The penthouses of Rio. All over the world having a penthouse is a dream. It means not having anyone walking on your head, it means having a free gaze, being closer to the sky and to the stars.
In Botafogo living on the top floor is a nightmare. Or at least it has become. You have more sight, a great view, closer to the stars and you away from the noise of the road, no one walking on your head.
The problem is that you are closer to the rain. Or rather often, although you have a ceiling on your head, there is nothing that divides your head from the rain.
Rain is rain. Rain has not a soul. And yet the rain of Botafogo HAS a character. It must be recognized to that rain a tenacity and a strength without equal.
If the rain wants to enter the house, it will enter. There is no ceiling that can do something against, and it is not knocking on the window or taking advantage of an open window. No, it doesn’t need it. Botafogo’s rain comes from the ceiling. Directly from the wall.
It creeps into anything, through a crack, from a plasterboard, by a spotlight on the ceiling. It comes in and drip down, drop, jet, splash. As if there were no ceiling. I didn’t know it.
I found the top floor house altrady in my family. I would have chosen it, if I had to choose, but I found it. Yet every person I talk to, every friend of Botafogo now tells me.
No one here freely chooses a top-floor home. Everybody knows it, except me. The rain of Rio. If it wants to enter, when it sees is a ceiling, it makes a good laugh.
