‘It’s the first run out in those game-suits,’ Rafa says. ‘New deal. Golden Phoenix Holdings.’ The same name is on the back of every João de Dios Moço.
An Xiuying steps back from the rail. His hands are shaking. His face is pale and sheened with sweat.
‘I don’t feel very well, Senhor Corta. I’m not sure I can finish the game.’
And Lucas is behind him. His shirt so crisp, his creases so sharp, his pocket-square so precise.
‘I’m sorry to hear that Mr An. It’s quite a sight. Has our choice of shirt logo upset you? An interesting company, Golden Phoenix. I found it surprisingly hard to pin down what they actually did. From my research, it seems to exist solely to redirect infrastructure development funding through a series of shell companies registered in tax havens – many of them here on the moon – in a pattern even I found difficult to unravel. If you don’t want to watch the game – the Tigers will win, Rafa’s boys have been on terrible form all season – maybe we could have a talk about your connection with Golden Phoenix. You see, I can disclose it. Your government seems to be going through one of its periodic clamp-downs on corruption. The penalties are quite harsh. Or I can conceal it. Rafa can retire those shirts. Your decision. We could also talk about the China Power Investment Corporation’s future helium-3 requirements. Corta Hélio is eminently capable of meeting those. The game lasts an hour. I’m sure that’s enough time to make a deal.’
A hand on the shoulder guides An Xiuying back into the director’s box. Before he closes the door, Lucas nods to his older brother.
Rachel was right, Rafa thinks. You are smarter than me. Then the whistle blows and the ball goes up. Game on!
One hour, plus time-outs. The Tigers win; 31-15. A trouncing. Jaden Sun is jubilant, Rafa Corta despondent. Lucas is never wrong about the outcome of games.
The tram will carry one passenger. Boa Vista security has been notified. Surveillance will be discreet. Under no circumstances may the passenger be searched. She comes at the personal invitation of Adriana Corta.
The car pulls into Boa Vista Station. The woman who steps on to the polished stone is tall even by lunar standards; dark of face and eye and blade-thin. She wears voluminous white: a many-skirted dress, a loose turban. Colours: a woven stole in green gold and blue; string upon string of heavy beads around her neck, gold hoops at each ear and around each finger. Her loose clothing accentuates her height and thinness. The woman wears no familiar; an absence like a lost limb. The guards straighten their backs. Charisma crackles from her. They would not dream of searching her.
‘Irmã,’ says Nilson Nunes, steward of Boa Vista. She acknowledges him with the least inclination of the head. In the garden of the Cortas the woman stops. She looks up at the sky panels and blinks in the false sunlight. She takes in the great stone faces of the orixas, mouths the name of each one.
‘Irmã?’
A nod. Onward.
Adriana Corta waits in the São Sebastião Pavilion, a confection of pillars and domes at the highest point of the sloping lava-tube. Waters rush from between its columns. Two chairs, a table. A samovar of mint tea. Adriana Corta, dressed in lounging pants and a soft silk blouse, rises.
‘Irmã Loa.’
‘Senhora Corta. I bring you the fondest greetings of the sisterhood and the blessings of the saints and orixas.’
‘Thank you, sister. Tea?’ Adriana Corta pours a glass of mint tea. ‘I do so wish we could grow coffee on this world. It’s almost fifty years since my last arabica.’
The woman sits but she does not touch the glass.
‘I’m sorry for your family’s recent trouble,’ she says.
‘We survived.’ Adriana says. She sips her mint tea and grimaces. ‘Vile. You never stop worrying for them. Rafa will not give up on Robson. Carlinhos is fretting to get back in the field. Ariel has gone back to Meridian. Lucasinho has run off. Lucas has frozen his account but that won’t stop the boy. He is more like his father than Lucas realises.’
Irmã Loa lifts a cross from amongst her cascades of beads to her lips and kisses the crucified man.
‘Saints and orixas protect you. And Wagner?’
Adriana Corta brushes over the question with another.
‘But you; your work is secure now?’
‘Saint and sinner both pay breath tax,’ Irmã Loa says. ‘And Catholicism still objects to us. On the other hand we had our most successful Assumption Day festival. Your patronage is a constant blessing to us. It is so rare to find someone who thinks as we do, in centuries.’
‘You invest in people. I invest in technology. Our long-term goals will inevitably meet. Best if they meet now, so they will recognise each other when they meet up again, hundreds – thousands of years from now. So few people think in the long term. The truly long term. We’re both dynasty.’
Splashing up through the rivulets, drawn by voices; Luna: barefoot in a red play-dress.
‘Who are you?’ she says to the woman in white.
‘This is Irmã Loa of the Sisters of the Lords of Now,’ Adriana says. ‘She is taking tea with me.’
‘She’s not drinking her tea,’ Luna declares.
‘What’s that over your shoulder, a moth?’ Irmã Loa says. Luna nods, still a little afraid of the thin woman in white, despite her smile. ‘She is drawn to the light. But because she is so single-minded, that makes her easy to distract. The moth is so fragile, but she is the daughter is Yemanja. She is filled with intuition, the moth. She is drawn to love, and others love her.’
‘You don’t have a familiar,’ Luna says.
‘We don’t use them. They clutter us up. They get in the way of our communications.’
‘But you can see mine.’
‘We all wear the lenses, anzinho.’ Irmã Loa reaches into the folds of her turban to press a small object into Luna’s hand: a tiny print-plastic votive of a mermaid with a star on her brow. ‘Our Lady of the Waters. She will be your friend and guide you to the light.’
Luna presses the deity in her fist and skips off down through the tumbling waters.
‘That was kind of you,’ Adriana says. ‘I think of all my grandchildren, I love Luna the most. I fear for them. Havaianas to Havaianas in three generations. Do you know that saying, Sister? The first generation rises from poor people’s shoes. The second generation builds the riches. The third generation squanders the riches. Back to poor people’s shoes again. Long term projects, Sister.’
‘Why have you asked me here, Senhora Corta?’
‘I want to make a confession.’
Surprise on Irmã Loa’s still face.
‘With respect, you don’t strike me as a woman with much of a sense of sin, Senhora.’
‘And the Sisters are not a religion with much of a sense of sin either. I am an old woman, Sister. I am seventy-nine years old. No great age biologically, but I’m older than most things in this world. I wasn’t the first, but I was among the few. I came from nothing – a girl from nowhere – and I built all this, up in the sky. I want to tell that story. All of it. The good and the bad. Did you really think that funding was a donation?’
‘Senhora Corta, simplicity of spirit is not naivety.’
‘You will come here once a week, and I will make my confession to you. My family will enquire – Lucas needs to protect me – but they are not to know. Not until …’ Adriana Corta breaks off.
‘You’re dying, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I’ve kept it secret of course. Only Helen de Braga knows. She has been with me through everything.’
‘Is it far advanced?’
‘It is. The pain is under control. I know I am laying a burden on you. What you tell Rafa, or Ariel, but most of all Lucas, is up to you. But Lucas especially will pick and pick and pick away. Your lies must be airtight. If my children learn that I am dying, they will tear each other apart. Corta Hélio will fall.’
‘I should like to pray for you, Senhora Corta.’