Читать книгу The Marble Army - Gisele Firmino - Страница 6

TWO

MÃE HAD ASKED me to fetch some parsley from our backyard, and I when got out I noticed Pablo standing next to the shed; his saw hung from his right hand as his left shielded his eyes from the setting sun. He stretched his neck as if to make sense of what could be going on at the mine. We lived about a half a mile from the mine, the closest house to it, close enough to hear the quietest of explosions, or see when the trucks pulled in or out for coal.

“Pablo!” I called, but he didn’t look at me. “Pablo! What?”

“Something going on at the mine. Saw a bunch of cars pulling up.” His eyes were fixed on the horizon.

“Probably visitors. Pai said there’s a new mine in Butiá. He’s probably teaching them a thing or two.” The air was crisp enough to cut through one’s nostrils.

“Yeah. I don’t know.” He leaned his saw against the shed’s door. “I’m gonna go peek,” he announced and immediately started running. “Tell Mãe that I’ll come back with Pai.”

“Wait! I want to go!” But he didn’t look back.

…

Pablo crawled between trees, bushes and some of the cars in an effort to inch himself closer to where all the men stood. No sound came out of the mine. No trucks pulled in or out. No workers rested by its entrance, no stray dogs feasted on leftovers. It was all silence.

Pablo’s knees dug the black wet mud, and he thought of our mother, and how upset she’d be once she saw how careless he had been with his clothing. His heart was almost jumping out of his chest from the sprint, and his stomach suddenly felt empty, as if a winter wind ran through him, taking away everything that was familiar, and replacing it with the new folds of life, the inevitable changes revealing themselves right in front of you, and inside of you. Pablo spotted a few pink wood sorrels close by, their petals shutting in on themselves as they prepared for a long frosty night. He plucked five or six of them and started to munch at their crunchy stems, hoping the tart juices would tame the storm within his stomach.

While savoring the azedinhas, Pablo monitored three men armed with rifles pacing across the mine’s main entrance, right by the elevator shaft. Two of them exchanged small talk, while the third, the taller one, paid close attention to José, the security guard on duty.

José had monitored the afternoon shift ever since people started mining that place. He was a quiet man who knew all there was to know about what happened in that mine. He spotted the army convoy as the first car turned the street corner, almost a kilometer away, and immediately called our father by cranking the telephone as fast as he could. José knew he was being watched, and stood still.

The guards’ hardhats didn’t look much different from those worn inside the mine, but everything else about them seemed foreign and dangerous. That was the first time that my brother had seen their boots and uniforms up close and thought it a lot more intimidating than he’d expected. Pablo reached for some rocks underneath him, saving them inside his pockets for a few seconds, but returned them to where they belonged as soon as he got another look at the men’s rifles. The temperature was dropping quite fast, and in his impulse and curiosity he’d forgotten his coat inside the shed. His lips hardened as they assumed a dark tint of red and purple. His fingers felt the chill as well, and he breathed into his cupped hand to ease the pain. A cloud of his breath hung in the air. It seemed everything hung in the air. Pablo glanced at his other hand as he pressed it against the damp coal-tainted mud as if lulling it into revealing its secrets, into sharing whatever was going on within its caves.

While my brother waited, our father stood inside, hand holding hand behind his back. His men lined up behind him, like little wary children, sharing stares between him, the army and each other, as they allowed our father to ponder the choices offered by the General. Some of the miners posed as if they were about to have their portrait taken, hoping their faces, their already nostalgic eyes would tell each of their stories for generations to come. Some held on to their tools as if they were mementos they should never part with, while others hooked their thumbs through their belt loops, on a desperate attempt to look tough. After a day’s work inside the mine, the men were covered in black dust, creating the illusion of a uniformed army, or that of slaves, depending on who was watching.

Pai looked at nothing but one wall of the galleria where they all stood. Through the carbide lamps hanging from some of the wood planks, he saw the tunnel his own hands had helped carve, and thought of his two boys. He saw the image of Pablo and me running through the passages with oversized hardhats. He saw us zipping past him inside a wagon as one of his workers, one of his friends, pushed us as fast as he possibly could. He heard the silly sound of my laughter when I tried to contain myself, and Pablo’s shushing, hoping we weren’t too much of a disruption.

Our father turned his right foot from side to side as if to smooth the surface underneath him, but really just trying to remind himself of how the earth below the earth felt soothing and familiar against his work shoes. That gravel, the stench of sulfur almost like vinegar, the blackness on his men’s faces, the wood planks, the maze… All these things he thought he knew better than the back of his own wife’s hands. He was a little older than Pablo when he became a miner and never thought he’d have a different life. And as he contemplated his years inside the mine, he wondered whether he could work for the government, and more importantly, if he could heed a man he despised.

He took his hat off and looked at each of his men’s faces. With their eyes wide open, they followed his every movement hoping that he would take the offer and continue to be the person they looked up to, continue to be the man they came for when their son had caught the flu and they needed an advance for the antibiotics, or when their in-law had passed and they needed a day off for the wake. The General who had made the offer grew impatient as our father took his time. His thick and bushy eyebrows arched inward in a frown as he caught a glimpse of his own subordinates’ unrest, exchanging quizzical looks with one another.

What the General didn’t mention in his offer was that he also expected our father to be the man who’d report back to him, who would tell on his own friends when anybody went astray, when anybody dared to criticize the changes pushed upon them. He would be the one to fire workers for causes with which he wouldn’t necessarily agree. He would be the person who would have to turn somebody in when he was probably the one who despised the whole thing more than anybody else. No. The General didn’t mention any of that. But our father knew, and his men had a feeling.

“General.” His last name was Machado, as I would later find out. “I would like to respectfully decline your offer, Sir.” One could clearly see the lament on his men’s faces, the whites of their eyes one by one disappearing behind their eyelids as each man turned inward. They too had a decision to make.

Our father took one last look at each of his workers and watched the weight of what he had said sink in. Some of them took their hardhats off like their boss had done and held it by their stomach, as one would do when entering a church on a Sunday morning. Showing the same respect and sadness for the inevitable distance one was bound to have with anything holy like god himself or, in that case, the mine, its miners and their guardian Santa Barbara.

The General clicked his tongue annoyed at our father’s audacity, “Guess you better go home and tell your family they need to provide for themselves from now on.” He wore a smirk on his face, which our father didn’t see because he was studying the mine.

As he continued to take it all in, he said quietly, but loud enough for those closer to him, including the General himself, to hear “With all due respect, Sir, my family is my own problem.”

“If there’s anybody else here who wants to be dumb like Mr. Fonte, please do so now. I have no patience for those who won’t commit to the Union.”

Out of the fifty workers on that shift, in that section of the mine, about fifteen stepped forward and left with our father without saying a word to the General. Each of them stopped by Santa Barbara’s statue on their way out to ask for her blessing one last time.

Outside, Pablo suddenly saw the three soldiers shuffle by the entrance as they noticed the crowd coming towards them. José didn’t move. The sun had already set, but its light still infused the open meadow. Our father nodded to one of the soldiers as he walked past them.

“You’re going to die of hunger, old man.”

“And you of guilt, kid,” our father said, bringing a smile to Pablo’s face.

Pablo would repeat this dialogue to me over and over, his eyes never failing to sparkle with pride. He watched our father leave the mine without really knowing what was going on. Although he couldn’t ignore the way his shoulders hunched forward as Pai watched the gravel disappear underneath his feet.

Pablo was aware this was one of the moments when life did the living despite one’s will. He stayed where he was, pushing his knuckles against the chilly mud as if punishing it for allowing itself to be taken away from all of us. He thought of the dark coal below, of the murky mud, of nature’s darkest wonders, and how much he wanted to be tough and wondrous just like it. But Pablo was all cotton – volatile, weightless, and easily tainted.

…

The mine remained open for only a few weeks before they shut it all down due to the lack of workforce. When it happened, people hoped things would go back to normal once again, that they couldn’t sustain it, and that our father would soon be called to resume his position. But two months went by and nobody heard a thing. The mine became a mix of a ghost town and an amusement park. Despite the scary stories going around, kids would eventually find their way back into its caves, zipping along the galleries while playing hide-and-seek, sharing ghost stories, or playing jogo do copo, hoping the spirits would reveal what lied ahead for each of them, or who would win the Brasileirão that year.

One day Clara, Xico and I were bored and decided to see if there was anybody playing in the mine. But when we got to the very first galleria we saw a couple kissing.

“Shush!” whispered Xico.

Clara looked at me with a big smile as we walked towards them. I looked back at the couple. The guy was leaning against the wall, his legs spread apart enough for the girl to fit right in between them. She had both her hands on his head caressing his hair gently, while his hands rested on her lower back.

“Uuhh!” yelled Xico.

Rita quickly stepped back, and Pablo wiped his lips. Rita was red with embarrassment, while Pablo seemed to glow with pride.

“What are you kids doing here?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here, Luca. It’s not safe.”

Pablo suddenly looked so much older. As if the age gap between us had widened by at least five years, as if that kiss showed me we had nothing more in common, that we wouldn’t ever play hide-and-seek in the mine again, or soccer, or just talk in the dark at night.

“You know what’s not safe? What you two were about to do before we got here!” Xico said, maliciously.

“Shut up, piá! What do you know!?”

“C’mon, guys, let’s go. Leave them alone,” I said as I started to walk back.

Pablo smiled, like you would once your dog first learned a trick you’ve been trying to teach for a long time. Clara seemed stunned, petrified. She watched as Rita tried to hide her face behind her long hair. I grabbed her arm and walked her out.

“You two behave yourselves, huh! Or I’ll have to tell your parents what you’re up to!” Xico again.

“Get out, Xico. We’ll talk later.” Threatened Pablo.

“Maybe we should go, too,” said Rita.

…

Pablo and I had heard on the radio that there was supposed to be a meteor shower visible in the south of Brasil. Neither of us knew what to expect, but Pablo somehow convinced our mother to let us invite our friends for a sleepover to watch it all together. It was a school night and it meant skipping the next day, as the shower wasn’t supposed to hit until 3am. But saying ‘no’ to Pablo was never an easy quest, so he and I invited Rita, Clara, Xico, and Xico’s older brother Marcos, and we all camped downstairs.

Pablo and Rita set the fire and spent most of the time talking to each other, laughing and watching the flames dance for them. Pablo played with Rita’s toes while she talked; their cheeks red with heat. Clara, Xico, Marcos and I took turns playing Damas and Cinco Marias. Marcos’s age was sort of in between Pablo’s and mine, and it seemed to leave him conflicted as to where he stood in our little social circle. Every now and then Rita and Pablo would go out to the yard, and Marcos would just watch them like a house cat does when its owners take the dog for a walk, trying to understand why he was never included in their daily outings while also maintaining the hope that he was better off in the warm cozy house, with its toys and soft pillows.

“You should go,” said Xico to his brother.

“What do you know?!” said Marcos.

“Sim, go ahead and bark at me. I know you’re lame as hell is what I know.”

“Shut up, piá.” Marcos got up and headed for the door.

Xico shook his head from side to side.

“Just let him be, Xico,” said Clara after Marcos had shut the door behind him.

“What a loser,” he whispered.

“Like you’re any different,” she said, carefully piling up the little cloth bags. Xico went toward the fireplace.

We ate sandwiches we made ourselves downstairs. Mãe had bought a liter of Cola at the store, and made chimarrão to help us stay awake. While we ate, we gathered as close to the fire as we could. Pablo and Rita had told us they had a plan, and we were waiting to hear it. Pablo had found a piece of tarp large enough for us to lay in, and at 2:50 sharp, we’d go out to our backyard, taking all the blankets, pillows, jackets, scarves, gloves and whatever else we could to keep us warm while we waited.

“How about we make another fire?” asked Xico.

“How about you make another fire?! Right now! And keep feeding it until it’s time for us to go out!” Marcos glared at his brother.

“I don’t think a fire is a good idea,” said Pablo, looking at Xico. “The darkest our surroundings, the better the view is what I heard. Apparently big cities can’t see it that well.”

We got through everything we had in front of us down to the very last slice of salami and bread crust, while we wondered what these meteors would look like.

“Just like shooting stars, I think,” said Clara. “Isn’t that what they are anyway?”

“I don’t know. Is it? I thought it was different,” I said.

“Does that mean we get to make a wish for every one we see?” Rita asked Pablo.

“Claro!” he said, with a smile. “Doesn’t mean they’ll come true, though.” Rita laughed and slapped his shoulder.

Rita and Clara shared the large mattress, and us boys laid blankets folded in half as close to the fire as we could. Pablo laid his by Rita’s side, and the two of them whispered stories to each other, while we played Clara’s favorite game, where somebody would give us one word, and the first to sing any song with it would win.

When Pablo’s alarm went off, we were all in such deep sleep that for a few seconds it felt as though we were in a sort fire-colored-collective-nightmare. Rita mumbled something and turned her back to the fire. Xico and his brother looked even more alike than usual; their mouths wide open, belly up, knees bent and arms behind their heads. Pablo looked at me as if daring to go out when everybody else wouldn’t, but I already had my gloves and cap on, and the two blankets in hand.

Both Pablo and I got sick after that night. The meteor shower would have been underwhelming to most experienced watchers, more like two or three shooting stars. But for us, it felt magical. Shooting stars on a time clock! Pablo, who had teased Rita earlier, was encouraging me to wish that we could stay in Minas forever. He’d shut his eyes for a moment then look at me to make sure I had done the same.

…

With three more months until the end of the school year, Pablo saw it as his duty to convince our parents to stay in Minas do Leão, but at dinnertime, all our father talked about was soccer matches, movie theaters, about the things he had heard college kids did for fun. The parties they would go to, the concerts they had on campus, the opportunities he would get. Nothing seemed to affect Pablo. He wanted to stay, he wanted our father’s job. Once in an act of desperation Pai told Pablo something along the lines of, “Not to mention the girls, son. They just take better care of themselves in the city.”

To which our mother responded, “Thank you, Antonio. That is very worldly of you. You should fit right in in this big city. A gentleman really.” She walked out to tend to the garden.

Mãe didn’t look at our father for a few days after that. She would feed him and clean after him. She would offer to trim his hair or pluck lint out of his clothes. She would do everything she always did, except look at him. For those days, Pai’s hunched back was even more hunched over in the hopes of meeting her gaze. But Mãe seemed determined. Pablo confided in me one night how much he was enjoying their argument. Hoping that our mother’s resentment could steer all of our lives in the right direction.

“When do you leave?”

Clara stood on top of a high branch, holding on to another above her head. That was her favorite avocado tree, and she knew it like her own home. I had sat on a little nook and was watching two gaivotas glide eastward.

“Once school is over,” I said.

“Do you know where you’ll live?”

I shrugged. “Pai has been looking. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

She had hooked her legs around the branch and was hanging upside down.

“Do you want to go?” Her blond hair hung and swayed with the breeze.

I shrugged again.

“I think I’m going for the guava,” I said.

“Tá bom. I’ll be right there.”

Clara’s family was preparing to move, too. But they were going to Caxias do Sul, where the rest of her family was. She said she already had a few friends there. Most people were moving, as there wasn’t much of a choice. A small section of the mine had reopened. And those workers who had chosen to stay had their jobs back. But the people who stayed in town, those who still spent their days inside the mine, avoided being seen with someone like our father, and at times it seemed as though they avoided being seen with any one of us.

Our mother and I saw Pablo and my father become different people, more distant and quiet. I didn’t mind my father’s distance that much. It was Pablo’s that bothered the most. For those last three months I tried my best to compensate for their absence. Mãe continued to make quentão for the remaining cold days, hoping that old friends would stop by after a long day of work to catch up with my father. That was her way of fighting the changes around her. She’d insist on using the same bigger pot, as if any day, ten, fifteen men would show up, and that she wouldn’t risk embarrassing herself and her husband by not having enough to quench everyone’s thirst. No one ever came, and eventually she stopped.

Neighbors made themselves clear through small gestures that it wasn’t that they didn’t agree with my father’s attitude but were afraid of what could happen. Assembly of any kind raised suspicions in a town like ours, and people lived within the confines of their own lives. Every once in a while, a neighbor would knock on our door with a little bit of food, saying things like “Oh, dear, I can’t help but cook too much. We’re used to having people over.” Then the conversation would move on and both parties would lament the changes that had come and speak nostalgically about the old days. At first I thought they saw we weren’t doing well without my father’s pay and used this as an excuse for their charity. But as we all became more isolated, I realized they were being honest and actually looked forward to this food exchange.

Tia Mercedes was the only constant visitor. She was about our mother’s age and had finally gotten pregnant after six years of trying. The whole town got involved in her and her husband’s problem. Everyone prayed for them and services were held so that they would be blessed with a child. Some prayed to Jesus while others called on their orixás to remove whatever macumba was done against poor Tia Mercedes. Most people did both.

Before the coup, I remember that sometimes, in the dark of the night, a group would gather by the creek right behind Tia Mercedes’s house to “work” on her. I was intrigued by the ritual. She would stand barefooted by the creek, while people dressed in white and yellow, Oxum’s colors, kneeling before her, singing, calling and waiting for Mamãe Oxum to manifest herself in one of them. We would know whoever was the chosen one because they would dance around her, speaking in tongues, as soon as Mother Oxum took possession of their body. Mamãe Oxum would hold onto Tia Mercedes’s head at first and work her way down, spending more time on her belly. Then she’d continue on to the very tip of her toes, as if sending out to the water all the bad spirits, the venom within her that killed every baby before they could even have a fighting chance, demanding that the current take them, as far as they would go. Meanwhile all the others clapped and sang praises to Mamãe Oxum. But sometimes people said it wasn’t Oxum who had come but some other caboclo. They would know it immediately because of its raspy voice and his immediate request for a cachaça and a cigar. They would always have them handy in case the caboclo showed up, as to not upset him.

I never quite understood Umbanda and its orixás. But whatever they did, it had worked in time. A meeting in the dark like this would not sit well after the coup. But now Tia Mercedes was very much pregnant, and this couple’s only trouble was that her husband had left the mine with our father and was also out of a job.

Their similar situation had brought Tia Mercedes and our mother very close. There wasn’t one afternoon that she didn’t stop by to chat. She’d stand by the kitchen door, caressing her enormous belly, while watching our mother work. It was surprising to me that they got along. Our mother was in a constant state of denial, it seemed. Telling people left and right that everything was fine, that her husband had all sorts of opportunities now that he was no longer buried in that mine, that Pablo was happy to be going to college next year, and that age meant nothing to me, whatever that meant.

While my mother created her alternate perfect universe, Tia couldn’t bring herself to look away from her reality. She did everything she could to convince her husband they should move. But he was hardheaded. A man of the pampas, he’d say. Not meant for the big city. In all her fears and no matter how frustrated she was that her husband refused to see the trouble they were in, somehow she kept coming back. Somehow listening to our mother’s optimistic, if not delirious, stories seemed to soothe her and her unborn baby. Mãe must have been her afternoon escape.

…

As we reached the final days of October, our mother began to gradually repopulate our first floor. She opened it all up and decorated it with more flowers than usual, hoping the spring air would blossom life back into that house. Tia Mercedes would often bring flowers she had picked up along the way, and would watch as Mãe turned them into what she considered perfect arrangements. She would spend entire afternoons as our mother worked in the kitchen, baking bread, roasting beef, cooking rice, squeezing fresh fruit into juice, and chopping every single kind of fruit she could get her hands on into a fruit salad. She’d place a huge bowl on the center of the table, arranging it so every single fruit would be fairly featured. She’d stand over the table, tilting her head to the side just a little while pondering whether the arrangement was good enough.

“It’s gorgeous, Rose!” Tia Mercedes would always say.

Every single day became an event as my mother worked tirelessly to set up family meals downstairs. Her low heels echoed against the steps as she transferred everything downstairs then brought it back up again.

“I’m driving to the city tomorrow, Rose,” our father announced one evening while our mother served us fruit salad in a silver chalice.

That was another change. We stopped using our daily dishes and silverware since what had happened at the mine. My mother wasn’t willing to wait for special occasions.

“Uhum.” She picked a few grapes from the bowl, placing them carefully in the chalice, by the honeydew. Our father would go to Porto Alegre every week in search of a home for us, of a job, and of space. Every once in a while he’d invite her.

“There are two houses I was hoping you’d see. I think you’ll like them, Rosey. They both have decent sized backyards; we could plant a few vegetables.” He watched her.

“Oh, honey, there’s just too much to do around the house. I promise you I’ll be fine with whatever you choose. I trust you.” She brought her chalice closer to her and was aimlessly moving pieces around with her fork. “Besides, I don’t think I want to see it beforehand. I might as well just see it when it’s time.” She tried a smile.

Pablo shuffled in his seat as he finished his meal. His hair was growing longer, and our mother had stopped bothering him to let her cut it.

“Do you want to come with me, Pablo?”

“Nah,” he replied. “I have a paper due on Friday.”

“How about you, Luca?”

He seemed exhausted from the amount of effort it took to act normal and talk through a meal.

“Sorry, Pai, I have a lot of homework.” He nodded as if he already knew what my answer would be. “Maybe next time?”

“Sure.” He finished his juice. “Now, will you excuse me?”

We all nodded, and my mother watched him go. It was a clear night outside, and through the windows we could hear the frogs and crickets singing their laments as the breeze announced the coming rain. I thought about how it had been a while since we all had a conversation. I looked at my father and wondered whether conversations would gradually feel more and more artificial. I wondered if our lives had become a desperate attempt to hold on to the memories of people who no longer existed. And if we could ever be content with whom we had become.

My father washed his hands and mouth in the kitchen sink; age seemed to catch up to him a lot faster since he stopped working. Pai seemed hopeless, as his mind fueled his body’s decay. Our mother, on the other hand, behaved as if she was all hope.

For the most part, I thought Pablo and my father didn’t notice how much our mother needed them to just be present for one moment, to actually look at her. One decent conversation was all it took to lighten up her day. One small meaningless exchange of words, and she’d put on a hopeful smile across her face and a twinkle in her hazel eyes. I would rarely go outside so that I could help her with her chores, and show her that I hadn’t changed, that she didn’t need to worry about me. It became my job to stay the same, and at times I felt it a burden. It took me years to realize how I was doing all that for myself and not my mother; how I was the one desperately counting on her to stay exactly the same.