Cataveiro

by E. J. Swift

  Mig checks behind him before entering the warehouse through the usual window. It isn’t much, but it is a kind of home, this place, for kids that have no home. Their numbers have varied over the years. Some get lucky, get out. Others have been here forever. They are almost adults, though they try to stay like kids, to make themselves look small. They don’t want to move on. One day they will have to. Kids can slip by, kids can keep this place secret and safe. Adults attract attention. Mig doesn’t like to think about what will happen when he becomes an adult. It’s not so distant now, when it used to seem a lifetime away. That’s why he started the stash.

  Today he counts fifteen bodies, bunched into small groups, the loners curled up with their faces to the walls. He knows all their faces. Most of them run errands for him, from time to time. He hands over the Alaskan’s cash. It buys them hot meals. He tries to do it fair, a kind of rota so no one loses out, though some of them you couldn’t trust to trail a Tarkie.

  The rest of them are next door in the pit, where Mig goes now.

  Tonight’s pit billing lists Pilar, Pilar y el Loro as she must be known, but currently the kids are sitting round clicking and egging a disorganized wrestling match. Mig ignores it and looks directly for a sharp little highlands kid called Ri. Easy to spot, he has a face like a lizard that’s all peeling from the pox. He sheds skin on you, this kid, drips and flecks of skin, shrivelled like scales; Mig has learned to stand clear when he talks to Ri. There’s nothing infectious, or you’d know, but still you look at the boy and you think, spirits and angels, who wants to look like that?

  ‘Hey, Ri. Ri, get over here.’

  The boy comes over and Mig holds up a hand: not too close. The boy stares up at him from under his peeling eyelids. It’s kind of fascinating and creepy at the same time. That’s how reptiles are. That’s how they’ve survived when the others, the wolves and the jaguars, are gone.

  ‘I need to know about Fuego,’ says Mig. ‘Something’s going down at the harbour.’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Who really wants to know?’

  ‘Who do you think? You going to do it or not?’

  The boy sneezes. Flakes of skin fall from his upper lip and drift down to the floor.

  ‘How much?’ says Ri. His voice is nasal and expressionless. Mig wonders if the pox got his vocal cords too, if parts of Ri are shedding on the inside as well as the outside. Perhaps Ri’s voice will disappear and then other bits of him until eventually Ri collapses in upon himself like a waterlogged box.

  ‘It’s the cash when you come back with information, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So go.’

  Ri scuttles off. It’s a relief to see the back of him, and yet Mig knows he’ll be thinking about Ri, which walls he’ll be climbing, which windows he’ll be leaning on to eavesdrop. The younger boy is like a shadow inside of Mig. He knows, strangely, that if anything happened to Ri it would stay with him forever. He would be haunted.

  It is not only street kids in here tonight; others have snuck in too, people who’ve heard about the underground sensation that is Pilar. People with homes and families. It’s not good for them to come here. They draw attention. It makes Mig feel bristling and defensive.

  The wrestling match ends with one girl bleeding heavily from a torn ear. Next up is some kid with a trained lizard. The lizard stands on its back legs and dances. Mig’s seen it before: a cute act, but nobody cares today. They are all here for Pilar.

  In another corner, a group of younger kids are paying no attention to the pit. They’re sat in a circle, facing inwards.

  Mig is aware of their voices moving against him, rustlings, like soft hairs. He moves closer to make out what they are saying.

  A girl with a round, comical face, a clown face, dominates the group. She has stripes painted on her cheeks like a desert tribesgirl, or are they scars?

  She speaks in a low, mystical voice. ‘The jaguar comes down from the sky and stalks the streets. If the jaguar passes you, you can feel his fur and his hot breath. It goes right through you. His eyes are on fire. His feet are mountains and each fur on his tail is a dried-up river. If the jaguar looks at you …’

  A shudder goes through the group and Mig feels a coldness under his arms.

  ‘… then you will die for definite within three months,’ says the girl. ‘The jaguar chooses his souls carefully. He picks each soul, and after they’re dead he scoops them up and takes them back up into the sky, and he makes them warriors in his war.’

  More talk of war, thinks Mig.

  ‘I’ve seen the jaguar,’ whispers a small boy.

  ‘So’ve I.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘Did he look at you?’

  The small boy shakes his head, terrified.

  ‘Then you’re safe,’ says the clown-girl, with authority.

  A stir from the onlookers. Pilar is on her way.

  Mig listens to the chant: El Loro, El Loro. Slapped skin, popped cheek, whistle click huff. Part of it is a front, a way to make the non-streets, the counted ones with families and homes, know their place. The sound gets into his ears and then it works into his chest, the rhythm, the lilt of it. El Loro, El Loro. The first word short and then the lo long and drawn out. El Lo-ro, El Lo-ro.

  Here is Pilar, swaggering into the pit. She has decorated her hair with bright dyed feathers, so many of them it’s hard to tell where the hair ends and the feathers begin.

  ‘All right?’ she shouts, throwing her arms wide.

  She waggles her tongue at them, showing off the metal bolt that she is alleged to have stuck through it herself. Mig’s heard things about Pilar. He looks at her waggling holed tongue and thinks they are probably true.

  Pilar glares at the crowd. She does her first set, voice and body percussion, all angry, and mostly shouting. The non-streets look uncomfortable. This isn’t what they have heard about. But the sharp filth that comes out of her mouth sounds angelic to Mig. His heart stops for a minute, watching his beloved.

  After a few songs, someone calls, ‘Do a fado one, Pilar.’

  Pilar looks pissed-off, then relents. She sits on the edge of the pit. She picks up her guitar and starts to play. When her voice cuts over the guitar the room falls silent. Even the kids in the corner shut up. Mig nods in satisfaction. Now you get it, you morons.

  Pilar’s voice flows into every crevasse of the room. The comical parrot is gone now. Her voice is all longing. A lump in the throat, a sadness you didn’t know was a part of you. She sings in Portuguese. She sings of loves and opportunities lost, fate’s inescapable grip upon your soul, the endless sea which takes you on journeys so long and eventful that when you return, those you knew no longer recognize your face, and look upon you as a stranger. She sings: You can leave a place and promise to come back but you must remember. What you left is not what you return to.

  When Pilar sings it is as if her body disappears and she becomes all mouth, all voice, like a conduit for something not present in the room. But Mig sees. Mig sees the muscles move in her throat and the lungfuls of air she draws down into her chest. He sees the melancholy in her eyes through the feathers and the hair, and wonders if she is sad for herself or if the song is the sadness of others.

  At the end of the set she stands up without a word and makes to leave. She is instantly mobbed.

  Mig loiters. Everyone wants to talk to Pilar, but now that Pilar is done she doesn’t care about the adulation. The non-streets, the counted ones, they all want to touch her. Now she’s chatting with some flash kid who looks like he’s from as far from here as you could get before the enclaves. He’s not a street kid, or if he is he’s a high-class thief, that much is evident from his clothes. He’s cooking up some fat story, his attitude all relaxed and his voice butter soft so Pilar has to lean in to hear what he’s saying. Pilar looks interested, for the first time since she stepped out the ring. Her body is angled towards Flash kid’s. She’s nodding a
nd fiddling with that tongue stud of hers, clacking it against her teeth. Flash kid has a smirk. He’s trying to hide it but Mig can see plain as day. He is riveted with jealousy.

  Flash kid says something to Pilar and Pilar laughs, long and low, throwing back her head. Then she picks up her guitar case and they go outside together.

  Mig is swamped with the desire to go after them and punch Flash kid in the face repeatedly. He imagines the moment where his fist – miraculously larger and tougher and stronger – is coming towards Flash kid, and Flash kid realizes what’s about to happen to him, and in the slowed-down moments before his fist lands, the smirk vanishes from Flash kid’s face. And then Mig’s fist connects with a thunk – no, a crack – and Flash kid flies through the air.

  He wanders aimlessly about the floor of the pit, going from group to group, looking for something to occupy his head, cards or dice or whatever, but all he can think about is Flash kid and Pilar, Flash kid and Pilar, and wonder what they’re doing, if she’s letting him kiss her, and touch her, or showing him her pierced tongue.

  He ducks out into the street. Best head back to the Alaskan, score some supper, let her know he’s got people on the case of the Fuego lockdown. Best not loiter in the streets. When the night comes down those who are safe sit in bubbles of music and light, on the higher levels, away from the streets. The larger the light, the larger the sanctuary. The lights in the warehouse are small.

  It’s a worry, that people are coming to see Pilar. He can’t pretend it isn’t. Soon she’ll have to find other venues. It won’t be safe for the kids.

  He sees the glowing end of a cigarette, and hears a spasm of coughing.

  It’s Pilar, smoking and hacking. She’s alone.

  Mig hesitates.

  ‘Hey.’

  Pilar glares at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He shrugs. ‘Just saying hi.’

  Pilar draws on the cigarette and coughs again. He can’t remember seeing her smoke before. Maybe that’s why she is coughing.

  ‘Nice show,’ he says.

  ‘It wasn’t my best. It was average.’

  ‘Sounded good to me. But what do I know?’

  She looks at him suddenly, right on. The force of her gaze is like a lamp, bright and fierce enough to blow the night away.

  ‘You know a lot, from what I heard.’ She coughs again and makes a phlegmy sound in her throat; really she doesn’t care.

  A flicker of suspicion settles into certainty. It was Flash kid who gave Pilar the cigarettes. Maybe, he thinks with a spark of hope, that’s why she was nice to him. He notices one of her feathers has fallen to the ground. He picks it up for her.

  ‘Keep it,’ says Pilar grandly. ‘There’s plenty more of them.’

  Mig tucks the feather carefully into his pocket.

  ‘You want to go for a walk?’ says Pilar.

  ‘A walk?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, a walk, a wander, a stroll. A walk.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Pilar stubs out the cigarette. She peels herself away from the wall and sets off at a slouching pace. She always walks this way, folding in on herself. It was this walk that made Mig think when he first saw her that she wasn’t really angry, only sad underneath.

  The streets at night are chill, furtive, full of shadows and planned deeds that may or may not come to pass. He has no choice but to walk them but it is never without unease. Tonight, though, is different. With Pilar at his side, the night is pushed away. He becomes invincible. Perhaps she’s only with him because he showed up – perhaps she’s still thinking about the other kid – Flash kid – but Mig doesn’t care. He is just happy to be with her.

  They walk through the district where prostitutes pose in windows and lean out from balconies, their hands soft and draping, their faces bored. A tram horn blows. They pause while the half-full tram clatters past, and Mig sees the vague reflections of his face and Pilar’s face in its windows, side by side. They cross the tram-tracks and walk on, to a district where the second level is busy with rowdy night-time drinkers and the streets below are busy with waiting rickshaw drivers and expectant thieves. Pilar weaves her way through, ignoring all of them.

  While they are walking he says, ‘Where’d you learn to sing like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like the fado.’

  Pilar uses her guitar case to push a way through the crowds.

  ‘My papa found a musical pod in one of the old cities. That was his job, he’d go to the old cities and find things that were buried, and sell them to the pedlars or the caravan. They like those things up north, or sometimes people would buy them for a museum or whatever. Anyway, he got the pod working and one of the things on it was this woman who sang fado. I couldn’t understand all of it until I learned the Portuguese but I knew it was special. It just … you know, it felt right. It felt like me.’

  ‘Have you still got it? The pod?’

  Pilar hesitates.

  ‘You don’t have to say,’ says Mig quickly. He feels slightly stunned. He has never heard Pilar speak so much in one go.

  ‘I do have it. Don’t tell anyone, though. They might think I was cheating.’

  Mig thinks of the Alaskan’s instructions. ‘It’s not cheating,’ he says. ‘It’s learning.’

  ‘Whatever it is, that pod’s the only thing I got in the world that belonged to my papa. Anyway, I can’t use it now. There’s no more juice in it.’

  ‘How’d you come to be on the streets, anyway?’

  ‘Mama died in an accident in the poppy factory. I don’t remember but that’s what my papa told me. And then he got the jinn, and died too. Ironic, isn’t it? What about you?’

  ‘My ma couldn’t look after me. So she lost me.’

  He realizes they are on an inevitable course for the bridge where the girl died. He doesn’t want to pass it, but he can’t choose another route without an obvious diversion, and to mention it seems even worse. They keep walking. When they come to the bridge he feels it, the dead girl’s spirit lodged there still, and he senses her large, dead, sorrowful eyes upon him as they pass under it, and her hands tug at him with cold air as though to try and regain some of the warm life from their two bodies.

  When they are safe on the other side Pilar says, ‘There was a girl there.’

  He says, ‘I know,’ and instantly feels better, knowing that she felt it too.

  ‘The little kids say when someone dies the jaguar’s taken them.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard them say that too.’

  ‘They make up all kinds of shit.’

  ‘You don’t believe in the jaguar then,’ he says with a laugh, like it’s a joke.

  Pilar says, ‘No,’ but too quickly.

  They both fall silent. Something comes to him: the pilot’s last words in that messy street scene with the infected Señorita Xiomara, the woman who throws people into the swallowing sands up north.

  ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ says Pilar.

  ‘All right.’

  He would follow her anywhere. He suspects she knows that, already, but it doesn’t bother him.

  Pilar leads him through the city, taking cuts and bypasses he has not seen before, and Mig thought he knew all the routes. Her trust is at once touching and thrilling. He loves this about the city. You think you know the place and one day, just like that, it shows you a side you’ve never seen before.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asks, knowing she won’t answer, teasing her a little.

  ‘Secret,’ says Pilar mysteriously.

  Mig grins to himself. She might be taking different routes but he can tell the general direction of where they are heading: winding through the Brazilian quarter, out towards the university campus where Mig likes to sit sometimes and listen to the students arguing. He is astonished by how much they can argue over things which, to him, seem either incomprehensible or perfectly obvious. Mig and Pilar pass through the campus, silent now in the night.

&
nbsp; They reach the plaza in the centre of town where the silver tram lines converge on the approach to grand Station Sabado. As Pilar skips across the tracks, a tram horn blares at them, and Mig feels the rush of the tram cars passing at his back.

  ‘Come on.’

  Pilar walks confidently through the main entrance to the station. The lights under the glass and steel canopy are blinding, even at this hour, and it is only now that Mig hesitates. The station is full of late-night commuters, women’s high heels clicking in small groups and the men suave in their evening shirts. A tram unloads a new cargo of raucous, drunken bodies. Enforcers work their way through the station, systematically kicking out beggars and tramps. There are no homeless here. The lights are too bright. The lights will seek out the stink of the street. Mig feels horrifyingly visible. He wants to cringe under them but Pilar strolls through the place like she owns it, right past a scowling enforcer with a baton at his waist, a ticket officer and a cleaner moving a mop in slow circles over the floor tracked with footprints. Pilar opens a service door marked ‘No Entry’ and slips through. Mig does not dare to glance back as he follows. The door shuts behind him with a foreboding clang.

  He finds himself in a concrete stairwell. Pilar is ascending.

  ‘Come on.’

  Higher up, the stairs are covered in bird shit and he can hear claws scrabbling where they have made their nests. At the top of the stairwell, Pilar jimmies open a panel, gives him the guitar case to hold and levers herself up through the hole. He passes up the guitar. Her hand drops down.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He scrambles up, insulted by the suggestion he might need help, but forgets it when he climbs out the hatch and sees the view. They have come out onto the roof of Station Sabado. The city is spread out below, softened in its night-time dressing. A tram exits the station and rolls across the plaza and into the weave of the city streets. Couples stroll across the criss-crossing plaza lines, heading home, swerving away from the ejected beggars.