We really do arrive in Tupanatinga. The town hall is a brick hut with a coat of arms over the door, a rearing black horse. Large and small pigs run across the marketplace, they root around in the dust and in the garbage bags. In front of the town hall the mayor of the town turns a bottle upside-down and the beer spills on a small brown pig, it drips in the dust, and the pig shakes itself off like a dog. Celina, cries the mayor, cerveja! and the mayor of Tupanatinga’s wife sets two bottles of Antarctica in a styrofoam cooler on the table. The padre only drinks water. Celina has served meat on a skewer, feijoada, bean stew and rice, fried cheese and onions. Saúde! cries the padre, saúde! cries the mayor, kicking at the small pig, it evades the mayor’s shoe and escapes under the Peugeot. Tuuli pushes her plate away from her and rolls a cigarette, she throws a few potatoes under the car for the small pig. The mayor eats, the padre drinks, they’ve taken care of business, they seem content. The padre has opened the door of the Peugeot, the radio is now playing international hits. The mayor of Tupanatinga loves Sinatra: I got you, he sings, under my skin. The mayor loves Celina: he kisses her painted lips, he kisses her hair, he kisses her golden cross in her impressive décolletage. Celina runs her fingers through his chest hair in time to Sinatra. The hairs like gulls’ feathers in oil, I think, the hole in the middle of the belly, I remember, the lighter blood. I’ll switch to beer now after all, I decide, even though I usually drink only with Felix. Celina fills my and Tuuli’s glasses. The mayor cheers in the eternal summer of the Pernambuco desert and grabs his head in his hands. Fat from the chicken with garlic and coriander drips on his blue uniform shirt. New York, New York, he sings softly, scratching his beard, his laughter resounds over the noon emptiness of the marketplace. The padre too takes off his Los Angeles Lakers cap in all the enthusiasm, he tosses it into the air. Tuuli smokes and smiles. I say: I don’t understand anything that’s happening here. You? Suddenly Tuuli leans toward me and kisses my ear. Me neither, she says, but I understand you. I feel the first beer in my head and Tuuli’s left hand on the nape of my neck, her right hand feeds the small pig under the Peugeot bread. Its squealing sounds like happiness. I wonder where the Pousada Majestic is, here there’s no hotel or inn to be seen. I wonder whether Felix is waiting there, I wonder whether Felix will show up there at all.
On we go! The padre pounds on the table and stands up, on we go! and I think, where are we even going? The padre reaches for the water and takes a sip from the pitcher. On we go! We’re waiting here for Felix as planned, Tuuli whispers in my ear, in Tupanatinga on the BR-232, she murmurs, just the two of us. Let’s go! says the padre, taking the key from the table, but Tuuli says no. I remain seated. Celina presses her pink lips on the priestly cheek, the mayor of Tupanatinga presents to the padre a packet of meat, Obrigado, padre, he says. I’m astonished by Tuuli’s lips on my ear, by the pink on Celina’s mouth. The padre blesses the house, he flings his arms around Celina’s neck and throws himself at the mayor’s feet. With his eyes closed he draws a pig in the visitors’ book of Tupanatinga, and I kiss Tuuli. I kiss Tuuli, and the padre jumps into the Peugeot, he turns the key in the ignition. Tuuli kisses me as the engine whines and the bells toll. The mayor of Tupanatinga and Celina stand arm in arm in front of the town hall and wave goodbye to the Peugeot, the dust wafts from the desert and toward the desert. The padre jiggles the gearshift, finds the right gear and slams on the gas. The stones spray, the pigs flee, the dust swallows up the view. The Peugeot bumps where there are no bumps at all, then it drives straight across the marketplace toward the church, toward the road, then it vanishes, honking, between the houses. The padre has forgotten his cap. Tuuli leans her head on my shoulder, and as the cloud of dust and diesel subsides, Celina is kneeling over the small pig, moaning and wringing her hands. Blood in the dust yet again, I think, blood yet again. The black horse, I say to Tuuli, the red candidate. The small pig, she says, the small pig.
IS TODAY SATURDAY? I ask, stroking Tuuli’s rib cage, her belly, her small breasts. Tuuli and I have found the Pousada Majestic, on a side street behind the marketplace. We’re lying in room 219 under the fan, I’m drinking water. I’ve slept the beer out of my head, I’ve showered for the first time in days. Now I’m lying on my back next to Tuuli and reading the only English book in room 219: William Wordsworth’s Selected Poems. The inn is a colonial building with high ceilings and window shutters, our pants and shirts flutter freshly washed in the back courtyard. Outside the window an empty plaza, the Praça de São Geraldo, a turned-off fountain and dry palm leaves, yellow streetlamp light and here too street pigs and dogs, over everything the smell of desert and fire. Tuuli wakes up and pulls my head to her lips. She seems not to know the answer. I don’t want to tell the days of the week apart anymore, she says. Tuuli and I are lying in room 219 of the only and therefore best hotel in Tupanatinga, in the middle of the sertão. We’ve stopped counting the days of the week. We could inquire at the reception desk, but we don’t ask. Instead Tuuli leans first over my mouth and then over my body. The padre has left the village and forgotten us without the supervision of the Catholic Church in a room with wooden shutters and high ceilings, we drink water with ice from each other’s mouths, our lips tell who we are and our fingers report how we look. I’ve told Tuuli about myself as a child, about the Ruhr area, across the gap between the beds she reached for my hand and described Helsinki to me, the snow and her parents’ snail farm. And so on, Tuuli said. For example, I replied. Each morning the squawks of the parrots in the lobby wake us, we start again from the top and stop only to order abacaxi, pineapple, water, and coffee. Tuuli asks about Felix, and I tell her about my oldest friend. I say: Felix will find us. I say: We’re where we’re supposed to be. The sun and the days of the week, the desert dogs and the tolling of the bells, the small pigs and black horses vanish beyond the corners of the Praça de São Geraldo.