Promised you a miracle

Woke up to the sound of the telephone ringing down the hall. I glanced at the bedside alarm-clock that marked twelve-twenty a.m. Though I know the call is not for me, I can't help but thinking a phone ringing here at this time of night cannot be good news. Someone got the call. I waited under the blanket, trying to listen in. Strangely I happened to catch my name echoing somehow down the hall where the "official" phone is.

Now, clear knocks on my door. I roll myself in a robe, open the door and there's Duílio right in front of me, half hidden in the space of shade with an expression that is shadier still.

"Ms. Grisam, I just got a call from the farm Feletti, from Horácio, Arthur's father. They have captured a bull with the dart guns."

"That's great, they were only waiting for Arthur's bull anyhow; it seems that now he…"

"Horácio asked me to bring you with me and I'll be taking Andrés too. But the only one of us that really needs to go is you."

I'm all but alarmed now. What can it be, don't even know the owner of the house beyond the few words I had with him yesterday at lunch. Why do I have to go, why is only my presence required?

"I even asked him why he wanted you to go, but he hung up too soon."

"Did he sound nervous?"

"Absolutely. I'll wake Andrés up and we'll be ready to go in a moment."

I put the mp3 on. I have the hope it will pacify the can of worms my mind is right now on account of this strange and ominous phone call, the uncertainty of such vague information. I forward one track and the song begins.

Promised you a miracle. Belief is a beauty thing. Promises, promises… as golden days break wondering. Chance as love takes a train, summer breeze and brilliant light. Life mirrors a cure. Everything is possible with promises. Everything is possible. Everything is possible in the game of life. Everything is possible…


Promised You A Miracle, written and performed by Simple Minds.

On the farm Feletti all lights seem to be on tonight. I think of Arthur and his dream, what afflicts me some more. The uncertainty we carried until we got here makes way for the signs we see on the path to the farm, people crying, desolation. I can see now. If I couldn't see it before it was because I didn't want to believe it. Arthur's dream was not just a dream in the long run. Recognizing Duílio's car one of the employees of the farm came to talk to us.

"What's going on here? Why all the lights on?" Duílio stretched his neck like an antenna outside of the car window, trying to see beyond his reach as the employee walked closer.

He was nervous. Told us he was in shift watching the farm against invading bulls. He said some had been seen and got the dart gun for special request of Arthur that had to take his bull to the Mithraeum as soon as possible. Andrés looked at me and his father, beginning to feel nervous. The man told us he heard noises from the back of the farm's house, so he ran there only to find the huge thing investing against the back of the barn. He shot at the bulls and managed to hit him with the dart, but didn't stop him from crashing against the barn's wall. Suddenly he saw Arthur's sister running from the back of the barn, terrified, eyes as wide open as saucers. Shivers started their way all along my nervous system, going up and down frenetically. The dream.

"Only when I got to the back of the barn could I see master Arthur fallen there, bleeding like there was no tomorrow. I found it was no biggie though; the kid is smart, he knows where he threads. It was."

And after a pause he said:

"When I tried to help get him on his feet again, he only spoke of this Stella, Stella. Said that she had now to do it for him. That she was the only one that could take his place. I didn't understand a thing, but do remember his words…"

"How's he? How's he?", a desperate Andrés cut him short.

"He liked you very much, master Andrés", said the man to the boy, whose expression melted into one of dismay and desolation by the employee's very use of the words in the past, "the first thing he asked about while he could still talk was his sister. I told him she was alright, while asking someone to call an ambulance as fast as possible. The second thing he said was that the bull had to be taken to the ceremony. The last thing he mentioned was this Stella. There was no time even to make it to the telephone…"

The words all in the past. Arthur is now a part of our past and our history. He remained in yesterday's session, forgotten and set adrift on the incredibly eerie things we found out together. I don't remember what made him enthusiastic yesterday, but I remember it was only one thing. All the time silent, as if he knew he wouldn't take longer walking on the Earth, with the other Taurinos. On the front seat, Andrés lowered his head until it collided gently with the car's dashboard. He sobbed so softly, maybe in a superhuman effort to tell us that real men don't cry. Duílio stroked his son's head in a vain attempt to soothe that poignant sadness.

"What now?", the familiy man seemed completely lost as to what to do next.

"Now it's the terrible part", I answered looking at the movement around the house, "to talk to those who have remained."

The atmosphere inside the house is heavy, but it could be no different. Condolences. Flowers. Prayers. A frivolous social manouever that tries to, but can't conceal the real dimension of the rupture death brings in itself. The end of all objective relationship with the dear one that will no longer live beyond the limits of our dearest fond memories. To me it's the shock of learning someone simply is no more, that was beside and among us all day yesterday giving himself a new dimension in the events of his own town, culture and religion. I hadn't known the boy for more than seven days. But the days we experienced in the Mithraeum were like years of coexistence among all of us.

Horácio, the family man here, calls me for a talk out on the verandah where many people are passing by and no one's staying. As we sat down to talk he stared at me for a while.

"No, it was no fatality, Ms. Grisam. It was something that he saw and we chose to ignore. The other day he came up with the subject, as you had said. We told him to stay home for a couple of days since there were no classes at school. He did, but it amounted to just the same. We had to chain him to the bunk bed that's it. We can't , can we? I don'tdo, I don't know what to think, there's no ground for me to step upon."

I kept listening to him. Anyone's mouth goes better shut than open in moments like this.

"One thing he said before he was gone was that the bull had to make it to the ceremony. Ask Duílio to come here in the morning to pick him up before I change my mind and slice him alive with a hatchet and an ax. He only gets out of here alive because it's my son's will that it happens."

"I'll talk to him, be sure."

"Arthur said something more and that's why I made a point of calling you to come with Duílio. He said you are the only one that can take his place in the ceremony now. Because you were the only one to be initiated in the society besides them seven."

"I…"

"And I know you won't let Arthur down. You won't let the good people of Taurinos down in this moment. A people that only wants peace to work and to live. There is much at stake at the ceremony tomorrow. Arthur had been getting ready for it for one year now. It was getting ready for a passage of life for him. The day before yesterday, he had that dream. It's just not fair. No, it's just not fair. What can the great Mithra have in reserve for us? What does the future hold for us?"

A tear rolled down the face of the farmer, a face that was hardened by sufferance and made much older in a few hours by a sorrow I'll never ever experience in my lifetime. Because I have never had children, not even the paranoia of losing them would cross my mind. I'd be false and hypocratical if I said I can imagine the depths of pain this man is now wandering through. Not even my years studying psychology, my training programs, the accumulated experience can tell me something that can make any sense about the feeling that's arisen in this man's existence on this day that has hardly begun. Still a family man, but a little less familty from today on.

He gave me the sword Arthur was supposed to use in the ceremony still in its sheath, "now it's yours. Make the best of it. Remember my son when you use it. Be my son when you use."

After a pause that seemed eternal, made eternal by the ominous crying and praying all over the house Horácio drew a piece of crumpled paper from his pocket

"This is a piece of paper on which he was trying to write a poem before going to bed. I saw him crumple the paper and throw it away and was curious to read what he was writing. Without him noticing I picked up the paper and tucked it into my pocket. Take it with you. I don't want to imagine the rest of the poem or how it would be in case he managed to go past its title. Keep it yo yourself. Maybe it makes more sense to you than to me. Because it means nothing to me now."

A wave mixed with astonishment, hope and tenderness swept me head to toes when I opened the piece of paper and read the only four words the boy had managed to write on it: "Promised you a miracle".

"I wouldn't want to go home on a night like this. When I find out that some of the past has been missed. And the light in the window has burned out its fuse. I pull everything inwards, but everything's loose. I wouldn't want to stay out with news like this. All the engines too loud, all the pavements hiss. How the scouts in the stairwell will meet again and talk about justice and freedom and pain. Everything's inwards, but everything's loose."

Inwards, written and performed by Big Country.

Two in the morning. I turn the mp3 player off when we arrive. Andrés still cannot keep himself from crying and sobbing. To think I still haven't shown him the crumpled paper Horácio gave me. On the farm Feletti, they are waiting for the conclusion of the paperwork so Arthur's body could be ready for his wake and burial tohugh it's clear the family is no mood for red tape. The wake was scheduled to start at eight in the morning and the funeral in the evening. I think of the sheer nightmare it will be for the family until it all settles down. If it's ever going to settle down one day.

Adriano and Aparecida wait for us at the porch. Who'd be able to sleep a wink tonight? When he saw his brother crying, Adriano started to do it too and clutched his mother like he was asking her for new energy. They probably imagined what it was from the phone call. I imagined what it was. Arthur imagined it too. And nobody did any fucking thing. What depresses me most is to know that there was nothing we could really do to prevent it from happening. Could we just live there watching it all around waiting for something that could come or not come?

Wake downtown. The same ominous atmosphere of the house at midnight, only worsened by the chaos of bulls and cows fighting for space with the humans attending Arthur's wake. The whole of the city is on the streets today. They all have come to pay their last respects to the deceased one.

In spite of the grim atmosphere surrounding everyone and everywhere, the Conselheiros seemed a bit calmer at this point. They drag me to the churchyard, a bench distant from the chaos and confusion around, behind the churchyard barricades. There we meet the other four that are waiting for us for some conferencing.

"I want Arthur's Sacred One for me, Andrés", Renan was putting Andrés under siege, "I'll beg you on my knees if you want me to. I have never asked you for anything, so today has to be the day, my brother. Please let me have him…"

"Spare your precious knees for the ceremony, my dear and eager friend. This Sacred One has been assigned to Ms. Grisam by Arthur's father and by our very own Arthur that even forgot he was dying to make things right for the ceremony providing us with a Sacred One and summoning another member of the Society for his place so his task could be performed. A dude who died defending his defenceless younger sister and his family. For me it will suffice. This is definitive."

I notice Andrés is apparently calm, but deeper he seems on the verge of losing control. No wonder it happens in a moment like this. The boys all look at him as if he had just fallen from the sky, his brother included. Renan mumbles something, annoyed and frustrated. Bruno himself doesn't position far from that behavior. Only Anderson, Guilherme and Adriano seem to keep a bit of a distance from opinion though they observe everything aware of the moment's importance in time and space.

"Renan, I do know how much you want to have him, but it's no different from me or Adriano, Anderson, Guilherme or Bruno and, I'm sure, it's not different from Ms. Grisam's feelings. We all know you are the one we should give the monster too because you're the guy when it comes to make animals suffer, especially bulls. We do know your science and know how atrocious it is. We know the evil it can do. But this time she'll have to have him, my brother. She never asked to be part of us. She never asked for the burden. But here she is, she has come along with us this far."

"My sentiments exactly", I had to intervene at this exact point of the conversation, I was moved by what the plump one with glasses that gather the dust from the cerrado said in my defense, "he couldn't have put it better. Yes, the burden is mine. It's the last will of a deceased member of this Society and aslo as Andrés said before, for me it is definitive. Not even in my wildest nightmares I would I dream about being dragged into that arena to do that, but I will have to make my stand in the best of my good will. Because this is what the moment demands from me, no? So this is how it's going to be."

"You don't know what's good in life… Oops, it was a joke. A joke, okay?", murmured Renan, smiling his shortest smile.

"Why can't your father take her place? He has been initiated, no?" insisted Bruno as soon as Renan was quiet.

"Because my father was not initiated in the foundation's meeting. He's been initiated inside the Outer Chamber, the chamber for all the members alike, as all of your parents too. We have been initiated inside the Inner Chamber, the chamber for those who share the mysteries. Those who are only initiated inside the Outer Chamber can drop by and have coffee with us, but no sharing secrets with them."

His hands shook more and more. Now the voice trembled along with his hands.

"Now enough of this goddamned argument. No one is to think of anything else now that is not our goal tomorrow. I can't stand it much longer, guys, I just can't stand it much longer. I swear" tears suddenly started rolling down his face, "some days I think of letting go of everything and walk away till weariness or a bull kills me. What a fucking shit to live in this damned city, doomed to live in this crappy place…"

I hugged him and much to my surprise he let me hug him, he even cuddled against my chest like a baby would. Maybe because he was needing it more than ever at that special moment of his life. Of everyone's lives. Everyone seemed to realize the true dimension of what we were experiencing at that moment. Men and woman, we are all in the same boat.

Back to the Mithraeum for our last reunion before the sheer Armageddon the ceremony would be. When we had finished descending the stairs and Andrés turned on the lights, the turmoil started down there in the bays. The seven were now filled. Nothing more than hours stands between us and the ritual. Because if something does, it'll be the end for this town and its people. It will be the end of me. It is just that radical.

However, when I looked at the space where we'll spend some hours battling 500-kilo killing beasts at the first minutes of this fatidic Saturday, I was assaulted by the true dimension of the burden I had accepted on my shoulders with the best of good will, carried away from my viewpoint by the tide of circumstances I didn't create but that is affecting me so badly. Yesterday my blood pressure fell when I saw Renan drooling blood. How could I, even if I beat the great big assassin, pull his skin, flesh, organs apart while having him still alive, make his blood spurt without finding myself fainted and at the mercy of the gods in the middle of the bloody arena?

I'm actually getting ready for death. That it will eventually come as an end for anyone's life it is out of question. But now, there's no turning back, no escaping on foot out of this town. Probably I'll be brought back to town by force at best. Even if I wanted to get away from it all, I still had my commitment to someone who just went away believing in me. Someone that paradoxically didn't want me in the Society and was true to this feeling until he found out he might be wrong about me; maybe his decision of assigning his Sacred One to me was his attempt to get even with his last days. What he really did in the end.

"Ms. Grisam," summoned Andrés, "come down here to the arena with us."

I rise to the call and go down to the arena, trying to drive away my paranoias. Shivers walk all over my spine as I step into the circle. Andrés shows me the last Sacred One. The big violet spot on his back the killing look of the animal turning to me. The boys are around his bay looking at him with the same death wish in their eyes.

"Here", and the plump one kicked his bay's gate with guts, exasperated, irritating the monster inside and the other beasts beside him, "here's the son of a fucked up bitch that gored our good friend Arthur to death today. Look in detail at this huge and disgusting face of a beast, Ms. Grisam. It was him. Yes, it was him. And please don't turn your eyes to me. It's the motherfucking beast you have to look at."

"Andrés…"

"Shut the fuck up, Adriano. Yes, Ms. Grisam… Learn to hate him. Find yourself some hate you never dedicated to anyone and dedicate it all to him. All at once, like a tempest over him. No pity. No compassion. No sympathy. No quarter. Because these bulls, oh, they will ascend to heaven. We'll still be here. I don't want to know if you haven't done it before. If you are considered too weak to give him all the punishment he deserves, we'll all have failed and the city is going to dry from the inside. But you won't have to wait till your guts dry like they're fine powder as everything and everyone else", the others were appalled at his words, "because if you fail I'll enter the arena, slice the fucking son of a bitch and make you swallow each and every bit of his body until you're nothing more than just a fucked up fat bag of meat choked and stuffed to death with all the motherfucking stuff in. Have I been clear? Does anyone have anything to declare against or for? "

Silence was devastating except for the loud noises of the animals right in front of us. I had heard enough. Put on my mp3 and set the random thing in motion.

"After all I have seen, after all I have experienced, today I'm here just to tell you what I have learned. I have learned to hate."

Learned To Hate, written and performed by Inocentes.

The bloodthirstiest kid in the country | This mayhem tonight

Radio Universal: A Love Like Blood