My Sweet Orange Tree

by José Mauro de Vasconcelos

  I patted my little horse for a long time and then I looked up at Uncle Edmundo and said, ‘Do you think I’ll be a bit bigger by next week, Uncle?’

  Chapter Two

  A CERTAIN SWEET-ORANGE TREE

  In our family, each older sibling brought up a younger one. Jandira had taken care of Glória and another sister who’d been given away to have a proper upbringing in the north. Totoca was Jandira’s little darling. Then Lalá had taken care of me until not long ago. For as long as she liked me. Then I think she got sick of me or fell madly in love with her boyfriend, who was a dandy with baggy trousers and a short jacket just like the one in the song. When they used to take me for a ‘promenade’ (that’s what her boyfriend called a stroll) on Sundays, he’d buy me some really yummy sweets so I wouldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t even ask Uncle Edmundo what ‘promenade’ meant or the whole family would find out.

  My other two siblings had died young and I had only heard about them. They say they were two little Apinajé Indians, very dark, with straight black hair. That’s why they were given Indian names. The girl was called Aracy and the boy, Jurandyr.

  Then came my little brother Luís. Glória was the one who looked after him the most, then me. He didn’t even need looking after, because there wasn’t a cuter, quieter, better-behaved boy in the world.

  That’s why when he spoke in that little voice of his without a single mistake, as I was heading out into the street, I changed my mind.

  ‘Zezé, are you going to take me to the zoo? It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain today, does it?’

  How adorable. He spoke so well. That boy was going to be someone; he was going to go far.

  I looked at the beautiful day with the sky all blue and didn’t have the courage to lie. Because sometimes, if I wasn’t in the mood, I’d say, ‘You’re out of your mind, Luís. Just look at the storm coming!’

  This time I took his little hand and we went out for our adventure in the backyard.

  The backyard was divided into three games. One was the zoo. Another was Europe, which was over by Julio’s neat little fence. Why Europe? Not even my little bird knew. We played Sugarloaf Mountain cable cars there. We’d take the box of buttons and put them all on a string. (Uncle Edmundo called it twine. I thought twine were pigs, but he explained that pigs were swine.) Then we’d tie one end to the fence and the other to Luís’s fingertips. We’d push all the buttons up to the top and let them go slowly, one by one. Each cable car was full of people we knew. There was a really black one, which was Biriquinho’s. It wasn’t unusual to hear a voice coming from over the fence, ‘Are you damaging my fence, Zezé?’

  ‘No, Dona Dimerinda. See for yourself, ma’am.’

  ‘Now, that’s what I like to see. Playing nicely with your brother. Isn’t it better like that?’

  It might have been nice, but when my ‘godfather’ the devil gave me a nudge, there was nothing better than getting up to mischief …

  ‘Are you going to give me a calendar for Christmas, like last year?’

  ‘What did you do with the one I gave you?’

  ‘You can go inside and see, Dona Dimerinda. It’s above the bag of bread.’

  She laughed and promised she would. Her husband worked at Chico Franco’s general store.

  The other game was Luciano. At first Luís was really scared of him and would tug on my trousers, asking to leave. But Luciano was my friend. Whenever he saw me, he’d screech loudly. Glória wasn’t happy about it either, and said that bats were vampires that sucked children’s blood.

  ‘It’s not true, Gló. Luciano isn’t like that. He’s my friend. He knows me.’

  ‘You and your critter mania, talking to things …’

  It was hard work convincing Luís that Luciano wasn’t a critter. To us, Luciano was a plane flying at the Campo dos Afonsos air base.

  ‘Look, Luís.’

  And Luciano would fly happily around us as if he understood what we were saying. And he did.

  ‘He’s an aeroplane. He’s doing …’

  I’d stop. I had to get Uncle Edmundo to tell me that word again. I didn’t know if it was ‘acorbatics’, ‘acrobatics’ or ‘arcobatics’. One of those. But I couldn’t teach my little brother the wrong word.

  But now he wanted the zoo.

  We got quite close to the old chicken coop. Inside it, the two fair-feathered hens were pecking at the ground, and the old black one was so tame that we could even scratch her head.

  ‘First let’s buy our tickets. Hold my hand, ’cause it’s easy for children to get lost in this crowd. See how busy it gets on Sundays?’

  Luís would look around, see people everywhere, and hold my hand tightly.

  At the ticket office I stuck my belly out and cleared my throat to sound important. I put my hand in my pocket and asked the woman, ‘Until what age is entry free?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘So just one adult then, please.’

  I took two orange-tree leaves as tickets and we went in.

  ‘First, son, you’re going to see how beautiful the birds are. Look, parrots, parakeets and macaws of every colour. Those ones over there with the colourful feathers are scarlet macaws.’

  His eyes bulged with delight.

  We strolled about, looking at everything. We saw so many things that I even noticed Glória and Lalá behind everything else, sitting on the bench peeling oranges. Lalá was eyeing me … Could they have found out? If they had, that zoo visit was going to end with a big paddling on someone’s rear. And that someone could only be me.

  ‘What’s next, Zezé, what are we going to see now?’

  I cleared my throat again and resumed my posture.

  ‘Let’s go and see the monkeys. Uncle Edmundo calls them simians.’

  We bought a few bananas and threw them to the monkeys. We knew it wasn’t allowed, but the guards had their hands too full with such a big crowd.

  ‘Don’t get too close or they’ll throw banana peel at you, pipsqueak.’

  ‘I really want to see the lions.’

  ‘We can go in a minute.’

  I shot another look over to where the two other ‘simians’ were eating oranges. I’d be able to hear what they were talking about from the lions’ cage.

  ‘Here we are.’

  I pointed at the two yellow, very African lionesses. Luís said he wanted to pat the black panther’s head.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, pipsqueak? The black panther is the most terrible animal in the zoo. She was brought here because she’d bitten off and eaten eighteen tamers’ arms.’

  Luís looked scared and pulled back his arm in fright.

  ‘Did she come from a circus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which circus, Zezé? You never told me that before.’

  I thought and thought. Who did I know who had a name for a circus?

  ‘Ah! She came from the Rozemberg Circus.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bakery?’

  It was getting harder and harder to trick him. He was growing smart.

  ‘That too. We should sit down and have our lunch. We’ve walked a lot.’

  We sat down and pretended to be eating. But my ears were pricked, listening to what my sisters were saying.

  ‘We should learn from him, Lalá. Look how patient he is with Luís.’

  ‘Yes, but Luís doesn’t do what he does. It’s evil, not mischief.’

  ‘So he’s got the devil in his blood, but he’s so funny. No one on the street can stay angry at him, no matter what he gets up to …’

  ‘He’s not passing me without getting a paddling. One day he’ll learn.’

  I shot an arrow of pity into Glória’s eyes. She always came to my rescue and I always promised her I wouldn’t do it again.

  ‘Later. Not now. They’re playing so quietly.’

  She already knew everything. She knew that I’d gone through the ditch into Dona Celina’s backyard. I’d been fascinated by the clothes line swinging a bunc
h of arms and legs in the wind. Then the devil told me that I could make all those arms and legs come tumbling down at the same time. I agreed that it would be really funny. I found a piece of sharp glass in the ditch, climbed up the orange tree and patiently cut the line.

  I almost fell down with it. There was a cry and people came running.

  ‘Help, the line snapped.’

  But a voice coming from I don’t know where yelled even louder.

  ‘It was Seu Paulo’s kid, the little pest. I saw him climbing the orange tree with a piece of glass.’

  * * *

  ‘Zezé?’

  ‘What, Luís?’

  ‘How do you know so much about zoos?’

  ‘I’ve been to a lot of them.’

  It was a lie. Everything I knew, Uncle Edmundo had told me. He’d even promised to take me to the zoo one day. But he walked so slowly that by the time we arrived, it wouldn’t even be there any more. Totoca had been once with Father.

  ‘My favourite is the one on Rua Barão de Drummond, in Vila Isabel. Do you know who the Baron of Drummond was? Of course you don’t. You’re too young to know these things. The Baron must have been really chummy with God. Because he was the one who helped God invent the lottery game that they sell tickets for in the Misery and Hunger bar, and the zoo. When you’re older …’

  My sisters were still there.

  ‘When I’m older what?’

  ‘Boy, do you ask a lot of questions. When you’re old enough, I’ll teach you the lottery animals and their numbers. Up to twenty. From twenty to twenty-five, I know there’s a cow, a bull, a bear, a deer and a tiger. I don’t know what order they’re in, but I’m going to learn so I don’t teach you the wrong thing.’

  He was growing tired of the game.

  ‘Zezé, sing “The Little House” for me.’

  ‘Here at the zoo? There’s too many people.’

  ‘No. We’ve left already.’

  ‘It’s really long. I’ll just sing the bit you like.’

  I knew it was the part about the cicadas. I filled my lungs.

  I live in a house

  atop a hill

  down which

  an orchard spills.

  A little house

  where one can see

  far far off

  the sea.

  I skipped a few verses.

  Among strange palms

  cicadas sing psalms.

  The sun sets

  with golden sails.

  In the garden,

  a nightingale.

  I stopped. My sisters were still sitting there waiting for me. I had an idea: I’d sing until nightfall. I’d outlast them.

  No such luck. I sang the whole song, repeated it, then I sang ‘For Your Fleeting Love’ and even ‘Ramona’. The two different versions of ‘Ramona’ that I knew … but they didn’t budge. Then I got desperate. Better to get it over and done with. I went over to Lalá.

  ‘Go ahead, give it to me.’

  I turned around and offered her my bum, clenching my teeth because Lalá was heavy-handed with the slipper.

  * * *

  It was Mother’s idea.

  ‘Today we’re all going to see the house.’

  Totoca took me to one side and told me in a whisper, ‘If you tell anyone we’ve already been there, you’ve got it coming.’

  But it hadn’t even occurred to me.

  A whole crowd of us set off down the street. Glória held my hand and had orders not to let me out of her sight for one minute. And I held Luís’s hand.

  ‘When do we have to move, Mother?’ asked Glória.

  ‘Two days after Christmas we have to start packing our stuff,’ said Mother, somewhat sadly.

  She sounded so tired. I felt really sorry for her. Mother had worked all her life. She’d been working since the age of six, when the factory was built. They would sit her on a table and she’d have to clean and dry tools. She was so tiny that she’d wet herself on the table because she couldn’t get down by herself. That’s why she never went to school or learned to read and write. When she told me, I was so sad I promised that when I was a poet and wise, I’d read her my poems.

  Signs of Christmas were appearing in the shops and stores. Father Christmas had been drawn on every pane of glass. People were already buying cards to avoid the rush closer to the time. I had a vague hope that this time the Baby Jesus would be born in my heart. At any rate, maybe I’d improve a bit when I reached the age of reason.

  ‘This is it.’

  Everyone loved it. The house was a little smaller. With Totoca’s help, Mother untwisted a piece of wire that was holding the gate shut and there was a stampede. Glória let go of my hand and forgot that she was becoming a young lady. She raced over to the mango tree and flung her arms around it.

  ‘The mango tree’s mine. I got here first.’

  Totoca did the same with the tamarind tree.

  Nothing was left for me. I looked at Glória, almost crying.

  ‘What about me, Gló?’

  ‘Run around the back. There must be more trees, silly.’

  I ran, but I only found long grass, and a bunch of thorny old orange trees. Next to the ditch was a small sweet-orange tree.

  I was disappointed. They were all going through the house claiming bedrooms.

  I tugged on Glória’s skirt.

  ‘There was nothing else.’

  ‘You don’t know how to look properly. Just wait a minute. I’ll find you a tree.’

  And soon she came with me. She examined the orange trees.

  ‘Don’t you like that one? It’s a fine tree.’

  I didn’t like this one, or that one, or any of them. They all had too many thorns.

  ‘I prefer the sweet-orange tree to those ugly things.’

  ‘Where?’

  I took her to see it.

  ‘But what a lovely little orange tree! It doesn’t have a single thorn. It has so much personality that you can tell it’s a sweet-orange tree from far off. If I were your size, I wouldn’t want anything else.’

  ‘But I want a big tree.’

  ‘Think about it, Zezé. This one’s still young. It’s going to grow big – you’ll grow together. You’ll understand each other like brothers. Have you seen that branch? It’s the only one, it’s true, but it looks a bit like a horse made just for you.’

  I was feeling really hard done by. It reminded me of the Scotch bottle with angels on it that we’d seen once. Lalá had said, ‘That one’s me.’ Glória picked one for her and Totoca took one for himself. But what about me? I ended up being the little head behind all the others, almost wingless. The fourth Scottish angel that wasn’t even a whole angel … I was always last. When I grew up, I’d show them. I’d buy an Amazon rainforest, and all the trees that touched the sky would be mine. I’d buy a store with bottles covered in angels and no one would even get a piece of wing.

  Sulking, I sat on the ground and leaned my anger against the little orange tree. Glória walked away, smiling.

  ‘That anger of yours won’t last, Zezé. You’ll see that I was right.’

  I scratched at the ground with a stick and was beginning to stop sniffling, when I heard a voice coming from I don’t know where, near my heart.

  ‘I think your sister’s right.’

  ‘Everyone’s always right. I’m the one who never is.’

  ‘That’s not true. If you’d just take a proper look at me, you’d see.’

  With a start, I scrambled up and stared at the little tree. It was strange because I always talked to everything, but I thought it was the little bird inside me that made everything talk back.

  ‘But can you really talk?

  ‘Can’t you hear me?’

  And it gave a little chuckle. I almost screamed and ran away. But curiosity kept me there.

  ‘How do you talk?’

  ‘Trees talk with everything. With their leaves, their branches, their roots. Want to see? Place your ear here on my t
runk and you’ll hear my heartbeat.’

  I hesitated a moment, but seeing its size, my fear dissipated. I pressed my ear to its trunk and heard a faraway tick … tick …

  ‘See?’

  ‘Tell me something. Does everyone know you can talk?’

  ‘No. Just you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I swear. A fairy once told me that when a little boy just like you befriended me, I would talk and be very happy.’

  ‘And will you wait?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Until I move. It’ll take more than a week. You won’t forget how to talk, will you?’

  ‘Never. That is, only for you. Do you want to see what a smooth ride I am?’

  ‘How can …’

  ‘Sit on my branch.’

  I obeyed.

  ‘Now, rock back and forth and close your eyes.’

  I did as I was told.

  ‘What do you think? Have you ever had a better horse?’

  ‘Never. It’s lovely. I’m going to give my horse Silver King to my little brother. You’ll really like him.’

  I climbed down, loving my little orange tree.

  ‘Look, I’m going to do something. Whenever I can, even before we move, I’m going to come and chat with you. Now I have to go. They’re already out the front, about to head off.’

  ‘But friends don’t say goodbye like that.’

  ‘Psst! Here comes my sister.’

  Glória arrived just as I was hugging the tree.

  ‘Goodbye, my friend. You’re the most beautiful thing in the world!’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘You did. Now if you offered me the mango or the tamarind tree in exchange for mine, I wouldn’t want it.’

  She stroked my hair tenderly.

  ‘Zezé, Zezé …’

  We left holding hands.

  ‘Gló, your mango tree’s a bit dumb, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell, but it does seem that way.’

  ‘What about Totoca’s tamarind tree?’

  ‘It’s a bit awkward, why?’

  ‘I don’t know if I should tell you. But one day I’m going to tell you about a miracle, Gló.’