A beautiful car passed us.
‘There goes Manuel Valadares’s car.’
When we were crossing the intersection at Rua dos Açudes, a distant whistle filled the morning.
‘Hey, Seu Aristides. There goes the Mangaratiba.’
‘You know everything, don’t you?’
‘I know the sound it makes.’
The only sound was hooves going clip-clop on the highway. I noticed that the cart wasn’t very new. On the contrary. But it was sturdy and affordable. Two more trips and we’d have moved all our junk. The donkey didn’t look too strong. But I wanted to be nice.
‘This is a fine cart, Seu Aristides.’
‘It does the job.’
‘And that’s a fine donkey. What’s his name?’
‘Gypsy.’
He wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat.
‘Today’s a big day for me. This is my first time on a cart. And I’ve seen Manuel Valadares’s car and heard the Mangaratiba.’
Silence. Nothing.
‘Seu Aristides, is the Mangaratiba the most important train in Brazil?’
‘No. It’s the most important one on this line.’
It was no use. How hard it was to understand grown-ups sometimes!
When we got to the house, I handed him the key and tried to be polite: ‘Would you like me to help with anything, sir?’
‘You can help by staying out of our way. Go play and we’ll call you when it’s time to head back.’
So I did.
‘Pinkie, now we’re always going to live near each other. I’m going to dress you up so beautifully that no other tree will hold a candle to you. You know, Pinkie, just now I rode on a cart so big and smooth that it felt like one of those coaches that you see in the cinema. Look, everything I find out, I’ll come tell you, OK?
I went over to the long grass growing in the ditch and looked at the dirty water running through it.
‘What did we decide the river was going to be called the other day?’
‘The Amazon.’
‘That’s right. The Amazon. Downstream it must be full of savage Indians’ canoes, right, Pinkie?’
‘Tell me about it! It must be.’
We’d barely started chatting and there was Seu Aristides closing up the house and calling me.
‘You staying or coming with us?’
‘I’ll stay here. Mother and my sisters must be on their way by now.’
And I went around examining every little detail of the place.
* * *
In the beginning, out of shyness, or because I wanted to make a good impression on the neighbours, I was well behaved. But one afternoon I stuffed the black stocking, rolled it in twine and cut out the tip of the toe. Then I tied a long piece of kite string to the place where the toe had been. From a distance, if I pulled slowly on it, it looked like a snake, and in the dark it would work a charm.
At night everyone went about their own business. It was as if the new house had changed everyone’s spirits. There was a cheerfulness in the family that hadn’t been present for a long time.
I waited quietly by the gate. The street was dimly lit by the lampposts and the hedges cast shadows into corners. There must have been people working overtime at the factory and overtime never went past eight o’clock. It rarely went past nine. I thought about the factory for a moment. I didn’t like it. Its sad morning whistle was even uglier at five o’clock. The factory was a dragon that gobbled up people every morning and spewed them out, very tired, at night. I also didn’t like it because of what Mr Scottfield had done to Father.
Along came a woman. She was holding a handbag and had a parasol under her arm. You could hear the clickety-clack of her heels on the pavement.
I ran to hide behind the gate and tested the string attached to the snake. It obeyed. It was perfect. Then I crouched down in the shadow of the hedge with the string in my fingers. Her heels drew closer and closer, then even closer and zip! I tugged on the string. It slid slowly across the middle of the street.
I wasn’t expecting what happened next. The woman screamed so loudly that she roused the street. She threw her handbag and parasol in the air and clasped her belly, screaming all the while.
‘Help! Help! A snake! Someone help me!’
Doors were flung open and I dropped everything, bolted down the side of the house and entered through the kitchen. I took the lid off the laundry basket and climbed inside, pulling the lid over the top. My heart was pounding in fright and I could still hear the woman screaming.
‘Oh, my God, I’m six months pregnant and I’m going to lose my baby.’
Not only did a shiver run down my spine, but I began to tremble.
The neighbours took her inside but the sobs and laments continued.
‘Good Lord, good Lord. A snake of all things – I’m terrified of them.’
‘Have a little orange blossom water. There, there, stay calm. The men have gone after it with sticks, an axe and a lantern to light the way.’
What a big fuss over a little stocking snake! But the worst part was that my family had also gone to see what was going on. Jandira, Mother and Lalá.
‘That’s not a snake. It’s an old stocking.’
In my fright I had forgotten to remove the ‘snake’. I was done for.
Attached to the snake was the string and the string led into our yard.
Three familiar voices chimed at once, ‘It was him!’
It wasn’t the snake they were after now. They looked under the bed. Nothing. They passed by me and I didn’t even breathe. They went out the back to look in the outhouse.
Then Jandira had an idea.
‘I think I know where he is!’
She lifted the lid off the laundry basket and I was hauled out to the dining room by the ears.
Mother beat me hard this time. Her flip-flop whistled through the air and I really had to holler so it wouldn’t hurt so much and she’d stop hitting me.
‘You little pest! You have no idea how hard it is to get around when you’re six months pregnant.’
‘He took his time to get started!’ said Lalá wryly.
‘Now, straight to bed, you little wretch.’
I left, scratching my backside, and lay down on my belly. Luckily Father had gone out to play cards. I lay there in the dark sniffling and thinking that going to bed was the best way to get over a paddling.
* * *
I got up early the next day. I had two very important things to do: first, go have a look around, very casually. If the snake was still there, I’d get it and hide it in my shirt. I could still use it somewhere else. But it wasn’t. It’d be hard to find another stocking as snake-like as that one.
I turned and started off to Gran’s house. I needed to talk to Uncle Edmundo.
I knew it was still early for a retired person. I wanted to catch him before he went out to buy a lottery ticket – or ‘place a bet’, as he called it – and pick up the newspapers. I was right. He was in the living room playing a new kind of patience.
‘Morning, Uncle!’
He didn’t answer. He was pretending to be deaf. Back at home everyone said that he did that when he wasn’t interested in the conversation.
But never with me. In fact (how I liked saying ‘in fact’!), he was never very deaf around me. I tugged on his shirt sleeve and, as always, thought his black-and-white-chequered braces looked very fine.
‘Ah! It’s you …’
He was pretending he hadn’t seen me.
‘What’s the name of this patience, Uncle?’
‘It’s called The Clock.’
‘It’s pretty.’
I already knew all the cards in the deck. I just wasn’t too keen on the jacks. I don’t know why but they looked like the kings’ servants.
‘You know, Uncle, I’ve come to tell you something.’
‘I’m just about finished. When I’m done, we can talk.’
But soon he shuffled all the cards up.
‘Did you win?’
‘No.’
He made a little pile of cards and set it aside.
‘OK, Zezé, if this something has to do with money,’ he said, rubbing his fingers together, ‘I’m ready.’
‘Haven’t you got one little tostão for me to buy a marble with?’
He smiled.
‘I might have one little tostão. Who knows?’
He was about to put his hand in his pocket, but I stopped him.
‘Just kidding, Uncle, that’s not it.’
‘Well, then what is it?’
I could tell my ‘precociousness’ amused him, especially after I taught myself to read.
‘I’d like to know something very important. Do you know how to sing without singing?’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘Like this,’ and I sang a verse of ‘The Little House’. ‘I can do it all inside without singing on the outside.’
‘That’s humming,’ he laughed, unsure where I was going with it.
‘Look, Uncle, when I was little, I thought I had a little bird inside me that sang. It was the bird that sang.’
‘Well, then. It’s wonderful that you have a little bird like that.’
‘You don’t understand. It’s just that now I’m not so sure about the bird. What about when I speak and see on the inside?’
He understood and laughed at my confusion.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, Zezé. It means you’re growing. And when you grow, this thing that you say speaks and sees is called thinking. And thinking is what makes you reach the age I said you’d be reaching soon.’
‘The age of reason?’
‘It’s good that you remember. Then something wonderful happens. Our thinking grows and grows and takes over our heads and our hearts. It lives in our eyes and in every part of our lives.’
‘Right. And what about the little bird?’
‘The little bird was made by God to help children discover things. Then when the child no longer needs it, he gives it back to God. And God puts it in another intelligent boy like you. Isn’t that beautiful?’
I laughed happily because I was thinking.
‘It is. I’ll be going now.’
‘Still want that tostão?’
‘Not today. I’m going to be very busy.’
I set off down the street thinking about everything. But I remembered something that made me really sad. Totoca used to have a beautiful finch. It was tame and perched on his finger when he changed its birdseed. He could even leave the door open and it wouldn’t fly away. One day Totoca forgot him out in the sun. And the hot sun killed him. I remembered Totoca holding him in his hand, crying; crying and holding the dead bird to his cheek. Then he said, ‘I’ll never keep a bird in a cage again.’
I was with him and said, ‘Me neither, Totoca.’
When I got home I went straight to Pinkie.
‘Sweety, I’ve come to do something.’
‘What?’
‘Can we wait a bit?’
‘OK.’
I sat down and leaned my head against his trunk.
‘What are we waiting for, Zezé?’
‘For a really pretty cloud to float past in the sky.’
‘What for?’
‘I’m going to let my little bird go. Yes, I’m going to. I don’t need it any more.’
We sat there staring at the sky.
‘Is it that one, Pinkie?’
The cloud came drifting along slowly, really big, like a white leaf with torn edges.
‘That’s the one, Pinkie.’
I stood and unbuttoned my shirt. I felt it leaving my skinny chest.
‘Fly away, little bird. Really high. Go way up high and perch on God’s finger. God is going to take you to another little boy and you are going to sing beautifully for him just as you always have for me. Bye-bye, my sweet little bird!’
I felt an emptiness inside that was endless.
‘Look, Zezé. It perched on the cloud’s finger.’
‘I see it.’
I leaned my head against Pinkie’s heart and watched the cloud drift away.
‘I never mistreated him …’
Then I turned my face and pressed it against Pinkie’s branch.
‘Sweetie.’
‘What?’
‘Is it wrong for me to cry?’
‘It’s never wrong to cry, silly. Why?’
‘I don’t know, I’m still not used to it. It feels like my cage inside is too empty now.’
* * *
Glória woke me up early.
‘Show me your fingernails.’
I showed her my hands and she approved them.
‘Now your ears. Ew, Zezé!’
She took me to the washtub, wet a cloth with soap on it and rubbed off the filth.
‘I’ve never seen someone who claims to be an Apinajé warrior who’s always dirty! Go get your shoes on while I find some decent clothes for you to wear.’
She went to my drawer and rummaged around. And she rummaged around some more. And the more she rummaged, the less she found. All my trousers had holes in them, or were torn, patched or darned.
‘You don’t need to say a thing. If anyone ever saw this drawer, they’d know what a terror you are. Put this one on, it’s not as bad as the rest.
And off we went for the ‘wonderful’ discovery that I was about to make.
School. As we approached, we saw a whole bunch of people taking children by the hand to enrol them.
‘Now, don’t look sad or forget anything, Zezé.’
We took a seat in a room full of children who were all peering at one another. Then our turn came and we went into the headmistress’s office.
‘Is he your little brother?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Mother couldn’t come because she works in the city.’
She looked at me for a long time and her eyes were big and black because her glasses were very thick. Funny thing was, she had a man’s moustache. She must have been the headmistress because of that.
‘Isn’t he too young?’
‘He’s small for his age. But he already knows how to read.’
‘How old are you, boy?’
‘On the twenty-sixth of February I turn six, ma’am.’
‘Very well. Let’s fill in your application. First your parents’ names.’
Glória told her Father’s name. But when she got to Mother’s name, she just said, ‘Estefânia de Vasconcelos.’
I couldn’t help myself and corrected her, ‘Estefânia Apinajé de Vasconcelos.’
‘Excuse me?’
Glória blushed a little.
‘It’s Apinajé. Mother’s parents were Indians.’
I puffed up with pride because I must have been the only kid with an Indian surname at that school.
Then Glória signed a paper and stopped, hesitant.
‘Is there something else?’
‘I’d like to know about the uniforms … You see … Father is unemployed and we’re very poor.’
Which was proven when the headmistress asked me to turn around so she could get an idea of my size, and saw my patches.
She wrote a number on a piece of paper and sent us inside to look for Dona Eulália.
Dona Eulália was also surprised at how small I was. The smallest size she had was so big I was drowning in it.
‘This is the smallest I’ve got, but it’s too big. What a tiny child!’
‘I can take it up.’
She gave us two uniforms and we left. I was pleased with the present, and imagined Pinkie’s face when he saw me in new school clothes.
As the days went by I told him everything. What it was like, what went on there.
‘They ring a big bell. But not as big as the church bell. You know, right? Everyone goes into the main courtyard and looks for the place where their teacher is. She makes us line up in fours and everyone walks into the classroom like little lambs. We all sit at desks with lids
that open and close and we put our stuff inside them. I’m going to have to learn a bunch of anthems, because the teacher said that to be a good Brazilian and a “patriot” we have to know the anthem of our land. When I learn it I’ll sing it to you, OK, Pinkie?’
And along came a world in which everything was new and had to be discovered afresh.
‘Hey, where are you going with that flower?’
The girl was clean and her schoolbooks had nice covers. Her hair was in plaits.
‘I’m taking it to my teacher.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she likes them. And all hardworking girls should take flowers to their teachers.’
‘Can boys take them too?’
‘If you like your teacher you can.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
No one had taken a single flower to my teacher, Dona Cecília Paim. It must have been because she was ugly. If she didn’t have a spot on her eye, she wouldn’t have been so ugly. But she was the only one who would sometimes give me a tostão to buy a pastry at playtime.
I started peering into the other classrooms and all the glasses on the teachers’ desks had flowers in them. Only my teacher’s glass remained empty.
* * *
The biggest adventure was something else.
‘Guess what, Pinkie. Today I went for a piggyback ride.’
‘You rode a horse?’
‘No, silly. When the cars drive past the school really slowly, you grab the tyre on the back and go for a piggyback. When they’re going to turn onto another street, they slow down to see if there are any cars coming, and you jump off. But carefully. ’Cause if you jump off when it’s going fast, your bum’ll go splat on the ground and your arms’ll get all smashed up.’
I’d chatter away to him about everything that happened in class and in the playground. You had to see how he puffed up with pride when I told him that Dona Cecília Paim said I was the one who read the best. The best ‘readerer’. I wasn’t exactly sure about that and decided that at the first opportunity I would ask Uncle Edmundo if I really was a ‘readerer’.
‘But about the piggyback, Pinkie. Just to give you an idea of what it’s like, it’s almost as good as riding on one of your branches.’
‘But with me you’re not in any danger.’
My Sweet Orange Tree Page 5