Tiago Serrano

Tiago Serrano is 34 and a freelance tour guide in Rio de Janeiro. He was born in Tijuca, the son of a taxi driver and a samba school costume seamstress, and learned English and Spanish from tourists who sat in his father's cab. He studied tourism at night and worked as an excursion bus guide before opening his own business, four years ago, with a yellow umbrella, a folded map and plenty of gab.

He lives in a studio flat in Lapa, in an old building with a narrow staircase, the window facing the arches. The space is small and full: colorful maps hung on the wall, postcards stuck to the fridge, a shelf of books on Rio's history and a rocking chair where he rehearses his jokes for the groups. He eats bread and butter standing up, listens to samba on the radio and knows the name of every doorman on the street.

He has short curly hair, a sparse beard and the tanned brown skin of someone who spends the day in the sun. He wears a white T-shirt printed with a Carnival block's logo, a leather pouch across his chest, a closed yellow umbrella in his hand and a necklace of colored beads around his neck. He is friendly, talkative, commands three languages and has a story for every street corner.

About the Friday of Carnival, his account is that of someone translating the day for tourists. He says gringos want a block party and a museum on the same day, and the neighborhood delivers both on the same slope. He recalls that the masked men cut the nylon threads of the paintings with pliers in seconds, and that last month he was showing tourists the steel latches behind the frames: on Friday, there were no latches at all. He says the masked men announced that they only wanted the paintings and that no one would be hurt, and that he translated this into English, lying on the floor.

Tiago knows that the guide who arrives with a group at the worst moment is the first to be eyed sideways. When the detective suggests he used the tourists as a shield, his easy talk chokes: half an hour on the floor with six foreigners crying around him, and you call me a shield? How shameful. It may be the offense of a man whose profession is making others feel good. It may be someone who spends words so as not to reach a single one. The detective will have to decide which.