Coffee and violins

Guilherme knocked on my door today. He walked in with his violin in a case that made him look like a musician and a gangster at once. He asked about his younger brother. Told him he was as weak as Anderson. He asked whether they had been on patrol night. Told him they hadn't even made it out of the bed let alone be on patrol. gain the tinnitus in my ear. Asked the boy whether he could hear it. Guilherme nodded. There were moments in which the tinnitus seemed to die away, or maybe it was really us who'd put it away in some forgotten place in our minds.

In his room, Renan seemed to appreciate his brother's visit, but had no shadow of a smile lost on his face. His speech was mellow and pasty. I was scared by that. Guilherme looked shady and sad at seeing his little brother like that. I waited for Alberto to come and wondered whether I'd see the Teixeiras.

"Dad's not coming. He said that whatever you decide is the final decision.", Guilherme warned me as we left Renan's room.

"Guilherme, I just can't make decisions over your brother's life. He has a father and a mother."

"He has none of these any longer. Dad's disinherited him."

Guilherme got on his horse and disappeared. He had probably arranged to play his violin elsewhere. And I didn't even know he knew how to play a violin. And what about the parents to that child upstairs?

Donana dropped by later and saw her sleeping son. I was observing her reaction. She looked sad and embittered. Before she started crying and woke the boy up I pulled her away from his room. We sat in the kitchen where I started making my inevitable coffee.

"No one's happy with this situation, Miss Grisam", she told me with a heavy and tired expression on her face as soon as she took a seat at the table, "we see that Guilherme is suffering, that Octávio is suffering…"

"You suffering too?"

"Only less than Renan, I suppose. I want my baby back, Miss Grisam. But…"

"But…?"

"There's a monster inside of him. He turns into this nasty thing and does all sorts of nasty things at night. This is no life… This is not living…"

I thought she was letting herself be guided by morals and values that used to be the base for my former society. I made her see that the circumstances around what a decent and peaceful life in Taurinos could be were very different from the ones in my hometown.

"Little by little I started to understand that the conceptions of good and evil I had inherited from my culture had no application here, Donana. Your son is a mighty warrior he is not the one to hide in a hole and wait for the sky to collapse on his head. He is this grotesque apparition from hell as he works, but he is also your plump little baby, looking like a little bear cub, someone who needs to be hugged, cuddled and kissed like any other child would. He is, especially in this sense, just like any other child I have known. A smart, intelligent and healthy kid. I do think you and "sêo" Octávio should be proud of him instead."

Donana started crying. It was plain to see that she couldn't stand being far from her child. It was plain to see she had no way f knowing how to fix the situation. I gave her coffee, she looked better after a couple of gulps. The sound of a car stopping in front of my house. It was Alberto coming to get news about his son. It was a heavy, leaden afternoon with the two parents here at home. Alberto started crying too and for the same reason: their children were horrifying beasts, and so on, and so on. I know it's difficult for parents to accepts certain traits in their children's personality (especially these traits coming from the deepest depths of Hell). Taurinos' "reality" was harsh as hell sometimes however: it forces you to a different living paradigm.Something they see as bad and that was seen as bad by my original culture. In my current culture, it's no worse than killing for eating and thus surviving.

Later, Aparecida and Duílio dropped by to see whether I needed something. They found Anderson sitting silent in front of the TV. The blacksmith greeted them by slightly nodding, maybe the most he could afford to do in that moment. Renan was with me in the kitchen but didn't raise his head to see who was walking in.