The Burning Hill

by A. D. Flint

  There were two scrawny men wearily going at a wall of thick brush with machetes, bent to the task in ragged clothes, thorns tearing at the bare skin of their arms. There were piles of cut brush in the clearing behind them. It looked to Jake like they had been at it for days. Two bonfires coughed up thick gobs of smoke, another pair of men lobbing pitchforks of the green rubbish onto them.

  Jake approached the nearest of the bonfire stokers. “Excuse me, sir, do you know if a Goretti Lima works on this farm?”

  The man broke away from his work, seemingly noticing him for the first time, out in this wilderness. There was no surprise in his eyes, no spark of interest. “No, there is no Goretti Lima,” he mumbled.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He was about to turn back to his work when something seemed to occur to him. “There is a Dona Goretti.”

  Jake sank to a squat in the airless heat. “Is she here? On the farm?”

  The man looked at him for a long time as if lost in some distant, unwelcome journey, before turning to the others. They had stopped work to stare at the stranger with the same detachment.

  Prompted by nothing in particular, it seemed to Jake, the man lifted his chin to shout, “O DonaGoretti.” He stared at Jake for a while longer and then shouted again, summoning. “O Dona, vem aqui.”

  “Oi?” A thin, quavering shout came from a woman somewhere out beyond the cutters.

  She appeared through a gap in the brush, her skin burned dark and lined. A bleached-out scarf tied round her head framed her gaunt features. She was tiny, looking barely capable of swinging the heavy cane knife she carried with its broad, hooked blade.

  Her slope-shouldered, shuffling gait was the unmistakable legacy she had passed to Vilson.

  Jake had found her. He had found Vilson’s mother. He rose, exhaustion forgotten. He almost laughed as her eyes flicked irritably between him and the labourers.

  “O que foi?” – What’s going on? – she asked, her voice matching her frame.

  “Goretti Lima?” Jake asked.

  She recoiled, as if stung.

  “I know your son, Vilson,” Jake said gently, unsure if it was his demeanour or appearance, or both, that was putting her on edge. “I came here from Rio to find you, to bring you back together.”

  Goretti’s face screwed up. “Vilson? Meu Deus.” The cane knife dropped from her hand. She shook her head, hugging herself. Just like Vilson.

  It wasn’t the reaction Jake was expecting.

  “And Gabriel? Where is Gabriel?” she asked.

  “Gabriel? I – I don’t understand.”

  “My elder son, Gabriel. Where is he?”

  “You don’t know?” Jake felt suddenly light-headed with confusion.

  She looked scared. “Know what? What’s happened to him?”

  “I’m so sorry, Senhora, Gabriel died years ago, when Vilson was young.”

  “No, no, not my poor Gabriel.” Her head dropped to one side, her eyes staring at the ground.

  “But that happened so many years ago. I was sure you knew.”

  Her jaw was working, but no words came.

  There was a murmur amongst the men and they started shifting from foot to foot uneasily.

  They heard it before Jake. The hollow beat of hooves on thin, dusty earth. A man on horseback came belting through the scrub on the other side of the bowl. Sweat was frothing on the neck of his small grey horse. The man gave it a good dig with his heels to make a show of bursting into the clearing, dominating the space and then wheeling past his men and around in front of Jake.

  He reined in harshly, making the horse yaw at the green-frothed bridle, nearly sitting it back on its haunches. The worn saddle sat on top of old sacks. The skinny mare’s ribs protruded beneath but her belly was distended, full of worms.

  This was not a rich landowner. Beneath his sweat-stained straw hat there were deep lines scored at the corners of his eyes and a greying beard around his hard-set mouth.

  “What are you doing trespassing here?” he demanded.

  Jake looked expectantly to Vilson’s mother. She would smooth this out.

  But she just stepped closer to the mounted man, looking down at her rough, dusty feet pushed into ancient flip-flops.

  “I came here to find Dona Goretti,” Jake said.

  She lifted her eyes to him, silently pleading, wringing her hands.

  Whatever she did or didn’t want him to say, Jake had to see it through. “I know Dona Goretti’s son, Vilson, from Rio.”

  “Her son?” the man laughed bitterly. He turned on Goretti contemptuously. “Is this true?”

  She hugged herself again, a faint keening coming from her. She was crying but no tears fell.

  The man shook his head. He seemed used to disgust and disappointment. “So now you have found her you can get the hell off my property.”

  “Dona Goretti, please, what is this?” said Jake. “I came a long way. Vilson has waited for so many years.”

  “You shouldn’t have come. You can never tell Vilson you found me.” She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “What is going on here?” Jake asked.

  She nodded. She had made a decision. “Tell Vilson that I am dead. That old life is gone now.”

  “You can’t do that,” Jake pleaded.

  The man slammed his heels into the mare’s ribs, jumping her at Jake, then hauled on the reins, the mare stamping her feet and flicking her head.

  Jake felt hot breath and flecks of spittle on his face. He kept his feet planted, looking the horseman dead in the eye.

  “Get the hell out of here,” the man shouted, standing in his stirrups and shifting in the saddle. “And never come back.”

  The labourers with their machetes and pitchforks stared on impassively. They were like zombies.

  “I’m not leaving unless she tells me to leave,” Jake said. It was all he had.

  She moved closer to the man on the horse, laying a hand on his dusty trouser leg.

  Shit. He should have realised. She was Dona Goretti, the lady of this place. She and the horseman were a couple, she wasn’t just another one of the zombie workers.

  “I want you to go,” Goretti said, her voice firm for the first time. “When I left Vilson behind in the city it was forever. Understand?”

  Jake backed up a couple of paces. The din of a million insects around him rose and fell, as if someone was covering and uncovering his ears. He was close to fainting. He fought it. Turned and stumbled away.

  He had made nothing better. He had only gained the power to destroy the dream that had held Vilson’s fragile life together since childhood.

  Chapter 20

  Vilson

  The lawyer hadn’t locked the door to Jake’s apartment on her last visit – Vilson guessed that she probably didn’t want any rich-person guilt over making him a prisoner. It hadn’t stopped her deadlocking the tall metal gate in the courtyard though. In spite of himself, he had taken the cop’s advice and put on some of the gringo’s clothes. They were baggy on him, but that worked okay. He only had to sit by the open lounge window for an hour before he heard a door open and shut across the courtyard. He grabbed the flimsy, rolled-up plastic bag that was carrying his own clothes and tucked it under his arm. Following the neighbour, he waited behind her as she unlocked the gate. She held it open and he walked past her, looking up and down the road, not paying attention to whatever she muttered under her breath. He was scared, half expecting to see a line of cop cars with lights flashing. Or maybe the black, glittering eyes of Anjo, and the barrel of his gun.

  But traffic and regular city people were all he had to deal with. He watched how the people walked along the street and tried to copy them. He played different roles as he went – the guy going to the supermarket for his mother, the guy going to meet his friends to catch a movie, the guy going to start a shift at his job. He was just like everyone else. His fear was turning to amazement. People on the street walked straight past, some almost brushing h
im. No one gave him a wide berth. It felt like a superpower.

  It was a three-hour walk to the bus station and he didn’t get there until late morning.

  “Only a couple of seats left on tonight’s bus,” the ticket-office man said. “You want one?”

  “I’ll come back,” Vilson replied.

  He had no money.

  He scoped the place out and, finding that there were fewer station officials hanging around in the area by the bus bays, he moved along the queues, begging.

  Two hours. Nothing. He noticed a bus driver holding his passenger checklist in the next bay watching him.

  He went back to the main entrance. He couldn’t beg here – still too many officials. He had an idea. Picking out a better-heeled young woman standing beneath a departures and arrivals screen, he sucked in some air to bolster himself and went up to her.

  “Excuse me, I’m in a bit of a mess,” he said. “I lost my wallet, all my money, everything, I think it was maybe stolen. I’m so embarrassed having to ask, but could you spare me a few Reais so I can get my bus home?”

  She looked him over, doubt in her face.

  “It’s the only way I can get home,” Vilson said. “Please.”

  “Sure, okay.” She searched in her bag, pulling a note from her purse. “I can only spare five Reais, is that okay?”

  Vilson was elated. Five Reais. She would never have handed over that sort of money if even for a second she had suspected he was a favela kid on the make. His transformation into a regular city person was complete. He felt a little rush of power, something entirely new to him. It felt good.

  There were a couple of misfires but after three more hits he was over half way to the bus fare.

  Someone gripped his shoulder. Instinctively jinking his body away, he caught sight of the cop uniform.

  Horrendous pain in his wrist stopped him in his tracks. The cop twisted more, he had an iron grip, and pushed his arm up behind his back. It was agony. He was helpless. And scared stiff.

  “Leave me alone, man,” Vilson shouted, wanting to cause as big a scene as possible, “I haven’t done anything.” Maybe the regular city people would come to the aid of one of their own.

  The cop leaned close into his ear. “Keep it down. It’s me, idiot. Marinho.”

  Vilson was on tiptoes trying to escape the twisting pain in his arm. “Then what the hell are you doing? Let me go.”

  “You shut up and keep walking wherever I point you.”

  The regular city people stared, but that’s all they did. A station official came over. “I saw this kid earlier, what did he do?”

  “Suspected robbery,” said Marinho.

  “Yup,” the official said, nodding, like he’d thought as much.

  Marinho pushed Vilson forward, out of the bus station and across the road to his cop car.

  “Where are we going?” Fear and suspicion were overwhelming Vilson.

  Marinho opened the back door and shoved him in. “Just get in and keep your head down.” He slammed the door and jumped in the front. “You’re going back to the gringo’s apartment.”

  “No, no way.” Vilson pulled on the door handle in vain. “Let me out, I need to catch a bus tonight.”

  “Quit tugging on that thing, you’re locked in.” Marinho started the engine and pulled away.

  “Just let me get on that bus and you’ll never see me again, I promise.”

  “Trust me, when the time is right, no one will be happier than me to watch you go.”

  “Why can’t you people leave me alone?”

  Marinho stamped on the brake as they drew up to a red light, Vilson flying off the back seat and crashing into the metal grill dividing the car. “I wish to God we had left you up on that hill,” Marinho said, turning on him. “I’m not doing this for you, you little asshole. I’m trying to keep myself alive, plus a few other people, while you’re doing your best to do the opposite, wandering around with a giant target pinned to your own back.”

  Vilson got himself back on the seat, rubbing his forehead. He stared sullenly at the regular people walking by. Lives that were never touched by this kind of shit.

  “I said keep your head down, or I’ll put you off that seat again,” Marinho said.

  Vilson slid down in the seat, his eyes level with the door sill.

  Marinho looked in the rear-view mirror as he pulled away from the lights. “Eliane’s been chasing around Ipanema half the day looking for you. She is freaking out. I guessed you might have headed here. You’re lucky I got to you before another cop did. I mean, Christ, what was going through your head?”

  “What do you care?” Vilson muttered.

  *

  Anjo

  The metal window shutters were pulled shut against the mid-afternoon heat, the floor-standing fan swirling cooled air around the dimmed room. Anjo had just had an air-con unit put in the wall for his friend.

  Franjinha lay on the couch, eyes closed, a near-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label on the tiled floor next to him. The boy had expensive tastes, Anjo mused. His arms, bandaged in the greased gauze, were out straight by his sides, palms turned upward.

  There was something spooky about the way he was laid out. Anjo shivered as he perched on a plastic chair and waited.

  Franjinha’s eyes eventually fluttered open. They began to focus and he winced with pain. It was a few moments before he noticed Anjo. He didn’t move his head or his arms.

  “Hey, man,” Anjo said gently. “How’s it going?”

  “Hey. Huh. You know, I wake up and just for a second I don’t feel anything, and then it comes, stinging like a bitch. So now I’m waking up and trying to tell myself that if I stay still the pain won’t come.”

  “And that works?”

  “Yeah,” Franjinha said, “for about a second.”

  “Shit, man,” Anjo laughed, “you’re in a bad way.”

  Franjinha spread the fingers of his upturned hands. It was his only movement other than a vague grimace on his unreadable face.

  “I got something to cheer you up,” Anjo said, waving a small plastic bag of white powder. “Another special delivery.”

  “Man, I can’t take any more of that stuff right now. I need to sleep properly, it’s driving me crazy. I’ve got those pills the doctor gave me but they do nothing.”

  “Ah, he’s an idiot. I know proper medicine. I’ll get you some heavy-duty downers, they’ll straighten you out.”

  “Thanks, brother. I’ll be back soon, good and strong again.”

  “Don’t sweat it, just get there in your own time,” said Anjo.

  Franjinha gave the faintest of nods and closed his eyes.

  Anjo let the silence drift for a while but his eyebrows were knitted. Something was scratching away at the back of his narcotic-fuddled brain. He needed to know. “You think we’re playing this thing out the right way?”

  Franjinha’s eyes stayed closed. “Sure we are, brother, just like we planned – we play along with Nogueira but we keep chipping bits off him, break him down nice and slow.”

  “But he’s in a corner now. We don’t want him starting a war before we’re ready.”

  “It’s all cool. You got it right in that shop. You didn’t let him push you around and you didn’t make him lose face.”

  Anjo thought for a moment. “Yeah, I did get it right, didn’t I?” He twisted the plastic bag around his finger. “You know, one of the kids told me a real head-fuck thing today.”

  “Oh yeah?” Franjinha’s eyes remained closed. “Who?”

  “Tôca. He says he thought he recognised that young cop that Nogueira brought with him to the shop. He thinks it was him who came to meet Vilson when he tried to escape.”

  Franjinha laughed and then winced. “Ah shit, that hurts. Come on, brother. Why would a cop want to do that?”

  “I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense.” Anjo frowned, his black eyes dull.

  “Nah,” said Franjinha. “My guess is that it was one of those
charity do-gooders who tried to help him, or the church people. They need a reminder of who runs this place.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Sure I’m right, brother.”

  Chapter 21

  Jake

  His legs gave way and he collapsed on the hot, dusty track back up to the road. He crawled to the shade of a mango tree. The grassy verge and the track were littered with the fat fruit, some of them crushed in the tyre tracks. Picking a good one, he tore the skin from it with his teeth.

  Energy trickled back into him from the sweet flesh. Enough to get him back to the road. It took more than an hour of walking along the shimmering length of cracked tarmac before a truck wobbled out of the haze and stopped for his outstretched thumb.

  He should go back to Rio. There was nothing more he could do in this place. There was nothing more he could do for Vilson. But the next afternoon he was in a bar down the hill from Cruzeiro’s central church square. Drunk.

  He had outstayed his welcome in Cruzeiro, that was for sure, but washing through his veins along with the alcohol was a good dose of belligerence. He would move on when he was good and ready.

  They could mutter to themselves and avoid his eyes all they wanted. He was used to that.

  It was market day, stalls lining the church square a few streets away, lots of people milling around up there. He could do without the lots of people. He sat at one of the plastic tables by the pavement, the only customer. The bar was next door to a butcher, both places opening onto the street, metal shutters closing them down at night. The butcher’s was popular with flies and, with its smells of overheating meat and blood, Jake’s beer wasn’t tasting so good.

  He rubbed his eyebrow, trying to distract from his itching scars. The system was a brick wall. He doubted that Eliane could ever bring Nogueira to justice, but at least she still had something to dig away at. Jake had looked for the back route to beating the system by fixing Vilson’s life, and now all he could take back to Rio was something that would break the kid. Could he let him just stumble on through his miserable life living a lie? Bitter experience had made Jake a truth fanatic. No cover-ups, no shirking. But now that he was the one holding the power, where keeping a clear conscience wasn’t the most important thing, the resolve to do the right thing wasn’t coming easily.