7. Overalls and barefoot on the ground
Translated by Angela Telles-Vaz
I don’t know if my memory betrays me, I didn’t have more than two overalls during that whole period. No, no, now I remember, they were exchanged and were washed. It seems more that they belonged to nobody. After the shower, I think once a week, you got a load of cloth and dressed in it. Sometimes short, sometimes tight, or huge as to fit an astronaut. Sometimes, we exchanged clothes with somebody else. One could hardly breathe with the clothes unbuttoned while the other waltzed inside the huge bag of cloth around him. A rapid exchange would take place and, simultaneously, comfort and looks was established.
Some overalls were full of dark strips that were in fact, defects done by ourselves when threads were needed for our daily sewing.
I spoke about showers and forgot a detail nice to remember. We were all naked and the floor was huge, smooth cement and the showers surrounding the entirely wet area. We dived into the ground, sliding a few meters. We stumped on the floor, knocked people down, it was a crazy traffic. Occasionally, a small body was wet was slipping on the cement. We found out that only us the little ones, did this and we found out that in diagonal the path was longer, the body slid further. We dived facing down, imitating the gestures of swimming strokes.
On the opposite, Winter showers were painful. One would go under the icy water, slipped out, but the supervisor would send us back, scrutinizing the torture of one by one.
I was, like many others, seven-eight years old, a little more a little less.
What do I remember more about the overalls? There was a day, when we were in line, we were given a notice that henceforth, all the overalls would have a mark, they would not change owners. My new one was blue and new, of a wonderful blue. I embroidered my initials somewhere. There were children that beautifully embroidered, perfect and neat letters. Others tacked something that looked like a letter but that with only a tweak everything would disappear. Mine was an average one.
The glory of having new overalls lasted for one week. During the next shower, returning to the line, mine wasn’t there. I tried to no avail. I grabbed what was left, one faded, full of missing threads that someone might have used to sew many bags. Much later, I found out that someone was using one with my initials. One of the friends noticed my name and called me, we surrounded the little thief and he then apologized, saying that he had it put on during that week because someone took his own away. Maybe it wasn’t really him. It was useless to exchange them any longer. The fabric was no longer that blue, there were for sure strips of thread taken for the sewing and the embroidery needed.
Throughout that whole time, I didn’t put a pair of shoes on. I remember that someone slipped a pair of black shoes into my feet, after I returned to Rio, I felt excruciating pain.
In fact, I’m not sure if during that whole time I was barefoot. I think I was. Perhaps clogs, I want to remember the clogs but I can’t. No, no, there were no clogs. Going to the stream I remember that we picked dust off the ground with our feet and were scolded by the older ones.
What’s the interest in remembering if we were barefoot or not during the whole time? It’s just an episode that reminds me of being barefoot.
We are lined up to go to the dorms. A black man that I insist on calling Moisés, puzzling everything and mingling it with a black Moisés who protected me, a black man began to shout at his companions, looking at me and some of my friends.
Them sour white people! White but them looks are like a pig! They ain’t washing them foot when they goes to bed. Then they criticizes we black people. I’m black but I sure wash my foot everyday. Them sour milky…
Embarrassed, we removed the dirt stuck from our feet on the drinking water taps.
The memory of the event, created in me the notion that before going upstairs we washed our feet. It was true that after the washing we climbed up barefoot. Dirt clung again to the sole but the top was clean.
I ask: what could have been the minimum temperature that we bared during the two Winters I spend there?
Underwear, t-shirts, sleepers, bath or face towels, sheet, pillows, in some occasions, a blanket, what distant and unattainable luxuries! Only for Little Marcos, who had tuberculosis disease. Only for myself, on a unique redeeming night, when I will sleep at Dona Leca’s house.
Sometimes, we received toothpaste and soap from our relatives. As a matter of fact, I have received it only once, but people claimed doing some shipments. I remember the new toothpaste been eaten carefully, the scented bath soap and the toothbrush that I hung around my neck not to be stolen. After a while, it got rotten with the smell of urine, I guess the string was too long.
to be continued on next sunday.