Miracle of Bernadete

A young, upcountry schoolteacher arrived in Rio de Janeiro last week, and within a matter of hours became the heroine of Brazil's worldly, pleasure-loving capital. She was Bernadete Gomez, 25, and she had come to devote the last few months of her life to a national campaign against cancer, the disease that is slowly killing her.

The urgency and dedication of her appeal took the city by storm. Newspapers named her the "Fiancee of Death" and called her story the "Second Song of Bernadete." President Cafe Filho made a personal visit to promise the government's "moral and material support." And Marta Rocha, runner-up in the 1954 Miss Universe contest and honored symbol of Brazilian beauty, went to see the dark-haired girl, wept, and next day broadcast an appeal for funds to build the "Hospital of Bernadete" for care of cancer victims.

Home to Teach. Bernadete never dreamed of becoming a national figure when she returned from Natal's high school eight years ago to teach in her native village of Currais Novos (pop. 2,643) in Rio Grande do Norte state. She was 17 then, young enough to take part in her pupils' games, pretty enough to attract the crowd of village swains who gathered daily in the sunny square. Her 30 charges accepted her as one of themselves and fondly called her "professorinha"--little teacher.

One afternoon in 1953, as she was playing volley ball in the schoolyard, Bernadete fell, giving her right elbow a nasty crack on the pavement. X rays showed a simple fracture, but the pain grew worse until last year, when a surgeon operated twice to remove tumors. When she failed to recover after the second operation, she was moved to the sparsely equipped, twelve-bed cancer hospital in the coastal city of Recife, where Dr. Valdemir Lopez, the hospital's director, found that a form of cancer (osteosarcoma) had spread from her arm to her right lung. He told the little teacher the truth: probably no more than a few months to live. "Of course," he added gently, "a miracle is always possible."

On to Rio. Bernadete was not content to wait for her miracle. Together with Dr. Lopez, she vowed to "do something for others." Existing plans for a modern, 150-bed cancer hospital were dug from a pigeonhole and, after a persuasive visit from Bernadete, city authorities voted a grant of land for the building. Architects promised their work free, but when construction costs were estimated at $370,000, Bernadete decided that Recife's financial resources were too limited. She decided to go to Rio. "We must be quick," she said. "I have so little time."

In Rio, the hospital fund mounted quickly to $103,600 by week's end and gave every promise of growing, as Rio's Jockey Club promised to donate all profits from a Sunday's racing, and Marta Rocha announced plans for a star-studded charity show. Meanwhile, as Bernadete's plight drew national attention, Brazilian Specialist Albert Coutinho offered to perform a drastic, last-chance operation involving removal of the right lung. Bernadete decided against it. "My death," she said, "will be more useful than my life. People will not forget."

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