The Marble Army. Gisele Firmino

This is quite an honor.”

      And with that he walked back to Tio Joca’s truck to listen to the end of his program. We all clapped again, somewhat disappointed.

      …

      While everything was changing in our country, Minas do Leão remained life as usual for quite some time. One main street, one church, one school, one food store, one coal mine, and one cemetery. What changed was that people would wait even more anxiously for the Sunday papers to be delivered, and those who had a TV set got used to having guests during the news broadcast as opposed to having them arrive later for the telenovela. At home, our father was the very first change Pablo and I witnessed. Our mother seemed more annoyed by the shifts in him than anything else; treating them as something silly and self-induced. As if he were trying to feel included in something he just was not. A few times, I heard her tell her friends that her husband had gotten his period again, and they would all laugh.

      Had Mãe been right, Pablo and I suffered from the same malady as our father. At night, in our rooms, we would exchange information in the dark as if it were forbidden, as if the walls had eyes and ears, and as if spies were everywhere. Pablo on the foot of my bed whispering how he had heard that a dictatorship meant you were not free; like slaves, he’d said. Me, wrapped in a blanket, crouched on the floor by his bed, repeating what Father José had said at Sunday School, that a good Catholic would not do the things our leaders were doing, that a good Catholic would not torture young people the way they did. But then when Clara had asked him why Jesus was treated the way he was, Father José had to think for a moment.

      Pablo and I would watch our father, watch the way his gaze would land on a random dishcloth at dinner time and just stay there, while our mother would go on and on about the latest gossip around town. Tia Mercedes had lost her baby again, the poor thing, her fourth miscarriage; maybe if her husband would quit drinking so much cachaça their baby would have a better chance, something about his swimmers not being good enough swimmers. While she talked, we watched him, hoping that he was right, hoping we were in fact all included, hoping that he knew something we didn’t yet know. Oh how naïve we were!

      But once I had a better grasp of what it all meant, I began to understand why Mãe fought so hard to deny its presence in our house, to keep it out. The regime did take its time to enter our lives, like the grayish green mold you’d see on the outside walls of your home, knowing that it will eventually creep into its interior. She knew. And we watched passively as things began to change.

      …

      In the mornings, we ate eggs with black beans and carreteiro and fried yucca and murcilha and whatever else was left over from the week. Only sometimes there would be homemade bread to go with it. Our father liked having a rich breakfast, and during the winter we liked it too. He ate with our mother and left the house before 5am each morning to go to the mine and oversee each change of shifts. He said it was important to check how much was done during the night and say goodbye to the miners, as well as greet the next group as they came down.

      One of those winter mornings I woke up to the sound of steps in Pablo’s room. Nothing could be seen beyond the fogged windows, as there wasn’t a hint of sunlight quite yet. I followed Pablo’s rushed steps across the hallway. There were no signs of anybody up, and for a moment I wondered if he could be sleepwalking. Pablo was in his pajamas. The hems of his sweatpants already way above his ankles, and his shirt barely covering his lower back. At seventeen, Pablo was almost as tall as our father. He fed the fire with two logs and one pine knot, his ribcage visible through his two-sizes-too-small old thinned-out shirt. He went to the kitchen where water was already heating up for coffee. The kitchen door was closed but unlocked, which meant that our mother must have already gone out to collect eggs.

      Pablo checked on the water pot, pulled out plates and silverware, walking around as if he hadn’t slept at all. He put on his beanie and opened the back door to check on our mother. He stood on the doorway and searched the backyard; his breath was a steamy cloud in front of him. Pablo and our father had built a staircase on the side of the house, and a door leading to what became our kitchen. It was supposed to be the house’s back door, not meant for guests, but it was easier and it quickly became the house’s main entrance.

      Pablo came back inside and finished setting the table for all four of us when our mother came in, almost dropping the eggs she held in her hands when she saw us both in the kitchen. When our father walked in, already in his work boots and uniform, he too was surprised to see us up.

      “Bom dia, boys,” he said. “Did you fall off your beds this morning?”

      Our mother smiled tenderly.

      “I like waking up this early,” Pablo said.

      “Well, good for you, Pablo,” our father responded, looking at Mãe.

      “Eggs are almost ready, and I heated up the stew from last night.” Our mother set both pans on the center of the table and invited us to sit.

      “Pai,” said Pablo, rather tentatively.

      “What’s that, filho?” His fork broke through the steamy potatoes.

      “Can I please start working at the mine? Just the afternoon shift, when I’m back from school?”

      “I told you no already. Not until you’re done.”

      “But it’s just six more months. I’m bored,” he whined. “And besides, I want to start saving up some.”

      Our father dropped his fork for a moment, sipped his coffee. And looked straight into Pablo’s eyes.

      “It’s hard work, Pablo. And you’ll do enough of it. In fact, you’ll get sick of that mine. Believe me.” He brought another piece of meat to his plate. “And besides, you have a job. It’s your school. When you’re done with this job, you’ll move on to the next.”

      “But, Pai, can’t I at least start training for it?” He was tearing up.

      “You want more responsibilities? You need more duties?” His voice was one degree louder than usual, but still calm enough. “Help your mother around the house. She can always use your boys’ help.”

      Before leaving the house our father said that he was going to invite some of his friends over that evening to drink some quentão, and asked our mother if she could boil some. They believed the alcohol could clean their lungs of all the coal dust they breathed day in and day out. And at least twice a week our father would have some of his closest friends over for drinks - quentão during the winter and cachaça during the summer.

      “How many of them tonight, amor?” she asked, looking at the pots she had available.

      “Oh, the usual. About ten or fifteen.”

      By four o’clock that afternoon our mother had put the biggest pot she owned to work. The scent of boiling red wine and cloves had taken over both floors of our home. The smell of it mixed with burnt pine was enough to make us forget the cold outside. Our mother baked a large bread to go with it, all the while humming around the kitchen, as if we were celebrating something. Mãe loved to entertain, and she liked to watch our father with his friends, telling jokes like he used to tell us before the coup.

      Meanwhile, to prove his point, Pablo mowed the lawn and cleaned the chicken coop. By sundown, he had also washed the entire tool shed exterior, watching as the coal-stained water slid through its white walls and fell on the coal-stained mud.

      By then the smell of quentão was spilling through our home’s windows and ceiling. Its scent, so warm and strong that people would know that she had made it even before they walked in. It was a heart-warming drink, the reason why our parents would let us have a sip or two. It was sweet too, and felt as though it multiplied inside of you, creating a hot protective layer to your bones against the unforgiving cold.

      That evening I kept an eye on Mãe while Pablo sunk an old leiteira into the large pot of quentão, sneaking out the door to meet with his friends.