The meeting has ended. The first to leave is the man with the bicycle, and then, in a single expansive movement, like a sun exploding, the other men head off to their respective destinations, at first keeping within sight of each other, as they would know if they were to turn around and look, which they don’t, that’s another of the rules, and then they are hidden, they don’t hide, but are hidden by a dip or vanish into the distance behind a hill, or simply into the distance and the intense cold, which they are aware of now, and which makes them screw up their eyes, you have to look where you’re putting your feet too, you can’t just amble along willy-nilly. The red kite utters a loud cry, which echoes throughout the celestial vault, then it moves northward, while the startled angels rush to the window, bumping into each other, only to find no one there.
MEN GROW, AND WOMEN grow, everything in them grows, both the body and the area occupied by their needs, the stomach grows commensurate to our hunger, the sex grows commensurate to our desire, and Gracinda Mau-Tempo’s breasts are two billowing waves, but that’s just the usual lyrical tosh, the stuff of love songs, because the strength of her arms and the strength of his arms, we are referring here, by the way, to Manuel Espada, for three years have passed and there has been no inconstancy of feelings, but, rather, great steadfastness, anyway, the strength of their arms, male and female, is, by turns, required and rejected by the latifundio, after all, there is not such a big difference between men and women, apart from the wages they are paid. Mother, I want to get married, said Gracinda Mau-Tempo, here’s my trousseau, it’s not much to look at, but it will have to do if Manuel Espada and I are ever to lie down together in a bed that is his and mine, and in which we can be husband and wife, and for him to enter me and for me to be in him, as if we had always been together, because I don’t know much about what happened before I was born, but my blood remembers a girl who, at the fountain in Amieiro, was violated by a man who had blue eyes like our father, and I know, although quite how I don’t know, that out of my womb will come a son or a daughter with the same eyes.
If Gracinda Mau-Tempo really had said these words, there would have been a revolution on the latifundio, but it is our duty to understand what her actual words meant, mean or will mean, because we know how hard it is to express the little we do say each day, sometimes because we don’t know which word best fits which meaning, or which of the two words we know is the more exact, often because no word seems right, and then we hope that a gesture will explain, a glance confirm and a mere sound confess. Mother, said Gracinda Mau-Tempo, the little I have is enough for us to make a home, or perhaps she said, Mother, Manuel Espada says that it’s time we married, or perhaps she said neither of those things, but gave the great cry of a solitary red kite, Mother, if I don’t marry now, I’m going to lie down in the bracken by the fountain and wait for Manuel Espada to come and enter my body, and then I will lift up my dress and wash myself in the stream, and my blood will flow off to some unknown place, but at least I will know who I am. And perhaps it wasn’t like that either, perhaps one night Faustina said to João Mau-Tempo, possibly interrupting his thoughts about leaving some pamphlets in the hollow of a particular tree, She should get married now, she has her little trousseau ready, and João Mau-Tempo would have replied, It’ll have to be a modest affair, I’d like it to be a really special occasion, but that’s not possible, and António won’t be able to help now that he’s doing his national service, tell Gracinda to sort out the paperwork and we’ll do what we can. As ever, it’s still the parents who have the last word.
They have a house, one that suits their pocket, and since their pocket is small, the house is small too, and rented of course, just in case you were thinking that Gracinda Mau-Tempo and Manuel Espada were about to announce proudly, This is our house, no, they would rather hide the fact and say, I live over there somewhere, as if they were playing hide-and-seek or hunt the thimble, except, of course, those are games played at school or in the city, simply so that no one will know exactly where they live, in this house which is just walls and a door, with one room up and one down, a rickety ladder that wobbles when you climb it and no fire in the grate when we’re out. We’re going to live on the side of this hill in Monte Lavre, in this little yard, there’s not enough space to swing a hoe if we wanted to grow some cabbage, after all it does get the sun all day, although I don’t know that it’s worth the trouble, we’re hardly going to get fat on cabbage. We’ll sleep downstairs, in the kitchen, except it won’t be a kitchen when we’re sleeping in it, just as it won’t be a bedroom when we’re up and about, what should we call it then, a kitchen
