Toothpuller day

Woke up to the sound of fireworks outside. Before I came out of my room and asked someone what was going on, I moved the mouse of my laptop that I had left on overnight since the Mithraeum meeting yesterday. I looked at the date instinctively and didn't take longe to find out what it was: it's Tiradentes' day today. I had to remember I was in Minas Gerais in the long run. I had no time to be amused; with all the latest news, all the torrent of events that came all down on me in a single blow, I have nothing else on my mind but the madness living in Taurinos can be.

A knock on the door. I told whoever it was to walk in. Andrés walked in, distrustful, not knowing what my reaction to his presence would be. He was astonished to see nothing had changed in me. He was staring at me for ages, probably undecided about what to say.

"Will you ever forgive me?" It was what he managed to put together.

"I'd sure forgive you, young man. If only there were something to be forgiven, I'd sure forgive you."

He showed uncountable facial expressions when he heard this. Just like what happened to me yesterday at the Mithraeum, he was prepared to ask the question, but not to hear the answer.

"I'd be lying if I were to say to you I'm happy with what you did", I was quick to add, "but I don't think I would've acted differently if I were in your shoes. I don't even know whether I should say this to you. I've never trusted you, since the beginning, but I have never trusted any of my patients anyhow."

"You mean you're not angry with me?"

"No, I am not. What doesn't mean I'm necessarily staying in Taurinos for good. We have some more things to talk about today at the Mithraeum, before I go to Santos. I'm less than sure if I have enough elements to make my mind up and make such an important decision."

He looked like a balloon that is emptied suddenly. For a while there I felt sorry for him. I had spent so long feeling sorry for so many aspects of my patients that I got to completely forget about myself in the whirlpool. But my decision would be unchangeable. How could I ever be less cautious when I had to make such a vital decision?

"Another meeting today at the Mithraeum? But it's a holiday today, it's Tiradentes' Day, remember?", Andrés could hardly disguise his unwillingness in taking part in another meeting. I also found his argumentation absurd and thought I would answer with another absurdity.

"Tiradentes was not a Mason, did you know? Not belonging to a secret society like the Masonry there's no need of paying tribute to him by calling off today's meeting."

He frowned at me.

"I don't see what sense it makes at all."

"Well it makes as much sense as to say we're calling off today's discussion of our future because today is a goddamned national holiday.", I replied, making Andrés change subjects very quickly.

"What happened to you yesterday at the Mithraeum?"

"Wasn't it you who said you could see the present and also the things that happened in the past? I had understood it was not possible to hide current events from you."

I saw he felt challenged. He described what he saw and intrigued me by saying he had seen things yesterday as those he had seen on the ceremony night. Said that only Adriano and Renan had seen those things none of the others could see. I asked him if it was the scenes of my fight with the animal. He said this all of them could see fine. Mentioned amazing things only Renan, Adriano and himself could see. I asked him what things these could be and he said he was too young to have a proper vocabulary to describe them. Said that it was possible that no vocabulary existed anywhere to describe what they saw. I was stunned by what he said though apparently I had no way of asking for more explanations. What would they have seen that was so amazing?

Renan was all joy when I told them what had happened yesterday was my recalling of all the savagery I did on the arena on the ceremony night. He told us he had "seen" I was recalling it all. Bruno said he knew what was going on. Anderson, Guilherme and master Danilo too. Duílio, that hadn't attended the ceremony could only attempt to understand what was being talked about.

"You knew", Renan cut them short, "but I "saw" that she was remembering. "Saw" the things I "saw" that night, all of it again."

I cast my eyes on Andrés on the top of the grandstands and he simply nodded at me.

"I "saw" it too", added Adriano.

"All of us saw what happened during the ceremony, Renan", clarified Bruno, alternating a curious look between Renan and Adriano, "the handling and all that she…"

"I wasn't speaking about the handling, dude", interrupted Renan, "but what I "saw" in Miss Grisam during her handling."

I was quick to ask him what it was. See if he could word it better than Andrés.

"What did you see? This morning Andrés told me that…"

"It was the presence of a friend. I had never felt that thing before."

Andrés and his elder brother rose from the grandstands to their feet, eyes as big as saucers.

"This is what I was trying to say to you this morning", affirmed Andrés, in total awe.

"Wasn't it you told me there were no words to explain? The presence of a friend?"

"The way I felt it, there was really nothing I could explain" he defended himself, slightly annoyed and embarrassed.

"That's just like what I saw" added Adriano.

"I couldn't think of the words at the time it was happening either. Then, thinking back to it, I realized I was feeling the presence of a friend. It was the only thing I could really understand", helped Renan, looking embarrassed to Andrés on top of the grandstands as though sharing something with him — be it a vision or a feeling — were something dirty.

Duílio had his eyes set on master Danilo probably in search of an explanation. Master Danilo only signalled to him, silently asking him to listen in and wait. Anderson, Bruno and Guilherme all seemed to be following, but were confused with details here and there. Who wouldn't be?

"Renan", I said all of a sudden, "I want you to take the same pledge as Andrés did yesterday."

Andrés had a seizure of laughter that reminded me of Renan's most spectacular interruptions. The latter looked up to the top of the grandstands and then stared at me, "why do I have to take the same pledge as that prick over there? It's him who's being judged, not me!"

"Neither you nor Andrés are being judged, Renan."

"What do you mean by that? He hid everything from us, knew everything all the time… I bet he even knew what would happen to Arthur!"

Andrés rose to his feet, seeing red.

"It's a lie! A fucking lie! What a fucking infamous thing to say, you little piece of shit! Arthur could see it forward. Dreams, what you may have, but he could see it forward. I never ever could!"

Andrés sounded as though he had fallen prey to a paroxysm. I told them to calm down. Told them they were exactly as I dreamed. Renan was trembling when he heard me say his own words.

"And you're still defending him, Miss Grisam!", the child was still trembling with rage, panting out of control.

"Yes, I do defend him. As I'll always defend you. Because I'm the only one in this town to really have an option. You got no choice but sticking blindly to the goddamned Master Plan. Your rage, the fact hat you have had it in for Andrés all of this time is in the fucking Master Plan. Andrés can change sweet fuck all in the Plan, because he didn't create it. I myself can't alter any fucking thing because I don't know how the hell I created it. The sooner we all start to realize it the easier it'll be for us to get somewhere."

Renan sat down slowly, in silence; a tear shone in the eyes of rage he now kept fixed on me. A little time-bomb always on the verge of going off.

"The more knowledge one has, the more pleause and pain one accumulates. The pleasure for knowing more than before and the pain for that very reason. I'm defending Andrés because knowing one has to do something according to a plan and knowing one cannot deviate an inch of was established in a Plan is unbearably cruel. We can't judge Andrés, let alone condemn him to hell, because he's already living in hell."

Duílio rose from the grandstands, appalled. It had probably been a hard blow on his Mithraist-Christian upbringing.

"What do you mean, Miss Grisam, my son…"

"Your son is in hell, Duílio. Face it and help him, because he desperately needs your help. He's been in hell since the foundation of the town and will never leave this hell. Ask him and he'll be your guide into the labyrinth, this intricate maze his own hell is. Every step you take in Taurinos is taken in his hell. Each word we say is said in his hell. This bitter hell that he carries inside, the town itself and the weight of years on his shoulder from its foundation, this is the hell he wants to preserve frozen for the eternity. He's returned here since the dawn of mankind, forever and ever. And I'll tell you what hurts me most: he did nothing I wouldn't do myself."

Dead silence followed, brooding and ominous as no other had been. Duílio's face was wet all over. If I had intended to send it home to hearts and minds within this catacomb the silence and then the sobbing of so many of them showed me I was on the right track in the long run.

Master Danilo was one of the few to remain in control of his emotions. But not even he could help but feeling overwhelmed by such flood of notions about what the town really was and is. Andrés gazed at me paralyzed and it was an opaque, cold stare where the only thing that shone was his own tears. I guess this gaze, in this particular moment in time will pursue me for the whole of my life, whatever decision I take in the end. Duílio brought him down and he clutched to his father before everyone's bewildered stare.

"Ignorance is bliss", I continued, using the moment to try and talk some sense into those minds, " but knowledge is something else. The moment I heard Adriano tell us about how I left my home that day in February, I saw the Master Plan Andrés has spoken so much about. I saw Andrés coming back to town in successive generations, just waiting for the Advent, just waiting for the Advent; I saw it all as though a window had suddenly opened on my mind. Eveyone knows he is one among Those Who Have Returned. What you don't know is how many times he has returned. What you don't know is that there's no such thing as Those Who Have Returned. Because in fact what there is is The One Who Has Returned."

I stopped talking for a while. A long while. I waited for them to say something, their silence tortured me in such a fashion nobody's silence had before. There was no sound; all were sitting, overwhelmed by a reality that got heavier and heavier every minute. Not even their sobbing was heard any longer. Silence was deafening; much more than I could take.

"Now I understand what Renan, Andrés and Adriano saw in me on the ceremony night. This is the reason why I couldn't remember what I had done on the arena at all."

"The ceremony didn't work because you couldn't remember what you did there?" Guilherme cut me short, anxious, the first human voice heard in the desert of that silence. The others turned their eyes to him as though they had woken up from a decade-long sleep.

"No. The ceremony didn't work because there were eight people at the Mithraeum."

"Arthur… Great Mithra! Good Lord!" shouted Guilherme, on top of his astonishment.

"The presence of a friend. It was Arthur doing what he had been assigned to do. Even dead, he didn't forsake his city in the moment it most needed him. Because it was him doing everything you saw me do. He knew I wouldn't be able to do that to the animal. He went there and did it all. When the bull stepped on me there seemed to be physical pain, but in fact there was nothing. I stood up and from this moment on, I remembered nothing. I guess it was the moment Arthur took over and reduced the bull to mincemeat…"

"Revenge after all! He took his revenge! I was sad for the ceremony not having worked, but I am happy now to learn it was Arthur who did it in the end.", shouted Renan, waking up the fans of sport at 44 minutes in the second half.

The news — taken from the deep of everything I saw in the Master Plan — gave them back their spirits in a fashion I did no longer think possible. I smiled at them and they were still serious (in light of everything they had learned in such a short period of time) but it was plain to see that a new anima had been placed inside them by the revelation. I have now a clarity of thought I wouldn't consider possible days ago. Adriano was the piece I had been missing to see the Master Plan in all of it majestic entirety. Each speck of information opened a broad field in front of me, a field that was precise and accurate as few things.

"You knew what it was about, didn't you, Andrés? All the time, but you found no words to describe something so simple."

"You can see everything now, Miss Grisam. Soon you won't need me any more."

"Everybody here needs you, Andrés. Even Renan."

Renan cast me a sullen look, but, funny, ended up laughing. It seemed no nervous laughter. All of them laughed too, but not Andrés or Duílio. They had a shady look on their faces that really lasted.

"Renan", I said, to clarify one more doubt, "why did you show up in my dreams? Did you dream about me?"

"I wanted to know what made you so special and started stalking you in your dreams. When I saw that Anderson and Andrés were prying, I stopped. I didn't have a lot of energy in my dream, I didn't have my normal round shape, but I could use it to go and see what you were dreaming about. So, the only idea I had about it was that we were exactly the way you had dreamed about. If Adriano hadn't said that I'd never have known why I had this idea, I jus' had this idea because I had this idea."

"Who were the guys you killed?"

"Just around the same time you first got to town?"

My vision blurred. The outsiders killed when I came to Taurinos. The Conselheiros going out at night to bury the dead. Renan raising dogs that would make burials unnecessary.

"I can't believe it was you, brat", I had eyes as big as tires set on him, "how many were they?"

Renan was thinking for a while less for having to reckon how many they had been than for actually shocking me even further.

"Five of them", he answered, shrugging.

I summomned up my energies to go on with the questioning, "and the other two?"

"They were outsiders, from your city. and they were after you."

All of a sudden, I remembered I hadn't seen any of the men's faces. One for mugging me and always staying out of my sight hiding behind me. The other, first for being far. Even when I saw the man closer when returning to the square with Andrés, (sitting dead on the bench like a bag of shit, stiletto still stuck to his stomach), I saw not much because he had his face bent down. Renan's descripton of their faces wasn't of help. And I decided to skip the suject and give it a rest, at least for the moment.

I asked them all if they had anything else to say or ask, and that dead silence fell all over us again. I told them I'd be going to Santos on the following day. I asked Andrés to come with us. He turned down my request. I spent over ten minutes talking him into going. Not taking that dead silence any longer, I asked the men to be free from that catacomb, see daylight once again. Fiat lux!

Marooned | Longer than life

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