Passion play

Bruno showed up for the first time in my house. He came along with Andrés. I say it was the first time because he'd never been here in fact though he had come around a couple of times. It was the first time he ever walked in the house. He looked around at the interior attentively and never said a word. He was cautious, we were still under the cultural shock of the Celestial Gardener episode as if it weren't enough that he was distrustful of me right from the start in Taurinos. I offered them coffee and the two turned it down. We sat down on the sofa and I asked them what made them pay me a visit.

"You are such a strange duo here together. I'd never dream of seeing you together on my sofa some twenty days ago."

They glanced at each other. Bruno seemed embarrassed as he smiled. Andrés' smile was no different from his. They said they hadn't come to talk about it. I said I was as willing as they were to talk about it but needed to ask Bruno a few questions.

"Why the silence?"

Bruno was silent. It sounded like a joke but he responded with more silence. "Why talk?", he said to me in the end, after a never-ending pause.

"Wasn't it me who spoiled the attempts of communication between the Celestial Gardener and the town? Were you supposed to communicate with the city like this? In silence?"

"In silence I did more for the town than many people did by speaking. Because speaking is speaking, not doing, Miss Grisam. We came to the conclusion that you had created the situation and that you could redress the situation you created. And it was what happened in the end, no?"

"And you came to the conclusion that I had created the situation because you came to the conclusion that I had created the situation."

"I didn't get it…"

"What made you come to the conclusion I had created that or any other situation besides everything I had already created?"

Bruno was silent. Andrés was silent. I was silent. Bruno ended up saying something not very different from what Anderson's father said to me at the square yesterday. That as the Creator of Taurinos I was like God, beginning and end. So no leaf from a tree would fall if it weren't my desire that it happened. A desire I just could not control. I thought it was an oversimplified explanation and said it to him.

"Within this reality you're all trying to convince me of, you're nothing but puppets in my hands."

They were upset at my portrait of them, but I dared them to give me a better explanation. They were silent. I asked them if they had a will of their own or if they just followed mine blindly. And I didn't even know where that will came from. They were silent. It was really hard to deal with them little pestering brats.

"Miss Grisam, actually we want to talk about…", Bruno first hesitated then let it out, "…we want to know whether you can host our scouting group around your house."

I said so. I said I was already supporting the event so it wouldn't be so hard to help them with this either, so everything could run smooth or as smooth as possible at least. But I had questions to ask.

"What about the Mayor of Taurinos?"

"What about the Mayor of Taurinos what?", the two lads asked in impressive synchronicity.

"What do you mean by what about the Mayor of Taurinos what? The man was nailed to a cross on account of an agreement he didn't make alone about something that has nothing to do with him personally. It's certain that what the two did to him you seven have done to each other mutually for some time now. But it's easy to put the Mayor in this shit and pretend nothing happened, no? Well, Andrés at least was here to try and give the poor man a helping hand…", I added, making Bruno go red as pepper.

I showed them a nail I had collected from the cross as Anderson set the Mayor free. The tip was still stained with blood. They were astonished at the size of it. Bruno was dizzy at the very sight of the nail. Andrés took off his glasses, astonished as Bruno.

"I just did it so you two could have an idea what was really going on at the main square. The nails were forged by Anderson, our great blacksmith and future inventor of the guillotine. Beautiful, no?"

The two regarded me astonished. A sound of a horse outside and it was master Danilo. He came in, greeted us all and said he was back from Varginha where he'd gone to see the Mayor. The man was in a state of shock according to the old countryman, outcome of the stress of being nailed to a cross by his hands and feet. The physician (that knew him from earlier occasions) submitted him to a query on the existence of a sect of religious fanatics in Taurinos, or anything to that effect. The two were looking at us astonished.

"We wouldn't ever imagine that Renan would…"

"That's where the problem lies. No one ever imagines that Renan will."

Master Danilo agreed with me. Said an event like this had necessarily to be examined by the Council to avoid this kind of problem.

"Master Danilo, they persuaded, see, they persuaded the Mayor to make the cross for himself and probably even nail himself to the cross. You didn't see the size of the nails", and I showed him the nail I got, "have you any clue what they did to the Mayor for the whole of the night until he ended up crucified at the main square in the morning? Neither do I, but it shouldn't have been something very nice, I'm sure. Andrés himself would find his way to the cross if I hadn't shoved him into his family's car Adriano happened to be passing by in…"

"How shitty…", Andrés mumbled, glancing at a Bruno in total dismay.

"So my dear boy scouts, what was your good deed yesterday?"

I sent a shock wave towards their pride. I said they knew they were dealing with a wild and highly specialized Police (a corporation that was also both randomly unpredictable and insanely monstrous to look at). Said they had to discuss the issue with everyone first. I told them what they knew from times ago when Meire visited me in town and was almost burned alive by Renan. I asked them what the boy scouts would ask in case they saw the Mayor's crucifixion at the main square. And what would we answer to them? Would we say it was a Passion play out of season?

"And picture this multiplied by five hundred", added master Danilo.

"Yes!"

"You want to discourage us", sniffed Andrés, while Bruno shoe-gazed.

"If "sêo" Andrés and "sêo" Bruno do want help, we can help you."

"I want to help, like master Danilo. But are the boy scouts prepared for what they'll find here? I know their motto is Be Prepared, but how prepared do you think they are to Taurinos? How are we supposed to conceal all weird things in town from them? We can try, but the risk is high if you know ten per cent of the town's potential for strangeness."

They glanced at each other. I told them that if they wanted to really go ahead we'd help them. I was going to talk to the Obscure Police at night and see if I could involve them somehow and get them to carry out lighter patrols at night.

From the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, only two appeared, Renan and Anderson. I was finishing making dinner helped by master Danilo. Thanks to Mithra, they came in plain clothes, simple for the cold of the night; still they came on their black horses. They meant to respect my right not to entertain them in uniform while keeping the official aspect of an Obscure Police visit, not a mere social meeting with the Taurinian citizens Anderson Nascimento Caldeira and Renan Augusto Giacomin Teixeira.

They greeted master Danilo and took seat on the sofa. I made them come to the kitchen where supper was ready. We sat around the table and I served them spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and meatballs. Renan asked me if I had Coca-Cola. I made him get one in the fridge and fill four glasses for us. He left the bottle uncapped on the sink and I made him cap the bottle before he sat at the table again.

"What exactly do you want?", asked Renan between one and another movement of his fork.

"I don't want to let the boy scouts realize this is a madhouse."

"Hahaha, so you think it depends on us alone?", the youngest policeman laughed amused.

"On you too. It'll depend on everyone. For instance you could run "lighter patrols" at night. What do you think?"

I explained to them that any testimony of weird things happening in town from the scouting groups might incur unwanted advertising, drawing more and more outsiders to town, crazy to learn about the mysteries of Taurinos, as it had happened some time in the past in the neighbor city of Varginha because of its world famous case of the E.T. The two were really impressed with the way I presented them with the facts and were thinking of the consequences this weird image of Taurinos could incur in today's media.

"Miss Grisam, we can help, we can bring time to a stop so the scouts can't see what's going on, but there can always be unpredictable things going on too", explained the older policeman.

"And also there's no such thing as "running lighter patrols". This is the Obscure Police, not a duo of Care Bears or instructors on origami", added Renan, angry at my attempt to tame them, "hand out some manual for survival in Taurinos, decree a curb, whatever, but there's no such thing as "running lighter patrols"!"

"Of course, who would even mention that?", I let it pass; after all I managed to do something nearly impossible: getting the two to cooperate. It was the world as far as the Police was concerned.

"And don't you forget I was upset, really upset with you when I called you Mom and you…"

"Renan, this is hardly the time to bring on the beloved child. We're in an official visit of the Obscure Police, remember?", interrupted Anderson, smiling embarrassed at me and saving me by the bell.

"What idea was that of crucifying the Mayor, kids?", inquired master Danilo, facing the terrifying duo.

"If the Mayor came to talk to us when the hippies went to him with the event's project we'd talk to the hippies themselves, you know? In the Council, at the Mithraeum. He approved the project by himself, that's what he got", Renan replied.

"It was too good to see the Mayor of Taurinos agonizing up on that cross", added the blacksmith, who seemed to have been completely absorbed and corrupted by the sadistic traits of the institution he belonged to.

Thinking of it again, hadn't I caught myself thinking of the Mayor of Santos nervously agonizing up a cross himself? I see myself sometimes as Dr. Finnegan, a character of Márcio de Souza's Mad Maria, an Irish doctor working for the Madeira-Mamoré Railway Co. that becomes insensitive to the massacre of hundreds of workers during the construction of the railway in the Amazon, getting to the stage of killing them himself at the end of the story.

"Anderson said you convinced the Mayor to make a cross for himself. How did you do it?"

Renan smiled that fiendish smile of a bear cub and glanced mischievously at Anderson, who bore much the same smile as the former.

"Do you really want to know?"

""Sá" Stella, ignorance is bliss", advised the old countryman, coated in cold sweat at the very thought.

"Listen to master Danilo, he knows it all", added the little pest. I gave up hearing their account. God knows what could still be lurking in those depths.

The boys loved the spaghetti and the meatballs. And of course the river of Coke. I told Renan to stay longer. Of course he used the invitation to eat some more. When he finished I told him I was angry with him because of his thoughtless attitude. This was why I just burst out at Zé's. But I did hear him say Mom. I said it to him because I didn't want him to feel rejected. It was an attitude of him I rejected, not the whole of him. I wondered why even happy moments like that had to come all clad in a shell of sheer tension.

"So you were not rejecting me? What am I without my attitudes?", and he faced me.

"It's true you are the sum of all of your attitudes. But it is also true that not all of them are good attitudes. Some might not be extremely bad, but are thoughtless attitudes. Choosing the Mayor as a scapegoat was one of them. Extremely bad, extremely thoughtless attitude."

He stopped for a while as he always did when he was thoughtful.