Cigarettes

I carry the plant with me to every single part of my house. There was always a place I spared to set it on and lose myself in its mysteries. Now it was my turn to make a difference. The boys looked to me to get out of that mess. The help I gave Arthur yesterday was turned into responsibility to me. Me, that had nothing to do with this story. The boys would never take me anywhere again without me asking master Danilo if it was safe.

The sound of the shears outside distracts me from the contemplation of the plant. I look through the window and there my gardener is, someone I have to put up with until the end of this shit. I had breakfast calmly today. No kids in blue dungarees asking for this and that. Arthur had already understood it was no use asking me for anything but the shears.

Going to the farm Taurinos I passed him by and he greeted me with that luminescent smile that looked like an ending for a toothpaste commercial. I ignored him. Went away as the sound of the shears faded away in the distance of a mile that separated me from the farm Taurinos.

Aparecida told me that the kids' sojourn at the Sanctuary had hardly begun and the two had already fought. Black eyes and all that jazz. She thought maybe it was their stress. I thought maybe it was their feud.

"I went there to take food to them as we alternate with the Teixeiras", she explained, "Andrés said that Renan cries nearly all night, the poor thing… My heart breaks, but what can I do? They have done so wrong, how can they ever be free from trouble?"

Duílio said they are full of holes made by the mosquitoes and it enrages the two even further. I remember them saying that because of the bell all the animals in the region were taking shelter there. That included mosquitoes, flies, lizards and snakes.

"They asked about how you are, Miss Grisam. I told them what I know has happened here and they know you'll have to find it all out. Andrés even recalled the time you couldn't remember your part in the ceremony and he was discouraged like hell. I felt terribly sorry for my youngest but I also felt terribly like drawing some blood from him with my belt."

If he weren't good and old Duílio and his proposals for a better education. I'll recommend Duílio as a pedagogue at a Waldorf school. It would be a hell of an advancement to him as well as a hell of a setback to poor Waldorf school (that had nothing to do with all of this mess, by the way).

Duílio told me he has found weird that what happened to our houses and the Teixeiras' is not found anywhere else in town. According to him, the calm in town was flagrant, there was no general atmosphere of conflict in the city as in the time of the Big One, during the Law of the Bulls, or the issue with Tinnitus or even my return to town, a true ground zero for Taurinos. It was like the problem was restricted to the Council this time. There were comments from the people on the street, but they were far from frequent.

Thought he was right. Not that I was going to town a lot lately, but in fact I couldn't sense the same strange atmosphere everywhere. The places I had been to on the night I helped Arthur showed absolutely nothing strange. While the conflict seemed strangely regional, a biological reserve had to be an object of concern for the whole of Taurinos.

"I've been wondering what's Bruno's intention in this story. This question of Bruno's birthday. Another of those questions without an answer?"

When I did that kind of questioning in the presence of the couple, I wondered how much they actually knew of the local institutions and sub-institutions organogram. Aparecida made food and snacks for the meetings of Taurinos' Ancient Society's Outer Chamber that is a club for those especially craving card gaming around a comfortable table, no further than a local Rotary Club. However she was ignorant of the multiplicity of instances in the Society. She crossed herself every time she heard of the Obscure Police (well, only non-Christians wouldn't) and things like that. She had always found me completely insane, I know she liked me as a friend would, but had always found me completely insane anyhow.

And master Danilo dropped by in the afternoon. I was studying that damn plant when he walked in. We were drinking coffee, eating cheese bread and staring at the plant.

"You haven't let go of this plant since the Council meeting. You need to go out a little bit. Open air is good too, makes you think better."

"I got to look at this plant, master Danilo, can't be going out when the two are trapped in the Sanctuary. Now the whole of the situation is in my hands as when I had to recall the ceremony in March, no?"

"But you need to allow yourself some relaxation, you can't think right with a hot head, "sá" Stella", he insisted, "I know a place as beautiful as the Sanctuary and there's no problem going there."

I recalled that Aparecida had really told me he knew many beautiful places here. But I saw myself forced to gaze at that stupid plant until my memory started aching.

"It's only a quick tour, then you'll come back to look at it later. Sometimes you got to stop a bit, or else what good is it when you lose focus? You'll see you'l be more relaxed when you come back."

From a distance we could hear the sound of the stream running inside the forest. We walked quite a long way to get to this place. This stream, according to master Danilo, came from the Sanctuary, that was the source of all the water in town. All the water came from Taurinos' taps from there with no chloride or modern treatment shit. Pure water from the mountains in its purest and most pristine condition.

"This is why I can't totally disagree with the Celestial Gardener; if you let this water be contaminated what will become of us here?"

I was in silence, thinking that I was the source of contamination for the town. A high lethality contaminant element. I drove away the thought that tormented and that maybe was going to make me someone very different from my former self. I caught myself thinking, that like in a song I heard, nothing would ever be the same again.

The place was really gorgeous but lost in majesty to the Sanctuary. Dragonflies were as curious as in the other tour, their colors as vibrant as. Butterflies passed in graceful flights and unimaginable colors. Wonderful flowers, orchids, bromeliads, all of a natural richness that was hard to believe in a place dominated by cerrado, more rustic yet equally beautiful environment.

We sat on the ground and were talking. He said he found the proposal of the Celestial Gardener to be tricky. If only I could help the two, did this aim to make them stop looking for it and leave only me sweating over the issue? Or would they search too by their turn and try to gain more terrain?

I didn't even want to think about this. Only thought I had a problem to solve. We were in silence for some time, until the sounds of the forest calmed down in a gradual and unexpected way. I was on the verge of commenting about it when master Danilo asked me to hush and listen in.

A whistle. Very high, distant, but inside the forest. Then it was silence. Nothing. The countryman looked at me and asked me not to speak. Another whistle was heard in closer perspective.

"What bird could it be?"

"That's no bird, "sá" Stella."

"What is it then?"

"It might be a lot of things, but nothing really interesting", he said, listening hard in and looking around.

Another whistle sounded and it was closer still. Seemed to indicate a direction. I started looking for the direction it came from. I got away from master Danilo and went on to walk about. He told me maybe it was a good idea to go away or to another place.

"Ah, we could go and see what it is. Are you sure it is not a bird? So it is a saci whistling? Curupira?"

He was serious. I hated it when he looked this way. It made the impression there was trouble about. He said these names are names people gave to a series of entities that lived in the forests. That they'd show up in the appearance people imagined they had.

"When Curupira appears in the forest, it is a boy with feet turned backwards. So whoever follow his footprints will be following the opposite direction he took and will fatally get lost in the forest. Sometimes it appears mounted on a stag and holding a stick from the plant sarsaparilla that is good medicine for blood disturbances, acne and other health problems… Listen!"

Another whistle sounded and it was closer and closer in time. He suggested that we should return to the road, when we heard the familiar voice of Anderson in the forest, "master Danilo! You lost there?"

I did feel relieved. It was just Anderson. How would he have found us here? Did he know of master Danilo's fondness for that spot? Master Danilo himself answered, "how did Anderson know we'd be here? What would he do on this side of town? Today is Thursday, Anderson is working at this time at his store, "sá" Stella!"

"Master Danilo! You lost there? Come on this way, master Danilo!", the voice shouted in the distance.

I was nervous. Hadn't thought it would happen someday. Something you learn in folklore classes in elementary schools, things you thought belonged to a popular culture museum that suddenly come alive in the middle of a forest.

"Can you tell what side the voice is coming from?"

"From that side. Wasn't it where we came from?"

"I don't know anymore, "sá" Stella."

"But you know all of these forests here, how come you have forgotten where we came from?"

"The forest has been closed in circle, "sá" Stella. Exactly as I said would happen if the kids tried to escape the Sanctuary, remember? Now it is happening to the two of us."

"Master Danilo! You lost there? Come on! This way, master Danilo!", the voice shouted now much closer to where we were. I thought it came from behind us and said it to him. He pulled me to the opposite direction and we started to walk. Another whistle was heard, an ear-piercing whistle. Silence was distressful, only shattered by the sound of our voice, "Anderson's", by the whistles and our footsteps on dry leaves.

"I think I recognize this tree… Haven't we passed it by before?"

In fact, it seemed to me that it was the second time around that tree. He was right, we were walking in circles. I started feeling like I was going to panic. The ancient fear of being lost in a forest overwhelmed me. Master Danilo said we should use our brains, not our fears to think.

"Master Danilo! This way, master Danilo!", the voice now seemed to come from somewhere right in front of us. Good Lord, it seemed to come from just anywhere.

Master Danilo said we should sit down in the clearing and pray. I asked him what danger so great could set us praying in the middle of a forest. He said that prayers helped drive away these haunts if we helped with the power of our imagination. We'd pray and picture the voices and whistling disappearing and the way opening to a way-out of the forest.

As we said our prayers, Anderson's voice called, growing closer and closer and alternating with the whistles coming right to the clearing where we were sitting. It seemed useless to pray. The countryman then told me to close my eyes and hide my nails, no matter what happened around. Said it was not like the Obscure Police I liked to try to spy. Told me not to look for the world. We stayed there like that as the voice and whistle approached us more and more.

This took a distressful eternity. I tried to say something, but master Danilo hushed me again. We heard the sound of the leaves being trodden on track leading here. Not being able to look was by far the worst anguish. The ignorance in the momentary darkness of my eyes shut. The footsteps stopped right by our side. There was a dead silence, nearly a minute of it while we were sitting there, eyes shut.

"Master Danilo, o master Danilo… Taking a stroll. Walking for some mental hygiene, aren't you? Eyes shut… Well, you know the way things are. You know you got to keep your eyes shut, because I'm real scary. You know how many things exist in this forest. You do. Now you wait a bit more and open your eyes."

This took another distressful eternity, another dead silence minute, until the sounds of the forest began to reappear within our hearing field, but as if they was coming softer and from a different direction. Light began to increase through our eyelids and a certain sensation of warmth too.

"Open your eyes, "sá" Stella."

"Is it safe already?"

"Yes, fear not."

I opened my eyes and we were sitting on the dirt road out of the forest in front of the track that led to the place we were. What a trip for an afternoon. Master Danilo rose to his feet and helped me do the same. He seemed willing to leave that place as soon as we could.

"In the winter", he explained, "daytime is so short. Night might fall and catch us here unaware and then one never knows what can follow next."

While we walked I asked him about the incident. He asked me to wait until we were far from the place. I noticed he was like Renan, avoided talking about things when they had just happened as if there was still potential danger lurking in the place of the events.

After a good while, when we were near my house, he told me he used to smoke when he was younger; he was at that very spot smoking a handmade cigarette when a man he had never seen in town before walked in the clearing and asked him for a cigarette.

He told me he knew who the man really was even having never seen him before. He knew what his appearance there out of the blue in the middle of the forest and his request for a cigarette meant. He said he only had the one he was smoking and offered the man a puff or two. When he looked again the man had turned into something so ugly he made master Danilo blind on the spot. The man told him to disappear from that part of the forest and stay long out of it.

"He knew your name so well, master Danilo; was it him in the bush?"

"Yes, it was", the countryman confirmed as we reached my house's porch. I made coffee and we talked some more. I went to the living room to turn on the light at the porch. Night fell heavy on the town. The plant was there in the kitchen, quiet as always, full of mysteries.

"When did that happen to you?"

"What?"

"The cigarette affair in the bush, you know."

"Oh, yes I was thirty and some."

"God, he has such a memory, eh? So many years and he hasn't forgotten."

He was in silence. I copied him. There was a huge pause only the night sounds around my house were heard. I was looking at the plant and the wold of things it suggested. I was thinking more than any other thing what gazing at the plant would help us with.