Urban Mosaics

by Mauricio R B Campos

  In another life, Vigo. Now, crossing the Ayrton Senna road. Some memories should die out like autumn leaves. In the car radio an intersected song sounded: “Can you see me? Can you something?”

  The Clown

  “In the Persian city of Sheba, from where the three kings started their journey and in the city where they were burned afterwards, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And on them, a rectangular building beautifully decorated. The bodies still entire, with hair and beard remaining”.

  Il Milione from the Venetian explorer Marco Polo

  The parents in general have the most variegated hobbies, some mount miniature like locomotives, planes, cars; others have passion for automobiles and spend hours in their house garage, preparing the engine, cleaning the car, installing accessories; some follow affectionately their soccer teams, buy T-shirts, watch games, visit stadiums, take their sons to trophies rooms, play soccer for fun in the fields on Sundays, bet with friends, laugh and cry with the score; there are the Carnival lovers who work all the year for a delight in February; some bend on books, take pictures, study birds, animals, languages, computing... My father devoted his free time for a single party that of honoring the three kings in the revelry of kings[4], through the Kings Company “Santa Helena”.

  The memory of this so characteristic facet of my father’s life style didn’t comfort me as I transposed the stairs that linked the airplane to the port of disembarkation. The thermal shock gave me a shiver, when I left Porto Alegre, it was a cold weather thanks to the cold front coming from the South, and the airplane air-conditioning kept the temperature low, but now I had to live with a wave of haze in Ribeirão Preto. I walked up to the luggage belt waiting for my suitcase, as I increased the volume of the mp3 player, the headphones vibrating in my ears. Would the symphonic heavy metal that I heard with music from Finland on winter, snow and broken hearts refresh myself somehow?

  I didn’t need to wait too long and I could soon see my suitcase coming, softly brought to my hands by the automatic belt. I took my heavy suitcase, put it on the floor with effort and started pulling it to the exit of the airport. I soon found Daniel. He was smiling and embraced me tightly:

  — How much I missed you, daughter! How was your flight, was it ok?

  — Everything ok, but it took a little too long because of many stopovers.

  We went to the sidewalk and my father asked for a taxi. Will he someday learn how to drive? The taxi driver placed my suitcase in the luggage compartment, we got into the car and he informed the destination, Mococa. I hated to hear this name, I shivered, so many times I was obliged to spend vacations here. You need to have contact with you father, that’s what they said, and I was taken from Porto Alegre to the melting heat of Mococa, the little cow land...

  — So? Daughter, what have you heard? Have you discovered there is music in your mother tongue, or there’s only value what’s from abroad?

  I looked at him in anger, always wanting me to learn these national songs by heart; I don’t even like national rock.

  — I hear a lot of Brazilian music, by many talented people, all of whom sing in English! — I teased him, with a soft smile.

  — What are you hearing now?

  — It’s a German band, they are playing We all live in America.

  Daniel shrank his shoulders:

  — What does it talk about?

  — I don’t know — I answered. He always complained saying: how come you sing something you don’t understand? But what matters in music is the melody, the rhythm, the lyrics is only a detail.

  — How about the little English courses you attend to? — this was my father. He left home for so long ago and now he’s worried about my productivity in the English course...

  — I’m going fine, I think I will soon pass TOEFL, the proficiency exam.

  — So why don’t you understand the lyrics?

  — Because it’s in German.

  He shut up and so we went on with the rest of the trip. He looked embarrassed and I wondered what my mother had seen in him, years ago. Natanael, her current husband, is so different, a travelled, experienced, decided man. While I was here in this forced exile, they were heading to Miami for a second honey moon. Ah, it would be so nice to exchange Mococa for Miami, especially in this time of the year, end of the year, time in which we hear the tedious talk about the Christmas spirit, and my father gets excited in his passion, the Three Kings Company “Santa Helena”.

  Interlude

  “Queen Helen... started thinking widely of the bodies of those three kings, then she got ready and with many companions, she left to the lands of the East Indies...After she found the bodies of Belchior, Balthasar and Gaspar, the Queen Helen put them into a chest and ornamented it with many riches and returned them to Constantinople...and placed them in a church called Santa Sophia.”

  Historia Trium Regum of the Carmelite monk John de Hildesheim

  It was almost midday; the so peaceful street was crowded. People from the most different springs gathered. Some children would make a racket, ran, others shrank fearful, but the procession went on, the violas and the guitars vibrated on the stones street paving. The rhythm of the tambourines dictated the revelers’ dance, the men turned, intoning me an undecipherable rustic ballad. Those sounds mixed in such a manner that I couldn’t say where a word began and another finished. It was as though the words had molten, mixed into a uniform mass, only the rustic flavor remarking the mix.

  Then an ox appeared, turned through the circle formed by the crowd to appreciate the spectacle. The man who dressed the ox fancy dress was thin and fast, he smartly turned on his heels and ran in the circle, the colored tapes of the fancy dress thrown by the wind even touched the population. The ox fancy dress went up to his waist, black and velvety, adorned by large horns, removed from the dead carcasses in the pasture. The forehead of the ox decorated with spangles on a white cloth would shine under the sun, above the holes used for the reveler to see. The eyes of the ox were hardly seen, because when it ran these were no more than a scratch cutting the vision, but then, sometimes, he would stop, scratched his feet on the floor like a bull scratching the bull ring, and he would look down, raising the horn to the crowd. And poor would be the child who looked at everything with one foot retracted, the eyes fixed and the hands trembling. The ox scented fear, and, when it found it, it got that way, stuck, snooping, scratching the bull ring, and then from a jump it headed to the fearful one, horns up, and it would run until the horns almost pierce the target, for then draw back, twisting its tapes in return to the street, then everything would begin again.

  It was a holy party, telling a biblical story popularly adapted. The call of the three kings to Our Master and Savior Jesus Christ. A reconstruction of the travel, with indispensable folklore ingredients: fancy dress, music, party and pinga. The ox soon left the scene; went to take a rest and the singing kept on. The clown gained room, making the street its arena. His red cloth mask covered all his head. The clown mask would make us fearful, wide eyes sewed on the front cloth, under a big mouth transfigured into a grimace that sometimes would seem to be a smile. His long hair was formed by tapes with the seven rainbow colors. He would make clowning turning the standard-bearer, who would smile and sing.

  Those who looked from far away could see the standard, hanging at the top of the flagpole, floating on our heads. One day the cloth had already been colored, but after so many processions and pilgrimages the colors faded away, discolored, and it was hard to distinguish the image of Saint Joseph and the baby Jesus. Tied to the edge of the standard, several colored tapes trembled twisting gladly through the wind.

  The Bastion looked at everything, attentive to each motion of the revelry. The Mococa’s population was all there, all gathered at the feet of the standard, at a mediaeval celebration wealthily worked by the simple people and the rustic man.

  The revelry kept on walking, followed its way through the avenue flanked by myrtles. The maste
r would go ahead, with the viola at his hand, the eyes set on the revelry, at each detail, the righteousness of the standard, the ox choreography, the foreman beat, the flutes accords, attentive to the clown’s position. The tradition says that the clown, with is mocking grimace, may never remain in front of the flagpole, which is forbidden. The clown is the joy of the revelry, symbol of the indifference provoked by the world’s funs to the Savior’s afflictions. Inside that travelling theater, the three kings, Balthasar, Belchior and Gaspar would follow around the flagpole, following the star at the top of the flagpole.

  The music stopped for some time, the actors breathed, the people kept on with the walking, un to getting in front of John’s, the milkman, where the music restarted. Then the magic of the faith and the power of imagination transformed the Company. And in an instant, they were no more in the little Mococa, were transported in the illusion space and time, and now they were in the Kedron valley, the Gethsemane garden, where years after, Our Mary would be buried, but that today was the stage of the fateful treason of Christ.

  Transported to the twilight, the grey hour in which the shapes tend to appear mixed in the absence of color. Lights and shadows. In the afterglow, the Nazarene walks through the olive trees, meditating about the moments that approach, the bloody sweat running to the earth. In the middle of the leaves, a shape suddenly is outlined, dark, the eyes shining like rubies, the rotten breath drawing sulphur whiffs through the air, in the lights and shadows, the horns outline, the ox jumps from the half-light to the final temptation.

  The ox has made its court, the request of the human misfortunes denied, and runs away, cursed for ever and ever. When the prophet turned, all the scene of the treason was already mounted; there was Judas and the crowd, including the Roman soldiers. The one who betrayed him had given a sign saying:

  — The one I kiss, that’s him: arrest him.

  And soon, approaching Jesus, he said:

  — Save, Rabbi. And he kissed him.

  Jesus however said to him:

  — Friend, what have you come for?

  The soldiers raise their swords and run to Jesus:

  — We have come to take you! — they shout. They were no more than six, swords in hands, the colored clothes of silk shreds shining underneath the full moon. The biggest of them approached Jesus, but Peter interposed his path. The Roman soldier took a draft from his straw cigarette; they crossed their looks in strange and long seconds of uncertainty, similar to a duel of western gunmen.

  Peter drew his sword faster and cut the soldier’s ear, and saw it fall in a bloody jet that stained the olive trees. Then Jesus said:

  — Stick your sword into its place; because all that raise the sword, by the sword shall die. Or do you think I could not supplicate to my Father, and that he himself wouldn’t send me right now more than twelve angels’ legions?

  The other soldiers ran to capture Jesus definitely, but before they could touch him, a torpid, insidious figure interposed himself between them: the clown! He opened his arms and his cover with the seven rainbow colors shone under the strong moonlight, and when he turned to the Roman soldiers, his devil face made them draw back in terror:

  — Throw away you swords and surrender, Roman dregs! — and he brandished his indicator to their fearful faces, dropping a threating roar.

  The clouds covered the moonlight for a moment, and the darkness took the scenario. In the darkness, the evil became almost palpable, and when, after a couple of seconds, the moonlight shone again, two soldiers had disappeared, transported supernaturally to some abyssal den in the farthest corners of tenebrous regions.

  Jesus raised his hands:

  — Stop! As, therefore, the Scriptures would be met, what do you say it rather happens? Leave him, stop! And touching the ear, he cured him and the Roman soldiers returned from darkness. The clown and his colorful clothes and his devil grimace disappeared as if he had never been there.

  Then Jesus said to the main templars, the officers of the elderly temple, who had been against him:

  — You have left, like a thief, with swords and staves? All days I was with you in the temple, and you did not stretch your hand against me; but this is your time and the darkness power.

  Interlude

  “I see Clown and Bastion,

  Cheearing all around.

  Christmas is now here,

  See the kings revelry."

  The Company is arriving, walking in procession, Holy Kings are coming, so now long live to Kings will come, I apologize to get into your salon – with these words the Kings Company “Santa Helena” now got into the house of John the milkman. The milkman, happy in his Palmeiras shirt, received all with a smile in his face, sometimes he intonated a little verse, a host ballad: — Come in all with joy, from the girl to the elderly, there’s no more honor, in the time of revelry!

  I accompanied the entrance of all into the salon; Zé Dias soon left the ox warm fancy dress and received a beer can from the son of the house, with a little slap on his shoulder and a play. The Clown sat on the sidewalk, looking at nothing. I sat beside him, and we were soon alone in the street, listening to the laughter and voices coming from the bottom of the host’s property.

  — Did you like it? — the clown asked me, the hoarse voice crossing the mask.

  I didn’t know what to say. I avoided coming here at this time of the year for so many years, my mother always warned me, “this time your father becomes unbearable with this story of kings revelry”. So I always came here in July, when I’d be save from oxen and clowns. The last time I followed a kings revelry I was very young, I was only a little girl, afraid of monsters. But now, since I am fourteen years old, I can realize better the world around me, it was so strange. The ox was my uncle Zé Dias, a manly individual, even unsmiling, and some minutes ago he was there, having fun with the little crowd with simple verses and a complicate juggling. They took that too seriously, it was not the carnival I recalled, there was so much faith, the old ladies emotional cried imagining the theater of a two thousand years tragedy.

  It was a tender and joyful party. I could feel the expectation of those people, their satisfaction was almost palpable. Somehow, they gave hope to those simple people, with the skin cut by the sun, the soul with scars that I believe I will never have, ingenuity and ignorance hand by hand. What a pleasure they would have except for that simple outdoor spectacle, where they honored God and then they drank and ate, getting enough blamelessly.

  If I liked it? I couldn’t say no, that I wasn’t transported for some minutes to a biblical story painted with the colors of scrap silk and rustic flavor.

  — Yes, I like it — I finally confirmed, the words getting out with difficulty. — Aren’t we getting in? — I changed subjects.

  — Get in, Alice, come in, go eat with your uncle Zé. The son of the John the milkman is a born barbecue lighter, you won’t regret.

  I looked at him as I’d never looked before, since the divorce. The hurt had disappeared, the grudge declared a truce.

  — Aren’t you coming? — I stood up.

  He looked at me through the holes of the fancy dress, his voice impatient:

  — I can’t, the Clown only comes in at the end of the party.

  — But you arranged all this the whole year, why do you have to be the Clown?

  — These kinds of this we don’t choose, daughter, we are chosen. Some things in life simply happen and follow its course, and there’s nothing we can do, the river always runs to the sea.

  — But....

  — It’s not that I don’t want to get in the house, I simply can’t. It’s like when your mother left; I didn’t want to get away, but I simply couldn’t do anything else. One day you will understand...

  I looked at him, and I didn’t know whether I could assimilate that, he meant I wasn’t mature enough to understand some things, but I didn’t think so. But perhaps there was some basis; some years ago, I couldn’t see more than carnival fancy dresses and monsters wh
ere today I witnessed an imagination miracle. I think I could wait a little more to begin; I sat again and looked at him.

  — Aren’t you getting in? — he asked.

  — I can stand a little more.

  He smiled and I asked him who taught him these verses and all this stuff of revelry. Then he began to tell me, since the beginning, when he was a child in São Benedito das Areias, the story of his father and his grandfather in the Company Star of São Benedito das Areias. The origin of the revelry, the parties in Portugal and Milan, the kings donuts in Latin America and in Europe, the legends and homilies about Balthasar, Belchior and Gaspar.

  It was the first time I actually wanted to hear my father talk about that, but I think I will never get enough hearing him repeat, with his eyes shining.

  Origami

  The day parks

  But not the song

  of the larks.

  Basho

  Keika went down the hill rushing. The living green still fostered by the dew shone under the clear blue sky. She brought a kerchief in her right hand and her left hand was trembling. When she got to the road bordered by a small wood, she headed to the parking lot.

  All the love affairs of the world are our own ones, because we interpret all of them according to our experience. Matsuo liked to say that when he saw a couple in love, or in the bittersweet phase in which the friendship had not yet the tones of passion. A phase they spent many years ago when love was flavored by jealousy and sometimes sorrow.

  He agreed when she said that true love was the one prepared in the womb of a genuine friendship. And this perception of reality was so strong that he decided to write it down. This was the story that encouraged him to idealize his own shojo comic.