The Marble Army. Gisele Firmino

that what they are anyway?”

      “I don’t know. Is it? I thought it was different,” I said.

      “Does that mean we get to make a wish for every one we see?” Rita asked Pablo.

      “Claro!” he said, with a smile. “Doesn’t mean they’ll come true, though.” Rita laughed and slapped his shoulder.

      Rita and Clara shared the large mattress, and us boys laid blankets folded in half as close to the fire as we could. Pablo laid his by Rita’s side, and the two of them whispered stories to each other, while we played Clara’s favorite game, where somebody would give us one word, and the first to sing any song with it would win.

      When Pablo’s alarm went off, we were all in such deep sleep that for a few seconds it felt as though we were in a sort fire-colored-collective-nightmare. Rita mumbled something and turned her back to the fire. Xico and his brother looked even more alike than usual; their mouths wide open, belly up, knees bent and arms behind their heads. Pablo looked at me as if daring to go out when everybody else wouldn’t, but I already had my gloves and cap on, and the two blankets in hand.

      Both Pablo and I got sick after that night. The meteor shower would have been underwhelming to most experienced watchers, more like two or three shooting stars. But for us, it felt magical. Shooting stars on a time clock! Pablo, who had teased Rita earlier, was encouraging me to wish that we could stay in Minas forever. He’d shut his eyes for a moment then look at me to make sure I had done the same.

      …

      With three more months until the end of the school year, Pablo saw it as his duty to convince our parents to stay in Minas do Leão, but at dinnertime, all our father talked about was soccer matches, movie theaters, about the things he had heard college kids did for fun. The parties they would go to, the concerts they had on campus, the opportunities he would get. Nothing seemed to affect Pablo. He wanted to stay, he wanted our father’s job. Once in an act of desperation Pai told Pablo something along the lines of, “Not to mention the girls, son. They just take better care of themselves in the city.”

      To which our mother responded, “Thank you, Antonio. That is very worldly of you. You should fit right in in this big city. A gentleman really.” She walked out to tend to the garden.

      Mãe didn’t look at our father for a few days after that. She would feed him and clean after him. She would offer to trim his hair or pluck lint out of his clothes. She would do everything she always did, except look at him. For those days, Pai’s hunched back was even more hunched over in the hopes of meeting her gaze. But Mãe seemed determined. Pablo confided in me one night how much he was enjoying their argument. Hoping that our mother’s resentment could steer all of our lives in the right direction.

      “When do you leave?”

      Clara stood on top of a high branch, holding on to another above her head. That was her favorite avocado tree, and she knew it like her own home. I had sat on a little nook and was watching two gaivotas glide eastward.

      “Once school is over,” I said.

      “Do you know where you’ll live?”

      I shrugged. “Pai has been looking. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

      She had hooked her legs around the branch and was hanging upside down.

      “Do you want to go?” Her blond hair hung and swayed with the breeze.

      I shrugged again.

      “I think I’m going for the guava,” I said.

      “Tá bom. I’ll be right there.”

      Clara’s family was preparing to move, too. But they were going to Caxias do Sul, where the rest of her family was. She said she already had a few friends there. Most people were moving, as there wasn’t much of a choice. A small section of the mine had reopened. And those workers who had chosen to stay had their jobs back. But the people who stayed in town, those who still spent their days inside the mine, avoided being seen with someone like our father, and at times it seemed as though they avoided being seen with any one of us.

      Our mother and I saw Pablo and my father become different people, more distant and quiet. I didn’t mind my father’s distance that much. It was Pablo’s that bothered the most. For those last three months I tried my best to compensate for their absence. Mãe continued to make quentão for the remaining cold days, hoping that old friends would stop by after a long day of work to catch up with my father. That was her way of fighting the changes around her. She’d insist on using the same bigger pot, as if any day, ten, fifteen men would show up, and that she wouldn’t risk embarrassing herself and her husband by not having enough to quench everyone’s thirst. No one ever came, and eventually she stopped.

      Neighbors made themselves clear through small gestures that it wasn’t that they didn’t agree with my father’s attitude but were afraid of what could happen. Assembly of any kind raised suspicions in a town like ours, and people lived within the confines of their own lives. Every once in a while, a neighbor would knock on our door with a little bit of food, saying things like “Oh, dear, I can’t help but cook too much. We’re used to having people over.” Then the conversation would move on and both parties would lament the changes that had come and speak nostalgically about the old days. At first I thought they saw we weren’t doing well without my father’s pay and used this as an excuse for their charity. But as we all became more isolated, I realized they were being honest and actually looked forward to this food exchange.

      Tia Mercedes was the only constant visitor. She was about our mother’s age and had finally gotten pregnant after six years of trying. The whole town got involved in her and her husband’s problem. Everyone prayed for them and services were held so that they would be blessed with a child. Some prayed to Jesus while others called on their orixás to remove whatever macumba was done against poor Tia Mercedes. Most people did both.

      Before the coup, I remember that sometimes, in the dark of the night, a group would gather by the creek right behind Tia Mercedes’s house to “work” on her. I was intrigued by the ritual. She would stand barefooted by the creek, while people dressed in white and yellow, Oxum’s colors, kneeling before her, singing, calling and waiting for Mamãe Oxum to manifest herself in one of them. We would know whoever was the chosen one because they would dance around her, speaking in tongues, as soon as Mother Oxum took possession of their body. Mamãe Oxum would hold onto Tia Mercedes’s head at first and work her way down, spending more time on her belly. Then she’d continue on to the very tip of her toes, as if sending out to the water all the bad spirits, the venom within her that killed every baby before they could even have a fighting chance, demanding that the current take them, as far as they would go. Meanwhile all the others clapped and sang praises to Mamãe Oxum. But sometimes people said it wasn’t Oxum who had come but some other caboclo. They would know it immediately because of its raspy voice and his immediate request for a cachaça and a cigar. They would always have them handy in case the caboclo showed up, as to not upset him.

      I never quite understood Umbanda and its orixás. But whatever they did, it had worked in time. A meeting in the dark like this would not sit well after the coup. But now Tia Mercedes was very much pregnant, and this couple’s only trouble was that her husband had left the mine with our father and was also out of a job.

      Their similar situation had brought Tia Mercedes and our mother very close. There wasn’t one afternoon that she didn’t stop by to chat. She’d stand by the kitchen door, caressing her enormous belly, while watching our mother work. It was surprising to me that they got along. Our mother was in a constant state of denial, it seemed. Telling people left and right that everything was fine, that her husband had all sorts of opportunities now that he was no longer buried in that mine, that Pablo was happy to be going to college next year, and that age meant nothing to me, whatever that meant.

      While my mother created her alternate perfect universe, Tia couldn’t bring herself to look away from her reality. She did everything she could to convince her husband they should move. But he was hardheaded. A man of the pampas, he’d say. Not meant for the big city.