And yet that moment was not a difficult one. I think it would be more truthful to say that it was a relief.
In the morning, after I had washed and then taken my hat from its hook, I waited for Dona Esmeralda to tell her of my decision. But she didn't come. Finally I turned to one of the enticing girls at the bread counter.
'I'm quitting today,' I said, tipping my hat. 'Tell Dona Esmeralda that José Antonio Maria Vaz will not be working here any more. Tell her that I've enjoyed the time I've worked here. And tell her that I will never, for as long as I live, bake bread for any other baker.'
Was it Rosa I spoke to? I remember her surprised look. Who would be so stupid as to voluntarily quit working for Dona Esmeralda? With thousands of people already out of work, with no money and no food?
'You heard me right,' I told her, tipping my hat again. 'I'm leaving now, and I won't be back.'
But that was not entirely true. I had already decided to wait for Maria that evening. I wanted to see her because I wanted to say goodbye and wish her good luck in the future. Maybe deep inside I hoped that she would come with me? I don't know. But where would she have followed me? Where was I actually going?
My answer was: I didn't know. I was carrying out an important mission, but I didn't know which way to go.
After I left the bakery on that last morning, I felt a great sense of freedom. I couldn't even see why I should grieve for Nelio.
Maybe it would be better to grieve for Alfredo Bomba, who probably would not be happy where he was now. For a long time he would no doubt be yearning for his life on the street, for the group of street kids, for the rubbish bins and the cardboard boxes outside the Ministry of Justice.
That's the way it is. A person can yearn for a rubbish bin or for life eternal. It all depends.
I went over to the plaza where Nelio's equestrian statue stood. When I got there, I saw to my astonishment that it had fallen over. There was a great crowd in the plaza. The Indian shopkeepers had not opened their shops, but Manuel Oliveira, on the other hand, had thrown wide the doors of his church.
The equestrian statue had fallen.
I realised that the tremors of the day before had been strong enough to crack the foundation of the heavy statue. The bronze horse and rider lay on their side; the man's helmet was crushed. The last remnant of a bygone era had been toppled. Reporters from the city's newspapers scribbled notes, a photographer took pictures, and children had already started playing and jumping on Dom Joaquim's last monument.
Manuel's church was crowded with people. They were rattling off their prayers as a safeguard and incantation that the tremors would not return. Old Manuel stood under the tall black cross at the far end of the church, looking at the miracle that had occurred. He might have been crying; I was so far away that I couldn't tell for sure. I left the plaza, thinking that Nelio's spirit was hovering above my head. His suffering was over, the bullets in his body could no longer poison him. As one last salute, he had made the horse in whose belly he had lived topple to the ground. For hours I sat on a bench near the hospital, where there's a view of the whole city. From there, if I squinted, I could even see the rooftop where Nelio had lain for the nine nights he told me his story.
I had much to think about. Where would I live? What would I live on? Who would give a man who has only a story to tell the food that he needs? I sat there on the bench in the shade, growing more uneasy.
Then I thought about the children who live on the streets; I thought about Nelio, Alfredo Bomba, Pecado and the others. They found their food in rubbish bins, the free meals of the poor. That food was there for me too. I could live anywhere. Like a lizard I would seek out a crack in the wall that was wide enough for me. There were cardboard boxes, rusting cars. The city was full of places to live that cost nothing.
I knew that I could no longer live with my brother and his family. That was a home that belonged to the life I had left behind. I got up from the bench feeling strangely elated. I had been worrying for no reason. I was a rich man. I had Nelio's story to tell. I needed nothing else.
That evening I waited in the dark outside the bakery for Maria. When I saw her coming, I suddenly didn't dare approach her. I tried to hide in the dark, but she had already seen me. Her dress was gauzy, and she was smiling. I stepped out of the shadows; I felt almost like an actor emerging from the wings on to the illuminated stage. I hastily ran my hand over my face to make sure there was no elephant trunk stuck to my nose. Then I tipped my hat.
'Maria,' I said. 'How could I ever forget a woman who sleeps so soundly that an earthquake can't wake her? What were you dreaming about?'
She laughed and tossed back her long black tranças.
'My dreams are my own concern,' she said. 'But I like your hat. It suits you.'
'I bought it so that I could tip it for you,' I said.
Her expression was suddenly sombre. 'Why are you standing out here?'
I had taken off my hat and was holding it to my chest, as if I were at a funeral. I told her the truth. That everything was over. That I had quit.
'Why?'
'I have a story that I have to tell,' I said.
To my astonishment, she seemed to understand me. She didn't seem surprised like the girl at the bread counter had been.
'You must do what you have to do,' she said.
Then we parted. She hurried to the bakery. She didn't want to be late. I didn't even have time to touch her arm. That was the last time she stood so close to me.
Maria, the woman I will never forget, is close at my side. The Maria I sometimes see on the streets, from a distance, is someone else.
I watched her leave. She turned round once, waved and smiled. I took off my hat and held it in my hand until she was gone. I never put that hat on again. I didn't need it any more. I set it on top of a rubbish bin that was nearby. Later I thought I saw what was left of my hat on a street kid's head. It seemed to me that the hat liked being where it was.
A year has passed since Nelio died.
I watched Maria disappear, and then I walked into my new life. I started living as a beggar, looking for food in rubbish bins, sleeping in the crannies of buildings and walls. And I started telling my story.
Nelio's group disbanded. I sometimes saw Nascimento, who had joined a group of the wildest kids, the ones who lived outside the central marketplace. He seemed the same as usual. He took his cardboard box with him wherever he went. I wondered whether he would ever manage to kill the monsters inside him. Although now he had a knife, which he often sat and sharpened.
I found Pecado one day when I was wandering around the rich people's district of the city. He was selling flowers on a street corner. I wondered whether he had grown them in his own pockets the way Mandioca did. He must have been doing good business, because he was wearing clean clothes with no holes in them.
Tristeza I stumbled upon one time outside one of the big cafés where tourists and cooperantes tend to gather. He was sleeping in the middle of the pavement, and his trainers were gone. He was barefoot again. He was the filthiest street kid I've ever seen. He stank. He had permanent sores from fleas and scabies, and he was itching and scratching in his sleep. He was terribly skinny, and I thought that Nelio had been right. He wouldn't last long in this world, which didn't need people who were slow-witted. I left without waking him, and I never saw him again.
Mandioca was gone. For a long time I wondered whether some accident had befallen him, or whether he was dead. By chance, much later on, I found out that he had voluntarily gone to one of the big buildings where white-clad nuns give children clothing and food. He had decided to stay. And I don't think he ever did go back to the streets.
I even saw Deolinda again.
That's one of the darkest memories I have from the year that has passed since Nelio lay on the rooftop and died.
It was late one night, on one of the main streets that leads past the area where the pavement restaurants are, near the rich district of town where a lo
t of cooperantes have their houses. I don't remember where I was going, since I'm seldom on my way to anywhere except where my feet happen to take me. Girls were always standing at the intersections, offering themselves. I found it embarrassing to walk past them, and I usually fixed my gaze on the pavement or in some other direction. But on a street corner, late one night, I saw Deolinda. She was heavily made up, almost unrecognisable; she was wearing provocative clothes, and she was tapping her foot impatiently. After I had walked past, I stopped and turned. I hoped that one day Cosmos would come back from his long journey and take care of his sister.
I hoped that it wouldn't be too late.
At night, when I'm on my way to my rooftop, I sometimes stop outside a restaurant to listen to the music. Whenever I hear the monotonous but lovely notes of timbila, I'm drawn back in my mind to the nights that I spent with Nelio. I could stand there for hours, listening. From the music rise voices, forgotten long ago by everyone except me.
One time I went out to the big cemetery when Nelio spent a night in Senhor Castigo's tomb. I found my way over to the section reserved for the graves of the poor. Somewhere lay the remains of Alfredo Bomba's body. His bones had already become mixed with others in the earth; they lay there, packed together, one person's jawbone next to someone else's hand, and they cried out like a choir, in utter despair at their desolation. I seemed to sense the restless dance of all the spirits that cannot find peace, and as long as the spirits are not content, the war will continue to ravage this land.
My story is drawing to a close. I have told everything, and now I will start over again.
I know that I am called the Chronicler of the Winds because no one has yet made the effort to listen to what I have to say.
But I know the day will come.
It will come because it has to come.
*
A year has passed since the shots were fired.
I spend my nights on the roof of the theatre.
That's where I still belong.
The baker who works during the quiet hours of the night, the man who replaced me, will never tell anyone that I'm there. Sometimes he shares his food with me.
I need the silence of the roof after the long days under the searing sun. I still have my mattress. Here I can lie and look up at the stars before I fall asleep. Here I can think about everything that Nelio told me before he died. I know that I have to keep telling his story even if only the winds from the sea listen to what I have to say. I have to keep talking about this earth, which is sinking farther and farther into unconsciousness, where people must live to forget and not to remember. I have to keep speaking so that the dreams will not grow hot with fever, then cool and finally die. It's as if Nelio wants to place his hand on the earth's forehead and mix Senhora Muwulene's herbs into the rivers and oceans of the world. The earth is sinking farther and farther, the groups of street children are more numerous and grow larger – the street children who live in the poorest of countries, the lands of street children.
My story is done, but it keeps on starting over. In the end it will hover like an invisible note, embedded in the wind that ceaselessly blows from the sea. It will exist in the raindrops falling on the parched earth, and in the end it will exist in the air we breathe. I know that it's true, what Nelio told me, that our last hope is to remember who we are, that we are human beings who will never be able to control the warm winds from the sea, but maybe one day we will understand why the winds must always continue to blow.
I, José Antonio Maria Vaz, a lonely man on a rooftop under the starry tropical sky, have a story to tell . . .
Chronicler Of The Winds Page 24
