Читать книгу Saudade - Traci Brimhall - Страница 11

The Unconfirmed Miracles at Puraquequara

First came reports of a leprous child who touched

the shrunken hand and was healed. A barren

woman pressed it to her womb and conceived.

Other claims followed — a manioc crop flourished

when a farmer danced the hand over his field,

a priest cast out a possessed boy’s demon when

he used a finger to make the sign of the cross

on the boy’s body. Whenever a believer paraded it

down church aisles, the square holes in Christ’s wrists

closed. The man who discovered the shrunken fist

in the mouth of a dead jaguar said his manhood

doubled in size. I knew where it had come from,

this message that my daughter’s body was still alive

and surely growing, but I said nothing. The town

had waited so long for a miracle, and it was finally

here, enriching the poor, emboldening the meek,

carving acrostic mysteries into the trees. So when

I caught it trying to escape the reliquary, I thought

I had no choice but to leash it to the altar. That’s when

the manioc crop molded and the woman delivered

a stillbirth with flippers for feet and eyes

like small black planets. Demons returned to the boy.

He shook so hard he struck his head on a rock and died.

When the hunter went mad and strangled his wife, the whole

town was relieved. We knew what to do. We paraded him

to the city square where he wept — Where’s my wife? —

as the priest prayed — Deliver us — and we all shouted —

Thief! — until his body stopped swaying and we cut

off his hands. Startled pigeons roosting on the church

roof took flight when they heard the clapping.