5. The house
Translated by Angela Telles-Vaz
Proofread by Izabel Arocha
The yard was huge. I had the impression that I could easily lose myself in it. It was possible, for instance, for two soccer games be happening simultaneously, one for the little ones and another for the older ones. And, if I took a quick look at them running, it looked like scattered stars lost in the sky. The yard was huge.
The wall around it seemed to be very high to me, but it was easily climbed by some of them. There was a time that one of the older students was on duty at each corner of the wall, to prevent anyone from escaping. They watched proudly while performing this unhappy task.
I think the dorms were at the top. I have the impression that there were stairs going up. So the classrooms must have been downstairs. There was a kitchen and a cafeteria. Did we stand or sat to eat? We formed a line and I see benches alongside the table, or am I mistaking it with the bench of my house in Manhuaçu?
Next to the main house, in a row, there was a group of rooms, each containing a toilet bowl with no top and no door. It never occurred to me to feel ashamed while squatting on the toilet. Instead, one could follow the development of the games. I now wonder if all the rooms had no doors. What do I know? Most likely, some had no doors and due to the number of students, they ended up been used by the little ones.
I don’t recall if the faucets were lined up next to these rooms. It was there that faces were washed, water was drunk and feet were washed before going up to the dorms.
There was a big bathroom with a flat cement floor surrounded by many showers. We lined up outside, took off the sailcloth overalls and then went in. The overalls were kept in a waiting line. The water was cold. I don’t remember any soap. There were no bath towels. We returned and the line made of sailcloth became alive, agitated and quickly filled with the wet and laughing bodies.
I don’t want to forget to mention the columns along the main house which formed a terrace between the yard and house. And along the columns uniting them there was a long and very short cement fence that ended up being used as a bench. We all sat on those concrete benches and played there many times. It is, above all, because of my ear ache that I’ll talk about those little walls later.
At some point, remodeling was done throughout the building. The classrooms were painted and names of saints were written on top of the doorways. I don’t know if they enlarged the yard, changed the wall, crumbled something, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. The classrooms were painted and something else happened, that’s all.
I remember the work been done due to the names written on the doorways and because the newly-painted wall had a mark of a hand print. They looked for the guilty one and it was not difficult to figure out who had a hand stained with paint. I will not speak about the punishment. It’s not fair to hurt again, little by little, that little body long cut in the abandonment of death. He will suffer greatly in some other chapter; that he suffers all and surrenders himself to his eternal rest in the same chapter.
It’s time to take my people to bed.
All lined up. I remember the prayers screamed in unison. In the end, the supervisor
Praise Our Lord
And all
Forever be praised.
Praise Our Lord
Forever be praised.
How many times? five?, ten?
Prais oua Lord
Foreva be prais.
Twenty times?, thirty times?
Prais oua Lord
Forevabeprais…
Why always so fast? Did the same thing happen every single day? Finally, we climbed upstairs. I got a blanked on the first day. And on that same night it disappeared. A noise, a gush of cold, I woke up at a glance. A benevolent soul, maybe that blond boy that will be the character of the most striking fact that happened there, no, it wasn’t, I’m mixing everything up, someone spoke in the dark:
Did they take your blanket? I’ll get you another one.
Have I cried? Was I shivering a lot? I waited shrunken and a voice rose in the dark:
Son of a bitch! My blanket! Son of a bitch!
I felt someone putting a cover over me and the benefactor walked away, like a cat. I grabbed the blanket again, warm, I grabbed it the best I could and the next day I did like all the others next to me: they tied the four corners to the bunk bed poles and slipped below. He came to me smiling and saying that he stole the blanket for me and that I should be careful not to lose it again. I remember everything but I can not remember this blurred face.
I slept in the dorm with older beds, reserved for the youngsters. There was another one, cleaner, the one reserved for the older ones, it was never stinky there. And a third one for the boys that pissed on their beds. The supervisor slept with the older ones, they told stories until late; but in ours, as soon as Silence was shouted, everything felt silent.
I don’t know who had the idea of taking me to the dorm of the older ones, to sleep with my brother Geraldo. This happened just before my departure. There were double-decker bunks. On the first bunk bed, below, slept Antonio, the supervisor and on top somebody I didn’t know. On the second one, Geraldo slept on top, so I began to sleep there too. Below us, slept a skinny black guy, I remember that he liked me very much. There I was listening to the conversation of the big ones until I faded in my sleep. Sometimes, the supervisor gave the final word:
Well, we’ve already talked too much, let’s go to sleep.
And there was complete silent.
One night, I was awakened by Geraldo and heard screams:
Geraldo, Geraldo, your brother is peeing on me!
I got up fast, deadly ashamed.
The next night, I was afraid to climb onto the bed. I holed up in a corner and began to pray, trying not to make any noise. I was afraid of hearing another scolding, I was afraid of been taken to the other dorm, I died of shame and so I tried not to do the slightest noise. It was a terrible wait, the Hail Maries repeating itself, stumbling and drunk.
Geraldo, where’s your brother?
Huh! Did he go to the other dorm?
He’s here, shrunken.
I climbed up slowly, the black guy comforted me with a smile, Geraldo said something that flooded my soul with light so I dropped the unnecessary load of agony and exhausted fell asleep.
Did something happened later to cause the disappearance of all the blankets? Was it some kind of a punishment? During the last months we had no blankets. When that happened, here I am sleeping alone again. We all have adopted the same policy: the mattresses were then very old and from their holes fell pixie dust of crushed straw. We only had to take the bottom part and bring it well on top of the shriveled body. The arm was used as weight on the mattress. It wasn’t like the blanket but it was better then to leave the body at the mercy of chills and tremors. It was harder with a new mattress. I remember that once I kept pulling the blanket and it would go back as a spring. Fresh straw smelled good, the cloth smelled good, but the new blanket did not stick to the body as the old ones did, full of holes that gradually filled us with yellow pixie dust.
It was also difficult to scratch the bedbug bites. They walked slowly and tickling, we could follow their path feeling the tingling of their tiny paws on the body. Then a burning feeling and the hand reaching the spot making the mattress bend backwards.
The nights were endless.
to be continued on next sunday.