The Dreamseller: The Calling

by Augusto Cury

  The dreamseller was about fifty feet away, walking in circles in the lobby of the shopping mall where we met. Just as we were celebrating the proposal of bringing more women into the group, an elderly woman appeared and gave Honeymouth a light tap on the head with her cane. It was Jurema.

  “How are you, boys?” she said.

  “Just fine, Jurema. How nice to see you again,” we said politely.

  Suddenly we looked over at the pensive dreamseller, then back at the little old lady and had a terrible thought: “She might be the next to be called! We better get her out of here fast.”

  The dreamseller, his gaze turned toward the sidewalk opposite where we stood, raised his voice and said to himself, “Whom to call?” We felt a shiver run down our spines. We tried to hide Jurema. We had to get rid of her.

  “The sun is . . . scalding. You could get dehydrated, you’re sweating so much. You should . . . go home,” Dimas, the great manipulator of hearts, told the old woman, trying not to stutter. But she insisted on staying.

  “The weather’s fine, my boy,” she said assuredly.

  Edson took her arm politely.

  “You look tired. At your age one needs lots of rest,” he told her.

  “I feel just great, son. But thanks for your concern,” Jurema said.

  I also gave it a shot, trying to remind her of something she might have forgotten—an appointment, a doctor’s visit, a bill to pay. But she told me everything was taken care of.

  Monica didn’t understand our concern over Jurema. She thought we were being a little too nice. Bartholomew, who had always been the most honest of any of us, slipped up again. Seeing that she had no intention of heading home, he appealed. He raised one eyebrow and said:

  “My dear, beautiful Jurema,” he said, and she seemed to melt, batting her eyelashes. Just when he’d gotten her attention, he blurted out, “I’m sorry to tell you that you’re as red as a beet. I think you might be having a heart attack. You need to get to a hospital right away.”

  Solomon tried to cover Bartholomew’s big mouth, but it was too late. Jurema did the job. She hooked his neck with the crook of her cane, yanked him close and said flatly:

  “Bartholomew, with your mouth shut you’re absolutely perfect.”

  We roared with laughter. But Jurema was bothered, realizing we were hiding something from her. To show us she was still strong and full of life, despite being more than eighty years old and having a touch of Alzheimer’s, she crouched down and did a few push-ups. She asked us to try and match her, but we couldn’t keep up. Then she leaped into a pair of ballet pirouettes and dared us to try. But we all clumsily almost fell on our faces.

  “You guys are a bunch of old geezers,” she said. “I feel younger than any of you and I’m as healthy as a horse. Now, where’s that guru of yours?”

  Guru? I thought. The dreamseller didn’t like even being called master, much less guru. We said he was having some problems . . . had an appointment . . . couldn’t talk to her now. We tried to block her view of the dreamseller, but she poked her head between us. By then, Monica had already figured out our little game and I think wondered whether there was any hope of redemption for any of us.

  Jurema shouted even louder, “Where’s the guru?”

  We cringed when we heard the dreamseller’s deep, powerful voice.

  “How wonderful to see you again!” he told her, and then said the words we had all dreaded: “Come with us. Come and help us sell dreams!”

  Monica couldn’t help laughing and laughing, but we were worried. We wandered off to one side and began to whisper questions to one another. “What will society think of us, a band of eccentrics followed by an old lady? We’ll be a laughingstock. Oh, the newspapers are going to love this. What’ll it be like living with her? We’ll probably waste all our time waiting for her to catch up. And that old-lady smell? Does she wear dentures?”

  We worried that our journey would suffer with the addition of Jurema. The dreamseller patiently watched our boys-only conference as Monica tried to explain the calling to Jurema. But she was a beginner herself and had trouble making it clear.

  Jurema, an honest woman, called us aside and said, “I’ve never sold anything in my life. What type of product is it?”

  The dreamseller went off to speak with Monica and left us alone to explain the project to Jurema. This gave us a golden opportunity to dissuade the old woman. In the privacy of my thoughts, I wondered whether the dreamseller hadn’t seen Jurema first and was testing us again, in an attempt to unveil the subtle prejudices in our minds.

  We had had a fantastic experience at the nursing home, where we had discovered the greatness of the elderly, but we insisted on harboring a prejudice against them. We were convinced the old lady wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace of the group. We thought that, with her, the dreamseller would have to be less aggressive with some of his plans.

  We spoke honestly with Jurema about the adventure of dreams. After all, even when our interests were thwarted, we were learning to be transparent. But, to dissuade her, we emphasized the dangers we faced, the public shame, the insults, the beating the dreamseller had suffered.

  She listened attentively, nodding her head. She arranged her white hair, as if wanting to massage her restless brain. We were sure we were leaving her more uncertain than before. Solomon looked to the heavens and made the sign of the cross. “I’m getting scared just thinking about the dangers that lie ahead,” he said.

  He signaled to Bartholomew to keep quiet for once because we seemed to be making progress. But, not thinking twice, the bungler said in a trembling, horror-movie voice: “It’s very risky to follow this man, Jurema. We could be arrested. We could be kidnapped, beaten, tortured. We could even be killed!”

  We thought, for once, he’d managed to say just the right thing. Little did we know his words would be a kind of prophecy. Jurema’s right eye widened, her left eye closed. Just when we were sure we had convinced her, it was our turn to be startled.

  “Fantastic!” she said. We exchanged dumbstruck glances.

  “Fantastic? What do you mean, ‘fantastic,’ Jurema?” I asked, thinking that her senile mind had somehow misunderstood everything we had said.

  “Everything you’ve told me is fantastic,” she said. “I’m absolutely ready to be a wanderer and I accept the invitation to join the group! I was always a rebel in my student days, and later as a university professor. But I was punished, subjugated by the educational system. I had to follow an agenda I disagreed with, a curriculum that did nothing to form thinkers.”

  Our little brotherhood was shaken. We couldn’t breathe. As if the mysterious identity of the dreamseller weren’t enough, now we had a mysterious old lady to contend with. Some of us snorted, disturbed by her. I tried to dab the beads of sweat off my face.

  “I’ve always wanted to sell dreams, to stimulate minds, but I was silenced,” she said. “I get disgusted every day when I think about modern society steamrolling young people’s intellect, mashing them all together, crushing their critical thinking and turning them into tape recorders of information. What has society done to our children?”

  I asked what her full name was.

  “Jurema Alcantara de Mello,” she said flatly.

  When I heard the name, I took a step backward, even more shocked than before. That’s when I discovered that Jurema was a renowned anthropologist who had been a university professor at the highest level. She had even done postdoctoral work at Harvard. She was internationally known and had written five books in her field of study and they had been published in various languages.

  I leaned against a nearby post to steady myself. I remembered having read several journal articles of hers, as well as all her books. She had played an important role in helping me formulate my ideas. I had admired her organized power of reasoning and her boldness. And here, just minutes earlier, I had wanted to kick her out of our group. I thought to myself: “Damned prejudice! Who will free me from th
is intellectual cancer? I dream of being a free and open person, but I’m hopelessly stubborn.”

  Her ideas were right in line with the dreamseller’s. Jurema went on to say that societies, with some exceptions, had become quagmires for conformist minds that were untroubled by the complexity of existence, devoid of great ideas, and they never questioned who they are.

  “We need to stimulate people’s intelligence,” she said.

  The dreamseller smiled in delight. He must have thought: “I hit the bull’s-eye.” Jurema was more of a rebel than all of us. As she aged, she became more determined. She began to challenge us the second she joined us. Since age brings an incurable courage and honesty, she was very outspoken. She started pointing out things that Monica hadn’t yet had the courage to say. She confronted the dreamseller and criticized the group’s look.

  “Being a band of eccentrics that sells dreams is fine, but being a band of filthy ragamuffins is absurd,” she said.

  Oh, did we get angry at that. But even after seeing us pout, Jurema didn’t back down.

  “Calling a group eccentric in order to create a spirit of solidarity is laudable,” she said, “but not caring whether that group looks shabby and unkempt, that’s just wrong-headed.”

  The dreamseller remained silent. But Dimas couldn’t take it.

  “Jurema, sweetie . . . li . . . lighten up,” he stuttered, attempting a familiarity that only Bartholomew could get away with.

  She didn’t let it slide. She came close to him, took several whiffs of his body and scowled, “Lighten up? You smell like rotten eggs.”

  Bartholomew roared with laughter.

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’m a saint for putting up with that guy’s smell!” Bartholomew said. And he laughed so hard he couldn’t hold back and ripped a sonorous thunderclap of his own.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she told him. “If you can’t hold it, you should at least do it so no one can hear you.”

  We were starting to get worried. We looked at the dreamseller and began to realize that this new member of the family wanted to pour cold water on us—literally. For the first time we saw him scratch his head, without taking action. Jurema was a revolutionary, but she was unbalanced. She turned to the dreamseller and did what we never thought anyone would be bold enough to do: She confronted him.

  “And don’t give me that story about how Jesus called those who cleansed the outside of their body but forgot to cleanse the inside hypocrites. Yes, we must emphasize the inside, but without ignoring the outside. His disciples bathed in the Jordan and in the houses where they were guests. But look at you. Look at your followers! How long has it been since they’ve had a real bath?”

  We had bathed in public bathrooms, but not as often or as well as we probably should have. The master didn’t argue. He simply nodded his head in agreement. He had taught us many lessons, and the greatest one was to have the humility to learn from others.

  And if that weren’t enough, Jurema turned to Edson and boldly asked him to open his mouth. He did so cautiously. We felt that the dreamseller had to have regretted his choice at this point. But maybe not. “Wasn’t a female disciple with just these characteristics what he was looking for?” I thought.

  “Good lord, what a stench! You need to brush your teeth,” she told the Miracle Worker, pinched her nose and told him to close his mouth.

  I laughed—but between clenched lips. She noticed it and said, “What are you laughing at?”

  She didn’t spare anyone, except Monica, who hadn’t had this much fun in years. She felt that we were a traveling circus.

  The dreamseller said Jurema wouldn’t sleep under the bridge with us, because of her age. She and Monica would return home and reunite with us the following day.

  At the end of the day, Jurema invited us to bathe and eat supper together at her house. The prejudice virus, which was dormant, reawakened. We looked at one another and thought that, given her age, a professor’s meager pension and what she had to pay for medicines and doctors, her financial situation couldn’t be much better than ours. We probably couldn’t even all stand in her house, much less have dinner there. And with the old woman plodding away at the stove, it would be midnight before the meal was ready.

  Jurema turned her head up the street and whistled.

  When we asked what she was doing, she said she was calling her driver. We thought she must have been suffering some kind of dementia and Dimas said under his breath, “It must be the bus driver.”

  There was no sign of any driver. She whistled again, this time more loudly. Nothing.

  “I think ‘Driver’ is the name of her dog,” Bartholomew said. Jurema shot him a dirty look and wagged her cane, but instead of smacking him, she seemed amused by the joke.

  “Just imagine everybody cramming into some old Ford straight out of a museum,” Edson said.

  Our group always had some kind of retort. In the few months we had been together, I had enjoyed myself more than I had in my entire life, even when we were making fun of each other. The dreamseller fostered that environment. Monica felt as if she were always at a street fair. In her former life, she had been wealthy, but what she hadn’t blown on luxury items, she lost in the stock market. But traveling with the group, she was getting something the free market couldn’t sell.

  While we were joking, a beautiful white limousine pulled up in front of us, almost running over Bartholomew’s foot. An impeccably dressed chauffeur said, “Sorry, ma’am. It took me a long time because there was traffic.”

  Our jaws dropped. And I’m sure we all, conveniently, had the same thought: “What a great new disciple!”

  The Butterflies and the Cocoon

  JUREMA WAS THE WIDOW OF A MILLIONAIRE. BUT SHE never felt a need to flaunt her wealth. Sometimes she bypassed cars, chauffeurs, designer clothes and other benefits that her fortune might have afforded her. She lived modestly. We had never been in such a luxurious vehicle. We were smitten, but the dreamseller, someone who seemed never to have driven a car, remained indifferent. He asked Jurema for the address and said he would walk. He needed to think.

  He met us at her house two hours later. The millionaire widow had made a quick stop at a store and bought clothes for all of us. We looked civilized again. We had already taken a bath and were nibbling on delicious cheese and cold cuts. It was all so delicious that it made us remember there are some wonderful things about the system. Honeymouth was so hungry that he used his hands to grab the snacks instead of the metal toothpicks. Solomon didn’t talk, making time only to eat. Funny, but I noticed that his tics and quirks had diminished considerably with a filling belly. I didn’t know whether it was hunger or a lasting improvement.

  Dimas stuffed his mouth with cheese, like a rat, and stared at all the expensive objects on top of a china cabinet and the beautiful paintings hanging on the walls. I think that if he hadn’t been called by the dreamseller, he might have returned to clean the place out. Monica ate discreetly. She was so happy about being part of the group that nothing distracted her. I never imagined that such a good-looking person could live such a nightmare.

  The dreamseller was led into the main area of the house, which comprised over 5,000 square feet of space, divided into five rooms. Jurema’s luxurious mansion barely fazed him and that seemed to make her happy. She was tired of people who fawned over her house but had nothing to say to her. He then went to bathe and was given new clothes.

  As all of us were beginning to enjoy a delightful dinner, the dreamseller had a request for her: “Tell us about your husband.”

  She was surprised, for people seldom asked about the dead, not wanting to cause any awkwardness. But she loved to talk about him and had always admired him. She told us about the time when they were young, their courtship, the marriage. Then she spoke of his tenderness, boldness and intellect. Twice, the dreamseller said, “What a great man. He was also a dreamseller.”

  She mentioned that her husband had been CEO of one of the most
important companies of the Megasoft Group, which was made up of more than thirty firms. We thought the business world would be of no interest to the dreamseller, but he unexpectedly asked, “How did he become wealthy?”

  To tell the story of her husband’s rise, she first had to give us some background on the Megasoft Group’s president. She said that the owner of an important firm had died and left a fortune to his twenty-five-year-old son. The young man had an exceptional mind and was endowed with unusual enterprise and leadership ability. He far surpassed his father. He took the company public and, with the money from his booming shares, expanded the business and invested in the most diverse activities in the corporate world. He invested in oil, clothing store chains, communications, computers, electronics and hotels. Within fifteen years he had put together the Megasoft Group, which became one of the ten largest corporations in the world.

  She told us that when the company went public, the young president gave all the employees the chance to buy stock, and her husband became a minority stockholder in the company. With the phenomenal growth of the group, he made a lot of money. When I heard Jurema’s story, I interjected:

  “When you mentioned that young millionaire’s enterprising spirit, I remembered that the largest shareholder at my university was precisely the Megasoft Group. After it became the university’s biggest booster, there was no shortage of money to underwrite research and theses.”

  The dreamseller then asked Jurema a few questions:

  “Did you know the young man who expanded that group so explosively? Was he free or a prisoner of the system? Was his philosophy to love money more than life or life more than money? What were his priorities? What values motivated him? Was he conscious of the brevity of life or did he position himself as a god?”

  Jurema, caught by surprise, didn’t know how to answer, as she had rarely seen the young man personally. He was extremely busy, courted by kings and presidents, while she was simply a professor. But she said that her husband liked him a lot.