The Marble Army. Gisele Firmino

      FOUR

      I longed to go outside like we used to back home. I missed going to the mine, watching our father work, and trying on hardhats with a bit of carbureto left in their little containers. Pablo and I would collect all the saliva we could manage and spit into these containers to light them up real bright. Then we would find the darkest and emptiest galleria around, and pretend our light beams were swords, and just bobble our heads around to put on a good fight. We mostly just laughed at each other. Our father wouldn’t let us stay there for too long, though. He said the stench had to be bad for our lungs, and he was right as it turned out. Pablo and I always tried to keep as quiet as possible in hopes that he would forget we were still in there.

      The longer we stayed inside the mine, the more blinding the sun could be once we made our way out of its tunnels. Pablo had our mother’s hazel eyes, which were more sensitive to the light than mine. It would take him a good five minutes to actually see straight. And I loved pointing at obstacles that didn’t really exist, just to trick him. Sometimes he would get back at me by pretending that he wasn’t seeing clearly and purposely bump into me, or ask me to guide him. He would hook his hand around my arm, and pull me downward, tripping on my foot, making us both lose our balance and fall, then just laugh in my face in the end.

      …

      We had only been in Porto Alegre for about six months. Winter had proven itself just as unforgiving as the ones back home, and one afternoon Pablo walked into my room, with the thickest jacket he had, and the last scarf and beanie our mother had knitted for him. I was sitting on the parquet floor with my homework spread across my bed, and Pablo went straight for my wardrobe, grabbing my navy coat.

      “Are you done with your homework yet? I want to take you somewhere,” he said. Pablo’s face was changing. At almost eighteen, he had no fat on his face at all; his cheeks were hollow concaves shadowed only by his protruding cheekbones, making him look a lot older than me, a lot older than he actually was. And when he smiled, you could see the places where he would have had lines around his eyes and where his cheeks would’ve been vertically marked by age. He had the kind of smile where people seem to be smiling at something but are actually thinking of something else. As if he knew something you couldn’t possibly know, as if he was in control of all the things there were for me to know, and I depended on his good will to share them with me. For most of his life, he did.

      I jumped up and dropped my pencil, which fell on my math book and rolled off the bed, bouncing off the floor for a second. “No, but I can finish it later!” I said.

      “Look at you, mister!” he teased, and handed me my coat. “What do you have on under those?”

      “PJ pants, one long sleeve, one thin sweater, and this,” I said pinching the pants and sweater that covered all these layers.

      He curled his lips in an upside-down smile, and then turned to the window. The light coming through the slats of the window blinds was turning burnt yellow, if not orange. The sun would soon set.

      “That should do,” he said. “Where is your scarf?”

      “It’s in my backpack.”

      He pulled my scarf from the backpack’s front pocket and left the room. I heard him telling Mãe that he was taking me out while I struggled to get my shoes on over the wool socks our mother had also made.

      “We’ll be back for supper,” he told her as I met them in the hallway. She had her hands wrapped up in a dishcloth.

      “It’s too cold today, honey. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow? It’s supposed to warm up.” She tilted her head to the side as she took note of what we were wearing.

      “Nah, we’re tough.” He smiled and looked at me. “Aren’t we, mano?”

      I nodded and he gave Mãe a loud kiss on her cheek.

      “You two take care,” she said. “I’ll have some noodle soup ready for when you get back.”