emotional space with a brother.

In their December 2005 petition, where they requested judicial authorization to take Henrique away, his mother and step-father informed that the boy was already enrolled in a school, a situation that was allegedly confirmed by a piece of paper signed by the director of the institution. In July, I learned that Henrique never attended that school. Henrique was enrolled in another one, apparently due to his special needs and for geographic reasons, since in Australia this type of division is performed according to districts and the new school is closer to his home. It is nevertheless curious enough that one of Roberta’s claims to expedite the move — that Henrique start school at the earliest, possibly in February, upon commencement of the school year — never really existed.

In May, according to Roberta, Henrique started his activities in an association that focuses on autists and is supposed to develop work that is complementary to the school. The only extra information I received about this work was a summary of the program that was prepared for him. None of my attempted contacts with the professionals involved was ever responded. In March 2007, I learned that he would no longer attend the first association and would move on to a second one. Two months later, I was informed of the name of the new institution.

Henrique is being seen by a behavior therapist who, according to Roberta, exercises him at home and also teaches his mother how to do it. I never managed to establish contact with this professional either. She's been replaced with the school's facilitator.

The judicial agreement provides that I should have “all the necessary support to gain access to the school and the professionals in charge of caring for and providing education to the child, (…) the Plaintiff [Roberta] is also bound hereby to disclose to the child’s father any documents, reports and anything that is of relevance to their common son.” I am still waiting for full compliance with this item 4. Very few of my questions have been answered

In the school where Henrique was and still is enrolled, I was fortunate enough to secure help from the individual in charge of that educational district and therefore found a headmaster who was kind enough to answer some of my questions. When I went to Australia in December 2006 with a judicial authorization to bring my son and didn’t find him because Roberta had traveled in a hurry without even letting him finish his school year, I decided I should visit the school. It is a nice and large place that includes a green area — otherwise, like many in Perth. Henrique is certainly enjoying this aspect.

As to pedagogical development, there is hope in the information provided by the school. I cannot doubt that information, especially since it is much more balanced than whichever I receive from Henrique’s mother, usually accompanied by a host of puerile adjectives, pseudo bucolic imagery, and reports of unlikely conquests. It is a world between Pollyana and Playmobil.

In our conversation, the headmaster was realistic enough to tell me it is not easy to keep Henrique focused on a desk activity very long, and said half an hour — by December 2006, at least — was just as long as it would go. The facilitator (or education assistant, as they name this professional over in Australia) proposes a deal to Henrique which is to let him play outside after he finishes some activity indoors. A clever arrangement which, for that very reason, satisfies him, who can very shrewdly negotiate what he wants, provided the listener is not dumb or dishonest. In 2007, Henrique started to attend morning sessions with a group of other SEN children, and early afternoon regular classes. He spends a good portion of his day away from home, which, given the circumstances, seems to be good.

Though predictable, there were some frustrations in my talk with the headmaster. When I asked what people did when they noticed Henrique trying to communicate in Portuguese, she said they did nothing because they couldn’t handle a foreign language. It was a perfectly logical answer, however anguished I may have felt as I pictured him struggling to express himself in the earnest manner he had learned in Brazil and getting no response.

Pleased to recognize how gentle Henrique was, she said they couldn’t accommodate issues related with his father’s estrangement into his current work in progress. The school cannot get involved in personal or judicial issues, was more or less what she said. Another logical claim, however hard it may have felt to me. If being estranged from his father and moving to another country are decisive factors in Henrique’s life, how can they not be considered in the care provided to him?

Perhaps the answer lies in Australian society’s cultural base. Even though the country was partly built by British Empire exiles, Australia is naturally an Anglo-Saxon nation and has therefore inherited a lot from this tradition. One such instance, a rather big one by the way, is to abide by the law, to respect what’s down on paper and signed. “Here, everything has to be on the book,” a Brazilian told me in Perth.

If some Brazilian court of justice has authorized Henrique to be transferred to Australia, if there is no document directing the professionals to address me, if there is no certified documentation about my deep relationship with Henrique, why should I even exist there? If I am not a juridical figure, I do not exist.

And, like in any Anglo-Saxon society, feelings tend to be suffocated for the sake of rules, of collectivity, of the alleged common welfare. The problem is that Henrique, despite the Caucasian phenotype, is not Anglo-Saxon, and depends a lot on love and tenderness. I sincerely hope that the Australian professionals give him that, but, being three oceans away, I am inevitably concerned and helpless. I keep wondering where is the pain Henrique expressed in tears when he bade me farewell to return to Australia on January 25, 2007.

The famous “Brazilian resourcefulness” is dreadful to our social structure, unequal and fragmented as it is, even genocidal. But it nevertheless mirrors the underpinnings of our specificity, based on improvisational skills, on overcoming obstacles by virtue of wit and swing, on a day-to-day process of creative rebirth. It is a “fault” of ours that needs to be looked at from a broader, historical perspective.

Feeling as an Anglo-Saxon himself to the extent of referring to the United States as “my country” and living in Australia as a native (not an aborigine, of course), Alves applied that “Brazilian resourcefulness” when he needed to travel with his seven-month pregnant wife to keep from losing his job. On such occasions, the imperfections of our lowly Brazilian book are a blessing to the “conquistadores”. Once the move is made, one resorts to the strictness of the Anglo-Saxon book in order to raise barriers, for instance, to a father’s access to his son. The December 2006 rushed trip to Brazil, running counter to my departure to Australia, was backed by the fact that there was not enough time for an Australian accreditation of the Brazilian Justice. There are other adjectives, but we may use chameleonic when referring to a person who uses that “resourcefulness” to obtain advantages here and strictly abides by the rules to obtain advantages there.

I remember that month of December when I went to the Australian courts of justice to speak about the disappearance of my son; the officer was very correct and polite to me but acknowledged my desire to travel alone with Henrique in an awkward manner, despite the judicial authorization I had produced. Didn’t I have a psychologist’s report stating that it would be good for the child? Or an expert’s opinion to attest my strong and healthy relation with him? That is, any paper signed by an “expert” to provide me with more backing than my very condition as a father who had traveled around the world, spending more than I could afford, to pick up my son so we could spend some vacation together.

In that sense, a report signed by a Perth psychologist and registered in a Brazilian court of justice in December 2006 is meaningful. Attempting to show that a trip to Brazil, even for a mere vacation break and to see his father again after seven months, could be detrimental to the child, said professional wrote that Henrique’s move to Australia in May had been “largely uneventful” (what would an eventful one be like?); that removing the child from his “habits and routines” could make him afraid he would no longer see his mother (what about no longer seeing his father, hey?); and that, having once spent two weeks away from his mother, Henrique took to biting himself (now, how did a newcomer to the case like him learn about a fact that had happened in Brazil, especially when such case never really happened?).

Henrique’s school and virtually all his other activities in Australia are free — how wonderfully civilized! That being the case, plus the fact that my son is now living in another country totally against my will, Roberta still asks me to reimburse her for Henrique’s round trip tickets for vacations in December 2006/January 2007. I bought the ticket to bring him and it was not used because he wasn’t there; I then offered the ticket so that Roberta could use it for Henrique’s return trip, which she refused. According to a message she sent me, I must return the cash equivalent to the cost she incurred to hurriedly leave Perth before I arrived to see my son.

These were some of the reasons why, for the entire duration of 2006, I refused to answer Roberta’s messages as well as her offers that I talk to Henrique over Skype. First of all, the tone of her emails, as usual, was always between pathetic and angry. “Henrique is fine. He had a good trip and is excited with so many new things,” she wrote four days after the escape. “You may visit Henrique whenever you wish, just let me know,” the message went on. When I wished, I let her know, the Brazilian Embassy let her know, but she wasn’t there.

I also consider one specific passage from another message to be rather telling, and I therefore quote, including punctuation mistakes and the poor style of the original: “(…) I know it is difficult for you but, please, do realize it would be more difficult for Henrique to live in a country like Brazil, a country that, despite our wishes, from our hearts, does not offer any perspective of a future for him, that cannot offer him the quality of life he deserves, and that he’s been having here.” In short, autists living in Brazil deserve the difficulties (insurmountable, according to her) that they face.

The escape, the lies, the blackmailing messages — such as, “if you want to have a report from the school, ask me and I’ll send it to you” — and all the pain that is the result of being away from Henrique and the uncertainty about his conditions have made me refuse contact over Skype. I therefore went seven months without having contact with my son, something I later regretted. But I did send gifts with cards on his birthday — those that, in December, I saw in a pile of trash — and on Children’s Day.

As per agreement signed in January 2007, I accepted to communicate over Skype, which we have been doing every Wednesday. It is not always possible to see and hear Henrique as quietly as I would prefer, but I show him things around my place, I notice he recalls them, and I like to hear him say “hi, daddy” and to know he hears “hi, son”.

Sometimes I am also happy to notice indirect conquests, but they don’t always last long. On February 22, 2007, Roberta wrote to say that Henrique was having swimming lessons on a daily basis. He wasn’t in 2006. It seemed more like a reaction to the fact that, in December, I had enrolled him for classes during the vacation period in Rio. As swimming pools are one the things he enjoys most in life, he loved it, but Roberta didn’t like it as much. After returning to Australia, she insisted, in her emails, that I said the names of the gym center and the teachers, so that she could gather some information. I spared them that torture.

In Brazil, my mother and I always wanted to have him attend swimming lessons, but we never came to terms with Roberta on the financial aspect because she would be responsible for outlaying that since I paid for the school and the more expensive therapy. He was finally enrolled to have those lessons in 2005 by his step-father, who is a would-be bodybuilder. Some evils come to good, though. Unfortunately, on April 25, 2007, another message, boiled down to a “no” in response to my question, said the classes were not daily. Apparently, there is only one per week, though the rather unclear bit of information does not allow me to say that for sure.

One of the least obnoxious changes to Henrique’s life lies amongst those that disturb me the most. In order to facilitate the professional’s and the other children’s communication with him, as the school headmaster explained to me, Henrique was now being called Ricky. Since Henrique is my grandfather’s name, so lovingly given to my only child, replacing it with such an anglicized nickname that is so unlike him is the cream of this personality encroachment crop. It’s as if Henrique, already usurped of his right to frequently see his father and to express his desires, was also prevented from retaining his name, his identity (with double meaning). It’s as if he were treated as a hollow object, everything a person should not be, especially a child, especially an autist, especially when one is loved by so many people — from whom he was, nevertheless, separated.

Autism

Autists have disabilities in three fields: communication, social interaction, and behavior.

They either speak few words or, in the case of larger vocabularies (such as those of high performing autists), are prone to repeating sentences they hear elsewhere, uttering them in a different than “normal” intonation, and finding it hard to maintain a conversation. Since they cannot handle abstractions well, metaphors are virtually incomprehensible to them, and they therefore record only their literal sense. Having to learn two languages, since knowing that for instance “mesa” and “table” represent the same object requires some abstraction, can be an almost overwhelming challenge for autists in general.

They would rather be with themselves, which doesn’t mean they live “in a world of their own”, as the poor and stigmatizing platitude would have it. They may be able to play with others but, if not encouraged, tend to feel better on their own. Usually avoiding eye-to-eye contact, they would rather focus on a detail of the person they’re talking to. Some of them don’t like to be touched or to exchange physical caress, but it all varies much between different autists.

They may adopt repetitive gestures and movements, such as clapping arms, rocking their torso back and forth, or uttering non-verbal sounds (“eeeeeeee”, for instance) — such are the stereotypes, which contribute to the awkward glances they occasionally get from people. Some autists don’t like to have their routines changed and may become seriously annoyed if any object is removed from its usual place. There are those who try to hurt people as well as themselves when they have outbursts, but not all of them have these types of reactions.

The literature on the syndrome repeats that 70% of the autists have mental retardation, but it is impossible to have any precise rate. One thing is for sure, though, ant that is once an autist is stimulated, he will not step back — some advancement is, fortunately, inevitable, because there is plasticity in their brain. And there are the so-called savant, those who have great skills for some subject: mathematics, informatics, drawing, etc. However much their interests ought to be stimulated in these circumstances, autists from this group are not to be confused with other overly gifted individuals nor exposed to spectacular displays of their knowledge, because they also have communication, social interaction, and behavior problems.

Autism has been diagnosed at earlier ages now. There is still a widely accepted idea that, before age 5, it is difficult to make an accurate assessment, but a great many diagnoses are clear at age 3, and there are worldwide efforts — which includes Brazil! — to obtain these results between the first and the second year of life. The earlier the therapeutic intervention, the better the chances autists will have to progress. A children’s psychiatrist or psychologist who is versed in the subject is an appropriate professionals to look for. Unfortunately, most pediatricians cannot identify the condition.

An increased wealth of information on autism and recognition of how comprehensive its characteristics may be — with some overreaction at times, because we all have some autistic traces, which doesn’t mean we are all autists — have led to an increased number of people being diagnosed as having the syndrome. While in 1980 they talked about four in every 10,000 worldwide, they now talk about one in every 1,000. In the United States, this ratio would be one in every 500 people, and amongst children, one in every 150.

The history of autism is still short. It was only in 1943 that US based Austrian born Leo Kanner gave this name to a group of children he observed. One year later, another Austrian, Hans Asperger, published a thesis, “Autistic Psychopathy”. Before them, the word “autism” was only used as a symptom of schizophrenia. Both things were still mixed for quite a long time, though, but it is now known — or, at least, it should be known — that they are not related.

For a long time, also, the cause of autism in children was attributed to their parents: they were cold, distant, which led the children to withdraw. So much so that the figure of a refrigerator-mother was created, a cruelty that started to disappear in the 1960’s, when new studies showed that there was a lot more genetics behind autism than the pioneers originally supposed. Since then, thanks to new research work, it has been more thoroughly established that the syndrome is totally genetic-based. Still, unlike the Down Syndrome, which can be detected upon childbirth from the phenotype and the isolation of a chromosome, there is no certainty that one day the biological causes for autism will be completely established.

There is no cure, either. It is only fair for desperate parents to believe in panaceas such as removing the mercury from their children’s bodies or even surgery. The only way towards development (not cure) are therapies. The problem is that there is no single way forward. There are several and, as I see it, anyone who sticks to one of them as a dogma will commit an act of violence to their own intelligence and to that of the very autistic individual they are trying to care for.

There are common features to autists, of course, but there are also distinguishing ones — the latter probably in greater numbers. Each autist is like a world of its own, and trying to apply to one child the therapies that worked for another does not warrant any success, by all means. This is why parents hardly ever get to follow a single path, and this is not exclusive to Brazil. Faced with doubts here and disappointments there, they usually take too long (if ever) to find a structure that they really trust and where they may see their children evolve.

My lay opinion is that extremes are to be avoided. The stricter behavior therapy based largely on the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) method may make achievements towards bringing them to society standards, but it places affections far into the background and does not necessarily take the autistic individual’s intelligence into account. There are reports of children who could behave very well in schools and behavioral clinics, who would put things in their proper places, just as they had been taught. Outside, however, they hardly ever knew what to do with those skills they had learned. Training is crucial, but let’s not robotize!
The other extreme, a psychoanalytic approach, has fallen short to deal with autism — despite the many conquests some professionals have exhibited, particularly in France. Psychoanalytic keys, such as working with the unconscious, are very slow to open doors for autists, if ever. The important aspect in this type of approach is that they underline autists’ affections, feelings and possibilities to express themselves.

Even in the USA, where ABA is a canon, many trends have come up that try to mitigate behavior techniques. Floortime, for one. In Brazil, a mixed country where affections and sensorial aspects are most widespread, blindly adopting the behavioral line is stupid, to say the least. It can and must be seasoned with other references and charged with affection for as much as each autist is willing to go.

Concerning education, the want of formulas is even more remarkable. Regular schools are usually not prepared to accept autists, whereas the special ones accept them in standardized fashion. Choosing one or the other, reconciling both… This is an ordeal for every parent. It is the child who will somehow provide the answer, according to his/her development and the pleasure he/she experiences in each different setting.

Evidently, schools are a more difficult topic in developing countries, where public policies do not suffice to the “normal” ones, let alone to those with special needs. In Brazil, there are not so many institutions of excellence, and the very few instances are usually the outcome of efforts made by parents, such as those who created the “Casa da Esperança” (House of Hope), in the capital city of Fortaleza, state of Ceará, or the AMA-SP (Associação de Amigos do Autista, or Association of Friends to Autists) in the state of São Paulo. But these problems do occur in rich countries, too. In the United Kingdom, the father of an autist child who was dissatisfied with the minimal options and possibilities in his country, writer Nick Hornby joined a group of concerned people to create a special school (the TreeHouse) and even organized a book to raise funds.

About the difficulties in Brazil, I prepared an article in 2006. In December of that year, when I went to court to receive Henrique for the vacation period, Roberta handed me some sheets of paper stapled together. The first ones were a report on how Henrique was doing in the Australian school, and the last one was a copy of my article, as if she were saying, “See? Even you say Brazil is bad, so Henrique really has to stay away.” It looked like a slapstick comedy scene.

Difficulties are international, but Brazil is a bit exaggerated at times. In the 2005 crisis of the Lula administration, for instance, there were many politicians and columnists who would refer to the government as autistic. They meant that the president didn’t know what was going on around him, that he lived in a world of his own. Those people helped to further stigmatize others who have nothing to do with that and who deserve the right to live in peace, far from the marshes where a great many politicians move about. But George Bush — who, by the way, cut funds for research on autistm — and Australian prime-minister John Howard — who made discriminatory statements and issued like policies — are not in the least any better!
One thing is for sure, though, and that is autists’ inherent difficulties totally keep them from being spiteful. Lying, for one thing, is almost impossible for them, let alone tricking or consciously hurting someone. This is why they — perhaps even more than any other person — deserve to be treated with honesty, understanding, and are never to be used as ladders by people who wish to achieve purposes that have very little to do with them.

With regards to respect for autists, in broad terms, the best example is that of Temple Grandin, from the USA. She accomplished the feat of writing (with the help from another person) an autobiography, which is a contradiction in terms for an autist. Deeply fond of animals, she developed revolutionary equipment for animal farming, in order to prevent suffering on slaughter, and became one of the world’s leading professionals in that area. As the father of an autist says, we don’t have to ask whether our children could be Temple Grandin, but whether we ourselves could accomplish that. In her book — the autobiography, I mean, because she produced others — Temple relates that she understood virtually everything that was spoken around her, she just couldn’t communicate. This is why respecting autists while talking to or near them, while trying to hear them, and while acting allegedly on their behalf is a very serious matter.

For Henrique, autism has been, I suppose, a double edged sword. On the one hand, it is an obstacle, because he cannot express his pain and anguish, nor ask why he has to undergo so many and so profound changes. Could he talk, would his mother have been successful in taking him to Australia, separating him from his father? On the other, autism protects him from the world around. A virtually inexplicable world to him, which therefore leaves him in optimal conditions to isolate himself, to do whatever pleases him within that which is offered to him and not make any effort to understand what is said around him, because the language of those who are supposed to be caring for him does not make any sense after all.

Fortunately, for these people and for Henrique himself, he is very affectionate, not aggressive at all, and is most likely not going to transform his lack of understanding into aggression. But, in this last vacation period in Brazil, he showed to have reinforced some of the stereotypes, such as that of jumping in the same place, and to have receded in his capacity to focus on activities. When one goes through what he has, there are drawbacks when one comes out the other end. How long will he still be able to go through, and with what reactions, is yet an open question.

“These foolish things remind me of you”

Labradors running on Atlântica Avenue sidewalk, without Henrique running after them, make me miss him so much.

And also children nestled in their parents arms.

All the suffering children on the great gallery of abuse.

Children, children.

The paint smears on the couch bed bought for him, marks of his drawing games.

His toy cars (so many!), specially the “puleece” (police) ones.

The jigsaw puzzles, all of them too easy for his image-based thinking. I am only good with words, and I’d be proud and moved when he assembled 60 pieces with impressive speed.

Books, one in particular: “Son”, by Guto Lins, which he would look at without really knowing what it was about. He would often take this book from the shelter at the school library, his teacher told me.

A series of books about animals we invented a game for. I’d ask: “what's behind the tree (or the stone, or the boat)?”. And he’d answer, his way: “Chicken, rabbit, dog, cat, frog...”.

“Cai, cai, balão”, “Sambalelê”, “Marcha, soldado”, “Ciranda cirandinha”, “Eu fui no Itororó”, children's songs that he, when he was younger, liked to dance with me while we hug — later he grew tired of them, not of hugging.

“Ice age”, “The Incredibles”, “Chicken Run”, “Finding Nemo”,
“Oliver”, “Aristocats”, “101 Dalmatians”, “Have you been to Bahia?”, “Garfield”, “The Polar Express”, a lot of Mickey’s (“Meek”), every child movie and cartoon he loved to watch, picking one or two at a time and watching them hundreds of times without getting tired of them. I even miss the boring Winnie the Pooh.

Going to the movies. Always tense, but always alright, even if sometimes he went out of the theater or decided to run near the screen — but there was one day when he began to eat popcorn from the guy sat next to us and I had to go and get one for us; I came back really afraid, but there he was, like a king in his throne, watching “Ice Age 2”.

Laughters. Of many of them, only he knew the reason.

When he would ask for “cangote” (the back of the neck) — I taught him to say that and he loved it — and came to my shoulders.

He grappling me from behind, arms around my neck, when I sat by the bed to watch a cartoon with him.

His head on my chest as we, laying on the bed, watched the cartoon.

Sunny mornings to go to the beach.

Rainy nights to play at home.

His demands: “turn on”, “light”, “guaraná”, “egg”, “beans”,
“popcorn” (actually “pock-corn”), “pizza” and so many other I keep on hearing, even without him here.

The pizzas we shared every 15 days — Saturdays or Sundays evenings.

The coke he, for some time, would insist on having in the same restaurant, on the same table every night I went to pick him up to sleep with me.

The ice creams and chocolates, given occasionally, but relished with a touching delight.

Photos, of course. Photos.

And the emptiness is bigger the nights I don’t hear “daddy”. When he realized he was alone, that’s when he would say loudly and clearly the magic word (to me). In order to sleep again, he would want me to stay for some time by his side on his bed, or he would come to my bed and reach for my arm. Now, the helplesness is mine.

Fathers and sons

I was happy when I opened the hospital door. I wanted to tell my father that, despite what most people thought (including me), the judge had determined a medical examination in order to decide if Henrique should go to Australia or remain in Brazil. His mother simple wish to do so wasn't enough. A psychologist would examine the case and give a final statement, in which the sentence would be based upon.

I stood by his side, held his right hand — the one by which antibiotics and serum were administered, but he didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t lucid anymore, he wasn’t there anymore. I tried to tell him the good news, but my poor imagination can’t hold on to the idea that one should talk to unconscious people, people in coma, even with the dead, for they may hear something. Both my good news and happiness remained in my throat and I sat on the couch where I had spent part of the previous 2 months. The next day, he was moved to the ICU. Six days later, at 68, he died.

Actually, I wasn't surprised to see him like that on that January 25th, 2006. He was getting worse each day. It was the final step of a long decadence nurtured by an activist alcoholism, a chronic indifference to his own health and a profound lack of goals in life.

Worthless for him on that death temple, my joy as I arrived at the hospital had some gratitude and relief. When he had learned, nine months before, that Roberta wanted to take his only grandchild to live abroad, my father cried in a restaurant, in front of my sisters and a bottle of whiskey. He, who didn’t know how to show his feelings, specially in public, seemed to have noticed at that moment that his only link to the future had been broken and he asked: “So, I’ll never see Henrique again, right?”. He said that he would like to help. Thanks to some money he gave me, I could hire the lawyer I started this battle with.

Me too, I breathed relieved because the six previous days had been terrible. I learned about the special audience on the 25th — scheduled because of the so-called urgency of the trip — on the 19th. My lawyer found me on a child psychiatrist waiting room. I had an appointment there, because my mother had suggested me. She had liked a presentation she’d seen and thought we should tell him our story; we may hear something that would help us. When my mother got there and I told her the news, I saw in he eyes what I was thinking: “What the hell are we doing here if it's all over?”. During the conversation (horrible, worthless) we had with the doctor, she cried. It seemed it was really over.

It looked like two simultaneous endings. I was about to lose my son and my father. Helpless, I was hoping that, at least, it would happen in different days. When I earned the right to the medical examination, I thought — naively — that maybe my father would get better too. Or, at least, that knowing about Henrique being with us for more time would make him fell good. I opened the room door with this feeling. But it was too late — I already knew, but didn’t remember.

He had been in that hospital for several times during his life. Since 2003, his visits became more frequent. On December 1st, 2005, he was there for what he feared it would be his final visit. He had acute hepatic cirrhosis, diabetes and edema in various locations of his body. He hadn’t drink since August because he hadn’t the strength; his body rejected it.

Showing for the zillionth time his great resistance, he was sent home on the 23rd to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve. But things weren’t good. On January 7th, after a week trying to convince me his situation wasn’t serious, the woman who lived with him called me asking me to go see him. It was a horrible and new scene to me. Lying on the bed like a sick child, he didn’t have enough strength to almost anything, he barely spoke and still would want to go back to the hospital only the next Monday. He sure knew that, once there, he wouldn’t go home. I knew it too, but I couldn’t stay still.

My father was committed that day with hepatic encephalopathy (dementia caused by health deterioration). He was so bad my uncle cried at the hospital — something I’d never seen before. The weeks after that, whoever was with him in his bedroom had to help him with everything, even urinate. Those days I saw myself dealing with the animal world in us, called rational beings, and saying goodbye to my father in the middle of feces and blood.

I won’t forget that, on the 24th, he insisted on sitting on a chair to read the newspaper. He seemed to do that out of habit, because he really couldn't. The newspaper slipped from his hands several times and, when he tried to get a glass, he spilled the water on his pajamas. The he went back to his bed and only left it to go to the ICU.

I cried when he was moved and I cried a little on the 31st, during the funeral parlor, which didn't last long because of his wish and a heavy rain. That was pretty much it. I inherited my father’s taste for alcohol (with less ardor, though), his passion for the soccer team Flamengo, the dislike of cowardice and meanness and also his affective inability. I’m not good at crying.

During his cremation, I could notice some people looking at me and wondering: “isn’t this guy going to cry?”. I don’t blame myself for not giving them the tears they need to finish these rites in their heads. But I feel like I have neglected the mourning for my father because, while I was taking care and saying goodbye to him, I also had to deal with people trying to steal my son.

My father was not very good with children, and it was worse with Henrique, because of his autism. How could someone who kept their feelings on a vault deal with a child who barely spoke and needed affection in exchange for communication? I know that, in his way, he suffered, but he tried to compensate the distance with gifts, asking for him and placing his grandson’s pictures on the shelf.

I began to understand my parents better after Henrique was born and even more when it became clear he wouldn’t communicate easily. When I forced myself to listen to my son’s silence in order to understand him, I think I began to better understand my father’s silence.

I imagine that if they were both still around, we would have taken our strange trio to another level. After all, each one of us is (or was) part of the others, and there should be a magnet in our flesh to bring our silence together.

I thought about it a lot on August 13th, 2006. It was the first father’s day without my father. The first without my son. It was my maternal grandfather’s birthday, who loved the date because of its cabalistic aura.

I was named Luiz Fernando after my father, Fernando, and his father, Luiz. My grandfather died in 1952, when his first son was only 14. This screwed my father’s life forever, and he suffered for being an orphan everyday of his life. His ashes are in my grandfather’s tomb, a symbolic reunion. Now, my grandmother’s ashes are also there, she died on April 11th, 2007, at 95 years old. A strong woman, she began to fall apart after she lost her first-born.

My son was named Henrique after my maternal grandfather. He died when I was only 3, but his sweet patriarchal manners from Minas Gerais made an impression in the whole family. Some of my cousins have Henrique as their middle names. He was a poet, the founder of the famous modernist magazine “Verde” in his hometown Cataguases and left to some of his descendents, as his legacy, the love for words.

Henrique, my grandfather, died on September 16th, the same day my son was born 27 years later, in 2000. My uncle João Afonso, my grandfather’s oldest son and my godfather, noticed the coincidence. João Afonso died on July 5th, 2006.

Being so far from my son Henrique hurts not only for itself, but it also carries the pain of everything I wrote here.

So many losses.

Psycho

Excerpts from “The psycho - a chameleon in today’s society” (ed. Paulinas, 2005), by the Spanish writer Vicente Garrido, translated to portuguese by Juliana Teixeira.

“Individuals with psychopath traces are people who act only in their own benefit. They don’t care about the means they use in order to get what they want. Besides, they lack the feeling of guilt and they aren’t usually emotionally attached to anyone — when they are, it’s because they are interested in something.” (from the prologue written by psychologist Ivone Rodrigues Lisboa Patrão)

“Psychopaths tend to speak a lot, they are charming, witty and tell stories - improbable but convincing ones - which make them look good to other people. Nonetheless, the good observer notices they are too shallow and insincere, like they were mechanically reading a script.

They talk about attractive matters they are not prepared to talk about, like poetry, literature, sociology or philosophy. It doesn’t matter to them when it becomes evident their stories are totally fake — this doesn't happen too often, though, considering the imagination and easiness used to create their stories.” (p.37)

“The psychopath self-esteem is very high, they are very narcissistic, egocentric and they have a omnipresent feeling everything is allowed to them. They feel they are ‘the center of the universe’, and believe they are superior beings ruled by their own laws. It's understandable that, believing themselves to be like this, they look arrogant, dominant and extremely confident to other people. It’s clear they want to control other people and that they seem unable to understand that there are people whose opinions are different from theirs.

Immerse in this world of superiority, the psychopath almost never care about financial, legal or personal problems he might have, because he believes they are ‘transitory difficulties’, brought either by bad luck or other people.

Someone like this doesn’t have to commit to realistic, long-term goals and, when he sets an objective, he soon realizes he lacks the necessary attributes to get it; actually, he doesn’t even know he has to do something in order to get it. He truly believes his skills will make him able to get anything.” (p. 38)

“Lying, deceiving and conning are natural talents to the psychopath. When his charade is brought to light, he doesn’t feel embarrassed; he simply changes his story or rearrange the facts so they fit again.” (p. 41)

“The psychopath assertiveness when he tells a story comes with the belief that the world is divided in two groups: winners and losers. This way, it seems a nonsense to him not to take advantage of other people's weaknesses.” (p. 41)

“Psychopaths seem to totally lack the deep understanding of human emotions. Sometimes, with their cold, distant looks, they show dramatic episodes of affection, and they are nothing but small exhibitions of fake emotion.” (p. 42)

“Why, then, — we may ask — someone like this get married, why does they decide to have a family? There are different reasons, of course, but the general answer is that, when they decided to get married or have children, this choice was useful to help them get what they wanted at that moment and they do not feel any responsibility towards them.” (p. 47)

“Actually, psychopaths use metaphors because in their deceitful and manipulative behavior, beautiful and figurative words play an important role.” (p. 71)

“The conclusion (...) is a population that houses an increasing number of young people turn into adults without a clear value code, who incarnates the cynic, suspicious eye of a society in which material success may be the only tangible, safe good.” (p. 83)

“Human beings are more isolated and alone, even though they can communicate almost instantaneously with anywhere in the world. If they learn how to live without other people, they will learn not to care about other people, a fundamental trace in the psycho personality.” (p. 85)

“Actually, psychopaths are free from the hallucinations and delusions which are the most spectacular symptoms of schizophrenia. Their apparent normality, their ‘sanity mask’ make them difficult to be recognized and, logically, more dangerous.” (p. 99)

“It’s unquestionable psychopaths have the ability to be always around people who have no scruples, people who make it easy for them to achieve their ambitions.” (p.102)

“The characteristic of a psychopath is the total lack of remorse or shame when he builds a situation that would terrify other mortals.” (p.117)