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.
TWO
WHEN HE ARRIVED in Porto Alegre that day, he didn’t hesitate on which streets to take, or which stop signs to ignore. The city was gradually becoming something familiar to him. He had been studying its paths with the similar intent he had devoted to the mine and its caves his whole life. My father created maps in his head. Maps of places, of people and the way they behaved. He was comforted by the illusion that he could tell how someone would react before that person even knew it. This would soon be the reason everybody around him became a disappointment.
He drove slowly past some of the taller buildings, watching them carefully as he waited for pedestrians to cross the street at a busy corner. People were everywhere, and they walked fanning themselves with their hands, a piece of paper, a notebook, anything. My father unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and loosened his tie just a little. He rolled down the car window and put his elbow out as he made his way to the back streets where he would reach a house he wanted to look at. Um formigueiro, was what he thought downtown Porto Alegre looked like. Given the vastness of the country, how could there be that many people in just one place?
When he was finally able to get through the crowds, he drove across Rua Duque de Caxias by the cathedral and went downhill until he turned right on Rua do Arvoredo, a small, quiet cobblestone street, strategically positioned between the city’s main church and its cemetery. One of the few homes with some land left downtown.
He had already seen this house’s interior with the broker the last time he’d been to the city. But he’d decided to go back and look at its exterior yet again; its windows, what you could see from the veranda, what the earth in the front yard felt like on the tip of your fingers, what kinds of birds stopped by, and what songs they sang. He parked his car across the street. On the sidewalk sat a pile of trash bags waiting for collection, and he wondered which days of the week he would hear the trash truck drive by, how long it took for the pack of dogs to bark at the workers. He slowly made his way across the cobblestones to the house’s front gate. The gate was closed but one could easily open the latch. He walked up the steps to the front porch, pushing his foot down with each step to test the wood’s condition. It seemed firm enough.
He thought about going around the house, checking its windows, finding out whatever flaws were exposed, but instead he took a seat on the top step and watched the road for a while. He wanted to learn about the type of people who would walk by, the noises his wife would hear, and the speed with which cars would drive through this street. He could hear the traffic coming from everywhere. Honks, cars coming to a full stop, buses and trucks picking up speed. It wasn’t loud, but it was a constant reminder that being there made you part of something much bigger than what we were used to.
He suddenly felt a light breeze kiss the back of his ear and swipe across his shoulders and he imagined it travelling all the way from Rio Guaíba to this house. To him. And that made him feel somewhat connected to this place. He was beginning to understand the way it existed with nature, the way it existed with this city, and the way it could exist once we were in it. He picked up an azedinha, and while munching on its stem, he looked back at the front window and pictured the living room he had seen not too long ago. He imagined my mother’s flower arrangements giving life to the place. He pictured himself sitting in that same living room, pulling up a chair to the window to listen to his radio while watching the life outside. He stared at that shut window for a while, then got up to make sure you could really lock it.
Finally, my father walked through the front yard, searching for anything that had survived the long months of neglect since the house had been vacant. There was nothing but weeds and one tangerine tree. He dug his fingers into the earth and scooped out a small amount which he brought up to his nose. It smelled of life. Of new life. He smiled and rubbed his hands together with that earth in between as it slowly fell back to the ground. It was as close to black as his hands would get from then on. This was his new coal. He suddenly saw his wife’s garden blooming there. He saw her sitting on the porch, knitting, while that same gentle breeze brushed her light brown hair. He saw Pablo and me playing soccer out on the street. My father had made his decision.
…
Pablo would disappear for whole days, meeting up with Rita or his friends after school. When he was around, he was so quiet that he might as well have not been there at all. Our mother didn’t mind his silence as long as he sat with us for supper.
One day, Mãe asked me to feed a chicken we kept separate from all the others to make a broth for Tia Mercedes, who had stopped coming to our house now that her baby was about to be born. Our mother had insisted Tia Mercedes should rest, and she listened. It was customary for neighbors to feed a new mother with the ‘cleanest’ bird in an effort to strengthen her body and her milk after going through labor.
It was late in the afternoon. The clouds could be so thick and low some days that one couldn’t even trace the sun behind them. It created a stillness in the air that almost felt as if we all lived inside an opaque bubble, where every sound and every smell lingered around us. I smelled tobacco and wondered if our father had taken up smoking again. He’d quit not long ago, after spending a whole month in bed with a cough that just wouldn’t let go of him.
I followed the smell quietly, knowing how loud things were on days like those. Pablo sat on the grass with his back against the rear wall of the tool shed. He watched the stillness in the mine. His eyes brooded across the meadow we used to play, over the mine and the horizon. I then saw a little spark and realized that a cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. He took a drag, then held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, the same way our father would do, while he contemplated the shapes he created with the smoke coming out of his mouth. I didn’t know that he smoked, but I wasn’t surprised. I thought about going up to him, about asking him what the hell he was doing, but since he didn’t notice me I figured it was best to just let him be.
Later that evening, I watched the rain run down the windowpane as I waited for our mother to call us at dinnertime. I wanted to cry, to seek some kind of release from all the fears I had, from this new life and this new family I sometimes felt stuck with. And just like that I became aware for the very first time of one’s loneliness. The entire concept of family suddenly seemed like nothing more than an illusion. In the end we were all alone. I craved my brother’s company. I needed him to explain things to me, all the things I could not know. And I resented his absence, his selfishness.
I put the downstairs mattress right by the window and lay down on it, staring at the water, gradually washing away the coal dust that couldn’t have been there for more than two days. I traced the fading gray streaks and listened to the sound of that tainted water hitting the earth. I imagined it gliding above the mud and slipping below our home, finding its own temporary home there, so that one dry windy day it could be swept up in between the wood planks of our floor for us to breathe it all over again. I folded my arms, resting my nape on top
