Raised from the Ground

though. The child is lying on the sheet, they smacked her as soon as she came into the world, not that this was necessary, because her first cry was already forming in her throat, and one day she will shout other things that now seem quite impossible, she cries, although she sheds no tears, merely screws up her eyes, making a face that would frighten any visiting Martian, but which, nonetheless, makes us sob our hearts out, and since it is a bright, warm day and the door is open, there falls onto this side of the sheet a kind of reflected light, where it comes from doesn’t really matter, and Faustina Mau-Tempo, so deaf that she cannot even hear her granddaughter crying, is the first to see her eyes, which are blue, as blue as João Mau-Tempo’s eyes, two drops of sky-bathed water, two round hydrangea petals, but neither of these vulgar comparisons serves, they merely reveal a lack of imagination, no comparison will serve, however hard future suitors may struggle to come up with one that does justice to these eyes, which are blue, not aquamarine or azure, not some botanical caprice or the product of some subterranean forge, but bright, intense blue, like João Mau-Tempo’s eyes, we can compare them when he arrives, and then we will know what kind of blue it is. For now, though, only Faustina Mau-Tempo knows, which is why she can proclaim, She has her grandfather’s eyes, and then the other two women want to see as well, Belisária, much put out at being deprived of her midwife’s privileges, and Gracinda Mau-Tempo, a jealous she-wolf to her cub, but Belisária takes her time, which is why Gracinda Mau-Tempo is last, not that it matters, she will have time enough to be attached by her nipples to that sucking mouth, she will have time to lose herself in contemplating those blue, blue eyes while the milk flows from her breast, whether here beneath these badly laid roof tiles, or beneath a holm oak in the middle of the countryside, or standing up when there’s nowhere to sit, or hurriedly when she can’t dawdle, milk that flows, in small and large quantities, from that breast, that life, like white blood made out of the other, red variety.

Then the three kings arrived. The first was João Mau-Tempo, who came on foot when it was still light, so he needed no star to guide him, and the only reason he didn’t arrive earlier was male modesty, because, were such things the norm in that time and place, he could easily have been there at the birth, after all, what’s wrong with seeing your own daughter give birth, but it’s simply not done, people would talk, such ideas belong in the future. He arrived early because he’s currently out of work, and has been clearing a piece of land he’s been given to cultivate, and when he went into the house, his wife wasn’t there, but his neighbor informed him that he was the grandfather of a little girl, and he was pleased, but not as pleased as you might expect, because he would have preferred a boy, men do, in general, prefer boys, and then he left the house, walked at his usual slow, swaying pace, caught between two different pains, one here, the other there, the old pain acquired carrying logs to the charcoal pit, and the other, a dull ache, was the result of being forced to stand for hours like a statue, he looks like a sailor fresh off the boat after a long voyage, disconcerted to find that the ground he walks on doesn’t move, or as if he were riding on the back of a camel, the ship of the desert, a comparison that paints exactly the right picture, for, given that João Mau-Tempo is the first of the magi to arrive, it is only proper that he should travel according to his condition and tradition, the others can choose their own mode of transport, and he brings no gifts to speak of, unless the ark of suffering that João Mau-Tempo carries in his heart could be considered a gift, fifty years of suffering, but no gold, and incense, Father Agamedes, is for the church, and as for myrrh, that’s been used up on those who died along the way. It seems rather mean and in somewhat bad taste to give such a gift to a newborn, but these men from the latifundio can only choose from what they, in turn, were given, as much sweat as one could want, enough joy to fill a toothless smile and a plot of land large enough to devour their bones, because the rest of the land is needed for other crops.

João Mau-Tempo, then, arrives empty-handed, but on the way, he remembers that his first grandchild has just been born, and from a garden he plucks a single geranium flower on its knotty stem, with its acrid smell of poor households, but what a pretty sight it is to see one of the magi mounted on his camel with its gold and crimson saddle cloth, humbly bending down to pick a pelargonium, he didn’t order a slave to do this, of the many who accompany and serve him, what a fine example he sets. And when João Mau-Tempo reaches the door of his daughter’s house, it seems that the camel knows its duty, for it kneels down to let this lord of the latifundios dismount, while the republican guards from the local barracks present arms, although Corporal Tacabo has his doubts about whether a large, exotic beast like a camel should be allowed to travel the public highway. These are fantasies born of the harsh sun, now sinking in the sky but still beating down on the stones along the road, which are as hot as if the earth had just given birth to them. My dear daughter, and it is then that João