“What time is it?” Augusto asks.
“Look at your watch,” says the man with the dog, the two of them, man and dog, observing Augusto with curiosity.
“My watch isn’t working very well,” claims Augusto.
“Ten hours thirty-five minutes and two, three, four, five—”
“Thank you.”
“—seconds,” the man concludes, consulting the Seiko on his wrist.
“I have to go,” Augusto says.
“Don’t go yet,” says the dog. It wasn’t the dog; the man is a ventriloquist, he wants to make me look like a fool, thinks Augusto; it’s better for the man to be a ventriloquist, dogs don’t talk, and if that one talks, or if he heard the dog talk, it could become a cause for concern, like seeing a flying saucer, for example, and Augusto doesn’t want to waste time on matters of that sort.
Augusto pats the dog’s head. “I have to go.”
He doesn’t have to go anywhere. His plan that day is to remain among the trees until closing time, and when the guard starts blowing his whistle he’ll hide in the grotto; it irritates him to be able to stay with the trees only from seven in the morning till six in the afternoon. What are the guards afraid will happen at night at the Campo de Santana? Some nocturnal banquet of agoutis, or the use of the grotto as a brothel, or cutting down the trees for lumber, or some such thing? Maybe the guards were right and starving criminals go around eating agoutis, and fucking among the bats and rats in the grotto, and cutting down trees to build shacks.
When he hears the beep of his Casio Melody alerting him, Augusto goes into the farthest point of the grotto, where he remains as motionless as a stone, or rather, a subterranean tree. The grotto is artificial; it was built by another Frenchman, but it has been there so long that it appears real. A loud whistle echoes through the stone walls, making the bats flap their wings and squeal; the guards are ordering people to leave, but no guard comes into the grotto. He remains immobile in the total darkness, and now that the bats have quieted down he hears the delicate little sound of the rats, already used to his harmless presence. His watch plays a rapid jingle, which means an hour has passed. Outside, it is surely nighttime and the guards must have gone, to watch television, to eat; some of them may even have families.
He leaves the grotto along with the bats and rats. He turns off the sound on his Casio Melody. He has never spent an entire night inside the Campo de Santana; he has walked around the Campo at night, looking at the trees longingly through the bars, now painted gray with gold at the top. In the darkness the trees are even more disturbing than in the light, and they allow Augusto, walking slowly under their nocturnal shadows, to commune with them as if he were a bat. He embraces and kisses the trees, something he is embarrassed to do in the light of day in front of other people; some are so large that he can’t get his arms around them. Among the trees Augusto feels no irritation, nor hunger, nor headache. Unmoving, stuck in the earth, living in silence, indulging the wind and the birds, indifferent even to their enemies, there they are, the trees, around Augusto, and they fill his head with a perfumed, invisible gas that he senses and that transmits such lightness to his body that if he had the aspiration, and the arrogance of will, he could even try to fly.
When day breaks, Augusto presses one of the buttons on his watch, bringing back the drawing of a small bell on the dial. He hears a beep. Hidden behind a tree, he sees guards opening one of the gates. He looks with affection at the trees one last time, running his hand along the trunks of some of them in farewell.
At the exit is the one-armed man selling one or two cigarettes to guys who don’t have the money to buy an entire pack.
He walks down Presidente Vargas cursing the urban planners who took decades to understand that a street as wide as this needed shade and only in recent years planted trees, the same insensitivity that made them plant royal palms along the Mangue canal when it was built, as if the palm were a tree worthy of the name, with a long trunk that neither gives shade nor houses birds and looks like a column of cement. He goes along Andradas as far as Teatro Street and stands once more in front of his grandfather’s house. He hopes that someday his grandfather will appear in the doorway, absent-mindedly picking his nose.
When he enters his walk-up on Sete de Setembro, he finds Kelly pacing back and forth under the skylight.
“I looked for coffee and couldn’t find any. Don’t you have coffee?”
“Why don’t you leave and come back tonight, for the lesson?”
“There was a rat, and I threw a book at it but didn’t hit it.”
“Why did you do that?”
“To kill the rat.”
“We start out by killing a rat, then we kill a thief, then a Jew, then a neighborhood child with a large head, then a child in our family with a large head.”
“A rat? What’s the harm in killing a rat?”
“What about a child with a large head?”
“The world is full of disgusting people. And the more people, the more disgusting ones. Like it was a world of snakes. Are you gonna tell me that snakes aren’t disgusting?” Kelly says.
“Snakes aren’t disgusting. Why don’t you go home and come back tonight for the lesson?”
“Let me stay here till I learn how to read.”
“Just for two weeks.”
“All right. Will you help me bring my clothes from home?”
“You have all that many clothes?”
“Know what it is? I’m afraid of Rezende. He said he’d slash my face with a razor. I stopped working for him.”
“Who’s this Rezende?”
“He’s the guy who—He’s my protector. He’s gonna get me the money to put in a tooth and work in the South Zone.”
“I didn’t think there were any pimps these days.”
“A girl can’t live by herself.”
“Where’s your place?”
“Gomes Freire near the corner of Mem de Sá. Know where the supermarket is?”
“Show me.”
They walk along Evaristo da Veiga, go underneath the Arches, turn onto Mem de Sá, and immediately find themselves at the building where Kelly lives with Rezende.
Kelly tries to open the door to the apartment, but it’s locked from inside. She rings the bell.
A guy in a green T-shirt opens the door saying “Where’ve you been, you whore?” but draws back when he sees Augusto, gestures with his hand, and says politely, “Please come in.”
“Is this Rezende?” Augusto asks.
“I came to get my clothes,” says Kelly shyly.
“Go get your clothes while I chat with Rezende,” Augusto says.
Kelly steps inside.
“Do I know you?” Rezende asks uncertainly.
“What do you think?” Augusto says.