Mystery religion

After lunch, sitting on the porch. The wind that passed by the farm yesterday made way to a dead calm where the air never moves. As though there were a blanket set right onto the city. The things I saw downtown yesterday should never happen anywhere. What influence is this, what foul and underground thing is taking over Taurinos?

The phone rings from time to time, bringing the news of the front the town has been made into. The frenetic movement of the family man has been remarkable since the first hours of the morning, trying to help manage the situation in an unmanageable town. I'm coming to admire these people from Taurinos and their indefatigable and probably invincible will to live.

A car comes down the road on our way. It parks near the porch and there is music playing from it. The song is strangely familiar, sending me back to former times when I attended sessions at União do Vegetal. This song — by Catholic singer and songwriter Zé Vicente, now I remember — played in nearly all the sessions at UDV which I attended. It's hard for me to forget its beautiful verses that now overflow from the car that's just parked.

"All things are mysteries. Why so much pain on the streets? Why so much death in the air? Why are wars waged in the name of peace? Why won't scientists show a well-thought new way for things that can be the inoculation of love against the virus of evil? All things are mysteries…"

I am back to the porch from a walk down memory lane. Anderson is in front of me with two cans of paint, one in each hand. One is blue, the other indigo. He smiles and greets me. Leaves the cans on the porch and goes back into the car for other cans. I offer to help and he turns it down politely. While he comes and goes with the cans of paint I come up to the car window and start talking to his father.

"Is this a CD playing or is it from the radio, Mr. Caldeira?", I asked him, finding strange that such an old song was on the radio.

"Oh, it's a CD we bought at Canção Nova, in the city of Cachoeira Paulista", informed Mr. Caldeira, "hey, wait… how do you know my name?"

"I know your son's full name because I had to record it for Taurinos' Ancient Society. Considering you two look a lot like each other…"

He smiled and asked me whether I was Catholic too. I said I was not, but that the song brought me memories of a group I once met. I asked him how it felt to be a Mithraist and a Catholic at once and he said the two things had a lot in common. I think that if the similarity is to be found the way ceremonies are planned in local Mithraism, its traits in common must be likelier to be traced back to the Spanish Inquisition.

Mr. Caldeira then asks me about Duílio's whereabouts and I tell him he's left. He says goodbye and leaves the kid sitting with me at the porch. I am looking at the seven cans of paint on the porch floor, Anderson's promise that the Caldeiras soon materialized here. I look at the cans without any worry or haste to start a conversation with the teenager. Then he took the lead.

"So you like Zé Vicente?", he asked.

"I don't know much of him, but that song used to play in a spiritualist center I used to go to. I like it, brings me fond memories of that time."

"Ah, so you're a spiritualist?"

"Not exactly."

"How can one be not exactly a spiritualist? Either you are or you're not, why."

"Things are not that simple. Some things you live through within the spiritualist teaching are what you are. What you don't live through is just not you. You're not this or that just because you decided to be, but because something brought you there. It was the experience. Are you a catholic?"

"Yes, inherited from father and mother", said the lad smiling.

"And you are a Mithraist too."

"Yes, I am", said the lad still smiling.

"So you're more or less the two things. There's no fixed, still experience regardless of everything we say we are. Either you live that spiritual way or not and then saying you are this or that is just dead word, no life, no basis. Your father told me that both Mithraism and Catholicism share common grounds. He is right. He's found the point where these two traditions meet and this is where the two of you stand."

"You going to attend this afternoon's meeting at the arena?", he asked, following the cue of Mithraism.

"Well, all of them, I suppose"

"It's the first time a woman has ever taken part in the Society, did you know?"

"I heard of a woman who wrote meeting down for the Society when it last met in 1957."

Anderson opened his eyes wide at me; that was sure a new item on his list of things to learn and keep. He said he'd never known about it and asked me who had given me the piece of information. I bypassed master Danilo's name saying I didn't remember who had told me about the woman.

"Andrés should know then, I'll ask him", decided the lad.

"All things are mysteries. Why so much pain on the streets? Why so much death in the air? Why are wars waged in the name of peace? Why won't scientists show a well-thought new way for things that be the inoculation of love against the virus of evil? All things are mysteries…"

Mysteries, Zé Vicente

Carried on the back of an utility vehicle. Not the best way to get to the Mithraeum built by the farm's men, but better than walking under the harsh mountain sun. We talked to Bruno as the car went down the road, and how he saved his father's life in the incident with the bull on his farm. Andrés commented that it was not the situation at the moment of the incident (since the only important thing at that moment was to save Bruno's father's life), but that the mad bulls had to be sedated with darts and brought here for the ceremony. The car makes its way through some isolated groups of bulls made restless by the dull shadow that has taken over the town. It follows the one and only electric wire that seems to end in the infinite.

At the end of the wiring, the vehicle stopped by a flat field and we got down in front of a shallow wooden structure sheltered behind gates and under a small rooftop that was… a trap-door. Electricity came through that wire from the farm Taurinos and ended there. I try to figure out how much Cemig charges for such exclusiveness. Surrounding the trap-door in four different spots, there were four air openings shaped like periscopes that were thus sheltered from the rain.

The kids seemed to have been there before. I didn't notice any movement or word of surprise from them that pointed to the contrary. Andrés got off the vehicle and ransacked his left pocket for the trap-door's keys lost somewhere in his pants. He opened the trap-door, revealing what looked like an underground natural chamber; the silo Andrés had talked about.

The kids gathered to start going down. Andrés turned on the lights on the wall beside the stairway and was the first to go down. There followed the others and me, the last in line. The stairway seemed to have no end. Andrés turned off the lights in the staircase after we had reached the interior of the Mithraeum. Total darkness fell upon the place. Then he turned on the lights in the sanctuary. It was like it had jumped from the darkness upon us all. The lighting is basically made of spotlights which lend light to some specific points, leaving the rest nearly in stark darkness. Absolutely an arena theater, all circular and having grandstands that covered nearly half the circle. The other half was occupied by seven bull sheds complying with the same circular shape of all else. Two were already taken: the two Sacred Ones the kids captured yesterday, the highly visible spots of blue on one and indigo on the other. The two are still, but awake; you can see the lights reflecting in their eyes. There's more to them though; something that is not the mere reflection of the lights in the arena. The two Conselheiros were considered officially ready for the battle.

"The blue one almost killed me yesterday", Adriano showed the bull with a gesture, "hadn't I shot I'd be made into a clam."

"You were as smart as a clam turning your back on the bull. There would be no time for Dad or me to reach you, did you notice? Luckily you decided to think as a man, not as clam in the end, or he wouldn't have to make you into something you already were", mocked Andrés.

All laughed, but Adriano and me. Something bothers me in this darkness. I have no issues with the dark. It's not completely dark in here, but the place closed as a catacomb, the lighting centered on the arena and the shining eyes of the bulls were disturbing me more than I'd like to admit.

We took our seats on the grandstands. Bruno was the first to speak. When he saw me for the second time writing the meeting down, he protested against the presence of a woman in the works of the Society. This fired up the protests of Arthur around the same theme. I expected Anderson to deliver his blow but he was silent. At that moment at least.

"This has never happened in the history of the Society, has it? Why does it have to happen now? I didn't know she was being initiated in that afternoon. And we have to know, don't we? Are we a Society or what? If we are one, then everyone has to know what the others know."

"I can now only apologize to the Society and to Ms. Grisam too… But what is done is done. There's no way of undoing it."

"I can delete my name from the records if it makes you all happy", I interrupted Andrés when he rehearsed starting another phrase.

"It's not that simple. It's not what was recorded in the computer, but what was recorded in the meeting that prevails. Let alone before six witnesses. There no way of pretending your name was not put down there under Renan's."

"Ms. Grisam's just cool", said the latter, "I don't want her to leave the Society or delete her name from the records. She belongs in the Society now, together with us and our parents."

I smiled inside. The Teixeira brothers seem to really find me that cool, as they have taken my side since the beginning of it all. Guilherme said he thought much the same way as his younger brother. Anderson asked for permission to say something. I wait for whatever he has to say though I already have an idea what it's going to be.

"Andrés is what I heard true, that a woman was initiated in the Society when they last met for the ritual fifty-two years ago? Writing things down, like Ms. Grisam?"

Andrés seemed a bit embarrassed. He stared at me as if he suspected I was at the bottom of Anderson's questioning.

"Who told you that?"

"It doesn't matter who. Was there a woman in the Society or not?" Anderson sounded categorical. The others were looking at Andrés, especially Bruno and Arthur, the two who were most bothered with my presence here. Andrés was cornered and ended up confirming there really was a woman in the class of 1957. There was then a deep silence around it all. We could even hear the bulls breathing from their bays.

"You two have lost the quest as far as I'm concerned", affirmed Anderson to the two recalcitrant members, "she's a member of the Society as much as you are or I am."

"Not so fast, Anderson. I don't want her to belong to the Society either. This is no business for women. I had a long talk with Ms. Grisam and explained my opinion to her very clearly, isn't it true, Ms. Grisam?" and Adriano looked at me as if he really waited for a corroboration from me (what I instantly gave him lest he would be looking at me for the rest of the day), "so I stand with Bruno and Arthur."

"This is really not a business for women. There is a lot of violence in it, it's not something that goes with a woman's mind, full of sentimental stories", argued Arthur at seeing he was losing the discussion.

"And what can she do here beside writing things down?" added Bruno.

"Enough… I think you three are missing the point here. There's no more discussion about her being or not a part of the Society. I told you, it's done and it's over. So let's move on, the town can't wait." Andrés seemed to be growing impatient with the rigmarole.

There was a pause. Andrés then went about speaking about the principles of the local religion. On how it mixed to the predominant religion in southern Minas Gerais, the Catholicism, creating a syncretic variant. Obviously he didn't say that with these exact words, but in his simple way of saying things, he seemed very secure of his words.

"I think you have no idea of how things happened or have happened around here since the beginning." I said, all of a sudden.

All of them turned their eyes to me, all curious, no exception. Arthur was the first one who asked me what I meant by that. I made them see there was a gap of at least 10,000 years between the dawn of their religion in the Neolithic and the the arise of Mithraism in India, Persia and Ancient Rome.

"And what does it mean?", inquired Anderson, attentive.

"It means that the principles of this religion that influenced Indians, Persians and Romans could be found in this city thousands of years ago. Your religion was locally independent and didn't miss any of the basics of Mithraism. I'm less than sure whether you are aware what you're sitting on."

"On the grandstands?", mocked Bruno.

I had to laugh along with the others. How good it is to relax. Bruno took the lead to compensate for his mocking question and said I might as well be dead right in what I stated. He asked me whether I thought that their local religion had influenced Mithraism. I said I didn't think so, but that the simple fact it existed in its basics from the beginning so many thousand years ago was by itself a miracle. Something more fantastic than the most fantastic our imagination could attain to. Far beyond the very human imagination.

Then there was silence. Occasional metal noises from the shock of the bulls against the bars that held them in the bays, their noisy, dense and deep breathing, filling the gap left in the air by our voices. Andrés and Adriano were feeling astonished. As though they had never stopped to reason about it. Bruno and Renan leaned against the grandstands' shoulders, panting, as if they had run kilometers to simply sit down there. Guilherme played with his shoelaces in sheer abandon of himself. Arthur was locked in brooding silence. By the way he looked at me I could tell he was still trying to absorb whatever meaning my words could have. Anderson too was lost in a haze of introspection but it was him who first broke the silence.

"Do you believe the bulls founded the city?"

"After thinking of how long these things have been happening in this city, I no longer know if it's important to believe this or not. When you see so much going on around that is thought to be impossible to happen, then I don't know anymore."

There was one pause more. I told them that the sacrifice of bulls representing the Moon had a different meaning from the one they used to attribute to it. That men sacrificing the bulls, a male element symbolized the shedding of the liquid that impregnates the Earth. Each one, male and female had a share of sacrifice to give.

"What liquid?" asked Arthur.

Anderson turned his eyes to him and laughed.

"Come on, Arthur, someone hearing you speak will think you've never jacked off in your life… Er… I'm sorry, Ms. Grisam."

General laughter, except from the naive handler asking the question, that went red even under the low lights inside the arena. I corroborated Anderson's words though; that was the liquid I was actually speaking about.

"Our religion is not exactly Mithraism. But it is the closest we know to Mithraism, so we use this name for our religion. It comes from something that only existed here, from something that was necessary here in Taurinos. In the book my grandpa found…"

I could not resist at that point and interrupted him.

"What about that book, Andrés? Where is this book which I only hear people speak about and never see? It seems to me it is the basis for so many important things around here, but it's an absent book, no one knows the whereabouts of such precious information."

"The question is good", added Anderson, "everything we know about the city and our traditions is on this book. I think we all should read and study this book because all this is very complicated…"

Andrés scratched his head. Said he didn't know where the book was. I asked how he could not know where the book was if it was found by his grandfather and, given the importance of it for the city, should so be a relic or sort of in his house.

"All I know", he said, "are things my father told me about the book. I never met my grandfather; he died seven years before I was born."

"Did your father never tell you where it was or didn't he know either?", asked Renan, coming to life in the discussion.

Andrés seemed to have never thought of it on the top of his 12-year lifetime. I see the much that is still to be explained, even to those who take the lead in the city's situation.

"I'll ask him", he said, shrugging.

"I have asked our father", intervened Adriano, drawing everybody's attention to himself, "and he answered he doesn't know, but it is probably with one of the ancient handlers from the class of 1957."

"Why did you never tell me about it?" Andrés seemed irritated.

"Simply because you never asked me."

General laughter, me included. Andrés was stomping his foot on the floor as he always did when showing signs of impatience. Adriano smiled at me as if he meant he too had his moments of enlightenment. Arthur proposed that we talked to everyone's parents to see if they knew all the handlers. Bruno told us his grandfather had been a handler too and so was Anderson's, both still living ancient handlers, both still living in Taurinos.

Andrés changed the subject (the issue of the book made him frankly uncomfortable). Said the ceremony day was approaching fast and they wouldn't have time for properly getting ready for the action. He asked the others how they felt towards the perspective of the ceremony being so close to them. Bruno replied that he felt ready for it and that his willingness was the best way to get ready in his own opinion. Adriano nodded as if he felt just the same. He added that his anger against the bulls and the force that drove them crazy was what made him prepared for the battle.

"You only have to let that anger grow in you until you are all anger inside and nothing else. It's all that simple."

Anderson stated that the handling was part of everyone's life there and seen from this point of view, it wouldn't be difficult. But he voiced his concern about the extraordinary power this madness lent the bulls, already huge and heavy by design. Still, he felt he was ready for the battle. Renan amused himself telling the others what he would do with the bull in the arena. It was disturbing to notice he really meant it, no lies, and even more disturbing was the sensation he was able to do exactly what he said he'd do in all the might of his cruelty's refinement.

Guilherme laughed at his brother's project and stroked his head as a good older brother. Declared he was anxious for the ceremony day and that he believed everything would run smoothly as planned. Andrés in his turn spoke about his ever-lasting motivation and everyday handling with the cattle as being enough to clearly display his willingness and how eager he was within the situation.

"And… Arthur? You haven't spoken yet. So… How do you feel?" he urged the handler to talk.

"I am afraid", he said with eyes beginning to water.

Andrés stood up and came closer to him. He looked his friend in the eyes and was perplexed to see a tear rolling down his face.

"Come on, brother! Be brave, the ritual is going to be…"

"I'm not talking of the ritual, Andrés. I dreamed about one of those bulls last night. It was lunchtime and he had broken into my house, was about to walk all over my younger sister and I draw his attention with a stone I threw at his head. He turned on me. I had this ax in my hands, but it was all too fast. I had no time to do anything. Before I axed him he crushed me against the wall. I felt his horn went all through me to the other side; then I saw my own blood and my own bowels coming out." Arthur lowered his head down to his sneakers and hid his face, while his body shook all over, moved by a sad and mixed emotion.

"Holy Father in heaven!" mumbled Anderson turning to Andrés and crosssing himself.

"…in this dream I died and before I did I saw the sky that was full of vultures. I remember it was the last thing I saw before I woke up. My mother came to see why I was screaming and stuff…"

The silence that was "heard" was dense. Heavy, it oppressed, cast shadows even where light was shed onto spots. The metallic noises of the bull's bodies against the bars holding them back and their occasional moos reminding us of their ever-present threat. Anguish took shape inside of me, of being through that moment in which, even being completely wrong, someone that age spoke openly of a pre-experience of his own death. Anguish not for death per se because this is where we are all walking to, but for the sheer horror of simply ceasing to exist. The immeasurable and unaccountable will to live forced to see through its own veil. Andrés once again took the lead and made Arthur raise his head and keep it up, looking the young Conselheiro in the eyes.

"This is nothing but a dream. The confusion in town must have made an impression on you, that's all" he said trying to raise his spirits.

"True", I hurried to agree with Andrés, "everybody is so nervous in town and country here. Let's all try to keep the high spirits, let's all try to keep cool. I know it is tremendously difficult facing what we have been facing, but we do have to try. If you, Taurinos' Ancient Society, that have the means to sort all this chaos out start having this kind of problem, there will be no future for the city and for your people. Keep up your heads and your minds. Show the bulls or The Big One or whatever it is at once what law must prevail!"

"Way to go, Ms. Grisam! Yes, Arthur, come up from these depths, we'll show them who's boss around here", shouted an enthusiastic Bruno in total approval of what I said.

"I know", he was still sobbing, "but it was so real. So real…"

The others stood up, gathered around Arthur and, without further notice, picked him up and started throwing him up and then catching him from falling a number of times. Though it was something not advisable to do to someone in that condition it ended up making everybody laugh, including Arthur. He actually even seemed more relaxed after the meeting was over. It was all but a living proof of the warmth reigning over the seven battle-ready young butchers in the end.

"…in this dream I died and before I did I saw the sky that was full of vultures. I remember it was the last thing I saw before I woke up…"

Arthur

The fragrance of coffee coming out of the small house attracted me as much as the talk I wanted to have with master Danilo. Night has fallen above the crests of the mountains bringing up the light of an ever-crescent moon. I haven't come here for days now, have a lot to talk about. He was as usual glad to see me cross the threshold of his home for conversation. Whenever I come here I can't help but thinking of the isolation he imposes on himself staying in the middle of nowhere.

A few bulls and cows on the road to his house, animals that were not here in the other occasions I dropped by. Strangely calm as I go past them though one of the bulls motions to chase me down the road, giving up soon after. Yes, they were not here before, what reminds me of the talk of Duílio and master Danilo downtown yesterday morning.

"Come on inside, "sá" Stella. I have just made some coffee", and after a moment's pause he said, "yesterday we couldn't talk decently, you were together with all the family…"

"I did notice you didn't want them to know we had already met."

"You didn't get angry with me, did you?"

"No way. I prefer it like this. So we only met yesterday."

"Have you already been to the arena?"

"The Mithraeum?"

He looked surprised at me while washing the coffee percolator.

"You sure have a good knack for finding out about things, eh, "sá" Stella?"

"They can't hide from me any longer, I'm one of them now."

His face assumed a serious and grave expression that got to bother me. He sat down at the table with me. Laid two mugs on the table which he filled with coffee; he then gave me the sugar. My apprehension only grew while he kept in silence and I was on the verge of urging him to say something that took me out of that suspended animation state when he turned his eyes to me.

"I needed to talk to you about this."

"Please, do say something, I can't wait to hear what you think of this all."

"When you last came here, you spoke to me of the meeting and how Andrés made you write your name under Renan's, remember?"

"Course, it was a great conversation piece this afternoon at the meeting at the Mithraeum. Andrés had to stop the debate saying there was nothing else to be done about it."

"This is the point, "sá" Stella."

"I can't see the point, master Danilo."

"You are one of the Taurinos now. One of them as you just told me. And this to the full effect of being one."

"I still can't understand you."

"If one of the boys for some reason can't make it to the Mithraeum…"

"…I'll have to take part of the ceremony in his place." My eyes stared at the country man, not knowing what to say beyond the sheer conclusion I was the next in line. I started shaking all over, a shaking I absolutely had no control over.

"Please, have mercy, tell me you're just kidding me."

"I wish I could say that to you, "sá" Stella" said the country man having one more sip of coffee, "and there's more: you're now too linked to this town to survive its death. Its death is your death too. Ours. Everyone's in Taurinos."

Sitting and crestfallen. A wide open gap of dismay and disorientation even when master Danilo urges me to tell him what happened in the meeting. Summoning up my spirits, I gave him a detailed account of it, as detailed as I was allowed to under such stress, a narration he listened in to as he always did not stopping me even once with remarks.

I noticed his face had been becoming tense since I started the account, from its first words in fact. When I finished I asked him if he was okay. Because I wasn't feeling okay. I just wasn't. He glared at me, wide open eyes of astonishment, with carefree abandon in his very own perplexity.

"Something has to be wrong", he uttered, "this is exactly what was discussed in the first Mithraeum meeting. Even the two bulls the Conselheiros settled there were in our first meeting down there, the presence of a woman in the catacomb with us, all is the same, Arthur's dream, everything's the same."

"So you think everything is going to happen exactly as it did in 1957?"

"Yes, and that's what worries me."

"That being true, it means you already know what will happen?"

My question took him by surprise (or at least it seemed so). But it was easy to tell I or anyone would bring out that question. If things have gone on like they did in 1957, wouldn't it be logical to suppose they'd follow the same course now?

"It means that I remember what happened in 1957", he said it in an ominous tone, more ominous than his usual at my narrations on the current Taurinos' Ancient Society's activities.

I saw it wouldn't be possible to extract much more from him about that specific point. I don't like to mess with the future. It scares the sheer hell out of me, much more than the past. Said I had to walk back to the farm. Almost right after, a horn was heard outside. I looked out of the window, just to find Duílio's car on the road. The three men from the farm Taurinos had tracked me down here.

"Want a ride, Ms. Grisam? You won't turn it down today, will you?" Andrés grinned from the car's window.

I told them I was about to come out. Master Danilo passed a folded paper to me and said he had finally found out, asking downtown, about the name of the woman who took part in the Society in the late fifties. "This I find important for you to know. Tuck it now in your pocket and read it when you're on your own, all by yourself. Burn it after reading. Make what you want of it and don't you forget, I'm always here after six. Come whenever you need… and want."

Andrés got down from the car to open the door for me and stuff. I thanked him for the kindness and he said he was very proud of me.

"Proud of me?" I asked when Duílio was already starting the car and going.

"We all are", mended Adriano, "I found what you said in the meeting too cool. You spoke to him in few words and it was awesome."

"I don't know what to do to thank you for what you did in the meeting. These things are so discouraging for the kids, how cool it is to have someone lift their spirits a bit!", added Duílio while distracted with the road.

"That's what I need to talk to you about. We need to keep an eye on this boy."

Andrés, Duílio and Adriano (in this exact running order) turned to me as if they were surprised.

"Come on, Ms. Grisam, don't you take it serious, it was just a dream", asseverated Andrés.

"You said it yourself, all are nervous on account of the bulls' law, it's normal that it happens. Arthur is stressed with this all, he has been stressed like this lately", Adriano was quick to add.

"Has he had the dream these days or only once?"

"If I recall he told us the dream today at the meeting. It was only once."

"Still I think we have to be ready to go to his farm these days just in case they need help, (say noon because it was the time he saw in the clock) to make sure nothing is going to happen. Because it might be just a dream as you say. But what if he saw what we could not see as Andrés always says? Don't you have presages of your own? Doesn't your father say they work out, Andrés? Why should we take no notice of something that might be a premonition?"

Silence in the car. Only the engine running denouncing activity inside. After some time, the farmers said they could arrange the other parents to alternate noon visits at the farm Feletti. The only condition was that I had to go along when it was our turn to watch, what I promptly accepted. I don't know why, but I felt as if I had taken a building off my back.

On the farm I stayed at the porch when the three men had long gone inside. I opened the folded paper master Danilo had passed to me. The name on the paper couldn't be more familiar. Her name was Estela.

Mysterious barricades | Ten men

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