Some tone in his voice. Nando jerked his head up.
“I had to tell you—”
“Don’t, Edson. Don’t say it. Freitas is dead. We sent the thing back to its own universe. The Door is closed.”
Down the hall, an anteroom door opened. Ana stepped out with her aides.
“Can it be closed?”
Edson’s voice shook. “You said once you recognized Freitas’s emptiness. You saw the same hunger in your brother—in—law. Nando, listen. What if there are no aliens? No devils? What if the thing inside—”
Nando’s eyes narrowed, his cheeks flushed. “Damn you, it is over.” Unlike Edson, Nando had been left an option—and he chose not to know.
Shouts from Nando’s officers. The Americans had arrived. Edson could see them striding their businesslike way past the courtyard’s wide—hipped stone women.
Nando crumbled the last roll, and left him. Breeze blew through Itamaraty’s open walls, vibrated empty window supports, sounded a continuous bassoon.
The American soldiers looked sinister: wide shoulders, beefy faces, shaved skulls. They walked like automatons, tuned to the same frequency; all in unintentional step, and yet no rhythm.
At the door, Nando was trying to herd his officers into a line. Each seemed to have his own idea of where to stand. Edson sensed someone at his shoulder. He looked down. Ana.
She was watching the Americans. “I knew he was dead when the lights in the sky went out,” she said. “And I imagine that the Door opened, too, and that the spirits of all the people he had captured went on. When Nando finally ordered his soldiers to release me, he wouldn’t tell me what happened. Before he died, Edson, were you there?”
A pause, then Edson nodded. Through the bassoon solo of the wind, a restless stirring. The Americans entered, news people trailing like scavenger birds. The American general halted, spun to Nando, and stood, arms at his sides. His men stopped, attentive, behind.
From Nando, an impish smile. He lifted his arm, whirled, brought it down with a flourish. His officers opened their mouths. “Weee—geeve—eh—aaapuh—you—eesss—tuuu—peed—ah—maaa—there—foook—airs.”
The Americans blinked. The cameraman lowered his minicam. Edson began to smile.
In Ana’s face was a weariness as profound as despair. “Everyone has always made my decisions for me. First Paulinho. Then Dolores. And finally Nando.”
A frustrated shake of Nando’s head. He whirled, lifted his hand again. From the choir: “Weee geeve—eh aah—puh ...”
She said, “I need your gun.”
Edson brought the gun merely to keep Americans off him. But Ana was used to the effects of hunger, and oblivion was the only shelter she had ever known. He took hold of her fingers. Her hands were like ice.
The officers’ gleeful “ ... you estuuuu—peed ...”
The gun was too big for her. Too heavy. He folded her fingers around it. “Both hands,” he said. “And not in the heart.” The heart had always been her weakness. “Don’t put it against the side of your head. You can’t help but tremble.”
Edson lay his cheek against hers. Her skin was already cold. “In the mouth,” he whispered. “So deep, you will think you choke.” And when the explosion came, he prayed she would not swallow emptiness. “Please ...” Don’t make a mess of it, he thought.
A rousing finish. “ ... maaa—there—fooo—kairs!”
A final squeeze of her hand. He let her go, and turned.
The slam of the anteroom door caught the crowd’s attention. Nando was staring. The American general was staring. They were all staring at the place where Edson stood guard.
The boom was so pure a sound that it sent a shiver racing through Edson. It made the Brazilian officers flinch, and made Nando cry out. It was so powerful that it halted the Americans in their tracks.
And in the emptiness of the foyer, a dry snap of feathers. A confusion of light and dark. The flock found direction, stormed the breezeway.
Clear of the shade of the overhang, birds ascended, free and fast. For a single heady instant they blazed with sun—a host besieging heaven.
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