Editor’s Note: This text is available in English and Portuguese. Click “Español” to read in Portuguese.
There are three old women who live in a large house, which is also old.
In the house there is also a boy of around fifteen.
Lázaro is neither son nor grandson of any of them. He is homeschooled. Dália teaches religion and piano. Lobélia teaches languages. Alpínia teaches cookery and basic anatomy. The radio is always turned up loud for the old women to listen to music and, so say the local children, to muffle the voices in the attic.
The town is called Santa Graça—nationally renowned for its virtue and cleanliness. In the future, no black or sick people were seen there.
ÍCARO CROSSES THE OCEAN
Brazil, 1930s
Lázaro shouts:
Wash your hands, Íris, scrub them. Wash them properly to see if the blackness comes out.
Íris thinks:
Little liar. Lázaro says he came from Germany, but old Alpínia says the kid isn’t very trustworthy and his origins are more local and precise: Três Vendas, the rural part of Santa Graça. His mother, who no one knew, left the child in the street. One day, Dália and Lobélia were passing through the town to buy quinces from Bela Vista farm when they spotted a bundle of cloths inside a hamper. The boy was very white. They looked both ways. The air was tight. Dry. Nobody. An unwavering afternoon. No one to be seen under the intense, orange heat. They sat on the threshold of the chapel and waited almost the whole afternoon for someone to collect the child. That’s how Lázaro was born. He was born from no one wanting him.
He was as white as a cloud and it was unusual to find a pure child like that without a mother or father. There were plenty of black children without families. Loads of them. They went around in packs, begging for scraps of food and water at the houses of Santa Graça’s rich families. That’s how I grew up, that’s how a lot of kids from Mata Cavalo grew up and how my Joaquim would have too, if he’d grown up.
One Monday, when young Ícaro came home from school, he hung over the balcony of his mother’s room and saw some four or five kids stop outside the big house. My people: ragged clothes the orange colour of the dirt roads. They asked for a cup of water. Here at Ícaro’s house, I can’t open the door to them, Ícaro’s grandmother doesn’t let me. When they see me from the fence, they shout my name asking for stale bread. If I went out, Dona Rosa would fire me. Ícaro and the black children mustn’t even talk. Dona Rosa and the boy’s mother, Dona Ondina, taught him that black children went into other people’s houses to steal. They were different from the gypsies who came in to read our palms and tell our futures; they stole and we didn’t even realise it. Boys of colour, if need be, would fight each other and take things bought with hard sacrifice. Dona Rosa also said they were lazy because if they, who were white, studied and worked to earn life’s comforts, why didn’t the blacks do the same?
I have my health and I thank God the Father for that every night. I also have the desire to kill Dona Rosa. It was Father Arcanjo who taught me to pray to God and Jesus. He’s a holy man; he also taught me not to be sorrowful for serving others. Everything is part of God’s plan and He knows what He’s doing. The kingdom of heaven belongs to me. Father Arcanjo reminded me of the good life I have. My grandmothers were almost certainly slaves and, thanks be to God, things have improved a lot.
I moved away from the window so the children didn’t see me, then spied on them as they knocked on the three witches’ door and rang the bell. Ícaro watched them too. Poor thing, he just wanted to play.
Lobélia opened the door. She motioned for them to wait on the veranda and I watched as she called to someone inside the house. Dália came out onto the veranda and gently patted the heads of the children, who opened their mouths and showed their teeth, but they weren’t smiles. Alpínia arrived with water and cookies and a towel which Dália used to clean her hands after having touched the children. She told them to come back the following day for bread, at the same time. The kids went down the steps that led from the veranda to the street. They seemed happy. Their dirty hands clutched the black sweets they’d earned, those ones with a burnt taste that crunch on your teeth. One of the black boys spotted Ícaro. He smiled with all his teeth, the same ones he’d just shown to the women at the big house. Ícaro was scared, not of the other boy, but of his grandmother if she saw him smiling back. He hid behind the curtain. A whoosh by my right ear. I looked at the little black boy. He smiled again, waved, and went on his way. From the varnished wooden floor, I picked up the sweet he’d thrown for Ícaro.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the same thing happened. The kids from Mata Cavalo knocked on the big house’s door, Alpínia or Lobélia gave them bread and water, Dália patted their heads, filled their dirty hands with sweets and they left. The same boy who had thrown a sweet for Ícaro, threw several others until Friday came and that was the last time I saw Ester’s boy.
Ícaro thinks:
Íris washes plates, clothes, the floor, but her hand stays black. She scrubs sheets in the basin, bleach on the veranda floor. It’s no use: her hand is always black.
I saw the boy who throws sweets and four others knock on the door of the big house and this time they went inside. It was almost seven at night and the smell of soup coming from the house was a sign that the kids had been invited to sit at the table, to eat like important people. Perhaps a hunk of fresh bread to go with the creamed corn I could smell from the balcony of my mum’s room.
I hung out the window until eight o’clock when my mum shouted that dinner was ready. From seven to eight, not a sign of them. They must have been really getting stuck into the food.
I struggled to sleep. The street had been quiet for hours but I was still awake. I thought about the boy who threw sweets: a black boy couldn’t be my friend, Grandma would never allow it. Nor would mum or dad. The whole week we had played at tossing sweets back and forth, him out there and me in here. I looked under the curtain and all over the orange wood floor, but I didn’t find anything.
The ducks outside the big house were making noise and it was late. They screeched as if someone was robbing the place. But nothing happened in Santa Graça. It was just the puppy, hungry or annoyed. A loud bark that took half an hour to stop. When the animal was done barking, I fell asleep.
Lázaro says:
Íris washes plates, clothes, the floor, but her hand stays black. She scrubs sheets in the basin, bleach on the veranda floor. It’s no use: her hand is always black and dirty.
My birth mother was German. She gave me away because she didn’t have a husband. Father Arcanjo asked the three old women to look after me and raise me. My blood is pure, just look at me. I don’t want to play with Ícaro because he’s slow.
Dona Rosa orders:
Go play with Lázaro, Ícaro. Be a good boy now. Íris can’t watch you. She needs to clean the house, wash the bathrooms, everything’s filthy. Don’t get close to her, son. God made us all a certain colour so we know what our role is. And we don’t want to argue with God. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Olavo explains:
I’m crazy about my son. Ícaro is a good boy, but he has many limitations. Something or other genetic that we don’t know how to explain. Ondina and myself do everything we can for that boy and we want him to have a normal life. He goes to school. He’s very popular with his classmates. They don’t pity my poor son for those wobbly legs of his. In fact, the other, normal children adore Ícaro. We can feel it just from looking at his little face. God the almighty father has given us this boy to look after. We have a lot of expenses due to Ícaro, the medicines are costly, but they are worth every penny to see him improve. Ondina is a wonderful partner. I hit the jackpot. We were blessed with Ícaro.
Olavo thinks:
The way that child drools, hobbles… it’s embarrassing. Fly, Ícaro, fly.
Ícaro thinks:
At home, every Saturday, at midday, the whole street hears Lázaro’s piano lessons. He combines piano with singing and the lessons last an hour and a half. It’s also the time when the puppy goes crazy. Piano, barking and singing fill the street. From my room you can feel the floor shaking. The clock chimes half-one and returns silence to the house. The loud noise coming from that house irritates me. When it becomes hard to hear from such a racket, I bang my head against the wall to see if all the noise is coming from me.
With no school to go to that day, I spent the whole time at the window looking for the boys with the sweets. Nothing. They must have left the big house while I was having dinner. We missed each other. Íris didn’t see when they left either. Maybe they would come by after six. Surely they would be hungry and thirsty and would knock on doors until someone gave them some leftovers. The boy with the bright black eyes would look for me and throw another sweet onto the floor of my mum’s room for us to play with. But he didn’t come at six, or seven, or any time at all.
From the big house there came a strong smell of food. They cooked meat on Sundays. The three sisters cooked together. From the back rooms of my house, you could see their woodfired stove. Huge pots. The constant fire, a nonstop show of food, cutlery, herbs collected from the backyard. The kitchen was dark, old. Every Sunday they cooked seasoned, aromatic meats, with top-quality cuts as Alpínia herself said when she saw me at the back window watching their lives.
Ondina thinks:
Every Sunday, before lunch, our three neighbours from the big house go to mass. I go, too. Olavo and my mother accompany me. We take Ícaro because my boy needs a lot of prayers. Our Lady of Miracles must intercede and give him the strong legs he deserves, and clear speech and a sure head, poor thing. We share the bread that is the body of Christ and swallow the soggy wafer that becomes the eucharist after a short prayer. God forgive me, but that has made my stomach turn since catechism.
The old women and young Lázaro go, too. They return with Father Arcanjo, who has lunch at the big house every Sunday without fail.
All of Sunday goes by and Father Arcanjo leaves the big house at four in the afternoon. He carries a bag and a dish of leftovers. The old women of the big house spoil him as much as they can. They are very devout and maintain a close friendship with the priest. Sometimes, Father Arcanjo takes Lázaro with him to the church. If I happen to be on the balcony when they leave, the priest explains that Lázaro takes Latin lessons with him on Sunday afternoons, a time of rest from prayers.
Ondina comments:
Latin classes… right.
Íris makes
Coffee for Olavo.
Olavo watches
Íris washing the soapy spoon up, down, up, down.
Ícaro thinks:
That Sunday, I waited once again for the street kids to go to the big house and ask for food, but they didn’t. My parents kept saying I should play with that weirdo Lázaro. He said he’s a doctor and he cut bugs in half. He sowed and glued spiders’ legs to ants’ bodies. He also had a collection of bones he found under the earth. Lobélia said that before they bought the land for the big house, it had been a dog cemetery. But that was just a story to scare children. What was really under the ground was people, buried years ago and turning to compost and myths. Lázaro found their bones and built the skeletons of imaginary beings. Monsters that he saw.
At night, around six, the puppy barked with all its might. The radio on full blast for the deaf old women. An hour later, silence. The hushed beginning of the night was broken by the grating of the iron gate, covered in mud and rust. It was Father Arcanjo bringing Lázaro home. He praised the boy’s progress in Latin and announced that Lázaro had already had his bath. He had indulged in some dulce de leche and become smeared in it more than is acceptable for a boy of his stature. The priest had suggested, therefore, that he clean himself up in the parish house before returning home. Without further discussion, Alpínia said goodbye to the priest who went back up the hill, clutching his cassock so as not to trip, head down, always humble.
I went to sleep unable to stop thinking about the boy with the sweets. The boy who, seemingly, had disappeared.
Translated by Andrew McDougall
From the novel Puro (Relógio d’Água, 2023; Todavia, 2024)
