Compassion

I learned from Duílio that Andrés and Renan were staying at least a week in hospital in Varginha. Aparecida had stayed in hospital with Andrés and Donana with Renan. When they came back, a diet rich in beans and beetroot all cooked in iron pans would be prescribed to fight anemia. Duílio was going to the farm Teixeira and I asked him for a ride.

When we walked in the main house on the farm Teixeira, I heard a door being slammed on the upper floor. Someone must be very angry around here. "Sêo" Octávio appeared from the kitchen and I realized it had been Guilherme slamming the door up there, probably his own room's.

"Yes, the kid is a bit angry with this issue of that garden…"

"I came to ask you about Renan, "sêo" Octávio", I explained.

"Ah, Renan and the Conselheiro are going to stay in for a week or so."

"Could I see Guilherme?"

"Guilherme is very angry and disappointed with you. We came by when we came back from Varginha; he looked for the garden around your house and there was nothing. You should have been sleeping as all lights were out. Today, he learned from Bruno that you told Arthur to remove the garden from your home. He called Arthur and Arthur didn't even answer the call, D. Carolina, his mother said he has been sad, nervous and crying since yesterday. Guilherme has been sulky ever since and with Renan in hospital things here are a bit hard for now."

"I have an idea", I said.

"Sêo" Octávio didn't express this in words himself, but he didn't like my idea of turning down the garden. Said he was sorry to be unable to stay with us for longer and we took the long way home.

Duílio never said it behind the wheel, but he too found insane that I turned down such precious thing. I asked him to take me to the farm Feletti.

"No way, I'm going home", he said, "leave the boy quiet as he is now, Miss Grisam; if you mess with him now it might get worse. Not even Guilherme wanted to see you. Why would Arthur? I don't even know if the family will let you in after all this madness."

I conformed and shut up. Duílio was right.

I told master Danilo that I understood the trance Arthur had been in. I spoiled his surprise, what he had prepared for me, a gran finale, a moral of the story, a tour de force. All were sad in the end, each one on their own way. No one won and everyone lost. But regardless of having me keep the garden in my home or not, the Celestial Gardener had clearly shown what he wanted to: that the Sanctuary had to be something worth this name. It was the Celestial Gardener who ended up as the least scratched in this story.

He so desperately wanted me to keep the garden so it could stay there forever as a symbol of this acknowledgment that there are places in town that cannot be visited by foreigners. And what better place to set up a landmark like this than the house of a foreigner, even the foreigner being the one who created the town?

Maybe this was one of the reasons why I turned down the gift. Maybe because I didn't see it as a gift. Maybe because I saw it as a reminder of the power that could visit violence on me or on anyone daring to violate the rules of the Celestial Gardener. If so much magic and beauty were created like this, what would it mean to witness its dark side?

But the memory of these two strange weeks I had lived through was enough for me. No one would set up landmarks in my land. I preferred the barrenness of the grit around my house to the beauty of a garden that would forever taste of show of force and punishment. The garden would be the living testimony of the power I was dealing with. I should feel happy for passing his tests.

Master Danilo stated he agreed with everything I had said, but that I took the issue so personally and emotionally, almost in a motherly way for worrying about all of the boys, not only this one or that one. This was good in his opinion, but it also favored my acting with rage.

"But on the other hand he saw that you acted moved by feelings of compassion and fondness to him. He saw you cared about him enough to put him on your back and take him for kilometers to a safe place with the sacrifice of your physical condition. Maybe it was because of this that he respected your decision of not keeping his garden. Or maybe because he couldn't keep a garden there if you didn't let him anyhow."

I started to weep remembering the day when he was looking at my breakfast table with all that food that he could see but could not eat and regretted that thing so much. He was probably really hungry that day as he was on the day he fainted. It was his fault that he hadn't eaten at all, but I regretted denying him breakfast so much. His look of a little hungry puppy would still pursue me for long time. Master Danilo just stared at me in disbelief, not knowing what to say to comfort me.