by A. D. Flint
In the daylight it only took fifteen minutes of poking around before Jake saw the key lodged in a muddy rut gouged by a cow’s hoof, deep in the long grass.
When he handed it to Eliane he noticed her hand was shaking. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
“I came here thinking I knew what I was doing and a man ended up dead.”
“He was going to kill us.”
“He was scared of you – he said so.”
“That’s not the only reason, and you know it.” Jake could feel the anger uncoiling in his gut.
“I know, I know,” she said, lowering her eyes, “but you’re getting angry now and it makes me scared of you. All this, it’s too dangerous, too crazy. I’m not used to this kind of stuff. It’s all out of control.”
She walked away from him back to the farmhouse. The anger went still inside him and he followed her in silence.
They found Vilson slumped at the kitchen table, asleep, head resting on his arms. “Vilson,” Eliane said, shaking him gently.
He awoke with a start, but he was groggy, eyes puffed and bloodshot.
Goretti appeared from the hallway. Holding herself.
No one was saying anything, so Jake prompted Eliane. “You need to get back to Rio, right?”
She nodded. “I might not have a job to go back to,” Eliane said. “But if I don’t go now, I definitely won’t.”
“Okay, but we need to get the body to a hospital.”
“Why?” Vilson asked flatly.
“Because things will be difficult enough as it is for those guys out there when the ILO come.” He turned to Eliane. “We’ll have to move the body to your car.”
“You don’t need to,” said Vilson, producing a key with a mangled leather fob from his pocket.
“You had his key all the time?” Jake asked, incredulous.
Vilson shook his head. “I found it this morning.”
Jake didn’t believe him but he was too tired to enter into another pointless row. “I’ll call the ILO as soon as I get a signal and direct them here,” he said to Eliane.
“They have my details and I’ll leave you a card,” she said to Goretti. “I can come back once things have settled down in Rio, if I can help in any way.”
Goretti looked at her blankly.
Jake couldn’t see much beyond what needed to happen in the next hour. It was a sketchy plan to pick a way through the catastrophic wreckage of a naive one that it was now clear was doomed from the outset. Jake hadn’t yet decided whether he was going to come back to the farm and stick around when the ILO descended. Even with Torquato’s body transported to the hospital, it was likely that the cops would find their way to the farm at some point. If that happened, he and Vilson needed to get themselves very far from this place.
“Will you bring my son from the hospital?” Goretti asked Jake.
“Sure,” he replied wearily.
“I will go with him,” Vilson said to his mother.
“You are a good boy,” Goretti said to him.
The words seemed to sting Vilson.
Chapter 37
Jake
Jake found his way back to the outskirts of the big rodeo town. It didn’t feel like a brilliant option to take Torquato’s body to the same hospital that his kid was in, but he couldn’t risk going to Cruzeiro. He’d never seen any sign of a hospital there anyway.
“Porra,” Vilson suddenly swore, and slammed a fist into the door panel. “This is not right, none of it.”
The harder edge that Jake had seen in Vilson after Nogueira had dumped them in the forest outside Rio was hardening further.
Just before they got to the hospital, Jake pulled over. “You need to get in the back with him. We need to make it look convincing, like we were rushing him here, trying to save him.”
Vilson looked at him for a long moment. Jake couldn’t read anything from him other than deep animosity. “You’ll see this thing through with the kid for my mother, yes?” Vilson said finally.
“Of course, but I need your help to do it.”
Vilson nodded and climbed in the back. Jake took the blanket from the body, and then drove the pickup into the hospital car park. He rushed in and grabbed a passing orderly, telling him that his friend had been bitten. It wasn’t hard to make a show of it, to give a sense of urgency. There was still plenty of emotion boiling around.
A nurse came out with the orderly, checking the corpse and confirming the obvious before they got it on the gurney, Jake and Vilson following them inside. The nurse started going through her list of questions and Jake gave his filtered answers. She pushed a collection of forms held on a clipboard with a biro at him, saying, “I’ll be back shortly. If you can start filling these in, please. Where did your friend go?”
Vilson had been on Jake’s shoulder as they walked in. He hadn’t noticed him slip away in the melee of people drifting about and waiting for attention. He was nowhere to be seen. There was no time to hang around for him or go looking for him. As soon as the nurse had gone, Jake went to reception and asked for directions to Toninho’s ward. He kept the clipboard with him and walked with purpose. Whether it was the hint of officialdom that the clipboard gave, or his own scars that suggested he was a patient, or some kind of confused mash-up of both, or just a total lack of interest, no one questioned him. He walked straight into the small ward and found Toninho sitting up in bed at the end, his injured arm in a sling.
“My name is Jake. Your mother asked me to take you back to the farm.”
Toninho didn’t look surprised or fazed. He just studied Jake for a few moments, sizing him up. “You’re the gringo, right? I heard my parents arguing about you.”
“Yes.”
“Is the half-brother with you?”
Jake shook his head. “He was earlier, but I don’t know where he’s got to.”
“Why would I come with you?”
“I’ll explain as we go. You can shout the place down if you think I’m doing anything other than trying to get you back to the farm – there are plenty of people about.”
“What happened to your face?”
“I was robbed and the bad guy shot me.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah, but less and less.”
“Mine hurts,” Toninho said, as he pushed back the bedsheet with his good hand and got out of bed. “Where’s my dad?”
Chapter 38
Vilson
Painted in fading blue and white, the place was a small cinema that had once been a church. It was in a line of shops in the old part of town. The double wooden doors were set in an archway with a stone crucifix above. Vilson saw the poster on the noticeboard to one side of the entrance. This was the place.
He bought a ticket, even though the old man in the foyer told him the afternoon show was nearly over. Every one of the wooden chairs, set out in neat rows in the auditorium, was taken. Vilson joined the group of people in the standing area at the rear. He felt the atmosphere the moment he walked in. There was a charge in the hot, still air.
A middle-aged woman with a flushed neck and face stood on a dais at the front of the hall, the white cinema screen hung behind her. There was an old man beside her, a look somewhere between hope and fear in his face. A young girl was sitting on a chair behind them, looking down at the hands folded in her lap. This was Yara.
Vilson had heard that the woman was Yara’s aunt. Having had the gift as a child, the story went that her powers had faded as she had grown older. Yara was now the channel to the spirit world and the aunt used her experience to guide that power.
The aunt closed her eyes and raised her hands, palms up, her bare underarms sagging. She stayed like that for nearly a minute, her lips moving in silent prayer. Then she turned to the old man, placing a hand over his stomach. The prayers continued until she finally nodded her head, satisfied.
“Amen,” she said.
“Amen,” the audience repeated.
“The pain will fade away,”
she said to the old man, “and the growth in your stomach will shrink and disappear.”
She gestured for him to return to his seat.
“Graças a Deus,” the old man said, crossing himself. Placing a hand on the aunt’s shoulder, he said, “Thank you.”
Yara continued looking down at her hands as the man turned to her and bowed his head, before making his way back down the aisle. The audience murmured and turned to carry on looking at him as he passed. This man had been touched by something special.
The aunt checked her tiny wristwatch. “We might be able to call upon the spirit world one more time.”
Yara’s head turned slightly, as if she had heard something, and she looked up for the first time. Straight at Vilson. She smiled. It seemed to Vilson that it came only very gradually, like a flower opening to the sun. It was a slight, weary kind of a smile. Sadness in her eyes. It wasn’t the smile of a child.
Vilson’s heart skipped, people in the audience turning to look at him.
Yara’s eyes dropped as the aunt went to her, bending to hear the girl whisper. The aunt whispered something sharp back to her.
And then she straightened and looked around the audience, taking in Vilson for the briefest of moments as she did so. “A man in a blue suit and tie has come forward,” she said after a few moments.
Vilson was confused. He had been sure that the aunt was going to say something about his mother. Or about him. Or both of them. He didn’t know anyone that wore any kind of suit. Unless she meant a cop?
The girl sank in her chair, her head dropping a little lower.
The aunt looked around the room again, this time avoiding Vilson’s eyes. He racked his brain for a connection. There had to be one.
“The suit is pale, a bluish–grey,” the aunt said. “He likes to dress smartly. He is looking for someone. He needs to say something.”
A middle-aged woman in the audience raised her hand. “My grandfather wore suits,” she said. “I think he had a blue one.”
“Yes, he is nodding and smiling now,” the aunt said. The grandfather wanted to help the woman with a problem. The woman’s eyes went down to the floor. She said that she suspected her husband was cheating on her. The aunt asked if the husband had had health problems and the woman said yes, he’d had a heart attack the year before. The aunt cocked her head for a few moments and then nodded. It was his health that the husband must concentrate on. The woman’s grandfather was warning that he needed to see a doctor and keep away from other women or the next heart attack might prove fatal. She should tell him that and all would be fine. The grandfather had passed on a message that could keep her husband alive. He said he was proud of his granddaughter before he withdrew to the spirit world again.
There were amens as the aunt brought the show to a close, awe amongst the audience at what they had experienced.
The place began to empty, people speaking quietly and intently. Vilson didn’t move. He couldn’t understand what had just taken place. He had to speak with Yara. She had noticed him. She had seen something.
As the last members of the audience filed out, Vilson made his way down the aisle between the chairs.
The aunt flapped her arms, shooing him away. “No, no, that’s it for this afternoon,” she said. “There will be more this evening – eight o’clock – come back then.”
“Please,” said Vilson. “I have come a long way. I must talk with her now.”
“We have to rest,” the aunt said. “The healing is hard on us.”
“There is no illness here, Aunty,” Yara said. Her voice was unhurried. “He just wants to speak.”
“Yes,” said Vilson. “That’s all I need.”
“It’ll cost,” the aunt said, her mouth hardening.
Yara looked down.
“How much?” Vilson asked.
“Two hundred and fifty for a personal reading.”
Vilson had never handed over that much for anything. It was a crazy amount. “Okay,” he said. The girl was his last chance.
He made to go around the aunt, but she blocked him. “Money first,” she said, holding her hand out.
He pulled out the gringo’s wallet and counted the notes. There would only be a few left now.
The aunt took the money and pulled out one of the wooden chairs from the front row, placing it opposite Yara on the dais. Motioning for Vilson to sit, she moved away to straighten chairs and pick up rubbish. Vilson could see that she had lost interest now.
Vilson sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward, shoulders hunched, fists balled up on his knees. Yara closed her eyes and reached out a hand, placing it lightly over one of his fists.
She was so calm. It spread to Vilson, the tension going from his shoulders. She went quite still, her eyes closed. She was like that for a minute or more. It felt to Vilson like many more minutes had passed before she opened her eyes.
She kept them lowered. “I see you with your friend, cooking over your stove on the floor,” she said. “He is looking up, smiling at you.”
“What does he say?” Vilson asked in a whisper.
“He is not speaking, but he does see you.”
Yara’s eyes came up and they were filled with tears. And then her brow furrowed. “There is a small woman,” she said. “She works and works. She seems sad and angry at the same time, and doesn’t seem to know what to do.”
“My mother,” Vilson said, his voice catching.
“Yes,” Yara nodded. “But she is turning her back. She is moving away.”
“We have been apart for many years, but people are lying to her, lying to me. She is confused.” Vilson was wrestling with the words, saying what he needed to believe rather than what he felt.
“She doesn’t want you to follow.”
“How can I make her see?”
Yara’s shoulders hunched over. She was hugging her belly as if there was an ache there. “Whenever you follow she is unhappy. It does not change. It is always like this.”
“There must be something I can do?” Vilson asked. “You must know.”
“You cannot reach her,” Yara said. She concentrated, looking for something. “She always turns her back.”
“I got letters from her all my life, but she told me they didn’t come from her.”
Yara frowned. “I see the letters, they made you happy, but your mother is not with them.”
Vilson blinked, his mouth open. Washed from a ship in a storm with no lifeline, the ship disappearing in the waves. “Then who?”
“I don’t know. I see someone, but I can’t see them clearly. They are walking away. It’s growing too dark to see them.”
“You have to tell me,” Vilson said. He shifted and rocked in his chair, gasping for air.
“They have gone.” Yara searched and searched. “I see others now. There is a young man – a policeman,” she said. “He knows you.”
“That dumb cop is nothing to me,” Vilson said.
“But he wants to help.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, meu Deus. He shot your friend.”
“What?” Vilson’s head jerked up. “You see that?”
“You didn’t know,” she whispered.
Vilson hammered his fists against his thighs. “They have all lied. Liars and murderers and cheats. All of them.”
“No, not all of them,” Yara said. “Someone else is reaching out. He speaks in a strange way. With anger. He is difficult to understand.”
“No.” Vilson jumped up from his chair, sending it falling backwards.
Yara didn’t seem to notice.
And then she recoiled. She had seen something else.
Chapter 39
Jake
Toninho was staring out at the rush of green as they flew past the cane fields, tyres thrumming on the lumpy road. His head was lolling on an arm propped on the windowsill, the hot wind blasting his thick hair. If he was crying he wasn’t going to show it to Jake.
A police car came up behind them and overtook at spee
d, lights flashing, no siren. There was only one place it was likely to be going to along this road. That made up Jake’s mind for him – he couldn’t go back to the farm now.
A few kilometres further on, he pulled to the side of the road by the turning for the farm track, leaving the engine running. “Are you sure you’re okay from here?”
Toninho was still looking away from him. “I’ve been driving this thing for years, one-handed, two-handed, whatever.”
“I didn’t just mean the driving.”
“What does it matter to you?”
“I’m sorry, I really am. For all of this. I was just trying to do what I thought was a good thing for Vilson.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ve helped anybody to me.”
Jake had given him a potted version of what had happened. He hadn’t skipped the confrontation with Toninho’s father and how he had got bitten by the snake, but he had left out the part that his mother had played in his father’s death. It seemed a better option to Jake to take all the blame rather than to wreck the relationship between Toninho and his mother. His mother was all he had. It was up to Goretti to decide when or if she would tell him everything. This wasn’t how Jake worked. He’d always chosen the truth in the past, however brutal. Take responsibility, take the pain. But it just wasn’t fair to hit this kid with everything right now. She might choose never to tell him and he would grow up as another living with lies. The thought of that was bad enough; what was worse was that things as toxic as this had a way of seeping out eventually. It was knotting Jake’s insides.
He grabbed the plastic sack of belongings that was lying on the floor of the pickup and got out. Toninho shuffled over to the driver’s side. His eyes were puffy from crying, but they were dry now, and they met Jake’s with a steady gaze. He was made of sterner stuff than the rest of his family. Jake reached inside the plastic sack to get his wallet. He was going to give the kid as much as he could spare.
He could only feel clothes inside the sack. He looked in, ripping around inside the thin plastic, already jumping to the obvious conclusion. Nothing. Not even his phone. He tipped his clothes out onto the dirt and sifted through. All he found was confirmation.