No Man's Bridge

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Alone in nondescript plaza in Cuidad del Este, delivered across, rather than to, the border by a local bus which had no time for formalities, Miles was an illegal immigrant in Paraguay having been deported from Brazil. It was essential that he obtained a Brazilian exit visa. He would return to Brazil (illegally) and attempt to leave again. A bronchitis attack induced by a thirty degree drop in temperature between the Copacabana and this nondescript swamp left him coughing, shivering and slightly delirious as he trudged back from whence the bus had come. Presently he came to a long bridge over the Rio Paraná. The river was invisible below beneath billowing mist boiling into the freezing early morning air. There was little motorized transport across the bridge. On one side of the road ‘smugglers’ unhurriedly pushed great barrows heaped with domestic electronics and booze towards Brazil, while much lighter barrows returned on the other carriageway. Miles saw no border control, no uniforms no barriers.

In the middle of the bridge he paused. Supposing he failed to re-enter Brazil? Supposing, as a deportee, he was apprehended by customs on his return to Paraguay and refused entry? Conceivably, he could be trapped on the bridge forever.

Back in Brazil a jovial customs officer stopped reading his newspaper for a few minutes to laugh a Miles. Deportation was clearly a hilarious business. Miles enquired after his chances re-admittance: the officer was noncommittal. This was the exit. Entry decisions were made in another shed. Go to Paraguay, come back later.

Back in Paraguay, Miles an officer took Miles’ passport and flicked through it menacingly. “Exit and Entry? Going back to Brazil?” Miles nodded and the officer quickly stamped his passport twice, one in and one out. “Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars? Are you sure? There is no charge for a Paraguay visa!”

“Normally, no. But both visas together is fifty dollars.” Miles gaped as his passport was locked in a drawer and in super slo-mo found a fifty dollar bill in his pocket and handed it over. Miles purchased two litres of Jim Beam and returned to Brazil.

In the customs shed, two officers were dancing to a Carnaval song while another with his feet on the counter bounced a small ball off the wall and caught it again. “I hope you’re not from Holland,” shouted the ball bouncer. “Yeah,” shouted one of the dancers. “No Hollandish guys coming to Brazil today!” Brazil would play Holland in the quarter finals of the World Cup the next day.

“Scottish,” said Miles proffering his passport. A sambaing officer plucked the document from between Miles’s finger and danced over to a small table where he opened it at random and stamped it without examining it in any way.

“Welcome to Brazil. Have a nice day.”

Twenty minutes later, Miles attempted to buy a bus ticket to Salvador, fifty six hours away and found all four of the pockets in his two pairs of shorts empty. He was penniless.

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