The hand that rocks the cradle & the eviction

 

Before going to Batalha, I was washing clothes by hand, putting new clotheslines on the clothesline, the ants invaded, along the railway tracks, the phalluses towards the vine. Jeco had energy to spare, he calmed down when I stuck sweets in his snout and chin. I swept the patio, which was covered in leaves and petals of old, red roses, like me, allowing the color to give a glimpse of the days of splendor that quickly passed by. That flowers have a short lifespan. Jeco and I live longer, but not better, I mean, not better in terms of the quality of the roses that bloom watching all the dawns, the dew, all the gibbous, new and full moons, all the storms and, perhaps because of that, they grow and beautify everything around them. One day, I was a flower. Today I am just the path of pollen. Not Jeco. He's still honey, black and brown, tall and thin. Beautiful animal. We are all animals. Some are less beautiful, perhaps because of the harshness of their experiences, or perhaps because they are bitter inside, or perhaps because they are accompanied by less noble beings. Nobility is required, so much so that we strive for perfection that does not exist.

I didn't notice those beings enter. But they got in. The landlord and his wife. Somber, a hushed conversation, a tactile maneuver to my senses. I knew. I knew, yes, I already knew about the bile. I am eternally searching for honey. Perhaps, for that very reason, because we understand that some of us are sweet and others are wild.

While we exchanged a few words (others were silenced, only read by the eyes accustomed to reading gestures), the landlord's eyes wandered to the fruit bowl where his bananas were lying down and ripening. You've always liked ripe bananas, ever since you were a baby. With Maria biscuits and orange juice. Your father would make you this porridge. You don't have a father anymore, like me.

The landlord is arrogant, cold, bordering on hostile. A face that would certainly have confused me if I had arrived at dusk. Maybe I would have read sadness instead of arrogance. I know I read everything, his gestures and hers, pretending a sweetness that she doesn't have, self-interested and, like the crane men you liked so much, a valet and cunning. I would say that the landlord is resigned to his cowardice. Was it cowardice? I don't know. I don't know how to read people like I used to. In the past, my rigor would add honey to them if I read a dissonant note, a C minor. The note of D minor was now obligatory, marching backwards, carried in the left hand without pauses, now accompanied by a new octave. In C major. There are no sharps or flats. They all went to the circus. Stumbling up the stairs, Jeco and I were able to understand the dialectic of this new requiem. Tailor-made for us. The good mother was thrown out of the attic into the open city, looking for advertisements, on the balconies, in the commercial buildings, dizzy from reading people, wanting to read books, advertisements and paragons where one could read: animals welcome. There was nothing else to do. The gloomy Mozart or the impoverished, sad Brahms? The choice was difficult. Humiliation was written all over it. With a capital A. Unrecognizable.

Where does all the love go, where does memory flee when screams are silenced in the mouth, when words are distorted, when humanity is captive within the walls, under the floor, disappearing through half-open windows? The Sun told me that I still had time, before it got dark, to look for two or three more streets, there, in Batalha. I sat on the church steps. Turning his back on the religious ostentation of the building.

I went into one of the cafés, with its huge terraces, lined up side by side, due to the obligatory commercial competition, where under the sun, everyone has a place, and I spoke to the gentlemen from the interior. They gave me a paper, made me sit at a table inside and said: write what you want. I wrote. The words regurgitated inside me, like fountains where my hands pretended to be fences and a thousand small fountains were born between my fingers, letters and words that were not in harmony. They gave me a notebook and served me water, without me asking for anything. So I ordered coffee. Young Tony, as the employee was called, told me that coffee and a cream that was free on the house would be served next. He smiled at me and I returned his smile, although sad, it was natural and short. I turned my eyes back to the blank sheet of paper. And then I wrote briefly what I couldn't write on the first attempt. I'm looking for a house with space for people and animals. I'm looking for a job in the big city. I do anything that is compatible with my intellectual and creative abilities. I signed my name and put my cell phone number. Tony arrived with the coffee and cream. They knew me for life. As if I had been given water after a walk in the desert.

After all, there were still human beings. There were still bees and, if it were up to me, honey would still be produced. Not in a hurry, not carelessly, not with antagonisms, not with false modesty. Minimum human conditions would have to be met for this to happen. I left 3 euros on the table and handed the sheet of paper, which was no longer blank, to the other man Tony was talking to at the entrance door and who had made me sit at the table inside, behind the counter. He asked me: Do you know how to operate computers? I replied that I knew a little about everything, but that I was still trying to be the manager of my own life. And yes, it was urgent. In fact, more than urgency, I was in a real hurry to start a new stage in my life. He smiled at me and gave me a nice pass. Acacio Meireles. I told her my name: Maria Joana Abreu. The pleasure is all mine. And I smiled back again. I left the money on the table. I turned my back on the esplanade exit and entered the small crowd, descending on January 31st. I felt footsteps running behind me. I turned around and saw Tony himself, handing me the 3 euros and saying with a smile: Mr. Acácio will contact you. I thanked him again. And I decided to go to dinner at Ribeira. A good patanisca, accompanied by a white mature, looking out over the river and the people. There was no background music and I reached into my memory library and calmed myself there, watching the colorful thread of humanity that went down to the cube and up to customs. Further ahead, Miragaia, where my father was born. The cream made me hungry for the fritters. The night invited me to rest, abandoning resistance, sadness and hauntings. What a beautiful day it has become, after the landlord's bad temper trying to block my light. The bridge is a passage to the other side. And I already have one foot in Gaia, again.