Incompatible

by Mauricio R B Campos

  Arthur smiled; embarrassed for having been shown as if he was an attraction for the voracious lens of the camera operator; which was not much far from the truth. All the team wanted was to show stories of people who had abandoned their traditional way of life to live an alternative life in the middle of the wood.

  “How nice, man!” Cesar exclaimed. “Take notice there, Pedrinho” he ordered to his assistant. “We’re going to collect your testimonial for sure. Yours is going to be recorded in the work of this stuff you’re building there. Now tell me” — he wanted to know, turning to Placido “here between us, don’t you plant a vegan organic marijuana secretly there? Before the recordings it would be inspiring, especially after all this delay, we got lost some three times before arriving here.”

  “We don’t plant nothing that is illegal here in Tibiriçá; we keep this in mind to maintain our independence from that society. All they want is to find a marijuana plantation here to label us potheads, irresponsible hippies, communist lunatics or whatever is an object of hate from the patriarchal society of the week. It’s of the human nature to fear what’s different, but we believe we need to love, respect and preserve what’s unequal, diverse and uneven.”

  Cesar looked from Arthur at Placido and exclaimed:

  “From the prior notice of God! I found the big text man! I just needed a little slap, relax, dude. Relax. Let’s start the work, then. I’m going with Marcelinho there to indicate where he needs to make some support images and I’ll be back in one minute.”

  “Who knows a panoramic departing from the eucalyptus trees?” he said while he took distance.

  They went out rushing, leaving Arthur wondering why he had invented that story of having abandoned the world in search of an alternative life. Once a lie was told, one becomes stuck at it, as if it was a damnation. What should he do? Nothing would prevent him from denying all and explaining what he was really doing there. But was not it true that he had really abandoned the world in search of an alternative life? It was half a truth, one could say. Or half a lie, if you like. Anyhow, it would rather be half a lie than a full lie.

  From this assumption, what could he say? There were lots of things, sure, but how to keep with a version that was not so cruel with the reality of the facts? He really went to search for a knowledge about new ways to live, different works from those by which he was conditioned to search for accomplishment. Yes, he thought, whilst he drank a delicious organic coffee and searched for a seat along one of the large tables of the community kitchen, the heart of the ecovillage; yes, he would not deny his initial version, but he would try to remain loyal to the reasons that led him to that place.

  When he finished his coffee, from where he was, he followed the testimonial from Placido to Cesar. The heart of the ecovillage was in a solemn silence; everybody was in a dumb expectation while their representative spoke.

  “Where did the inspiration for this dream of Tibiriçá Ecovillage come from?” Cesar asked, in an almost journalistic intonation.

  Placido settled his Australian hat on his red hair and answered:

  “When I went to study in Australia, I stayed in an ecovillage; there I had contact with permaculture and fell in love with this life style, where the contact with nature is constant.”

  Arthur, knowing the expectation that was created about that documentary, thought that answer had been rehearsed many many times.

  “What is permaculture?”

  “Permaculture is a planning system for the creation of sustainable and productive human environments, in balance and in harmony with nature. It comes from the expression in English “Permanent Agriculture” created by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, sill in the seventies. Today, it proposes a “permanent culture”, that is to say, a culture that aims at our permanence in this planet in harmony with nature. Permaculture has three ethical principles and some planning principles that are based on the observation of ecology and the sustainable way of interaction, production and life of the traditional populations with nature, always working in favor of it and never against.”

  “The principles of permaculture”, he continued, “are the principles we adopt here in the Earth Watchmen’s Society, or simply Tibiriçá Ecovillage. Such principles include: take care of the planet, the people, the future. These are the axes we use here.”

  “And only produce organic vegetables?”

  “Almost organic, actually, because we cannot cultivate a hundred percent organic vegetables yet. The technology involved in such processes are not yet in our reach, but there are projects in this direction that are very promising. Near here, in Itirapina, there’s a farm that produces organic foods in large scale, for sale in supermarkets. But even those, with the support of several agronomists that are compatible and specialized in this area, cannot yet produce a varied range of organic foods. Here we do what’s possible, but I believe in the future, the organic food will prevail.”

  And how does the ecovillage work legally? It’s a question that generates too much curiosity: how is an alternative society organized in terms of laws?”

  “Actually, in Australia the thing was different. When we proposed to create an ecovillage in Brazil, the main obstacle was the bureaucracy. Our legislation doesn’t provide any kind of community; in fact, there’s a deliberate will of the lawmaker to impair any life style that gets out of the ‘square’ urban style. In the countryside, the only thing the society allows for is the agricultural worker, who gains little money and is always enslaved by the banks. We wanted other model, one in which we could live like in the city, but enjoying the best of the countryside; at last, human kind wasn’t born in the cities; mankind is eminently rural.”

  The dwellers listened attentively to Placido’s words as if they were listening to a prophet. His voice brought a dammed load of rebelliousness against the system in which all felt oppressed, but with a positive spirit, aiming to the future, to sustainability. Arthur felt permeated by those words. Then, Placido revealed that the farm where the ecovillage was settled was a rural property of a lawyer, Dr. Silveira. At that moment, he understood what that boring Mr. Silveira was doing there in addition to bothering the good development of the meetings: he was the owner of the lands. Later on, when he asked for more information about the subject, Arthur discovered that Mr. Silveira used to live there at the house that was formerly the big house of the farm; and his son, who intermediated all the process with Placido, lived in the city, and only came to Tibiriçá every now and then to visit his father. The plan of Dr. Silveira was to move definitely to the ecovillage when he retired in the next years.

  The so-called big house was currently behind the big orchard, hidden from the sight of other dwellers by the top of the guava, lemon, jackfruit, jabuticaba trees, and other trees that produced juicy fruits.

  “The legal egress that Silveira found”, Placido continued, looking at the camera, “since it was not possible that each dweller had their individual lot, was the creation of a society bound to the property. The Earth Watchmen’s Society was the legal instrument that we used to enable the ecovillage. Within the Society, each dweller has a parcel of interest, and we stipulate a monthly amount of collaboration for maintenance of the activities; in addition, all need to donate their work, in the vegetables garden and in the community kitchen at least once a week so that we can manage to get all the maintenance processes of our activities done. In the other hand, each member has something we call piece of land, his or her personal part to build his or her house and establish his dwelling here in the ecovillage, respecting the rules of the

  Internal Laws Statute.”

  “This is very interesting. Speaking like this, it sounds easy, but I imagine how difficult this process must have been.”

  Yes, in the beginning it was very complicated. Later on, Giacomo appeared, who’s an accountant and had experience with condominium administration, which helped a lot in the preparation of this part.”

  “And why Tibiriçá?”

&nbs
p; “Tibiriçá was practically the founder of São Paulo, when he established a village where today we call Largo de São Bento. He had to discover how to integrate the European who arrived in the ships to the natural environment of woods of São Paulo. I think there’s somehow a correlation between this and what we’re doing here today; because we try to integrate people who are predominantly urban to the rural environment. None of the dwellers of the ecovillage lived in the countryside before; all left the city to discover a new way of life together,

  here, next to nature.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “I arrived at home very tired yesterday”, Lara informed Erica, when the waiter who had come to collect their order turned his back to them. “I took a shower, ate something and blow out — only woke up today morning.”

  They had arranged to meet for breakfast in their favorite coffee house. After the Saturday pedaling, they met on Sunday morning to talk. The architect was anxious to tell her friend she had seen Cesar again after years, a disturbing coincidence.

  “So, I need to tell you; something happened yesterday, I don’t know if you realized. I was the moment I fell down in the road.”

  “Yes. When you fell sitting? How to forget that scene? I should have posted in the Stories of Instagram, those would be your 24 hours of crashing and burning”, Erica mocked.

  “Exactly. Very funny. Do you remember that van that appeared, the guy asking where somewhere was?”

  “Yes. The guy was a hottie. The one who asked, not the one driving, damn”, and she made a grimace.

  “So, that hottie is my ex-boyfriend”, she revealed.

  “Gee. Is he from here?”

  This is exactly the reason why I got so surprised that I even had my legs trembling. Cesar isn’t from here; in fact, I think he doesn’t even know São Carlos exists. Now tell me if this is not the biggest synchronicity you’ve ever seen in your life!”

  “I don’t know what’s this stuff your saying, but you know what they say of the ex-boyfriends: ex is like a zombie, you think he’s dead and he comes back to eat you...”

  They laughed.

  “But that zombie doesn’t catch me anymore.”

  “Because I thought you felt him strongly.”

  “He did. But not in the good sense. What happened between us finished in a shot kind of Nélson Rodrigues[31]”.

  Erica laughed:

  “Did you cut his dick?”

  “No, I didn’t go so far, but it was such low level. Until today I don’t eat Portuguese pizza because of it.”

  The waiter served the orders. Erica had ordered a lemon juice and a bread on the plate, and Lara had ordered a piece of carrot cake and an orange juice.

  “Ok, you got home and came across him with another woman on his lap” Erica provoked her when the waiter left.

  “The worst is that I had a Portuguese pizza in my hands when I got home and saw them two in full action. Actually, there weren’t only two, there was another bitch under them two.”

  “Gee. Pretty Nélson. So, what did you do?”

  “I went away. Never saw him anymore. I mean, until yesterday.” Erica looked at her for a moment.

  “I never thought things like that would happen out of TV. Was it when you still lived in São Paulo?”

  “Yep. It seems it was in another life. I think I was another person; you wouldn’t believe if you saw me at that time. He didn’t recognize me now. I think you wouldn’t recognize me”, then she whispered when she became aware of what she was saying as the words got out of her mouth: “I wouldn’t recognize myself...”

  Through the window of the coffee shop she looked at the street outside. The eventual passers-by of that Sunday sunny morning went their way to the club, the church, the supermarket, some were walking their dogs. The cars made a line in the traffic light near there, the bodywork of the newly-washed vehicles shining. And at that moment she realized the process that had started when that old goddess told her to break the ego was close to the end. She was so different inside and outside that her former boyfriend, who slept beside her for three years, could not recognize her. Was her ego broken? A new Lara had emerged from the cullets? Or, according to the saying by Peter J. Carroll, would she finally be having a clear vision?

  “Planet Earth calling astronaut falling in love”, the cyclist mocked, breaking the chain of thoughts that got her friend stuck.

  “I’m not in love, what I felt was anger, really. The worst feeling a woman may have is the feeling of being betrayed. Nobody deserves this.”

  “Huhm.... I don’t know. Are you sure you weren’t missing him not even a little?”

  “No, but I felt it was kind of disturbing. We were in an dirt road in the middle of nowhere and then, there comes the van of my exboyfriend. Isn’t this the crest of Synchronicity?”

  “There you come again with this talk. Those things happen naturally. Our lives are full of these bizarre coincidences. Like when you hear a story in a public place and at random about a person you don’t like without the person speaking knowing you knew that one.”

  “I think this had never happened to me before.”

  “With me it happened sometimes. Perhaps it’s a kind of cycling damnation. The... What is that called?”

  “Synchronicity.”

  “Synchronicity is a disease that reaches the cyclists.”

  “Come on, Erica. I’m serious.”

  “Tell me what’s really pressing you?”

  “It’s exactly what I have told you, I don’t know...”

  “Do you know what’s good to get rid from preoccupation?”

  “Huhm? Win the lottery? Being invited to know the Buckingham

  Palace with everything paid?”

  “I was gonna say: to ride a bike.”

  “Gee... I’m tired. No, I mean, I’m dead.”

  “But I still intend to take a little ride at the end of the afternoon.”

  Lara smiled, there was an energy in Erica’s body that only a bike could burn. Anyhow, Sunday afternoon was the time to accompany her mother to the mass. It was not a sacrifice anymore. Actually, she learnt to enjoy it, she felt well with all that vibration in the air, but it was something she witnessed her mother do that completely changed her viewpoint of the Holy Mother Church. One afternoon, she arrived home and found her mother making up a white tape in an image of Saint Anthony that she had put in her bedroom. Beside the little saint, a vase with seven white roses. She saw that and questioned her mother. She answered that she was happy for Lara having finally come into her senses, but that lonely life did not correspond to the new Lara. Then, to settle things, she was making a spell aiming to bring a boyfriend to her daughter’s life.

  It was then that Lara realized that perhaps she was not as openminded as she thought she was when the first Wicca book came to her hands. It was the reading that would have later led her to Chaos Magic. Pop Magic, chaos magic, servants, secrets, banishment rituals. And now she would see her mother, who was raised under the protection of the saints, showing her what she thought was avant-garde was already an oldfashioned thing quite before her great-grandmother had being born.

  What was the idea of those forty servants of Tommie Kelly, at last? Wasn’t it a kind of Catholicism with a different saint for each thing, but with a more contemporary esthetic? She wondered.

  That analogy did not abandon her until she went to the church that

  Sunday. So, the theory was consolidated. She realized then that the Catholic religion would bring all of a complex system of beliefs, which increased a lot the potentiality of obtaining effective results. At last, the follower needs to connect to something greater before doing his or her ritual, which works like a reassertion of the will, providing logically and consciously the desired purpose (and placed along with a saint). The Church itself works like a Magic Protection Circle if the promise is made in its domains, working like a banishment ritual. When one is in this connection, faith provides an altered mental state, in addition to a serious
position that empowers the focus; and for her this was magic.

  What she wondered now was if it was this magic that had brought Cesar back to her world. If so, this wedding saint definitely did not know what he was doing.

  CHAPTER 25

  One month later...

  Placido, Giacomo, Henrique and Leo were sitting in a bench placed beside the newly started pizza oven. That night it would be the fire test for that oven that was built with the support of each of them. Henrique and Leo, who used chefs’ white aprons, would be the pizza chefs of the night, and Arthur would bring the beverages. He had been to the refrigerator to bring cold preciosities he had prepared.

  “You won’t believe, but the last time I drank beer was in the house of a wizard in Vigo, Spain” he said, putting the bucket with ice where the bottles were resting.

  Giacomo looked at the young man with Australian hat and asked:

  “We won’t believe, anyway, didn’t you work as a salesman? Where did you find money to go to Spain?”

  Arthur took a beer bottle from the bucket for each one and put them on the counter. Every lie will be found someday. And this got out of his mouth spontaneously. For those who are not used to lie, it is difficult to maintain a farce like that for too long. He thought of a way to disguise that. Saying it was not Vigo, he did not mean Spain, which city rhymes with Spain here in Brazil? Train, flame, Belem... but Vigo? Even worse, it rhymes with Ego. He opted for Maluf’s maneuver[32]: deny everything!

  And change subjects quickly.

  “I said you would not believe it anyway”, a forced and yellow laughter. “Let’s try the beer, I have already drunk one and think it got very refreshing, soft and easy to drink. I used rosemary and basil to give mentholated taste to the beer. And to give it a countryside air, I added chamomile. What did you think?”, he asked finally, changing subject, after finishing to fill up the glasses.