The Invisible Mountain (11 page)

João shrugged. “They cheated.”

“Of course they cheated. Maybe Vargas would have won.”

“What does it matter? None of us could vote anyway.”

“It shouldn’t be that way.”

“But it is.”

“Things can change,
Pai
. Vargas would improve things.”

“How do you know?”

“He wants to help the people.”

“Hmmph! He says that because he needs the people’s help.”

Artigas, slicing slabs of meat from bone, stayed silent. He knew nothing of the politics of Brazil, but he sensed that he’d entered a thick and murky stream of history. The timbre of Ana Clara’s voice stayed with him; there were few things she spoke of with such passion. He looked at the fresh meat in his hands, being cut for João’s birthday; they had not cooked goat in weeks. If a president raised wages, they might eat meat more often. He thought of Galtero, and the company that had destroyed his tribe’s home and crops with the full permission of the government. Perhaps a new leader would protect families like Galtero’s, raise workers’ pay, and create a school where Xhana could learn to read. If that was what rebellion meant, what Ana Clara hoped for, it must be a good thing, and he should support it, except that the thought of soldiers in their midst, close to his daughter and pregnant wife, filled him with dread.

Three days later, bureaucrats rode up the hill with a decree. Artigas and Ana Clara stood among their neighbors, staring at the men in ornate saddles. One of them opened a scroll and read: Vargas and his army were close to Rio. They threatened the present government of Brazil. All civilians were ordered to take up arms for their country. They were to report to the military base in four hours.

The man rolled up his scroll. The crowd under his horse was silent. He coughed, pulled his reins, and led the small procession down the path, and out of sight.

“I’m not going to war for them.”

“Me neither.”

“Why should we risk our necks?”

“If we don’t, it could cost us our lives.”

“It’ll cost us our lives if we do.”

“If we have to fight, we should do it on Vargas’ side.”

A rush of sound concurred. Artigas tightened his arms around his wife.

A boy ran up the hill. “Look! Look!” He pointed down the incline into the city. “The city is turning against the president!”

All eyes turned down toward Rio: it writhed with people, thronged so close that from a distance they looked like a single liquid. The crowd poured down to join them in a blur of running shapes. Ana Clara pulled away. “I’m going too.”

“Going? Where?”

“To the streets.”

Artigas grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

“Don’t try to stop me. This is my city. I’m going.” She loped out of his reach, down through shaking grass. At the last curve in full view, she looked up at her husband and he drank her in, Ana Clara, obstinate, round-bellied, red and white dress ruffling in the breeze, waving at him against the backdrop of a seething city. “Take care of Xhana,” she called. Then she turned behind a rock face and was gone.

Those were her last words to him. Hundreds of thousands swelled the streets that day. Police opened fire; the mob panicked; it shoved and pressed and lurched in terror. Ana Clara fell to the ground, unseen in the stampede until João’s second cousin’s nephew came across her underfoot. It was too late.

Ana Clara, Ana Clara, Ana Clara.

Grief scraped through Artigas like a knife. It gutted his will to live. He slunk into his bedroom and did not eat or drink or sleep or talk for six days. On the seventh night, an hour before dawn, Ana Clara appeared at the edge of the sleeping mat in her red and white dress. She was not pregnant. She was not smiling.

“My God. It’s you?”

“You promised. You promised you would take care of Xhana.”

He reached for her. “But, Ana—”

She was fading, already, into a red and white mist. “You promised …”

Artigas rubbed his eyes. He was alone. He crept from his room and found his five-year-old daughter sleeping on her grandfather’s mat, curled into his arms. He knelt on the floor to kiss her forehead. Her scalp smelled of melted cocoa butter. Her nose was tiny, sculpted, innocent, emitting little breaths, in time, he imagined, with her dreams. He lay down on the floor, wrapped his hand around hers, and watched her breathe until the room grew pale with light.

It took two weeks for the troops from the south to break the government. The rebel army swarmed Rio; Vargas arrived on a huge dark horse, his uniform blazing with medallions. Masses filled the streets again, this time in celebration.
A NEW BRAZIL!
one banner read.
WELCOME VARGAS, WELCOME FREEDOM
, read another.

João and Artigas stayed indoors. João fumbled with Xhana’s hair and Artigas watched his hands, those masterful hands, braid and unbraid and braid again, groping for the skills his daughter took with her into death. The sight invaded his mind, the way soldiers invaded the marketplace, the way fear now invaded Rio’s streets. There were guns everywhere these days, along with reminders of what he’d lost. Ana Clara in the plantain-curves of beaches hungry for the sea. Ana Clara in the steep cliff-path into the city and back home. Ana Clara in the taste of mangoes and the sound of a machete cutting sugarcane. Everything familiar was unbearable. He wondered what Ana Clara had been seeking in those streets before she fell, what vision she’d held, how much of it had died with her, what it would take for the rest of it to survive. He dreamed, at night, of fires burning throughout the continent as he ran to quash them with bare hands. He dreamed of leaving. He yearned for the open road, an empty slate, a destination free from the weight of memories and armed young men.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Where?”

She cooed her answer, as if the word held its own tune: “Mon-te-vi-de-o.”

He burned with questions, but before he could speak, the girl disappeared, an owl in her place the color of pristine sand.
Tú
, it hooted.
Túuuuu
. Artigas stared into its huge, unfathomable eyes. When he returned to bed, he slept more deeply than he had since his wife’s death.

A week later, with João’s reluctant blessing, Artigas and Xhana boarded a train to Uruguay. They sat on wooden seats in a car that, for all its sweat and chickens, smelled like heaven compared to his last ride. Xhana pressed her nose against the window and stared at the lush mass of rain forest rushing by, immune to the crushing heat and
clack clack clack
of insomniac poultry. Artigas watched her with as much marvel as she had, watching the world. There she was. His lamp of a daughter. The unexpected quarry of his long hunt.

Once in Montevideo, he dove into the city in search of his sister.

Pajarita poured the last ladle of hot chocolate into her brother’s cup. “I’m glad you found me.”

“It wasn’t hard. People know about you at grocery stores in every neighborhood. You’re respected—even feared a bit.”

Pajarita looked at the potted plants and jars of herbs that filled the kitchen. They whispered to her in a rustled language, messages that pushed up from quiet dirt.

“Look at you. When I left, you were still a girl.” He drew closer. “Tell me how you got here.”

“Another night. The sun is almost up.” She gestured to the window, a square of drizzle tinged with gray.

“Right. Tomorrow?”

Pajarita nodded. “How long will you stay?”

“Depends.”

“Well, for example—how long can we stay here?”

“Artí. Don’t insult me.”

“Thank you.” He reached for her hand. His palm was tough from years of drumming. “If it’s all right with your husband.”

Pajarita thought of Ignazio, a dark shape in her bed. “You let me worry about him.”

Once she had watched Artigas go to bed on the living room floor, Pajarita tiptoed to her bedroom. She changed into her nightgown without turning on the light. Ignazio’s elongated breaths came through the darkness.

“Ignazio.”

The breathing halted. Sheets stirred. “
Sí
.”

The floor was cold against her bare feet. “Artigas is staying until he finds a home.”

The rustle of black shadow, sitting up. “Pajarita.”

“Yes.”

“Do you—are you—coming to bed?”

She swayed slightly. Her linen nightgown stroked her legs and they were strong, her legs, they could still stand, she could stand alone for decades if she had to. But she longed for rest. “Yes.”

She heard the swish of sheets drawing open. She slid in. They were warm, his arms, large and solid folding all around her. Tonight, at least, these arms were solid. She felt his heartbeat, then his hand, then the melting of her body toward his, as they glided, together, into the dark unmoored trajectories of sleep.

“Xhana?”

“
¿Sí?
”

“Are you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Are you scared of storms?”

“Sometimes.”

“Me too. I always wanted a sister.”

“Me too.”

“Sure.”

“You can sleep here, in my bed, anytime.”

“All right.”

“And we’ll be sisters.”

“
Sí
.”

“For our whole forever.”

“
Sí
.”

He was there. Again. Artigas stared at the field around him—a soccer field in the shape of South America, a huge grass-grown map, the borders between countries marked in chalk along the ground. Fires shot up across the continent, sudden bursts of glaring light. Quick quick he raced back and forth across the field, putting them out with bare hands. He quenched one in Peru, bolted west to save Guyana, then down to Chile, back across to Brazil. Faster and faster the fires arose. He was so small, he was exhausted, he couldn’t possibly keep up. He stopped in his tracks, defeated, blazes all around him. He looked to the north. A blinding fire loomed and glowed and ignited the horizon: a massive conflagration, its sparks shooting south, falling on the grassy map and making it burn—

He woke up in a sweat, the sharp imprint of fire before his eyes.
Xhana!
He felt the floor beneath him and remembered where he was. Xhana was safe, sleeping in the other room, with her cousin. Eva. Her name was Eva.

He crept to the bedroom where they slept, opened the door, and peered at them. They faced each other, arms around each other’s small shoulders. Early sunlight washed over their skin. They reminded him of how he’d slept, with Pajarita, growing up—cradling each other, warmed by limbs and hides, dreaming their own dreams beneath one blanket. The way these girls now nestled, the dreams seemed calm and good.

“Sleep well,
mijitas
, you’ve got a lot ahead of you,” he whispered, closing the door.