Have you read Machiavelli?

Five or six years ago, during the annual "Best of the Year" awards ceremony by IstoÉ magazine, I was also given a rare opportunity. The table where I sat, located near the far left of the stage, was just a few – very few – meters from the chairs where two unique female figures in Brazilian politics were seated: then-Minister Dilma Rousseff and former Senator Heloísa Helena. Both dressed in black, very chic, they seemed quite happy to be there. But their postures were not the same.

Heloísa Helena was beside herself with joy in a fashionable outfit – borrowed from a friend who was a congresswoman, she said – which, incidentally, suited her very well. Transformed, for those accustomed to seeing her always covered in the same ragged jeans and weekend blouses, the then-senator could finally, from the height of her 8-inch patent leather heels, show off the well-formed figure God gave her. Hallelujah. If she had worn that dress during the presidential campaign, dear former senator, perhaps the result you obtained at the polls would have been different. But that's another story. During her acceptance speech, Heloísa Helena didn't miss the opportunity to give a moral lesson and concluded by saying that her first teaching to her children was to convince them that "stealing is forbidden." It's a pity that, in the prime of her life, she was too young to be the mother of several of her colleagues in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Dilma, for her part, preferred a low profile. Discreet and quiet, she sported a mysterious Mona Lisa smile amidst a sobriety broken only by her blood-red lipstick – after all, it was a day of celebration, and she was one of the best of the year. The years before the presidential campaign were still unfolding: the extra pounds hadn't been shed, her voluminous hair hadn't yet been trimmed, and the facelift that would have taken ten years off her face was still just a future possibility. Her acceptance speech perfectly matched the image and matronly posture she brought to the party. It was sober, somewhat good-natured, yet moving when the then-minister discussed the necessary awareness of social and political responsibility that every leader must have to do justice to the office. Exactly the posture and rule she seems to prefer now that she is the first female leader of the country.

But that night, comfortably seated in the audience at the party, attentively observing every move of the honorees, I confess I was very intrigued. Heloísa Helena, despite her chic dress, was the same as always, unafraid to be happy.

A mystery hung over Dilma. Who, after all, was that Bulgarian mamma-like woman sitting across from me, sometimes lost in thought, sometimes cordial and friendly to those who came to greet her?

Above all, where was that other Dilma, the one from the photos of the armed struggle era, that fearless young woman, capable of resisting torture, capable of confronting an entire police platoon, even capable, it was said, of carrying Ademar's safe in her purse, which she had allegedly stolen from Doctor Rui's house in the name of the proletarian hordes?

Mystery. But not really. Mythologies had already shown me a host of deities with two or more heads, each representing an aspect of our souls – or our psyche, for those who prefer the language of psychology. The Candomblé and Umbanda temples had already convinced me that the greater the Oxalá of a devotee, the greater their Exu. Buddhism had already taught me that the greater the light, the greater the shadow. As if that weren't enough, years of Jungian psychotherapy had already convinced me that each of us is inhabited not just by one, but by several internal characters who compete and fight fiercely to seize power and become the absolute master of the territory. And, since hypocrisy is not among my faults, thank God, it wouldn't be me, who harbors so many contenders within me, including some I detest, who would cast the first stone at that lady who was once a guerrilla fighter and who now exuded that curious mixed aura of loving mother and authoritarian abbess.

Today, years later, election won, sworn into office, I can swear that they are all still there, very much present in the internal structure of our president: the mamma and the abbess, but also, make no mistake, the guerrilla fighter and the general.

All of them – an auspicious fact in Brazilian politics – read books, and enjoy them. In the present situation, in which our president faces her first major political crisis, generated by the presence, to an unknown extent, of a Chief of Staff acting as a prime minister, I would like to ask, more specifically to the general: "Have you by any chance read Machiavelli?" I am certain that, if we were not in public, the answer would not be silence. Nor would it be a curse word in reprimand for the audacity.

Speaking of silence, and referring to Dilma's silence in the Palocci case, journalist Eliane Cantanhêde, in today's Folha de São Paulo newspaper, states that "silence implies consent," and advises the president to act and speak out. Wise advice. Although, dear Eliane, as for acting, who can be sure that Dilma hasn't already acted? As for speaking out, aren't the cries of the media and public opinion speaking for her at this moment?

Regardless of the outcome, whether he falls or not, Minister Palocci is now a bird with shorter wings. The reach of his flights will never be the same again.

Finally, since I mentioned a brilliant colleague, I'll quote another equally astute one, Jânio de Freitas, also in today's Folha. In his column, he says that Maria Lima and Isabel Braga, two reporters from "Globo," recounted that one of those present at a palace meeting on Thursday heard from Dilma Rousseff that she will "keep Palocci in office until the end."

That's what friends are for. As Jânio concludes, Dilma simply didn't clarify "to the end" what or whom.