

Some time ago, a middle-aged man was found dead in his apartment in north London. His body showed multiple knife wounds. The following manuscript was found next to him. It was drenched in blood.

Beneath the Trees of Eden

A Tragicomic Murderous Quest for Transcendence

__________

A

Novel

Ed Cheminski

IndieOtter Publishing

Copyright © 2016

All rights reserved.

Beneath the Trees of Eden: A Tragicomic Murderous Quest for Transcendence

Copyright © 2016 Ed Cheminki

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

To

the wandering people of this world, and their devils.

A note to the reader

This book is a work of fiction. All the characters are fictional, including those that are real. All events happened in one way or another, if only fictitiously.

'To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of É-den? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of É-den unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword.'

(Ezekiel 31:18)

'...Upon four-legged forest clouds

The cowboy angel rides

With his candle lit into the sun

Though its glow is waxed in black

All except when 'neath the trees of Eden'

(Bob Dylan)

'Aimless is my song, Yes, aimless,

As is love, as life is aimless

As Creator and creation.'

(Heinrich Heine)

'Oneness is a prison.

To be myself is not to be.

I'll live as a fugitive

But live really and truly.'

(Fernando Pessoa)

Part I – Genesis

1

The Big Bang

I was born a nobody at 3 AM. Years later, I was still a nobody – as my father before me and his father before him. Wasn't for the anger, I would have died like they did: dreams calcified, like the bones that filled up their mediocre graves.

No. Not me. I had the rage burning in my chest, that fervent desire to free and to be free at all costs.

'Why the long face?' he asked me on the event of one of my birthdays (I don't remember which).

'I don't know, I just don't know. All I know is that I dream of more. I feel lost between all these worlds, and I want more, I dream of more. This cannot be it all. Can it? Is that it? Nothing else but this? All I have to live for? I just don't know... it doesn't make any sense.'

'...oh yes? And what would you like to do then? Who would you like to be?

'That's a difficult question.'

'No, it isn't. I'll tell you how it is...I'll tell you just how it is...what you're thinking...it's a waste of time! You just put your head down and do it, little Niger – you just do it! That's what you do. That's all there is to it. That's what my father did and that's what I did and that's what you will do. You're not paid to t–h–i–n–k. Writing on your little shitty book, your little shitty stories that nobody reads...? I see you hiding in the corners of the house, locked inside your little shitty head. Look around you kid; look around you...there's work to be done! Now drop that shitty little book and pick up that sack of scratchings, yes, that one! You've got to be who you you've got to be, little Niger. It's been written...it's there. God said so. Not me – God! You think you're better than this? Well, you're not! You're just a little piece of shit. God said so.'

'I'm not sure.'

'About what?'

'If that's what God said.'

'You shut your mouth you little prick! Shut your goddamn mouth before I burst through your teeth with my knuckle! Look here, boy, you're wasting your time. More important – you are wasting mine!'

'I'm not sure.'

'Well, I am sure! You just do it little Niger and then you keep doing it. The rest takes care of itself. What are you going to do, hugh? Wonder around like a gypsy, scribbling on your shitty little book?'

'Why not?'

'Why not, you ask? Why not? I tell you why not: because I'm your father and I said so. Now shut your pie-hole and pick up that sack. When you're done we'll start with the carcasses.'

That was the last time I spoke to him. I was glad. I hated every one of his bones. He chewed food with his mouth open, like a mentally disturbed gorilla. He had never read a book in his whole life. He cleaned his nose in the kitchen sink. He called me 'little Niger' even though I was pale yellow. Why did it have to be him? Why did he have to be my vessel? Why him? In his head, vegetarianism and homosexuality were the same things. Women were made of one of his ribs. His legs were bent like a pair of pliers. He touched his groin as if to check his cast-iron testicles were still there.

I went home after the slaughterhouse. He went to the bar. Despite it all, I did not see it coming. There is no way of telling when a man is about to lose his life, or a young man about to lose his father. The days are all very much alike and nothing changes until it is too late. In the end, that's how time works; it simply happens. Then you're either lucky or unlucky, and that depends on nothing, nothing at all.

The doors in the house were always open. Not because we were sociable, but because my mother was not to be trusted with a kitchen knife. Two days before the big bang, she locked herself in the bathroom. In her hand, two razor blades; one she swallowed, with the other she sliced her wrists open. My father brought the door down with his fists and feet, before my mother bled to death. He dragged her out of the shower cubicle where she sat with immobile arms outstretched on her legs, covered in a mixture of blood, sweat and dried–out despair.

I was a senseless teenager, and such exuberant scenes of butchering, and psychotic eroticism were constant. It would be true to say that the real personality of a man, the personality that emerges from the threshold phase we experience as adolescents, in my case simply failed to materialize then. Insecurity spread through my blood cells like moss in a damp field. I grew so aware of my inabilities that to control my own bodily impulses became a matter of serious concentration, especially those related to sex. A woman would just have to touch me for disgust and horror to fill up my stomach.

There had been times when I locked the door and like all teenagers engaged in long–lasting masturbation sessions in the company of my favourite sock. But that curiosity eventually gave way to despair, that was not only transmitted through genes, but also played out before me every day, like a low–budget Mexican soap opera. The masturbation sessions became considerably shorter and were replaced by wild and unfounded philosophical essays on the origins of sexual desire and the notion of life as an undifferentiated chaos. I began to disagree with what the teacher told me about Darwinian theory. I took particular issue with the survival of species. I could not see how humanity's primary goal could be to survive for when I looked around me all I found was proof of the contrary.

Finding little sense in anything I was told, I began to read Camus after stumbling upon one of his books in the school library. With an old typewriter my father got in exchange for an unpaid–for bag of pork scratchings, I wrote wildly on how the world would be better off without parents and dogmas. Camus taught me how to see the absurdity of it all. But as I typed away what in my mind should have been the first volume of The World According to João de Deus, the truth is that I never wrote a single word. The machine had no ribbon.

I also knew, from reading yellowing books at my evening school classes that the practice of sex in different societies assumed very different functions and was performed in a great variety of forms. Sharing wives or husbands, for example, was a very common practice amongst African and South American native tribes – despite Christian influences. The Maasai in Tanzania, the Himba in Namibia and the Zo'es in the Amazon basin all practiced sex as a form of polyandry, where two or more brothers shared one wife or more. Yet I did not have to travel so far to see polyandry for myself.

My mother often accused my father of sharing his oeuvre between three, four, five women, maybe more. One of these women happened to be my mother's sister, aunt Esmeralda. Aunt Esmeralda was not a beautiful woman, but her curvaceous figure ensured the attention of some neighbourhood men, who came by for afternoon coffee in the absence of her husband, a farmer, who spent much of his time with his beasts and plants, leaving aunt Esmeralda alone for most of the day, most days.

When in the city, aunt Esmeralda and the farmer lived in an apartment in the centre of our small town above a small convenience store. Whether out of loneliness or simple promiscuity, she began to court the men who paid her attention and of all the men she courted my father was the one who came on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays my mother, a carer, had her double shift where she bathed and fed and cleaned the bottom of a seventy–four year old wealthy widow, the mother of two men and three women who were waiting for her to die so they could fill up their pockets.

A Brazilian boy with no appetite for sex is an odd and rare occurrence. This is because it is sexuality alone that, when mixed with the ever–present Catholic guilt, reveals itself as the most powerful force acting in the South American personality. True, the very idea of sex repulsed me, yet other things kept me occupied. I became a recluse and read anything I could put my hands on. I had failed a year at school and my parents enrolled me in adult education evening classes to make me catch up with my cousins who, like a litter of cats, were all born at the same time.

'You will never be an Einstein, but you need to keep up with the others, I don't want to be accused of having given birth to the only dumb one,' my mother once told me while slapping me on the back of the head as I spread my arms over a physics book.

But this all happened before my real life had begun.

When did it all begin? It began with a 'BANG!'

I was asleep when the fight started. They screamed at one another. My mother cried for help, my father shouted obscenities at her. My body shook side to side with rage and fear. I leaped off my bed and tiptoed to the door. I walked along the corridor and saw my sister standing in front of my parents' bedroom. She had heard it too. I whispered her name, but she stood paralysed pressing her back against the wall. I walked on and the screams got louder. The old wooden house creaked under my feet. I approached the spot where she stood, pale as a sheet of paper. I told her to turn and face the wall. Seconds later came the big bang.

It was the sound of a .38 bullet leaving the barrel of an old Colt .38 revolver with furious and unforgiving speed. It was the sound of the gun my father kept on top of the wardrobe, under a pile of cheap porn magazines. It was the sound of the .38 gun I reached out for, the gun whose trigger I pulled, producing that explosive sound as the bullet was fired. The bullet sliced the air leaving a perfect supersonic line of sound and smoke that cut the night and pierced through my father's bowels like an iron spear thrown with the mighty strength of a savage and enraged warrior. The bullet ruptured his skin, his muscles and all the tissues and arteries it found on its way. It perforated his intestines and tore through his spine, crushing the discs that held his body erect leaving only a dent in the cold cement wall behind the bed, against which the man sat naked and immobile, bleeding and dying, with a glazed, mummified, lifeless smile plastered on his incredulous face.

'Give me the gun!' ordered my mother as she snatched it from my hand. She pointed it at my father's head and then fired another round.

* * *

People came and went that night. Amongst them were the only few policemen in town; one took my mother away and the other hung around feeling pity on our behalf. He also kept people away from the body. Meanwhile, an old man with a ridiculous shirt and a small camera around his neck took photographs between one fag and the next. No one was dusting surfaces with small brushes, spreading white powder over objects or sticking tape on furniture. Nobody wore latex gloves or masks or goggles – the town was called Uberapitanga, not New York City.

My mother was taken away and locked in a room with bare concrete walls and a door made of tin. Three weeks later she was condemned by a jury formed of the cream of society amongst whom were the uneducated wife of a drug dealer, the baker who was part of a paedophile ring, the wife of the mayor who stole from a charity fund, the ex–policemen who worked for farmers as a hit man, the manager of a bank who lost money that wasn't his, and an excommunicated priest who was caught being banged by one of his catechist boys.

The trial resulted in a unanimous verdict: twenty–five years locked away in a female penitentiary near the capital. My father was taken to the local cemetery. While my mother wrestled with her new cellmates, who tried to make their way into her vagina with a piece of lead pipe, my father lay six feet under a cheap patch of cemetery ground.

A month in prison and my mother was dead. 'She swallowed blades,' they said. Then they dumped her in the cemetery, next to the hole where my father laid. She thought death would give her freedom. She was wrong. There they were, for the whole of eternity, rotting together, six feet deep under the red earth.
2

Bone Marrow Soup

Let me tell you about Uberapitanga. At the time of my parents' deaths, there were twenty thousand people living there and many of them were mad. Some said it was the high–speed wind that blew from the east. Others thought it was the high concentration of drugs that were trafficked every day through the town. Uberapitanga had its own community of drug dealers, all of whom found it an attractive place to set up business: it was close to Paraguay and Argentina, it offered cheap and unregulated labour, uncontrolled borders, clandestine airports, cheap guns, outlets for money laundry and all that comes with the business. A puppet mayor, a corrupt judge and a mediocre police force (the police car often ran out of petrol!) ensured the traffic was never jammed. So, although small, the town was not peripheral to the traffic – quite the contrary.

But it wasn't only the wind or the drugs. Uberapitanga was also known for being the coldest place in the whole of the state, and one of the coldest in the country, and it was to the cold alone that some attributed the madness. Some said the thin air of the high altitude limits rational thinking, inducing a state of chronic thoughtlessness that from time to time gripped people by their brains until they did something stupid. Some went beyond stupid and lost it completely. The geographic isolation of the town furthered the process.

Some caboclos even thought that madness was caused by the spirits that haunted the town. I was once told that the murdered native people of that land still visited the ancestors of those who had killed them; first for the gold, then for the land and then for the wood and finally for the water.

Barnabé, a caboclo who slept all day and drank all night, once told me when visiting my father that 'if Brazil is a melting pot, it is stirred by the devil'.

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'Sure kid, I'll tell you, but don't tell your father I told you–'

'Ok.'

'Right, so one sunny Tuesday, a very unimportant Tuesday...,' he had to stop to cough and spit and take a sip '...one of them construction men was digging the soil where they intended to build a block of apartments for the perfumed people that go about in them shiny cars, you know – them. Now, as the diggers rolled in and began to remove the earth, bodies, dozens of them, were discovered. They were just lying there like rubbish – no caskets, no headstones, not even an old rag over their faces – nothing. They were buried in their clothes, thrown in the mud like diseased beasts in every position you can think of, as if they landed there like when a kid like you throws a broken toy away...'

'So they were...'

'Shhh, I think I heard something,' said Barnabé covering my mouth with his dirty hand.

'Oh come on...don't be such a chicken,' I begged of him as I tried to escape his grip.

'All right, you're right, it's nothing.' He coughed and spat a little more then grabbed the litre of cachaça and gobbled down a tenth of it. 'Ahhh, that's better,' he said, wiping his mouth.

'Come on, tell me more...and quick, before he comes...'

'All right, all right, so...there were bones of all sizes and shapes, male and female, children and their parents and their grandparents – they were natives, caboclos like me. Now, anywhere in the world people would have stopped the building and opened an investigation, but no, not in Uberapitanga. The same man who owned the construction company was one of the farmers you should know well... '

'Who?' I asked.

'Colonel Ercílio Paz,' said Barnabé.

'The mayor?'

'Yes kid, Mr Mayor himself,' said the sun–scorched man.

'That's a crazy story!'

'That's no story, kid.'

'So what happened next?' I urged the half–toothless man to tell me.

'The colonel knew very well what that meant and he fled to the capital. In the meantime, the police were contacted and so they went to the hole and there...'

'What? What did they find?'

'What do you think? Asked the man as he grabbed the bottle.

'I don't know! Just say it, damn it!'

'They found nothing, kid – nothing. The bodies had vanished as if they'd never been found in the first place. All they saw was the foundation for the new building – still fresh. Some say they're still there somewhere lying under tons of concrete. Some believe they were dug up again and thrown downstream. Whatever you choose to believe, I know that their spirits now haunt the town and those who killed them – I see them everywhere.'

My father, who had been listening to it all from the other room, rushed in and grabbed old Barnabé by the scruff.

'GET OUT! OUT OF HERE! YOU FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT... YOU SAVAGE... GET THE FUCK OUT... DRUNKEN LIAR – WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? FILTHY LITTLE SAVAGE!

Barnabé recoiled into a ball as he sat on the floor. He protected himself by covering his head with his hands and knees as my father towered over him like an enraged Gorilla, frothing in the mouth and spitting his saliva, as he kicked the man on the floor.

'I TELL YOU WHAT YOU ARE...YOU ARE A LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT – THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE! A LITLE SAVAGE PIECE OF SHIT! Here, take your bottle and vanish, out of my sight, you ungrateful son–of–a–bitch!'

My father was a drunk who hated other drunkards and nobody likes to talk about stuff that happened in their backyard I suppose, especially if the man being accused was also the man who paid you.

The same way no one ever talked about the poverty they lived in, the same poverty that drove them insane with hunger, boredom and a taste for miracles. It was the farmers, the lawyers and doctors who held on to the money. The rest were poor caboclos who ate sopa de tutano (bone marrow soup): the destitute, uneducated descendants of the ethnic stew that constitutes the Brazilian people; indigenous blood, black blood, white blood, all intertwined in one gene soup seasoned by Satan himself, as Barnabé would have had it. That was before he got drunk and fell head first into a ditch, drowning in thirty inches of water.

* * *

In the aftermath of the big bang, people came and people went. Some offered help others took what was left. One of my mother's five sisters belonged to the first group. She took me in for a while and found me a job, while my sister, a teenager like me only a little older, fled without saying a word. She couldn't look at me anymore, after what I had done. I disgusted her. I let my mother go to jail and to die there. I killed my father. I let my mother perish for a crime I had committed. Nobody seemed to know where my sister headed. The police went after her but after a couple of days they gave up. Some time later, there were rumours she was working as an escort in the capital. Some believed she was in fact living in a brothel somewhere in São Paulo – but nobody really knew for sure. I didn't really care. In fact I was relived. I was more worried about what I was going to do next. And since I didn't know what to do or where to go, I stayed where I was.

After some time, I found a job in the town's only accountancy office and there I worked for three years as a delivery boy, cleaner, typist and eventually 'computer expert.' The office, owned by Senhor Eliseu Farias, a man who looked like a penguin with glasses on the tip of his beak (I mean, nose), was the first place in town to purchase a computer – a Macintosh – after Senhor Eliseu read in Accountancy Quarterly that '...the information revolution is coming to stay and accountants of all nations must unite!'

Nobody knew what to do with the thing, so anyone could claim to be an expert. A Máquina – 'The Machine' – as they called it, was permanently wrapped in a plastic cover and it occupied the whole second floor of the three–storey building. The accountancy office took most of the ground floor and Senhor Farias, the chief accountant and proprietor of the firm, occupied the top floor. There he lived with his wife and daughter, a spoiled little witch who at the age of six already knew the conversion rate for every important currency in the world.

The computer sat on an especially designed wooden desk. It remained unplugged, in case 'the electric grid contaminates it with something,' as Senhor Farias asserted one day in such an authoritative manner that would have made Bill Gates look like an amateur. As a result, I was the only person who turned it on – secretly – on Friday afternoons after Senhor Farias had gone up two floors. A colleague, João Schmidt, o 'Pimpa', (a tall Germanic type with blue eyes, crooked teeth, yellow hair combed on the side, long fingers and skin white as chalk) and I discovered we could play Pac–Man using the machine's keyboard. From then on we spent most Friday afternoons beating record after record, o Pimpa trying to forget why he had chosen to work for Senhor Eliseu for the past decade and me trying to avoid the despair and disgust stamped on all those faces.

The same aunt who found me that job also put a roof over my head. I shared a bedroom in her house with her son Tiago, or 'Ti' (because in Brazil everyone has a diminutive nickname) a young boy whose onion farts kept me nauseated throughout the night. My aunt loved to cook onion soup, not that they had much else. The money I earned from my forty–hour Monday–to–Friday job was divided into three parts. One third went to my aunt for half–room and board. Another third went to the police, or the pigs, as we called them. I bought them beer and cheap whisky so they would continue to search for my sister. I did that to keep them thinking I was the good guy in this whole story and not for any real interest in my sister's whereabouts. The final third I used to buy second hand books, shoes and the things I needed for my evening classes.

With whatever I was left with I would go to the Sunday movies at the only cinema in town: a twenty–five seat room with a screen so small you'd think you walked into someone's living room. There were two choices: Bruce Lee or Jerry Lewis. To escape boredom, after Bruce Lee, I'd go home and beat the shit out of my cousin. If he cried, I'd give him half a chocolate bar and he would stop. In Brazil, corruption starts early.

Living in a small southern Brazilian town in the 1980s was not much different to living in East Germany when the communists were there. There was a total and complete lack of novelty, the town was monochrome and either farmers or army soldiers were the most common categories of people one would find. Besides the large farmland, the town had also an enormous military army base that served no offensive, defensive or any other purpose whatsoever. Half of the town was in the army, because in the army young men get fed. The rest were farmers or poor peasants who worked in the fields doing low–paid seasonal work in the cattle ranches; playing cowboy. There was also a third category of people, who begged in the streets and were invisible to the rest, and I don't need to talk about them.

Despite the vast farmland surrounding the town, my mother used to queue for hours at the shops for milk and bread. The economy was so stagnated that farmers preferred to throw their produce to the pigs rather than sell it. The president of the republic – an oligarch who came to power after the sudden death of the elected man – was no Nobel Prize–winning economist, and in his claim to reduce inflation he decided misery was good enough for the rest of us. So the usual thing happened: he grew richer and the people grew poorer.

In those days I wore clothes handed down by my older and wealthier cousins. If I needed new shoes my mother would take my old ones to the shoemaker and he'd give her a discount on a new pair of soles in exchange for some home–made bread. My mother was a good baker when she had ingredients to bake with. The new soles would keep my feet dry for another month or so before they would need new soles again, and so the shoemaker would get his fresh loaf of bread in a seemingly perpetual monthly cycle.

Barefooted kids played football out in the streets and that's the sole reason as to why Brazil is so good at it: it's cheap. Kids play with rotten lemons, oranges and old socks, and just about anything that can be made into a ball. While my mother sold bread and crocheted pillowcases for the better–off neighbours, my father drove an old Volkswagen van that had no breaks. It had so many holes we nicknamed it 'the sieve'. When it rained the water came in and rust ate the car alive. He drove it to and from abattoirs, collecting carcasses and picking up bones to sell to the hopeless, the drunkards and the indigent, single mothers and injured toothless men, who bought them cheaply to make soup.

* * *

Not long after my parents died, I began to meet new people as I joined the weekly pilgrimage to one of the two clubs in town: the Workmen's Club. The other place, the Union Club, was for the exclusive use of the moneyed class: the wealthy farmers, the politicians, the lawyers, the drug dealers, and the petit–bourgeois businessman. The owner ostracised everyone else by charging high membership rates that only such people could afford. For the rest of us there was the Workmen's Club, a cheap disco with a bar the size of the Titanic and a large dance floor where people line–danced and showed off their polished imitation leather boots and jean trousers bought cheaply at the Lebanese brothers who owned the only discount clothes shop in town. In the Workmen's Club, I became acquainted with some small drug dealers, the small fish, some guys belonging to the armed gangs, and all sorts of other rejects: the scum of little society.

The Workmen's Club was the only place that offered some form of entertainment for no entrance fee. With its imitation of American country music and Paraguayan whisky, it turned out to be a pretty democratic place where the police and criminals, chicken thieves and other equally untalented professionals – rogue plumbers, drunken fingerless wood–cutters, butchers and bin men – would mix and match, often not so harmoniously. Now, despite the numerous professionals who attended the club, we were also graced with the presence of the only pimp in town who sometimes would bring along his prostitutes. They'd turn up in the pimp's old brown Ford Belina, crammed in, screaming, drinking and kicking: a nightmarish, denigrated South American version of the handsome Italian–American gangster with his big Lincoln Town Car and beautiful American girls, who poured him expensive whisky while he rolled into the party.

No! Donizetti was the only pimp in Uberapitanga and an old brown Ford Belina was what he drove, cheap cachaça was all his whores could afford and old, re–mended, fishnet tights under tattered, over–stretched, mini–skirts was all they could afford to wear. Fights would often break out and someone would die of a knife through the lung or a bullet in the eye. Good alcohol was expensive. Those who could afford it made damn sure everyone else saw them drinking it. They stood proudly at the bar, talking loudly about how bad what they were drinking was, and how much better whiskey was waiting for them at home. Right there economic capital was transformed into social capital and that might get you laid, promoted or perhaps even wealthier. But the blatant display of the slightest sign of wealth could also get you into trouble; extortion and a good beating could be waiting just around the corner. Those looking for a reason to give a toss made sure nobody noticed the bottle of cheap liquor hidden in the inner coat pocket or down the trousers.

One night, in a dark corner of the club, while discretely having a sip of Paraguayan scotch (which was once found to contain chemicals used in the manufacturing of rat poison diluted with tea) that I had smuggled into the room, a bottle Schmidt had given me as a reward for having beaten him on Pac–Man, I was approached by the son of the owner of the only pizza place in town. His name was Rico Picanha, son of Senhor Nelson Baptista Picanha. The latter was a Jesus worshipper who liked to think of himself as related to the Europeans '...who crossed the Atlantic and discovered this blessed land, this Eden, when navigating in their mighty ships, those who came and educated the Indians and ended their ignorance – for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and bless the Jesuits, bless the saints, bless, bless... God bless...'

'Ok mate, here is the deal,' announced Rico. 'I know you have some shit with you. Now it just so happens that I have some shit with me – wanna swap? It's in the boot of my car, outside. How about you come with me, we invite some girls, and we drink your shit and sniff my shit and have a little fun, huh, huh, what do you say, huh?' he proposed euphorically.

'Why do you do that? I replied. 'Aren't you the son of the pizza man? You must have enough money to buy yourself a beer or two?'

'Yeah, yeah, sure, but that's beside the point, totally beside the point! My dad doesn't approve of me drinking, let alone playing in the snow,' he said winking.

'You see, we are Baptists, and by rule we shouldn't drink. And he would know if I drank in here, you see he's friends with the owner. Besides, it would be a lot more fun that way. So what do you say, donkey boy?'

'All right,' I said suspiciously.

'But no funny business, and don't you ever call me 'donkey boy' again.'

'All right, all right, you said it man you said it. We've got a deal. I'm Rico Picanha by the way, but people call me just Rico. What's your name?'

'Hi, Just Rico, I'm João, João de Deus,' I said.

'No, no, my name is just Rico, not 'Just Rico.''

(Yes, I know, you idiot, I thought to myself)

'Are you related to the de Deus family? The family whose wife killed her husband and then killed herself?' he asked.

'Yes, the husband was my father and the wife was my mother.'

As often happened when people learned who I was, the blood left his face and after a moment of silence, what sounded like a sincere and embarrassed apology took the shape of a long philosophical monologue that made no sense at all, but somehow made him look and sound concerned and, at the same time, confused. After I cut his ramblings on the nature of life and the phenomenon of death short of their triumphant end, we made our way through the moving, drunk and aroused crowd. Rico, a tall and handsome type with strong black hair, dark brown eyes and side–burns running down his square, masculine, tough–guy face, pulled a couple of girls aside and told them of his plan.

They followed us out of the club and into the parking lot. Between us, we drank the whole bottle of whisky I had, along with a bottle of cheap batida de côco (coconut liquor) that the girls had with them. I had developed an antipathy for most girls, whom I found utterly pointless, and my general disgust for sex didn't make this any better. But the Paraguayan scotch, at fifty percent volume, loosened my tongue and settled my stomach, and I was no longer in control of my mouth, hands or legs.

One of the girls and I occupied the back seat of the car while Rico and the other girl took the front. In a matter of minutes Rico had snorted two lines and invaded the chick, making her scream and contort herself in the front seat. He kept putting his finger in her mouth while turning her bouncing arse up and towards me.

'See that? Do you see that? Meat! Meat! Oh come here you little bitch; papa will show you his little toy...' By then I had only managed to tentatively put my left hand onto the girl's right breast while clumsily chewing on her left ear. That was before I vomited on her lap. By the time Rico and the girl were done, I was still apologizing to the girl who sat next to me apoplectically. Rico, however, was insatiable and he tried to have it again, this time with my stunned lady–friend. But she had had enough of the whole thing and snapped:

'YOU IDIOTS, YOU STUPID MORONIC IDIOTS! GO SHAG YOUR MOTHERS!'

But Rico let the girl know just how frustrated he was with the situation:

'Yeah, yeah, look here you cunt, why don't you get this precious fanny of yours and stick it up your arse?'

While this exchange was going on, I was still vomiting Paraguayan scotch and coconut liquor, now behind Rico's car.

After this first encounter, Rico and I spent most of our free weekends working on his various projects. One of these involved climbing up a tree next to the mayor's house armed with a pair of binoculars, to spy on the mayor's hot–shot seventeen year–old daughter getting undressed. Or we would steal fire extinguishers from new apartment blocks and sell them to buy marijuana, or fake ID cards so we could get in at Donizetti's. Sometimes we would steal the only police car in town and take it for a ride while the officers were in the club. Then Rico would call the police officer in command to report the crime. Being bored and young is always a dangerous mixture, and although we didn't let things get out of control that often, they kind of did.

The best example of that took place when Rico decided it was a good idea to set some fireworks around his uncle Jonas' chicken barn, to scare his chicken and wake him up. The fuse got out of control and sparked wildly all over the barn. The dry straw that covered the wooden floorboards caught fire and consumed the whole barn in minutes, killing one hundred and forty hens and seven prizewinning cocks in the largest chargrilled chicken barbecue the town had ever seen.

People came from all over town to the rescue, but it was too late. Not a single chicken survived. They couldn't even be eaten. The carcases had to be thrown away because the burned feathers were stuck on the remaining flesh. Rico and I fled the scene unseen, while Jonas, an avid member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, stood in his Winnie-the-Pooh pyjamas screaming to the four corners of the night:

'THE LAST DAYS ARE COMING...I TOLD YOU SO, YOU SINNERS; HERE IS THE SIGN THAT THE DEVIL IS FIGHTING BACK...BUT YOU LISTEN TO ME, PEOPLE, YOU LISTEN TO ME!!! THIS DEVIL, HE MAY HAVE WON THIS BATTLE, BUT NOT THE WAR. 'TIS ONLY BUT A SMALL VICTORY! YES, YES, LISTEN UP ALL OF YOU: JESUS, YES, GOD'S SON IS COMING DOWN FROM HIS CELESTIAL HOME AND THE DEVIL WILL LOSE THE FINAL WAR...JESUS CHRIST IS COMING, DO YOU HEAR ME, THE SON OF MAN IS COMING...'

Rico and I heard Jonas screaming his prophecy from the fields as we ran to escape the crowd. But even with the fires of hell burning high up into the night, even with the brightness of the winter days and the crisp mountain air that froze upon the wild frost–bitten fields of that God–forsaken land, and the days and nights I spent with Rico, drinking and gorging in insanity, my life was one bone marrow soup: tasteless, poor, unsatisfying; the leftovers from somebody else's feast.

3

A Vision

Life moved on, but to nowhere in particular. Every piece of destiny seemed in direct contrast to every possible virtue I might have possessed and two options presented themselves to me: follow my parents down their rabbit hole and hope to wake up in the land of woolly clouds and marshmallow trees, where Jesus and the saints distributed indulgences in exchange for your soul, or accept that life was just a bag of senseless events, coming one after another.

I knew I was frightened of death, and as you know, any man frightened of death only lives half a life. Like all cowards, I avoided trouble and complications. That was when the day–dreaming began. To dream is not always a good thing, I agree, for dreams are nothing but 'a vulgar form of escape,' as Bernardo Soares once wrote. But I needed a dream. I needed a dream like a bullfighter needs a good unhesitant bull with darkness in his soul and fire in his eyes. And in the end I was going to get more than I bargained for.

Simply out of boredom, I began to take an interest in what was happening behind the façades of Uberapitanga. The place was too small to be anything but provincial, backward and uninteresting; it was certainly not picturesque. So although I had lived there all my life, it was a place that, until then, I had barely taken notice of. I began to explore things as some obscure creature of the underworld, the type that comes out at night to sample life in the midst of those who sleepwalk.

Now, society is a curious concept. It starts when two people get together and exchange something. It expands from there on, and the larger it gets, the less sense it makes. I never pretended that society made any sense to me, even the little one I lived in. Without enough pedigree to attend the Union's club and rub shoulders with the great and the good, and by now bored with the Workmen's Club and lacking much else to do, I began to pay visits to Donizetti's. Although I was not particularly interested in the women, Rico, a pious customer, made sure I engaged with the opposite sex, if only for his own entertainment and my distress.

'Here mate, look at this, just look at this...it's called pussy...and I like it, I LIKE IT, OH YES I LIKE IT, I SO LIKE IT A LOT! Smell it João, pussy, João, pussy, pussy, pussy,' he said as we stood in front of 'Donizetti's Bar and Lounge'.

Looking back now, it was inevitable that Rico would become a policeman. He had the soul of a rubbish bin and the testicles of a Miura bull. As he usually did on Friday nights, he came to pick me up at the end of my evening class. Rico, it must be noted, hated the town: the people of the town, the smell of cow dung, the church and the priest in it, the school and the teachers in it, the farm and the farmers in it, even his own dad, and what he called 'the hypocrisy that binds them all together,' the little society that was Uberapitanga. He hated the entire nation – that was his right. But it was a paradoxical trait of his personality, considering he was studying to become one of the defenders of what he called 'this shithole of a country.' Despite his negative image of what he called 'a joke that is no longer funny and a promise that will never be fulfilled,' he was incapable of living anywhere else.

'I can't leave my father alone – as much as I dislike the man. He is old. The other day he soiled himself – imagine that! No man, good or bad, deserves to shit himself. Besides, where would I go and what would I do? I hate this place, with all my guts. And you know what? I discovered that it is hate that keeps me going, bro, it keeps my heart pumping and my blood boiling and I feel alive. And you know what else? I will make this shithole look a little better by the time I'm done with it – even if I have to break every neck of every son–of–a–cow that looks at me the wrong way. Besides, here I am not much, out there I'd be even less.'

'But why join the police? I asked, 'why do you want to become a pig? Don't you see how corrupt this whole thing is? You'll be one of them,' I told him.

'Oh God, man, let's be honest, I am not rich and never will be. My father owns a Pizzeria in a small town, a place where the devil stopped for a dump on his way to hell and where Judas took a break to tie his bootlaces. I don't know if you noticed yet, but Uberapitanga is a field and as all fields, it is only good for sheep and cows, and the farmers that shag the former and milk the latter, and none of them, the sheep, the cows or the farmers, would score very high in an I.Q. test, would they? The police academy is my only chance to have the three primordial things a young man like me needs in life if he is to make something out of himself: money, power and pussy, a lot of pussy,' said Rico as he waved his arms in the air like some sort of preacher.

'But you don't need the police to get those things,' I said, 'you can talk the talk and walk the walk, and your father is not so miserably poor as you say – you even have your own car,' I said as I pointed my finger at the car parked near us.

'Great advantages!' He replied ironically.

'Besides, do you think money and power will come to you that easily – do you? You will have a commander, a sergeant; even ordinary men, old ladies for crying out loud, will point their fingers at you saying "look, my cat is up the tree, go get it officer, go get it. What? What do you mean by 'this is not your job?' You won't do it? Listen up here, I pay your salary, you dumb ass!'' I said that as I laughed out loud to myself.

'Ha, ha, ha...you are too naïve to be true, bro, too naïve!' laughed Rico forcibly.

'I am sure one day you will be a writer or something like that,' he said shaking his head, 'because that's the only thing you could possibly do: sit down in your little cave and think of ways to deceive yourself. Yes, I have no doubt you will be good at that. You're just like all of those artistic cunts: you are very good at lying to yourself while imagining the world to be the way you want it to be, with you at the centre of it, of course, as the perfect being who knows it all,' he said now pushing me slightly on the shoulder.

'What is that supposed to mean?' I asked him, as I turned red with anger.

'Oh come on man, what's your problem? Wake up João, smell the dung! When I become a policeman, I'll get everything I want just the way I said it. Wait and see. I am doing something useful. You are not. You want to become a writer. Who cares? Writers, dreamers, poets, artists, all fuckers – all the same. What do they have to offer? Me? I'll defend people. My work is needed. I'll make sure things are put to rights, you know? You on the other hand, have nothing. And if you don't find something, you'll continue to be nothing for the rest of your life. But with my help you could soon leave this latrine of a place behind and get out there and do something great with your life, man. Maybe you could become a lawyer, a journalist, a fucking professor of some shit, maybe even a doctor of some sort, who knows? I know that's possible, I know it as I know the earth is round – and don't ask me why, I'm no good at explaining stuff. You should keep that in mind,' Rico said now with a somewhat candid expression on his macho-man face.

'Yeah, yeah, alright, alright, you don't have to talk like that.'

'Like that what?'

'You know, that cheap life–coach crap,' I said waving my hands at him.

'Woohoo! Look at you, tough man talking...proud of ya man, proud of ya...'

'Yeah, you go ahead and laugh, but don't forget that you and I are as special as lamp posts. I don't have a school degree or even a mattress to fall dead on. You...well, your Portuguese is worse than father Antonio's Latin (father Antonio, the local priest, pretended to know Latin by adding the suffixes 'ibis' and 'orum' to the end of every other word he spoke. The old priest used to preach that the original sin was committed beneath the trees of Eden. 'The lust for life and the thirst for knowledge were Man's fall,' he'd often repeat. He died of HIV).

'I'm sorry, but I believe you are very wrong about all this. We are both no more special than a Brazilian who says he wants to play football when he grows up,' I told Rico.

But he wasn't going to let me go. He laughed under all that black hair, those masses of black hair, and then he put his hands into his pockets and said, with a certain sombre tone in his voice:

'All I know is that you have to move out of here man, go somewhere else, start anew. You have to move out of here, you must go, and you must do it because if you don't, you'll soon end up with a pregnant woman at your side, a rented house with a leaking roof and pots and pans spread across the floor, an old car that doesn't go anywhere and possibly an end not much unlike your parents.'

I admit that there was something chilling about his words. It sounded more like a prophecy than a simple word of advice, as if he had seen that happening over and over again; and still I tried to hide that from him.

'If it was that easy I would have done it already, don't you think? Yes, I would like to go and live in the capital – but what are the odds?'

But he kept coming back.

'No, man, no! Who is talking about the capital? I meant abroad man, away, far, far, away, out of here...out of here for good, man, out of the country! You must go to a place like America, where things are clean and clear, where someone like you could find a job and prosper. The land of possibilities is there, not here. Just go somewhere where you can do something with your life! I like you like a brother, and I will miss having you around, but let's be honest, you have nothing left here and you'll never get anywhere if you stay in this damn country. Get on with it, the United States of Fucking America is waiting for you! I'll come and visit when I get my badge,' he said that with such enthusiasm I nearly believed him. But still I wouldn't let him have it.

'You know what I think?'

'No, what do you think?'

'I think I underestimated you. You're not just confused, you're a lunatic!'

'Oh, come, come, man, you know you wanna, woo, woo, you know you wanna, woo, woo...' he said that while performing break dance.

'Christ! Look, I appreciate your concern but, like everyone else around here, I think you have a part missing. I had failed to realize what a nut–case you are – I mean it! America? Are you insane? I don't even know how to say 'toilet' in English. What on earth would I do in America? You've got a part missing somewhere. You're no good at thinking before speaking or putting your money where your mouth is. This is called DEMAGOGY, Rico, D–E–M–A–G–O–G–Y! LOOK AT ME! I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO CROSS THE STREET!' I shouted back at him.

'You and your fancy words, but I get it. No need to get nasty man... I'm just a friend making sure you know what's in my mind.'

'Ok, note taken. Now stop lecturing me and let's hit the road to salvation. I just got paid and, as they say: 'the night is young.''

'Finally, you said something that makes sense,' he retorted. Then we got into his car.

After five minutes of trying, Rico finally got the piece of junk he called his 'baby' (a 1975 Ford Corcel, a much depleted and downgraded Brazilian response to the American Ford Mustang) to work. Rico spoke to the car as he turned the key in the ignition:

'Baby come on...start for once... come on baby, come on...do it for papa, do it for papa baby, come on...show me the roar of the lion baby...come on...'

Baby started with anger, but it sounded more like a dying cat than a roaring lion; or a Made–in–Taiwan blender going into short–circuit. We drove through the darkness of that starless night, baby bravely challenging the strong cold winds that blew twigs, leaves and dust onto the windscreen, the same wind that brought with it the sounds and the smells of the high plateau on which stood Uberapitanga, with its dimming lights and husbands and wives, stray cats, butchers, cleaners and churches: a town almost ashamed of existing.

My mind was going wild and I kept thinking about what Rico had told me. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly that I felt I could be whoever I wanted to be. It was a feeling that came from the gut, a feeling awoken by a deep desire to be free, as if the desire for freedom was an animal that had always been there, inside, alive and yet dormant for all those years. If only I could admit it. If only I could be as certain as Rico about it all. I wanted to be able to say it. I thought about possibilities. I thought about what life could be like elsewhere as my head rested against the window and my thoughts drifted away somewhere I had never been before. This is when it all began. Those damn dreams, daydreams, night dreams and the chasing of a ghost by another ghost.

* * *

A distant sound travelled through the darkness that enveloped the car. That's when he made himself known, the man who was going to lead me out of the world I knew and into another dimension altogether, and eventually to our mutual destruction.

The sound became louder and louder, a resounding metallic stomp that rippled through the airwaves bouncing off the trees and echoing into the distance. I stood still on the edge of the field. When I turned around I saw a door standing there in the dark, only dimly illuminated by the cold moon that peeped from behind the clouds. There was a faint light emanating from within, shining through the keyhole and the threshold. I approached it and turned the knob. It opened easily. I went in and found myself inside an enormous room. It was white, bright white. There were no windows. The walls were white and clear and the light occupied the room the same way that air occupies a room: it is everywhere and nowhere. That's when I saw the figure, a silhouette, sitting in a white chair, in the corner of the white cube. He stood up and walked towards me. He too was dressed in white and he walked as if his head was not entirely joined to his body. Despite all the light, he was hidden in the shadow of his own being.

'They call me by many names... Emmanuel is one of them.'

'Who are you?' I asked.

'All that matters is that I have known you for a very long time. I know what it is that you seek. Be patient and praise the path under your feet. Our paths have crossed now and they will cross again. Your destiny is my destiny.'

I walked away from the man and through the door as it shut behind me before I could look back or say a word. I stood in the middle of the field again – muted and still. Nothing else stood now, except for the night, the starless night.

* * *

'FUCK!' I screamed as the tire bumped against a rock lying on the unpaved road that stretched away into the night. I looked at my hands and found they were as dirty as if I had been handling charcoal. My head burned with a sudden fever that took hold of my brain, and like cholera it made me sweat and shiver. Looking back now, I know it was the sound of inevitability, a prophecy written long before I was born. But at the time I just wanted to forget it, dismissing it as nothing but a senseless dream. I remember trying to ignore the mysterious yet familiar sound of the man's voice. And the name, Emmanuel...who was he? What did he want from me? Why was I dreaming of such man? It didn't matter. 'Probably someone I met on a drunken night and then forgot,' I thought to myself. Perhaps even somebody's distant cousin, someone so dull his name faded from memory.

When Rico and I finally arrived at Donizetti's, he was unaware of what had happened. He said something about me not paying attention to what he was saying. We parked baby next to the rubbish collection bay at number 666, Rua do Paraíso (Paradise Road). It was not the car park – that was best left to the novices.

Paradise Road was famous for only one thing: Donizetti's brothel, or the Devil's Throat, as we called it. There was nothing else there, except flee–infested dogs and lamp posts that looked down on Donizetti's clients with their sad, low–lit eyes and thin bodies planted on the muddy road that was far from paradise; a barren land that turned 'Paradise Road' into one of those great ironies. In that sub–tropical mountain weather, it rained every day and every night in short–lived torrents. The air was cold and humid, the soil always damp. You had the feeling you were walking on gelatine. This irritated me to the point of insanity.

At Donizetti's, you'd find the oldest prostitutes in town. No, maybe I'm wrong; perhaps they were the oldest in the country. I don't know. Maybe I exaggerate, it wasn't all that bad. Sometimes you could see a young and inexperienced whore–to–be on the dance floor, the type of girl that came from some poor family in the region, the daughter of a poor farmer who owed his trousers to the bank. But such a pearl would be well out of our grasp. Even if we had the money, Donizetti would keep them for his regular clients; the one who bid the highest would take the prize.

As Rico and I walked through the smoky room, loud music pumped through the old speakers that hung from the ceiling. There were seats and tables and armchairs. The place was old and painted in green, a colour that did not match the floral patterns of the crammed–in furniture. There was a dance floor of sorts in the middle on which women danced in their underwear while looking at themselves in the mirrors that adorned all four walls and ceiling.

They were women in a class of their own. They wore heavy make–up and moved with little grace; their movements were stiff and uncoordinated. They were so out of synchrony with the music they looked like marionettes whose strings were pulled by a drunken man. Their clothes looked either too big or too small, their tights had holes in them and their hair was dry, split and broken. Their belly fat folded twice above the belly–button, which was hidden from view by excess skin. When they laughed, double–chins, turkey necks and wrinkles as deep as the Mariana Trench showed their age and betrayed their attempts to look young. I could see the amount of drunken men they had slept with; they were imprinted on them like watermarks. Their lips and hands cracked and puffed. They were nothing but decaying bodies bravely standing, like wounded soldiers after a battle, trying hard to make a living out of blood, sweat and man's need to conquer.

Donizetti's brothel sat in the middle of an industrial estate, where men worked all day cutting down trees, and then cutting them up again, only for someone elsewhere to turn the wood into Italian–designed furniture. The wood became bed frames, chairs, tables and sofas where other people, people far away from there, people living in another universe, would sleep, eat and sit on to watch television or read voluminous encyclopaedic books. They were chairs that pampered arses would sit on, tables on which good food would be laid aplenty, and beds in which warm, silky bodies would lay and love and die.

Donizetti's women and their bodies were given to the drunken men, who penetrated them at every end of the month, so that the men's hands could be kept steady enough to produce the fine woodcuts needed for the comfort of people thousands of miles away. This was the contribution the old whores of Paradise Road made to the global economy. Here is the formula: to have cheap furniture you need cheap labour; to have cheap labour you need cheap alcohol and cheap pussy; and to have cheap pussy you need cheap old whores. While the boss in charge of the machinery was buying himself a new apartment in the capital, with a view over Barigui Park, the men who worked the wood and lost limbs and reason earned a pittance. The consequence was that the whores considered themselves lucky if the meagre ten Reais they earned came along with a shot of Paraguayan scotch before spunk slid down their throats.

Amongst all the workers, there were also bored young men who had nothing to lose and nothing better to do than to sit in a corner and wait to see who came in and out of the place, hoping for a fight or a fire – young men like Rico and me. A common sight would be to see a man in a floral shirt bursting through the rear window of the brothel like a launching rocket. The man, a musician called Ignácio Péres, 'O baixinho' (the little one; he was five foot two), was used to having to run from fights – so much so that the accordion he played every Thursday and Friday to entertain Donizetti's clientele had foam and rubber pads stuck to the corners of the reeds, so as to land without cracking open when thrown through the brothel's only window. That's the reason why Péres always sat by the window and Rico always parked his car at the rubbish collection bay.

During one such fight, a man used his large, sharp, knife to cut through Péres' old accordion, because he was unable to play a request. Another time, it was one of the whores whose head poked through Péres' bellows, as a man threw her across the room.

The place was forsaken: God didn't dare step in there and the devil enjoyed his vacation somewhere else, only stopping by occasionally, to collect his debts.

* * *

The owner of the brothel, Francisco Donizetti, was an ex–soldier who had been expelled from the army for stealing guns and selling them to the drug dealers. He penetrated his women without consent, beat them without shame and sold them to whoever needed a maid when they became too old to fuck. They were nothing but shameful beasts – 'sinners,' he thought. He, Donizetti, was the guardian who made sure they paid for their sins. For him those women were less than human. He made them work in the construction site at the back of the brothel where he was building himself a new house. He made them change his car tires, wash his clothes by hand and cut his toe nails, since he hated touching feet, including his own.

For Donizetti, time was a matter of principle. He had no principles and all the time in the world. There was nothing else to do but stand behind that bar, watching his property moving clumsily on the dance floor and thinking of ways he could get rich – fast. A golden tooth–crown emerged from his cynical smile every time someone approached him with money, and the heavy golden crucifix hanging from the thick golden chain around his thick neck posed a contradiction that entangled itself with the hair on his chest. He was a strong believer in Jesus Christ. A faithful pimp, you could say. After all, had not faithful dictators and faithful murderers walked the face of the earth before him? Had not churches, in the past and present, been full of them? He was a Christian and he was certain he'd be saved. After all, he was God's man on earth, making sinners pay for their sins. He was helping his God to set the rules; he was their guardian, their father, and their righteous path.

Donizetti knew all the employees from the wood–cutting industry around town, and he had them in the palm of his soft white hands. They were family men who spent a quarter of their wages once a month drinking and releasing the pressure of work into some poor old whore's vagina. He knew he could be more, and he knew he just needed a good product and time, just a little time, because 'good things happen to those who wait for God's grace,' he often blurted.

'My clients,' he said, 'are men who use my establishment to fuck monotony in the arse once or twice a month. They leave these premises having cheated death, because they all have their favourite whore, who deep down they are in love with. If they could, they would try and rescue them from my grip, buy them a house and make love to them as if they were their wives. They miss the point though, don't they? These are not women, they are my property, and no one touches them without my consent. These bitches are not human they are cock-craving animals and will continue to be so until the devil comes for them. I'm the only thing between them and the devil himself.'

Donizetti knew his clients. He knew their families too, and he was able to control them all as he pleased. One false step and an anonymous phone call could always be made to a wife here or there. But the truth is, Donizetti couldn't get much out of them, for they were misery incarnated: mediocre, uneducated men with little knowledge or will to change things, men whose only source of entertainment was Donizetti's brothel, whose only ambition was to get drunk, play cards, compare amputations and fuck whores.

Besides, Donizetti had a reputation to maintain. But he needed a big hit; he needed to score large. He sat behind the bar all day and all night, irrigating his brain with coffee and cachaça and thinking about ways he could become Michael Corleone. He had only watched one film in his whole life, The Godfather, and he thought he knew everything about the world. He longed to be like those men, or perhaps like the bosses of the Medellin Cartel. Perhaps one day he would become as powerful as Don Vito himself, or Escobar. Oh yes, Donizetti had all the time in the world, and no obligation to be moral or sane. As with all men of faith, his love for Jesus's teachings was selective.

But one day he got tired: tired of waiting for his big break, and he decided to act. He got together a group of ex–convicts, some minor drug dealers (mostly drug addicts who worked to keep blowing) and a policeman from a neighbouring town, one of those sordid types. A few months of planning and acquiring the right ingredients, and Donizetti put together a plan to rob the Uberapitanga branch of Banco do Brasil. This was not only almost unguarded, but had relatively large volumes of cash flowing through its vault every month for, although Uberapitanga was miserably poor, the farmers and the drug lords dealt in good sums of money. Donizetti knew that. The people couldn't afford milk, but the farmers and drug bosses drove the latest Mitsubishi pick–up trucks and their sons the latest Kawasaki Ninja motorcycles – when they were not busy attending fancy parties at the Union Club or shooting ducks or getting their mestizo sixteen year–old servants pregnant.

But Donizetti was not as intelligent as he thought he was. For three hours he held Senhor Borghetti, the manager of the bank, to ransom inside Borghetti's own house, while his men entered the bank with their demands. That was until Senhor Moraes, the bank manager's gardener, whose devotion to Borghetti had always been so high and yet was unacknowledged by Donizetti, took his life in his hands when he reached out for a hedge trimmer and used it to perforate Donizetti's back. This brought the bandit and his gun to his knees, as blood gushed out of his mouth.

The incident gave the manager the opportunity to drive himself to the bank and, accompanied by the police, arrest some of the slowest of Donizetti's companions. Those who could think on their feet fled through the woods and were never seen again. Two of the slow ones were shot by the police and died inside the bank. The other who escaped unharmed had a religious awakening, repented and became a priest, who later stole works of art from churches' reliquaries until he was promoted to bishop and went to live in Rome, leaving a caboclo wife and three bastard kids behind.

Donizetti survived and after a long recovery in the military hospital, he went to prison for eight years. The disastrous assault turned him into a laughing stock, the crude image of idiocy, and 'to do a Donizetti' became commonly used slang for the inhabitants of Uberapitanga to describe something that went badly wrong, when someone was too stupid to get it right.

Senhor Borghetti, the bank manager, became a local hero and was elected mayor of Uberapitanga in the following election. Senhor Moraes, the gardener, received a salary increase of a few Reais and was allowed to retire. Senhor Borghetti promised to visit him, but in actual fact he never did. He never went to see Moraes, who lived in a small hut in the industrial periphery of the town. Borghetti turned out to be the most corrupt mayor in the history of Uberapitanga. And still, swapping free shoes and bags of rice and beans for votes, he was re–elected for a second term. That made him even wealthier. And so while Borghetti waved to people from the top of a pick–up truck, receiving praise and shaking hands, Moraes died in his hut from a pulmonary infection caused by the venomous dusty air of the factory next door. They found him sitting on a plastic chair, mouth open, a bottle of cheap cachaça under his arm. The doctors found no food in his ulcer–infested stomach.

* * *

The fact that Rico and I stood in the middle of Donizetti's room every Friday night did not mean that we sympathized with the rascal. Quite simply, he was our only port of call, our only chance to remain sane. While Rico chatted up some of the whores, I looked at Donizetti and observed his movements, waiting for the best moment to make a move. Donizetti did not like us there; we were trouble and he was a snake. But Rico and I were not acting alone; half of the town kids were there too, fake ID in hand and all the boredom in the world stamped on their foreheads. Not that it made a difference to have an ID, but at least they made an effort. It consisted of amateur work, changing birth dates with a biro and replacing somebody else's picture with theirs. Just like Rico and I, they came in every Friday night, to see if there were any new additions to Donizetti's attractions.

No matter what happened and whether the whore was old or young, Donizetti wouldn't let any of us come anywhere near the women. We could only watch. Sometimes, when Donizetti got drunk enough, we'd have a little dance. Maybe some of us would get lucky and get rubbed, if the whore took a fancy to one of us, that is. But that didn't happen very often. When it did it was excellent. But Donizetti made almost no mistakes when it came to his whores, and he always gave preference to those whose wages he depended on. To us, only old bones were thrown – when we got them at all. Poor old whores who had nothing left and nothing to hope for, women whose hearts were so broken and souls so empty that their eyes said nothing.

After an evening of drinking Donizetti's Paraguayan scotch, playing pool in Donizetti's 'member's club,' pestering some old cunts and nearly getting stabbed to death as I got between Rico and a worker during a disagreement over a football result, I made my way back home on the back of an old van. It was the van of the second most successful butcher in town, Senhor Juca Manetti. Manetti was only second to Senhor Donival Franco, known as Don Franco, or o Rei do Gado – 'the cattle king'. Manetti retained a quarter of the slaughterhouse business, which provided the meat for most of the surrounding region. The other three quarters were owned by Don Franco's father–in–law and Don Franco himself. Don Franco's father–in–law was an old invalid who had started the business some thirty years before, and who now hadn't the strength to pull any strings anymore. Thanks to Don Franco's cunning administration and business acumen, the father–in–law preferred to hand it all over to Don Franco: the man who had married his only daughter, Dorotéia, a tough and manipulative woman who blackmailed her father over his sexual indiscretions with a young servant's son, to keep control of the firm.

As Manetti told me Don Franco's story, I sat, drunk, on one of the dozens of twenty-kilo sacks of pork scratchings that Manetti was transporting the next day to the capital. After a half–day journey, Manetti would deliver pork chops, scratchings, sausage, beef and poultry to the restaurants and supermarkets of the big city.

That's when he offered me a job.

'You look like a strong young man and I have a vacancy in our slaughterhouse in the capital. I think you'd do just fine there,' he proposed.

I told him I was too drunk to make a decision on the spot, but that I would think about it and get back to him the next day. After dropping me at home and telling me how great his whore was, he handed me a piece of paper with his number on it. I told him I'd call as soon as I woke up and recovered from the hangover I was predicting. Manetti started up his van again, and the last thing I saw was the picture of a pig wearing a hat – 'A Crackling Start,' said the slogan that encircled it – before I fell on the bed face down, arms outstretched and my shoes on.

I listened and smelled my little cousin's farts all night, and the onion–scented, death–like air in the room made me gag. I looked for the bucket under the bed, but it wasn't there, so I vomited on the dirty cheap carpet. 'I've had enough,' I thought while puking. The next morning I called Manetti. Then I met Rico in some backwoods where he spent time shooting birds with an air gun.

'I wish you good luck, you cunt...and please don't send me any letters or postcards...I hate that girly stuff. Be a man and just tell your new girlfriends about your friend Rico here. Tell them one day I'll come along and cock them all,' he said winking and punching me on the shoulder.

'Yes sure, I'll tell them all what a pussy you are!' I punched him back.

'Ha, ha, ha, you think you're funny little bitch? Come here and grab this; you'll see my big pussy!' he said, grabbing his balls with both hands while spreading his legs wide apart. He then grabbed me by the neck and pushed my head all the way down to his groins: 'lick them, you pussy, lick them... ah, you like daddy's balls do you? Lick them, you fucking girly lick my fucking balls! I saw how you behaved with those girls... you're a fucking faggot aren't you? Aren't you, you little freak? You like to suck cock don't you, you piece of shit?'

'STOP THAT! I shouted as I struggled with him. But he was stronger than me. Still, I summoned all my strength and found just enough room to grab one of his legs and lift it off the ground. He held tight to my hair and we both fell over to the ground. We rolled around in the dust and wrestled. He turned me around and got on my back whilst pressing my face down to the ground. 'Do you like that, you little bitch, do you like that?' he whispered in my ear as he grabbed a handful of my hair with his hand, smearing my face on the dirt. I couldn't breath or see much. His weight crushed my bones as my rage grew. My fingers desperately searched out the earth until they found a sharp stone. With all the strength I had left in me, I hit him with the stone hard on the head. He felt to the side. I got up and saw him kneeling next to me, groaning in pain. 'You bastard... what have you done... what have you done to me? I'm bleeding... I'm fucking bleeding... take me to a hospital... NOW!' I looked at him holding his head with both hands as blood gushed out of a deep cut above his right ear. I looked at him as he called me names and bagged me to take him to hospital, again and again. That's when I hit him again, and again, and again, and again and again until he fell to the ground and stopped moving.

I dropped the stone and calmly walked back home. I said goodbye to my aunt and uncle, gave their smelly kid one last beating and bribed him one last time. I walked through the door with the few things I owned, some books, two old pair of jeans, some t–shirts and socks and other unimportant things stuffed inside a canvas bag, to make some volume. My journey was about to begin.

4

Man and Superman

It was a bright morning as I looked through the frozen window. That day, like all the other days for that entire year, I woke up at 5 AM. Senhor Manetti parked his car every day at 5:30 in front of the pension where I lived, in the suburbs of the capital. I had been working for Senhor Manetti for a year by then, all day inside giant frozen rooms, filled to the brim with body parts: cattle, sheep, game of various origins and no origins at all, at times undistinguishable from one another. They hung upside down from the cast–iron hooks that suspended legs, noses, ears, heads, backs and tails, up in the frozen air.

My job description was as follows: get paid as an uneducated poor working man and work as superman. I was charged with the task of unhooking the meat in the icy rooms and transporting the carcasses to the front of the house, the butcher shop, whenever a new cut was requested. I would also chop the meat up whenever a customer had a particular wish. In an ideal world, I would be wearing white overalls and white rubber shoes, helmet, goggles, and gloves. In reality I was lucky just to get a lift to work. I didn't resent that. Such attire would have made me look like an extra–terrestrial visitor from a distant, non–vegetarian planet who had landed with his refrigerated spaceship in the planet of the hanging dead.

The work took not only stamina but also a good resistance to infections, a muscular pair of arms to hold the dead weight and a good back to rest the slumber flesh on. I had none of those things. I was thin, and muscles were everything I couldn't classify as either bone or skin. Being five foot six and having a hereditary low resistance to anything remotely infectious, I coughed and ached and sneezed, and cut myself and broke a few toes when carcasses fell off the hooks, crushing my feet the same way that cars squash frogs on the road. I went home with high fever when the hurtful air inside the rooms penetrated my lungs and turned fluids into ice particles that pinched my chest like the tips of porcelain knives. Then pain would shoot through my body like an electric current. I coughed so deeply and so often that I would spend most of my weekends vomiting blood and turning blue.

Senhor Manetti paid me enough that I could rent a room in a roaming house in the outskirts of the city. It was a stone's throw away from the industrial district, where smoke puffed out of gigantic tin buildings that launched carbon monoxide into the air so high up that permanent clouds hovered in the skies above, giving the impression it was always about to snow. The factories puffed their smoke so that the wife of a business man living in the luxury high–rise in Barigui Park could have a new, safe 4x4, with ABS brakes and airbags to reduce the danger of driving in the busy and scary city; the 4x4 that kept out the heat, the rain and the poor ugliness of begging children.

I went to work every day, except for Sundays, because God doesn't open his shop on Sundays. So on Sundays I went to watch football with some guys from the nearby supermarket who worked in the depot next to Senhor Manetti's slaughterhouse. From work I went back to my room. I spent most of my time in there, reading. Every now and then, when I had a little money, I would buy some sweets and popcorn and take a long walk in the Passeio Público. There I fed the monkeys, saw the spiders in their glass boxes and knocked on cages hoping to see a lizard. Or else I went to the cinema or to an art gallery. Not that I knew anything about films or art, but being in those rooms always made me feel less alone and somewhat wiser, even though I knew this was a deception and that I was in fact more lonely than a Sunday morning and less wise than the Trojans whose city was destroyed by overconfidence.

No refuge was to be found amongst the crowds of pseudo–intellectuals or in the books I rented from the public library and read in my lunch hour. And the lunch hour was not so much an hour as half an hour, in which I ate my home–made mortadella sandwich and drank coffee from the flask. I liked going to the art gallery on Sundays, but I did not like the people. They were far too concerned with abstractions of their own self–praising idealisms to give out any serious knowledge. All in all, I spent a third of my time working my body into exhaustion, a third reading and a third thinking about writing. I needed new knowledge and I needed to feel I was alive, but all I saw were extremes that made no sense: suffering, pomposity, fake happiness and boredom, boredom all around.

Alone in my room, I read Brazilian writers like Jorge Amado and Euclides da Cunha, Clarice Lispector and Machado de Assis, Raquel de Queiroz, Luis Fernando Veríssimo and Ariano Suassuna. I did that because they were considered important. I was determined to learn what people called 'good literature'. I read, and I practiced writing according to what the Brazilian Academy of Letters established as good work. I wished that one day I would join the academy and become one the forty immortals. Can you believe it? Me? An immortal? Then I learned that José Barnei – the corrupt oligarch and former president of the republic – had been awarded one of the forty chairs and I lost all appetite. In Brazil, if you have the money, you can become immortal too.

When I first came to the capital I was amazed by the city. It was bright, green and modern. The mountains brought a fresh, northern European air to the otherwise sub–tropical weather. Waves of migrants over the centuries had made that land into a mixed bag of Indians, Portuguese, Africans, Spanish, Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese and Lebanese blended into the crazy human cellular mess that forms the crux of Brazilianness.

One morning I stood on Avenida Visconde de Guarapuava looking up at the tall buildings and the busy traffic that spread like a metallic organism over the cemented canals of urban life, when a green lorry parked next to me. It was the rubbish truck and it had a slogan printed on the side in wide white letters 'lixo que não e lixo não vai pro lixo: separe' (rubbish that is not rubbish does not go in the rubbish: sort it out!). I thought this over. How great it would be if all the people who are told they are part of the rubbish, who are told to feel like rubbish and who live amongst the rubbish, were encouraged to separate themselves from all that waste. I thought about them having the courage, the daring imagination to become something else. I took that message to heart. It wasn't written for me, but it was now mine.

Many years later, I read that the great George Orwell purposefully went to live amongst the poor, because he realized he didn't know poverty at all, and in order to write anything of worth about it, he should know what 'the margin' looked like. I, on the other hand, was born in poverty. I knew the margins much too well. So I decided to go and learn what life in the wealthy world looked like, to gain some culture and to see what the rich had to teach me. In sum, I travelled the opposite direction. But I won't tell you about that journey just yet.

I wondered days and nights with that same feeling in my stomach. It was something I've always had, and it sat there between the intestines and the tip of the ribcage. Many weekends and lunch breaks later, I thought I was going to explode with anxiety. What if I had more to offer the world than cutting meat? What if I could have more than living in a roaming house and working for an Italian man with a perm, a moustache yellowing with cigarette smoke and a dubious interest in young boys? What if the deceased Rico had been right all along and I could change my destiny other than submit to the will of such rascals? What if I could get out of my own skin and run away from the being they were telling me to be? What if my destiny was not set at birth as the son–of–a–bitches in church always told me, but was rather on the making? What if I could change it all according to my will? What if I was God? What if...what if...

I felt delirious. I let myself dive into pools of possibilities, wild day–dreaming, writing every possible scenario that I would and could create if given such power, if my inner self was coated in the glory of sunlight and if bullets would stop short of traversing my body even when fired at point–blank range. I imagined flying over the skies of the city, in perfect command of my senses. I flew over and around the clock tower, I plunged from the heights down into Barigui Park, supersonically gliding over the waters of the lake, spraying and splashing the water above the tall Araucária pine trees and up again lifting my whole body up and into the air, 'IIIIHHHHAAAAA!'

I dreamed like that for some time. When I woke up, I was lying on my pillow; my face smouldered with a smile the size of a Trakinas cookie. I felt happy and warm and courageous, even rich, even though everything in that room was material proof of the opposite. I crawled out of the bed and buried my head under the tap located at the corner of the room. I washed my face and combed my hair as if I was going to meet someone important. But I was going nowhere. I took off my clothes and went back to bed. I was burning with excitement about the future, almost to the point of hallucination. It was good to be alive. It was good to be alive! It was all so intense it became erotic and I reached between my legs and began to masturbate intensely. I finished off, cleaned up and reached for a book that sat on the bedside table. Opening it, I began to read with thirst for what I hoped would be a great experience. It was one of those moments when a man is face–to–face with his destiny and his mind is clear enough for him to recognize it. I read Don Quixote in a week. It was not a novel but a manual on how to believe, how to have convictions, how to survive in the world without letting it swallow you whole.

Besides my literary expeditions and the now developing taste for flying above the city, I also took the time to visit the few people I knew in the big city. Tania was one of them.

I met her during secondary school, because by then her family owned a farm in Uberapitanga and she ended up in my school for a short spell as a result of an accident. She had become involved with a guy – a much older man – and let her attention get diverted from her studies. She was an excellent student until then, but that year she didn't get the good grades she needed and got pregnant instead. The Catholic school, the rich people school where nuns lectured about Christ and played football with the kids of the great and the good, refused to keep her. But it was in that school that Tania's parents thought she belonged. And they were right. After they forced her to get an abortion, they put her back under the supervision of the nuns. Her father, a wealthy retired colonel, gave them generous funding for the reparation of the school's chapel and when it comes to money, nuns, like priests and the whole lot, are not too fussed about skipping over certain pages of the Bible.

But by then it was too late. Tania had spent enough time in my school for me to get to know her. We remained friends and it was all due to an incident that still stood between us as a sensitive topic. After I had stuck my hand on her behind one day (she had a great behind), she pushed me and then punched me on the nose with a right hook, a move that caused my nose to be crooked ever since.

'I'm not one of your bitches, João, and don't you ever think you can make me into one of your little whores. Let's get this straight from the beginning, even if your nose will no longer be straight anymore,' she warned me.

Tania and I had not seen one another for a long time. She was well read. Because of her father's position, she had enough dole to study piano and travel the world on courses of this and that. She spoke five languages while I could barely speak Portuguese correctly. I let her know I was in town, and she invited me to come and spend the weekend at her place, which was central and near the wealthy neighbourhoods.

'João! So nice to see you!' she said kissing me on both cheeks.

'Something to drink?' she said as she walked to a mini–bar in the corner of the room.

'For whisky, I only have Chivas.'

'That'll do,' I said, hiding the fact that I didn't have a clue what 'Chivas' tasted like.

'Here, good for the soul, even better as a pre–party warmer.'

'It's good to see you, Tania,' I said, taking a sip from the whisky.

'I'm glad you came. Haven't seen you in ages, you moron,' she said, blinking at me from behind her half–filled glass.

'Uhrg, what's in this thing? It tastes like fucking coconut!' I said, spitting it out.

'That's because it is coconut,' said Tania. 'I froze coconut water and added it to the whisky to give some Brazilianness to the serious Scots. What do you think? I learned that with my ex–boyfriend, Tony. He was from Chicago.'

'I think the Scots would not be impressed with Tony from Chicago.'

'Oh come on João, always the same, aren't you?'

'What do you mean?'

'You know what I mean, always trying to be funny,' she said, shaking her head and bending the corners of her mouth.

'Where are you taking me tonight? I need to get drunk, but not with this,' I said.

'Actually, I changed my mind about going out. What would you say if we stayed in and had a little house party? I have some friends coming over and I just thought: it's raining, it's a little cold and you told me you have no money so... anyway, what do you think?'

'Tania, it so happens that I just got paid. I need to drink and I need to see people, and I want to see people out there, not in here – let's go out for Christ's sake!'

'All right, all right, I'll call the gang and let them know we're going out after all. Finish your drink and we'll get on the move.'

'By the way, how's your nose?' she asked.

'Funny, very funny,' I said as I scratched my forehead with the middle finger.

The bar was unassuming and warm and, like many places in the city, it was overflowing with people, music and sex. Everything was going for it. There was cold beer flowing from the taps. We sat on half–cut wine barrels that were adapted so people could lay their arses on them with some comfort. The tables were made of the top of the barrels. It was hot, hot, hot, inside and cold outside. Hot bodies made the windows sweat. So we stayed in and listened to country music and danced and drank, and people smoked and squeezed one another when trying to get from place to place, and every time I passed a girl I touched her and she touched me, and before long we were in a dark spot in the corner where I fingered her and stuck my tongue inside her throat as she reached between my legs with so much fury I thought she was going to tear it off.

For a minute there, I thought I was at the centre of the universe and not spinning around in empty space on a planet floating on the periphery of a galaxy itself peripheral and unimpressive when compared to the grand architecture of the big nothing. There were hundreds of people walking and dancing and drinking and trying to talk in that small cabin–like place. But the band was too loud and nobody in the room understood a thing they said to one another. The smoke got thick and I could not see very well. Waitresses came by in fishnet stockings and cowboy boots, wearing leather belts around their waists, with a tequila bottle in one holster and salt and pepper mills on the other. They carried shot glasses across their chests and were mini–skirts and tight white t–shirts that every now and then got wet with something and when that happened their nipples would poke through like nuclear warheads.

I kept meeting the woman I had fingered randomly throughout the night, and doing the same thing: the fingering, the grabbing, the tongue in the throat, again and again, until Tania caught us and told me the girl was not a girl but a boy – albeit a very pretty one – and that I was too drunk to see the difference. I left my lady boy after spitting and cursing. Tania found the whole thing very amusing.

'You're an idiot, ha, ha, ha, what an idiot, ha, ha, ha...making out with a lady boy, ha, ha, ha...hey everyone, did you know he was in the corner fingering a transvestite and didn't realize the difference between a frog and a log?'

'Ha, ha, ha,' was all I heard from the crowd. People were in tears, rolling and laughing and pointing their fingers at me. In the end I was too drunk to care. I laughed too, and the night went on.

We stayed like that, laughing and dancing and drinking until the early hours of the morning. The security people threw us out after they saw me dancing with one of the tequila girls and trying to grab her arse. She didn't find it funny.

'Not the tequila ladies, mate, they work here!' said big–foot as he dragged me out.

'João, for crying out loud, could you stop trying to grab things?' pleaded Tania 'You'll get us arrested at this rate!'

'Tzzzania. I'm juust tuurying to get la–id,' I replied so drunk I couldn't even voice a straight sentence.

'Come on you moron, it's time to go. You stay with me tonight.'

'No, no, no...I'm gooooing home, wizzz that woman oooover the–re.'

'No, you're coming with me, that woman over there is about to call the Police.'

'Tzzzania, ok, ok, Tzzzania, ok, ok, I'll come wizzz you, then, ok, ok... ok, Tzzzania, ok.'

But Tania herself suddenly changed her plans when she saw the man of her life, twenty seven years old Pierre from Belgium, who worked for a Dutch company as an engineer, standing at the door with an unassuming glass of fresh lemonade in his hand. Tania was faced with a dilemma: play nanny to a drunkard, or try her luck and drag the man of her dreams into her cosy bed?

When Tania left me sitting at the curb with a bottle of warm beer and my head between my legs, half drenched in my own piss and not able to see my hands in front of my crooked nose, I didn't think very highly of her. I had to content myself with counting the ants running over my shoes as I tried to drown them with spit. After half an hour of doing that, I began to feel sober again. Perhaps it was the fresh air; maybe the ants had some mystical power over drunken men, I don't know. 'Maybe that's the reason why the Chinese eat them,' I thought. 'Fucking Asians, the cunts know everything!'

It was at this point that a cousin of Tania, a small girl I had never given a second look before, came and sat next to me. She wasn't feeling much better than I was as she tried to strike up a conversation.

'How's it going?' she asked.

'All right,' I said.

'What's up there?' she asked.

I looked up to see whatever it was. When my eyes came down again, she grabbed me by the cheeks and stuck her tongue in my throat. I could taste cigarettes, alcohol and garlic in her mouth, and I nearly puked in it. Before long we were on the back seat of her car that was parked under some trees in a poorly lit side–street. She pulled her mini–dress all the way up and took her knickers off before I could shut the door. She went down on all fours, pointed her small arse up in the air and, with her face buried in the seat, told me to fuck her: '...hard you bastard, hard!' I tried, but after drinking the bar dry, things were not very favourable – flip, flap, flop, flip, flap, flop. There were a lot more flops than flips and flaps. But I pretended and she pretended, and the night went by like that.

At some point there came a knock on the window, and a friend of hers – a young guy, twenty something, pretty face, bad manners and the eyes of a thief – jumped in the car with us. He didn't look shocked to see us doing it. She told him he should join us. I was too drunk to say no, and wondered where this was all going to lead. It led to a small motel, a fifteen–minute drive from there, where me and the young fella dipped in and out of little cousin all night long, to the point where I got sober again. The other guy got tired and went to sleep, and little cousin began to say: 'really João, we must stop now or else I'll never go to heaven!' as I, with renewed energy, banged her inside the soapy tub.

I woke up the next day with little cousin next to me and no sign of the thief-eyed boy. There were twelve monkeys playing drums in my head. I got up and I left half of my liver in the toilet before going back to bed. Then little cousin got up and did the same. She came back to bed and we did it all over again, until we heard a knock on the door. It was the motel's receptionist asking us to leave the room because our time had run over. 'We're getting out in a minute!' shouted back little cousin. We got dressed and went to have breakfast in the market at Largo da Ordem. It was a bright, warm, Sunday morning and the market was full of colourful people selling all sorts of stuff, from old Raúl Seixas' vinyls to greasy pastel de carne.

We walked around the market eating the pastéis, drinking Wimi orange soda and watching people fill up their car trunks with all the things in life they didn't need or shouldn't want to own: brooms with adjustable handles, flowery flower pots made of recycled tin, beetle–shaped bicycle bells, bamboo–covered kerosene lamps, rock crystals made into photo frames, old war–time trunks, fluffy Donald the Duck sleepers, hand–crafted wooden kitchen utensils with their names burned into them, second–hand garden tools that glow in the dark, baby palm trees, pink fluffy dice, kittens, rabbits and beach hats adorned with parakeet feathers.

Little cousin and I walked through the market until we got bored. We walked through Largo da Ordem, and down and around all the cobbled streets until we reached Travessa Nestor de Castro. There we sat on the steps next to some bus stops while some young boys, no older than ten, sat next to us with milk bags over their noses – 'glue–sniffers.' The resin from the glue got them high and stopped them from thinking about food or the beatings.

One of the kids asked me for money. I gave him a Real and told him to buy himself something to eat. 'Fuck off!' he said. I thought that was fair enough, what could he have bought with a Real? Little cousin and I got up and walked down south of Largo da Ordem, then over the street and down Rua José Bonifácio until we reached the Metropolitan Cathedral. We looked at the great building for a second or two and then we walked in.

'I feel dirty being here after all we've done,' whispered little cousin.

'No, it is these overdressed CLOWNS who should feel dirty for being in here when those KIDS are out there,' I replied.

'Oh yeah? And what would you do in their place, Mr Conscientious, I–know–better, man?'

'I would give all the money these son–of–a–bitches spend on wine and nice incense and new shoes and open a shelter for these pestilent kids where they would have a place to stay and three meals a day. It would be fenced with barbed wire, so no parents or priests could come in.'

'Ah yeah, Mr Righteous, when did you do anything for anybody? You people are so full of shit!' said little cousin with both eyebrows raised.

'Whatever you think of me, they could do it. They have the time and the money; they could if only they wanted! They just don't want to. It's much safer to sit behind desks pretending to perform the all–so–important job of saving our souls – us poor sinners!'

Little cousin, a lawyer–to–be, did not see the point of my conversation and dashed off, wondering why she was hanging out with me in the first place. To be fair, I wondered the same. So little cousin and I said our goodbyes and pretended we were interested enough in each other to swap phone numbers. I left her standing in front of the cathedral and never saw her again. Years later, little cousin's raped and bruised body would appear floating in a canal nearby a park. It had nothing to do with me.

I walked back to the bus stop and got on the first number twelve that came by. It took me back to Tania's place. I rang the bell, but she didn't answer. She was probably still banging Mr Handsome Belgium I–drink–lemonade–when–I–go–to–bars. I turned on my heels and jumped on another bus, this time a circular route that took me to the city centre.

On Sundays the streets of Curitiba are deserted until about three in the afternoon, when everyone takes their clean cars out of the garages and go for a spin with the family – to visit the in–laws. If there is a derby, an Atle–tiba most commonly, the men will be sitting in the stadium by that time, beer in hand, getting ready to throw insults and the radio (and the batteries) at the referee whenever he emerges from the tunnel. It's the favourite Sunday sport. The non–football fans – rare and far between, probably gay, those intellectual types who hide in their lofts and attics, the so–called cellar–chicken's (galinha de porão) are busy watching films and eating popcorn.

The circular route bus brought me to Jardim Social where my grandfather once owned the house where I spent the first years of my life. The house embodied the time when the family was wealthy enough to live in the capital, and in a good, well-respected, affluent neighbourhood. But when grandfather succumbed to cancer, the family descended into chaos and every son and daughter claimed what was theirs by right and left grandmother with nothing but hard alcoholism and chronic loneliness. Greedy and soulless neighbours finished off what her sons and daughters did not, and before long old grandma was living three months here and three months there, with this and that daughter and this and that son (she was a devout Catholic and had seven of them) and their in–laws, and she never settled down again until one day she slipped and broke a leg. That proved too much for old grandma and she died poor, broken–hearted and disgusted with life, but with a rosary around her wrist.

I stood at the gates of the house, gazing at the façade. Then I saw a woman peering out of what had once been my room and my heart sank a little. I stood there for some time and I didn't notice the man coming from behind and stealing my wallet from my back pocket. I only noticed when I decided to get on another bus and felt my pocket for the fare money, which was no longer there but sitting in the stomach of some down–and–out individual who used it to buy a shot of cachaça in some bar in the slum.

Curitiba is a good–looking city – green, clean and all–round pleasant. But it seems to be a rule that if any urban sprawl in Brazil is to become a noted city, that it ought to possess a slum of its own. The most famous slum in Curitiba when I was there was a place called Vila Pinto (Dick Village) and that's where I headed to, because I had decided to chase my money. I had nothing to lose except my life. So I went to the first bar I could find and asked the dirty looking man behind the grimly green counter if someone had paid him with a ten Reais note bearing the drawing of a cock and balls. To my amazement, he produced the very same note from his till.

'That's it, that's my cock!' I exclaimed with anger. 'This note was stolen from me about an hour ago!'

'Can you prove that's the same cock?' the man asked. 'It seems like a pretty ordinary cock to me.'

'What do you mean by can I prove it? I just told you about the note, didn't I? Can't you see the bloody cock drawn on it?' I said.

'Well, as far as I am concerned there is no evidence to suggest you have owned this note, despite your familiarity with the cock. Do you have any idea how many cocks I get to see every day? This could be a completely different cock. It's your word against mine. I say this is not your cock,' the barman declared, while his fingers played skilfully with a kitchen knife.

I was angry all right, but I didn't want to get butchered by an ex–convict–turned–barmen in the middle of Vila Pinto. No one would ever find my body. So I turned and began to walk away. On my way out I picked up a jar of pickled eggs from a shelf and smashed it against a pinball machine that stood by the exit. The machine made weird noises as it went into short circuit. It looked as if it was about to blow up. I ran for dear life until I couldn't see Vila Pinto behind me anymore. Five minutes later I jumped on a bus and sweet-talked the driver to let me stay on – I told him what had happened. The man waved me in. He nodded towards the inside of the bus that was empty and hot, even though every one of the windows was open.

The bus drove towards the Botanical Gardens. At the gardens I got off and went for a stroll amongst the tourists, the mammies and daddies and their ugly kids and the flowers. I tried to keep away from the tourists and the families and the ugly kids and closer to the flowers. I found a spot under a tree, in the shade, and fell asleep there for an hour. I woke up with a strong wind blowing the dirt and the leaves on my face. Then it began to rain. I got up at haste and ran towards the bus stop again. After what seemed an eternity, another bus came by. This time it was full-up and the driver was having none of my stories. So there I was, soaked to the bone and penniless. I saw a taxi driving by and I waved it to stop. I told the driver to take me to Tania's address. When we got there I asked him to wait for a bit while I got my wallet from the flat. And then I legged it. The driver got out of the car and started shouting something not very nice, but soon he lost sight of me as I jumped over a wall and into the back of Tania's building. I buzzed Tania and this time she answered. She came down and opened the back door.

'Bloody hell João, one evening on your own and you get yourself into trouble! Why was the taxi man shouting at you? I could hear him from up there!'

'Take a guess?'

'R–e–a–l–l–y? Poor man... '

'I know, its hideous how much they charge these days, I knew you would understand.'

'No, João, not poor you, I meant poor him. His kids will probably not eat tonight because of you,' said Tania, with a smile tearing through the corner of her mouth.

'Where have you been anyway?' she asked.

'Oh, you know, here and there,' I said.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know where you've been...inside my cousin's knickers – she told me it all,' she said.

'Yes, that's...that's nice. How come she already got to you?'

'You forget what we girls are like – how naïve you are, mate, how naïve! She called me right after you left her and she told me everything. She is quite taken with you, you know?'

'Well, I'm sorry to say, but I'm not taken with her. She is rather silly; it was just a night and now it's over. I need a shower...do you have one in this little place of yours?'

'No, I shower in the sink.'

'Ok, then I'm having a shower in your sink.'

'Sure...lover boy!' Tania said sarcastically.

'What's with your Dutch faggot?' I asked as I made my way to her bathroom.

'First of all, P–i–e–r–r–e is Belgian, darling, B–e–l–g–i–a–n, and far, far away from being gay, if that's what you're implying. In fact I think he just gave me the fuck of my life, thank you very much!' said Tania with sparkles in her eyes.

'All right, all right, so how was it?' I asked.

'Well, not that you would know anything about this, but if you really want to know, here is the thing: I think I'm in love!' she said without hesitation.

'Oh, come off it, Tania, come off it...you and I know you've been in love with every boy you've met since you were twelve. Why would this one be different?' I asked with a tinge of jealousy in my voice while taking my socks off.

'Maybe because he said he would like to take me to Belgium with him once his contract in Brazil comes to an end? And maybe because I said yes?' She said that with a smile so broad she looked like Animal from The Muppet Show as her mouth unzipped from ear to ear.

'Ok, well, in that case, congratulations and invite me for the faggot's wedding. Now, can I shut the door? I need to crap before I get wet,' I explained, winking.

'João de Deus, you ought to be the most insensitive and disgusting creature God vomited on this earth. But you're my friend, and God save me for that, so...yes, go and take your dump and have your shower and please do me a favour and don't wank on the shower curtain – it's disgusting. I don't know what's wrong with you boys!'

After the dump and the shower, and no wanking, Tania and I had dinner and told each other stories from the night before and from the past. We drank cheap wine and laughed. It's funny how cheap wine makes you laugh. Afterwards I went to the living room and collapsed on the sofa while Tania kept going on about P–i–e–r–r–e. She bored me to death with P–i–e–r–r–e. It was all about her plans with P–i–e–r–r–e, how he was going to be the man, the ideal husband, P–i–e–r–r–e, the gentle, carrying, wonderfully clever P–i–e–r–r–e, the wealthy prince who came to rescue her on his white horse, P–i–e–r–r–e, P–i–e–r–r–e, P–i–e–r–r–e! How their kids would look like princesses and princes and how she would live with P–i–e–r–r–e by an equally gay castle in an equally gay stone house where P–i–e–r–r–e's gay ancestors had always lived and how she would finally be able to speak French (a totally gay language) again, and how the world would be wonderful in the middle of so many gay people and how she would even go back to the church if it all happened according to plan.

I fell asleep as Tania's voice faded into abstraction and I began to dream. In this dream I was adrift in a distant sea, caught in the middle of a storm with nothing to hold on to. My ship had sunk, everyone on board was dead. I spotted a plank of wood floating along. I swam a few lengths and reached out for it to discover that it was not a plank at all but a capsized trunk. I held on to it and paddled until I saw land. I paddled faster and faster until I reached the shore. There I dropped half dead on the sand and lay on my back until I regained strength. Still gasping, I turned to the trunk and unstrapped the leather buckles, opening it with caution. Inside I found papers: lots of it, somehow still dry. The sheets were written all over them, in every line the same sentence:

'João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction João de Deus is a work of fiction...'

'WANKER! MOTHER FUCKING WANKER!' was all I heard when I woke up. It was followed by the banging of Tania's bedroom door. I got up and walked to the toilet, still feeling a bit dizzy from the dream and the wine. I switched the light on and looked in the mirror only to find it wasn't my face that I saw, but that of an old man: white hair, wrinkled eyes and a drunkard's nose. I looked at his serious, deprecated face and recognized something terrifyingly familiar about him. I turned around and switched off the light. Then I turned around once more and looked in the mirror again – he was gone. As I walked back to the living room, a voice came from the darkness. It spoke slowly like someone running out of air in his lungs, a croaky whisper:

'...I created you and you will follow my path. I make the rules. You must obey me...you owe me this, and more...you have one path to walk, one score to sing, one act to play...that is my path and that is my score and that's my act. I am the creator and you owe me everything... '

'Who are you?' I asked.

'You know me...you have learned my name and now you have seen my face: I am he, Emmanuel.'

When I woke up the next day I was still feeling dizzy, a nightmare within a dream? Had it all really happened? I asked myself: who was Emmanuel, the man who seemed to think he knew more about me than I did. Who was he? And why did he say such things? Why was this happening? Was I mad? I asked Tania if she knew anyone with that name and she shook her head from side to side. I tried hard to think of anyone I had met in the past, anyone called Emmanuel, but no one came to mind. It seemed as if I was going insane after all. Nothing made sense. I decided it would be best if I left it out of my mind; it was just a dream, like all the others. Maybe I was drinking too much. I had drunk too much the night before; cheap wine and too little sleep. My lungs were filled with frozen water, a recipe for delusion.

I went back to my room in the suburbs and to the job at the slaughterhouse, and there I worked until my lungs filled to the brim with water and blood. Until one morning – one of those subliminal mornings when your body feels so alone you think you'll burst into flames – I sat in bed and looked at the light that sapped through the thin curtains. I opened them wide to find I was not in my bedroom anymore but inside the sun. There, at that moment, I no longer possessed a body. I no longer existed in any physical form known to man. I was at the end of a beam of light that had travelled through the dark unimaginable space, a beam of light that shone for one eternal second, inside of which no weight was to be felt, no sound was to be heard. Perfection was so near.

5

The Amazon

Perhaps it was the spring, but after months of cold weather, wet weather, grey weather, I decided to do something about the situation I was in. After some hard saving, I purchased a ticket to the United States. I told Senhor Manetti I was going. 'Ok,' he said. I also told my landlady. 'You can keep the room till the end of the month,' she said. None of them cared. I held the ticket in my hands. It said: 'From: Curitiba To: Boston.' I bought it on an impulse, immediately depleting me of the hard–earned savings I had. It posited me with a major dilemma: how could I get a visa to the United States, being a poor Brazilian with a bad secondary education? The problem was colossal. To apply for a visa I had to have a ticket. To use the ticket I needed a visa.

I chose Boston because someone who knew someone who had lent money to someone had told me I could find a job there, working in petrol stations or as a cleaner. They also told me that Boston was a less obvious destination for immigrants than, say, New York. As it turned out, they were wrong. A year later Boston was declared the single most popular destination for Brazilian immigrants coming to the United States, with more Brazilians living in Boston than in the whole of Uberapitanga.

I left Curitiba for São Paulo three days later, on a coach trip that lasted six hours and involved a cold chicken sandwich and various panic attacks. After arriving in São Paulo late in the evening, I started to search for a cheap place to stay. The interview with the immigration officer was scheduled for 8:15 AM the next day, and I had to get some sleep; I had to look fresh and not at all like a desperate beggar from South America. I ought to look casual, but not too casual. I had to show interest in the United States, but not too much interest. Anyone with a hint of despair in their eyes, dirty fingernails or yellow teeth would fail. I deluded myself that I could speak a little English and planned to try it on, as if to show some sophistication in the absence of knowledge and wealth.

In São Paulo, I knocked from door to door in the rainy sub–tropical weather of the grey, humid, cement metropolis. After hours walking, I finally found a no–star hotel next to a funk disco club. The hotel itself didn't look too bad, from the outside. The room, however, had only one window, located next to the toilet, which seemed to serve both as a toilet and a bedside table. The window faced the external wall of another building, which stood about three feet away: it was so close to the window I could touch it. In between the two walls a windy, dark, shaft drew my eyes up and down. 'A perfect metaphor,' I thought.

* * *

Her name was Elizabeth Carter. She held a pen in the way an Amazon warrior would have held her sword in antiquity: with deadly dexterity. Miss Carter sat behind the bullet–proof glass that separated her voluptuous figure from me, and me from the United States. After three hours waiting, standing in the queue in a long and cold, much–too–bright corridor, my stomach churning sounds of angst; it was my turn to put my faith to the test. The ticket in my hand read '359'. The queue, controlled by U.S. marines holding guns the size of rocket launchers, eventually brought me to Miss Carter, and there I was, face to face with the woman who could make me or break me.

'Number 359, step forward please,' called an angry looking officer.

'Hi, I am number 359.' I said that with the best English I could come up with – I wanted to impress.

'Excuse me? Can you say that in Portuguese? I didn't quite catch that.'

'Oh...I see...well...I beg your pardon...I thought you would prefer English,' I replied in Portuguese.

I was so nervous my hands began to shake inside my pockets and my lips began to puff up (when under considerable stress my whole face became puffed). I was beginning to look like a chimpanzee right in front of Miss Carter, who looked back at me in perfect disgust.

'Ok, look...,' said the Amazon warrior in polished though heavily accented Portuguese. Her accent instantly conjured up images of people in Manhattan and New Jersey sipping Long Island cocktails in fancy dresses and tuxedos as they told their friends about their jobs in a distant exotic country called Brazil.

'The appeal room is on the other side of this same room. You can pick up a ticket from that other ticket dispenser over there – the blue one, not the yellow one – and wait for your chance to speak to one of our immigration officers. He'll be able to help you with your rejection case.'

'Rejection? Why, have I been rejected?'

'Yes sir, your visa application has been rejected,' said Miss Carter with robotic certainty.

Instead of the silver–coated Mont Blank pen, she now held a rubber stamp, the base of which she dipped in the inkpad. She lifted it high up in the air, like an executioner lifting the heavy axe before letting it fall on the doomed neck stretched at her feet. Then, the great Amazon let the weight of gravity bring the red ink–drenched stamp down to burden a page of my passport with the words 'VISA DENIED.' The inkpad did not muffle the impact of the stamp on the paper. Instead it produced a metallic sound, the type of sound you'd expect to hear when metal hits stone. Miss Carter, as the professional executioner she was, picked up the Mont Blanc and ended it all by frantically scribbling on top of the heavily inked page: 'Elizabeth B. Carter, immigration officer, January 6th 2001.'

I listened to the words, but they meant nothing. I watched the woman move and her body made no sense at all. It was as if I was watching a movie with no sound and at half the normal speed. The images were jumbled and the picture was blurred. Everything else around me lost colour. I saw myself in a tunnel: everything was dark, and all I heard were echoes coming from the outside world, my vision was limited to those psychedelic bright images stretching ahead. Somehow I managed to thank Miss Carter for her good and precise work with the stamp and the Mont Blanc, even though I thought she was made of molasses. I walked over to the other ticket machine (the blue one, not the yellow one) and I stood in front of it. I drew a ticket and sat quietly in a plastic chair next to a white, straight, plain–looking column. A man of Austrian descent (I knew that because he was tall, blonde and blue–eyed and because he held an Austrian passport in his right hand) came to me and with a voice tumbling with pity. He shook his head saying:

'No point, son, don't go in there. The man is a dinosaur and he will eat you alive. He will wish you were never born. He will make you sorry you were born of Brazilian parents, not Americans or Europeans. He will make you say out loud what your papers have already made clear: you want, perhaps even need, the United States, but the United States neither wants nor needs you.'

'So how come you got yours?' I asked, my face now the size of the moon.

'Yes, I got mine but that was only because I could prove I was half Austrian. You see, they still work on the system of appearances. Those with a European background can get in easily; those that can't prove they have enough pedigree or hard cash sitting in the bank have to sit where you are right now. I could have been an assassin. It doesn't matter. For them, to be poor is the worst crime you can commit. Poverty freaks them out more than a terrorist or a murderer ever would. If I were you I wouldn't bother. You look and smell of poverty – no offence. At least keep some of your dignity.'

The man continued to talk like that for some time, until I got annoyed and stopped listening; I had lost all interest. But he spoke the truth, and the truth always hurts. I just wanted to go home. My face was by now completely deformed and that fat monkey face would be of no further help in the so–called 'appeal,' which, according to the Austrian fellow, was doomed before it began. So I dragged my primate face to the toilet and while looking at it in the mirror I realized the extent of my chimpanzee–faced failure. I had spent everything I had to get to São Paulo: on a suit and the hotel room, as well as on the ticket to Boston. I was now broke, humiliated and worst of all I was still in São Paulo. I no longer had either a job to go back to or enough money to eat a proper meal.

* * *

Resisting the temptation to jump in front of an oncoming bus at São Paulo's busy streets, I got on one instead and made my way through the carriage and found a seat next to an ugly looking tattooed man. He was in his 30s, typically Brazilian, the kind of poor wannabe–gangster type you find in abundance in the metropolis. By 'typically Brazilian' I do not mean black or white, because no one in Brazil is either black or white; there are only neguinhos or moreninhos perhaps queimadinhos –a little bit black or a little sun–burned. The tattooed man seemed a little surprised with my decision to sit next to him, but it wasn't a question of choice. Usually people wait for hours before they can board an overcrowded bus, which will have its own programme: rape, robbery, fist–fights, shootings, Chinese men with awful smelling armpits, women in Burkas hiding their moustaches under heavy black drapery, sandal–wearing German tourists with knee–high cotton socks when it's 30 degrees Celsius outside, Italian sex tourists in floral shirts, leather trainers and Pepino di Capri haircuts, knives, and loud Brazilian funk coming out of somebody's headphones – all included in the fare.

As a defence mechanism, or perhaps more accurately as a way to expel the immediate despair of life, Brazilians often resort to old clichés: 'God is Brazilian' or 'Brazil is the country of the future.' These myths I have always abhorred, for if that was true and God really was Brazilian, I was sure he would not choose to live in São Paulo, let alone make use of its public transport. And if Brazil was the country of the future, this future ought to be remote and uninhabited by serious people. The bus took me to the coach station, where I boarded a Cometa coach that after six agonising hours (I can't stand coaches; I tend to vomit in them) dropped me back in Curitiba.

It was early dawn when I finally got off the coach, smelling of vomit, and feeling rather numb, disillusioned and probably dehydrated. Curitiba, however, had never looked more beautiful. I felt unsuitable standing there in the shadow of the great city. I felt small and unpolished, if stupefied. I was broken and Curitiba looked dynamic, lusciously decorated with the sub–tropical greenery only a Brazilian city has – except of course, São Paulo, where you have to be not only unlucky but also very courageous to live in.

Curitiba was no São Paulo. It was its opposite image. It was calmer, more exotic, with the Serra do Mar mountains and its valleys and gorges, the old railway, wild flowers, the clouds beneath you, the sky and the sea merging into one, the Atlantic forest covering it all, and behind the mountains and the forest, the great South Atlantic Ocean. Then I saw the cold mist twisting and wrapping itself like a serpent around the tall buildings, and the city looked dreamy and mystical. But I couldn't just stand there, I had to go. My next step was to find coffee because Brazil may be famous for its coffee, but Brazilians don't know how to drink it. It is either too weak or too milky. But I knew a place in the centre, at Rua das Flores, where good coffee and conversation with a stranger was at hand. a Boca Maldita – 'the Forsaken Mouth' – a place where bohemians, academics and those who can't stand bad coffee have always met since the first electric bulb was turned on in the city.

I headed there with some joy in my bones; so much seemed to depend on that one good cup of coffee. When I got to the place, there were three men already arguing with the barman over the football result of the Sunday match.

'The referee was on your side – the thief! Or else how on earth could you explain that penalty at the last minute of the last quarter as we were about to win by 1–0? Come on! It's ridiculous! I will stop paying for my membership! What for? I ask you, ugh? What for? Why should I spend so much money every month in membership fees if when I take the trouble to go see a match the result has already been set by a bunch of businessmen who only think of the money and not of the beautiful game? What for? Go on and tell me, senhor, what for?'

'Oh, come off it,' said the other man, 'you moan every time your darling Atlético loses – every time, the same old bla, bla, bla. The last time it was the weather, which wasn't good enough for the goalkeeper to see the ball clearly. The time before that it was the referee, who should have given you a penalty but didn't. Oh, come, come, have your coffee now and accept defeat like a man! We won because we played better. It is not my fault you picked the wrong team to support.'

Then the other man grabbed him by the scruff and the barman had to intervene. It wasn't even 8 AM. As I listened to them arguing I felt warm inside. It was good to hear those familiar arguments again and it was good to be back in the city. After I finished my coffee I got up and left without paying much attention to the men, who were still arguing.

I headed to a phone cabin, put some coins in the slot, picked up the handle and dialled Tania's number.

'Hello...hello...Tania?'

'Yes Tania speaking.'

'Hi João speaking. Listen, I need your help. My entry to the United States was refused. I have no money left. I'm back in Curitiba and pretty broke. I need to get away Tania, I need to make haste, but I have nothing and nothing to do here: no job, no money, only a few days left before my landlady chucks me out – I have nothing. Not even self–respect. America is a no–go. I can't apply again for at least six months...rules. I need some ideas and I need money...'

'Shit, João...good morning! Bloody hell, man, you have the most unique way of waking people up, did you know that? Did you know that people sleep sometimes? Did you?'

'Look, I am in trouble here, I have no time to be polite, Tania... come on, I need your help! You're my friend and I take it you understand when a friend is in the shit?'

'Wo, wo, wo, calm down for God's sake,' said Tania. 'Man, you don't change do you? I am convinced you will have a heart attack before midday one of these days. Why don't you first come over and we can have breakfast and discuss all this with some coffee. I'll cook something. You sound like you could do with some food and some sleep.'

She was right. I wasn't making much sense. Twenty minutes later and I was ringing her bell. The door opened and I went in. A man – a tall, blue–eyed Apollo type – met me in the corridor on his way out. 'Hi,' was all he said. It was followed by 'goodbye.' Then the door shut behind him.

'João, is that you?' she called from her bedroom. 'I'm just getting ready – I'll be there in a minute. Make yourself comfortable. There is coffee on the kitchen table – help yourself, it will only take a minute.'

'Who was that?' I asked, while making my way into the kitchen.

'Who?' she asked.

'Don't be silly, the man who just left!' I answered back, while pouring myself a cup of coffee.

'Nobody. It's just a guy. Not very good either. I was drunk and bored and he was hanging around looking good, so I took him in for a little night of fun. He was all talk though. Let us say he was...well...,

u–n–f–u–l–f–i–l–l–i–n–g. Anyway, I'm coming, two seconds...'

'Whatever happened to your Dutch faggot?'

'Belgian, João, Pierre was B-e-l-g-i-a-n, for Christ's sake!'

'Yeah, yeah, whatever...what happened to him? Did he first change nationality and then leave you, or was it the other way around?'

'Funny, very funny. How about I say 'shut up, I don't wanna talk about it.' I'm coming in a minute.'

'Oh come on, what happened?' I insisted.

'Mummy's boy, mate, mummy's boy. Wouldn't do anything without consulting his mother first. When he told her he was going to bring me to Belgium, she freaked out and he left one morning and never returned my calls...the wanker!' she spoke from the bathroom as she struggled with her hair.

She looked tired. She had done a good job with the fellow the night before – she never failed to impress me with her sexual prowess. But she was not only the queen of one–night stands. She was also a good cook. That day she cooked me home–made pancakes and bacon and eggs, which she placed on top of the pancake stack and covered with butter sauce. She had picked up a taste for English and American breakfasts when she lived in New York and London. I devoured the food and washed it down with good coffee and orange juice. I told Tania everything about my trip. She listened very attentively, every now and then asking 'and...what else?' as a shrink would. She knew everything that there was to know about people, but intuitively. Despite her background, she was a down–to–earth woman who knew her place in the world. She was a good woman.

She sat quietly for a while, looking at me with a serious expression on her face. Then with a decided look she stood up and walked over to the bedroom, returning a moment later with a diary. She opened it and searched through piles of business cards that she kept pulling out of the inner pocket of the book. She placed the cards on the table. Then, with a discreet gesture, she pulled out a bundle of British Pound notes from the left pocket of her robe. She laid the money on the table and pushed it towards me.

'Ok, here's the plan. You take this money and keep it. You will need it. I will use my credit card and buy you a ticket to London. I have contacts there. You will be fine.'

'Tania, no...'

'João, shut up! Why did you call me? You wanted a solution to your problem, no? Well, here is the solution. London is a place like no other. I lived there for three months two years ago for a training course we had to do for the office – I've probably told you about this before, haven't I?'

'Yes... well, I vaguely remember something... '

'Yes, so you will like it there and you will learn English there too – which is, after all, the best place to learn proper English if you ask me. You don't want to go to America for that – believe me! Good God almighty, I hate that damn accent! You will also no doubt get a job doing something, bar–tending or cleaning probably – but it should keep you going. João, I'm glad you came to me. I'll miss having you around, I'll miss our friendship, but I am very excited that you're going to London. It is one of my favourite cities in the world – and I have been places! You won't need a visa to get in. I know they will give you three months as a tourist, if you're lucky. But whatever happens, I'm sure they'll let you in providing you don't blow it. You will need to prove you have enough money to stay and that's why I'm giving you this cash. It is by no means enough, but you can take any bankcard you may have and just show it to them. Tell them you have money in there and that your parents will send you some in case you need more. They usually won't check with the bank; the British are very polite, and a little too trustful.'

I had nothing left to say to Tania except that I would write to her and call every month to tell her how I was doing, and that I would repay her as soon as I could. In the next hour she had booked me a flight to London on the promise I'd pay her back once I had earned enough. I took the two hundred and fifty five pounds she had given me and hopped on a bus. I got home, had a shower, changed clothes and took down my suitcase from off the top of the wardrobe. I cleaned my leather shoes, repacked my new suit and within an hour I was ready to go to the airport the following morning. Tania offered to drive me there, since the flight left at 6:00 AM and I had to be there two hours before. I was excited and couldn't believe the change in my circumstances. All of a sudden I was human again and I had a little hope that things would turn out all right after all.

I knew nothing about London. To be honest, I barely knew where the United Kingdom was. I thought Scotland was close to Scandinavia, but I didn't quite know where Scandinavia was, so that didn't help. When my neighbour, Senhor Figueira, showed me in his Encyclopaedia Britannica that Scotland was part of the same island as England and Wales, I was rather surprised. In fact, I felt as if all those years living with my parents and attending night school had produced a void of knowledge in me that would be hard to overcome even if I read a book a day for the rest of my life.

Senhor Figueira, on the other hand had been a secondary school teacher in 'the good old days,' and he liked very much to talk about world history and geography. He seemed to know a good deal about so–called hard facts. How long is the Nile? Who were the Phoenicians? Why was gold so important for the Aztecs? Where was the Great Wall of China built and during which dynasty? In other words, Senhor Figueira loved useless knowledge and was always invited over whenever a neighbour decided to have an evening of board games and trivia. After years of detailed work on the family's genealogical tree, he had traced his roots back to the Caravelas that brought admiral Fernando Alvares Cabral and his men to the shores of what we now call Brazil, and which they baptised as Terra de Santa Cruz – 'Land of the Blessed Cross' – in honour of their Christian God: the same God that later became Brazilian and sent the native inhabitants of that land searching for low–paid jobs in the city. That same God flooded valleys and burned villages. He made the Indians speak another language, worship another God and wear clothes made in Taiwan. Then that same God gave them money to shut them up, and they did not know what to do with it, so they got drunk.

'If God is Brazilian, he is an awful landlord,' Senhor Figueira would say, and he was not proud that his family was related to the Europeans.

'I research,' he once told me, 'so I can become humble and admit my guilt before the circumstances the poor down–trodden natives of this wonderful land have been confined to by us white men. We are rotten, my dear João, rotten! We threw them out of Eden and watched them wander aimlessly through the backstreets of our self-inflicted hell'.

This was the same man who died three months later, victim of a native Brazilian, who cut his throat open with a broken bottle of beer when Senhor Figueira denied him some change: a case that made the local news. The Indian was sent to prison and the government began to rethink its policies; now the Indians would no longer get money but be forced into school.

After learning some facts with the still–alive Senhor Figueira that night, I was unable to sleep. The prospect of arriving in a country whose whereabouts I had only just learned the day before, and where language was going to be a great problem, frankly scarred me out of my wits. Yet the pros were outweighing the cons, and my sleeplessness was mainly due to excitement, not fear. I knew I could only progress from there and I was sure that the people there would be interested in a young man coming from exotic Brazil. I was so sure of it that I prepared myself mentally that night by practicing answers to all sorts of questions to do with where I came from, which language I spoke and how I liked my eggs in the morning.

I thought I was going to be unique in my surroundings and that my origins would draw people towards me, perhaps even offer me work on the basis of difference. After all, I had different talents, looks and accent. What a naïve idiot! But I went even further. I began to think that perhaps I could fall in love with an English rose, as she would for me, and that we would both live an exciting and cultural life in the country of King Arthur – at that time my only association for England was King Arthur. Despite my interest in literature, I was very much uneducated in all ways and not worldly at all, a condition that made me particularly susceptible to accepting myths unquestionably. Arthur, for me, was a fact, like the 'Little Cripple' who, supposedly, sculpted churches in Brazil, or Count Dracula. I was so alienated and downright stupid that one of the things I wanted to do when I had some free time was to visit Camelot, or hopefully even catch a glimpse of Excalibur at the British Museum. That wasn't even my only blunder. For some inexplicable reason I also thought that the British Museum kept the chewing gum Marx had placed under his favourite desk in the Reading Room in a permanent display in one of its galleries! I was eager to see it.

When I finally caught up with some sleep I found myself having a psychedelic dream involving Marx, King Arthur, Lady Di and John Wayne.

I was sitting in an oval library surrounded by enormous oak shelves that were packed top to bottom with thick volumes of world history and economic trends, when a man barged in. He began to address an old looking man who was writing frantically behind piles of books. I could see them, but they could not see me.

'Karl, Karl!' shouted Arthur. 'Karl, please, you must help me! Our comrade Wayne is in trouble. Those damn Indians are attacking his fort and he needs re–enforcements. Karl! Karl! Stop writing your absurdities and please come help us. You're Jewish aren't you? You could at least lend me some money for ammunition: Wayne's cause is our cause comrade. Remember? One for all, all for one!'

'I'm sorry, Arthur dear, I am very sorry indeed. But you already know my position. I am not religious and I have no money. To call me Jewish is an overstatement of my spiritual condition. My friend Friedrich helps me out by giving me an allowance so I can keep writing about the schweinekapitalisten. I also believe religion is the opium of the people so, no Arthur dear, I can hardly be called a Jew, and I hardly have any possessions to dispense with at will. Have you already spoken to Lady Di? She seems to have good political muscle and the support of the people, who one day will unite and lose their chains! Maybe you could see if she would lend you a few quid? She's been to Africa and India hugging kids with runny noses and maybe she can get the Smurfs to interfere in the conflict you talk so passionately about.'

'Karl, you are an idiot. Do you think Lady Di, or the Queen of England or any Smurf would be remotely interested in Wayne's cause? He is a lonely man, a dying hero trying to defend our rights, the corner–stone institutions of our civilisation.'

'Ah, yes, and these would be...?'

'I'm talking about the Rifle Association, of course – an organization that sets an example by spreading peace and good morals in the land of the savages. I don't think a privileged woman like her would give a damn about Wayne's need to shoot the bloody Indians and keep them away from Fort New York, do you? Look, I'm a King myself and if I weren't a myth I would surely intervene with my own bare hands. But what are myths good for except serving as inspiration for the literary cunts who created us and the coffee drinkers who read about us later when we're sitting inside some book, gathering dust on some shelf in a posh bookshop somewhere in South Kensington? I mean, tell me, what is the point of reading Finnegan's Wake if not to impress your mates at AA meetings?'

'All right, all right, I will send an e–mail to El Commandante, El Ché. He's a good and determined man, a very thorough man, and he will sort out the Indians for Wayne. For now just lay low and keep out of trouble will you? I heard they are about to wire Camelot, floor to ceiling – those damn Indians are very cunning. I heard they get trained by the Stasi.'

'Who the hell is 'El Commandante Ché,' Karl? Have you been drinking again?'

'El Ché is a good man, a good and thorough man, Arthur, and he will create a revolution before those Indians set foot in New York. Do not worry Arthur dear, I am writing something which will set El Ché and his companions on fire, and before you know it, Wayne will have some help at the battle front and he'll be on top of things once again. Don't lose hope, comrade, the battle is only beginning and I know that united we will overthrow their tyranny. We'll no longer serve – no more exploitation! We'll no longer serve as the appendage to their machines.'

'Karl...'

'Yes, Arthur?'

'You are one confused fuck.'

'Well, man, that's just your opinion. I don't criticise you for wearing tights, do I?'

Then everything froze and none of them spoke a word or moved a muscle. I sat there in the corner of the library and, as if out of a Hitchcock movie, a secret door opened between the enormous oak shelves. A man in black came out, and to my surprise he did not address the other men in the room, but looked instead straight at me. He then began to walk in my direction and when he was close enough for me to see his wrinkles, he said:

'Remember me, João? Yes, it is I, Emmanuel. I told you we would meet again. I was the one responsible for you not going to the United States. It was I, and I alone, who brought you back on your path; that way you will come to me. Come to me, João, come to me. I'll show you the path.'

I sprang from the bed in a panic. 'Have I missed the flight?' I thought as I leaped into the air and missed the floor with my right foot as I landed, slipping and falling backwards onto the chair that stood next to the bed, while smashing the alarm clock with my behind and causing my developing haemorrhoids to shoot up a sharp warning of pain and agony across my body. I looked at the clock and it was destroyed. Somehow what was left of it read 4:35 AM. I was late! Tania had been waiting outside for almost thirty minutes when I finally reached out for the handle and opened the door of her car.

'I'm so sorry, Tania, I didn't sleep well and the alarm clock failed to wake me up.'

'João, I don't know how you do it, but you do it...man!!!!' she said with a pointed, sharp, metallic voice and a more–than–annoyed look on her sleepless face.

'Rush, rush, I'll have to drive like Ayrton Senna or else you will miss the goddamn flight. Sit tight and hold on!!!!'

'FLOOR IT, TANIA, FLOOR IT!' I shouted.

WHRAMMMM..., WHRAMMMM..., WHRAMMMM...the car struggled through the streets as I held on to dear life. Tania wasn't as good behind the wheel as she was in front of the stove. After nearly killing three people and injuring two, and cutting through two amber–turning–red lights and definitely one red light – which she objected to until we got to the departures terminal 'it was most positively amber, most positively' – we finally made it to Alfonso Pena International Airport.

Tania lectured me on being punctual and how the British are punctual, and how I will suffer if I don't get this and that straight, and this and that and more of this and more of that, she cried like a mother who has to say goodbye to her only boy who is going to a distant country to fight a war they both neither understand nor approve. She held my face between her palms and outstretched fingers and said 'Good bye John of God, I hope you find what you are looking for.'

'What did you say?' I asked.

'John of God, that's your name in English.

'John of God... it sounds nice,' I said.

She kissed me on my forehead and told me to go. I turned around and walked to the gates. When I looked back, Tania was gone.

I was a desperate man, but I had made myself a promise, a promise to find the path, and there was some hope in there.

The promise was to myself alone. Hope came from the dust.
Part II – Eden

6

The Gates of Thebes

A glass of wine and I was gone. It was a heavy dream. They all burned: burned, locked inside that church, all those people burned, screaming and burning like meat. I ran through the forest to escape it all. Instead of trees there were people standing, feet planted deep into the ground. I felt the urge to scream. I looked down and saw roots instead of legs, leaves sprouting out of my fingertips. It was too late. I looked up and the sky was torn in cast–iron greys that split and cracked into veins of energy. The snow began to fall. Masses of snow... it seemed to cover the whole world. Five hundred years later, men still digging for oil found bones buried deep down in the mud and they couldn't tell when the bones became tree and when the tree became bones.

I woke up as the plane was gliding above Paris, the clouds looking like an old blanket covering the city the same way bubble wrap covers a delicate piece of ancient pottery. I was soaked through with sweat. We circled; round and round we circled, floating like ash above the city. The captain said we were descending and that he was waiting for his turn to land his winged ship at Charles de Gaulle. That's when the sheer impossibility of a thousand tonne piece of junk flying hit me. I could imagine Parisians down below sleeping in the comfort of their beds, some making coffee, others making love, some already baking the bread, being robbed, taking a dump. Some had been crying all night. I thought of the impossibility of humanity and all the thousands of years of knowledge and ignorance that went with it. I thought of the aerodynamics involved in the path of least resistance that the air makes under the wings, lifting the whole thing up, so effortlessly. It seemed only logical, magical and impossible.

Yet everyone in the cabin acted as if nothing was happening. In
my head that sheer metallic impossibility could well burst into flames at any moment for all I knew. But they ordered coffee, ate sweet pastry and read the newspaper, as Pyrrho would have done.

The wine from the night before had done its job, and sure as spaghetti Bolognese is a tasty dish, a banging headache made me not care to see dreamy Paris from above. By the time we flew over the Seine I had my face buried in a paper bag where I left a piece of my liver for posterity. It was 'a low–hhhank Claret, wis no elegance and too much sulphates; possibly even egg yolk...' according to the wine expert, a lawyer from Marseille, who sat next to me.

'A re–al shame, but I have to say dis airline has let me daun. The vine zey served on dis flight was a re–al calamity, I repeat, a c–a–l–a–m–i–t–iiiii! Don't you sink?' pronounced the pompous connoisseur in heavily–accented English. I couldn't understand much of what he was babbling about, but his body language let me guess that was what the idiot meant. It's funny how people's priorities change according to the amount of money they have in their pockets. I was just happy they gave me something to knock me out.

Fifteen minutes later, after interminable anticlockwise circles, the plane landed. I crossed Charles de Gaulle's terminal three. It took me thirty minutes to walk across it. I drowsily made my way to gate fifty-four, where another thousand–tonne metal bird was getting ready to jet me up and away to my final destination. There another much more serious problem then bad Claret would manifest itself in the shape of a tall, white, close–shaved, egg–headed British immigration officer named Dan Blacksmith and his work–mate, a woman in her forties with huge breasts, enormous loop earrings and peroxide blond hair tied into a bun, a woman called Jane C. MacLean.

The flight to London was the longest forty-five–minute flight in the history of aviation. Shortly after we landed, I stood in front of Dan and Jane at the U.K. Border desk number five at Heathrow airport terminal four. I felt like Oedipus trying to answer the riddle of the sphinx at the ancient gates of Thebes. Unlike him, I did not have the answer.

They were friendly at first, if dull and dry, robotic perhaps. But in no time at all I began to feel like the inmate of a detention centre. I had never been in one of those myself; I was not a delinquent juvenile, Jew, gay, black, vegetarian or in any shape or form the self–declared enemy of any state. Still, I had an acute mistrust of all authority.

'Good morning sir, your passport please,' asked Dan. I only understood the word 'passport,' so I handed it to the man.

'I have to inform you that you will need a visa to enter the U.K. Have you any proof that you can afford to visit the United Kingdom without having to work to sustain yourself? How long are you intending to stay?' the man asked with no expression on his face.

All I understood from Dan's monologue was something along the lines of 'wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa.' Then despair began to settle in and my knees began to tremble. I felt like I was going to start pissing myself. I knew that if I did not manage to say something Dan and Jane would be more than happy to kick my Brazilian arse into a van and keep me locked up until the next available flight back to São Paulo shot me up into the heavens again. In the midst of a panic attack, and hoping my face would not morph into something resembling Boris Koblischeck, I gesticulated something I thought made sense to them. Frantically waving my hands in the air as if I was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, I [thought] I said:

'I am here only for a brief English language course paid upfront by the company I work for in Brazil. This is a prominent multinational corporation and I am an important part of their product development team. A very essential employee, I am, well praised for my efforts and talents, so I most definitely want to go back.'

Dan and Jane looked lost and not at all impressed, so they called a translator. In the meantime I could feel the eyes of the people standing behind me in the queue, waiting for their time to be interrogated. I turned around for a second as we waited for the translator and noted that they looked deflated, if irritated. I had no option but to pretend they weren't there and so I began to stare at the ceiling as if I was looking for something. I started to think up a plan in case my visa was denied. Faint? Pretend I was getting a heart attack? Tell them my wallet had been stolen during the flight? I thought about things I could say that would make them take pity on me and let me in. I thought about telling them I had terminal cancer and that visiting London was my only and last wish, or something of that sort; something dramatic that touched their hearts. Dan looked at me with an air of disgust, and filling his mouth with catarrh rheum and snot, he spat on the floor. I knew then that he had no sensitive spot I could reach out to. I was just about to form a sentence in my head, something I thought would sound remotely coherent, but that would more likely get me deported – when the interpreter arrived.

Mercedes de la Paz Vega was a chubby Spanish woman from Valladolid who had studied Portuguese for six months in Oporto as part of her training as a linguist. Like most students going on such exchanges, Mercedes learned to drink, had sex for the first time in her life and contracted a weird form of bacteria that, for years to come, would prevent her from eating gelatine. After some brief instructions from Dan and Jane as to what they wanted to know, Mercedes turned to me with her bored chicken pox–cratered face and, without introducing herself, fired:

'O senhor está na fronteira da Inglaterra. Devo informar–lo de que qualquer ato de vandalismo será considerado um ato contra as leis deste país, ato que será punido pelo rigor da lei Britânica. (You are at the UK border. I must inform you that any act of vandalism will be considered an offence against the laws of this country and it will be punished accordingly by the British law.')

Mercedes's words sounded cool and measured, like a surveillance piece of equipment straight out of 1984. When she spoke, her lips barely moved. I thought she was communicating through telepathy. Her face was as plain and uninteresting as a roll of toilet paper.

Still, I froze on the spot. The majestic sentence I had prepared with such care and dexterity vanished from my mind as quickly as French people can drink Claret. The only words I was able to utter were on the lines of 'I am not a criminal. I intend no act of vandalism in your beautiful country. I am here in peace and to learn English – Amen!' I said that in a tone that must have sounded like 'I'm–shitting–in–my–pants–please–let–me–in–before–I–do–something–really–strange–and–begin–to–chew–my–own–thumb' universal sign language.

I was not sure how much Mercedes understood what I had said. Still, she made a gesture for me to wait as she conferred with Dan and Jane. Jane gesticulated and kept pointing at my passport while Dan looked at me so intensely I was sure he could see the inside of my stomach and what I had eaten for breakfast. I was horrified! I was sure I would be boarding the next flight back to Brazil in no time. After their little rendezvous, which to me felt like an infernal eternity, Mercedes came back with another torrent of questions:

'O senhor pode provar of que me disse? Teria o senhor prova que pagou uma escola de Inglês em Londres? Teria o senhor um endereço fixo aqui, de um amigo, ou alguém que estaria disposto a hospedá–lo pelo período de sua estadia. O senhor teria como provar que tem dinheiro suficiente para começar e terminar seu curso sem precisar trabalhar em nenhum lugar no Reino Unido. Lembre–se, o senhor está sobre juramento e, como em uma corte de justiça, uma resposta desonesta será anotada e usada contra o senhor em caso de extradição. (Can you prove what you have just told us? Can you prove that you have already pre–paid an English course in London? Do you have a fixed–term address here, the address of a friend or someone who would be willing to have you under their care for the period of your stay? Can you prove you have the necessary financial resources to start and finish your English course without having to work anywhere in the United Kingdom? Remember that you are under oath and, just like in a court of justice, a dishonest answer could cause us to prosecute you.')

I very nearly shit myself this time – really. I thought of the great writers and poets and actors and painters, the scientists and literary and academic minds forced to flee Nazi Germany, and I thought of the interviews they had to go through upon arrival in their host countries. Yes, that's right, I was so tired and burned out that I was beginning to see myself as some sort of war refugee. I was guilty until proved innocent, and I was guilty of being poor. At that moment, just as I became convinced I was going to be held in a detention centre somewhere, due to Mercedes lack of better Portuguese and her enormous, distracting breasts, I got lucky.

Let me explain. As Mercedes was translating my reply to those questions, she mistranslated something I said: something that turned out to be crucial. After presenting Dan and Jane with the documents they had asked for (I had only some of them), I began to address the question of whether I had enough money to remain in the country without having to work. When the moment came, I suggested I had a bank account back in Brazil, which contained some funds and which I could easily access with my bankcard from an ATM in England. I said I could not produce a balance sheet of the contents of the account on the spot, but that I could easily phone my uncle and ask him to go to the bank and fax one to me immediately – if they could just spare half an hour. Mercedes translated to Dan and Jane that my uncle was the owner of the bank. She misunderstood when I said 'meu tio pode ir ao banco' (my uncle can go to the bank), with 'meu tio tem um banco' (my uncle owns a bank).

This confusion, not that it mattered anyway for it was all a stinking lie, could easily have been untangled by Mercedes and I would never have entered the United Kingdom. But thanks to Mercedes breasts, which I starred at unashamedly, I was able to walk free. I think she liked me looking at them. She liked the fact that I appreciate them to the point that she made no further effort to really understand what I was saying. She could sense it was all a lie, I'm sure, and yet she turned a blind eye, probably because she was a little too horny, and bored, to care.

After much deliberation, Dan Blacksmith held his rubber stamp like a pro and... no, no, he held it like a splendid Roman general, and as he did so he ended the impatient agitation caused by the businessmen, house–wives, butchers, kids, pimps and prostitutes, lawyers, drug dealers and school teachers from all over the world, who queued up behind me waiting for their turn to be crushed by Dan's mighty fists. Like a Roman general holding his sword, Dan Blacksmith stamped my passport with a mundane but vigorous gesture that ended my terror and gave me a glimpse of a new world. He drowned the stamp in the black inkpad and stamped on page seven of the booklet: 'PERMIT TO REMAIN FOR THREE WEEKS.' A subtitle read: 'With No Right to Work.'

I couldn't believe it. At last! Free at last! London here I come! London stood outside of the glass doors of the interminable maze of corridors, the confusing labyrinth of luggage trolleys, coffee shops, computer screens, people in funny hats, cleaners, hugs, tears and conveyor belts that is Heathrow airport. London, the sublime city of poets and visionaries, the London of great minds and souls, London, the greatest city in the world, here I am! And how I adore you already!

I headed down to the underground station and caught sight for the first time of what I came later to perceive as the most beautiful sentence in the English language: 'Mind the Gap.' It was written on every platform just under a yellow line that like a symmetrically intelligent serpent, made its way along the station despite the many feet that stepped on it. Then I wondered about the 'Mind' in front and thought it was probably some sort of warning. I did not know what 'Gap' meant, but I knew 'Mind,' and logically deduced that it was saying that people should be careful with their heads when the trains were coming, or else that the people standing there should try to keep sane in case their train was delayed or simply in order to survive in a city of eight or so million people.

Anyhow, on the advice of a Brazilian woman I met while waiting for the train, I took the Piccadilly line from Heathrow to Earl's Court. To attempt to say that distressfully unpronounceable vowel–consonant–vowel name caused my tongue to tie into a knot at first: EARRRLLLSSS COUUURRRRT.

'That's a good place to stop because you can change lines' said my new, short–lived acquaintance. 'From there you can get to wherever you have to go. Just head towards Earls Court then ask somebody there – they'll tell you.'

I followed her advice. When I arrived at EARRRLLLSSS COUUURRRRT, as the woman told me to, I looked for the underground staff. I showed him the address of the English school, which I had written on a piece of paper. Without really understanding what the heavily moustached man in blue uniform, with a piercing on his nose and a tattoo of a deck of cards on each knuckle had just told me, I headed to a theatrically named place called 'Fulham Broadway.' So I changed to the District Line and in less than ten minutes I had reached my destination.

The receptionist of the school was a tall Argentinian man and his colleagues all sounded and looked like Russians. To be honest, the school reminded me a little bit of Donizetti's brothel: a man behind the counter surrounded by women and mirrors everywhere you looked. Except, of course, these women were much more beautiful than the old whores of Paradise Road. The Argentinian could have been Donizetti's brother, though. The same tall Argentinian said he wasn't able to register me at the English school because of my visa restrictions. I insisted: 'If we poor Latinos don't help one another, who will?' He went along with it despite hating my guts, because all Argentinians hate Brazilians and vice versa. That said, this one was all right; he let me sign up for a four–week course. I paid the amount and asked if he knew a place I could stay the night, to which he replied that the school would provide me with some assistance if I paid a fee. I paid the fee. I had barely arrived and the money I had was already running thin. The Argentinian talked me through a list of possible places I could stay: families in the area who were willing to take in a student for a short time. I chose a family who lived near Wimbledon, in Reynes Park to be more precise. Before I headed there with my luggage, the tall Argentinian insisted on showing me around.

The school was located at a busy junction in Fulham's King's Road. It was a 'multicultural space' (he was particularly proud of that) where people from all over the world seemed to be represented: Chileans, Philippines, Afghanis, Brazilians, South Koreans, Chinese, and I even found a man from outer Mongolia and a woman from an Eskimo tribe. They all looked at me as if I was the most common thing they had ever seen. No one was surprised to see someone from Brazil hanging around there; I seemed to be the only one surprised about that. I had never heard so many different accents and languages or seen so many exotic faces in my whole life. I wondered what it all meant. Why were they all in London? The atmosphere was pleasant, and surprisingly familiar (maybe because it looked like a brothel), but I knew my time there was going to be short–lived.

A little later and I had arrived at the address the tall Argentinian had given me, but I couldn't believe this was the place. This was an enormous Swiss–style chalet that looked way too posh to be student accommodation. What would such a family want with a student that would pay them a little money each week? But there was no mistake; this was the right address. I pressed the buzzer.

'Yes?'

'Mr Hamilton, Mr Jonathan Hamilton?'

'Yes, this is the place. I am Mrs Hamilton. Can I help you?'

'Ah...I, I, I...am...João,' I said.

'João? João who? Who would you like to speak to?'

'From the English school... I... student,' I said unsure if she understood me at all.

'But of course! Sure, sure, please come through. We were expecting you!'

The woman buzzed me in and I went through the front gates. I noticed the house was divided into a basement and three upper floors. In the basement there were huge bay windows and a serious–looking man, who looked at me while holding a phone between his left cheek and his shoulder, a heavy–looking book in his hands and spectacles on the tip of his nose. He looked like he was in a hurry to hang up. Then he hung up and disappeared behind a wall. The door opened, and before me stood Mr and Mrs Hamilton with genuine faces bearing genuine smiles that showed me all their tea–stained teeth. I was welcomed in and made to sit and drink a cup of tea.

Beth and Nina, the two daughters, sat around the table with us. Beth was sixteen and Nina eighteen, and both of them looked like rebellious teenagers. Beth's skin was so pure and pale she looked like one of Rafael's cherubim's, with her big blue eyes and blond curly hair. Nina, on the other hand was clearly at a genetic disadvantage: bad skin, and short and bendy legs. From the neck down she reminded me of the Michelin man. Both girls had make–up on, shit loads of it. Yet my eyes were drawn to the contrast between Mr and Mrs Hamilton. He was English through and through, no questions asked. Just imagine a tall man with yellow crooked teeth and lots of grey hair perched on top of a pointy face, ornamented with a long nose and blue eyes. He wore beige cords, flannel shirt and soft brown leather shoes purchased from Clarks. An architect, he was old–school and drank English breakfast tea with no sugar and only a little drop of milk 'just a tinge, you don't want it to go milky!' He drank Earl Grey with lemon in the afternoon. He loved Elgar and Holst and followed cricket. Every now and then he went down to the local to watch rugby with some mates. He knew how to sail and had a collection of stamps.

Mrs Hamilton, on the other hand, was a Turkish woman, half the size of Mr Hamilton, with no formal education, a proper Turkish nose she could open tin cans with, tanned skin and very strong dark features all around her face: eyebrows, hair, eyes, everything about her spoke of the Anatolian civilization. Hair, hair, hair, lots of hair, everywhere. My English was so poor I couldn't pick up an accent in her English, but I seemed to understand her better than Mr Hamilton, whose calm voice, accent and appearance reminded me of Sir Richard Attenborough.

'Oh, how wonderful, so you're from Brazil?' said Mr Hamilton. 'I love Rio! I've been there many times, with my ex–wife – such a wonderful city! Tell me, is it still beautiful?' he asked enthusiastically. I was ashamed to say it, but I had never been to Rio, and so I felt the need to lie. I'm sure he knew I was lying, but I think he was so excited he didn't care. I could have told him Rio had been hit by an asteroid and completely obliterated, and he would still have said 'Oh, very wonderful, how wonderful indeed!'

'Yes...Rio...very beautiful, beautiful, oh sooo wonderful, the people, the beach, Sugar Loaf mountain...tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan...' (I said that in the usual way: hands in the air, fingers pointing up and weird samba moves).

Then I heard a cry. No, there were two cries, and before I could ask, the pair emerged between Mr Hamilton's legs and I recognized them as Mrs Hamilton's sons, for they looked rather Mediterranean like her. I starred at Mr Hamilton and couldn't find any resemblance between him and the kids. As if reading my thoughts, Mr Hamilton explained that they were her kids and not his kids and that the two girls, Beth and Nina, were his daughters and not her daughters, and that they had only been recently married, after the long battle that led to the official divorce of Mr Hamilton and his ex–wife, Sophie – a psychiatrist who went mad as a cookie after reading The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience and then taking LSD.

'But you must stop calling us Mr and Mrs,' uttered Mrs Hamilton.

'I'm Malaka and this is Jonathan, or John for short.'

I sat there and smiled back with the famous 'I–haven't–got–a–clue–what–you're–talking–about–so–I'm–going–to–nod–and–smile–as–an–idiot–so–you–know–I–sympathise' type of face.

'These...' she continued, '...are Joshy and Bobby. Joshy is three and Bobby five. Say hello to our new guest, boys,' she said picking them up on her lap.

'Hello,' said Bobby hiding and burying his face between his mother's protuberant breasts.

Joshy stood there and starred at me, while chewing on his knuckle and dribbling all over his Thunder Cats t–shirt.

The Hamilton's home was a modern house built by Mr Hamilton himself. He owned a construction and architecture company, which he ran from the basement of the house, and he seemed to be doing rather well. But he also found it important to keep in touch with things beyond his work and his family, and although he by no means needed the money, he liked to take students in, just to have '...some new blood and let some fresh air in the house and maybe learn something new.' So that's why I was there, and that's why I had my own room in the loft with my own bathroom and a very comfortable double bed. It was, in fact, the most comfortable bed I had ever landed on. After that bed, all other beds could only be unsatisfying.

Mrs Hamilton was a good cook, and although they didn't have to, they always invited me for dinner. They never had proper lunch and only nibbled a little during the day. Dinner, however, was sacred. Everyone had to come down and sit around the great glass–and–steel table at the top of the mezzanine that separated the open–plan kitchen from the spacious living room. After dinner, it was time to watch the news on the couch.

The two boys grew fond of me and came to sit, one on each side, as if I was their big brother. I don't normally like kids – I never know what to do with them – but I liked those two. They made me feel like I was part of something. The Hamilton family looked after me as if I was one of their own. Beth and Nina helped me a lot with my English, and Mrs Hamilton gave me some advice about London. Mr Hamilton was the paternal figure that made sure I always ate well and never stayed out until late studying:

'You need to rest, young man. What I remember from the time I was a student is that knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing when to start.'

I went to the English school in the mornings and studied at home in the afternoon. Very quickly I was able to communicate in English and I began to receive compliments: 'your English is improving – I'm well impressed,' Beth once commented when I pronounced a–l–t–h–o–u–g–h with my tongue properly tucked behind my teeth to make the 'th' sound correctly. That cheered me up. But before long I had no money left and when the school asked to see my renewed visa, I had to stop going. I found a part–time job at an Italian restaurant at Raynes Park, and although the money was very bad, it was enough to pay the rent and buy a bar of soap and some bread and fruit.

I worked night shifts behind the coffee machine and they never asked me to see my passport; they knew that if they did I would have to stop working there, and they didn't want that because I was cheap, very cheap. They only paid me the tips – a tenth of what the waiters got for the same amount of hours. I washed dishes, cleaned the toilets, swept the floor, made coffee and supported the others who had much better English and spoke in a funny Italian dialect I thought was Sicilian, maybe Neapolitan, perhaps Calabrese; it was hard to say. Whatever it was, the place smelled of the Mafia. Every now and then I was allowed to eat a steak if I wanted one, and every shift we would eat pizza or some kind of pasta – which were always delicious and filling. That's the thing with the Mafia; the bastards always eat so well! There is no better feeling than the feeling of being full. So, in a way, I was doing well and things were looking up. Until bad news came and I was out in the streets for the first time.

One morning Mr Hamilton came into the house shouting and cursing, and then Mrs Hamilton began to shout and curse back, quickly followed by more shouting and cursing from Beth and Nina, and before I knew the whole house had erupted into an anxious craze that made my face the size of a watermelon. The boys were crying and I felt trapped up in the loft, not knowing whether to come down or stay up. But I needn't decide. Soon enough, there came a knock on the door, the door opened, and Mrs Hamilton poked her nose in, telling me they needed to speak to me downstairs at once.

'And..., whatever happened to your face?'

'An allergy,' I told her.

They were all sitting around the kitchen table with serious and tearful faces. I asked them what the problem was, but nothing came back except for:

'Whatever happened to your face?'

'Allergy,' I said.

'Whatever,' said Mr Hamilton, '...listen, João, we need the room. You'll have to leave before the end of the week.'

My English was certainly better than before, but I didn't know whether it was my understanding of the situation or the language that was making me confused.

'Sorry, my friend,' said Mr Hamilton, '...but something has happened to my firm and I can no longer afford this place. We have to move out by the end of the month. We need to clear everything and leave. I am sorry but you must leave before the end of week so we can organize everything – and there is a lot to organize. I am very sorry about the short notice.'

'We have enjoyed having you here, but there is nothing we can do

I'm afraid,' sobbed Mrs Hamilton, the Turkish immigrant who had fled an abusive husband in Turkey and was now trying to rebuild her life in England.

To this day, I don't know what happened exactly. Two days after the announcement I overheard Nina on the phone with a friend, and I gathered from her conversation that it was something to do with the ex–wife, but this was not entirely clear. Four days later, I packed up my bags, and without much ado I left one morning without saying goodbye to the girls or the boys or any of them. The atmosphere in that house was unbearable. I left through the front door and Mr Hamilton was the last person I saw. He was standing by his bay window as usual. He held his hand up and tilted his head forwards. I replied in kind. Five minutes later I hopped on a bus that took me into Wimbledon Village. I had my suitcase with me, but nowhere to go.

Once in Wimbledon I spotted a newsagent who advertised rooms to let and some odd jobs. I wrote some numbers down on a piece of paper, bought a calling card and dragged my suitcase to the nearest phone booth. I sat on the suitcase and spent two hours calling all the numbers I had written down. Most ads were at least a day old and most rooms were either taken or were not for me. 'Sorry it's already been taken.' 'How old did you say you were?' 'No, sorry, we're really looking for a non–smoking female to share with...' 'Hello, no, no, we would prefer someone who can understand English to an advanced level.' 'Hello, no, sorry, I don't accept students – I'm looking for professionals only.' Eventually I got tired of that, and with the little pocket money I had I walked to a café near Wimbledon Tennis Museum and sat down for a while. The waitress came by and imposed an order on me. I told her I wanted a cup of coffee with milk and sugar. Across from me, a dark–skinned man with curly black hair, jeans, trainers and white cotton socks, a baseball cap and a t–shirt that read 'São Paulo Terra da Garoa,' looked at me as if suspecting I was Brazilian too. He was drinking coffee and reading the Daily Telegraph. He lowered the paper a little so he could observe me. I smiled back. Before I could blink he had already walked over and was sitting at my table.

'Paulo da Silva,' said the man with a broad, white–teethed smile.

'João de Deus.'

'What's up, João?' asked the man, trying to sound casual.

'I'm looking for a place to stay but I'm out of luck. This is my luggage and all the money I have will be gone after I pay for this coffee,' I told him. I felt I had nothing else to lose so I might as well lose my dignity.

It worked.

'Nonsense! No fellow Brazilian will perish if I'm around. You come with me. I live in a big flat and we have a sofa and you can stay as long as you need. I can also see if a friend of mine needs some help in his pub. The money is not too bad and you will meet some nice people there,' said Paulo, now somewhat excited, and I should have guessed then.

'What's your name again?'

'João, João de Deus,' a shiver went up my neck as I said that.

'It is nice to meet you João. How long have you been in London for? Have you ever worked in a restaurant before? How old are you? Do you have a visa? The man bombarded me with his middle–class Portuguese (meaning that the verbs were conjugated in the right form).

I tried to answer all his questions in order. He noticed when I jumped over the visa question and returned to it a little later.

'Do you, or do you not have a visa?'

'Look, I got into the country and I was already more than happy with that. I had no money and they only gave me a tourist visa – three weeks. I'm finding it really difficult to find any work this way. Would you help me?'

'I would like to. But I can't promise much. Not sure many people would take you without a visa and not–so–good English. Where are you working now?'

'I've been doing some work in an Italian restaurant down in Raynes Park. But they only pay me tips and the hours are no good. Good food though.'

'What? They only pay you tips? That's illegal!'

'Well, so am I.'

'Still, they can't do that!'

'I'm pretty sure they can,' I said.

'No, they can't do that!'

'They just did.'

'I'll tell you what; tomorrow you get out of there. No, don't even go there anymore. They don't deserve notice. Just don't turn up anymore,' he said, waving his hands up and down.

'They gave me a job when I needed one and the food is really good,' I replied.

'No, they saw an opportunity to exploit somebody and they took it. That's how these guys make business in this city – immigrants are plentiful here and they know they can pay very little for those who are here illegally. And they know you are illegal, or else you would not take the job, would you?'

'I suppose you're right,' I said. 'But the food was really good.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake, forget the food! Listen up you come with me. Whatever I can offer you will be better than what you have now – I guarantee you,' Paulo told me with a broad smile as his nashers sparkled in the sun.

I was happy someone was taking such care that I wasn't being ripped off, but something was really bothering me at this point. It wasn't the lack of money or papers or even a place to live. It was the fact that I had been in London for nearly a month and still I had not seen Trafalgar Square or Big Ben or the Thames. I had been so worried about getting by that I had forgotten that there was a glorious city out there waiting for me to explore it. It would take another week before I would get to see Big Ben or the Thames for the first time, but at the time I didn't know that. The days went by and eventually the great day came, as all other days come, with the ultimate transformation of darkness into light.

7

The Four Lions

It was Sunday morning as I stood on top of the stairs of the National Gallery. I looked down, in the direction of Nelson's Column. From there I saw the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. There were hundreds of people standing at the square, taking pictures, sitting, basking in the sun, cheating death for a minute, pretending their days were never-ending, the sun forever shining above their heads, that they were right to waste time and that if there was one place on earth they should do that it was the space between the four lions of Trafalgar Square.

The fountains sprayed water high up into the air. It sprinkled on the faces of passers–by: some giggled, some were annoyed. Big Ben struck 1PM and the deep, morbid sound awoke me from the day–dream. I was finally in the city, the great city, with its bookshops and grand buildings and the busy, nervous, unforgiving pace of life, with its lights and monumental galleries, and those museums – so many museums – and the bridges that like a thread sewed the north and south of the city together into one solid sprawl. The river, a permanent, healing scar, was sensitive and yet dead just like scar tissue. In the waters of the Thames, so much waste had been dumped throughout the ages that one time when a young whale lost from its mother and confused by the sonars and radars of the world, swam into it and through central London, it didn't last for even an hour before it died near Tower Bridge. It was a sad day for the whale. But it was even sadder for the crows that salivated by the riverbank unable to reach the carcass.

Then Paulo made me aware of my situation.

'Yes fair enough you like London. I get it. But you can't be here forever; in fact you can't even be here for another day. You have no documents, you are an illegal immigrant in this country and if you're not careful they'll get you and they will deport you before you can blink an eyelid,' he said.

'Yes, yes, I know you're right. But what can I do? I have no right to be here, yet I never felt so at home. I need to find a way to stay, even if just for a little longer. I need to get to know this place better. I feel it's trying to tell me something important and I want to know what it is before I'm ready to move on,' I replied.

'Well, if you really want to stay longer, there is one thing you can do right now that I am sure will help,' he said.

'Oh yeah, what is it? Faking a passport?' I asked sarcastically.

'No, that would be a mistake. Listen, legend says that whoever strikes the left paw of each of the four lions of Trafalgar Square three times will never leave London.'

'Oh come on, even I know this can't be true. From where did you get this nonsense? Ok, granted, I am from a small town in the South of Brazil, but I am not an idiot.'

'All right then Einstein. All I'm saying is that it won't cost you anything. Who knows? It might just be your day. It's one of those things you might as well try – what if it works? It's free after all!'

'Yes, it's free, and there is a reason for that...' I said to myself.

But the man had a point. What if it worked? Would I want to remain in London forever? In the absence of a better option, I decided to bite the bullet and expose myself to ridicule. I walked down the Gallery's steps and crossed the square, walking through masses of tourists, and made my way around all the lions in a clockwise circle. I struck their left paw while attentively looking into their enormous eyes. On one occasion I even climbed to the top of one of the plinths and wiped the eye of one of the lions, which had been covered in so much pigeon dung that he couldn't see me and I couldn't see him. I made a point of doing that so that the lion would know who was touching his paw – or else how on earth should he know who to keep in London and who to deport? I went back to the top of the steps of the National Gallery only to see Paulo rolling on the floor with laughter.

'Very funny, that was very, very funny...' he laughed out loud.

'Thanks for laughing at a desperate man!' I said, now annoyed.

'Come, come, I was only joking, amigo. Calm yourself down. Let's walk down by the river and let the lions work their magic...he, he, ha, ha, ha... '

Paulo could barely hold himself when he said that. He laughed hysterically until we got to Embankment. I didn't allow myself to be bothered. I just hoped that it would work. The lions had to give me a little more time. After a long walk along the river, we went back to Paulo's flat where his English wife, Hannah, was waiting for us with some food. She had cooked an English speciality, 'toad in the hole,' which to my surprise consisted of Cumberland sausages stuck inside a mass of batter. Hannah baked the thing in the oven for half an hour and then served it with carrots and green peas.

'Bon appétit, tut le monde,' she declared in heavily accented French [Every English person thinks they can speak French. The truth is that they only know a few phrases that they memorised from school, and they only use them when they want to sound sophisticated].

'Bon appétit,' I replied, rather embarrassed.

'So what are your plans, João? Am I pronouncing your name correctly?'

'Sorry, I don't... didn't understand,' I answered in caveman English.

'DO YOU LIKE TOAD IN THE HOLE?' she asked, practically screaming in my ears.

[I don't know why, but when people realize you can't speak their language very well they tend to shout in your ears].

'YES, YES, I LIKE TOT ON THE TOE,' I screamed back to make a point.

'We have arranged THE SOFA for YOU. It is not a BED, but you will be very comfortable IN THE LIVING ROOM. There is a HUGE TELEVISION there and a HUGE PILE OF BOOKS for you to read, if you want. This is YOUR home and you can stay AS LONG AS YOU NEED,' said Hannah, half screaming while gesticulating and pointing to things as she spoke, as if I was mentally impaired as well as deaf.

'Yes, that's right, don't feel embarrassed...oh, and feel free to eat what you want and to use the living room as if it was your own room,' re–enforced Paulo in Portuguese when he noticed my perplexed face.

'Thank you,' was all I said.

'Don't mention it,' my hosts urged in tandem.

* * *

Paulo da Silva and Hannah Squires first met during a church service in Wimbledon, south–east London. They both belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day–Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church. Over a period of a year they met again and again at every Sunday service. And they never spoke to one another. Paulo had come from Minas Gerais and had been living in London for two years before he and Hannah first caught sight of one another. He was the employee of a Brazilian insurance firm and was in London representing the company's interests. His job was to manage their London office, and his target was to increase the company's portfolio of British clients. He found his task harder than he first anticipated and often resorted to Sunday prayers in the hope that God would enlighten his path and push up the numbers so he could hit the target by the next deadline and get his bonus.

Hannah was a secondary school teacher, who worked in a school that was mostly attended by the sons and daughters of immigrant families who settled in Lewisham. Once asked by a Kabul–born, eight year–old girl about how Christians saw their relationship with animals, Miss Squires replied: 'All religions believe animals exist, Christians included, but we don't tend to have relationships with animals in this country.' She once described Pythagoras as 'a Greek poet who was the father of the gay movement way before Oscar Wilde was around,' and to Galileo as 'the man who drew ears on Saturn.' To Nicolaus Copernicus she attributed the discovery of copper, although she was not one hundred per cent certain since David Copperfield also rang a bell.

She was a devout woman, who went to Church every Sunday to beg forgiveness for her sexual fervour, which every night materialized itself in the shape of a vibrator. She never used such a mechanism as it was intended, though. In fact, she never even took it out of the box. It was the mere presence of such profane object inside her wardrobe that made her feel as dirty as a whore and beg forgiveness from the Lord.

While confessing, Hannah also prayed for God to find her a husband, for as the Book of Mormon dictates, a woman should only have her first night of sexual intercourse with the man she chooses to marry and spend the rest of her life with. Other prohibitions included not smoking or drinking alcohol, not ingesting caffeine and not shaving or cutting body hair. I'm not actually sure the latter two are in the book, but judging by Hannah's hairy armpits I'd say that must be correct.

So Paulo was the man Hannah had set her eyes on: exotically foreign, dark skinned, good job, potentially good in bed. Following a year of silently observing each other, they finally took the plunge and got married, after Paulo proposed to Hannah inside the Baptismal bath where they both nearly drowned a new member of the Church.

Their wedding took place in the Latter–Day–Saints main Stake at South Kensington. That same evening, Paulo and Hannah went to Hannah's apartment in Wimbledon and made love for the first time – or so Hannah intended. After five minutes of disappointing none–penetrative sex, Paulo da Silva turned to his side of the bed and fell asleep. Hannah Squires went to the bathroom and cried until three in the morning. When she came out Paulo was still asleep. The next morning they spoke normally as if nothing had happened. They went to work and carried on doing their things, and since then they never attempted to do that again, until I came along.

* * *

We finished eating 'tot in the toe' and made our way into the living room. After two years of living with Paulo, Hannah's Portuguese was way better than my English, and the three of us talked about all sorts of things: where I came from and how I had ended up in London; where they were from and how they ended up there. We talked about Paulo's job and Hannah's job, about their life in the Church and how they felt their spirituality mattered above all else, and about how they both considered themselves to be united before the eyes of God no matter what life should throw at them. I couldn't help but think that they were nice people who had got their wires a bit crossed. But I was thankful for the warm blanket and the roof over my head – too thankful to be honest.

I listened to them talking about the righteous path and the evils out there, the temptations and the difficulties that come with marriage. After two hours of conversation, Paulo and Hannah went to bed and I was left alone in the living room. I was feeling tired, so I got undressed and slipped under the Smurf–covered duvet Hannah had lent me. I pulled the covers up to my neck and tried to find a comfortable position. Suddenly my eyelids felt very heavy and I fell deep asleep...

It was night-time and I was alone in the middle of the forest. There was a full moon and although on any other night the forest would have been one impenetrable dark bog, that night there was enough moonlight to give me a perfect image of every shadow, twig and mole hole on the ground. I was there and I was naked. There was nothing to protect me from what looked like a cold night, but I did not feel cold. On my feet were no shoes, but I felt no sting from the roots and thorns and other organic things lying on the moist soil of the narrow path. I walked through the dense forest, which became denser and darker with every step as the branches of the trees and bushes became thicker like vegetable walls that closed me in from each side, preventing the moonlight from coming through. I turned around, seeking another direction and I saw shapes that looked like human figures hiding behind some of the thick and tall sequoias. I heard laughs too. They sounded like children. I began to walk faster.

But the more I walked the closer the laughs seemed to be, and so I began to run, until I came to a stream. There, I had to decide to either step down into the water and attempt a crossing to the other bank, or run alongside the stream. The voices now seemed to surround me completely. I felt someone breathing heavily on my neck. Without looking back I jumped into the water. It was waist high. I walked further across. The water was arctic cold and the current was strong. I tried to perch myself on prominent rocks that pocked through the gushing current, but they were covered in slime and my fingers were not strong enough to hold on to them. The voices were still there right behind me and I was about to take another step when I felt something slowly making its way up my left leg. It felt like fingers touching my toes and then my shin and coming up to my knee. As I tried to rid myself of its grip I felt a full and strong hand getting hold of my whole thigh, pulling me back with force. I felt another hand making its way up along my other leg until it reached my genitals...

NO! I woke up disoriented as I sat up on the couch trying to regain my breath. I raised my upper body at once in an abrupt movement that brought me to my feet. Then I headed towards the door and flicked the light switch. With the lights now on, I turned around, scratching my behind with my left hand. As I looked around the room I noticed something hiding behind the armchair that stood in front of the bay window. My heart nearly came out of my mouth. 'Is there anybody there?' I whispered. But I got no reply. Instead, I saw a mass of hair emerging from behind the armchair. Slowly the hair became a head, and the head became a face, and with a half–smile and eyes that I had never seen before on the face of a man, Paulo revealed himself – clearly startled as if he had seen death itself. He seemed a different man from the one I had previously known; and he was naked.

'Paulo? What are you doing here?' I asked surprised.

'Nothing,' he replied with a dry and shaky voice.

'Man, you scared the hell out of me!'

'I'm sorry. I was just looking for something and didn't want to disturb you.'

'Looking for what?' I asked, looking at the digital clock on the television.

'It's 3AM! What could you possibly be looking for at 3AM?'

'Erm...my watch,' he said unconvincingly. 'Yes...I lost my watch and I need it to set up the alarm. I have an important meeting tomorrow morning. Again, I'm really sorry!'

'That's fine; this is your house and you can look for whatever you want at whatever time you want. But there's something I need to ask you before you go back to bed: Paulo, why are you naked?'

'João, I – '

Before he could finish the sentence Hannah stormed into the room like a crazed scarecrow in a nightgown. She threw herself onto Paulo and started to hit him hard with her fists while kicking and cursing.

'YOU WANKER! YOU ABHORRENT WANKER! I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, YOU SAD, SAD WANKER, I KNEW YOU WERE UP TO NO GOOD WHEN YOU BROUGHT THIS GUY INTO MY HOUSE. YOU WANTED TO BE ALONE WITH HIM – DIDN'T YOU, DIDN'T YOU? YOU SAD MOTHER FUCKER? YOU WANTED TO FUCK HIM, DIDN'T YOU, DIDN'T YOU? YOU FUCKING FAGGOT! YOU SICK SON–OF–A–BITCH OF A FAGGOT!!!'

Hannah shouted it all at the top of her voice while beating Paulo with her fists in a mixture of sadness and anger. The man attempted in vain to defend himself against her blows, but he looked helpless and pathetic as he held up his feeble guard, one hand protecting his face and the other his genitals. One of Hannah's rings, her engagement ring, caught Paulo's left eyebrow, and blood began to run down his face and drip onto the cream–coloured carpet as Hannah went on and on with the shouting and the beating, until I intervened. I pushed Hannah towards the sofa and Paulo towards the armchair. As Hannah fell back, she curled up like a child trying to hide after having done a bad deed. I took the chance to pick up the duvet and handed it over to Paulo so he could use it to cover himself. He got under it as he sat on the chair, his knees high up against his chest and his arms around his legs in a bracing position. On his face, bloodstained tears ran down his left cheek. A cut on his upper lip and red eyes made his face look puffed and bruised, like a boxer after a tough round. He didn't look at either of us. Instead he stared at the bloodstain on the carpet. Hannah was still huffing and puffing and crying.

I sat down on the couch and waited for something to happen – I don't know what exactly. Meanwhile, Hannah had calmed herself down a little. Paulo was still staring at the bloodstain on the carpet, immutable and avoiding any eye contact with either of us, as if by doing so we would disappear. I thought I should say something, but was cut short by Hannah, who suddenly began to sob uncontrollably.

The gentle, softly spoken woman was now a shadow of herself – enraged, irrational. Paulo was even less than a shade of grey, an inanimate object succumbing to his own weight, as if underneath the pressure of something much heavier than himself. He starred catatonically into the abyss of his own mind, a mind now trapped in the memory of recent events that he could neither forget nor avoid. He kept staring at the bloodstain, as if that was his new universe. He stared at it until it became so familiar to him that it dissipated from view, as when one stares for too long at the rainbow.

'Please leave us,' said Hannah.

'Leave? You mean, go? Where I go now?' I said in my broken English, my face now deformed by anxiety.

'I don't know. This is not my problem, is it? I didn't ask you to come into this house and wreck my marriage, did I?'

'I don't understand...sorry, please speak slowly.'

'YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!! GET THAT? GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, YOU FUCKING ALIEN! GO HOME!!!'

She said that with her finger pointing to the door, her silky nightgown sliding up her white thighs, gliding over her soft skin and revealing the contours of her vagina. I was confused. I was aroused – what a strange feeling, what a strange night! I wanted to fuck her, because of what she was doing to me and because it had been a very long time since I had been with a woman. I got up and got dressed, very slowly, while looking at her breasts pointing through the silky gown. Then I picked up my things, put it all into a canvas bag and made my way to the front door, leaving my suitcase behind. I heard her coming after me. I felt her behind me, very close, in the dark corridor. Paulo was still in the living room, still staring at the same bloodstain and losing his mind.

When I turned around, Hannah was very close – almost mouth-to-mouth. I grabbed her. With my right hand I covered her mouth while pushing her against the corridor wall. She put up a little resistance, but not too much. With my left hand, I pulled her silky knickers aside and felt between her legs with my fingertips. It was warm and very wet in there. In one movement, I stuck my forefinger and my middle finger straight up her cunt, way up high. She groaned as she bit my hand. It was warm and wet in there, very warm and very wet. I fingered her for about a minute, fucking her with my fingers against the corridor wall in the darkness. She rolled her eyes. I looked at her trembling pale face. I felt her nipples hardening against my chest. With her right hand she reached out for my cock.

'Fuck me,' she whispered in my ear. I took my fingers out of her and her hand off me. I walked back to the living room and stood in front of Paulo. I pushed my fingers up his nose, 'smell this? It's your wife's cunt. She just begged me to fuck her.'

Paulo looked up at me and without saying a word, jumped up to his feet and punched me. I felt backwards between the couch and a small table where a vase of flowers sat. Paulo Turned away and began to walk towards the corridor. I got up fast, picked up a pen from the coffee table and grabbed him from behind before he could leave the room. With my left hand I covered his mouth, with the other I stabbed his neck with the pen. I continued to stab him until he fell to the ground. Blood gushed out of him until the whole weight of his body mutely collapsed on the floor. His blood stained the rug underneath.

I walked over him and back to the corridor. I saw Hannah crouched against the wall starring into the darkness, not moving. I crouched down and looked into her large blue yes. It was too dark for her to see that I was covered in Paulo's blood. I held my left hand over her mouth. She closed her eyes and put up no resistance. I held the pen firmly and stabbed her in the stomach: once, twice, three times, four times, five times. She barely moved. It was as if she had been waiting for that moment all her life.

I dragged her immobile body to the living room and placed her on top of Paulo. I placed the pen in her hand and another pen on his hand. I then walked over to the bathroom, took off my clothes and cleaned myself under the shower. I wrapped my bloodstained clothes in a towel and placed the bundle in my canvas bag. I got myself some clothes from Paulo's wardrobe and wiped the place clean off my digitals and footprints. I picked up my bag and left the building through the front door. It was a dark and quiet night. I felt nothing.

I roamed the streets without an aim. I had no money. I went to a bakery owned by a Jewish family who never closed the damn thing – day or night. Policemen and cab drivers stopped there to eat bagels and drink coffee. I sat at a small table and imagined myself ordering a coffee and a salt beef and gherkin bagel with fried eggs. Then I imagined eating it and drinking it and feeling warm.

'Wanna order something?' asked the big–nosed woman behind the counter.

'Just a glass of water, please,' I said.

'We don't serve just water.'

I left.

I sat outside, just across the street. I had a few coins in my pocket, but I knew I was going to need them later. I could still smell Hannah on my fingertips. 'An hour ago I had a roof over my head, now I am down and out in a London suburb, salivating over a fucking bagel and smelling my fingers!' I thought to myself. Then I got up and walked.

I walked in a straight line until I began to feel sleepy, when I spotted a patch of grass under a tree in a small park. I dropped my bag, took out a jumper and stretched it on the grass. The ground was wet and cold. I took one more jumper out and did the same again. I took out a pair of trousers and another jacket and put them both on. I placed my bag against the tree trunk and lay down on the sweaters, resting my head on the bag. Despite the cloudy skies I could see a few stars, and started to count them, and slowly I fell asleep. I wasn't worried about anything or anyone. They deserved what I did to them. They both deserved it. What were they thinking? Trying to humiliate me in that way? Who did they think they were? They wanted to die. They were begging for someone to come along and put them out of their misery. I did them both a favour. I did not kill them. I just lend them a helping hand. I should be thanked.

Somehow I felt peaceful there, beneath that tree, in that small Eden. There is a soothing and calming feeling that takes hold of you when you know you've reached rock–bottom. Except that that wasn't it.

The man stood next to the window of a run–down apartment. The light was dark and warm.

'What do you want here? What is your purpose?' he asked me, still looking out and not in.

'I don't know,' I replied. 'Who are you?'

'That's not important. You ask the wrong questions. The real question is: who do you think you are?'

'I don't understand,' I said.

'Allow me to make an observation: you want to be a writer, yet you know not what you want to write about, and when and if you will ever be capable of doing so. Correct?'

I didn't reply.

He continued. 'You want to be a writer and so you will be one, but it will not happen the way you think. You are not a writer you are a murderer. That's all you are, a cold-blooded murderer. And writing... well, it's a curse, you understand, a curse! Now turn around and get out. I'm dying, boy, dying, and I'm cursed! Now, out through the same door you came from. I cannot see you. You remind me of someone I used to know.'

The man sounded ill. I stood near him, and still I could not see his face.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'Wrong again. Here, I'll let you have this,' said the man. 'I live in the spaces in between. I live in this world and in so many other worlds, and in none of them have I form. I have nothing and everything, but nothing I have I own, and nothing I lack I truly miss. I am you and you are me and we both exist in someone else's mind and we do not live entirely of our own accord. Ha! You must think I'm crazy, don't you? But no, I am not crazy. I am simply a messenger, and you, my boy, you are a joke, a selected joke that is brought to life by unaccountable acts of coincidences and performances set in motion in the spaces between the consciousness of him who commands great power over us: he who cannot help but give us a voice even though you and I never asked for one. A murderer, that's who you are, a cold-blooded murderer.'

'Who is he?' I asked.

'He' is the creator and the creature. He has not a shape, colour or life of his own. He is a part of you and a part of me, and still he is unlike us altogether; a shadow, a ghost that stands and walks in daylight, amidst the millions of souls without a sun, a shadow in the long and lost streets of the great cement forests of the world. He is the creator and the only reason why you and I are in this room together. He is the only reason why you breathe and speak with your own mouth and walk with your own two legs. But look again; are you quite yourself?'

I looked down and my legs were no longer there. I was standing without my legs. It was as if I was floating mid–air, in the warm darkness of the room. The stranger sat there in the same position, looking out and not in.

'Please tell me, who are you?' I asked again.

'You know who I am.

'What do you mean? Who are – '

'SHUT UP! NO MORE QUESTIONS!

The man vanished into the shadows and his shape was no longer visible. I looked down again and my legs were now there, but they were no longer legs but snakes that twisted and turned and looked back at me. One of them opened its mouth and began to speak...

'WAKE UP! WAKE UP!' said the policeman who shook me 'No sleeping in the park, mate, you have to get up and leave... '

'I'm sorry,' I said, still confused and half asleep. 'I go now,' I said as daylight burned my eyes.

'GOOOOOD lad! You do that – just keep moving mate, keep moving. It is against the law to sleep here. Plus you'll get yourself in trouble if you keep doing that – there are pick–pockets operating in this area. People who sleep in parks are particularly vulnerable. Couple of days ago, a homeless man got himself killed,' the man in uniform said.

'Did he suicide?' I asked, forcing myself to speak the best English I could master.

'Nah, some youths with nothing better to do set fire to the poor sod. He was doing no harm to anyone, poor sod, you see, the poor lad was just taking a nap – just like you. Doing no harm to anyone, poor sod. Three quarters of his body got burned. He died a week later in hospital I was told. Polish he was – a migrant worker. Fucking skinheads! NOW, CHOP, CHOP, you get going son, get going...'

I didn't understand much of what the man said, but I more or less understood it was a story about an immigrant and some crazy men who hated people for the sake of hating. I decided to move on, not because I was afraid of skinheads, but because I knew that if they didn't get me the police would, and neither of them meant good news. I got on a bus towards central London with the last few pounds I had jangling in my pocket. I got off at Putney Bridge and found a café. Then I walked in and asked to use the toilet.

'You'll have to buy something.'

'What?' I asked confused. The girl pointed to a sign on the counter.

'TOILETS FOR CUSTOMER USE ONLY'

I took my time trying to decipher it.

'Ah, ok, I drink a coffee...when I come out,' I said.

'Right, then here's the key. I'll get your coffee ready,' said the girl sceptically.

I locked the door and splashed water on my face. I washed my hair under the sink and dried it with the hand–drier. Then I took a dump, changed my underwear and, using the socks I was wearing as a sponge, I washed between my toes and inside my ears. I threw the socks in the bin and put clean ones on. I used toilet paper to dry my face and to blow my nose. There were two men queuing up outside as I came out. They looked at me suspiciously. I gave them a shy smile. One of them felt like justifying himself:

'Sorry, lad, but I'm bursting!'

'Go ahead – all yours.'

As he walked in he shouted, 'FUCKING PIG!'

I made my way to the till and paid seventy pence for the coffee. I had a pound left. I got the coffee and sat outside on one of the metal chairs placed on the pavement. From there I could see the Thames. People rushed past me like racing cars, walking so fast they looked like those athletes who neither run nor walk (and consequently look rather ridiculous), rushing and pushing their way through to a job somewhere. I was glad to be alive. I knew death was approaching, but I was in no hurry to get there.

I drank the coffee, which was weak and tasted of something burned, and was only made drinkable by me adding copious amount of sugar to it. Then I saw a newspaper lying on the chair next to me. I picked it up and tried to read it. I couldn't really understand much because many words were unknown to me, but the front page had a picture of a Palestinian woman crying her guts out as she kneeled over a dead body. It required no words. I presumed it was either her husband or her son. I couldn't be sure because the body was blown inside out. It was a blood-drenched shirt and a pair of trousers wrapped around a scramble of meat.

'Violence Gets Worse as Israel Retaliates.' Read the headline.

I turned the page over and there was a naked woman on page three. On page two there was a picture of the Prime Minister shaking hands with the American president. The woman on page three had a little balloon attached to her mouth, like in one of those comic strips. It said something about how the woman agreed with the Prime Minister's decision to support Israel against Palestinian aggression. Her breasts were voluptuous and she wore a very small polka–dot bikini with no top. She was from Essex and she was twenty–four years old: the same age as the man who had his face blown open like popcorn by the home–made grenade. I thought about luck. Some people are born in a party. Others are born in hell.

I began to think about the dream I had, and the mysterious man and his enigmatic messages that never made any sense. 'The creator,' what did he mean? Why was he my creator? I wondered if I was going mad. I was probably mad to have left Brazil in the first place. It felt like so long ago. Was the man referring to God? If so, who was he to talk about God that way? Was he an angel messenger alerting me to things, trying to communicate his message through dreams? Or was he the devil himself, luring me into his trap?

None of this mattered now. I needed to find somewhere to live and I needed money, and I had no idea how I was going to find either of those things. So I got up and headed back to Wimbledon, with a few coins rattling in my pocket.

8

The Multiplication of Fish

'Single room for single occupant in three room family house in Merton. £65 p/week breakfast not included. Two weeks deposit. For enquiries call 075 177 277 0273. Mr and Mrs James Brindle,' read the ad on the shop's window. With a dictionary in hand and a few hours of study, I rehearsed my speech and called.

'Hello, I'm calling about the room. Is it still available?'

'Hello, hi, yes, the room is available. Would you like to see it?'

'No. I take it. No time to see it.'

'Right, well, we must charge a deposit and you must also pay two weeks in advance.'

'Sure,' I lied.

'Ok, come by this evening. Shall we say... around six?

'Ok.'

'We'll see how it goes then. We need to meet you before I can say 'yes.''

'Ok. The address?'

'Sure, come to Tooting Broadway tube and I'll pick you up from there. I'll be there at 6 sharp.'

'Ok,' I said.

I had nothing left on me, so I took a bus and went as far as I could and then walked the rest of the way. I arrived at Tooting Broadway tube at 6 PM on the dot and James Brindle was standing outside the station – a tall ginger man with pale complexion and hair so red and voluminous I thought his head was on fire.

'Hi, I'm James. Nice to meet you.'

'I'm João. Nice to meet you, too.'

'Where are you from João? No, wait, let me guess: uhmm... Spain?'

'Brazil.'

'Ah ha, Brazil, Brazil...been there once...Rio: great women!'

'Yes...,' I replied.

We got into his car; a family car, an old four–door Rover. Toys everywhere, dog hair, torn seats, seatbelts missing and the stench of rotten fish. We drove for five minutes, and then he parked in front of a yellow house in the middle of one interminable row of terrace houses, all looking exactly the same as each other except for that yellow one in the middle. We got out and walked in. He had trouble with the key so he rang the bell. A small plump woman with dark brown eyes and long brown hair answered the door.

'Hi darling, did you forget your keys?'

'No, it's this damn lock again.'

'Hi, you must be João. Come on in,' said the woman.

'Yes, nice to meet you,' I answered.

'Welcome to our home, I'm Francisca. I'm from Spain – Málaga,' said the woman with a calm but high–pitched voice.

'I'm James. I'm from Scotland – Dundee,' joked the man.

'João is from Brrrrraaaaazillllll,' said James, pointing his finger up in the air and doing a little dance as if he was John Travolta.

'Ah ha, beautiful women there, huh? Do you play football?' asked Francisca from Málaga.

'Only a little, but no... not well... well, not really.'

'Well, we have fields here at the back. The boys would love to have you around.'

'RICHARD, SAMUEL... come down boys, we have a guest!' shouted Francisca.

The conversation took place in the corridor and I still had my canvas bag in my hand and my coat on. Before I could drop the bag, two boys rushed down the stairs, zooming past me. They sought refuge behind their mother who was podgy enough to hide both boys behind her. I felt like Mary Poppins standing there, bag in hand, coat on, waiting to meet the kids. They peered from behind her flanks. When I pointed my eyes at them they vanished behind the woman again, like two little monkeys. I felt the need to say something nice, but I didn't.

'These are Ricky and Sammy. Ricky is four and Sammy six. Say hi to João, boys.'

'Hi,' I heard them giggling timidly from behind the woman.

'João, please come in. Drop your bag over there and make yourself comfortable. I will show you the room in a minute. Have you eaten? Would you like to have dinner with us? I am cooking some fish. We love fish in this house, don't we boys?' (there was no response from the boys).

'Thanks. I do. I mean, yes, I'm hungry.'

'Excellent, it will be a pleasure to have you. James told me you have no place to stay?'

'Sorry, I didn't understand.'

'JAMES TOLD ME YOU WANT TO STAY HERE TONIGHT, ALREADY?' she shouted.

'What's wrong with people?' I thought. And I must have looked puzzled, because then she resorted to pointing.

'Here!' she said, preparing herself as if for an audition in the theatre. First she closed her eyes, then she opened them again and, breathing in and out, she began to mimic somebody sleeping, placing both of her hands together next to her face.

'Ah, yes, I sleep here. Is ok?'

'Well, I suppose it is. What do you say, James? James... JAAAAMES?'

'YEEEES, DARLING?' shouted the man from somewhere at the back of the house.

'IS IT OK IF JOÃO SLEEPS HERE TONIGHT?'

'SHOW HIM THE ROOM. THEN YOU DECIDE, MAMA, YOU DECIDE. IF HE LIKES THE ROOM AND PAYS THE MONEY, I'M GOOD.'

'Come João, I'll show you the room – it's small but comfy.'

We went upstairs, followed by the two monkeys. The room was very small but reasonably clean. The bed felt comfortable. There was also a blue chest of draws and some watercolours of boats and Spanish white villages. The room was at the very top of the three–storey house. There was a small skylight that faced the garden. It was a fine little room in the suburb of the sprawling city, and I thought I would be fine there.

Francisca smelled of fried fish. But her motherly smile warmed me up inside. I thought she was very genuine and welcoming. I told her I was happy with the room. She told me we could sort out the money the following day. I did not have the money, of course, but I didn't tell her that. I would have to come up with a good story, which with my limited English, was going to be more difficult than robbing a bank. So, that night, I took a shower and went down to have grilled mackerel with the family, a dish that was 'delicious and very nutritious,' according to Francisca.

'We didn't have enough food in the house – I hope it's enough'

'It seems enough to me, mamma,' said James.

I didn't quite understand, so I smiled.

'Sorry João, I didn't know that we would have a guest.'

'It's enough food, mamma, don't worry,' reinforced James.

'Yes, I prayed to Jesus's and the fish sort of multiplied,' she said winking at him.

After dinner I went back upstairs and got busy with the dictionary. But at this point I suddenly remembered that Francisca was, of course, from Spain. 'God damn it,' I thought, why am I struggling? I can just write the thing in Portuguese!' She will understand most of it, I'm sure. I wrote a letter explaining to Francisca all that had happened and how I was going to pay her back every penny if she would only trust me and give me a couple of weeks to pay her back.

I finished the letter, but I wasn't happy with it. I didn't think it expressed all that I wanted to say. I wanted to thrown in some Spanish words, but it turned out that my Spanish was just as bad as my English. The letter read like Portuguese with the suffix 'ción' added to the end of every other word. I had invented a new language: 'Spanguese'.

In the end I was too tired to be bothered. I folded the letter put it on the chest of drawers and went to sleep. It must have been the fish and the crazy night I'd had before, but I dreamed a multitude of strange things all related to either fish or naked men and shouting blonde wives. I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and very thirsty, so I went downstairs for a glass of water. The whole house creaked and clunked with every step I took, and before I got to the kitchen I gave up and turned back. I didn't want to wake up my hosts on my very first night there. I went to the small bathroom next to my room instead and sipped from the tap that was covered in limescale and had one knob missing. It was the cold-water knob that was missing, so I had to drink the water from the hot water tap, which was initially fine, until it got warm. There was no toilet in there, but I was dying for a piss, so I did it in the sink and ran the hot water over it to get rid of the urine. I found a sponge under the sink – it was old and covered in cobwebs. I used it to scrub the sink clean, feeling ridiculous to be doing that at 3 AM. I went back to bed and fell asleep again, and the dreams came back. Except now they were different. Emmanuel appeared again, only this time he said nothing. He was just a shadow in the midst of many other shadows. He sat there alone, starring in the distance. He seemed to point to a spot in the sky, which was too dark for me to see, and then he vanished.

The next day I woke up early, got dressed and washed my face in the small washing room. I went downstairs and dropped the letter on the kitchen table. The table was covered with things to eat and the kitchen looked like a hurricane had passed through it; dirty dishes overflowed in the sink, marmalade–smeared plates lay on top of the fridge, half–eaten pieces of toast littered the floor, rancid half–melted cheese was on the grill and fish bones were scattered over the greasy cooker that hadn't been cleaned since the Romans were in Britain. I was ready to leave the house when it occurred to me that perhaps I should clean up the kitchen in exchange for the food the night before.

It was still early and nobody was awake. I put on a very dirty apron that was hanging from the nail on the wall, and began cleaning and scrubbing and ordering things, putting stuff away in drawers and on shelves. Everything was greasy with years of deep-frying and splattering. When I finished, I left the house and headed to the tube station. I had no money for the fare, so I squeezed behind a tall man and in a second I was through the barriers before the controllers could catch me. I was proud of that small achievement.

After a day roaming the streets of London I found myself begging for a job in a pub at Earl's Court. The man looked me up and down and said, 'No, sorry, we need someone who can speak f–l–u–e–n–t English.' I walked into every place that looked like a pub and every door was shut on my face. It was either my English or the lack of papers that betrayed me. So I turned around and went back to Merton, to the fishy yellow house. On the way from the tube I suddenly realized I hadn't eaten anything all day and my stomach was churning with hunger. I had no money to eat and Francisca wouldn't feed me again. Then, like an oasis in the desert, I noticed a Co–op supermarket on my left. I crossed the broad street and walked in.

There was some sample food on the cheese counter – some bits of old cheese that the man in white overalls and cap and hair net had placed on a black tray for his customers to taste. When he went to the back of the shop to get something, I grabbed the tray and ate all the cheese that was on it. I put the tray back on the counter and headed towards the fruit and vegetables. I grabbed a banana and stuffed it into the inner pocket of my jacket. Then I moved to the oranges and stuffed a big one into the other pocket. Passing by the fresh bread shelves, I grabbed a mini doughnut that was hanging off one of the trays, just about to fall off. I ate it right there and then, looking around for the cameras and the people who could see me from the till.

I walked quickly between two tills as people queued up to pay. My stomach was filled with excitement – I was an international thief! I left the shop and headed towards the house. When I arrived, I used the key Francisca had given me the night before and clunked the door open.

'James, is that you?' called Francisca.

'No, it's me, João,' I replied.

'Oh, hi João. Did you clean up the kitchen this morning?'

'Sorry, I don't understand?'

'KITCHEN, DID YOU CLEAN THE K-I-T-C-H-E-N THIS MORNING?' she shouted.

'Ah, yes, yes, the kitchen, yes... '

'You must not feel you have to, really! But thank you anyway, that was very nice of you. How about some cod fillets tonight? I am cooking cod for a change. Would you like to join us?'

'Sorry... ' I said, embarrassed.

'DINNER, would you like to have DINNER with us... EAT, would you like to EAT?' she took her hand to her mouth repeatedly.

'Ah, yes, eat, yes... '

'Ok, I'll fry us some cod then.'

'HI, EVERYONE! Hello, hello, Fran darling, hi João, how's things, mate?' asked James as he clunked the door open and rushed through the corridor and into the kitchen. He grabbed a piece of toast from Francisca's hand and stuffed it all into his mouth.

'Mmmm, I'm so hungry, what's for dinner, mama?'

'Cod fish fillets. I've invited João to eat with us.'

'Again? Well, ok. But tomorrow is his turn to cook, right João?' I didn't understand what James had said, so I nodded with half a smile plastered on my mug.

If he'd asked me if I was a giraffe I would have said 'yes.'

I went up to my room and the two boys followed me. They stood at the door as I got changed. I was nervous about going downstairs. At some point I was going to tell those people I had no money, and that they would have to give me a little more time to pay the rent. But I didn't know how to communicate all of that in English, and Francisca hadn't mentioned the letter. Perhaps she had read it and thought it was fine. Maybe she had showed it to James and he thought it was fine too. The boys kept looking at me, but I didn't want to say or do anything because they looked like they knew the truth; they knew I was a thief and a liar. I told them to wait for me downstairs, and so they went. I picked up a piece of paper and a pen and tried very hard to write another letter, to explain my situation more clearly. But it was useless. Then they called me downstairs.

'JOÃO, DINNER'S READY,' called Francisca.

'THANK YOU, I COME NOW,' I shouted back.

I made my way down, only to find the two monkeys sitting half–way down the stairs. I held their hands and brought them down with me. The three of us turned up in the living room together, hand in hand. Francisca looked at us and smiled. James looked at me, and then at the boys and called the boys to him.

'Ricky, Sammy, leave the man alone. João, come sit down. Let's have something to eat. Thank you for cooking, mama,' he said while blinking at Francisca. She sat across the table from him and smiled when he called her 'mama.'

'De nada, p-a-p-a,' replied Francisca.

'Uh, I love it when you speak Spanish to me, m-a-m-a.'

'Maybe later I can talk to you some more?'

'I would like that, mama,' said James in baby talk.

Then I looked at James and he looked embarrassed.

'So, João, what are doing here? What kind of work do you do? he asked me.

'Sorry, job?'

'Yes, what KIND OF JOB DO YOU HAVE? WHAT DO YOU DOOOOOO?' he said while pointing his finger at me every time he said 'you'.

'Ah, yes, I work in pub,' I lied.

'Right, I see. Where?'

'Where? Since yesterday,' I lied again.

'No, no, W–H–E–R–E? In which P–L–A–C–E do you work?'

'Ah, yes, Wimbledon, Wimbledon Village,' I lied again. I was getting good at that, or so I thought.

'Right... right. Listen, João, you're a nice guy – I can tell you're a nice guy. But we need the rent by the end of the week. Francisca told me about your problem – she told me about your LETTER.' He mimicked someone writing a letter by waving his hands in the air as if he was holding an invisible pen and paper.

'You see...,' he continued, 'we need the extra income, so we need the rent – now! And you need to buy your own food, too. We can't afford to feed another mouth. You see, we're just a small family with lots of bills to pay – LOTS... of bills!'

He waved his hands in the air again as if he was pulling the lever of an old cash register.

'YES, you see, WE NEED THE MONEY – no temos tanto Money e nos otros tenemos que pagar the bills, comprende?' said James in Spanglish. 'Temos dos hijos pequeños and they can't wait for their food, you comprende, right?'

'Sure, no problem, I bring money on Friday,' I said.

I had no idea if and when I would find a job, and even if I did find one the next day, I knew I still wouldn't have enough money to pay them.

We finished dinner. I helped them to clean up the dishes and I offered to do the washing up. Francisca declined my offer. So I excused myself, told her I was going to sleep and headed upstairs. But James popped up from the living room and blocked my way before I could get to the stairs.

'Listen up, mate,' he said, almost whispering. 'I know you're lying. I know you don't have a job and that you won't have the money by Friday. But Francisca made me give you until then to come up with the dole. She's good like that, you see. It is only because of her that you are not sleeping out there tonight – got it?' he said, pushing his finger into my chest.

'So here is the deal, mate: you do whatever you have to do to get this money, because if by the time I come home on Friday you still have nothing, I will make sure that you are out of this house in the blink of an eye – got it?' James said this with anger in his eyes and a straight, soft face that didn't match the anger inside him.

I didn't understand everything he had said, but I could tell it was no good news. You can always tell when people are ready to drill a hole in your skull. So I went upstairs, got undressed and tucked myself under the blanket. I forced myself into sleep, because I just wanted that day to end. Except that I couldn't sleep. I lay there with my eyes wide open while my ears scanned the air for more conversations coming from downstairs. It was a ridiculous situation. I felt like an animal. 'To be poor is one thing, but to steal from another poor person is the same as selling your soul to the devil,' my deceased father had once told me. 'Great!' I thought, 'now even my dead old man has turned up to teach me morals.'

It was then that I heard them arguing. James and Francisca were shouting at each other as if one of them had murdered one of the boys. She shouted and threw things at him and he shushed her down in return. She told him not to shush her down and he shushed her down again, and the whole thing went on and on for about an hour. Then it all went quiet and I heard tired footsteps on the staircase. They both went to their bedroom and I heard the door being locked. The boys seemed to have gone to sleep. They must have been used to the fighting.

A little later I heard Francisca groaning as if she was in pain. I heard James doing the same. Then I heard them both huffing and puffing as if they were running a marathon. Their bed began to vibrate and the vibration got stronger and stronger and it began to shake the whole house. The pictures hanging on the wall bounced back and forth, until one of them fell off the nail and came down crashing against the wooden floor. Eventually the whole thing came to a stop and I could make out James saying 'I love you, mama; oh I love you, mama.' Then I heard Francisca saying 'I love you papa, and you too papa's friend.' Then I heard the sounds of someone suckling something and the suckling got louder and louder and James began to cry 'Oh mama, oh mama, that's it, mama, that's it, swallow it mama, swallow it... hagh, hagh, have it, have it, I'm there, I'm there, I'm there... oh mama, fuck that, fuck that...oh mama, oh mama...'

There was a small television set in the room. I switched it on and turned the volume up. I went through the channels looking for anything that would take my mind off it. I found an American sitcom and left it there. It was about some women in New York having a lot of sex and talking only about men and shoes and dresses and bags and about how miserable they were because the men they wanted they couldn't have, and the men they had they didn't want. Then I began to think about what women wanted and I fell asleep with a hard–on.

I woke up very early – the alarm clock showed it was 6:47. I stayed in bed for a little longer when I heard James getting ready for work. He didn't seem to have had a shower. He got dressed and went downstairs. Then the boys woke up and went downstairs after him. Francisca followed them. The family gathered downstairs and began to have breakfast. Then I heard the unmistakable sounds of people eating together with the smell of freshly ground coffee and bacon and eggs amidst the voices that rushed towards one another at the beginning of another day. The smells invaded my nostrils and made me hungry. My stomach twisted and shouted for food and a cup of coffee, but I was determined not to interrupt the family's breakfast. I stayed in bed, immobile, pretending I was either out or still sleeping. I heard them mention my name a couple of times, but I couldn't understand the context. Then I heard the front door opening and shutting and the house became dead quiet again.

I sprang out of bed, wrapped a towel around my waist and went looking for the bathroom. I opened the taps and let the water get hot before I got in the shower. I couldn't find any shampoo, so I used a bar of soap I saw on the sink. It was entangled in hair of all lengths and colours. I got under the shower that was covered in limescale and mould. Everywhere I looked there was hair: on the tiles, over the tap, hanging from the showerhead, hair, hair and more hair. I turned the hot water tap and made the water even hotter, letting it pour over my head and shoulders. I used the soap on my head and my face and over my chest, under the armpits and between my legs and toes. Then I got rid of it and went under the shower again to wash it all off. I got out and dried myself in a hurry. Leaving the bathroom, I crossed the landing until I reached my room. After getting dressed I went downstairs.

I looked for Francisca, but she was not there. The house was definitely empty. I went to the fridge and found some cheese slices and bits of cooked ham. I took the slices in my hands and went to the living room. There I found some leftover bread and a half–eaten tin of baked beans in tomato sauce. I put the cheese and the ham on top of the bread and poured the beans over it. I found a clean fork and a knife and ate it all in three bites. I found some orange juice and poured myself a glass. I looked around and saw a flask of coffee sitting on the living room table. I rinsed a cup under the tap and poured myself half a cup, adding some milk and sugar. I sat on the couch and drank the coffee while looking nervously out of the window to see if anyone was coming back in. I finished the coffee and went back upstairs. I picked up my canvas bag and rushed back down. Then I left the house and went to the Co–op and walked between the shelves while admiring the food.

It is strange how your perception of everything changes when you know you have no money to buy the things you see. Everything acquires a different meaning. For instance, I became obsessed with flat–pack cookies. They looked delicious and full of calories and the pack was flat enough to hide under my shirt. I also began to appreciate the price of things. 'Sixty pence for a bar of chocolate – that's robbery!' I thought. I began to act a little. I stood in front of shelves pretending to shop like any other person in there. I'd pick up things like peanut butter and begin to read the labels, pretending I was vegan or something. I would open it and eat some of the content, only to close it again and place it back on the shelf.

I ate that way for most of that week. I ate what I could while in the Co–op, and took out with me whatever was too clumsy to be eaten in the store: things like apples and bananas. I tucked it all in my jeans and under my shirt and tried to leave without being caught. That's when on Friday at 2 PM and one step away from starvation, I remembered that someone had once told me something about sperm donation. I remembered them saying how much money one could make by donating spunk, and how easy it was:

'All you have to do,' the man had said, 'is to sit there and wank in the pot. They even give you the magazines for you to look at. Most importantly, they feed you too. You see, they need you strong before sucking you dry!'

This had been the explanation from the drunkard who had sat next to me in the park one day. I went back to the fishy yellow house and took up the phone book. I looked up a clinic and called.

'Hello..., I would like to donate.'

'Well, we are looking for donors at the moment. How tall are you?'

'Excuse me..., I don't understand?'

'How TALL are YOU, SIR?'

'Tall, tall... '

'Your HEIGHT, sir?'

'Ah, ok, height, yes, height... that's one seventy–one metres, I think, I don't know inches,' I answered.

'I see, well I regret to inform you that you are not tall enough to donate. We only accept sperm from donors taller than five foot eight. Are you bald, sir? No? Ah, that's good, because we only accept donations from subjects who are tall and not yet balding.'

'I have hair, I have lots of hair. Can I come for donation?' I said.

'No sir, I'm sorry. You're still too short – you'd be missing a couple of inches there.'

Being too short to wank, I resulted to stealing from the Co–op again. By now I was constantly hungry: the kind of hunger that makes you think of food all day, the type of hunger that gives you headaches and makes you hallucinate about burgers and a plate of spaghetti in tomato sauce. But I could never steal more than a bar of chocolate or a small pack of crisps or an apple. The weather was getting warmer and the coat was beginning to look suspicious, so I had to give up on the flat–pack biscuits.

And then came Friday 2 PM and I walked into the store once again. I noticed people were looking at me. I felt observed, but I thought that if I turned around and went out again it would raise suspicions even further, so I headed to the cheese plate and ate everything on the tray – like a mouse out of his hole in the wall, running along the floor and dodging the traps. Then I made my way between the shelves and headed to the fruit and vegetables, and nobody seemed to pay any attention as I gobbled down a whole banana in two quick bites. I moved to the fridge and tore a small yogurt drink from its cardboard pack, peeled the aluminium cover off the top of the plastic container and drank the whole thing in one gulp. I grabbed a tin of baked beans on my way out and stuffed it very quickly into the canvas bag I was carrying. As I walked between the tills and pushed my way through the people queuing up to pay, the security guard rushed through the gate and grabbed me by the arm, which he twisted and turned and jerked behind my own back in a type of karate move. It hurt like hell. As I squirmed with pain, he spread my legs wide open with his right foot until my face rubbed against the wall in the full view of everyone in the shop.

'I CAUGHT YOU, YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT, I CAUGHT YOU, I FINALLY CAUGHT YOU! The man shouted proudly. 'Doing our weekly shopping, are we? Are we? Guess what, mate, guess what? You won't be going anywhere today, got it? The police are coming to pick you up, mate. Sit tight over here – they're on their way now, mate. Your shopping spree is over!' announced the bald, six foot, tattooed thug as he pushed me onto a plastic chair.

'Well done Roger, well done!' said a woman in uniform as she blipped a bag of potatoes under the scanner. 'I got sick of this one coming every day. He thinks we're idiots – useless junkies.'

'How awful! Oh dear, oh dear, what a waste of youth,' cried the woman buying the potatoes.

I sat on the plastic chair, the canvas bag on the floor in front of me. After the remaining customers had left, Roger the thug shut the main entrance of the store and called the other employees from the back. The five of them stood in front of me as the thug began to interrogate me.

'What's your name? What are you doing here? Why are you stealing? Do you know I can call the police? And I will call the police. This will teach you a lesson, you little prick.'

'No, no police,' I begged the man.

'Don't call the police? Why shouldn't I call the police? You are a thief, and thieves go to jail – simple, mate, simple, in nit?' said Roger, the thug.

'Yes, that's right love, in this country, thieves go to jail, it's that simple,' repeated the woman who blipped things under the scanner.

'I'm hungry, look... ' I said reaching out for the bag. I unzipped it and took out the tin of baked beans. 'I'm hungry. I'm not thief, I'm hungry.'

The heavily moustached old man from the cheese counter looked at me and shook his head.

'Well, well, what a sad thing. A young man like him, lost and hungry. What did the world come to? I don't think I understand. How can this be? What a shame, what a terrible shame! Roger, don't call the police, for Christ's sake. Look at this boy – he stole a tin of baked beans. What kind of punishment will they give him? He's not even from here – they can't even prosecute him, for crying out loud. What are they going to do?'

'Yes,' I said.

'SHUT UP! Nobody is talking to you!' shouted Roger the thug, pointing his finger at me.

'Look at this boy; he probably can't even understand what we're saying. God knows where he's from. Let him go, Roger, but tell him never to step foot in here again,' said the woman who bleeped potatoes under the scanner.

'All right, all right, you win. I won't call the police, this time – you people always talk me out of it. But listen up here, mate, if I catch you anywhere near my store again, I swear mate, I swear by my dead mother – God be gracious – I will kick your arse so hard you will need a doctor to get my boot laces out of your rectum. Got it, mate? Got it? I don't give a fuck where you come from, mate; in this country we don't like thieves – got it?'

As he said that he slapped me on the head twice.

'Got it? Damn it, boy, say it, say you've got it or I swear I'll punch your teeth in!' said Roger covering me in his saliva.

'Yes...I got it,' I said.

'Good. Now, hand over the beans and get the fuck out!'

I stood up, and without raising my head I grabbed my bag and rushed out of there. I ran until I got to the fishy yellow house. It was Friday and the rent was due. I felt ashamed, low, very low, and tired from thinking so hard about the money. I sat on the curb and looked up to the sky. The sun was struggling through masses of grey clouds. I was at the lowest point I had ever been. I had passed rock bottom and was now sinking in the mud. That's when the door opened and Francisca called me in.

'João, come in. Was the door jammed again? Come in, James will arrive in a minute and we need to sort out the rent before he comes.'

I walked in and Francisca noticed my distress. She asked what had happened and I told her I hadn't being going to work every day, but to steal food from the Co–op. I told her I had no job or even any money to go into London and look for one. She kept repeating the same thing over and over again: 'Oh my, oh dear, oh my, oh dear.' Then she made me a sandwich with some left overs – some chicken meat and some tomatoes she had in the fridge – and poured me a glass of cold milk. Then she rushed upstairs and grabbed all that belonged to me, and came back down again.

'Here, all your things are here, I think. Now you must go. Take care of yourself, João. Go now, before James comes home, because he won't treat you this nicely. Here, I'll give you some money – shit! I have none...,' she said as she felt for her pockets.

'I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry.'

'Thank you,' I said.

'Goodbye, João,' she said, the door shutting behind her like the door of a cell, echoing all my emptiness.

I crossed the street and didn't look back. I walked until night fell like a dark cotton blanket over the suburbs. My shadow was cast ahead of me as I walked under the yellow streetlights. I arrived at Tooting Broadway and people were still shopping in the African shops. They rushed past me, looking forward to going home. I saw them all: Ghanaians, Senegalese and Nigerians, Turkish, Libyans and Egyptians, Moroccans, Indians, Bangladeshis, Bolivians and Peruvians, all mixing and mangling into one kaleidoscope of faces, smells, shapes and colours. Some people wore turbans. Others looked camp. They were businessman, housewives, murderers, cleaners, child–molesters, dentists, accountants, illegal migrants, brick–layers, lawyers, artists, doctors and cab drivers: choosing tomatoes, weighing apples, handling potatoes and bunches of coriander.

I stood at the corner of Tooting High Street and Mitcham Road. I stood there for some time. I stood there hoping for a miracle. I walked over to the bus stop and felt my pockets for money in one last gesture of hope. Then I grabbed my bag and walked to Wimbledon, because I didn't know what else to do.

9

The Garden of Eden

The night was starless and it said nothing. I roamed the streets without a place to go or bread to eat. Eventually, I found a bench that stood on a patch of grass, one of those spaces between two buildings, where the good citizens of the world take their dogs for a midnight shit. It was a triangle of not–so–green vegetation covered with Lego grass, only large enough for the bench and a waste bin. There was a newly planted tree and a cement path cutting across the small plastic oasis in the middle of the shopping area, near the train station. It was a rare warm night and the bench seemed a better place to be than the yellow house in Merton. Despite the smell of warm dog dung, being out in the open again, looking up at the suburban sky, made me feel good. I looked around and from there I saw the line of black cabs waiting to pick people up from a night out in London.

I sat on that bench and watched them coming, stumbling along, drunk from beer and wine and all the life the great city had injected into them; London filled their insides like air inflates a balloon, pushing it upwards. They floated, some more drunkenly then others. They walked to the cabs that patiently awaited each new arrival. They peeped through the window, chatted to the driver, go in and zoomed off somewhere to finish the night off with more wine, a hot bath, a frozen pizza or an orgasm. I saw a girl sitting on the curb, head hanging between the legs. I could see her knickers in the tunnel formed by the mini–skirt she wore. She was a sexy girl: tall, blonde, generous breasts, long legs and muscular thighs. The sight of her underwear was only interrupted when she spasmodically dropped her head between her legs again, this time to vomit the dönner kebab she had just eaten.

I let the girl distract me. I followed her with my eyeballs and gorged in her drunken beauty. I wasn't stalking her; I was simply trying hard not to die. She gave me a focus, something to keep my mind going. The bench I was sitting on was all the London I knew right then. But I liked it, as if it wasn't a random bench in the suburbs, but a comfortable seat in the front row of the Royal Opera House. A privileged view from the edge, from which I could watch life going by, like how wildlife photographers register animals without disturbing the scene.

'You're a pig and I don't need you, Mike. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore...' said the blonde in a black mini–dress.

'Kate, you don't understand; it meant nothing, it was a mistake!' pleaded the young man in tight jeans and waxed hair.

Then the police came and arrested a man, who they dragged from inside the station, handcuffed. He looked Algerian, maybe Tunisian, maybe Arab – I don't know. Then the man from the corner shop came out from behind his counter and started smoking a cigarette outside, when some young girls approached him. He shook his head violently. 'No, sorry, I cannot sell you cigarettes – you're under age.' At this point I was sure that, whatever I did from then on, I wasn't going to die of boredom: not in that city. Perhaps I'd die of hunger, of longing, run over by a double–decker bus, from cancer, at the hands of a thug or skinhead, or of Aids or a brain tumour; but no, not of boredom.

And my evening was far from over. A policeman approached me as I got ready to slip into the tattered sleeping bag Francisca had given me. He was tall and polite and I couldn't see his eyes. He approached me calmly and asked why I intended to sleep on the bench.

'I have no other place to go,' I told him.

He asked me to leave, to which I replied, 'Sorry, I can't do that.'

'Why not?' he asked. 'Are you glued to it?'

'I wish I was,' I said.

'Then get up and go, mate. Chop, chop... '

I don't have to tell you I wasn't happy with this outcome. I wasn't. In the hour or so I had spent on that bench I had grown fond of my patch of grass. It was the one thing solid thing under my feet. The only point of reference I had as the stars processed three hundred and sixty degrees every twenty three thousand years up above my head.

'Is that so?' I had asked my physics teacher, back in another world far, far away from there.

'Yes,' he said, '...we are nothing and our counting of time means even less. We are nothing, a spec of cosmic dust, and we only have each other. And still, look at the way we treat one another.'

I predicted a tough night ahead, and I was right. I packed my things again and walked through Wimbledon Village without any idea about where I was going. I wandered from common to common, from bench to bench, only to be sent away, again and again, by another policemen or a gang of drunken teenagers, one of whom threw his fish and chips at me as he told me to 'go back to Poland' – something I found deeply distressing. I had never even been to Poland. And nor did I like battered soggy fish wrapped in yesterday's edition of The Sun!

I walked for an hour or so, until I found a place hidden from everyone and seemingly free of policemen or teenage gangs, flying fried fish or vomiting party girls. As I walked past the imposing homes of architects and bank managers, stock exchange dealers and other financial speculators, dentists and doctors, Michelin–starred cooks, filmmakers and people who just either inherited money or won the lottery, I noticed that one house had its side–gate open. I walked through it and found myself inside a private garden, with flowers blooming everywhere I looked and statues of nude men and women holding pots and making athletic poses. For a second, I thought I had died and woken up in the Garden of Eden, which by the looks of it was set somewhere in ancient Greece. The garden was dimly lit by light that came from the house. I spotted a swinging bench, large enough to accommodate five or six people. I stretched myself out on it and covered myself with the sleeping bag. Then, while looking at some of the stars poking through the London smog, and listening to the voices of what seemed to be a party happening elsewhere in the neighbourhood, I closed my eyes and fell asleep. The bench was comfortable and I slept heavily as I tumbled down the precipitous valley of my mind.

It was in the middle of a busy city centre. Berlin. I had never been to Berlin before and I wondered why I was dreaming of Berlin. Everything looked new and I was somehow sure of where I was going. I looked to my right and I saw cement monoliths spread over the square. They were of all shapes and sizes but arranged in long lines. They formed corridors. The ground around the blocks was uneven and the skies above reflected the same grey colour of the cement. Nearby I saw the Reichstag – it was in ruins. I looked again at the monoliths and they were no longer intact, and nothing else was intact. Each block of cement had been broken and covered with bullet holes. Some had lost their corners, some had split in two and others crumbled to pieces like sandcastles. Aeroplanes flew overhead, roaring through the sky, and machine guns on the ground: blazing tongues of fire whipping the air.

I ran until I reached Friedrichstraβe, and I ran alone. There was no one around but me. All I heard were guns firing and people screaming all around, screams and crying and more screams. And still nobody in sight. So I ran as far and as fast as my breath would take me. I ran over the Spree and onto the Museum Island and went further down towards Alexander Platz. All was destroyed; not a single building stood intact. I walked a long way back until I came to Potsdamer Platz. There, I saw the same scenario – nothing erect, destruction, destruction everywhere, buildings collapsing onto one another, no one around, bullet holes and piles of debris everywhere I looked. The city was quite simply an enormous pile of ash: grey, dead ash. There was the vastness of the horizon that the eyes pursued in vain, and the emptiness of the streets, an emptiness that was only disturbed by the perfection of such chaos. Between the rubble and the dust and the blood sprayed on the walls, I finally saw somebody walking towards me. It was a group of refugees: dirty, hungry, skeletal man and women, chained by the ankles and the wrists. A soldier walked behind them telling them to keep on marching. Another soldier appeared from behind the people. He turned around for a split second and looked straight at me and, once again, I recognized the all–too–familiar eyes of Emmanuel. They came close as I stood next to the half–erect church.

'Stop!' ordered the other man, 'Ich möchte, dass Sie etwas ganz besonderes sehen. Achten Sie darauf, da es das erste und letzte mal sein könnte, dass Sie es sehen werden – I want to show you something and you better pay attention because it could be the first and the last time you will see it,' he said with a grave and loud voice.

I stood motionless. The man walked towards me, and then straight through me, as if one of us was a ghost. He turned around and did the same again. The men and women in chains looked at him in astonishment.

'You see,' he said looking at them with an air of satisfaction, 'this man does not exist. He is a figment of your and my imagination, a product of our collective consciousness. He is nothing more than a ghost and you will soon be like him – ghosts! That's all you are, nothing but ghosts! And I will make sure you remain that way: ghosts, lifeless ghosts! Nur Geister nichts als Gespenster und Geister. Gespenster, leblose Gespenster!

He fired his machine gun and blood drenched the earth.

When I woke up I felt dizzy with a taste of blood and dust in my mouth. I put both hands against my temples and lay on the bench for some time. I sat up, opened my legs and then vomited. I lay down again and began to breathe heavily. It was the morning of a new day, and the sun was forcing its way shamefully through masses of grey clouds, a continuous and undifferentiated grey ceiling, much like the ceiling of a communist prison or a war bunker, of which I felt an inmate. Despite that, it was a warm morning. I stretched my arms and yawned, a lazy and disturbed yawn. I looked to my side and saw that my bag was gone. In its place I found an envelope, addressed 'To Our Guest'. It contained a hand–written note.

Dear Sir,

We noticed you were sleeping in our garden. We do not mind such a thing at all, but you must make yourself known to us, for if you don't you will prompt us to call the police, since we could perceive you as a threat, could we not? Please knock on the back door for a hot beverage and amicable conversation.

Yours truly,

J. W. Willencourt'

P.s. we have your bag in our possession, in case you're wondering.

At once my hands began to shake, sweat, and swell, as they usually did before my lips and then the whole face grew bigger. Before I was transformed into a baboon, I made my way through the garden gate as fast as I could. Unable to think straight, I ran up the small hill that separated the house from the Wimbledon tennis lawns. I ran for a minute or two, and then came to a sudden stop, as if someone had pulled a rope that was tied to my leg and I was suddenly unable to move. I turned on my heels and walked back towards the house. I did not know what made me do that exactly. All I know is that soon I was standing in front of Willencourt's back door. Before I knocked I beat the dust and twigs off my clothes. I wiped the sweat from my face and attempted to tidy myself up by tucking my shirt in. I combed my hair with my fingers and cleaned my eyes with the tips of my index finger and thumb. I then took a deep breath and knocked. My English was better than when I had first moved to London, but it was still pretty basic; I had to rehearse every sentence two or three times in my head before saying anything out loud. Even then I was always unsure if I was saying it right. I stood there and practiced my speech until the door opened and, without a warning, a towering figure stood in front of me. The man had a serious look on his face, and held in one hand a pipe, and the other a pocket watch.

'Right on time for tea!' said the man as he opened up into a large smile and showed me his yellow, tea–stained, crooked teeth.

'I thought it was you, I thought it was you... ' he said tapping his index finger on the clock's face. 'I told the wife you were not going to disappoint us, and you didn't. I was right – as usual,' he continued.

'I'm sorry, I don't understand,' I said confused.

'Oh course you don't,' he said. 'But that's beside the point, old boy. Come inside, it will all make sense in a minute,' he said, tapping me on the back and gently pushing me inside the house.

J.W. Willencourt was a tall and robust man, whose red face was adorned by a proud and possibly ancient white beard, which made him look like a wizard, or Santa Claus. A rather voluptuous beer belly bulged from under his beard, overburdening the buttons of his flannel shirt with tension as the textile stretched over the perfectly spherical protuberance. He wore brown chords, soft leather shoes and a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Under it was a waistcoat with pockets on both sides and a golden chain clipped onto the golden pocket watch. His shoes looked somehow too small in comparison to the rest of his enormous figure, and given the fact that he was wearing a jacket inside the house, I guessed that either he was about to go out, or else he was an Oxford professor. I was, of course, wrong. Willencourt was a Cambridge professor.

A polyglot, professor Willencourt was one of those erudite men who drank tea all day, read incessantly and drank pints of ale at the local pub in the early hours of each evening. He spent most of his time between 'Eden' (as he called it) – his rose garden – and his books now that he was retired, although books were the real passion. The roses were a mere distraction. He was not so much a gardener as 'an ancient mind trapped in a modern universe, with a classical sense of aesthetics.' He mainly cultivated roses so that he would have objects onto which to reflect his own ego. But he also wanted to please his wife Nora, who attended the Chelsea Flower Show every year and was an honorary member of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Willencourt had little hair at the front of his oval head and a ponytail at the back, making him look like an erudite old biker. The first time he laid his eyes on me he thought I was exactly who I was: a guy who dared to sleep in his garden, which was an exciting event that required further understanding. The first time I laid eyes on him I thought he was going to eat me. He walked about wearing bifocal glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He looked over them when speaking. He pulled a long face and blinked repetitively every time he did so. When confronted with my bad English and dubious appearance, he smiled warmly and omitted any comments; even though I'm sure it hurt his ears tremendously to listen to me using the wrong verbs and nouns when forming sentences.

Willencourt's manners were impeccable and his appetite enormous. Naturally, I expected quite another form of treatment, such as a nice chat with the police or at the very least a bollocking from Willencourt for having trespassed on his property. Instead, I was met with Jaffa cakes, cucumber sandwiches and English breakfast tea, which I chose to drink with milk and two lumps of sugar, a choice my host heartily disapproved of.

'Oh dear, oh dear, sugar in the tea, sugar in the tea! Minus ten points on my intellectual scale, my dear lad! Just so you know, you started with one hundred points, and sleeping in my garden without authorization already cost you another ten before you even began! So all in all you still have eighty, but I'm being generous, of course, for I could have also counted minus ten for dunking the Jaffa cake in your tea.'

He couldn't begin or end a sentence without some form of literary reference. 'That's just something the Jew in The Merchant would have said,' he would muse, or 'What would Yossarian have done if he was caught in a similar dilemma? What would Shaw have made of such nonsense?' and so on. He used the full range of the English language even when describing the most mundane occurrences. For example, he would refer to something that other people would simply describe as 'big' or 'enormous,' like somebody's nose or the hump of a camel as a 'gargantuan protuberance.'

Before I could finish my tea, I tried to articulate my story in the little English I had. Every word I misused, every wrong tense and conjugation, made him fidgety, as if grammatical and syntactical mistakes were needles that pierced him in the eye every time I opened my mouth. And still, he listened like a guru or a good grandfather, only interrupting once to ask if I wanted more tea. After I finished telling him why I was sleeping on his bench, he shouted 'NORA...NORA..., WHERE ARE YOU DEAR? PLEASE COME, I WANT TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SOMEONE!'

'Yes, Willy darling, did you call for me?'

'Ah yes, I did dear. Here, sweetheart, I would like to introduce you to this young man. His name is João, João de Deus, and he comes from Brrrraaaazilllll. He was the young man we found sleeping on our bench this morning.'

Nora Willencourt was a tall and elegant woman with long, whitening hair and a Meryl Streep–ish face – unusual, but pretty nevertheless. Her eyes were big and penetrating and everything about her was anti–establishment: canvas shoes, long flowery dress and rings on every one of her thin, wrinkling fingers, some bearing the peace symbol and some pentagrams, while others were dark with Celtic patterns drawn in white ink.

'Oh yes, but of course. How are you, love? If I may ask, why were you sleeping in our garden? You do know this is a private property, don't you, darling? I do not mean to be rude in any way, but that's rather unusual behaviour, don't you think? We found pigeons in one of the rooms once, and a cat in the kitchen, both of which we decided to adopt as house pets, but with all due respect, love, I am not sure we can adopt you... you see, there are laws against that in this country, God forbid!'

'Nora, darling, please, have some mercy on the poor fellow, will you? João has just gone through a rather perplexing, not to say most unusual series of events, which somehow, rather inexorably, have brought him to our dwelling. I will tell you the whole story at the first, most auspicious opportunity my dear. All I want you to do for now is to be a real dear and show this young man to our guest room. I think João needs a couple of days to pull himself back together, and I can see no harm in providing him with a respite. Am I correct to assume you wouldn't be opposed to our generous hospitality?'

'Willy, but we barely know this young man and...'

'Yes, darling, I know, I know. But I believe that if João here was to be a thief, a murderer or even a Bible salesman for that matter, he would have already struck us down with his word. Don't you find that plausible? Besides, his name, if I am not wrong, means John of God. How can a man called 'John of God' be a threat?' He looked at me briefly and blinked.

'As usual dear, if your judgement permits you such extravagance, I will trust you as I always have.'

'I am sorry for my initial questioning João,' Nora Willencourt said. 'Please feel welcomed in our home. Come with me and I will show you your room.'

'Thank you, but it's ok, I'm fine. I don't prefer to intrude,' I said clumsily.

'Oh please, love, stop with the nonsense, will you? I believe Willy is correct in his assertion: you are in dear need of a good couple of days' rest. Willy and I are more than happy to have you here. Now, do let's go upstairs. I will show you your room, you will have a bath, and before you know it you will be on your feet again. And please don't be shy. If you are hungry just help yourself of whatever you find in the fridge. You're at home here. Ah, and you can call us simply Willy and Nora.'

Despite being happy to be out there in the open, it was impossible to reject their hospitality. Before I knew it, I was having a warm bath and soon after I fell into a deep sleep while still wrapped in the comfortable bathrobe Nora had given me. The robe smelled of caramel and vanilla pods. It was hand–stitched with colourful rectangular patches, two by two inches, inside which a variety of flowers were embroidered: daises, dandelions, sunflowers and tulips. On the front, in small letters on the left side, the name 'Kimberly' appeared in grey. I fell onto the bed, flat on my face between two feather pillows, and there I remained until some undecipherable hour.

I woke up to the sound of birds. Their chanting was entangled with the distant echoing of something being hammered into a wall. I rolled in bed for a while, trying to remember what I was doing there. Then I got up and got dressed. I walked downstairs and the house was silent. I called for Willy and Nora, but no one answered back. The room I was in was on the third floor of the house: a small attic with a curved ceiling that forced me to bend over as I made my way through the door. I walked down until I had reached the landing of the second floor, where I saw a door only half opened, with light coming through. I pushed it open hesitantly, calling out again for Willy and Nora. Still nobody answered. I pushed the door open and found myself standing in front of an enormous library. I walked in and saw an antique pendulum clock standing between two long bookshelves. The clock showed 5:35. I looked out of the window and, being June, it was still daylight. I was relieved I had only slept for a couple of hours.

The library was impressive. I paced over the dark wooden boards, which creaked as I made my way across the room. Under the large window there was a solid mahogany desk and across from it a burgundy leather sofa. There were numerous books piled up high on the desk and many more spread on one corner of the sofa. Running my finger over the spine of some of the books, I let my eyes browse over the shelves. The first book I saw was Sentimental Education. Then there were others by Voltaire, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Walter Benjamin, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, Plato, Arthur Miller, Kant, St. Augustine, Jean–Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, Garcia Lorca, Jack London, Doris Lessing, James Joyce, George Orwell, Freud, Jung, Wittgenstein, Camus, Hemingway, Rand and Arthur Rimbaud... not a single one of which I had read. Some of them I knew by name, while others I had never heard of. Most of them just made me feel unlearned.

The books looked like graves in a cemetery. I knew they were only dead things: words printed on paper. But, as with graves, I didn't know what I was going to find if I opened them. Those names hung in the air like spirits of the past whom lived in mausoleums, in photographs and in the letters carved on stone. Gradually, the library began to turn into a vision; cobbled stones, London by gas–light, the smog. I felt the cold Parisian air of La Belle Époque. I saw 1920s brothels and the dirty pubs of Dublin, with people singing and dancing on tabletops, turning pints of Ale down their throats. I could smell rancid wine, stale bread and then there was hunger, a lot of hunger, and the markets of Andalucía, and the warm nights and the burning sun setting beyond the valley down below the Ronda Gorge. The room looked like Berlin falling to pieces at the hands of revolutionaries and enemy armies, like medieval Europe and crusader knights and martyrs. It smelled of the burned blood that drenched the sand in the Algerian war, of sea battles in the gulf of Persia and invasions, conquest and gunpowder. The floor was covered with cigarette ends and used type–writer ribbons and torn paper. As I held one book in my hands, flicking through the pages, I felt the loneliness of the American plains, and the wilderness of the Rockies, filled with howling wolves and dying men. I could smell and see such things, even though I had never been to Ronda, Dublin, Paris, Berlin or any of those places.

Then hunger struck me with a Viking vengeance and I went to the basement in search of the kitchen. I came across a bag of white sliced bread, which I ate with some cheddar cheese and cold turkey slices I found in the fridge. I was stuffing my face with the sandwich and a glass of fruit juice when I heard the sound of keys going in the door lock. Then Willy and Nora stood at the kitchen door looking perplexed, and before I could say a word, Nora exclaimed:

'My goodness gracious, Willy, the boy is alive!'

'Oh, what a relief!' said Willy. 'We both thought we would have to call the doctor to resuscitate you, old boy!'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I slept much time. How many hours I slept, five? I said in my embarrassingly baboonish English.

'Five hours?' Willy looked puzzled at Nora.

Nora, understanding at once what had happened, whispered in Willy's ear, which in turn caused him to burst into laughter.

'Tell him, Nora... dear, tell the boy... ha, ha, ha, he, he, he, ha, ha, ha.'

'João,' said Nora with a bright smile on her face, 'love, it is indeed nearly six o'clock in the afternoon; you're correct in that. H–o–w–e–v–e–r today is Sunday: the day after we found you sleeping in our garden.'

'What? I sleep twenty–four hours?'

'That's correct.' said Nora.

'Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!' was all I could say.

'No, no, come now old boy, it is all very fine indeed. Please, no need to feel embarrassed,' said Willy. 'It only proves you needed respite more than anything.'

'Willy has told me everything you told him, and we have agreed on a plan,' Nora said, looking at me with a serious expression on her face. 'We will help you to move on. We will help to get you back on your feet. We know the right people and we would like to share some ideas with you.'

'Yes, yes, darling, but let us not put the horses in front of the carriage just yet. First, it is dinnertime. An empty bag cannot stand,' said Willy.

I helped Nora in the kitchen by peeling potatoes and carrots; Willy was hopeless with all things domestic. As we worked over the vegetables, she told me about herself: about her childhood in Devonshire, about when she moved to London to work as an environmental activist in the 1970s, and about meeting Willy at Cambridge University when they were both undergraduate students there. 'We fell in love at first sight,' she said. Willy was interested in anthropology and philosophy at the time, and Nora was engaged in all things political. Then she came across animal activism and fought for animal rights until the second wave of the campaign for nuclear disarmament hit the country. She joined the CND in 1979. She told me she was one of the girls who stood at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp... and then she had to explain what that meant. In the meantime, Willy made a name for himself by developing a new concept that explained why religion was still a driving force in modern times despite the advancement of secular ideas since the Enlightenment. Nora, on the other hand, applied the philosophies of New Ageism and political philosophy that she had developed at university to environmentalist causes, gaining a reputation within and outside of the nuclear disarmament campaign.

Nora also told me about their only daughter, Kimberley, and how she'd had enough of her parents' lifestyle and decided to swap England for sunny Brazil. She was working as an English teacher in Rio while volunteering part–time for an NGO that operated within one of the most dangerous slums in the world: the Alemão Complex, a place one of Rio de Janeiro's chief policeman once called 'the heart of evil.' Was she worried about Kimberley? 'No, I should be worried about the people who she's with – Kimberley is like me, obstinate and fearless when it comes to the things she believes in.' I just thought they were all mad; middle–class people's need to save the world was a lunacy I never really understood.

During dinner, Willy and Nora told me about their plans and how I could benefit from their contacts and resources. They showed me a few websites on a laptop they perched on top of a pile of books at the end of the dining table. Nora clicked away on a mouse in between spoonfuls of organic, corn–fed, locally sourced, and free–range chicken broth. Willy kept talking to me about this friend and that friend, and this and that place where I could find a job.

'You see, it is all very simple, old boy. We have a few friends in London, some of them own a few restaurants and, after a few enquiries we discovered that if you would be willing, they would be happy to consider you for a job in one of them. All they ask is that we send them a copy of your passport and a letter of recommendation – which we would do with pleasure of course – and you could be called for an interview before the end of the week.'

I sat there and listened to the two of them talking about how they could help me to get things 'fixed' and to get me 'back on my feet,' and I began to feel nauseated. All I wanted was a bench to sleep on. I'd had enough of pity. Pity, always the damn pity: it's the tip of the devil's whip. I was so disgusted by the whole thing that I stood up and ran upstairs, grabbed my bag full of nothing and left through the back door. I ran through Eden and kicked a statue on my way out. I would understand if they thought of me as irrational and uneducated. Either way, I couldn't give a shit. Padre Antonio was right: Eden was doomed from the beginning.

10

The Two Towers

The night I left the Willencourt's I slept rough again: some park, some bench, somewhere. I stayed like that most of the week, rolling about from place to place and eating at supermarkets. I was lucky not to be caught, and the weather was not too bad either. I met the policemen again in various situations that I will not mention. What's important is that after almost a week of sleeping rough, I found a job as a cleaner at a pub in Soho. They offered accommodation and didn't ask questions; they were desperate for someone to clean their toilets, and I wasn't wearing a turban. The pay was very basic, but to have a shelter over my head made all the difference. I had my meals guaranteed; so all the money I made went into my pocket. I used it to pay for an English course at a school for foreigners.

Whenever I had a day off from work, I strolled from Soho to Tottenham Court Road to read between the shelves of discount bookshops. When my day off coincided with a weekend than there was always the Spaniard's house, where I could drink and listen to the latest sex–drugs–and–rock n' roll stories. The Spaniard never mentioned work, except that he ran a 'business' in London that was profitable enough for him to afford living in some comfort without too many worries.

He lived in Finsbury Park and Finsbury Park lived in his house. Every possible race and nationality frequented the Spaniard's nook and it wouldn't be a problem if your English wasn't up to scratch; you could always speak Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Patois, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Senegalese, Urdu, Afghani, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish...you name it, everybody from Jamaican drug dealers to Polish plumbers could be found in the 'Spaniard's Inn' – or Babel as I used to think of it. But I won't tell you anything further about the Spaniard. That is because I came by one day and saw that the Bobbies had taped off the house. Instead, I'll tell you the story of how one certain night, after an evening at the Spaniard's, I found myself entangled in a series of events that led me to a few important considerations.

It was 3AM on a September night, a few months after I had left Willy and Nora Willencourt puzzling over why I had gone. It was one of many endless nights. I stood drunk in the cold and the man behind the counter wanted to know if I wanted my falafel burger with mayo or ketchup. I went for mayo – bad decision. I paid the three fifty he asked for that wonder of modern British cuisine. I took a bite and found it was soggy and spicy. I took another bite and set off towards bus stop A. Victoria station was closed and I had missed the last train. I had drunk two bottles of wine at the Spaniard's party and after being chased by a guy who wanted to help me to get home (I hid myself behind one of the lions at Trafalgar Square while he and his girlfriend ran after me all the way up to Piccadilly Circus) I somehow ended up at Victoria. There I had to wait for the night bus. It was so cold I could feel the air standing before me like a sheet of glass. The falafel was going down pretty swiftly. It was juicy and warming. Except that the smell of the onions and garlic floating through my nostrils caused a chain reaction that started somewhere in my stomach and moved all the way up to my throat, finally coming out through the mouth and the nose. I puked a litre, maybe more. In the dark and foggy weather I could hardly see the red double decker parked half a metre away, let alone see the colour of the substance coming out of my face.

I was sick. I was sick as a dog, sick with thunder, sick with wine and despair. The falafel fell on the floor, and that was three fifty, almost an hour's wages, gone forever into the pool of liquid me that ran down the bench, making its way towards somebody else's feet. A drunkard who I wasn't sure was waiting for the bus or on his last gasp, looked at me and felt disgusted; and I am talking about a man who had just pissed himself and whose eyebrows were as long as his beard.

At that moment I decided to sit and wait, as immobile as possible, when a black woman with a Jamaican accent approached me. She walked straight towards me as if we knew one another and had agreed to meet at the stop.

'Yo man, was aaaappp?'

'Was what?'

'Was aaaaaappp, man, was aaaappp?'

'Sorry, I don't know what you mean.'

'Oh fuck it man, fuck it, innit. Tell ya man, tell ya, yu gi' me yu phone and I give ya a blow job, innit.'

Looking back, I probably should have said no. But I thought: 'This creature must love me so deeply she doesn't care if my mouth and penis taste of alcohol, ashtray and cheese.' So I handed over my phone while holding my head just above my knees to let the torrents of vomit keep coming out until I had nothing else to throw up but water. The woman looked at me, lifted her bloodstained blouse, showed me one of her tits and uttered with a strange giggle:

'Yu a fuck–head, innit, a fuck–head (ha, ha, ha, ha). Fuck ya, fuck–head, white ass! Wa' an idiot, innit! See ya, ya fuck up, innit, wa' a fuck up – ha, ha.'

When the puking gave way to the cold darkness that followed, I gathered my legs together and went back to the falafel shop.

'Yesss, ma frrriend...how can I hellllp ya, ma frrriend?' said the Turkish voice behind the counter.

'Ah, yes, listen...the falafel was no good. I take a pack of chips and some chicken drummers this time.'

I said that rather unsure as to why I wanted more food. I think I just wanted to hear someone to make me feel important for a second.

'Yes boss, yes...ONE CHIPS, ONE CHICKEN FOR THE GENTLEMAN...' shouted the Turkish man to another Turkish guy who was sweating at the back.

Then he came back with another impossible question:

'Ma frrriend, yu wannit wwrrrapped or open, ma frrriend?'

I stood in front of the man with catatonic eyes and a white shivering face. I don't know if the chubby Turkish thought I was about to drop dead in front of him and that his falafel had something to do with it, but not only did he made the decision to wrap the chips and the chicken himself, he also told me he wasn't going to charge anything for it and gave me a complementary can of coke. I picked it all up and left.

Between the falafel van and the bus stop, like a bad movie, all the choices I had made in the past and up until that moment flashed one by one through the camera obscura of my alcohol–soaked brain: the day I left Brazilian soil and came to London practically penniless, the day I lost a bet to my cousin Pedro who was a card player and knew very well I couldn't possibly know the colour of Napoleon's white horse, the falafel man, the bus driver, the woman who took my phone and gave me a glimpse of her horror, the drunkard who by now had the remains of my last supper hanging off his shoelaces. Not long and I was back to the foggy and damp present. My history was no history, for it made no difference to anyone. To live alone, to die alone, to want nothing but to live and to face solitude with honesty. 'Remember, solitude is a gift,' said the poet.

The drinking and the puking and the falafel-van-dialogue happened over and over. I was working days and nights in that same Soho pub and that ritual became a routine. The manager, Steve, a loud, ginger, half–Scottish half–Australian boozer (whose trousers and pants had never seen a washing machine) had got it all wrong. But he had a good heart and as my English got a little better he promoted me to barman, a job that gave me many joys and many hangovers. He kept the shots and the pints coming day and night. I pulled one pint for the customer and one for me. My job, it seemed, was not to serve the customers but to drink with the customers.

Then there were the regulars...when they were in the house everything changed. Regulars demanded respect. No ordinary customers, the barman had to recognize each one of those old faces and know their names. Names were very important. It was as though if the barman didn't say 'Hello Mr Smith, hello Mr Applewood,' then Mr Smith and Mr Applewood would no longer exist.

'In certain pubs in England, more so in the olden days then nowadays, the regulars came in every day, knocking at the door at 10 AM for a first round, me included. And who can blame us?' one drunkard told me.

Behind the bar were all the tankards pertaining to each regular, like a rowing club displaying its trophies on shelves mounted on a wall of fame with names and dates and the coats of arms of each individual who won a competition, all hanging on the shelf in their cheap and desolate glory. The regulars wanted their beer served in their own tankard and expected you to know which mug belonged to whom. I often asked myself if that was the only thing that kept those men going: the recognition that someone in the world knew who they were or paid any attention. There, hanging off the bar frame, the tankards were the only thing they truly owned and the bar stool was the only place they felt at home.

They knew I knew my place, too. What would a Brazilian immigrant, who barely spoke English, know about the magic of drinking from one's own tankard at the local? Not much. Beside the regulars of course, a pub in London is a place where anyone can walk in, anytime, like the living room of a busy boarding house of a trendy district: from film stars to the odd politician to the average Londoner who comes after work with his mates for a pint, some drugs in the toilet and some casual conversation. So one night, just as we were preparing to close, a tall man wearing a hat walked in and asked for a drink.

'Sorry, it's past 11. I already shouted last orders,' I said with some authority. I still couldn't speak that well, but I knew that line by heart.

'Oh, for crying out loud! How many bars does a man have to walk in just so he can have one FUCKING drink in this DAMN city?' said the heavily accented American.

The man stormed off kicking and bitching '...morons!'

I shouted back, 'It is past eleven, and I can't do anything about that. This is London – sir!

Some days later I was on the train on my way home when an article in a free newspaper caught my eye. It was an interview with Crog Byllan, the legendary singer–songwriter who composed hymns such as 'Shaving in the Wind' and 'Mr Mandolin Man.' He was complaining that he couldn't get a drink in London past eleven, and he mentioned he had run into a moronic bartender who was such a big idiot he hadn't even recognized him.

When I started my shift the next day, Steve called me to a corner and gave me the sack.

'Sorry, mate, but the boss told me that the establishment cannot afford bad publicity, d'you know what I mean? It's not personal.'

'You cannot be serious, Steve? Why should I lose my job because of that moron?'

'What moron?' asked Steve, who now looked puzzled.

'Didn't you read the newspaper?' I asked.

'No.'

'Well, why am I getting the sack then?'

'Erm... hello? Hello? Maybe because of your... papers? What else?'

'What papers?'

'Exactly mate, what papers? You never showed us any: neither a valid passport nor an ID card... not even a photograph! The boss says he thinks you're here illegally and we can't afford the law knocking on the door – they could shut us down, d'you know what I mean? Like I said, it's not personal, mate, but we've got to protect our interests, d'you know what I mean?'

Then he said something along the lines of '...I know it is hard and life in London isn't easy, but we're all seeking shelter from the storm and you can't live life like a rolling stone all your life!' Then he laughed until his face turned blue.

He had read the papers, the fucking boozer! That's it; that was the cherry on the cake. I wasn't happy to leave that job, since I needed the money and the room, but I wasn't sad about the prospect of never seeing Steve again. I only needed one chance in a million, but the chance never seemed to come. The universe compressed and collapsed behind my eyeballs and all I wanted was to vanish in thin air and let go of the struggle like the Buddha under the tree. I was neither an American hipster nor an English poet. I was just an illegal migrant living in the city of the lost. Purgatory: that's what it was, the land of the damned. The hogwash, the damned! They came from nowhere, and were going nowhere too. Immigrants, the scum of the earth – I was one of them.

That same afternoon I found an advert in a free newspaper to the effect that some odd pub in some remote, rural area – a small village somewhere between London and Birmingham – was looking for a barman, a cleaner and an assistant chef. As the advert insisted, the person did not have to speak fluent English, but had to have 'a good appearance and a good, honest and smiley face.' I took a good look at the reflection on the door of the old Routemaster I was on and decided my head bore all of those qualities. So I got off the bus and made my way to a phone cabin. I inserted a pound worth of coins in the slot and called Mr Gordon Dalloway at 'The Swan Gastro Pub,' who was not only the pub's landlord, but from that moment onwards my new boss.

The next day I woke up early, packed the few things I had inside my bag and left the youth hostel where I had stayed the night before, after leaving the pub without an aim. I took a bus to Paddington Station, where the 11:15 train to Watford Junction took me to Hemel Hampstead, a place neither here nor there, mostly nowhere at all. It would have remained unknown to the majority of people of the world if it wasn't for an oil refinery that had once caught fire, bursting into flames and killing a few people, to the delight of the BBC, who kept showing the images twenty–four hours a day for a whole week – again and again and again – because something burning on home soil is almost as exciting as bombs being dropped over somebody else's land.

I was told on the phone that I should want to leave the razzle dazzle of London and seek out some monotony if I was to work at The Swan, because the most exciting thing to do around Hemel Hampstead, as I was later to discover, was to go to the local laundrette. It was, to be quite honest, the ugliest place I had ever set foot on. Hemel Hampstead, that is, not the laundrette, which looked like an oasis in comparison. The laundrette looked like I had expected it to look like. Hemel Hampstead, however, was much worse than I could have predicted. It was one of those dead ends. No, no, it was more like a through–way: one of those places you only drive through on your way to somewhere else.

I arrived in the middle of an unimpressive day, with little in mind but the fear of being caught by the law. I had applied for the job at the pub and had been accepted at once, but only on the condition that I had the right to work in the country, which I didn't. I didn't have any idea how I was going to overcome that looming problem. So I used the time I took to walk from the train station to the pub to draft a mental plan. Thirty minutes later and I was standing at the front door of The Swan and still, I had no plan. How was I going to convince Gordon and Jean Dalloway that they should keep me despite my being illegal?

'You must be João,' said the large, six–foot man with enormous rosy cheeks and large, kind eyes. Next to him stood Oscar, a light brown Labrador, who wagged his tail more out of a sense of duty than real interest.

'Yes, I'm João de Deus. Mr Dalloway?' I asked.

'No son, I'm Gordon. Mr Dalloway is in heaven – that was my father who owned the pub before me. I am Gordon, just Gordon. My wife Jean is inside. She's cooking lunch. She's the best chef in Hertfordshire and makes a mean steak and Guinness pie,' said the man rubbing his belly and licking his lips.

'Now come on in and let us see through the formalities, shall we? You're younger than I expected. Usually young people don't come all this way; they tend to stay in London. What's the matter, running from something or just overstayed the visa?'

'Oh no, nothing like that,' I lied.

'Oh, come on, son. If you're going to see my round face all day every day we might as well be friends and tell one another how it is, all right? I suppose that if I ask you for your passport right now you will come up with some excuse about how you washed it with your trousers and it got dissolved in the washing machine, right?'

The man was fat and had a bad hair stylist, but he was not stupid. It made little sense to deny any of it.

'Right, yes, Mr Dalloway, you're right. I am sorry if I caused you any trouble. But I really need the job, and you're right, I can't prove I am here legally, because I am not. The trouble is...I've been living and working in pubs in London – the only places that would take me without asking for papers. My former boss still has to pay me the wages he owes me... and now I have no place to stay,' I dramatized.

'Mate, I said if I was to ask for your passport...but I haven't, as yet, asked for it, have I?'

'No, Mr Dalloway, you haven't.'

'Well then, why don't we drop that for now, huh? Why don't you come in, I would like to introduce you to Jean. Let's take one step at a time, shall we?'

I liked the man. What an attitude to life! What wisdom!

'Thank you, Mr Dalloway. Thank you so very much for this opportunity. I will get your kitchen so clean your customers will be able to eat off the floor.'

'Blimey, son, I appreciate that, but don't you worry, son, we do have enough crockery and plates here, you know? But, the way I see it, since you seem to talk like a desperate Bible salesman, maybe you won't be in the kitchen but at the front of the house, selling beer instead of sweating in front of the oven. And for fuck's sake, son, stop calling me 'Mr Dalloway.' The name is Gordon, G–o–r–d–o–n! Like the gin, only better.'

Then I met Jean. She was a small and serious woman with short black hair that was sharply trimmed. Her thin, sharp, nose and her almost oriental, bright, arctic blue eyes were piercingly cold and full of self–righteousness.

'Nice to meet you,' she said dryly. 'How do you do? My name is Mrs Dalloway. I am the proprietor of The Swan together with my husband, Mr Dalloway, with whom I believe you have already become acquainted.'

It was always a puzzle to me why men like Gordon end up with women like Jean. There was a complete contrast of personalities between the two. I tried to conjure up a mental picture of them both in bed together: big Gordon naked with all his passion and kindness and huge belly and rosy cheeks, making his way on top of serious, formal, cold–looking Jean Dalloway. The woman looked like an ascetic widow at the very least half the size of her husband and as different from him as a polar bear differs from a twig. But I was wrong again. She was even worse than I thought. I say this because Jean was not only dry and boring, she was also a Jehovah's Witness and, because of her incessant preaching, she drove every one of her customers away from the pub. Only die–hard old–timers who had nothing better to do were adventurous enough to come by. It was they and the young son of a farmer who came by on Saturday nights to bring his new girl for pie and mash and a game of darts.

Knowing the cause of the problem, Gordon handed the kitchen over to Jean, so that she would not be at the front of the house anymore. That's why he needed a hand at the front and not at the back. Besides, nobody really wanted to work with his wife in the kitchen. There had once been an Egyptian chef, who was fired after threatening to kill her with a frozen goose leg. He swung the thing around his head and threw it at her face. Her nose, being so pointy, deflected the leg, which otherwise would have gone straight into her eye – bone first.

After that, things began to work out a little better and the pub ran more smoothly, because Jean was no problem for Gordon, whose patience and good nature were beyond good and evil. When he was around, Jean restricted her remarks to essentially small comments on the need for men to turn to God. When he wasn't around though, she'd give long sermons on how the world has all gone to pieces, how the community spirit of Britons was all broken down, and how she was going to vote for UKIP in the next general election because they had a new plan to eradicate illegal immigrants and sort out the 'mess' in the country. She preached about how that would make something more like the Britain she would want to see. 'Out with Europe, out with migrants, out with all things un-British.' Yes, that was all a good thing, it was an excellent thing! 'We were once an empire, now, we're Brussels little whore!'

Jean thought of herself as a 'moderate' Witness: not one who lets their hair grow to their ankles or grow a moustache. But she was a Witness nonetheless. Without his wife's consent, Gordon had hired me and overlooked my immigration problem. Jean preferred to pretend she didn't know about it, the typical reaction of religious pundits to a problem of concrete dimensions.

Despite her righteous views, the pub needed cheap labour. In that case, she was open to making a moral bargain – after all I wasn't black, Indian, Pakistani or Irish! I did not wear a turban and never wore sandals. My toenails were clipped. My English, despite the fact I did not understand the Hertfordshire accent, especially when the farmers spoke, was better than Jorgy's, the giant refugee from Iraq who was in charge of the dishwasher. In fact, Jorgy never really spoke unless he had a problem with the dishwasher, which didn't happen often enough for him to feel the need for conversation. He ate standing. 'It's the war, it made him think he needs to be constantly in a state of alert,' Hassan informed me, a forty year old from Afghanistan who worked in the pub as a handy man and, together with me and Jorgy, made Jean's self–righteousness UKIP membership look very silly.

Jorgy had a kind, non–intelligible face and the most protuberant Adam's apple I had ever seen. Like Hassan and I, Jorgy had no right to be in England – or anywhere else for that matter. Jorgy was a refugee, and Hassan, as far I was aware, never left the country for anything, presumably for fear of being caught. Nobody knew whom he was running from: the police, the Home Office or some gangster who he owned money to, an ex–wife or a pregnant girlfriend...nobody knew. Every time Jorgy swallowed anything: saliva, air, food or the thought of going back to his country, his Adam's apple would slide up and down his throat like a lift.

'Why you look? You look my throat many times,' he would ask me with an annoyed air every time he caught me staring at his 'gargantuan protuberance,' as Professor Willencourt would have described it.

'Nothing. I'm not looking at anything.'

'No! You look, I know you look. I see you look. Why you look?'

'I swear I am not looking.'

'Ok, sori, I thought you look.'

'No, I didn't look.'

'Ok den, sori. But people look. And I don't like when people look.'

'All right, Jorgy, all right, I won't look anymore.'

'Ah, you see, you look and you said you don't look.'

The three of us all ate together at the back of the kitchen – usually some kind of pasta – and boy was I happy with that! I tucked it all in like a hungry dog. The other two watched, sometimes even giving me their share to see how much of it I could eat. I ate so much pasta I put on some weight and stopped having to make extra holes in my belt with the corkscrew. We all had two days off each week, but these were determined by Jean according to what was happening that week, so it was impossible to plan anything or go anywhere too far. Sometimes one would feel a little like a slave, working in some distant plantation field in the middle of nowhere. That's what Hamel Hampstead felt like – a potato field between places.

Since I had arrived in England I had never thought of going anywhere else. The free time I had I used for writing. The fact that Hemel Hampstead was a shit–hole gave me space and time to write. What else could I do there? And everything seemed so distant. I was so far away, but I remembered 'loneliness was a gift and not a curse'.

As a shit-hole, Hemel Hampstead reminded me of Uberapitanga. Then I thought of Rico. Sometimes I wondered what would have become of him had I not left him dead in the woods. Would he be involved in some weird deal with drug dealers? Maybe he would have stood, like Donizetti, behind the bar of a brothel somewhere? And who could blame him if he did? Like anything or anyone else, I knew he belonged to a very distant past that like mist in the early hours of a summer's day, dissipated from my mind with the first rays of reality and reality itself was put into question, when a surreal thing happened very unexpectedly.

The night before September 11th, I pulled countless pints of bitter, ale, lager and stout, opened countless bottles of Coca–Cola and ripped apart dozens of cartons of fruit juice. I broke a few glasses and burned my fingers twice with hot plates, in what turned out to be one of the busiest nights in the whole history of The Swan. It was some farmer's birthday and Gordon had convinced him to throw a party and host it at the pub, because Gordon was going to receive a good couple of pigs from another farmer and he was going to roast them in an open fire.

The whole of Hemel Hempstead, as well as people from the neighbouring St. Albans, came by to taste the crackling and to rub shoulders with the birthday boy, who was popular, not only as a farmer but as the father of a popular singer who lived in St. Albans and who had confirmed his glorious presence at the party. The next day I was pretty exhausted, but I had a pocket full of tips and I was feeling good – as I had calculated while taking a bath in the old pink bathtub – I now had enough cash to go to Scotland and see the mountains.

I never liked watching television. It bored me. Although I had a television in my room, it was never on and the only reason why it was there was because they put it there. I don't know if it was because I was tired or because I needed some company, but that morning I turned it on. As I squeezed the toothpaste out of the tube I heard the BBC woman going hysterical.

'It is indeed a terrible image we are seeing here, George. There is smoke everywhere... we are still being kept in the dark as to what is happening. The suspicion is that it is a terrorist attack conducted by Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization headed by one Osama Bin Laden and... OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, it's coming down, it's coming down, the World Trade Centre is coming down! This is NOT A FILM, I repeat, we are transmitting LIVE from New York City, this is BBC News and we are LIVE from New York! There has been a terrorist attack and one of the Twin Towers is now collapsing. Wait a minute, it seems like people are throwing things out of the windows in desperation... no, wait, those are people...OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, they are jumping...and there goes the second tower...the second tower is coming down...I repeat THE SECOND TOWER IS COMING DOWN...' Then they showed images of the two towers being engulfed in clouds of smoke and dust. 'This is unbelievable...' the reporter kept narrating, 'unbelievable, unbelievable, George, what surreal images we are receiving here...it's hard to believe...'

I don't need to tell you what happened next. For the first time since my parents died, I felt there was no reason to fear anything; reality and fiction had finally been stirred together into a single jar. It was as if I was living a reality that I could only live inside a book. This was now a world in which characters that had previously been relegated to novels were now walking amongst the common people out there in the streets. The extraordinary was no longer happening inside yellowing pages, but out there somewhere in some collapsing empire. All this posed me with a practical problem. If coming and going from the country was already difficult, after that, it would become virtually impossible. I needed to act fast. All airports were either shut down or on red alert, every policeman out in the streets. I had the urge to be somewhere else. But with no papers and no money, that remained a wish. I sat at the end of the bed and looked blankly at the old wall–paper and the fading depictions of wild flowers. I decided the best I could do was to stay put for a while, until the storm had passed, but I knew the real storm was yet to come.

Eventually the real storm did come and never seemed to pass, and a lot of blood was spilled in some desert town in the middle of nowhere, and people were taken away and others were murdered and yet others were never seen again, and people wouldn't even sell you an apple in London if your beard was longer than a few inches. I stayed put for two years; two years of pulling pints and not understanding that bloody accent, two years of working in the pub with the refugees, who feared for their families and friends back home, whom in turn were now being bombed by the angry Christian God from the West.

Whatever happened, after two years of that, I was ready to move out.

'My neighbour died last week, they bombed the whole fucking town João... the whole fucking town is gone, man, gone! Those animals, what did we do to deserve that? You tell me man, you tell me!'

Poor Hassan was broken. Jorgy was too stupid to realize what was happening. Two years on and he was still asking himself 'Who is this man... this Al Qaeda?' I thought the best I could do was to solve my paper problem and not the world's problem. I wanted to leave my cloak of invisibility behind, perhaps forget the idea of becoming a writer, and become human again. I wanted to eat in a restaurant, stuff my face with good food, stroll along the streets looking at the window shops, park my car, pay the rent, gulp down wine from Spain, maybe even have a girlfriend and live together and wake up in the same bed and go to the cinema, eat popcorn and walk around hand in hand by the Thames at night.

But no, the fool in me wanted to write poetry and novels and become a known artist of letters. I wanted to write so that I could get back at them all. 'Ha, ha, ha, you will see,' I dreamed aloud. I could live as a poet, open bottles of wine and make love to a woman that wasn't afraid of poverty, or solitude or dying. Because we would not die, but live forever like the Minuano winds that never stop bringing the cold air from the south to the land I once called home.

I left The Swan one Sunday morning when the sun was bright and the frost had set over the Roman fields of Hemel Hempstead, and a few goodbyes later I found myself in Gordon's arms. He sobbed and hugged me as if I was the son he never had, who was just about to go and fight the war. It was time to live Gordon behind, and Oscar and the others. Jean had become a nicer person in the end, in her own sort of way. Her sharp hair and pointy nose were just as confused as those of all the politicians of the time, and it was not hard to understand why. I suppose that when the world becomes so fast, as it does more and more with each generation, uncertainty and fear of fragmentation come to the surface. Disillusion, resentment and lack of direction or a sense of destiny give way to talks of difference, leading to more resentment and more fear and more violence. And then it takes a lot of work, and a lot of blood and tears and good faith to break the cycle and to find a flat, green patch of grass to rest on, until it all starts again with the next generation and everything goes up in flames once more. I suppose this is why we seem to need not one God but many Gods, not one song but many songs, not one kind of booze but many types of everything and anything that can make us drunk fast, so we can forget it all now and then get up the next day and pretend it is all worth it. The cycle of carnage will never end, but at least we can delude ourselves, singing and drinking ourselves to a stupor.

I was invisible now. Invisibility allowed me to be whoever I wanted to be and I rightly chose to be no more than a shadow, for shadows reach further and fit in every corner. But I wasn't invisible enough to go through the security of airports and ports and train stations. So I decided to give a chance to an unlawful solution when I headed back to London without ever going to see the mountains of Scotland and the silly men who wore no underwear under their skirts and called it a tradition. This decision was going to send me to another world, to live a life I could not have predicted and to face a choice: live and burn in thin air, sparkling and crackling as my spirit went up in flames, or stay put and die like dust in some stingy little corner.

11

Sodom and Gomorrah

It was the beginning of spring, and a sudden rush of hope invaded my senses as the sun returned and the flowers came back, and the parks were no longer covered in leaves and death but coated with a radiating pulse of promise. Yet the atmosphere could not have been less conducive for optimism. I could hardly hear any reference to anything anywhere that did not involve the two falling giants that once stood somewhere and now did not, and the man they were chasing and the things they were going to do to him.

Everyone got excited about Psalm 23 and how all the good people of the world – the tax–payers and car–dealers, the house–wives and lawyers and doctors, the war–mongers and the milkmen – would all walk through the 'valley of the shadows,' unaffected by fear while singing Christian hymns and rejoicing in glory, glory, Halleluiah – Amen! And their mission was to capture the evil man who brought down the two towering giants and they were going to accomplish it at any cost, glory, glory, halleluiah – Amen!

My mission was less ambitious, less dogmatic and less absurd. But just as prone to failure. It consisted of finding a job and a place to live. I could not stay with Claudia, because Claudia had a boyfriend and I was a burden '...you can't use my couch for more than a week, I just can't not have sex for longer than that,' said the girl I'd met when I first worked in a pub in London, and who had agreed to lend me her couch for a few nights.

With the urgency caused by having the destiny of Claudia's vagina in my hands, I began my search. I went to the wealthiest places of the city, where I knew restaurant owners were always on the lookout for a pair of extra hands in the kitchen. I wrote some lines about what I could do, on a sheet of A4, the so–called curriculum vitae, full of untruths and years filled with wonderful things that never happened, titles and honours I never gained, psychedelic nonsense created by the imagination of a creature filled with a level of egotism that would have made Nero proud. I put on a tie, my best (only) pair of leather shoes and a clean pair of trousers, all of which I had nicked from a charity shop – and I know I'm going to hell for that! – and headed towards Mayfair.

I hopped on the tube and came to Green Park. I walked through Shepherd's Market and at every eatery I came across I dropped the paper with a smile and some words about how in the past I had worked so hard my knuckles and knees now needed operations. The thin, posh–looking men and women in ties and ribbons and bows and jellied hair didn't buy any of it, and dismissed me by saying they would keep my résumé and that they would call me if something came up. I cut through the market and came out in front of Le Meridian Hotel at Curzon Street, where I took a left and found myself immediately opposite an unassuming café next to the United Arab Emirates embassy.

The café was called Le Café de Paris. It was simple and smelled of fresh crunchy bread and croissants. They smelled so good I imagined them melting in my mouth and sliding effortlessly down my throat as the buttery pastry flaked and crumbled between my teeth. I walked in. I had no money, but I sat down and ordered a coffee with milk and a croissant with cheese and ham from the man that stood behind the counter. He confirmed he understood the order then shouted it in French to the chef, who was hidden behind a partition, as I waited for the coffee.

A waitress came and slid behind the bar and began to push buttons and pull levers on the coffee machine. She got my coffee ready and came over to me to deliver it.

'Bon Appétite monsieur!'

'Thank you, what's your name?' I asked.

'Jolie, monsieur,' she replied. 'Yes, monsieur, I'm French – from Paris.' As she said that she pouted a little – not on purpose but very naturally. Jolie and her long black hair: black like the waves that flapped and gently rocked the boat of her Celtic ancestors as they made their way through the seas. Jolie and her honey–sweet almond eyes, and long arms and fingers, and her tentatively exuberant breasts and that arse, what an arse: a figure that demanded the eye to cast a gaze of delight that was hypnotic and dazzling.

It was just after lunch time, when all the rich men in pin–stripe suits from Berkley Square come out of their computer–filled offices for lunch, and Jolie seemed relaxed. The café had only a few customers – mostly tourists who, like me, had stumbled across it by chance, mostly while looking for the place Oscar Wilde described in The Picture of Dorian Grey.

'The truth, Jolie,' I said, 'is that I'm not a customer. I was wondering if you'd be looking for an extra hand in the kitchen. I'm looking for a job. And I can't even afford what I just had...'

Before I could finish she stopped me by placing her finger on my lips. The simple touch of her finger on my lips caused an adrenaline missile to be launched from my deliriously craving brain, all the way down to my now cold sweating toes. The toes counter attacked, sending another adrenaline missile back up to my passion–filled cerebellum, which wiggled and flopped like jelly. Then I began to convulse uncontrollably and without any control of my right hand, I knocked the café crème off the table. The milky liquid spilled all over the floor, forming a pool of brown next to my feet.

'You're so silly!' she said, in French–accented English.

'I know,' I replied, looking helpless, 'and that's why I'm in love with you, er...I mean, no, I mean...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, what an idiot!' I retorted ungracefully.

Jolie laughed to the point of having to cover her face with one hand so as not to be seen by the other customers, who were beginning to get interested in our conversation.

'Look, don't worry about what you just had – I won't charge you for that. But you must come back tomorrow for an interview with the owner. Madame Helen is a ve–ry nice woman from Liverpoolll. I am sure she would love to meet you and have you...comment ça se dit? Ah oui – a bord! She's been looking for un commis chef for three weeks and you seem to be the kind of person she would like to have.'

'Jolie, I cannot thank you enough. Please tell 'Madame Helen' I will come tomorrow...at about the same time?' I asked very gently as if not to break the spell.

'Oui – c'est parfait,' said Jolie so naturally I thought French had to be the greatest language in the world.

I left Café Paris feeling as if I had just won the Nobel Prize for literature. I felt the world was mine and nothing could be more right than my purpose, no path more righteous than mine and no place in the world more beautiful than Paris, because that's where Jolie had come from.

'I love France, I love all the peasants of France and their smelly cheese and their goats and their onions,' I thought to myself. 'I love every song ever written in French and every book and every person who was ever born on French soil. Even Napoleon was an admirable, nice fellow. Vive la France! Vive la France!'

A pretty girl makes you wonder what intelligence and wealth, or any other kind of talent, need or want are for. A pretty girl doesn't need explanations or formulas. A pretty girl cannot be explained or accounted for. She cannot be described or written down like a poem or a letter or a ballad, even if you've read all the books by Flaubert or Baudelaire. A pretty girl is simply a pretty girl, and for that she is a miracle. I felt like a saint who had witnessed that miracle. I was poor and uneducated and yet I knew beauty when I saw it. And then poverty was only an inconvenience and education a silly abstraction. But most of all I was humbled. And even when all my confidence was gone, utterly gone, I thought that was a good thing. No, that was a marvellous thing! I was searching for a light when she appeared to me, dressed like a mysterious Bedouin dancer with her apron over the floating skirt and the blouse that let me catch a glimpse of her cleavage and the lightness of her fair skin. The light was there inside her and the world was suddenly a little warmer.

I couldn't just walk away. I had to run, and run I did, through the market and over to Green Park and then through the park and down to the Palace. I ran and I ran, until my lungs let out every drop of oxygen they had in them. Then I turned around and ran back up the hill again, and through Green Park again. It was beautiful there and the weather was fine as I entered a state of euphoria. It was so intense I thought I had achieved singularity. I don't mean the theory of computers and machines becoming one. I mean the moment when a person achieves a total state of communion with his environment to the extreme point that he feels he's part of a single and very brief moment of perfection, which may not exist in any other moment or place except for there and then and which, in that sense, becomes paradoxically infinite, since the feeling goes so deep into the soul that it is never forgotten and you feel like you're floating.

It was spring, but it felt like autumn. The giant willows and oaks were giant symphonies losing their multi–coloured notes, letting them drop one by one with the wind as if an invisible bow had struck them and caused them to fall on the ground, and the sound of nature was perpetuated through the air as gravity pulled the leaves down to the moist soil underneath and the song went on and on, dissipating through the air like cosmic waves in space.

I sat under the willow and for a moment I observed two men playing with their dogs. They threw balls and sticks and the dogs went after them, caught them and returned them to the men. The men then patted the dogs on the head and the dogs looked very glad, and the men looked pleased, and master and servant were in their places. Then my euphoria passed the same way it came and I felt suddenly very relaxed, almost drowsily so. It was then that a gentle breeze blew and I could feel someone approaching from behind. The steps crunched the leaves on the ground as they got closer and closer. I opened my eyes and sat up, my back against the trunk of the tree. I looked around and behind me I saw nothing. I lay down again, closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I felt somebody breathing very close to my face and a rush of fear shot through my brain like heroine entering the veins. I opened my eyes as if to escape it. That's when I saw the eyes: fire eyes that looked like the inner works of the devil, suffering and pain, agonising suffering and fire looking straight at me. I didn't have to ask anything. I knew Emmanuel was looking down at me with his eyes of doom and the defaced look of a creature devoted to no time or place. He looked at me so intensely I was sure he could see right through my being.

'You are wasting your time,' the croaked voice spoke. 'She is not for you and never will be. You are another kind, the kind who will never lay hands on such a thing, for you must continue on the path; the path will lead you to me and us both to eternity. Come and meet me there. Forget her – it is not important.'

My eyelids were heavily burdened with the energy that accumulated in every cell that covered them. When I opened my eyes again he was gone. I sat up and looked around, and nothing stood in my way except for the trees and the men and their dogs. I was becoming worried about my mental condition. I was not only seeing this same man over and over again in bizarre dreams and nightmares, I also saw him in plain daylight. 'João de Deus, you are insane!' I thought to myself. Then I stood up and went back to Claudia's.

I had a good night of dreamless sleep, and woke up the next day ready for my interview at Café Paris. I put on my best shirt and rehearsed the best possible argument I could think of as to why 'Madame Helen' should hire me and why I couldn't show her my documents. In sum, I prepared to humiliate myself once more. It was endless. It was like begging to be exploited. That is what is expected. Beg, even when you know it is them who are lucky to have you. Beg, even if you know it is them who take all the money and you who give up precious moments of your life to do lame jobs that any idiot can do. Beg, until all the respect you thought you had for yourself dissolves inside your shameful three fifty an hour. It is necessary – that's how it works. They want to be able to say: 'You came to us of your own free will.' Free will – what a joke!

I walked into the café, and to my disappointment Jolie wasn't there. Instead I found a five–foot–three woman standing behind the counter, which was almost as tall as she was.

'You must be João,' deduced the woman.

'I'm Helen, and Jolie told me all about you.'

'Did she?'

'Yes, she thought you were very cute and potentially good in the kitchen.'

Although I was buzzing inside with the mere idea that Jolie might have liked me, I tried to maintain a cool and indifferent look even though my vanity was screaming to get out. I thought about my grandmother's cellulite arse and that was enough to cool me down a little and restore my capacity to string some words together and make up a sentence.

'Yes, Miss...'

'Wright. Helen Wright. But please, call me Helen.'

'Right, Jolie, I mean, Helen...excuse me...I do good work in the kitchen and I can show... I can make anything you want. Just let me show you. If you're not like it I go away...' My English always deteriorated whenever I was nervous, but at least my face was not puffed up this time.

'Oh boy, oh boy, you must be really desperate for a job, huh? Listen, I will make this nice and easy for you. Consider yourself hired. I know you will be good. Jolie was right. I know it when I see it – you've got stamina and you don't button your shirt all the way up to the top, and you have no wax on your hair and that, to me, speaks volumes! Come tomorrow at 6. François, the manager, will be here and he'll show you around. The shop needs to be opened by that time every day, except for the weekends when we are closed – Mayfair stops at the weekend. As we have no one to do the early morning shifts at the moment, François will be happy to have you. I shall see you when lunchtime begins. Bring a white t–shirt to wear under the chef's jacket François will give you tomorrow. Everything is provided: breakfast, lunch, uniform and whatever else you need. Ah, and of course, don't forget your passport; we need to make a copy of it for the Home Office. I take you have the right to work in the U.K.?'

'Right... to work...? Yes, sure, sure, no problem...thank you, I'll be here at 6 AM – with passport,' I said, with no idea of how I was going to make that happen.

'Ok then, welcome on board, João. Enjoy your last day as a free man.'

I went home and thought of an excuse I could give François the next day regarding my visa situation. I spent the whole night thinking. At 5 AM the alarm went off, but I was already in Claudia's bathroom having a shower and getting ready to implement the plan I had thought out during the night. I felt as if I was carrying two bricks under my eyelids: tired of thinking and trying to solve the riddle. It is funny how something so small can make life so difficult. A piece of paper, that's all there was to it; a piece of paper with a photo on it, a piece of paper the size of a hand bearing some fancy–looking stamps. How difficult was that? What harm was there?

'Bloody hell, João...' Claudia shouted from her bedroom, '...it's five in the bloody morning! Could you do me a favour and switch that fucking alarm off?'

'Sorry, I forgot to do it before I got in the shower – very sorry. I'll make it up to you...I'll cook us dinner tonight,' I whispered from the corridor.

'No, no, Mark will be coming around this evening. If you want to return the favour get lost tonight – well, at least until I can get a good shag out of him, and that could take some time considering what a wimp he is.' Claudia said that as she yawned.

'All right, I get it. I'll find somewhere to stay the night. Don't worry – have fun.'

'João...'

'Yes?'

'Good luck!'

I arrived at the café at 05:50 and the manager was waiting for me. He was a small French man from Brittany, who gave me all the signs he disliked me from the beginning. He showed me how the place worked and told me what my job was: baking the frozen pastries that the other chef took out of the freezer the night before, chopping, delivering, seasoning, stirring, grilling, boiling, cooking, tidying, cleaning and, of course, listening to his mumbo–jumbo. He told me a hundred times not to let the croissants burn by putting the oven on too hot. He told me to make all the preparation to do with the coffee machine: switch it on, clean the filters and make sure I had enough take–away cups. He told me to chop vegetables, bake baguettes, prepare the 'soup of the day' (the leftovers of the yesterday's special), and then slice meats and bake more fresh croissants, pains au chocolat and pains au apricot for the morning. In the meantime, I should sweep the floor, water the plants, unpack the fruit and vegetables delivered early by the market van and serve the first few customers coming in for their coffee and egg and bacon rolls, which I had to fry on request while paying attention that the pastries and bread in the oven didn't burn!

François was, as he told me, '...educated with honours at the École National d'Administration,' a '...very prestigious institution in Paris where most of the great French politicians and great thinkers come from... so I'm here just to improve my English and meet some young entrepreneurs in the area. As soon as I judge it to be the right moment, off I go back to France to open my own firm, perhaps a political consultancy or even a think tank or something to do with policy–making, but the real aim is, well, the ministry...and one day, the presidency.'

It all sounded very grand and very French, and I was impressed if disgusted with the way François simply threw that in the air as if to say 'you're nothing to me, you insignificant humanoid. So bake your bread, sweep the floor and give me time to concentrate on my brilliant future.' It was a mutually felt antipathy.

'Where did you say you're from?' he asked, with an air that indicated he asked because he felt he needed to know how to protect himself.

'Brazil,' I said, in a very casual way, as if to say I didn't care what he thought of that.

'Ah ha, but you don't look Brazilian,' said the little Frenchman, with a cynical half smile on his thin lips. Then he typed some numbers on a solar–powered calculator and pretended to ignore me.

'Why, because I'm not black?' I asked, now getting annoyed.

The little Frenchman kept typing, as if I was an inanimate object.

'Look here, pal,' I began, 'yes, I am from Brazil all right and maybe you should travel more. Brazil is massive, real massive! It is at least five times bigger than France.' I didn't know if that was correct but I wanted to make the bitch squirm with envy. 'And there are more Europeans living there – including French – then in Europe itself,' which was also probably inaccurate, but why let facts spoil a good story?

'No, I believe you misunderstood me. I never meant that there are only black people in Brazil. I was just asking. We all know in France that some white people managed to survive in that continent of yours. But let's be honest, it's a bit like Africa there, too, no?'

'What do you mean?' I asked, now feeling my face burning.

'Let's face it Africans will never launch a satellite will they? Have you ever heard of an African astronaut? Chess champion? Nobel Prize winner? I think that if you search well, you will find the answer is 'no.' In Africa they play drums. That's it, in Africa they drum: bum tika bum, bum, bum...' he tapped his hands on the counter. 'Then when they get tired of drumming, they make children they can't feed and then get Aids because they are too Catholic to wear a fucking condom – that's Africa for you! And how they love that mumbo–jumbo... idiots!'

'Are you comparing Africa, a CONTINENT, to Brazil, a COUNTRY? Have you ever even BEEN to any country in Africa?' I stormed.

'Have you got internet in Brazil?' he replied.

I was ready to punch the fucking frog right on the face when the door opened and, like a breeze of fresh air, she walked into the café, with her almond eyes, long black hair and lips that begged to be bitten, without being aware of anything, she made the frog look insignificant; a minor inconvenience, an onion-stinking minor event. 'Bonjour, tout le monde!' she said with the sweetest voice. 'Bonjour, Jolie,' said François. In the frog's eyes I saw that he had no interest in Jolie, or women, whatsoever – all for the better, he was French and a fag and his hair was cut like playmobil. Nature had been bad.

I didn't speak to her. I simply smiled and went into the kitchen. She came around and started talking to me, asking about how the interview had gone and if I liked working there. As we talked she asked me with a confidential air what I thought of François. I wanted to tell her that I was going to grab his balls and cut them off and then stick them up his arse. But I didn't, of course. Instead I told her '...he is going to be a challenge.' She agreed and wished me luck.

Almost half an hour late for his shift, the other kitchen guy turned up, sweating from running and gasping for air. He stood before me in the kitchen, lifted the right leg and farted. 'Aaaaah, that's better! It was crying to get out that one!

'BONJOUR, MONSIEUR, BIENVENUE!!! Je m'appelle Jean Bousquet, bro–der of dis won–der–ful woman: Jolie Bousquet. Isn't she willy be–au–ti–ful?' asked me the farting French.

'Y-e-s, she is,' I said only half guessing his heavily accented English and still perplexed by the farting.

'Arrete, Jean! You embarrass me,' said Jolie.

'Ah, little sis–terrr, if you be–au–ti–fu–l you have to say it. It's a gift, people know you know it! So, PLEASE! Always make sure they know you know what they know.'

'Jean, it's eight in the morning and I'm working in a café serving a bunch of idiots who have their heads up their arses. I do not feel very beautiful, and I also feel it is much too early for your sarcasm. In fact I would rather have some money instead of being cute – thank you very much,' said Jolie half smiling at her brother.

'Anyway, let's not de–terrr ourselves with such... such... small sings, oi? We have a l-o-t to talk about and a l-o-t to prepare. It will be a bu–sy day,' said Jean, using every pause he could find between syllables.

'Yes, ok, let's get to it!' I said rolling up my sleeves and digging my fingers into a jar of pickled vegetables.

Jolie left to the front of the house to work with François behind the bar. Jean and I were in the kitchen. I prepared the ingredients for lunch and Jean was on stand–by in case anyone wanted to order some breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, crêpes. I chopped vegetables: peppers, courgettes, mushrooms, pickled gherkins, aubergines, carrots, peeled and chopped and sliced potatoes, then onions and garlic. I sliced cheese and ham and salami, and placed each ingredient in individual containers for later use.

Jean was wrong. The café wasn't so busy that day. It was a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays we all had time to sit and drink coffee and have a longer lunch break. Nobody ever understood why Tuesdays were so slow. They just were.

'So, João, where do you live?' asked Jean.

'Nowhere at the moment.'

'What do you mean? No home?'

'Nope,' I said

'How come?'

'I just arrived from the countryside – Hertfordshire. I was working in a pub near Watford. Do you know where that is?' he shook his head.

'Well, it doesn't matter. It's a long story. I was there and then something changed, and I thought I'd come back to London. I'm staying with a friend, but I can't stay there for long. In fact I'm looking for a place. Know somewhere cheap?'

'Well, mon ami, I sink you have luck. We live in a big house in north London and we have a spare room at the moment. The house is old and the landlord is no good, but it is ver–rrry cheap and the room is e– nor–mou–ssss. So...if you fancy taking a look you are ver–rrry velcome to come tonight and see if it is good for you.'

'That would be great. But I wonder if I could stay there tonight...? My friend has a guest and I need to stay out for the evening.'

'Ah, but of course, I don't sink my wife will mind that at all,' he said.

'You look too young to be married,' I said.

'Berber blood. My father is from Al–ge–ria and so I'm half Berber and half French. Because of that I have two personalities. One side, the Berber side, told me to eat well and get married to a good woman and have kids when I was still young. The other half is French and suicidal. Anyway, you'd be ve– rrry velcome in our maison! And I hope you don't mind... '

'Mind what, you having a wife or you being suicidal?'

'Ha, I like your sense of hu–mour,' he said with a queer smile. 'I meant the neighbourhood; it's a bit... let's say rough,' he said rolling his eyes up to the ceiling.

'You are Brazilian, right?' he asked again.

'Yes, Brazilian,' I said.

'Do you know Tom Jobin?' he asked.

'But of course!' I lied.

'I play him – on the piano,' said Jean proudly.

'Do you know Villa Lobos?' he asked again.

'Yes, of course,' I lied again.

'I play him too,' he added even more proudly while moving his fingers in the air as if he was playing the piano right there and then.

'Are you a musician then?' I asked.

'Well, I have a band, with my bro–der Jacques. We lo–ve Bra–zi–lian music: Tom Jobin, João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso and Baden Powell - yes, Brazilian jazz! Jacques is a guitar player and he loves to play Brazilian stuff. I am more into classic and of course Villa Lobos is obligatory listening in the conservatory in Paris where I studied.'

'I am impressed. I don't think I know Brazilian music as well as you do.'

'Ah, but that is a shame, ha? A re–al shame! Oh, la, la!!! Anyway, you come tonight and you see, ok, you see... I play for you, I play.'

Then the rush predicted by Jean finally came and we worked the whole day, sweating like pigs and cursing the day we decided to work in a restaurant. The tiny kitchen had no ventilation or a window and it was much too small and stuffy to be a kitchen. To get to the toilet we had to step over cardboard boxes left over from the bread delivery and move a half tonne oven slightly to the right so the door would open. The place was a real time–bomb in the making; everything was so tightly packed that to open a fridge door meant not being able to walk through the kitchen at all. Jean and I always wondered where the fire that would consume it all was going to come from: the uncapped wires behind the fridge, the malfunctioning oven, or the electric crêpes–maker that was always giving us electric shocks. Perhaps it would come from the badly assembled switches on the wall.

Like with everything else in London, it worked – somehow. People came and they were served, and they thought it was great food and even better service, and that Mayfair was a better place with all those French people there – even François, who I must admit was becoming a little more friendly since he had realised I was no threat to his sovereignty of Café de Paris.

* * *

The Bousquet family lived on Commonwealth Road, a run–down street in a run–down rubbish tip of a place called Tottenham: a dirty, squalid suburb of London, a throughway from Finsbury Park to Edmonton (another dump) and a pothole of illegal migrants like me. A man with a television crew once walked through the area and found that one hundred and eight languages were spoken in Tottenham alone, and more than a thousand different dishes were served amongst the various ethnic food shops, cafés and restaurants that abounded the high streets of NE17. The police found out more: heavy–weight drug–dealers and almost every young black thief in London seemed to come from the area. In that respect it only lagged behind Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Half of Jamaica was there and so was the whole of Congo, half of Senegal and probably a quarter of Granada. There was not a single bookshop in sight. It was clear that people there only cared for one thing: FOOD! The great fruit and vegetable markets were overflowing with food that was cheap and delicious. Bananas were especially cheap. There were mangos the size of an ox heart, manioc, kiwi, grapes and tomatoes the size of oranges and oranges the size of melons. FOOD, FOOD, FOOD! There was not much to see except for markets, convenience stores, kebab shops and German discount supermarkets.

Jean, Jolie and I got off the train at Seven Sisters tube station. When we came out of the tunnel it was dark and people rushed past us as if we were in Canary Wharf at midday, except that these people were poor, smelled of armpits and looked scary. An intense traffic of people and smells, along with a cacophony of sounds, and for a minute there I thought I was in some village in West Africa. The floor was littered with McDonald's burger wrappings and empty Coca Cola bottles. As far as my eyes could see, the place was not worth a second thought. I very nearly turned on my heels and got back on the tube. Perhaps I would've done, if it weren't for the fact that I needed a place to stay. Supermarket trolleys were parked all over the place and there were all sorts of weird characters hanging around, either asking for 'fifty p.' or selling 'cannabis lollipops.' A guy ran past us while singing a song:

'Hey, hey, Joe, wantcha som coke o' cola, man?

I bet you wanna, wanna, lov-ya and wanna trea- me right, Joe!

And I wanna lov-ya and wanna giv-ya som Maryjua–na man!

Hey, hey Joe, wantcha som coke o' cola, man?

Wanna blow? Wanna blow?

Call Joe!

Then he dropped his business card in front of me and winked. The card read

Joe Sugar–Load Smith.

Distributor of herbal medicine

Call Now for free quote.

Delivery 24/7.

We took the bus and rode for five minutes. The place was a direct result of British colonialism. But they didn't call it that. In London they preferred the term 'multiculturalism,' and talked about a system in which everyone is supposed to be integrated into London life by adhering to their own community. I didn't feel any sense of community there. The only thing I felt was the need either to buy a gun or to go back to zone one. Even Stamford Hill, that place where the Orthodox Jews and their moustached wives hide from the other Jews and their moustached wives, looked more appealing than Tottenham.

The Bousquet's home did not look much better than its surroundings.

'WE ARRIVED!' Jean announced, not so much with pride and only hoping I was not about to run the opposite direction. I was too desperate, and I had too many interests at stake: first there was his sister, Jolie, and second there was Jean himself, who I felt perhaps I could learn a thing or two from. He was no mystic in the Dean Moriarty sense of being mystical, but he was knowledgeable. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket. While carefully arranging his thick black hair behind his ears with his long piano fingers, he inserted the key in the door lock. With his two hands holding firm on the knob, he levered the door by elongating his body upwards. With some pulling and pushing here and there, the door clunked open. Inside, standing at the corridor, a thin dark figure emerged from the shadows.

'Salut Titin, qui c'est ça?'

'C'est João.'

'João, let me introduce you to my wife, Sandrine.'

'Hello Sandrine, much gusto, I'm João.' I was trying to sound cool, but I could tell she thought I was an idiot.

'Come on in, it is a ple–a–su–re to meet you,' she lied, 'Jacques! Jacques! Your bro-der is here and we have a visitor!' called out Sandrine in heavily accented English.

'Hello, hello, tout le monde, qu'est–ce qui se passe ici? Hello, hello, je suis Jacques,' said the man, stretching his arm towards me.

'Jacques, João is from Brazil. He speaks good English but no French,' said Jean, sort of trying to contain his brother's excitement.

'Mais oui, c'est manifique! Brazil... Brazil... tan, tan, tan, tan, Brazil, Brazil, tan, tan, tan, tan...' and Jacques went on tan–tan–taning the whole of The Girl from Ipanema.

I felt joyous too and so I joined in. 'That's right, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan... '

'Et tu comprends un petit peu le français, João?'

'Seulement un petit peu,' I said, just to keep Jacques happy that I was no Anglophone. He thought less of the British, of course.

'C'est ca, ah mais tu parles bien français tout de suite!'Alors, you come in and please feel at home.'

'Merci monsieur, it's very kind of you. I feel there already.'

Sandrine, who observed Jean, Jacques and me with a quizzical look, was an honest–looking small French woman with a pale complexion and pitch-black dark hair. She was thin and she was sharp and crazy and a complete romantic and she adopted me as the brother she never had, even though I didn't agree with that. She tried to turn me into her confident and companion and I made sure I wasn't any of those things. She was the type who craved attention. She reminded me of a child whose parent's work too much. 'Manically depressed' only begins to describe her mood swings.

After that first night at the Bousquet's, I did not return to Claudia's apartment. Claudia's pussy was happy about that. It seemed I had found my place – as one would say – at least for a while.

With the Bousquet family I learned about art and music, about history and politics, as we played chess naked in the garden while drinking beer that we bought every afternoon after Jean and I came back from Café Paris.

Despite my feelings for Jolie I could not make my way into her bedroom, even though her room was right next to mine. So I often masturbated as I thought of her. She was my muse and I knew she would remain just that. Her brothers played the guitar and the piano and anything that made a sound: pots and pans, harmonicas, bongos, flutes...anything. I drank a lot and watched them play the roles of struggling artists. We drank cheap wine we bought from the Turkish man who ran the corner shop. We had an account with him because of the amount of stuff we bought. One day we drank so much we decided it would be a good idea to walk the seven hundred metres that separated the house from the shop, naked. That was, except for the white cotton socks we placed on our penises. The Turkish fellow was sort of religious and didn't like the joke one bit. He decided he had enough of us and closed our account, never selling us another bottle of anything even if we came by with money. This caused us quite a logistical problem, since the next closest corner shop was nearly a kilometre away in the opposite direction.

We drank together, got naked together and played loud music together, and at some point I remember buying a cheap drum kit and setting it up in the middle of the living room. We played until three or four in the morning and piled beer cans high up in the air, in towers that nearly touched the ceiling. 'Talleeer dan ze twin toweeerrrs, much talleeerrr, allez, allez bien João, bien fait!' Jacques shouted drunkenly from under his guitar, naked with the sock on.

Then, one afternoon, some South Koreans moved in next door. They sang karaoke. A nearly deaf old pensioner lived on the other side. Jean, Jacques and I went over to the karaoke–singing South Koreans and told them that if they didn't call the police, neither would we. We wouldn't say anything about their karaoke on Sunday evenings, but they couldn't complain about the noise we made during most of the week either, so we had the freedom to mess around on our side of the wall, and they had the freedom to kill every conceivable half–decent song ever written with their horrible Asian accents and squeaky voices on the other. Then the old lady...well, Sandrine took care of that, sort of. She was a horrible cook, but she baked the woman a cake and when we helped her to find her cat, Miss Mimi Tangerine, who had gone astray, she was thankful and never complained about the noise. After that, we never saw her again and we wondered if she had survived the winter or was dead in her basement.

While Sandrine walked around the house talking about Voltaire and Baudelaire, Jean and Jacque made noise with their guitars while Jolie was trying to be an actress. Eventually she did become an actress and years later I watched her in films and commercials. And in the end I didn't mind not having Jolie in my bed, because for me that house was a source of knowledge and that was more important than sex.

I read Voltaire for the first time when Jolie handed me a copy of Candide, during a night of cheap wine and Velvet Underground while our South Korean karaoke king sang Barry White next door. And after Voltaire, it was Baudelaire, and after Baudelaire it was Celine, and after Celine, Jolie introduced me to George Brassens and Piaf. Every night we listened to Brassens and to Piaf and to Jacques Brel: 'He's French; his soul is French, he was just born in Belgium, but that was not his fault,' she would defend the choice. Then it was Camus. I already knew Camus, but not like Jolie knew Camus, and I learned a great deal more about Camus then. Then the naked sock day was established, and it was celebrated many times over and it was great to be alive and poor and wild like those big cats on National Geographic.

The landlady always knocked a disappointed knock on the door because she knew we would not have the rent either on time or the full amount. She knew the same soap opera would be played at the end of every month, when we would stand at the porch, washing powder tin in hand, counting how short we were from paying the whole rent that month and how much of the balance had to be carried over to the next month. That happened every time and we were running out of months to send the remaining balance to. In the end the balance got really large and the landlady threw us all out – but that is another story.

Jolie's breasts, now that is something worth mentioning. One day she came home and I was there alone. The others were out and I was standing in the kitchen, and she came closer and said she was horny and needed to have sex. I couldn't say or do anything except tell her that I was going upstairs to take a bath. I did have a bath, and I masturbated in there before I came out, because I didn't want to be too excited and disappoint her by sprinkling her before I even undressed her. I was nervous. I wrapped a towel around my waste and combed my hair back, and then realized I had spunk entangled in my hairy legs. It turns out that masturbating in the bathtub is not such a good idea. I put on some aftershave and went downstairs – already with an erection. Jolie saw me coming into the living room and, laughing her guts out, she shouted:

'Oh mon dieu! Mon dieu! Qu'est–ce que c'est? T'es fou? Qu'est–ce que tu fais?'

'You said you were horny and in need of sex. I took a shower and got ready...'

'Yes, I want to have sex, but not with you! Are you insane? You're like...I don't know what you are like, but I can't have sex with you, especially here in this house. Now get dressed, go on, before the others come in.'

She said that as if I was a distant cousin or something – with that intimate voice and candid look family members give one another when they want to sound nice while saying something horrible or telling the truth about you, which are pretty much the same things. And then I knew it was too late, because for Jolie I was now like one of her brothers and that was that. I was embarrassed and disappointed and I wished there was a hole on the ground I could disappear into. I had no pride left and so it was time to break away from her. I went back upstairs and got dressed. When I came back Jolie was still sitting in the living room, but her expression was not so good anymore. She looked at me as if she had forgotten all that had just happened.

'I just got a call from my agent.'

'...and?' I asked.

'I didn't get the part.'

'...and?' I asked again, to my own detriment.

'...and? and? Il est pourri, tous pourris ces cons! Je savais que le directeur ne m'aimait pas. Non, c'était cette femme horrible, cette femme productrice, elle était pourrie!'

'Well, Jolie, they can't be all rotten! Just because they didn't give you what you wanted, it doesn't mean they're all rotten! Maybe it was not your part. Perhaps some better part is lurking around the corner. Acting is like that: some you lose and some you win, but mostly you lose...' I said unashamedly.

I was still thinking about the sex of course. The truth is, by then I had created my own pantheon of gods to accompany my idolatry of Jolie, and I felt like Henry VIII in his rampant iconoclastic swoop, realizing I had to destroy every one of my icons, because Jolie was lost.

Soon after that, we went out one night, and the night was cold but fine, and the atmosphere was fizzy and the lukewarm air full of promise. We went to the pub where 'The Catchers' (Jean and Jacques's band) were playing their first London gig. It was a dirty pub that smelled of stale ale, shitty bitter and bladder lager, and my coat stank of cigarettes and cheap perfume for months after that. It was the type of place in London where girls turn up in trashed fishnet tights, heavy make–up and a t–shirt with a fainting Debbie Harry on it, and where blokes hang around looking pretty much like the girls except that they pretend to be cool and tough and to be in a rock band, even though they are only there to watch other people play (the ones playing can hardly play anything either) and to pick up the girls in Debbie Harry t–shirts, who snort cocaine in the toilet and have never listened to Blondie.

The pub was packed full, and Jolie rushed to the front of the stage and started dancing to the noise of the band. They had a very blonde and very tall Australian as a front man, and he screamed and swung his booty from side to side, tossing his long blond hair in the air like a girl possessed by a gay devil, and then back down and up in the air again, and the microphone was never in the same place for one second. He kicked the stand and nearly fell over dancing like a Barbie, and I swear I could have punched him in the face just to stop him moving and pretending to be a rock star when even Ronnie Corbett would have been more graceful with a guitar in his hand. By then, Jolie was standing in front of the stage utterly enticed by the blonde Barbie. All I wanted to do now was to perforate the tall, blonde, head–banging Australian with the microphone stand – in the eye. Then another band came along. This time it was a woman at the front. She was cute and petite, and she was also blonde. She threw herself on the stage floor and began to touch her vagina. I thought that was touching, but Jolie was less taken by the act. 'Who is laughing now kid, who?' I thought to myself as I smirked in the corner like a proper loser.

Then The Catchers came on stage and Jolie was back in the front row, cheering and throwing kisses at her brothers. They sang their guts out with their very strident and feminine voices that made me cringe, but they were still better than the other bands that were really not good at all. In the end they played for thirty minutes and the crowd seemed to like them. After the gig, we had a few pints with a crowd of singer/songwriters who were 'just about to record' (everyone in London is just about to record) with some famous this and that (everyone who is in a band in London and is just about to record also knows a famous this and that), and they were all very hopeful and very much acting like stars already. I felt a little annoyed by the whole thing and I left without telling the others. I needed some fresh air.

Jolie came out too and handed me a little bag, a tiny little bag. 'Take some and give it back,' she commanded. Then she introduced me to Karina, a friend of hers, and told us to 'do it together.' Karina asked me to follow her.

'What's this?' I asked.

'Just follow me, just follow me damn it, and for god's sake, shut up!' demanded the blonde.

I did what she said and we ended up in a cubicle in the ladies toilet. Karina was East European, I think: Lithuanian or Estonian, I can't remember. I grabbed her at once, but she didn't want sex. She put the toilet seat down and asked me to hand over the bag. I did. She opened it carefully and poured the white powder out into a tidy mountain. Then she spread it over the centre of the seat, pulled a credit card from her purse and, very neatly, she divided the white powder into thin lines. She took a ten-pound note from her wallet, rolled it up into a thin straw and handed it over to me.

'Take some – it's good.'

'I don't...'

'Take it – it is good stuff, all right! You'll like it.'

Sniff, sniff, hum...sniff, sniff.

I handed the rolled–up note back.

Between us, we sniffed the whole of the toilet seat and with it the essence, the scent, of a thousand teenage arses.

'I don't feel a thing, is this it? Man, I don't get all the fuss about it. No, I just don't get it,' I said feeling disappointed. How many people died every year because of drug–trafficking? And still I couldn't feel a thing. I felt sorry for the kids who died in vain for that, but no, not a thing: not even a tingle.

'Shut up and kiss me, fucking kiss me,' demanded Karina. She was very demanding.

I pressed Karina against the red wall of the cubicle. I grabbed her with so much appetite I thought I was going to break her in two. I kissed her and her lips were soft and warm and I nearly came in my pants. What a woman, what a delicious woman! Then she turned her back to me and hurriedly, with her right hand, pulled her knickers down from under her short skirt.

'Fuck me, fuck me damn it!'

I tried. But she wouldn't stand still. It was difficult to penetrate her and when I finally did she was very tight, but somehow it slipped and slid in, and when it did go in it went in very deep and she moaned and dug her nails into the cardboard wall.

'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god – yes, yes...ah, fuck this, fuck this pussy, fuck this puuuuusssssssy, yes, fuck this pusssssyyyy...ah! ah! ah!'

As I tried to fuck that pussy, a knock came on the door. The door opened in the next second, and behind me I saw the six–foot shadow of a six–foot black Cyclops, all dressed in black. Before I could open my mouth, the six–foot shadow grabbed five–foot–six me by the neck and threw me out of the cubicle with one swing of his bulging biceps. Karina was still against the wall and didn't dare move a muscle. The man grabbed my neck very tightly and dragged me out of the toilet. Then with one more movement of those biceps, he threw me out of the pub, my body floating through the air and through the doors like a potato sack, landing on the pavement with all gravity's might.

I lay there in complete embarrassment. Every bone in my body was begging. That was until a very tall and very strong mini–cab driver came to my rescue. I repaid him by punching him between the eyes. I thought he was the Cyclops. 'Hey what did you do that for?' he said as he swung his right hook that missed my nose by an inch or two while his ring caught my ear and made it bleed. Delirious with a rage that came from the depths of my soul, I jumped on him in the same way that a chiwawa would have jumped on the leg of a hippo. The hippo grabbed me by the neck, the same way the security monster had done before, and before long my face was between the hippo's knuckle and the side of a parked van. The hippo beat me to a pulp; my front teeth went searching for a better place to live and my nose was now flush against my left cheek.

The people from the pub who watched the massacre take place told the people inside, and the Bousquet brothers dropped their guitars and the spotlight and came to the rescue. Jacques jumped on the back of the big hippo and Jean hit the mass of muscle on the knee with a bottle of wine. The hippo went down on the other knee. Then Jean, still holding the bottle, hit the hippo across the face until he began to bleed his red blood all over his black face and the pavement became coloured with scarlet liquid. I stood against the van with blood gushing from my mouth and my nose.

I seized the chance and jumped into the air, coming down with my right heel on the hippo's face. I began to kick him hard, everywhere I could get my feet in and the hippo went down. He went down and down until he stopped moving. Now the crowd was looking at us in disbelief. I was out of control and kept beating the hippo with my knuckles and kicking him as hard as I could. I had twenty something years of anger inside me, and the hippo was going to have it all to himself; I was ready to kill the bastard.

It was not until Jean and Jacques pulled me back off, kicking and screaming, that I realized what I had done. I couldn't control my own compulsion to kill '...I'LL KILL YOU, YOU SON–OF–A–BITCH, I'LL KILL YOU!' I shouted angrily at the man, who could not hear a word I said as he blacked out on the pavement. Somebody must have called an ambulance and the police because we could hear sirens getting louder and louder. That's when the Bousquets took me by the arm and swung me inside a cab.

'Anywhere you like,' said Jean to the driver. 'Just drive.'

'You must tell me where you want to go first, and then I'll drive.'

'Piccadilly Circus,' Jean said.

'Sorry mate, not going down there' (only in London do cab drivers choose where they want to go!).

'Look here, mate, just drive on all right – drive to whenever the hell you want to – here, take dis twenti – now go, go, go, man, go!'

The man drove off mumbling something unintelligible. I looked at the brothers and they looked back at me. Before I could say a word Jacques looked straight into my eyes and with a big smile he said:

'We are ve–rrry proud of you, João, ve–rrry proud indeed.'

'Why, are you insane? I nearly killed that man,' I said wiping my mouth and nose off of all the blood.

'You are now a man, João,' said Jacques. 'You got yourself in a fight and you are a man. A 'Man,' capital 'M'!!! I saw true an–ger and true disgust in you tonight. You can now call yourself a man. You're living. The only thing left for you to do now is to love, love the same way you beat that man to, to...how do you say...ah, yes, to a 'poodle.' No, I mean...to a 'pulp.' You have to make good love to a good woman with the same anger and passión – then you will be rea–dy, do you hear me, rea–dy to go.'

'You read that somewhere didn't you? Who are you ripping off now? Is it Hemingway?' asked Jean.

'Non Putain Jean, me no! Why, why Jean, why? Pourquoi tout ce que je dis doit toujours sortir de tes idoles littéraires. Pourquoi ne pourrais–je avoir des idees originales une fois de temps en temps? Why should everything I say have to come from some of your literary idols? Why can't I have original thoughts every now and then?'

'Because that's what you do, Jacques, you steal things from people's work and then use them as if they were yours. This is not called knowledge or wisdom, Jacques. This is called 'being an arse,' the technical term for which is 'plagiarism' – you arse!'

'But of course, this is completely untrue ugh, completely untrue! This is not stealing! By no means! This is no–cing but the hermeneutics of literature working right here: der is no such cing as plagiarism – it is all part of the process of crea–ti–vi–ty, mon ami,' said Jacques.

'Vat a lot of nonsense... one day you will be a–hes–ted, do you hear me, a–hes–ted for stealing intellectual propertiii Jacques – mock my vords!'

It took a month for my face to heal. Even then, I was left with a scar on my nose that made me look like a seahorse and I needed two fake teeth to replace those I lost. The days and nights got turbulent sometimes, but they were good times and Jean, despite his plagiarism, was right; one could not be a half–decent anything without ever getting into a fight or loving a woman in the same grotesque way. Life is grotesque. Life is a bloody mess.

The house at Commonwealth Road was more like a French YMCA then a house. The Bousquet's had a good following and the house was run like a bar in a popular student area. Just before the summer began, one room became vacant because Jacques had gone to Norway with his girl for a month. They locked themselves in a Norwegian log cabin and shagged all summer. When Jacques came back he had lost fifteen kilos and a couple of fingernails. That's when Raymond moved in.

'Ray' was tall and blond, and so French his farts smelled of Camembert. He looked like Gerard Depardieu, except that Raymond was taller and only half Depardieu's weight and probably not as rich. Ray played tennis, because his father was the CEO of a multinational company that sold tennis balls and rackets and sponsored sexy Russian tennis players. His father spent most of his year in Thailand helping to bump up the sex tourism industry, and Ray was always alone with money and all the whiskey he wanted to drink, not to mention a lifetime's supply of white cotton socks. When he was not in London breaking things and making a fool of himself, he lived in a large apartment in the middle of Paris and smoked joints night and day. He only stopped to change light bulbs, which he covered with green cellophane paper to create 'an ambiance.' He rolled and rolled and got greedy with the rolling, and the more he rolled the bigger they got. Once he rolled one so big he was able to smoke it for two days: 'Look, look, at dis maiti log! Look, look, isn't it be–au–ti–ful?' he proudly announced.

Ray and I went for some exercise in the park together. That was an excuse to beat the shit out of each other. He had some sparring equipment, so we put the gloves on and boxed until our arms and legs wouldn't go anymore. Then we sat and drank wine out of the bottle and watched the good people of the world barbecue in the park with their families, throwing frisbees to their dogs and playing horse–riding with the kids. Ray paid for my drinks at the pub and I cocked him in exchange. Just to be clear, neither of us was gay, just in need of sex, so every now and then I cocked him. He was big and very confused. I was no different, except that I was small.

The house became this great community of people: brothers and sisters, joint–rollers and illegal immigrants, who slept together and sang together and sucked one another every now and then. Sodom and Gomorrah for those who looked from the outside, young people living for those inside.

It remained like that until Ray began to go crazy with the grass. He was smoking a lot in his green room and he started to get depressed and paranoid. He decided he needed a job to improve his English so he went out, got himself a free newspaper and then applied for the first thing that he came across: bodyguard and driver for a female escort agency.

He did that for four nights. On the fifth night he came home with his face the size of a pogo ball, so puffed and bruised we didn't know where his eyes were. Then he decided to answer an ad placed by an old man who wanted some company in his big Hampstead house. Ray got there and called the man from a phone booth around the corner from the house. The old man opened the curtain, saw Ray on the phone and decided he was too big for the job, and so called it off, telling Ray to go back home. Ray got angry, jumped over the high gate, broke into the man's house and beat the old man with a silver candlestick.

The next day Ray applied for another job, this time as a courier. He drove like a rally driver, and had no driving license. No, that's incorrect, he had one, but it was a fake. Still, he got the job delivering parcels. On the second day, Ray crashed the van into a brand new BMW. The driver came out of the car, shouting 'how can you be so stupid!!' and stuff like that. Ray had a cricket bat sitting on the passenger seat (god knows why he carried a cricket bat with him!), which he took out and used to smash the BMW with. First, he burst the headlights. Then, the rear lights, the mirrors, the windscreen and the door. He made his way around the bodywork, hitting as hard as he could, indenting the metallic paint, kicking and cursing. Finally, he got a key out of his pocket and wrote his name on the bonnet with it. The BMW man nearly shit himself and Ray drove off without a hint of concern.

The next morning I heard someone knocking on my door:

'Police, please open!'

'What?' I shouted from my bed, thinking it was one of the guys pranking me.

'Sir, I'll count to three. If you do not open the door we'll come in and you won't like it.'

'Oh Jesus, WAIT, I'M IN BED, NAKED! LET ME GET DRESSED. JUST A SECOND... '

'One... two...'

I opened the door. Two heavily armed men from the Metropolitan Police and one woman holding Ray's cricket bat looked at me and, as if it was the most normal thing (I was wrapped in my sheets), she asked me for my passport. Now I don't need to tell you that when the police knocks at your door and asks for your passport, and you are an illegal immigrant, the first thing you want to do is to jump through the window. But my bedroom was on the second floor of the house and the window was much too narrow for me to go through it without getting stuck (I pictured myself stuck half–way in, half–way out, hairy arse up in the air and screaming for dear life). Instead I reached out for my bag and got the passport out. I had a fake Italian ID with me, but it was really much too badly done, and I knew they were going to spot it was a fake. Except they didn't. They were just interested in knowing if I was Ray.

'Do you know Mr Raymond Lassar?'

'Sure, he is my housemate. Why, what's the problem, officer?'

'He has been accused of breaking into a gentleman's house and committing various other acts of violence, including beating an old gentleman and smashing up a car and threatening the driver with, we believe, this very same weapon.

'Yes, this.' The woman lifted the bat into the air.

'Do you know where Mr Lassar is?'

'Sorry, officer, I would have thought he would be asleep – he never gets up before midday.'

'Where is his bedroom?'

'In that door over there, yes the one opposite the bathroom.' The three went over and opened the door without knocking. The room was empty.

'Are you sure this is where he sleeps?'

'Yes, positive; nowhere else in this house is the smell of blue cheese so strong.'

'Ok, you let him know we've been here and that he must come and see us at this address.'

The tall officer with a shaved head, piercing green eyes and impeccable manners handed me his card, and the three apologized for barging in and wished me a good day. I offered them a cup of coffee and they declined.

Two days later we received news that Ray was back in Paris and wasn't going to come back to London for some time. But with or without Ray it all had to continue. We got naked in the garden, played more naked chess, drank more beer and barbecued chipolata sausages that Jean and I stole from Café Paris and barbecued cheap pork chops we bought from Aldi across the street: six pork chops for one pound fifty. Yes, those chops were cheap, very cheap, and nobody knew why they were so cheap and we did not dare to ask such questions – even when we realized they glowed in the dark and our skin began to go flaky.

Then a man called Ricardo from Spain turned up and decided to stay for a week. I cannot remember whose friend he was, but I think he was someone Jacques had met in a pub one night and who needed a place to crash. After eating all of our fluorescent chops and drinking all our beer, Ricardo stole Jacques and Sandrine's cigarettes, and the little money I had vanished from the secret place in my bedroom (a large Nutella jar that sat by the windowsill with the words 'emergency money' written on it). Not satisfied with that, the Spaniard stole everybody else's money too, and any other valuable possessions he found on his way – including the fake Italian ID that I had bought in Camden market from a drug dealer. The Spaniard tried it on with Sandrine when we were all out one night and after she (so she said) refused to 'touch his ding dong,' he vanished in the night like a perro.

The Ricardo experience was a bad one, and we firmly decided we would not allow anyone else in the house. That's when Cecilia came along. She was a little Swedish girl Jacques met in his part–time sandwich–making job. She was sweet and innocent and she did not know how to cook. She was a vegan, she was Evangelical and it was the first time she had left home. 'It's just for a couple of weeks,' pleaded Jacques. And he shagged her all day and all night and by the end of that week we couldn't stand her little giggling when Jacques made his way between her legs. She screamed and screamed and three–thirds of it must have been faking, because we all knew what a bad lover Jacques was; he drank way too much, smoked too much, he spent half his time depressed and listening to Jacques Brel and Chet Baker, he was asthmatic and he was called 'Jacques.' So no, he couldn't shag well.

Under those very same circumstances, one night Jacques and I had a fight. He was there in his room listening to Jacques Brel alone and smoking a splif and being French. I was feeling pretty lonely and so I knocked on his door. He offered me some. I took it. We smoked the whole night, talking about this and that, conversations that always revolved around his undiscovered, undisputed talent. Then he played some Cole Porter and it was then, when I was listening to the music, smoking and looking out the window, and Jacques had passed out in bed that the man singing began to talk to me instead of singing his lyrics. I recognized the voice as no longer that of Cole Porter, but of Emmanuel, and I got so anxious and angry that I thought I was going mad. I picked up Jacques's guitar off the floor, a good vintage guitar made in Japan, and lifting it in the air high above my head I smashed it against the CD player. The noise was so loud it caused everyone in the house to come to Jacques's room to see what had happened. Then Jacques leaped out of bed and started screaming:

'Oh pute, oh pute, vat is rong wis u, oh pute, my poor gui–tar, oh pute, vat is rong wis you, man, I kill you, man, I kill you!'

In one move, he jumped on me and began to slap me like an angry girl. I was too rubber–like from the weed to do anything, so I just laid there and let him do whatever he wanted. They pulled him back and tried to get me up again, but I was gone. I woke up the next day in the corridor – apparently I was too heavy for them to drag me all to way to my room.

When I woke up it was morning already, so I moved into my bed and slept for another half a day, occasionally vomiting in the bucket I kept under the bed. I sat in bed for a while and began to think of Ray and that I missed him because, despite his craziness, he was a good fellow and had a big heart. Cecilia was fine, but she was a girl in love with a drunkard and junkie of a guitar player, and every time she cooked chickpeas in the oven, without boiling or steaming them before or adding any oil or condiments, my suspicions were confirmed that she was as much of an idiot as she was tall. I knew I was going mad after hearing Emmanuel on the CD the night before. I tried to explain everything to Jacques and the others afterwards, but they didn't understand what I was saying, so I said I was sorry and that I was going to buy Jacques another guitar. Then it was fine again.

We lived like that for months and months. People came in, did what they needed to do, than they left. Unless they burned something or stole money, everyone was good about it. And we loved in spring and we loved in summer and the stars were ours for grabbing. We sang songs to the moon and woke up under London's grey blanket and went to bed under sheets of fire filled with vodka. I would bring the odd girl in for a one–night stand but before anybody met her she'd be out in the morning. I did that because the last woman I introduced to the Bousquet's sat at the table and did not say a word for two hours while we all talked about the night before. Then I kicked her out.

'You're rude and you and your friends are morons. One day you will all wake up and realize you wasted your lives. Get a job!' she told me as I shut the door on her face. Then she shouted from outside so everyone could hear:

'And by the way, I LIED! – YOUR DICK IS VERY SMALL AND YES, YOUR BALLS ARE SAGGY AND NO, HAIRY ARSES ARE NOT SEXY!

After that I felt I needed to get out of the Bousquet's house for a while. I also decided I had had enough of working in the kitchen and quit my job at Café Paris.

One day I was on a double decker bus heading towards Victoria Station, when I read the job ads posted on the back of a free newspaper. I read someone was looking for a carer for her disabled husband, Mr William (Willy) Wonley. His wife, Molly Wonley, was his full–time carer, but she could no longer lift the man or bathe him, or help him to do his business on the loo. So I was welcomed with big smiles when I sat in front of their faces for an interview. I was by then a little athletic and just about the right height to handle Mr Wonley. The Wonley's lived in Primrose Hill and since the pay was above average, my plan was to earn enough money to go to Italy where, I had been told, I could get new papers if I had the money and talked to the right people, because Italy may be in Europe but it still works like the script of some cheap American Western: by the cross, by the bullet and by the money down your trousers.

12

Beyond Good and Evil

'When a man realises his life is passing in front of his eyes and all he can do is to say '...oh sod it, let's have a cup of tea,' he knows he should hang his boots and go fishing,' said Willy.

But I won't bother you with Willy's existential problems. Or perhaps I will. When Willy spoke it was like listening to a quintessential English gentleman, the kind you'd expect to deliver the news on BBC Radio 4 at night. He reminded me of Willencourt a little, but without any of Willencourt's eccentricities – Willy could not afford to be eccentric. Let me explain. Willy was a self–educated man, and much unlike Oxbridge professors who lost contact with their own bodies or generation, those philosophers who walk through the corridors of the great colleges incarnated in bodies whose only purpose is to transport their enormous heads from the lecture room to the library and back again. No, Willy was much too pragmatic for all of that. He was quite modest, and rather than explaining humanity he only hoped for a day without pain.

When confined to a wheelchair, a man seems to become less sure of things, less presumptuous and authoritative. I, for one, have never met a man in that condition who was bitter about life or even slightly impolite. I had seen plenty of perfectly able–bodied people with much less passion for life and respect for humanity than those whose movements were restricted to rolling their eyes around. But that's not to say Willy didn't enjoy a good rambling, as all grumpy old man do, and amongst the many ears that served the purpose of listening to him, mine were there at the weekends.

'Life...' he would begin, as I shampooed his hair, '...is just too complicated and I am too old for all of this.'

'For instance...' he would continue in a torrent of words that slid along his tongue like butter on a hot pan, '...I don't believe God exists. I am an atheist through and through, member of the Humanist Society for years. But if I was to be proved wrong somehow and the bugger does exist, there still remains the most irritating question any theologian would surely have struggled with at one time or other: how can a God so almighty and so kind, that being, so much adored by the masses, so much idolised by the crazy lunatics mad enough to bomb one another in his name, the omnipotent supreme perfect being, one adored by all those men with long beards and bad fashion taste, one for whom humanity has fought so many wars, the one God who is obviously Catholic given the number of world cups he gave to the Brazilians and the Italians, how could this God put people in wheelchairs and let them rot in bodies not worth a penny?'

'I can't even understand the question, Mr Wonley let alone give you an answer. I am not a philosopher, certainly not before breakfast.'

But Willy would not lay it to rest. Gathering a little more strength for his final act, he would then nail his opinions on my head like Martin Luther nailed those ninety-five theses on the door of that church in Wittenberg.

'But what if we entertain the possibility that there is no God...let us then consider the fact that the man in a wheelchair is just a creature like you, a young man, who was born, lived a good and normal life but who, at some point or other, fell into misfortune. In other words, he succumbed to fate, as we all do at some point in time. That would put us – the man in the wheelchair and the able–bodied sturdy Brazilian – in the same bag, would it not?'

'I suppose...y-e-s', I would answer hesitantly.

'Yes...yes...you would think so, wouldn't you? But the answer is in fact 'no,' it would not. 'And the reason for that is...?' you ask.

'Yes, Willy, I was going to ask you.' (No, I wasn't).

'And the answer is: there is no such thing as fate! Life, my dear boy, is but a stream of random events brought to us by the unforgiving, relentless march of time. It is our brains, which so insistently make sense of the weird, psychedelic kaleidoscope of incidents we call 'life.' Events that are utterly unplanned or ordered by a supreme being but which simply happen just as Darwin showed us evolution does – it is an impulse for survival, where the best takes it all and the loser dies and rots to dust.

'Even if you don't know Darwin's work you just have to listen to ABBA and they'll tell you the same thing: 'the winner takes it all.' We do something and something will happen and the end result could be anything – much like the lottery, except that the lottery winner usually gets to improve his life while nature's prize is to allow us to keep on with the struggle for survival. Let us take my case as an example, shall we?

'Shall we?' I would ask trying to get away from that corner.

'Yes, we shall,' he would reply mercilessly.

'I have always heard that God is just and that he always knows who is good and who is bad and who has lived a good and just life. I believe I have done everything in my power to lead a good and honest life, and the testimony to that are the people around me who trust me and, I should think, love me. A man who has sinned rarely has people around him, because he is the first to flee. I'm talking about those who have something to hide, not from others, but from themselves. I never have been lonely. I always loved people and was loved by them. That should tell you something. Does it not?'

'Yes, Willy, it does.' (God, if you are there, please help me.)

'Now, I was riding a bike when this happened to me, you see. I was already fifty–something years old and I had, to a very large extent, lived a long and good and successful life. I served on board a war ship during the post–war years. We went to the Mediterranean, I was a photographer you see – never picked up a gun or shot anybody, a good man!'

'Yes, you're a good man, Willy, a good man.'

'I agree! I am a good man! So, I was there in the capacity of a photographer and not at all a sailor or soldier. I never slapped anyone on the face or hit anything – not even a dog or a cat; you see, a good man!'

'Yes, Willy, you are, no doubt you are,' I said as my hands agitated the white foam that sat by now on his head as the water cascaded over his shoulders while my trousers got soaked and all I wanted was to die.

'...my wife, Molly, was riding her bike next to me – she is indeed a saint that woman – isn't she?'

'Oh, yes, Molly, a saint, totally...'

'And even she suffered from a terrible accident years earlier that nearly took her life you know; she was in coma for three months mind you! What a girl that Molly is! Made of cast iron, I tell you.'

'Ummmhum.'

'Now just imagine that it was a little pebble that made the front wheel of the bike slide off its course, making me lose control of the handle bars and trapping my foot in the front wheel. That in turn propelled the bicycle forward, catapulting my legs over my head resulting in a complete and awkward summersault. I landed on my back and never walked again. That pebble, that small, insignificant millions–of–years–old pebble, the size of a peach stone, brought me down like a giant tree falling in the middle of a forest. The only reason I am still here is because of humour. I have humour in my veins, and if it wasn't for that I would have asked my wife to switch me off when she had the chance.'

Willy went on and on about his theories of God and evolution. He read all Richard Dawkins' books and that was okay. I sympathised with Willy's views, which at first sounded simply like cynicism and anger at what had happened to him, but when listening a little more carefully, one could hear the noise produced by simple misconception. For instance, Willy always referred to people's belief in God as if they believed God actually had a face or that he was a being that one day would reveal himself. But I couldn't defy his interpretations for I was the guy who shampooed his remaining hair and wiped his bottom, at the weekends. Nobody listens to someone like that. Who would take seriously someone who is willing to put on a pair of rubber gloves and stick his fingers up somebody's ass for a little weekend money?

'Willy, you are blinded by your own rationality at times,' Molly would tell him as I scooped out the egg yolk from the boiled egg and stuffed a spoonful of it into his mouth.

'In my experience even the most blindly religious, the most ignorant and backward people on this earth would know that images of God are simple allegories we use to try and give a face or shape to our fears and passions and needs, and that God is not a thing but a condition, a frame of mind if you will...,' she would continue after pointing out to the fact I had accidentally smeared marmalade over Willy's ear as we sat in the kitchen for breakfast. I sat next to Willy without saying a word. I was arms with no head. She sitting opposite Willy pretending I wasn't there. He sitting in his wheelchair pretending my arms were his and that the marmalade on his ear had dropped from the ceiling somehow.

I happened to disagree with Molly's views too, but she was nice and my opinion was often simply overlooked, so I never tried. She was too English to be disagreed with anyway. The English still hold the idea that you should keep your opinion to yourself and know your place. If I was hired to stick my finger up somebody's arse, that's what I should keep doing. Philosophy was too grand. It was for those who truly understood it. My hands were too dirty to hold a book. When I did say something, they went very quiet, and I could read what they thought: 'insolent, how dare he speak? He is arms and not head – how dare he?!'

'I once tried to explain to Willy that I never saw God and that I was never given any proof he existed,' Molly continued, '...and if I were a scientist I would never be able to say 'I know God,' but as a believer I could say 'I have faith and I believe that there is something higher than me, something purer than anything and everything that I have ever touched or seen with my own eyes, some kind of energy so light and ancient and enduring and warm that it keeps my heart pulsating. And then I know that my mind is not simply the result of electrical impulses that take place in the brain, but more than that; it is an essence of existence that I see and recognize everywhere in everything I touch and see, because electrical impulses cannot explain something like love and sympathy and honesty and friendship and kindness, or anything that is done out of love, because love is not rational, it is not only human and it is not about God. Love is beyond good and evil.'

'Nonsense,' I would think, 'just shut up woman and let me tell you how it is really like...you and your padded English life!'

But then Willy would steal my thoughts.

'Nonsense! Listen up here...' he would continue as I held a straw near to his mouth so he could suck in some coffee from the mug I held in front of him as he moved his face uncontrollably in front of it, a situation that led me to poke his nose with the straw a couple of times.

And it was mostly fine, that kind of absent presence, but the problem was that she was horrible when it came to payments; she never paid on time. She did make good tea, but she never paid on time. I think she mixed Earl Grey with English Breakfast and Lapsong Souchong. And even though she was in control and was often wiser than him, it was Willy's shelves that abounded with books on philosophy and art and film theory and opera librettos.

'In the good old days,' Willy would start, 'films had to be cut by hand,' as he told me of the times when he and Molly worked in films. 'That was what Molly and I did. We were the guys in the dark back–rooms somewhere in the studios, trying to make sense of all the thousands of shots the director had taken. Molly invented a revolutionary system called 'pegging.' It consisted in pegging all the bits of film together and hanging them on lines that we put across the office, which made the place look like one big laundry room. We had to cut the film up and then mend it all together again, and make sure it sort of made sense, you know...it was a bit like playing God, I would imagine. You got somebody's life there, framed in front of you, a story in motion so to speak. But it was, as all stories are, all muddled, all jumbled up. So we had to give the assemblage of pictures a beginning, middle and an end. We sequenced the story and gave it its rhythm, its sound, its colour and its texture. In other words, we tried to tell a story by gluing bits of time together, into one stream of events that gave meaning to something that is often, well, quite meaningless really.'

'Yes, yes, all good, but the payments never came on time. How can you be so clever and still don't manage to pay on time!' I thought.

Willy and Molly lived in such synchrony that they smelled the same way, lived by the same philosophies, and even moved in the same manner (when Willy could move at all). They had their tea precisely in the same order: milk first, no sugar, biscuit on the side, the same mugs – every time. They woke up at the same time every day, had breakfast with the same jams and bread every Monday, boiled eggs on Tuesdays and cereal with cooked apples, raisins and home–made yogurt on Wednesdays. On Thursdays and Fridays they repeated what they had eaten on Mondays and Tuesdays. For lunch there was always a piece of toast cut in half and covered with either tinned sardines or taramasalata for Willy and two biscuits topped with cheddar cheese for Molly, followed by a piece of fruit and diluted cranberry juice. But it was not just about establishing routines. The two even had the same expressions on their faces. The sheer synchronicity of their beings was astonishing.

And they were not alike because they had been together for a long time. They were in synchrony before they actually met. They were like a pair of socks that at some point in history had been separated and then somehow got put back together again. I was puzzled by that and after some time, quite by accident, I stumbled across a book by C.G. Jung aptly named Synchronicity, which stood on Willy's shelf. It was really a marvellous little book that tried to explain what seems at first to be utterly unexplainable: coincidences. I took it with me everywhere I went for about a month.

He thought that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning because a grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect. The main idea was simple: nothing happens simply by chance, because even chance is part of a broader canvas of which we are all a part. Therefore life is not really a chaotic jumble of events, but in fact a pretty organized set of encounters – like an edited film. Coincidences then occur as a way to remind people that they are not alone and to remind them of the existence of something he called 'indestructible energy,' or if I may continue with the metaphor, the light that makes the image in a film.

Was my day–dreaming, my hallucinatory encounters with the mysterious Emmanuel related to that? Why had that book suddenly appeared in front of me? Why was I attracted to its ideas?

The important thing is that, one day, Willy was ready to find out for himself if such a theory was correct, if such 'indestructible energy' really existed, because Willy, who was by then in his eighties, fell ill with a bad flu. That flu proved a bit too much for him and it was time to go. He was dispatched in a humanist ceremony where nobody cried because it was supposed to be a celebration of Willy's life and no mourning was allowed. The family came over and they all got dressed in their formal attire and went for a funeral that was not supposed to look like a funeral. Willy's sons and grandsons and granddaughter and the parents and some other relatives sat there, not crying and not doing anything.

After Willy was gone, Molly fell into a pit of sadness and she asked if I would like to move in with her for some time until she got less depressed. To be honest, I just wanted to get away from there, but I said 'yes,' and moved out of the Bousquets and I never saw them again. I think I was by then sicker of them than I was of Molly, so Molly it was.

Molly and I dined every day together and sometimes we talked for hours on end. I had been promoted. I was no longer the man with dirty hands I had been promoted to confident. Suddenly she began to ask me about stuff. Talking to me about her difficulties and what seemed to me a load of senseless fears became her favourite pastime. And I learned about her eccentricities – which the English love to call 'traditions'.

In England, everything that is ugly, smelly and old looking, covered by checked fabric or possessing white long legs – such as the Prince of Wales for instance – or is simply nonsensical – becomes a tradition: two separate taps in the bathroom, invading other people's countries for centuries and then complaining that a few of the people they invaded came to England, driving on the wrong side of road and complaining that everybody else is wrong, claiming they are a maritime nation even though nobody owns a boat, naming every possible era in history after their kings and queens without considering that everybody else in the planet calls them differently.

The kind of tradition that Molly and I developed, however, was a good type of tradition. We laughed at how ridiculous such English things are, like Eastenders or the superstitions surrounding the ravens at the Tower of London. We laughed at the actors, 'they can't act for the life of God and everybody knows that, but nobody cares because...well, it's a tradition!' she laughed.

And things moved on like that and despite the weirdness of that unlikely friendship, we became closer. That's not to say that the woman was a bit cuckoo. One morning Molly and I met in the kitchen as she brewed freshly ground coffee. I said 'fresh coffee? That's decadent for a Wednesday morning.' She usually only made freshly ground coffee on Sundays, to be drunk with a precisely three–minute part–boiled egg on toast with two drops of Tabasco. I was curious and asked very casually as to the 'why' of such a sudden change in pattern.

'Well, this is so I can overcome a horrid incident which occurred to me yesterday after I went to the swimming pool. You see, I was dying for a drink and, against principles – it must be said – I walked right into one of those...uhmm...how do you call them? Spareducks coffee shops, I guess...? Well never mind, I went in there and asked for a coffee and I'll only tell you this: it was the worst thing I have ever drunk in my entire English life. I thought about this last night and decided I had to have freshly ground coffee this morning...'

'Why, what was so wrong with their coffee?'

'Nothing, except that it was probably like drinking the horrid coffee they made in the GDR during the Cold War, only I am actually paying for it with my free democratic arse sticking up like a fucking flag on the top of very long fucking pole and on the flag it says: come you American corporation, take my money, I am dying to drink your dirty shit...ah, and I'd love it if you stuffed some of that muffin up my arse too!'

Then we sat down and had some 'freshly ground coffee a–la–Molly' and she told me that a writer who lived in Sydney was coming to visit her and that he would stay for a week. His name was Bill and he known for writing the scripts of some successful movies, one of which even made it to Cannes. So one day Bill arrived and he was really pleasant. He was one of Molly's best friends. She told him I was into writing too and he got interested in what I was doing. She told me Bill was excited about having met me. It was interesting to meet a professional writer for the first time. I felt he could give me some good tips on writing – but I was wrong. Like all writers, he felt very awkward being away from his dark room and his computer screen. Writers are strange people when they're away from their computer screens.

Every now and then Molly and I drove to the supermarket, where I helped her with the shopping. One day we jumped in her car and she 'drove' us to the supermarket (she fiddled with the steering wheel and moved that thing about the street while I nearly shit myself in the passenger seat). She went there every Wednesday morning. On the way, a very proud man dressed in expensive clothes simply walked in front of the car. He had his mobile phone glued to his ear. Now Molly was not the best driver in the world, a point I cannot stress enough, and this incident did not improve my view. She braked so hard my rectum travelled through my mouth and I could taste the last thing I had eaten two days before.

'You stupid, stupid, silly, silly, silly little man...that's a zebra crossing, not a pelican crossing, you fool! For your information they are worlds apart – don't they teach you how to cross the street at school? You just have a mobile phone in your hand, kid, not a teleport machine – this is real life not Star Trek!' she said, shaking her fist in the air with half of her body out the window.

Then she drove on and parked in the very tight car park of the supermarket she went to for the past twenty years. So it was Wednesday mornings in the supermarket, and every Friday afternoon she went to another small grocery shop in Primrose Hill for fresh fruit and vegetables. She wasn't rich, but she liked to shop in the posh shops. She had her life so organized she even printed a list of all things she ate: Arborio (risotto) rice, apples, bananas, broccoli, spaghetti, three kinds of fish including mackerel, cod and salmon, lemons, tomato source, bread for toast, tea, milk, cranberry juice, orange juice, chocolate, flour for baking, cheese, biscuits, tinned sardines and tuna.

As we walked up and down the supermarket isles, Molly was busy ticking off each and every item with a special artist's black pencil. When she got to the end of the list she would go to the cashier and pay half and I would pay half. I paid her one hundred pounds rent – including bills – and for that she provided me with a mattress that she placed in her front room, the same room that served as her atelier. There she painted, worked on sculptures, and sat looking out the window, often puzzled by what the Japanese neighbour across the road was building with so much sand and bricks that never seemed to go anywhere in particular. He just added more and more to the piles, and the piles never went anywhere further than becoming bigger piles.

Like every woman in England above fifty, she enjoyed gardening. But she only mowed the lawn every now and then because the lawnmower was getting a little too heavy for her to move. That was until she came up with an ingenious device, consisting of a hook and a pulley and a piece of synthetic rope; that way she could lower or hoist the mower up and down onto the wall of her tiny garden shed every time she needed it.

She also told me that she had some of her sculptures in various places in London. 'I scattered quite a few of my sculptures around London, without permission.'

'Why?' I asked.

'Because they always reject them.'

'Perhaps they don't like them,' I said.

'That's not possible,' she said annoyed.

'Maybe they're not good enough?' I suggested.

'No, they are – trust me, they are.'

'How can you be so sure?' I asked.

'Because I made them – and you know nothing about art!'

'That maybe true, but what if they don't want to have your sculptures in a public park?'

'Well, that's ok; I don't put my name on them so they don't know who put them there in the first place!'

'And what's your point?' I asked.

'Why does it have to have a point?' she replied.

'Well, it takes time and effort to do. You must have a point?'

'No, I don't have a point. I just think I deserve recognition for what I've done.'

'But if you don't put your name on them, how do you expect to be recognized?'

'I don't have to. It suffices if people walk by and look at my pieces and have some sort of reaction to them. I saw some people laughing. I also saw a woman taking some pictures of one of them. That's enough for me. Even when they remove them, the police or the council that is, it is still a statement. And that is what I want.'

The truth is that Molly's sculptures were horrid. And I knew why nobody wanted them: they were horrid.

Every night before going to bed I passed in front of the well supplied library Willy had left her – well covered with dust and, naturally, very charming. I developed the habit of picking up a volume and reading it until I fell asleep. I read Turgenev for the first time there. Then I found some works by Camus: The Plague, The Death of Sisyphus and some of his early writings. There were quite a few of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books and I read them all in the end, starting with The Great Gatsby. Then I found Hemingway and literature changed completely. All I wanted was to write like that. Then I discovered Bukowski, who liked the early Hemingway very much but didn't like the late Hemingway. I disagreed with Bukowski on that one – even though I thought Bukowski was a rascal and a genius. Then through Bukowski I learned about John Fante, reading all the adventures of Arturo Bandini, and at the time I thought Fante was the best writer I had ever read. That was until I read George Orwell and everything changed again – what a writer, that Orwell, what a writer! Then I discovered Orwell really liked Shaw. Then I read Pygmalion and Major Barbara...and what a writer that Shaw was! Then I read some more Bukowski and I learned that he hatted Shaw. That's when I began to hate Bukowski. Even though he was a genius – who was he to hate Shaw?!

At Molly's I discovered more about literature. I went through Shakespeare – but the English was way too difficult for me, so I decided it wasn't for me. That made me feel very small because everyone in England would find that sacrilege...'how can Shakespeare not be for you? Who do you think you are? The bard is the bard – there is no choice when it comes to the bard!' Molly told me as she looked at me as if I was from Mars.

During my stay with Molly we took long walks up and down Primrose Hill and she told me of her routines and a little about her life. But being always a 'reserved extrovert,' she spoke a lot and said nothing. I guess that's what people call the English 'stiff upper lip'. Being Brazilian, I not only talked about myself but I also asked for opinions – a terrible habit. Molly always felt visibly uncomfortable when that part came, but then she was getting used to it, and even if she didn't...tough. Before she met me she had had other Brazilian carers to look after Willy, and she knew by now we were all crazy maniacs suffering from some kind of genetic, and generic, tropical mental gonorrhoea.

That was until I found, purely by accident of course, some photographs of Molly and Willy together in their cottage up in Suffolk where they once owned a plot of land. I pulled a book from the shelf and the pictures fell on the floor. I picked them up and saw a beautiful young lady in her late twenties, naked on the grass. She had firm breasts and long brown hair that shone in the light and made her look like a mermaid. The man next to her was much older and they were looking at one another as if they were about to do it. She posed for him, opening herself up to the man, who held a camera in one hand while his mind was completely lost in her breasts and thighs. Molly was so beautiful and so profoundly poetic that if I had been born thirty years younger I would have fallen in love with her too. At the time, her parents thought the man was taking advantage of Molly. But as it happens, it was the other way around. Molly was always in control because men like Willy, men like me, all men will always – as history has shown – give up empires to possess or control (or more importantly, to imagine they possess) nature in the shape of a young woman.

I never told Molly I had seen the pictures and never looked at them again. I carefully placed them back where they belonged and tried to forget all about it. But there is something about pictures. They have tremendous power. Ever since I saw them, and every time I looked at Molly, I couldn't forget how beautiful and sensual she had once looked. She was to me no longer an old woman with no past, but a sensuous young girl who had grown a little older. Willy no longer was an eighty year–old man who collected books, the mere owner of a dusty old library, but the man Molly wished to undress.

Then one evening, after we'd watched television and got drunk on wine, I took Molly to the bedroom and undressed her. She was sixty–seven years old and I was twenty–something. I saw all the scars and all the decaying flesh and still I put it in her and she liked that. I think it was her first shag in thirty years. I kissed her scars and her morbid skin. She groaned and held tight to my arms. Then, as she approached her ecstasy, she whispered: 'finish me, set me free from all this waiting. Please, I beg you, finish me. I want to see Willy again. I know he waits for me, beneath the trees of Eden. Please, finish me... now.

I picked up a pillow and placed it over her face. I pressed it against her and held it down with both hands, throwing all my weight onto her. Her legs trembled, her grip on my arms tightened. She made no sound.

* * *

I lived in cheap backpacker lodges and worked for cash–in–hand in some restaurants and bars and hotels, until they started asking for visas and shit. After some time had passed, I had enough money to try and buy myself a fake passport. I was told by an Italian man that for a thousand pounds he could fix me up with someone he knew in Milan. He said this man could get me fake papers there. So I said good bye to London and off I went on a bus that took me over the channel on a ferry, and through France and then Italy and I vomited all the way there. I hoped the men at the Italian border would not pick up on my expired visa; in England they didn't care who you were and where you were going so long as you were leaving. In France they were too busy drinking wine and farting cheese to be bothered. Still, it was risky and I was stiffened with fear. Heroes have courage. I was no hero.

Part III – Purgatory

13

The Poor Devils

By luck and nothing else, the Italians did not pick up on my expired visa. So there I was, ready to start it all over again: the chasing, the madness, and the parasitical life.

In Milan, I had a small one–room flat in the suburbs, near Cimitero Maggiore – the largest cemetery in the city. I had accumulated some cash in England and could afford a place to live – at least for a little while. It was small; to open the oven I had to close the cupboard. I could only take a dump if I left the door open, because my knees wouldn't fit in otherwise; even though I was not much taller than a jockey. I was lucky. Although I had no money left for food, I had a roof over my head.

I had to share the shower room with the other flats on the second floor of the old building in via Broglio in Dergano; a place that would make The Waste Land look like Dante's Paradise. The place existed between the largest hospital, Ospedale Nigarda, and the largest cemetery, Cimitero Maggiore. As I found out later, such a location turned out to be pretty handy.

The same day I moved in, I met a bunch of workers who shared a place the same size as mine and there were four of them living there. I was told that they all met through work: a construction site where they toiled like horses all day in good or bad weather; one Brazilian man from São Paulo, a Peruvian from Lima, a Colombian from Bogotá and a Romanian from some unpronounceable small village in the middle of the mountains. They slept and ate together and the place smelled of onions, cheap beer, instant noodles, black beans, chicken broth, and farts.

I began to drink with them. We were all very different but poverty makes men indistinguishable from one another. We drank together and smoked together and fought one another after I learned how to do Romanian wrestling.

The day I moved in, the Peruvian, Pablo Gonzáles Villar, a brick layer, had purchased some cheap Bulgarian tinto in a supermarket nearby. The Romanian, Alin Vladmir Romaneci – 'Vladi' – had bottles of tuica and some home–made Romanian wine, stored in the crap–room, the only separate room in the flat. 'The temperature in the room will keep the wine from getting too hot,' he often excused himself. But the others knew that Vladi left it there because every time he took a dump he also took a sip. In the mornings his hands would tremble and the first thing the others would hear was the toilet door shutting.

'Pablito,' the man from Peru, would do most of the cooking, and often he invited me to taste his alchemic experiments, saying 'soy un especialista en frutos del mar y otras cosas que solamente el diablo sabe, y también hago un carretero de muerte...' He often boasted about his food and he was right, it was tasty (especially his pescado con patatas y cebollas and the arroz de carretero), even though I couldn't vouch for his hygiene awareness. He licked his fingers, tasted everything with the same spoon he stirred and coughed and sneezed all over pretty much everything he touched. Every Sunday, Otávio and I, whose shared mother tongue made us closer than the others, would search for food in the African and Chinese stores in Milan, looking for ingredients so that Pablito could cook some of his specialities.

The Colombian, Raúl, was the quietest of the four and rarely spoke to anybody. Most of the money he made he sent to his family in Bogotá, who were either working for the drug cartels as messengers or security men. They got injured, dead or unemployed more often than Italians eat pasta. He had a cousin who had a picture of himself and Pablo Escobar hanging on the back of his bedroom door. Raúl was a forty year–old who looked sixty. He was a serious man, with a serious expression on his caboclo face and not much of a sense of humour. He lived with the others for pure necessity, and had little in common with anyone there, except when it came to drinking.

Drinking was not a choice but a fact. The men got up at four in the morning and by five they were at the construction site. Every male low–class immigrant who ends up in Milan brings alcoholism with him in his blood or, at best, becomes an alcoholic out of boredom and sadness, maybe anger, or all three. While he worked in a restaurant, Raúl never cooked. He didn't know how. In the restaurant he was a cleaner, but they used him in the kitchen as an assistant whenever they needed an extra hand. He peeled potatoes and washed pots, while Pablito, Otávio and Vladi worked in the construction site owned by signore Rocco Francconni.

I knew nothing about construction work, but I too ended up working for the same man when my money ran out and I couldn't afford the rent anymore. I got employed by Francconni, at Francconni i Filgli Construtori S.A., and that kept the roof over my head, even if it came at a cost. The first time we met, Francconni told me:

'Cha, cha, cha, Io prendo te come un lavoratore inesperto, che dovrà essere resa utile. Così ti ho pagato meno rispetto alla media, perché stó davvero da fare un favore a te. Lei non ché carta e nessuna esperienza, e penso che avete qui un buon affare, cha, cha, cha – Cha, cha, cha, I take you as an inexperienced worker who will have to be made useful. I will pay you less than the average because I am really giving you inside knowledge of the business. So basically, I'm doing you a favour. You have no papers and no experience, and therefore I'm taking risks. I'm losing by hiring you, really. So I think you have here a good deal, cha, cha, cha.'

Il Capo, as the men called him, spoke with a thunderous I'm–shitting–about–what–you–think kind of voice. He had a lot of money and that made him right all of the time. But the money actually came from his wife, Signora Eugenia Fortunati, whose father had money of dubious origins – something to do with some family business in Napoli. Rocco had a funny way of starting and finishing his great speeches with a twitch; he blinked three times and turned his neck to the left, then let out a 'cha, cha, cha!' One needed to be very strong not to laugh, but we never laughed. We knew what happened to the Armenian who once laughed and made Rocco aware of his idiosyncrasy; he got kicked out and into a police van that took him straight to the refugee detention centre. Rocco called the Carabinieri and told them the Armenian had stolen five hundred euros from his office and that he had found out he was working for him on a fake passport.

Between Francconni's cigarette–stained yellow teeth we left our souls twisting in angst. I hung my head in shame for selling myself so cheaply, but I saw it as a means to an end, like everything else I had had to do up until that point. The others were so happy to have a job they swallowed any remaining pride. Francconni was a man whose spirit was putrid and whose heart was filled with cowardice. He was less than the vulture that lurks around, waiting to eat the rotting carcasses of those who limp along and die hopelessly on some barren, infertile field.

I worked fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day. But this was nothing compared to the amount covered by the other men who sometimes did sixteen, eighteen, hour shifts. And that work was futile, for we all knew that all the hammering and the shovelling and the digging and the lifting, and the drilling was for nothing. Not much of the work we did was really fixing anything or building anything. We would replace an entire pipe line only to dismantle the whole damn thing next day and start again from scratch, just to build up hours and labour costs.

Rocco Francconni may have had a rotten soul, but he was neither an idiot nor an exception. He would show the engineers of the Commune di Milano what he had done: the new pipes he had put in place, the new cement foundation he had laid. He made sure we were hanging around when the engineers and inspectors came by, so they would see us all sweaty and covered in dust, both feet stuck in the mud. The only clean spot on our faces being the eyeballs and even they were shot with blood. Please with what they saw, the engineers would turn their back and go away for a couple of weeks and we would replace the new pipes with the old ones and cover them up again. Francconni would still get paid for replacing them, and keep the new pipes for another job elsewhere. That was everything Rocco Francconni did. He spent his days and nights thinking over how to beat the system and get away with it. Sometimes he only showed the engineers photographs, and at some point the engineers even stopped coming by as Francconni made more and more deals with the Commune's bosses.

Francconni seemed to get away with it because he was Italian and he never employed men of his own kind. He counted on foreigners to do all his dirty work: work that was, as I said, unnecessary. He charged the government vast sums of money for the work on each site and paid a misery to his employees. He drove around in a big black Q7 and his son drove a Maserati that we could hear approaching two minutes before it actually got there. He paid the workers little, gave them nothing and expected them to be faithful; or else a simple call to the fearsome Carabinieri would suffice to send them home, one by one, like how certain animals are banned from an environment when they're deemed inconvenient for the life of men.

Francconni was a retired secondary school teacher who married well and was now simply administering the family's business. His son, Edoardo Francconni was a middle–class playboy by Milanese standards, who had no talent for anything except buying motorcycles, crashing them, breaking limbs and spending his mother's money on Brazilian and Thai off–the–street prostitutes who he picked up at night with his big Maserati.

The weather in Milan was humid and hot and while the Milanese families went up to the mountains, and the Milanese singles went down to the coast, the invisibles were trapped in some odd–looking grey, square, cemented, corner of Sesto St. Giovanni, digging holes and mending pipes and laying bricks and dying slowly in front of malfunctioning electric fans. Four, five, six of them, locked inside a thirty–five square metre shoebox room without a toilet.

'DE DEUS!' Francconni shouted. 'Cha, cha, cha de Deus...cha, cha, cha...I didn't give you a job for you to stand and sweat! Come on, we don't have the whole day – cha, cha, cha!'

The first summer I was in Milan was hot, so hot that sixty-three old pensioners died because of the heat. In the winter that followed, almost double that number died of cold. Between paying the gas bill and buying food, they often choose food, and then they die in the middle of the night when their teeth knock so hard against each another that they break and get swallowed and the old bags die of either indigestion, a blocked air passage or hypothermia.

That summer, the men who slept next to one other on thin mattresses and a hammock that crossed the kitchen/dinning/sleeping room and that hung above the three other condemned heads underneath, worked and saved as much money as they could. They needed the money to keep feeding families and themselves and to buy more booze and cigarettes so they could die better.

Despite the heat and the poverty and dog dung everywhere, that summer was possibly one of the best summers of our lives. Perhaps I could even say that we were happy. The reason for that was the spells of golden light that every now and then emanated from one of those men. When that happened, it illuminated the faces of whoever was nearby, nourishing their spirit and giving a glimpse of hope. It would be wonderful if hope eradicated pain for good, but it is hard to see it as nothing but a local anaesthetic.

'Oh meu amigo João, não se atormente a toa menino, a vida é assim, cheia de obstáculos e chorar não adianta muito não. O melhor é não ter raiva ou rancor e entregar tudo ou senhor bom Deus, que ele é que sabe o que faz' – Oh my dear friend João, don't be tormented in vain. Life is like this, full of obstacles, and crying isn't of any use. The best you can do is not to be angry or feel hurt and to hand it all over to the good Lord Jesus, for he knows what he does.'

Otávio would tell me this in every hour of despair, and as time went by, more alcohol was needed to supplant the angst and the craziness. Hope was to be found at the bottom of each bottle, and one needed to keep opening bottles.

So we had Otávio's Lord Jesus, and we had Bulgarian wine and the pirate Gipsy Kings CD that Pablito bought from the Africans down the road and which he always played when we got together for a game of bridge during those hot Sunday afternoons, when everyone had come back from the call centre owned by Alli.

Alli was an important part of our life in Milan. This Egyptian Muslim thought of himself as God's benefactor for opening a business that allowed the poor migrants of the world to speak to their families once a week without making them even poorer. And he was right; he was doing us all a great service. My neighbours saved all possible money, and even took extra work as rubbish collectors and staircase cleaners to be able to afford calling their families every weekend. They spent hours and hours on the phone talking to everybody they could reach.

'Yes, mother, I will send you money to buy your pills at the end of the month, I promise. Tell father that next month, if God allows, I will also send him enough to fix his car, maybe even help to pay for the fridge repair. Tell Dorinha not to eat too much chocolate. God be with you mother...' and so would Otávio go on for an hour every Sunday.

Alli's shop was located three hundred metres down the road from where we lived, at the corner with Piazza Bausan, a big roundabout that meant nothing. Alli had two precious computers supplied with cameras. With them people could not only talk to, but also see their families, friends and lovers who went to the homes of the wealthier people around or to internet cafés on the other side of the world to talk to the men. Alli had also four phone cabins, which were always occupied with people living life on the line, with more waiting outside in a queue that sometimes went half–way around the block. Spotting the opportunity for more business, Alli also sold kebabs and coffee and had an outsourced supply of fake Italian IDs.

Alli was a good man and a devout Muslim, who wouldn't be caught drunk or eating pork, or at home walking around in his underwear and watching daytime television, a beer in one hand and a porn magazine in the other. No, Alli lived life by the Qur'an. Often the shop would be closed for five or ten minutes and we knew that Alli would be in there somewhere in the back room, praying towards Mecca on his out–stretched rug. The men used his call centre on Sundays and he knew they were coming, so he prepared his best smile and rehearsed some jokes about transvestites. He seemed to know a great deal about transvestites and he once promised to introduce me to some:

'...very good tits my friend – firmer than these flabby Italian women – with the benefit that they don't want to get married to you after a little fun,' he knowingly declared.

His favourite pastime was to watch transvestites being picked up at a place not far from there, the appropriately named Via Stillicone. On the other side of the train tracks, transvestites would hang around there waiting for customers in a better, more gentrified part of Milan, where expensive cafés and gelaterias abounded and cars were never more than two years old. Alli told me that most men who stopped by the transvestites showed up in Audis and BMWs and Mercedes. Every now and then even a Ferrari would stop by, and he once spotted an American Corvette.

'Tutti questi sono gli uomini ricchi italiani che desiderano avere il culo fatto fino. Forse non mi credere. Ma io ti introdurró alla Márcia, lei ti racontarò tutte le storie' – All wealthy Italian men like to be done up the arse. Perhaps you don't believe me. But I will introduce you to Márcia, she will tell you all the stories,' Alli told us.

After returning from Alli's call centre, having called his two wives and six children – all of whom he fed from his work in the construction site – Pablito would play his favourite Gipsy King's song while singing at the top of his voice and straining what was left from his croaky, cigarette–and alcohol–fucked–up vocal chords: '...bamboleo, bambolea porque mi vida, yo la prefiero vivir asi...bamboleo, bambolea...Porque mi vida, yo la prefiero vivir asi...'

He would sing while standing on a chair, clapping his hands in imitation of a flamenco dancer while calling us to join in...'vamos chiquitos, venga que somos todos bandoleros, todos locos y jodidos de puta madre!! Venga que este juego esta de cojones, coño!!!'

Between Pablo's gymnastics and vocal fits of optimism, his arroz carretero, and so many other distractions and impossibilities, I saw those men living in that same way for most of the two years I stayed in Milan.

Through Alli, I had met a bunch of guys who knew people who knew people who faked things for other people, and they put me in contact with a man who sold fake passports for three thousand euros apiece. Apparently he knew a corrupt Italian – not a difficult thing to find – who worked for La Commune di Milano, and who would put your name in the registry office and the papers would then be as hot as baked potatoes. I worked double the amount of hours to pay the money they asked, and asked all around for more work. I was so optimistic that I even began to plan my return to London. By then I had become closer to my neighbours, who were now like some kind of family. We played cards on Sundays and I took Otávio to art galleries and told him and Raúl about Leonardo and Michelangelo and Raphael and the history of the Church, which I remembered from my times reading in public libraries in London. I told them about my plans and they shared my enthusiasm.

Vladi did not agree with my plan to acquire fake papers; he thought it was devious and unnecessary, but after a brief speech infused with his Christian morality he said no more. Raúl was also not impressed with my disregard for the law and thought this could go badly wrong, but I didn't want to listen to him. I had my own problems.

So we drank and we smoked and we walked the city as bandoleros and when, in August, all the Italians were gone and the American tourists flooded Piazza Duomo, the five of us sat there in the scorching sun, drinking cheap beer and watching the Africans conning tourists with their corn and their pigeons and their silly hand–made wrist bands that nobody wanted. We watched how they managed to make a living by selling books on spirituality and self–growth to the weird people who bought them, more out of pity I guess than interest in West African spiritual crap, I guess.

The Africans also sold 'Dolce and Gabbana' bags and 'Ray Ban' sunglasses and 'ACDC' t–shirts, all neatly arranged on 2x2 black linen cloths stretched on the ground. The fabric was perforated in the four corners and through the holes strings were attached. When the Guardia di Finanza or the Carabinieri approached, they pulled the strings, the cloth folded neatly into a pocket, and they ran like leopards through the square, dressed in their colourful robes and funny hats. It was the moment we all waited for. Pablito always laughed so hard we thought he would explode: '...ay mamasita, que rico, que rico...ay que estes cabrones son de cojones, cojonudos, si señor...ay, ay, mamasita...' I don't know if we laughed more about the African men who ran like crazed two–legged lamp shades through the piazza, or Pablito's half toothless mouth and the way he spat and snorted when he laughed with such gusto. One of these Africans lived nearby us. He called himself Mata and we often gave him food. The poor devil walked around all day under the sun, with a heavy bag of fake CDs on his back. He barely ate anything. 'I came in through the south – on a raft. Lucky to be here.'

One evening in December, as it happens every year, the cold came and the snow came and the mood went low. Hope was left hanging on the washing line along with the four bandolero's bare lives, those sodden lives exposed to the cement walls of indifference. On one of those cold nights the inevitable happened. Despite Pablo's optimism and our willingness to believe in it, on the last day of December, when the snow was heavy and sounds were muffled by the piles of white cotton ice that landed on rooftops and trees and sidewalks and prevented the street trams from running on time and aeroplanes from landing, fireworks exploded all over the heavy grey sky announcing the inevitable end to many things including that year. At this point, my neighbours were glad their apartment was only thirty-five square metres and had four big boys living in it. It was warmer that way.

As I walked in that day I saw they had clothes hanging everywhere. Everything was damp. The smell of moss and damp air was mixed with the smell of four men eating, farting and drinking and burping and dying together every day. Otávio had contracted some sort of stomach bug and the smell coming out of the toilet was unbearable, even to him. But the poor man wouldn't have time to feel ashamed before one of the others would tell him to stay in there until the air was a little better in the other room.

Raúl was sick with fever that same week and vomited buckets, and Vladi was drinking more than ever and was getting violent towards the others, especially Pablo, who he thought was '...really full of crap.' Pablito was the better off of them all, but his continued coughing caused by incessant smoking was getting on everyone's nerves. I seemed to be the only one whose health was holding on, and I wondered if maybe it had something to do with my luxurious living arrangement: one big room and three blankets. Vladi had accused me in the past of being the devil, because I knew how to open and close a game of bridge without losing any money, and because I seemed to know what some of them had in their hands. Looking back now I think he might have been right, I was some kind of devil. I watched it all happened from a distance, washing my hands of any guilt, as the devil would do.

Once Raúl started to moan about Pablo's cough and Otávio's huffing and puffing in the toilet. Then Vladi's walked into the toilet. Raúl observed it all attentively. He waited for the sound of the cork being pulled out the bottle followed by the sound of the toilet flushing. That was it! That was the trigger that made Raúl bang on the door of the toilet. When Vladi opened it, Raúl grabbed him. He dragged the man out and laid him on one of the mattresses, punching Vladi hard on the face, first the nose, then the mouth, then the eyes and the side, on the ears and then back on the nose, until the sheets were sprinkled with blood. Otávio intervened by kicking Raúl hard in the mouth. The man hit his head on the corner of the table and once he fell he never got up again. There was blood running along the floor as if someone had tipped a can of red paint over it. Otávio, the normally quiet and God–fearing man from Brazil, was so blinded by anger he looked like he was going to finish Raúl off right there and then. He kicked Raúl until he ran out of breath and Raúl stopped moving. The others pulled Otávio back and gave Vladi, who was now standing up, the chance to get his revenge. Vladi hit Otávio with a right hook that broke a tooth, the remains of which poked through Otávio's left cheek and left a scar he carried for the rest of his life. That drove Otávio delirious with anger and, before anyone could hold him back, he grabbed hold of a kitchen knife, and handling it with some dexterity he was ready to stab 'o filho da puta' to death. Otávio's God intervened by sending Pablo, who until then had only been watching from the corner of the room, between Otávio and Vladi, and it was Pablo who took the blade through his left shoulder before Otávio could penetrate Vladi in the neck as he wanted to do. Seeing all the blood gushing out of Pablo's arm, Otávio dropped the knife and the fight came to an end.

A week later, suffering from various respiratory problems and a heart condition he did not know he had, Pablo González Villar died in room fourteen of Ospedale Nigarda. Raúl survived his head injury but never recovered any memory of the incident, bearing only a scar in the shape of the edge of the kitchen table on his forehead. Pablo died because he did not allow anyone to take him to hospital, for fear of being deported and because he didn't think the cut was bad enough to need stitches. He also thought nothing of his incessant coughing. He was more afraid that the doctors would ask him for papers at the hospital and he couldn't afford being sent back home: 'tengo muchas bocas a dar de comer chicos, no puedo perder este trabajo.'

He convalesced for six days in the small dirty apartment, and on the seventh day, when his companions came back from the construction site, he was lying on his back with his eyes wide open, looking out of the only window there was. In the aftermath of the incident, Pablo did not show any anger or blamed anybody for what had happened. Instead, he told Otávio he was glad it was him and not Vladi, who got stabbed.

'I was stabbed by accident and it was only my shoulder. If you had stabbed Vladi that would have been murder and I wouldn't like to see you paying so harshly for such stupidity – no man deserves to be locked in jail for a stupid thing like that. We are all victims, chiquito, all victims.'

The doctors called the Carabinieri when Pablo was delivered to them by ambulance and il commissario wanted to know how the injury had been caused. Otávio came forth and, with his usual calm and uninteresting voice, managed to convince the police that it had been a terrible accident and that no one was to be blamed for it, because Pablo had fallen on top of Raúl while drunk (hence Raúl's injured head). He told the police that Raúl was chopping onions for supper while Pablo was dancing flamenco on the chair, as he often did, when the accident happened. Il commissario, having many more important cases to deal with, let it all go and asked no further questions, only warning that if he heard as much as another sigh from those men ever again he was going to deport them all – but not before they spent a good month in jail. Il commissario knew those men were illegal migrants, but he also had received a letter from the Minister of Internal Affairs to relax his grip on illegal migration because it was driving the price of labour up and the business people were beginning to complain.

Pablo's body was thrown inside the cheapest coffin that could be rented to transfer his body from the hospital to the cemetery where he was going to be cremated. He didn't ask to be cremated – nobody knew his wishes. The cremation was conducted for simple practical reasons; moving a body across the ocean is expensive and nobody had the authority there to sign the piles of papers that were required. Cremation was the only way to get his body back to his family. Still, it took all the money we had saved combined to pay the three thousand euros they charged. Then we pulled together the rest of resources to send Pablo's remains to his family in Lima, for six children, one wife and a mistress to receive the ashes of the man they hoped would one day come home to them: the little Peruvian man who fed them all from the work of his own sun-scorched body.

We stood in a cold cement room of Cimitero Maggiore while the men prepared the cremation chamber. The casket was in the middle of the room and we formed a semi–circle around it. A small arrangement of flowers was placed on top of the cheap wooden coffin. The coffin was made of agglomerated wood. It was a sunny day and I could not feel anything. I'm not even sure I was sad. It all felt like one of Pablito's pranks. I expected the coffin to open at any moment, and Pablito to spring out of it dancing his clumsy flamenco like a marionette.

A man walked in, dressed in a long white robe with a long black silky scarf hanging from his neck. He held a Bible in his left hand. Speaking in Italian, he asked how old the man in the coffin was and if there was anything he could do to help. Nobody said anything. So he said a short prayer.

For we consume away in your displeasure;

we are afraid at your wrathful indignation.

You have set our misdeeds before you

and our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

When you are angry, all our days are gone;

our years come to an end like a sigh.

The days of our life are three score years and ten,

or if our strength endures, even four score;

yet the sum of them is but labour and sorrow,

for they soon pass away and we are gone.

Then he switched to a speech about immortality and how we suffered in this world to be rewarded in the next. About how we're all made in the image of God and how he adores us all equally. He went on to say that God loves us unconditionally and that money and possessions are not important, that what is important is the way we conduct ourselves, because God would see through appearances in the last judgement. We all listened and the more we listened the more monotonous the man's voice became. The man went on and on and on, and it began to feel very hot in the room and the sun was filtering through the narrow windows high up on the wall and the windows were narrow and the raw cement walls made the room look like a WWII bunker. The heat and the stuffy air made us edgy and it was only a question of time before someone snapped. I was that someone.

It happened when I looked at the priest and saw that his face had become someone else's face. It had metamorphosed into something else, right before my eyes. The man no longer looked as he had looked before, he looked like the man who had until then invaded my life without as much as a motive. And then there it was, the old face of Emmanuel, crowning somebody else's body. I don't know why or how, but before I could control it, the anger, the rage I had stored inside me for so many years poured out like a spasmodic gush of violence that inundated the room with horror. I rushed towards the priest and with both hands I grabbed him and pushed him against the wall, and I began to spit on his face. I spat and cursed and spat some more, until I ran dry of saliva. Then I knocked my head against his head and his forehead began to bleed. I cursed and continued to curse until I ran out of breath.

The man became silent. His hands were now flush against the wall, the palms and fingers well spread, and his arms had assumed the position of wings. For a moment he looked like a battered angel. I stepped back, trembling with anger, but reluctant to do anything else except stare at him with disgust and contempt. He stood against the wall, shaking, sweating, pale with horror as if he was about to be crucified. The others watched it all in agony, but did nothing to protect the man from me.

I approached Emmanuel once again, and snatched the Bible away from him. I tore some pages from it and shoved them with anger into the man's mouth. Then I told him to make haste. He bent down and coughed up paper. Then he picked up the remains of the Bible from off the floor, stood up again without uttering a word, turned around and headed for the exit. Just before he left, he turned around and looked at me, for a brief second, and I knew then that he was the priest and not Emmanuel. I stood next to the coffin and my head sank into a pit of remorse and doubt about my own sanity. When I looked up again, I saw the priest walking away. He had soiled himself. A big brown stain marked the spot under all the pure-white linen. It was then that I discovered that holy men also shit themselves.

The whole scene was straight out of L'Etranger. I had lost my willingness to lie as something inside me died with Pablo's death. That day some of my pretence became ash, along with his body. But I also knew that I was ill, that my mind was playing tricks on me.

The following days saw an even more disturbing, true and impertinent problem manifesting itself. It concerned the remaining three men who had stood perplexed around Pablo's body some days before that and who looked at me as one would look at some devil or dog that frothed at the mouth. The others had little sympathy for Otávio, who they blamed for the death of Pablo and before long he was thrown out in the street. They also blamed me for being friends with Otávio. Vladi and Raúl agreed that it was time for Otávio to leave and that if I objected they would do to me what Otávio had done to Pablo, especially after what I had done to the priest. After all, they were all Catholics and I tore the Bible to pieces.

That was the end of the bandoleros. I did not object to anything. I left the building the following week. The night Otávio was told to leave, the alienation, frustration and loneliness that he felt, the desertion that the absence of his God caused, brought him to despair. From a phone booth in the street, he called the Carabinieri and denounced Vladi and Raúl as illegal migrants. Raúl was put into a van still with his apron and his dirty chef's uniform on. During the flight he had to beg other passengers for some money so he could get home from the airport in Bogotá. Vladi found his destiny in the hands of some Russian man to whom he owed money to. He was never seen again. Otávio disappeared, and since he was also there illegally and the flat was in the name of someone who knew someone, and since the whole building was occupied by immigrants, the police did not ask further questions out of pure lack of interest.

I don't know what happened to Otávio in the end. Maybe he lived on to tell the story to his grandchildren, maybe he perished in Milan in some ghetto or other and, like the others, was eventually deported. Maybe he forgot all about it and went back to the cards and the drinking and his blind worshipping of his damn God.

All I knew was that those men were condemned to a life of disgrace and failure, and in my mind the Italians had done them a favour by sending them back. Otávio was one of those average guys you think you could trust blindly. He was the trust worthiest of them all. And that made me wrong once again. It came to my mind at the time that one should never trust those average guys: the Sunday driver, the concerned individual, the networkers, the sympathetic salesmen, bankers with a social conscience, and clerks with weekend hobbies. From then on I decided to stay clear of them all.

14

The Queen of Egypt

I went to speak to Alli. I needed a job and a place to live. Amongst a bunch of transvestite stories, he told me that someone was looking for a little help over the weekend and that she could even sort out a place for me to sleep. I had left Francconni's company after Pablo's death and had narrowly escaped deportation. With my new–found luck, I was now at the mercy of a Muslim Egyptian who liked Brazilian transvestites.

Through Alli I met a six–foot tall 'lady' in high heels called Márcio Fernando dos Santos Nascimento Moreira, or simply Márcia Dalida.

'I take my name after Dalida, the queen of Egypt,' she explained.

Márcia was a 'performer' and 'entrepreneur' from Brazil who had been living in Milan for more than a decade by the time I met her in a public swimming pool in the suburbs of Milan. The place was filled with migrant workers and poor Italians who dived in and out hoping to escape Milan's searing sticky heat.

'Perhaps you mean Cleopatra queen of Egypt?' I asked with an authority that made me look silly afterwards.

'No, no, no, fofo ['fofo' means soft or squidgy], I mean Dalida, the great Egyptian queen, the singer who was also an actress and performer, just like me! You see, fofo, Dalida, like la bionda here, had many lives and many names. Both of us share this irresistible female body that men just can't get enough of...chic women I must say, women in a class of our own, you get me? And we know what men want – oh yes we do!'

'I'm sorry Márcia, but I saw Dalida's face on a poster once, and I don't think she looks anything like you.'

'Yes. I mean, no. You know what? You confuse me, fofo. Listen to me, you listen to me, let us talk about what is important...I need someone like you to come with moi on a little m–i–s–s–i–o–n. I need you to come with me to Rimini. I have to do some shopping for my clients and I don't have anyone to help me carry all the stuff back and to drive me about – I don't have a driving license and Alli told me you do have one. Do you? You see, even if I did have a license I'd be too scared to drive. I was refused a driving license years ago because I insisted I wanted to take it as a woman, because I am, you know! Anyway, the bitch behind the counter told me rather arrogantly that if I was a woman she was a giraffe. Now, if you must know, I think she was deadly wrong, she was more like a hippo – the bitch! Anyway, in protest, I left. Now, would you come along or not, fofo? Naturally I will pay your expenses, including the train fare obviously, most obviously. Because you're dealing with Márcia Dalia, ma cherry, the one and only! Plus it will take you away from this place for a couple of days and you splash in the sea for a bit – what do you say?'

'Lady, you have a deal. But one last question: do I get my own room in the hotel?'

'Why fofo, don't you trust la bionda? Look, I can't afford two rooms, so here is the deal. I get a room with two beds and I promise to get changed in the bathroom so you don't have to see the curves of la bionda and be tempted – how about that?' Márcia said, as she sucked in her cheeks and pouted, pointing with her right hand down to her hips.

'I don't know Márcia, you're a fine woman and this is a fine proposition, but I don't know...' I said hesitantly.

'Listen, do you need money or not? Whatever happened to the youth of today... ai, ai meu Deus do céu, meu deusinho, meu santo Inácio do céu!' she went on, mumbling some nonsense in Portuguese about saints.

'All right, all right, we have a deal.'

'Sure?'

'Sure.'

'Oh, you're so cute!' she said grabbing my cheeks, 'I could totally do you...argh!'

I found shelter on the couch of one of Márcia's acquaintances, a Brazilian woman. Her name was Antonia and she wasn't a pretty woman. She'd had two kids with two different Italian men, and both had filed petitions against her. Then the judge had taken her kids away from her because she was a prostitute and couldn't give the kids a good example, he said, even though the two men were unemployed and smacked the kids and her about. They only came to the woman when they needed more money and a costless fuck. True, she was not a pretty woman. But that made her a good prostitute, because rather than relying on her looks, she had to convince men to come back to her in some other way. Antonia occupied a small two–room flat in Zona Monumentale, and she told me I could use her couch on the condition that I wouldn't be in between six in the evening and two in the morning. The agreement led me to walk around Milan aimlessly, every night, and I saw many things that made me wish I were in a warzone instead.

To pay Antonia the small rent she charged for the hot shower and the couch, I worked as a cleaner in some lawyer's office. One of the people who worked there was one of Antonia's clients and he tipped me after every shift. The lawyer's office was in San Babila and was a fine colonial building, and the lawyers were very polite. One of them, an impeccably dressed young lawyer called Marco Rossetti, helped me out with my Italian while I cleaned his window:

'No, João, no. In Italia è molto scortese trattare come 'tu' una persona che non lo conosce. È necessario innanzitutto fare riferimento ad essi come 'lei,' la forma piu cortesa – In Italy it is very impolite to treat people you don't know as you. You must first refer to them in the polite form 'lei.'

'Thank you for your help avvocato Rossetti, thank you per il vostro aiuto.'

The lawyers were all very rich and that was clear. The office was open–plan and had views over a park. There were exposed wooden beams and bricks and ceramic tiles with some modern touches, like flat–screen computers and waste paper baskets that were slick and shiny and had cost more than all the pay cheques I was going to receive through my whole life. The lawyers had their own espresso machine in a small kitchen in the corner of the vast sunny room. They all dressed impeccably, and their pens and writing pads and diaries were black, silver–plated and covered in Italian leather and stainless steel and engraved with their names. Avvocato Rossetti went to the opera at least twice a month. At work, he discussed high–level economics and political issues over cups of strong, Italian–roasted, freshly ground organic Guatemalan coffee.

It was a world I did not belong in and I was glad it was me who had seen all of that and not any of the other men who succumbed and died a little every hour in the queues of the Commune di Milano, while waiting to be humiliated every time they were told they had to go back again the next day, and again the next day, and again, and again, with this and that piece of paper. I don't think they could understand how some people could be so wealthy while others were so poor. I had seen wealth before of course. But I had never taken notice of how they always try to make it look natural. I had been taught at school that not to be poor was a simple question of hard work and not at all a question of chance; being at the right place at the right time. Imagine the size of the lies they tell you at school! But people like Raúl and Vladi had not gone to school. They were unaware of the lies and in a way they were pure and blessed. They thought that it was God who was just and all-powerful and that he, God, knew what he was doing. Fools!

I spoke to avvocato Rossetti a couple of times and he seemed to be a kind and generous man, concerned with the welfare of others, and at times rather embarrassed by his own position and wealth. In fact most of his associates – young and successful people from good moneyed Italian families – were also of the opinion that if a person wanted to progress in life, it was their duty to do their best to help them. I saw them talking about the injustices of the world, about Africa and South America and the last tsunami in Asia. Yet with all of their good intentions, with their soft hands and pale complexions, they liked Africans to be in Africa and Brazilians and Peruvians and Dominicans to remain where they belonged – in their own country. The Italians have a word to describe migrants: extracommunitari, meaning those beyond the community. The Italian dictionary classifies extracommunitary as: 'A agg. relating to a country not belonging to the European Community: politiche extracomunitarie. B agg.; also s.m. (f. –a) said of those who come from a country not belonging to the European Union, spec. with reference to other immigrants coming from countries less economically viable.'

Reality, though, is another space, far removed from the formality and sanitary cleanliness of dictionaries. In day–to–day usage, the word extracomunitàrio is harsh. It is splashed over the front pages of newspapers, every time some Muslim or Latino does something here or there, whatever it is: not paying the tram fare or pulling the trigger, for the Italian press it was all the same thing. The lawyers tried not to be too harsh when I was around, because they were good and polite people. But much like the man on a street tram going to work who told Pablo 'if you touch me with your elbow one more time I'll throw you out of the fucking country!' the lawyers thought of the problems of Africa and South America how most Europeans think of them: let us donate some money to this and that charity and send some aeroplanes to drop some bombs to keep the dictators at bay. Providing the dictator is no longer making things smooth for us, that is.

When my week with the lawyers was over, avvocato Rossetti gave me his card and told me to call him if I ever needed some legal advice. He tipped me fifty euros, invited me for a coffee and wished me good luck. I put the cash in my pocket and wished him the same.

The next day I was on Eurostar coach H seat 31 D, sitting across from a six–foot tall Brazilian transvestite. Everyone on board that train was looking at me and, rather absurdly, some seemed a little envious.

'Fofo... que delicia, che bello, Io sono veramente contenta, que voçê tá qui menino, isso vai ser super, super, vamos comer e se divertir e voçê me ajuda a carregar essas mercadorias e com a bionda aqui voçê não passa vontade sabe – voçê aqui tem tudo o que precisa sabe do que eu to falando, né? Então quando a gente chegar em Rimini stiamo per nollegiare un auto e ai eu te dou uma grana e voçê abastece I poi ci sarà andare a fare shopping.'

Márcia always spoke in half Portuguese and half Italian, and this time it was all about getting there and renting a car and going shopping. But as usual, I had trouble understanding her 'Braziliano.' It was hard to follow the torrent of words that streamed out of that big Mick Jagger–like mouth. That day, she was 'dressed to kill,' with a red latex mini–skirt and long fingernails painted green. Her face bore more make up than an old–time clown from one of those poor Romanian circuses that move from town to town. In fact her face was more plastered than made up, and her eye lids were so heavily covered with glittery stuff that one could barely see her eyes. Her hair was blonder than I remembered and her hormone–filled breasts were nearly bursting overboard, bulging with chemicals and implants and what have you.

The sixty year–old couple sitting next to us was beginning to have marital problems right there and then, since the man couldn't stop looking at Márcia's attributes and his Missis was very nearly about to hit him.

'You see, fofo, see how they all look at me? I told you, la bionda makes them dribble,' whispered Márcia in her rusty, androgynous voice.

We arrived in Rimini at eleven o'clock. The sea was blue and the sand was covered in red bodies, some more hairy than others. I spotted an old–looking, presumably Italian, man (he was in his sixties) wearing a black G–string with glittery beads hanging from the sides. He was bald on top and sported a pony–tail that was long enough to reach down past his shoulder blades. Next to him was a much younger, Italian–looking (read olive skinned, dark hair, funny beard design, shaved legs) man who had less belly and more muscles and was dressed in white speedos. The older man was spreading sun lotion on the chest of the younger man. As he applied the cream the younger man giggled and touched the older man's knee with his fingertips. About a hundred metres from them a very tall woman got up and began to wave in our direction.

'O meu Deus Márcia, querida!!!!! Que bom te ver...virou madame agora é...uhhh, olha só, ta com um bofe ai, meniiiiiina que luxo! Que luxo! Que luxo! Quem é esse fofo...,' which basically meant: 'hi Márcia, how's things with you? Who's your catch? Luxury, luxury!'

After introductions, she said 'Well, we only met a couple of days ago but he won't let me go...'

'Excuse me? I don't think that's correct!' I objected.

'Now, tell me Lidia, darling, how's Rimini? No, don't tell me; before you say anything let me say this: João is also from Brazil!! Que babado hein, que babado! And he's dying to get to know Rimini. He's from the south and as you know, they don't have nice beaches in the south. Maybe the two of you could hang out and keep one another company? I need to go shopping!'

'Com muito prazer, claro, noooooo–sa, amiga, e será uma hoooon–ra fazer compania pra esse gatinho' – It will be a pleasure to be of company to this cutie.

'Márcia,' I said, 'first of all, we have wonderful beaches in the south, and second, if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind coming with you,' I said, thinking perhaps I could get some kicks out of seeing Márcia trying to fit into a size 45 pair of high–heeled shoes.

'No, no, no, absolutely not, that's not our deal. I'll go shopping on my own. You and Lidia have fun in the sun. I'm too old for sunbathing anyway – it makes my skin look more wrinkled than it already is. If I was taller, you could call me Godzilla. Plus all the men would keep looking at la bionda here and I would feel uncomfortable with all the attention. Don't forget, I'm shy!'

'All right then Lidia let's go. Márcia where do I meet you?' I asked.

'Oh, you don't need to worry about that; I'll come for you both. We'll go and have dinner after that. Stay near the showers. I'll come and search for you in about three hours – have fun!'

Lidia took me to where her towel was, near the showers. She gave me a spare towel and I placed it near hers. Every man and woman in the crowded beach was looking at Lidia. She had a good, almost perfect female body. But as with most transvestites who become transvestites much later in life – those who have to take hormones too quickly without allowing for the side effects or for their newly gained features to become accentuated – her gestures and mannerisms, like her way of walking, all betrayed her female image. It was easy to tell that under all that hormonal freakiness there was the soul of a very confused man who no longer knew which toilet to use.

Nobody can really tell what people think when they stare at someone like that. For Lidia, it was good enough to know she was no longer as invisible as she had been when she worked for a bus company, cleaning the seats and sweeping the interior of coaches: 'At least this way I get some attention... anyway, who cares? I make more money than I could ever dream of and I am myself.'

We lay down on the towels. I sat down on the sand and began to undress. First I took off my trousers, and then my t–shirt and then my white cotton socks. I only kept my underwear on, but I was ashamed of it. It was the combination of the spider-man on the front and the hole on the back that did it. I looked up and all I saw was blue sky. The sand felt really good between my fingers. My heels also touched the sand and a feeling of warmth shot up through my body just like when you sit in front of an open fire in the middle of a cold winter's night. I felt fine there in Rimini, and the world looked a little better for that. Suddenly all my childhood dreams were back and I day–dreamed of the time when my cousin Leo hid my favourite truck away in the sand. He buried it in some remote spot along the vast beach, so that I wouldn't find it. But I beat the shit out of him until he told me where it was. I was bigger and much meaner. Then his dad, who was even bigger and even meaner, came along and beat the hell out of me because, according to him, I was a coward and needed to be taught a lesson. Next, my dad approached us and I thought 'shit, this is going to get ugly,' but it didn't. He watched the whole thing without moving a hair. He was smaller than my uncle and the apple never falls far from the tree.

Breaking up these thoughts, Lidia decided to tell me her story, for no apparent reason, as I lay there with my eyes shut.

* * *

Lidia was born Carlos dos Santos, the son of a metal worker of Portuguese descent who was born in Manaus, and a housewife of aboriginal descent from the Amazon basin, the daughter of a fisherman. As a young boy, Carlos lived with his parents in what is known in Brazil as a 'meia água' (half water) house: a house half the size of a small house with the roof cut at an angle. In that house there were two rooms. One of them was the bathroom, the other was where everyone else slept, cooked and spent most of their time.

Carlos noticed that he was different, certainly different from his other seven brothers and sisters. Instead of playing football, he preferred to watch and learn how his mother cleaned the house, cooked and made home–made dresses for her three girls. Carlos and his other three brothers didn't get along as Carlos and his three sisters. He and the three girls played together with old dolls that were given to them by richer kids from the neighbourhood where parents could afford a new doll every Christmas.

When his mother wasn't home, Carlos took the chance to put on his mother's only other bra and step into the only pair of tattered high–heeled shoes she possessed – the ones she wore every Sunday for going to church. One-day Carlos's father came home early and caught him in his mother's clothes and the typical family drama in Brazil started. Carlos's father beat him so badly he nearly went blind on his left eye. His mother came home to find the boy lying on the floor naked and covered in blood. Carlo's father was mad with rage and drunk, and he shouted and kicked and threw pots and jars and pans about. He beat the crap out of his woman too. That happened when Carlos was seven. When he turned fifteen, after many more encounters with his dad's fists, he decided it was time to go. He left home in the middle of the night. His mother saw him walking out the door, only a shadow of the boy she knew she would never see again, and she did nothing to stop him.

Carlos disappeared into the city and emerged out the other end, travelling southbound, hitchhiking with lorry drivers who taught him the first lessons of how to be a lover on the road. He used his arse well and learned how to suck cock until he got really good at it. When he reached São Paulo he had the equivalent of a Master's degree in oral and anal sex. He made his living being picked up by late–night taxi drivers and middle–class married man. In Brazil nobody talks about it, like nobody talks about race or inequality or rape. It is all so explicit that it becomes invisible. But it happens; it's all there. You may not know why, you may not agree with it, but it's there. It may just be a hunch, but you might get fired from your job or tortured by the police, raped and beaten to a pulp just because they said so.

Carlos always had customers, but he also always had it tough with the law and with the gangs of rich kids who drove past him every night in daddy's Mercedes, spitting on his face and beating him with golf clubs or baseball bats, or throwing eggs or dog shit. 'Where is your penis, lady, where's your penis, show us your ding–dong you freak....' Carlos would simply turn the other cheek and carry on with his life as usual. It was nothing but an occupational hazard.

That was until he got a ride with an Italian businessman who was in São Paulo for a conference on 'Water Pumps for Africa.' More than pumping water, the tall Italian also pumped Carlos and Carlos pumped him, and they both fell in love. The man decided he wanted Carlos to come to Milan with him to pump him some more. He gave him a ticket and told him he would wait for him at Malpensa airport. Then, the great day came, and after twenty hours of flying and waiting at various airports in Portugal, Paris and Amsterdam, Carlos finally arrived in Milan on a bright cold morning, fearful and hopeful. But the handsome Italian never turned up. Maybe he had a heart attack on his way to the airport? Perhaps he had a wife and children and they found out? Perhaps his plane back to Italy had crashed, or maybe he got stuck in the largest traffic jam Milan had ever seen. Carlos pondered over every possible scenario. One thing he never doubted: the tall Italian had loved him and he knew that. He had loved him for who he was.

There was only one real, one very hard fact. Carlos could do nothing about it now. He was stuck in Milan with no money or place to go or enough cash to go back to Brazil. When he got off the bus at Stazione Centrale, he had no idea what he was going to do. There he stood in front of the cab rank, waiting for a miracle and the miracle eventually appeared in the shape of a six–foot–tall blonde–haired creature of the night called Márcia Dalida. She had seen that image of poverty and fear many times over – she herself had her own story to tell. So without many questions Márcia took Carlos to her place, gave him a plate of food, dressed him up and paid for his first hormone injections. She introduced him to the community of transvestites and slowly Carlos began to shed his skin and the metamorphosis began. He was no longer Carlos Oliveira but Lidia Schwarz, a cabaret performer and professional escort worth two hundred Euros a pop.

Lidia also had her own business in which, like Márcia, she bought and sold hormones, especial re–enforced high–heeled shoes and clothes to suit the bodies of workers of the trade, as well as various accessories such as pepper spray and blades small enough to be lodged under the tongue. She also sold waxing products, specially designed lingerie, tights, wigs, make up, dildos, strap–on toys, oils, creams, and so on and so on.

* * *

Three hours later, Márcia turned up.

'I L-O-V-E Rimini! Ah, so nice to walk about by the sea! Come on, chop, chop, and let's get happy here. We have loads to drink and loads to gossip...Lidia, honestly, what have you been telling this poor boy? – Ah, don't tell me you told him your bloody life story again... Lidia you bitch, you have to stop doing that...he won't sleep with you...o mulher açanhada sempre tentando conquistar home dos otros... João don't you pay attention to her; she is just trying to get you by making you feel sorry for her. We all suffered our pains, darling, but now you drive an Audi A4 and own a beach–front apartment, all paid for with your glorious arse. So, cut the crap or get lost!

I could have stayed in Rimini with those two the whole summer, but I would never miss going to the swimming pool with them again. Their micro Brazilian bikinis, while filling up the eyes of mothers who had brought their kids for a weekend swim, stupefied the husbands, who drank their beer and pointed their fingers at the three of us, laughing and drinking and shaking their heads, laughing a little more and drinking some more. Some women grabbed their children and rushed out of the pool while making them look away.

That was before Márcia and Lidia decided to follow me up the kids slide. They slid down with me in a train formation, screaming hysterically as we plunged into the water. I will never forget Lidia losing the bottom part of her bikini as she splashed in the pool headfirst – a bikini that was only held together by feeble pins – an incident which revealed her full assets. Thankfully, she was under water by then and kept splashing water about until we found the bikini and gave it back to her before the kids, and their parents, could see Lidia's genitals, which, by the way, she wanted to cut off as soon as she had enough money for the operation – much to Márcia's disapproval. Márcia believed the only reason why they made such good money as ladies of the night was because they still had a penis. As she gently put it to me: 'Questi uomini Italiani le piaccevono levare per il culo piu che qualque otra cosa.' – Italian men like it up there more than anything else. In Italy, a prostitute with no cock must satisfy herself with reduced rates.

That night, after dinner in a pizza place, Márcia and I said our goodbyes to Lidia and went to our shared room in a three–star hotel on Rimini's Riviera. In the room, Márcia kept her word and made an effort not to walk about naked. But as she changed in the bathroom, through a small gap between the door and the threshold, I saw her back turned towards me; it was covered in scars. I didn't think she was aware I was looking. I was wrong. Suddenly she opened the door and asked: 'Want to know what they are?'

I didn't reply.

'These I owe to my father. It happened when I first attempted to come out of the closet, way back when I lived in Brazil and was a 'respectable' office worker. He and my two brothers got hold of me and beat me with leather belts wrapped with barbed wire.'

'Bloody hell, that's horrid!'

'You think so?' she said.

'They told me it was for my own good and that the family could not afford such shame. I bled until I fainted. Then they would take the bicha here down to a hospital. Nobody would ask a thing. Once I got an infection that kept me in bed for nearly six weeks. When I eventually came home I knew I had to leave or else they would kill me one day – the beatings came every time I was caught doing anything 'bicha' (gay). It could be anything, even lifting the pinkie when drinking coffee was 'bicha' and unacceptable. But I had a plan and some money tucked away. So I bought a ticket and fled to Italy.'

'Why here?'

'A cousin lived here and she told me I could stay with her. But she didn't know I was what I was and when I got here she took me in, but only for a week or so. I found a place with another transvestite and she introduced me to the hormones, and I began to take injections. But at first the hormones were not too good for me. I had a reaction to them that made my lips grow real fast, so fast they split, and in between, puss and water and blood came out. I couldn't eat for nearly a month. My chest began to grow and my voice began to change. My hair grew longer and the more money I made out there, the more hormones I could afford. Then I began to use drugs and nearly died twice. I spent all I had to keep things rolling. Heroin, cocaine, acid – anything I could get my hands on. Now I'm clean and I only take hormones sparsely when I think I need a little more of this and that here and there...' she pointed to her hips and breasts and arse.

'Well, that's a story. You should write a book someday,' I said.

'What for?'

'Don't you think people need to know about this stuff?'

'That's my life; nobody needs to know about anything. Screw them!'

'Can I tell it? I'll give you a nice pseudonym when I write my book,' I said.

'Ah fofo, you're cute. Now listen, forget about it, it's not worth it.'

'I think it is worth it.'

'I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I have nothing to hide and I don't feel ashamed or sorry for myself.'

'Well, then I'll make sure I put that in... '

'In where?' she said.

'In the book.'

'Which book?'

'I just told you, the one I'm going to write.'

'Oh hell, whatever...you've got my blessing. Just make sure that when you describe me you put a note in saying that I was blonde and that my breasts reminded you of Dalida's.'

'It's a deal. But now what if I was to ask you... is life now better than before? You know, now that you live as a woman?'

'It is. But that doesn't mean things don't get rough over here just as well. Like the time I wanted to get rid of my togger... '

'...your what?'

'You know, my caralho, o pinto, my willy, ding–dong, the 'bat,' lollipop – my COCK for pete's sake!' she said, opening her legs and swinging her right arm between them.

'Why would you want to do that?' I asked.

'Well, various reasons really. But mainly I just wanted to become the woman I knew had always lived inside my body. But you can't do that if your salami is hanging between your legs, can you?

'I don't know, I never tried.'

'Well, no, the answer is 'noooooo,' I'm telling you, you can't! So anyway, I tried to go to Switzerland for a sex change operation – they are just the best at these things over there...maybe it has something to do with the watches?! Anyway, I managed to dodge the immigration police on my way in. I found a good doctor, paid him the money and arranged some tests. We agreed I would come back the next month for the operation. On the way back in, the Italian police asked me for my visa and, of course, I had none. They told me they were going to deport me. I panicked and made one of the guards a proposition. I told them that if he'd turn a blind eye and let me go I would blow him and his colleagues. He said 'all right'! Twenty minutes later I was at the back room of the police station on the border between Lugano and Como with six other Carabinieri officers. They banged me until I bled. They threw me about the room like a potato sack. I sucked cock and took dick until I nearly fell unconscious.'

'How did you get out of there and back into Italy?'

'Ah...they put me into a van and drove me back into the country. They dropped me by the side of the road near Lake Como, bleeding, beaten and scared as a stray cat, fucked up like a circus beast. I didn't even have a phone with me, so I hitch–hiked my way back to Milan..., which wasn't easy. No one gives a ride to a beaten–up transvestite looking worse for wear these days. Eventually, I found a good soul – a truck driver from Romania – who picked me up and dropped me on the outskirts of the city. From there I took a taxi to a friend's house. She paid the taxi and kept me there with her for a week until I made a recovery. That friend was Lidia.'

She sat on the corner of the bed with a towel around her long oxygenated hair and another covering the rest of her body. She spoke of going back to Brazil someday to live there as a woman, and the myth of the return perpetuated itself once more, for she knew, as I knew, that none of us was ever going back.

Márcia snored like a tractor, but I was kept awake for other reasons, including being on alert in case she decided to jump in bed with me in the middle of the night. A more concerning situation, however, was my own state of affairs: what was I going to do when I went back to Milan? I had to find a way to go back to London. I could no longer stay in Milan and Italy was only good if I had money, or else it was a cheap horror movie. Eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up, Márcia was already up and doing push–ups.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, shaved, combed my hair and without much ado Márcia, Lidia and I were having breakfast – café con brioche in a bar overlooking the water. Then they wanted to try on some high heels and I had to drive them around. We headed to the outskirts of Rimini where a sixty-year–old man who ran a warehouse–cum–factory presented Márcia and Lidia with his collection of especially designed high heels that, according to his expert knowledge, would withstand their weight and fit perfectly on their enormous feet. Márcia and Lidia chose a couple of pairs and tried to walk in them, up and down the factory floor, to the amusement of the people sitting behind sewing machines and office desks. The old man himself seemed more than used to the scene and complemented them both on how good the shoes looked on them. Márcia was buying to re–sell, so got a good discount when she ordered forty pairs of various shapes and sizes and colours. Lidia only purchased four pairs – for her own use. I was offered some coffee and a brief tour of the factory.

In the factory I saw Latinos, Turks, Indians and some Portuguese sweating buckets of salinized water out of their frantically moving bodies: stitching bits of leather together, sewing, cutting and mending pieces of textile, hammering thin nails into the soles and heels of the shoes that they made but never wore. I saw them all lining up, one after the other, doing the same monotonous work – like a peaceful, brainwashed army that lived hand-to-month, by the wage. The tedious zigzagging of the sewing machines that like snare drums kept the beat, kept them coming and going to and from the sweat–shop floor like some wired toy that bumps onto a wall, turns one hundred and eighty degrees, then walks back again, only to bump into another wall and do the same thing again and again and again.

That same afternoon, I dropped Lidia at her apartment in the centre of Rimini and stopped at the hotel to pick up the other transvestite and her bags. After dropping off the rented car at the station by 3 PM, Márcia and I were sitting on the comfortable first–class seats of the Eurostar train that took us back to Milan. The same situation confronted us on the way back as it had on the way in: people looking, people talking. We didn't care. Márcia and I drank champagne and I had to laugh when she reminded me of her and Lidia sliding down the kids' slide in the swimming pool. 'What a gag, fofo, what a gag, la bionda causa horrores, horrores, he, ha, he, ha!'

We arrived in Milan three hours later and a little drunk. Márcia and I carried the bags to the front of Stazione Centrale. When we got out of the station she pointed to a red Vespa parked in a line in the middle of dozens of other scooters and motorcycles. She said that it was that Vespa that was going to take us across Milan and back to her place and then me back to my cough.

'Impossible!' I said.

'Fofo, you will see, we will both fit on it, bags and all – you will see, you see, ha, ha, trust la bionda here, you must have a little faith darling!'

'This is less about faith and more about physics, Márcia. That which I see in front of me is a scooter. You are six foot tall and I am five foot six. I have a dozen bags in my hand and you only have one helmet.'

'As I said...what a man of little faith!'

'Ok, show me then!'

'Right, for one thing, here is the other helmet,' she said, lifting the seat of the scooter and taking a yellow and black helmet from underneath the seat. 'Now, as for us fitting on the scooter, please be my guest and get on it as if you were alone.' I did. 'Now let me place all these bags on each side of the handle bars like this, and like that,' she hung six bags on one side and seven bags on the other. Then she got on and sat behind me. She picked the remaining bags up off the floor and told me to drive on.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

WWHRRRUUUUUHAAAAAMMMMM!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

WWHRRRUUUUUHAAAAAMMMMM!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

WWHRRRUUUUUHAAAAAMMMMM!

WWHRRRUUUUUHAAAAAMMMMM!

As we made our way through the streets of Milan I could feel Márcia's warm breath on the back of my neck, and although I knew she tucked her monster in her arse with a piece of string, I couldn't stop thinking I had a six–foot–tall bloke poking me from behind with his trumpet. When we came to a red light I stopped behind a large van, which seemed to be carrying an entire family. On the back seat were two small kids – a boy and a girl. They both looked at us and laughed. I looked to my right and caught a reflexion of Márcia and I in the surface of the stainless steel façade of a building. The Vespa looked like it was about to take off with all the weight on the back, and I looked very small in comparison to the blonde yeti sitting behind me.

Still, we zoomed between the cars and were lucky to find many green traffic lights on the way. Thirty minutes later we made it to Márcia's place. It was a small one–room flat and it was covered with plants from floor to ceiling. She had an ugly rabbit in a cage next to the sofa, and a scraggy cat sat on the half–opened windowsill. I dropped all the bags on her living room–cum–kitchen–cum–bedroom floor, put the hundred euros she gave me in my pocket, turned around and walked to the door. Márcia promised to call me if and when she needed a hand with shopping again, and I promised to keep in touch and tell her how I was getting along. Then I went downstairs, got out of the building, looked up and saw nothing but grey sky. It was one of those stuffy days: hot and windless. I had a headache and I just wanted to go to sleep, but the thought of going back to the sofa at the prostitute's flat was not a nice one. The problem was further enhanced by the fact that I couldn't really go back just yet, since by now she would have clients. So I took a tram and headed to Parco Sempione. I got off at the Arco de la Pace and walked towards Castello Sforzesco until I found a tree standing alone on a freshly cut piece of grass. I took a jumper out of my bag and lay on it with my head against the tree trunk, watching people go by with their dogs. Then I fell asleep.

Emmanuel, the man who had for some time disappeared from my dreams, came back with a vengeance. Time after time, the dreams were more and more psychedelic and yet real. He told me that he once lost his soul in Paris and that I was to go and search for him there. As usual I did not understand what all of that meant, and I still didn't have any idea who the man was.

I had told Marcia about Emmanuel and she insisted on paying for a psychiatrist – 'a friend of mine,' she said. The old man with round glasses on the tip of his nose and not much hair on his head took the fifty Euros he charged me (a discount rate) to tell me I was drinking too much caffeine. The next day I stopped drinking coffee, but the dreams continued. So I went back to drinking coffee and the dreams stopped for a while. I thought it was probably just the wrong brand of coffee.

Through Marcia, I met a pimp who needed a driver for his girls. So I drove prostitutes for a living, and the pay was good. I did that until one day I was told I wasn't going to get the papers I had been waiting for. I couldn't go back to London after all as the man who was going to get me a fake passport had taken the money and run. By then I had had enough of Milan and enough of that life and had decided to leave. I gathered the money I had been stashing under my mattress and one cold, foggy afternoon I boarded a train to Paris. I was told I wouldn't need papers to travel to France. I was apprehensive, but I took the chance.

On a very unimportant Tuesday morning, I hopped on the train that left Stazione Centrale five minutes before ten. Within minutes I saw the graffiti walls of suburbia fading away amidst the drizzle and the fog as the train made its way through the tattooed back of the city.

15

Paradise Lost

I arrived in Paris on what was an atypical day for that time of the year. The air was so cold my toes went numb, and my lips cracked like a frozen lake. The first place I saw, as I came out of the Metro, was Notre Dame. The weather was so grey and misty I could barely see the spires. The only people around were tourists and the people who rip them off: souvenir sellers, the guys in the hot beverage huts, photographers and the hot dog and crêpes people.

Paris, if you've never been there, is everything you have ever dreamed of. It's a picture composed of many visions and my first vision was of Ile St. Louis. I crossed the bridge and it was covered with locks, and the locks said they loved and that they dreamed, and that all romance is true if you only think it is true. Until the locks got too heavy for the bridge and they decided to cut them all off before the whole thing collapsed.

And then there was the Seine and the bridges arching their backs over and over again and they seemed so effortless, and the river too...could that really be the source of so much art and literature? It was all somehow so familiar; it was like coming back to a mythical home. And so the tale of the writer sitting in some Parisian café repeated itself once more. 'What a jerk!' I thought of myself. 'How pathetic and predictable are you?' But that was Paris, and if not in Paris, where else? Despite the many who had left their spirits there at one time or another, Paris was still a mystery. So many wannabe writers and artists had started off there and so many had died in misery there too, that I felt the city could accommodate yet one more dreamer.

Reading through my diary, and with the benefit of hindsight, I realize now that such feelings could not have been called 'thinking.' It was more like a wave of wonder: of trans–sensual impulses that connected every particle of graphite I left on the page with every particle of dust the frozen wind blew through Paris that day. But who needs more metaphors thrown on some page by some random person who thinks he or she is a poet? The truth is, in Paris, poetry does not come from the writer's pen. It comes from those who died there, and whose spirits never left. It is a well–known fact that long–dead writers visit the living. It is said that they miss the sweet aroma of the chestnut trees that is lifted in the air every time it rains. And dreams drip from Parisian trees like the leaves dropping in autumn, and the Seine is not just a river but a gentle vein of time: the pulse, the spirit of the forever–muddy ideal of a decaying cliché. And still, the old dead poets walk by the banks of the Seine, hoping to find an open soul to pour their ideas and sorrow into. I deeply wished that one of those spirits would consider me a worthy vessel someday. But the chances were slim.

In my first hour in Paris, I sat in a café and wrote. That's what I was there to do. I explored techniques, every avenue I had seen in books I had read. I looked carefully at the form and the content, noticing how some words fitted together and asking why others did not. Every day I did the same: a café, a notebook, a sharp pencil. I practiced and practiced and the more I wrote the more frustrated I became. I often sat in a café by Notre Dame. It was near to Shakespeare & Co. I went to that same café on my very first day in Paris and I remember ordering a cognac. I opened my diary and began to scribble on it. I remember that the light and the air were perfect, despite the cold, and I thought I should have a canvas and a paintbrush instead of paper and pencil. Notre Dame was a delight to watch, with its delicate buttresses like thin fingers reaching out for a luscious apple, as the stone changed colour with earth's rotation.

I saw people walking by, wrapped in scarves and jackets and thick coats, protecting their faces against the bitter winds that blew incessantly from the north. It was late afternoon and the sky had turned a little orange, maybe light red. That same sky shared the space with another sky that was much darker and cold looking, and which approached from the east. I sat at the café – nothing special, a simple café – and scribbled, and stopped and sipped cognac and ate peanuts and scribbled some more. I had no place to stay and I thought I'd ask the waiter if he knew a good and cheap hotel not too far from there. He thought the question was hilarious, 'here, around Notre Dame? Ha, ha, ha, are you...how do you say...crazy? Here? No, no, no, jamais, monsieur, jamais!' Then two men approached and sat at the next table as I wondered where the hell I was going to stay that night. American tourists, they were. They shouted and wore cotton socks and trainers, and jeans and waterproof jackets, under which were shirts with pockets on the left side that covered their bulging fat bellies. They both wore baseball caps with sunglasses balanced on the top of the cap and small backpacks and money pouches. One of them, the fatter of the two, asked me: 'Is the cognac nice and warming?' 'Very nice,' I replied, '...and very warming.'

'Waiter, we'll take two cognacs, s'il vous plait!' The waiter was not the smiley type and he replied in the finest English.

'Sure, which cognac would you prefer, monsieur? We stock Courvoisier, Rémy Martin, Hine or Martell.'

'Well, I'll have whatever the fellow over there is drinking – it needs to look warm like that.' They pointed to my glass.

'Ah, that's a Courvoisier,' informed the waiter.

'Then get us two of those,' said the men, vulgarly throwing money on the table.

I went back to my scribbling, but, sure enough, minutes later, the wives and kids of the two men appeared like uninvited guests to a good party. They came dressed in pink, both wearing I Love Paris in Spring Time pullovers. The kids, all seven of them, were dressed in stripy (white and blue) t–shirts, their heads covered with multi–coloured berets, and all but one little girl held a pile of souvenirs in their hands: a replica of the Eiffel Tower, canvas bags with the Arc du Triumph printed on it, a copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and a cuddly Mickey Mouse. I was a tourist too so I didn't think they were particularly strange. But I was now happy that my visa to the United States had been refused all those years ago. Remember all the stereotypes you have heard about American tourists? In Paris, they are all true.

The waiter, as I explained, had laughed when I asked about a hotel, but when I told him I intended to stay in Paris for longer, he told me he had a cousin who by sheer coincidence and luck had a small (when I say small think really, really...I mean really small) flat available somewhere in Montparnasse. After another cognac and a hot ham and cheese baguette, the waiter's cousin arrived to pick me up and show me the place. It was a fine place – the smallest apartment I had ever seen, but a fine place nonetheless. It had a roof and it was cheap. He charged me two months in advance and one month's rent deposit and told me how to turn the water on. The apartment was furnished and all I did was check if the lights were working. It all worked fine and although I noticed that when I went to the toilet I had to keep the door open because my knees would not fit in otherwise, and that the shower was next to the cooker and the cooker next to toilet, that was the best my money could buy at the time. That night I barely slept from excitement – I was living in Paris!

With time, I got to know the city well, not just because I walked everywhere, but because I searched the city to see where the literary figures of the turn of the century had written and lived. My favourite spots were the places where Hemingway used to write when he lived there. He did most of his writing from cafés, so I found the one he used to attend the most, because there he had also met Joyce, Dalí, Picasso and the others.

La Closerie des Lilas was no longer so glamorous, or at least it no longer sat in such a glamorous spot, but I had to pay a visit anyway. One day I took the courage and went in, sat down and ordered a café crème in Hemingway's homage; one cannot move even an inch forwards without looking at least a few decades back. La Closerie had been the spot where modern literature and art had flourished, but it was no longer the meeting point of writers and literary figures that it had been in Hemingway's time. It was a rather poncy tourist spot at the junction of two busy boulevards that were noisy and horrifically grey, and the place where I sat was a cemented oddity. Business people and rich tourists are all I saw there. They dined and listened to the piano man doing his thing, while dreaming of 1920s Paris as they masticated a piece of juicy Argentinian steak, followed by a refreshing glass of over-priced Pinot Noir. I could not afford the steak or the Pinot Noir, so I sat outside in the sad and dull conservatory and ordered coffee when the waiter greeted me.

'For lunch, monsieur?'

'No. Just a coffee, please. Is that possible?'

'Sure monsieur. But you need to sit outside.'

'Sure,' I said pretending I didn't care, but I did, I did very much so!

'What kind of café would you like, monsieur?' he asked, rolling his eyes as if talking to me was an inconvenience. Every time he said monsieur it was as if he poked me with a knife through the eye.

'A café crème, please.'

'Bien sûr monsieur,' he replied, and then he left with a sarcastic smile in the corner of his thin mouth.

I sat down in the corner of the 'room.' From there I could see the entrance. If I turned my head 45 degrees, I could see the people eating inside. Inside looked better. It was Good Friday and Paris was full of people, but none of the people I would have wished to see were there; I had missed them by some eighty years.

The waiter came back and brought black coffee. Before I could tell him the order was wrong, he turned on his heels and zoomed back to tend to his more exciting and expensive customers inside. I felt a little depressed. I was feeling nostalgic and when the waiter did not acknowledge that I felt embarrassed I was also enraged. La Closerie felt like a tomb and I felt like a disappointed pilgrim who is not granted his miracle. I looked at the small coffee cup sitting in front of me. I noticed a small white envelope on the saucer resting against the cup. It had La Closerie des Lillas written on it, tackily printed in green. I stared at it for some time, than decided to open it. I did this very carefully, taking care not to tear the envelope apart and lose the contents. There were two lumps of sugar in there. I took them both and dropped them in the coffee. I drank the coffee in one gulp without tasting it, as I did not like black coffee. I folded the envelope very carefully and placed it in the middle of my notebook. Then I regretted feeling such reverence and took it out again, placing it back on the table. I reached out for my wallet, got a fiver out and placed it on the table next to the bill. Then I put the ashtray on top.

I stood up and went into the café. I asked for the toilets and the waiter directed me to a narrow staircase that led to the basement. I went into the ladies by mistake and saw a good looking blonde dressed in black with tights and high heels as she stood in front of the mirror putting lipstick on. She didn't seem surprised at all and looked at me as if she would have fucked me right there, was I worth it. I liked that and I blinked at her as I shut the door behind me. I got out and went through the right door this time, and into the gent's room. I found an empty cubicle and went in. I pulled my trousers down to my ankles, sat down and, taking a deep breath, I took a good, warm and long dump.

Then I discovered Paris was not simply cafés and literary figures; it was also utterly disturbing.

* * *

I woke up early, much earlier than usual. It was a Saturday and the clock was ticking and I was very anxious. I left the flat and walked down Rue Notre Dame des Champs in the direction of Rue de Flours. In Rue des Flours, I stopped at number 27 and stared at the pale walls of the elegant building. I closed my eyes for a moment, took out a blank page from my notebook and wrote: 'a rose is a rose is a rose...' The pencil stopped at the full stop. It stayed there for long enough for the tip of the graphite to make a hole through the paper. I used it to make a comma: '... and a thorn is a thorn is a thorn.' I dropped the paper in front of the heavy iron and glass door and placed a rose between the ornamented ironwork.

I continued following the street down, towards Rue de Férou. I stopped at number 6 and stood there for a minute. I was supposed to be in a hurry to meet up with a man who said he would be interested in taking a look at my writing. He would wait for me at Mobillou Metro. We had agreed to meet there at three o'clock sharp. Walking down Rue Férou, I came to an open space called Place de St. Sulpice. On my right hand side stood an enormous gothic church.

I went up the steps and walked in and my eyes had to adapt to the sudden darkness of the place. The interior of the church was cool and silent. I had gone in by a side door and my eyes were drawn to an image of Christ as depicted in the shroud. It was a replica that was hanging on the wall of a small chapel on my left. People were lighting candles and waves of light flowed up and down like a field of flames. I sat down in front of it and closed my eyes. I stayed like that for a couple of minutes. Then I stood up and lit a candle. I said a short prayer. As I prayed, I asked to see a sign that my sister was well. I always lit a candle for her whenever I came across a church. I did that because one of the few things I knew about her was that she had always been fond of going to church, even as a child. It was a very irrational thing to do.

I prayed occasionally: nowhere near enough to call myself a Catholic. But this time it was different. It was the first time in a long time I had asked for anything. I placed the candle in the candleholder and popped a coin in the collection box. I turned around and was ready to get out of there, except that something told me to go and see the nave of the church – which until then I had ignored. I was initially reluctant because, as I mentioned, I was running late to meet the man. Still, something told me to go and see the nave. And so I did. It was beautifully decorated, with flowers everywhere and the flowers were fine and the air was fine too, and the scent from the flowers was elegant and not overpowering, as flowers in churches often are. I think someone was going to get married there later that day and they were decorating the church with bouquets of lilies and sunflowers and camellias. I took a good look at the altar that reflected the light pouring through the stained glass windows. Then I turned around and took a first and decisive step towards the exit. This time I was determined to get out of there.

That's when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The feeling of someone holding me made me jump. And still I turned slowly. I was afraid of the face I was going to find at the other end of that hand, and with my eyes half closed I slowly made out the shape of someone I had not seen for a long, long time, the face of a woman who was no longer the girl I had once known – the face of my sister, Gabriela.

A big smile unzipped her face as she threw her arms around me, holding me tight against her as if her life depended on not letting me go. The last time I had seen Gabriela was when my parents died; almost a decade to that day. Gabriela was beautiful. She always had been beautiful, and she looked like a woman now, although not the type of common woman you see walking down the street every day. She looked as if she was selling something, maybe a smile, maybe a glimpse of her well–shaped legs or of her floating light brown hair. There was something very fake about her. Something about her manners, the way she moved, like a professional sales person who smiles without meaning and tries to look interested when they aren't. Something about her made me think of a doll, a Japanese doll. Maybe her nose had been altered. Maybe it was that she worked as a lawyer or was indeed a saleswoman, or maybe she had lost too much weight too quickly. Perhaps it was the short dress and the high heels she wore. Although her eyes had suffered and she had marks on her neck that were visible even in the penumbra of the church, she looked good, a fine woman. Her breasts were voluptuous and her cleavage drove all the attention away from her sad eyes. Her mini–dress was short and despite the fact she was small, she looked tall as she balanced herself on the tips of her toes.

True, I barely recognized her, but her appearance and presence at that place in the middle of Paris was not what puzzled me the most. It was that next to her stood a sleazy looking man sporting a pony tail and a goatee. He wore a black leather jacket and cowboy boots covered with embroidered red roses. Underneath the jacket was a purple shirt, unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest. I could see a crucifix attached to a golden chain around his neck, entangled in the masses of hair that grew on the man's chest. He looked like a cheap Italian type: not the mafia type, more like an unsuccessful con–man or some kind of pimp. In the end, he was all of those things because on a closer look I recognized that face: a face that, although somewhat changed, still bore all the hallmarks of a small–town sordid type.

'Donizetti is the name, Francisco Donizetti.' The man introduced himself with a fake smile that revealed the golden tooth–crown that replaced the left canine.

'I have heard a lot about you,' he said.

'I'm João and I never heard of you,' I lied.

'Yes, and you don't know about your sister either, right...J–o–ã–o?' he said cynically.

'Who are you to talk about me and my sister?' I asked feeling the blood in my veins beginning to boil.

'I'm your sister's representative – that's who I am, and I can talk whatever way I want to. If you don't like it I can fix that.'

'Gabriela, what are doing here with this man? What is he talking about?' I asked, cutting Donizetti off and turning to her.

'Look, João, this is a long story and I have not seen you in years. This is hardly the place or time to talk about the past. We're staying in Paris for another day before we go back to Brazil. Are you living here? Could we meet for lunch somewhere tomorrow?'

'Will this man be there?' I asked without looking at Donizetti.

'I said I'm your sister's representative, didn't I? I will go wherever she goes, get me?' the man told me, looking deep into my eyes.

'No, Mr Representative, or whoever the fuck you are, I don't get you!'

'Stop!' Gabriela whispered anxiously, trying to control her own agony, 'stop with this right now! João, let's meet up tomorrow at one o'clock in front of this same church. We'll talk about everything then. It's been a very long time and I have missed you, brother.'

Gabriela kissed me on the cheek and began to walk towards the door. Donizetti walked behind her like a shadow, one of his hands on her lower back. He held the door open, then turned and looked at me. He smiled, a cold cynical smile, the type of smile one sees on the face of assassins who get away with murder. I watched him disappear with my sister in the light that flooded the church. I found a stool and sat down for a while, my head buried in my hands, watching my heart sinking deep into a dark pit of guilt.

I tried to make sense of the encounter and although my mind was spinning like a crazy carousel pulled by untamed horses, I could not come to any rational insight. I stood up and walked through the nave of the church, my eyes fixed on the statue of Mary holding Jesus's body and I thought that could only have been a miracle: 'The miracle of St. Sulpice,' I whispered. If I had been a monk they would probably mint a coin in my homage and in a hundred years, pilgrims would begin to flood the place asking to be cured of loneliness. Then I thought of Mary's pain and I thought of her insurmountable problem: the heavy cadaver she held in her arms was her son. And he was also God, which turned her into the mother of God. Yet she was poor and lonely and powerless. Her son was dead. How could this be?

I started to make my way out of the church, thinking of looking around outside to see if I would catch another glimpse of Gabriela and her 'representative.' I knew Donizetti was capable of anything and I knew his involvement with my sister could only mean something good for him and something bad for her. He must be profiting from her somehow. 'Profiting,' the sound of my own voice pronouncing that word struck me like a thunderbolt and I began to see what I didn't want to see until then. There could only be one answer to the riddle of Gabriela and Donizetti being in Paris together: Gabriela was a prostitute and she worked for Donizetti. 'I'm your sister's representative,' he had said. No, this could not be true! It could not be! How? Why? Why would she subject herself to this, selling herself to that bag of suck, to that scumbag of a man? No, no, no, he was not a man but a rat, Donizetti, you rat! How did you convince Gabriela to become your slave?

I was insane with rage as I ran out of the church. I flew down the steps and rushed around Place St. Sulpice, looking for them. I could not wait until the next day; I needed answers, now! People began to look at me as if I was crazy. I was; I was delirious. But they were gone; Gabriela and Donizetti had vanished into thin air. From there I rushed down towards the Seine. I walked into every open door I found on my way: 'Gabriela, Gabriela!' I saw nothing but people looking at me with hallowed eyes. I walked and looked some more, around Notre Dame and Île St. Louis. I ran down to Trocadero, over the Seine again and in the direction of the tower – nothing, not a sign. It was as if it had never happened.

I crossed the bridge again and walked back to Quartier Latin and around the Sorbonne. I walked into every church I came across along the way. Nothing. In despair, I got into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Louvre. I paid the man and got out, running, rushing through the masses of tourists who were queuing up to see La Giaconda smile. I ran like a bull, like a rampant bull. I ran through the people, past the fat Americans looking for Mary Magdalene under the glass Pyramid – and nothing, not a sign of Donizetti or Gabriela.

I walked along the Seine toward the tower once again. I walked and my feet twitched with rage as the river flowed by me. There was a gentle breeze blowing from the east and the grey clouds were reflected on the water. Paris became colder and the Gothic buildings now framed the darker tone of the air. The trees no longer dripped poetic words, but nuggets of rage and I could no longer see where I was going. I ended up at Avenue de la Bourdonnais. Desperation had settled over my shoulders and I sat on the curb and wept for every year I had let slip through my fingers, every breath of air Donizetti drew from Gabriela, every infamous molecule of darkness he had injected into her veins.

I got up and walked along the long avenue looking at the trees. I spotted two pigeons sitting next to each other. They reminded me of Ginsberg's description of such birds as 'vulgar.' But those pigeons looked more funny than vulgar to me. I had never liked pigeons – winged vermin – but those two feathery fellows were like a comedy duo, sitting there looking a little strange. One had its feet turned inwards and looked like an embarrassed comedian whose joke wasn't funny and who had now decided to appeal to the humour of his own fat belly and small head for the comic effect. The other had a missing leg.

I walked past the tree where the two pigeons sat and when I turned my eyes to the right I saw the Eiffel Tower emerging between two buildings at the very end of the Rue de l'Université. What a magical sight! I couldn't believe my eyes – could men really build something like that? What a thing! What a thing! No wonder every tourist wanted to have a replica of it stuck on the fridge. But no tourist brochure could have prepared me for that sight, the sheer height and impossibility of it...somehow the enormity, the 'solid lightness' of the arches and intricate iron work was deliriously impossible to conceive. But it was true, I could see it and millions of others could see it too. The only thing I couldn't see was what Gabriela was doing with that sordid man, and how and why they were in Paris. Then the pigeons flew to another tree and when the one without a leg landed, it nearly fell off the branch and I had to laugh a little.

When I looked at the tower again I saw a Zeppelin tied to it. It hung there, gently moving from side to side with the wind. A man sat under the arches drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. He was wearing a panama hat. He raised the hat and puffed on a cigar, and I recognized him: Emmanuel. He smiled. I knew he was talking to me, but his face was no face and although he spoke his mouth did not move. I came closer. He handed me a rose. 'Wake up, João, wake up...'

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in bed in my small apartment. It was dawn. The rain pounded against the windowpane and my head was spinning like a crazy kaleidoscopic gyroscope. I looked around and saw the shadows moving about the apartment as cars in the street down below drove by with the headlights on. I got up and stood in front of the sink. I opened the tap and let the water flow over my arm and trickle down my fingers. I ducked my whole head under it, letting the water flow over my head and down my neck. I was burning hot, feverishly shaking and breaking into a cold sweat. I stood alone; misery and promise were just the two ends of the same string. I went back to bed and found a rose lying on the pillow.

Part IV – The Way

16

The Pilgrimage

It was six months since I had first set foot in Paris. I had saved a little money working in Milan, enough to bum around for a while and write. It paid really well to work for the pimp. Who would have thought? I saw many things too, and that made my brain buzz with ideas. I had to wait for them for long hours in the car, so I read everything I could lay my hands on. I was hoping a good idea for my first book would drop from the great beyond. I was feeling confident.

One morning I stood in front of Notre Dame after a long walk by the river. I had not slept for some time; my evenings abounded with nightmares where Donizetti kept appearing out of nowhere, dressed in black and smiling like the devil. Sometimes I dreamed of Emmanuel and his strange messages: the man who seemed to command my present and future even though I was sure he was only a figment of my imagination.

Thinking of it now, it was all clear from the beginning, but I was too blind to see it. I was trapped between heaven and hell and I could trust no one – be it God or Satan. And so I was there, stuck between all things holy and unholy, sacred and profane. I had lost count of how many times Emmanuel had appeared to me, and for lack of any explanation I decided to give up trying to figure out who the devil he was and what it all meant. If I was mad, perhaps madness would help me write something worth the ink someday. After all, had not Dickens's drunk beer with his imaginary friends in the pub? Did not Nietzsche wonder through the streets of Turin dribbling, talking to horses and shouting at people? Had not Woolf drowned in neurosis? Did not Plath stick her head in the oven? Didn't Zelda Fitzgerald spend her life in and out of asylums? Didn't Hemingway shoot himself? Whatever the verdict, one thing I was sure of: I knew I had not seen the last of the man. If Emmanuel was a figment of my imagination, and yet he appeared so real to me, perhaps I too had been imagined by someone else. Perhaps we were both trapped in someone else's dream, or was it a nightmare?

Then came Sunday, and if it wasn't for the newspapers telling me so, I would have been unaware of it. I had spent the previous night walking up and down the eleven square metres of the apartment (which, as you can imagine, didn't take me further than a small circle). I was thinking about the book I wanted to write, irritably coming to no insightful climax. I had no clue as to what I wanted to write about, and yet I knew I should write something. Was I having my first writer's block? Impossible, I had not written anything until then; how could I be blocked if nothing had ever flowed from me? That was all I could think about – it was a very strange feeling. Why couldn't I get out there and get a job and live life like all those other people who walked in the streets of Paris, phone in hand, briefcases swinging back and forth, sunglasses gleaming in the sun, raincoats, shiny shoes, some dignity, a car, a family, bills to pay, supermarket queues, a movie at the weekend.

'Writing is a curse,' I thought. 'It destroys the mind and corrodes the soul. It dements the sane and pushes the already demented into the abyss of torture. A bottle of whisky and a rocking chair waiting at the end, mumbling things to oneself, a bullet through the head. BANG!

I slept for a couple of hours as the sun rose from behind the Parisian rooftops. I woke up with an awful thirst, buried my head under the kitchen tap and drunk the whole of the Seine's worth of chlorinated water. With my bladder full of liquid I was still thirsty. I went out for a cup of coffee. I walked in the direction of Île St. Louis and before long I found myself crossing the bridge and going into a coffee house. After the coffee I felt a little better. I paid the bill and went out. I looked over the square and saw Notre Dame opening its doors to the queue of tourists who waited outside.

I felt like being a tourist for a day and letting myself be entertained by the city's pastiche façade, that by now had become every bit as authentic as a crusty baguette under the armpit. I saw a group of people getting ready to follow a white–haired man holding a dark blue umbrella. They stood in front of the Cathedral as he called out for the people to come closer. I followed them and asked the man if I could join the group. He nodded and told me it would cost me a tenner. I paid the man and stepped back. Then some more people joined just as it began to rain. I had a free newspaper in my hand and I used it to cover my head. The man cursed the wind that turned his umbrella inside out. Then he apologized for cursing, cleared his throat, re–arranged his panama hat in line with his left triangular eyebrow, and began to talk. As he spoke he touched the long, bushy, grey, beard that covered his chin and cheeks. He rolled his eyes over his audience, turning his head like a fan, left to right, then right to left.

'Where you're standing, facing the façade of the magnificent Notre Dame de Paris, the most elegant and refined example of Gothic architecture in the world...'

The man looked friendly and wise, and like all wise and friendly man, he also looked like he had not had a shower for some time. White dandruff flaked off his head, falling onto his tweed jacket, and his shoes were worn–out brown leather moccasins.

'...this spot where we stand was one of the many meeting, or starting points for the thousands of pilgrims who, in the middle ages, walked from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, along Le Chemin du St. Jacques de Compostelle.'

'Santiago de what...?' asked a boisterous Canadian.

The man looked a little annoyed by the interruption.

'...yes, so, after Jerusalem and Rome, Compostelle was the most popular pilgrimage destination in the whole of Europe, and the many paths that once led there are still in use today by the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who perform the pilgrimage. People from all over the world still walk it – in fact the pilgrimage is becoming more popular, not less.'

As the man talked, I began to feel a funny sensation in my stomach, as if I had already heard that somewhere before: the proverbial déjà vu feeling. I must have looked puzzled because he asked me if I was following him. I nodded. The man crossed himself ironically and continued.

'...so all those pilgrims, those thousands of pilgrims, met either at Le Tours St. Jacques, the only remaining piece of a larger building just over there. You can see it from here,' he said pointing to the tower that stood on his right, 'across the river north of where we stand. They also came from much further north – from the coast, after having crossed the English Channel or sometimes the North Sea for those coming from Scandinavia. So where you stand was a required stop before the crowds proceeded to walk down to what is now Le Rue de St. Jacques, passing by the Abbey of Cluny, La Sorbonne, Le Pantheon and finally arriving at Place St. Jacques south of Jardin du Luxembourg...'

I was drawn to the story and asked monsieur Patrick Lepré, the guide, to tell me more. After the guided tour was over (a tour that took us from Notre Dame all the way south of the river and back to Tour St. Jacques), I convinced Lepré, at the cost of a bottle of wine at a local café, to tell me everything I needed to know about the pilgrimage.

'Oui, bien sûr, monsieur, bien sûr, c'est une grande aventure à travers la France et l'Espagne!' he said enthusiastically.

'So...,' I said, 'have you walked it yourself? How did you first learn about it?'

'Assurément monsieur, I walked it when I was young and restless like you. Now it is too long for me and after the injury... my knee became a problem. Now all I can do is tell the stories... well, I suppose telling stories is another way to travel, n'est pas?'

'I never thought of it that way,' I said.

'Before I went on Le Chemin,' he continued, 'I knew it like most French and Spanish people know it – you just know it. It is in your brain, like the way you look for water when you're thirsty, like...I don't know...an instinct. But I was interested, so I searched through books and found that the more I read, the more I wanted to learn. I also learned more about it when I studied religious history at Oxford all those many years ago...' He said this with a tinge of nostalgia in his voice, as his eyes rolled over and his eyebrows rose to a pointy angle.

'But that's not the way you should think about it really,' he concluded.

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'Well, it is my view that you shouldn't try to make sense of Le Chemin. Well, at least not intellectually – that is. You must walk it and then learn its meanings for yourself; it must be by all means a personal experience, an experience of the soul – not of the mind.' He pointed with his long finger to his head as he said this. 'So, I will only tell you the facts as far as we can call them that, because when it comes to that kind of history, so–called facts and so–called 'myths' are every so often blurred – if such a distinction should be made at all! You see, you will have to experience it for yourself and then make your own judgement; I am only going to give you a whistle–stop tour.'

Lepré filled our glasses up to the brim. I made him a sign to stop, and he looked at me and laughed.

'You're not French, are you? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Anyway, let me see, let me see...ah, yes, well, I suppose it would be interesting to start with a little history...'

Lepré spoke with a serious expression on his aged, erudite face. He was the epitome of the highly educated man: tweed jacket, leather patches, comfortable leather shoes, beige cord trousers, tricot tie over a checked shirt, glasses at the tip of his nose, a red face from drinking and the white complexion of someone who's been in the library for too many years. He also smelled like an old library.

'It is important to make clear from the beginning,' he proceeded with authority, 'that this is the story of a tradition, monsieur, not simply an account of a place as such. This is the story of a tradition that is adorned by landscapes, sculpted by men and nature, and lived by people – real and imagined. It is the story of a journey to God through damnation. A journey to glory through great suffering.' He spoke with a light French accent to his otherwise perfect English.

'Such tradition,' he continued, 'links today with yesterday, the modern and the ancient, heaven and earth. In summary, this is the story of a pilgrimage route and the millions of poor souls whom, for one reason or other, felt compelled, or were forced, to walk it. Such a place is not just a point on a map, monsieur, no! It is a symbol, a code that like a key opens the doors to religion, old or new. But this place is dependent on and enhanced by the secular rhythms of our modern world. Its roots go deep and reach back to the beginnings of Europe: politics, civilization and religion. Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Paganism, Mysticism, all kinds of other story–telling and of course music – stuff that you and I have sung in our childhoods – have all got something to do with it. So, above all, this is the story, not of a place but a record of the long chain of memory that links people like you and me, travellers in a broad sense, to those, whom for centuries, have travelled down Santiago de Compostela.

'As a Christian ritual, pilgrimage has been performed since before Christianity – as you probably know already from stories in the Bible, if you're a Christian. Are you a Christian?'

'Well, no. I...'

'No matter,' he said. It was not a rhetorical question. Perhaps when you walk the pilgrimage you may find it – if only you wish it deeply enough.'

Lepré had a permanent quizzical look on his face that made me think he would never be taken off guard, and that was probably true; the man sounded like a walking encyclopaedia. After pausing for a sip of wine, he took a deep breath and started again.

'Pilgrimage originated with long journeys of self–imposed exile, for instance when Jesus walked through the desert or his disciples' missions in foreign lands. A pilgrimage to their birthplaces, mission or martyrdom became a common practice for Christian believers. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, two pilgrimage sites became particularly important for the development of Christianity: Jerusalem and Rome. However, another site gained importance with the westward expansion of the faith. Established in the north–west corner of the Iberian Peninsula several centuries later – in the 8th or 9th century – Santiago de Compostela rapidly became a centre for Christians who came to revere the alleged burial place of St. James the Great. Through centuries of movement, these pilgrims carved the many routes that today form Le Chemin. Santiago de Compostela and the pilgrimage culture that it produced, was born out of wider socio–cultural movements. So, I must say that like today, in medieval Europe people moved constantly – so much for 'globalization,' huh? Except they didn't have so much trouble getting into a country as we have today.'

The old man was wise and he knew how to tell a story. I wished one day I'd be as knowledgeable about something. Another sip of wine went down his throat and I saw real pleasure in his eyes as he wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. The more he drunk the better he spoke.

'Through the act of seeking salvation, pilgrims gave birth to new cultures, cultures that emerged out of the migratory movements and trade. The merchant routes were alive with hundreds of thousands of people travelling to and from pilgrimage sites for a variety of reasons. In fact, we could say that these were transnational and migratory flows of goods and people. Movement to places of religious significance was an important part of the cultural identity and politico–religious and economic systems that forged European culture. But of course, there is one major problem with attempting to tell the story of such a pilgrimage, and that problem concerns the accuracy of facts for, as I already told you, facts and myth are often not two things that can be differentiated, but one and the same thing.'

Now Lepré assumed a professorial posture. He straightened his jacket and ran his fat fingers through his receding hair until he touched the back of his neck.

'Now, this is a very important point: there is no factual basis whatsoever, I repeat, w–h–a–t–s–o–e–v–e–r to the claim that the remains of James the Great, one of the twelve apostles, the brother of John and the son of Zebedee, was ever buried in what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela in north–west Spain. Yet still, and despite this factual problem, there is little doubt that James is considered an important character in the making of Christianity. In the Acts of the Apostles, for example, we find that James and John were in the 'inner circle' of Jesus's followers. Some historians consider James as one of the most important of Jesus's supporters. So, despite the mystery surrounding his preaching mission in Spain, the importance of James himself is unquestioned. He shared some of the most significant moments of Christ's earthly life, including miracles, the moment of transfiguration and Jesus's suffering at the Garden of Gethsemane.

'The part that concerns our story more directly, however, is that, according to legend, following the death of Jesus, James travelled westwards from Jerusalem on a mission to preach to the pagan people of other lands. On his journeying, James is said to have reached the Iberian Peninsula. After little success, he returned to Jerusalem, where he was then captured and martyred in 44 A.D. by the Roman Emperor, Herod Agrippa. James was beheaded and both his head and body were thrown outside the city walls – a passage that is also documented in the Acts of the Apostles. Although sparsely documented, James's preaching mission in Western Europe is less difficult to imagine than what follows.'

Lepré paused again at this point, and looked not at me, but through me. He raised the glass in front of him and gulped down the entire content – 'Good stuff!' Then he stuffed his mouth with some peanuts, chewing them like a hippo would chew bricks. As he munched with his mouth half open, he looked into the distance, as if looking for the right words to rise like the sun behind the horizon, and he began again.

'According to tradition, and I do mean that there is no proof of this whatsoever – as with so many matters of faith I suppose – after his martyrdom, St. James's body was taken back to Galicia by his followers. They placed his remains on a boat that miraculously arrived at a place called Iria Flavia – a coastal town nowadays known as Padrón – a fishing village on the Galician Atlantic coast. With the help of a pagan woman, or perhaps queen, named Lupa, they buried James' remains approximately eighty miles inland, on a hill called Libredon, in a rugged valley where the city of Santiago de Compostela now stands...'

Lepré would have continued talking for as long as I had energy to listen, but I pressed him to get to the point. He noticed my impatient look, and then he went on:

'Now, it is true that documents mentioning the existence of St. James's tomb were found in the early part of the 6th century – that's a fact. But here a problem presents itself, for if we were to consider this story as fact, we would also have to explain why the location was forgotten for the next six centuries, considering its importance for Christianity as a developing faith. But never mind let's press on. The story tells us that in 841, a hermit or perhaps monk, named Pelayo, saw lights in a forest near Libredon, which guided him to a burial ground. The remains found in the tomb were identified as those of the apostle James by the local bishop, a man called Teodomir. He reported the finding to King Alfonso II, who in turn ordered the construction of a simple wooden church at the site.

'All this occurred during a time in Europe when the 'Moors' had taken military control of a great part of former Roman kingdom of Hispania. The limits of the Christian world were restricted to a strip of land stretching from Galicia along the northern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, eastwards across the Pyrenees. Rather coincidentally, I must say, the discovery of St. James' tomb came at a time when Christian elites were in real need of a unifying ideology or some kind of potent symbol to counteract the advancement of Islamic forces.

'This, monsieur,' said Lepré, now looking intensely at me as if he had just come out of a trance and needed to remind himself where he was and who he was talking to, '...is just my opinion, however, and there is much disagreement over this. Some say it was indeed a miracle, others a political manoeuvre; nobody will ever know. In matters of faith, reason and scholarship are important, but only as secondary matters. So I will finally conclude by saying this: Le Chemin is alive and it seems that it has called for you. Now go and see what you find, because I know you will find what you seek, if only you follow the path.'

I thanked Lepré for the crash lecture and offered to pay for another bottle. He was tempted, but declined. So he left and I stayed, glass in hand, my notebook open on the table and a pencil between my fingers. I had taken so many notes so quickly that my wrist ached. I sat there looking at the people walking up and down the street, wondering where they were all going in all that hurry. I thought it was time to write a book. But first I needed to collect my material. I had never thought that day would come.

The book was going to be a success; in my mind there was no way it could be anything else. Think about it: everybody likes the idea of a journey. Have you ever seen a novel that doesn't describe a journey of some sort? I, João de Deus, a wannabe writer from the other side of the world, was going to Compostela! I, João de Deus, the son of Uberapitanga, was going to chase enlightenment by the tail and then write a book about it. The idea struck me like lightening: a book about the pilgrimage – that's it, that's it!! A book about the ancient road to Compostela – how's that for a start? It would be called 'Pilgrims on the Road.' That was it! I had a title, and a title is all you need. I was going to write a book about the journey to Compostela. That's what I had been waiting for, the subject matter I had been waiting for all this time. There was only one thing for me to do now: to become a pilgrim.

I left Paris a week later. It was a morning like so many other mornings. The sky was splashed with reds and oranges. Paris was hard to leave behind. I hopped on a train at Montparnasse at 8:29 AM. Looking out of the window, I saw Paris passing by me: the rooftops, the streets, the smell of freshly baked bread, the cobbled stones, the boulevards, the sweet smell of chestnuts and the freshness of the rain that fell the night before, the cafés, the accordion players and the kebab shops, book sellers and the Seine and Île St. Michel, all dissipating into a blur of colours and shapes distorted by the efficient speed of fast metallic wheels. I left Paris behind like a man leaving the room of a whore in love, a whore that had given all she had – lust, anger, her body in full glory – to a man who only saw flesh on the unmade bed and nothing more: pleasure, that's all.

The train took me through France in a couple of hours, and before I could finish the pilgrimage that Cummings had begun in the first chapter of The Enormous Room, I had arrived in Bordeaux at 11:47, just as I was making my way through Pilgrim's Progress.

The train pulled into Bordeaux. I was not impressed with Bordeaux, but I wasn't concerned with it either. I drank half a bottle of wine at a café by the river. The waitress was pretty and had good breasts and she was in a horrible mood. Still, I left her a tip – for the breasts. Then I boarded another train, only this time to Bayonne. Unlike the previous train, the train to Bayonne was crowded with backpackers and there were no seats left. It smelled like backpackers too. The corridors were packed full with local peasants and immigrants. Someone was carrying a live chicken, as a girl dressed in a Burka vomited on my feet when I stood up next to her. 'She's suffering from sun stroke,' said the turban–wearing half–toothless man next to her. It was cold outside and stuffy inside. All the windows were shut. The air inside the car was like the air in old cellars. Added to that, there was the rancid smell, a compound of armpits, vomit, chicken, cheap wine and toilets that had not seen a cleaner since France was occupied by the Germans.

Three hours later, we arrived at Bayonne, from where I took a taxi to St. Jean Pied–de–Port. The decision to take a taxi was not made by me, but by a group of people I bumped into while standing outside the train station. When they spotted me coming out of the station with a rucksack swung on my back, they sprang onto their feet and, dragging me into the taxi, saying 'it's the cheapest and quickest way to get to St. Jean...we are all going, but one seat is still available, should you choose to accompany us... would you like to do that? Would you?' I looked around and hesitated, but bearing in mind the train journey I had just had, I said 'sure,' and we drove off.

Our driver was called René Viton, a part–time taxi driver, part–time shepherd, part–time war memorabilia collector and fishing fanatic, who lived between Bayonne and St. Jean. My new companions were a group of three South Korean 'pilgrims' (that's how they described themselves) and two Franciscan monks from England who, without much ado, introduced themselves as the 'pilgrim monks,' Stephen and Mark Silverman. The two were brothers... '...not only under God's eye but also in the more terrestrial sense of sharing the same father and the same mother – but they do not always get along!' father Mark commented. They told me they had gone to seminar together and although they were on a pilgrimage, they carried their credit cards in their pockets and were hoping to stay not with the other dirty pilgrims, but in satisfactorily plush hotels whenever possible.

'We're monks, but we are monks on a spiritual vacation! The body does not need to be punished for the spirit to feel the presence of God,' said father Mark rather joyfully, '...after all we're not the Opus Dei!'

'An interesting perspective,' I said.

'What is your n-n-n-name?' asked Stephen (he stuttered)

'Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm João, João de Deus. I've just come from Paris, and before that I was in London, but I was born in Brazil.'

'Don't worry about it I know how you feel. You do know you are about to experience perhaps the most exciting time of your life on this earth? You do know that? Don't you?' said Mark with a quizzical smile in the corner of his bearded mouth, his nose opening and closing like one of those fish that suck plankton from the bottom of the ocean.

'I see, well, I hope we meet again along the way, you seem nice enough,' I said with drops of scepticism sprinkled over my face.

The monks joked and laughed. They were not at all like the priests who had haunted my childhood – cocksuckers! The other three people in the taxi, the South Koreans, were students, and never said a word. When one of the priests asked for their names, the trio resorted to a strident laugh 'he, ha, hi, hi, hi, he, ha, he, ha!' The monks and I were puzzled at first, but then we also knew that Asians were a bit funny like that sometimes: they say little, laugh a lot and always walk in groups. Their faces are difficult to differentiate from one another, but then, as a Japanese man once told me a long while ago: 'You white people all look the same to us too.'

René drove us along the sinuous road that gently caressed the valleys of the rugged verdant landscape. Meanwhile, I eventually found out the names of the three South Koreans.

'I'm Kim, this is Pat and she is Charlie,' said Kim in a sweet child–like voice.

'You have very western–like names,' said Mark.

'Yes,' said Kim, 'a lot of Asians adopt western names, especially when they are travelling to the West, so it makes it easier for people to pronounce them,' she said.

'But that's aaaaa-bsurd!' said Stephen with a grave, indignant voice. 'I would ne-ne-neeever change my name just so that some fo-fo-foreigners would find it easy to pppp-pronounce it. Look, Kim, you ought to stand up ffff-for yourself, da-da-darling. You must tell us what your real nnn-name is. You see, KKK-Kim, it is our ddd-duty, you hear me, our ddd-duty to pronounce it the way it is. I am sorry if I sound fff-forceful, but I am so ashamed of the tttt-typical English attitude to other ppp-people and their culture that this has become my life–long mi-mi-miiii mission: to change such habits whenever p-p-p- pooo possible! We always expect ttt-things to fit us, and IIIIII guess it is the cccc-colonial past we inherit, but this has to che-che-change, you hear me, this has to che-che-change! We want to cheeeen change everything and everyone claiming it is just a ne-ne-name, just a f, f, freaking name, but it is n-n-n-not.

There is m–m–m–m–mu–ch to be said about che–che–che–changing a name. A name is more than, than– than– than simple vowels and consonants, Ki–Ki–Kim. A name is your identity, a n-n-name is who you are, and who you– you– you...your– your– ancestors have been. It is your pi-pi-piiii picture album, right, the– the– there... resumed in s... s... s... some letters. In order to be accepted by us, the supposed advanced societies of the Western world, p-p-p people like you ch–ch–ch– cha–cha–cha– change their own names so that we–we–wee–wee mo–mo–mo–morons can accept you by turning you into a wannabe residue of our c-c-c-c-colonial pa–pa–pa–past exploitations. Ki-Ki-Kim, darling, tell us your na–na–name, your real name.'

By now, everyone in the taxi had fallen silent. The torrent of words that had just left the stuttering monk's mouth was still hanging inside the car like a fart: one may want it to go away, but it lingers on. The silence only ended when Kim, after thinking for a moment in a concentrated pose, decided to wind down the window (as if she had read my mind) and let some air in. She then said:

'My name is Kimberly, Kimberly Tsang–I. My father is American.'

Mark and I looked at each other and laughed hysterically, and I don't think we stopped until we reached St. Jean Pied–de–Port.

'Ha, ha, ha, he, he, he,' I laughed so hard I got stomach cramps.

'Very funny, you two, very f-f-f-funny!' stormed Stephen. 'I'm so–so–so glad M-M-M-Mark has f-f-f-found himself someone to take the mi-mi-mickey out of me with ver–ry funny, very f–f–f... fu-cking funny...'

We arrived in St. Jean Pied–de–Port and the streetlights were lit. It was springtime and the evening air was cold, yet the cobbled medieval streets of St. Jean were filled with people walking about in hiking boots, ponchos, waterproof backpacks and walking sticks. They were set in contrast to the old Basque houses that adorned the town and made it look like a carpenter's workshop. The foreign crowd looked like they had dropped from an alien mother–ship: plastic creatures from planet Gore-Tex. They had one sole expression on their faces, which said: 'I'm having a mid–life crisis and I need some time off.' They moved as if they were stepping on holy ground, while gorging on all the tourist essentials: souvenirs, food and alcohol. The crowd moved in and out of the various tourist traps set up in each of the kiosks spread along the main street that cut the town into left and right, Le Rue de la Citadelle.

In Basque, St. Jean Pied–de–Port is called Donibane Garazi. In the semantic distinctions there was a lot of blood and a lot of resentment. They were found in the names of towns and cities all around the region and over the Spanish boarder where Navarra begins.

I had a few books with me. The Enormous Room was one. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises was the other. I was reading the two in tandem when, in Fiesta, I came across a passage in which Jack and Bill set out on a fishing trip from Pamplona, a trip that ended in Burguette, a small Basque village on the Spanish side, after Roncesvalles. I read Hemingway's account of the region and was intrigued, mainly because although he was travelling alone with Bill, they met an English man named Harris who had just walked from St. Jean Pied–de–Port to Burguette. Neither of them mentioned it was a pilgrimage route or that they had seen any pilgrims walking. That must have been before 1927, logically, as the book was published that year. That means that there were none, or very few, pilgrims walking it at that time.

Whether this was true or not, Hemingway's account was a good sensorial description of the region, which, as I later discovered, was as every inch as beautiful and charming as he described in his book. Even though times have changed, St. Jean had retained much of its former character. Except for asphalt and the absence of horses and donkeys, St. Jean was every bit as cosy and medieval as it probably was in the 1920s.

The encounter with such a landscape framed the most powerful encounter that can happen in my opinion: that of a writer–to–be and an established literary legend. It all happened very much by accident. I did not know Hemingway had been to Roncesvalles and then Burguette. I knew about Pamplona, and although being there in Pamplona sitting in the same café (now called El Rincón de Hemingway, or Hemingway's corner!), drinking wine and watching people from under the same shady cool arcades, when it is thirty degrees in the middle of the plaza, is a pretty special thing, knowing he had been to Burguette turned it into a more intimate encounter. But don't think I'll care if you call me a romantic, because all writers must be romantics by default. But if you call me sentimental, well, then I'll do like Hemingway and put the gloves on.

In St. Jean, I slept at Le Gita, a pilgrim hostel run by a French couple from Lyon. They had walked the pilgrimage when they were young and that's how they met. They had decided to come back to Le Chemin and open a alberge du pelerin, a name that, once over the boarder would mutate into its Spanish equivalent: albergue de peregrinos. It was a fine place with solid wooden floors and a very modern interior that contrasted immediately and sharply with the building: hot, slick and shiny shower rooms, double beds with comfortable mattresses, even the light switches were of a metallic colour with a round button in the centre with which to dim the lights to the desired brightness. It felt more like I was in some sort of businessman's bachelor pad than in a pilgrim's refuge. I remember thinking that if the rest of the pilgrimage was going to be as comfortable as that, then I was in for a treat but all hope of a good book coming out of the experience would be gone. Have you ever heard of a great book, a book filled with that wonderful sense of adventure people seek, written from a plush hotel room? I needed dust, wine, nature, and crooked shacks, fights, lust, paranoia, fucking hopelessness and a little hope. And I was going to get it all, because Le Gita was the best I was ever going to get.

The next day I woke up at 5AM and found that there were people already clunking their walking sticks against the cobbled streets outside, all heading towards Roncesvalles. 'Allez, bon Chemin tut le monde...' I heard a man shout and tack, tack, tack, tack, his stick went by. 'Ma che bella matina, vero?' said the other, to which a woman replied 'Veramente, belíssima, oggi siamo veramente sfortunati, papa!' and tack, tack, tack, tack. Then I heard the monks and the South Koreans passing by – I could recognize the monks' half cockney accents and the South Koreans laughing behind them: 'Bloody hell, Mark, I f-f-f-forgot my stick,' 'Stephen, you're a moron! Ha, ha, ha,' laughed Mark, and tack, tack, tack, tack, they went.

I had decided not to walk that day, letting them all go by and starting afresh the next morning. I wanted to walk alone for a while at least. I wanted to walk over the mountains and feel the air on my face and not be bothered by anybody. I knew the Pyrenean winds, without ever having been there before. They blew the same way the Southern Atlantic winds blew: moist and luscious and invigorating. Except that they the wind in the north was colder of course. Also the valleys and hills I was about to climb were just as high up and just as wet as Uberapitanga, and the landscape suddenly became familiar.

In the morning I needed to get myself a passport du pelerin. This is necessary, the keeper at St. Jean told me, to ensure the refuges always have places for those who were tired from all the walking, so that tourists would not take over the supposed 'spiritual element' of the walk. I thought it was a fair system: hotels for tourists, refuges for poor pilgrims: nice. I was a pilgrim I deserved a bed. Except that those pilgrims were not poor, but well–to–do people – even monks came with credit cards! I was one hundred per cent in favour of the monks' way of travelling, but I couldn't afford it, so loud snoring, dirty kitchens, stinky toilets, bedbugs and cold showers it was.

After a day drinking wine by the river and watching old men fishing, reading and scribbling on my notebook, I went up to the fortress and lay on the grass, amongst the ruins and thick stone walls and, with my hat over my face, I gently fell asleep as the sounds of birds and people faded on the background.

* * *

I had returned to Paris and was now inside the same church where I had met my sister and Donizetti, but this time there was no one there. I approached the face of Christ as printed on the shroud. I got down on my knees and prayed. I asked to see Gabriela again. Something called my attention then. I turned around hastily, and there she was. I came to see her, but she looked past me, as if she could not see me at all. I looked at myself and realized I couldn't see my feet or my hands either. I looked for myself in her eyes and I couldn't find my reflexion.

Gabriela moved around the church with light footsteps, as she walked towards the shroud. She walked through me. I wanted to reach out for her, but I did not dare. I observed her silently. She got down on her knees and began to pray. Her lips were moving, but the words weren't clear. She whispered, her hair static like a frozen waterfall behind her head, reaching down to her waist. She was a beautiful woman, almost angelical in her delicacy and precision. That's when a dark shadow approached and covered the room in darkness. He came to her at once. She looked up at him and with one single stroke of his right hand Donizetti beat Gabriela down to the ground. I shouted 'STOP!' but no sound came out of my mouth. It was as if I did not exist. I rushed towards Donizetti with my closed fists throwing punches at him, again and again, but the punches went through his body, my fists hit nothing but air. He looked at Gabriela again; she was still on the floor, looking bruised and beaten.

I stood next to Donizetti and I knew I was powerless. Gabriela was at the mercy of the rascal. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up until she stood in front of him. With both hands he tore off her dress and revealed her breasts. He beat her again and once more she hit the ground. He got down on his knees and finished tearing her dress open. As if he had done it a thousand times before, in one move, he opened his trousers, spread her legs apart and, in one stocking move, he penetrated her. He raped her in front of me. She squirmed and screamed until she gave up screaming and just accepted him and all his weight inside her.

I jumped on him and punched and screamed and kicked the devil out. Again and again my hands and feet went through his body, hitting nothing but air.

Donizetti pulled himself together and wiped his mouth and his forehead, which were covered in sweat. He then turned his head and starred straight at me, as if he could see me now. He walked slowly towards me, and just when I thought he was about to strike me, he went straight through my body and carried on walking, until he found himself standing in front of the image that stood behind me: the face of Christ. He kneeled down and prayed with both hands clasped together most ardently. He came back to my sister and helped her to get up. He kneeled down in front of her and begged her forgiveness. Then he helped her with her dress and they both walked out of the church. I went out to chase them, but the sunlight blinded me at once and I could see no more.

When my vision returned, I saw a deserted square with one single cherry tree standing in the middle. The tree was in full bloom and in all its rose and white glory the petals and the flowers moved gently with the breeze. It was too late. I would never see Gabriela again. At that instant, a man walked into the square and stood under the cherry tree. He pointed at me and waved his hand. I walked down the steps and across the square, until I reached the place where the man now stood. He looked at me and handed me a piece of paper. Emmanuel watched me open it, carefully studying my face as I read the hand–written line: 'And at the end there will be a new beginning.'

* * *

It was late. I wiped the sweat off my face and staggered back to the hostel. There I had a shower, shaved and put on a new clean shirt. I combed my hair and stood staring at my face in the mirror for some time – perhaps to convince myself I was there. Then I went out for dinner. I found a small patisserie and ate a simple menu du pelerin. The food was plentiful and tasty and it warmed me up. The wine was flowing and the woman didn't mind when I asked her for a little more to finish off the bread and cheese I got for desert. I saw pilgrims passing by, and some walked in and said hello, recognizing I was there like they were there.

I paid and walked out and onto the dimly lit cobbled street, the Rue de La Cittadelle. I then took a left and was back in the hostel. As I walked in, Serge shouted from the living room 'Monsier, monsier, s'il vous plait! Avain, I have a bottle of whisky and I'm watching some boxing – care to join me? Wife is out!'

'Sure,' I said.

'I like you,' he said.

'I like you too,' I said. 'You said something about a whisky? I feel I could do with one of those tonight.'

'Oh, but of course!!! Here, have some of this – good stuff – from Scotland. Last time I was in Edinburgh with the wife I got two bottles. But I have plenty more in the basement, so don't be shy.'

I drank with Serge until the early hours of the morning. He pulled out his Mohamed Ali DVD collection and we watched all the great fights of the past century – and got seriously drunk in the process. Ali's beauty and agility did the rest. I told Serge about my sister and the dreams and not much else. He advised me to forget the matter:

'She has her life and her burdens and you have yours. Do not be so presumptuous as to think she needs help,' he said with the eyes and voice of an old wizard.

[I ought to forget. I ought to forget, as I had forgotten all the rest]. The day was breaking and Serge and I said our goodbyes. It was time to get some rest. I came crashing down on the bed like the boxers who fell flat inside the ring after Ali's hook caught up with their chins.

I woke up next day with the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen.

'Chop, chop, mon ami! Chop, chop! Coffee is ready! You have a pilgrimage to walk!' shouted Serge from the corridor. I had only slept for a few hours and still, an hour later and I was climbing up the Pyrenees with a rucksack on my back. My final journey had begun.

17

The Promised Land

I walked upwards until the clouds were below the horizon. I could see the peaks of the Pyrenees poking though masses of clouds that looked like cotton wool. Wild horses grazed in the distance, and shepherds walked by with their obedient sheep and their watchful dogs. The freshest smells of grass and blossom blew gently with the Atlantic breeze coming from the west. I was on my way to the Promised Land.

I marched incessantly up and up, sweat dripping from my eyebrows, full of concentration, thinking, thinking and walking, thinking and walking when I realized my boots were too small for my feet and pain began to shoot through my legs. That's when the thinking stopped. Pain kills all thinking.

Every once in a while I sat down and took my boots off to cool down my feet and stretch my toes. When I reached the summit, a place marked with a statue of Mary sitting on top of a pile of rocks that overlooked a precipitous valley, I lowered the backpack and took my boots off again. This time I saw blisters forming on both heels and under some of the toes. I took out a sewing kit Serge had given me: '...trust me, you'll need this,' he said. I sterilized the needle by burning it with a lighter. I then dipped it in the small bottle of pure alcohol I carried along as a disinfectant – Serge had also told me I'd need that. I passed the thread through the needle hole and the needle through the blisters. Water came gushing out. I left a piece of the thread inside each blister with only the end of the threads poking out, so that it would keep draining the water out as I walked. I covered each blister with a cotton pad soaked in iodine and replaced my sweat–soaked socks with fresh clean ones – I had been told by a man at the restaurant I ate in the night before that it was a good way to avoid more blisters. I put my boots on again, only this time I was hesitant. I got up and swung the backpack on my back again, and set off on the trail. Blisters or no blisters, I was determined to get to Roncesvalles that same day. The other option was to sleep overnight out in the open and risk being caught in a storm.

The path made its way down the mountain range and it was clear I had begun my descent towards Spain and on to Libredón. Until then I had been walking on my own, but soon I began to hear people talking down below. It was the afternoon and I needed water. I walked for about an hour, limping along and hoping to find a source. I walked around a bend in the path that was wide enough for cars to drive through, and as soon as the road became a straight line with trees on both sides, I saw a small crowd of people gathering around a spot. Then I heard the sound of running water. I rushed in and stuck my head under the cascade of fresh cold water coming down filtered and clean from the mountains above.

I splashed water all over my face and my arms and on the back of my neck. Then I drank some: refreshingly sweet water. The cold shock helped me recover from the hang over from the night before. I looked around me and saw a small group of people resting nearby. I heard different languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, English and Japanese. I was in the middle of a pilgrim caravan and before long I was one of them. I talked to some of them: a divorced man from Marseilles, a florist from Tokyo, an executive, father of three, from Berlin, a lawyer from Madrid and his English wife who was a nurse, an Italian priest. We exchanged names and a few brief comments about the walk and our pains, what we had seen so far, our pains, what we had missed, our pains, what the weather was like, and our pains and how we treated our blisters – those horrible blisters! By now they were the only thing I had on my mind and for some good reason I felt lucky I only had to worry about my blisters and nothing else. Often in my childhood we had to worry about whether we'd have anything to eat for dinner. That's a real concern. Blisters dry out; hunger doesn't go away unless you have something to eat. Blisters don't hurt as much as an empty stomach.

What was already a small band of pilgrims became even smaller as people made their way down and through the last two–hour leg of that day's walk. We were excited about reaching Roncesvalles, because we were told by the man from Madrid that, upon arrival, we would find a stream where we could put our feet into while drinking beer. On the way up the Pyrenees, the part of body that most suffers is the heels. This happens because of the friction between the ankle and the back of the shoes, since all the weight is at the back of each foot. On the way down it is the knees and the tips of the toes that take all the pressure, so half an hour into the walk and I could hear screams of pain all around me. Some people had way too heavy backpacks on them and their knees were not at all prepared for that kind of toil.

That's when I found the English woman in tears by the side of the road, her husband trying to give her encouragement by rubbing olive oil on her legs. The Japanese woman was brave and neat and she looked like she was the only one not in pain. That was until I looked down at her feet. She was walking in flip–flops because on the way up blisters the size of watermelons had formed on her heels. In the end, we made it across the Spanish border and the stream and the beer were waiting. One by one, we emerged from the woods and into the clearing. Roncesvalles was nothing but a few scattered buildings and a very old chapel, where Charlemagne supposedly made a stop on his march through Europe – for a piss. I was certainly not a heroic figure, and before I went anywhere or did anything I first searched for a bar.

I dropped my rucksack on the steps and waved to the waitress, who came to me as if she was going to slap me on the face. In one sharp monotone sentence that crossed the air like a knife, she said:

'¿Hola, que te pongo?'

'Oye, una cerveza, por favor,' I unsuccessfully tried to imitate the local accent.

I ordered a tall beer and a pack of peanuts. I stuffed my mouth with peanuts and emptied the beer; and ordered another one. The woman came back and dropped the glass on the table as if she wanted to tip it over my head but was stopped by the thought of losing her job. I sat basking in the sun that by now had broken through the clouds that had followed us on the descent through the woods. That's when I spotted the two English monks walking across the lawn in front of the monastery. They were wearing Franciscan robes and seemed to be having a good time laughing about something.

I waved to them making a sign for them to walk towards me.

'Hi there, you two, what's up?' I shouted.

'My goodness gracious... João! Stephen, look, it's João!' Mark Stephen.

'Hello, Hello!' shouted Stephen. He waved his hand as they walked towards me.

I stood up and the three of us hugged and cheered one another and congratulations and more cheering followed for the accomplishment. For some reason we were so happy to see one another that, while we stood, we had our arms linked and sort of danced around, like three clowns practicing Morris Dance, much to the entertainment of the men drinking beer outside.

'Cool, cool, the three Musketeers are re–united! Athos, Porthos, Aramis!' shouted Mark '...and now we only need D'Artagnan...actually it always puzzled me that the three Musketeers were four,' as Mark said that, a man approached, a peasant from a nearby village. He spoke a third English, a third Spanish and the other third I didn't have a clue.

'¡Oye, yo D'Artagnan! Here, señor, take el palo, take it – you, no palo, take it. Take the palo señor si, si take the palo. Yo he caminado, you know, I always walking with the palo, y... bueno, yo he caminado much por estos caminos, many times I make the pilgrimage, much times. Pero, but, pero, señor, escúcheme! Siempre, con el palo (stick), eh! Always, always wiff palo. ¿Por quê? Porque sin un palo, without stick, las rodillas... how do you say rodillas? Yes, yes, here, de nis (knees), yes, de nis, se rompen del todo, te van a doler cojones. Yes, yes, much pain in the nis much pain. You, señor, si, very much pain, no palo, very much pain on de nis. Take the palo.'

As he talked, the man walked to the back of his old pick–up truck, which was parked a few metres from there. He opened the boot and took out a long hand–carved stick. He came back and handed it to me. He told us he had walked with it for ten years and that now it was mine. He said it was 'de peregrino a peregrino' – from pilgrim to pilgrim. I declined his offer. He pushed it to me: 'nonsense! Take the palo!' So I took 'the palo' and offered to pay him a beer, to which he replied he had to go and feed his animals in the finca. Mark and Stephen watched without saying a word. Then I turned to them as the farmer drove off in his noisy old truck.

'Can you believe that? Can you believe what just happened? I was looking for a stick all my way up and down those mountains before I was told in St. Jean I needed one, and now I have one – and it is a perfect stick. Look at the size, and look at the shape, and... well, just look at it – it's perfect!'

'Yes, sir, the lord acts in the most surprising ways!' said Mark.

'Amen,' said Stephen. 'But shu-shu-should it not be the most me,me, sterious ways?'

'Shut up, Stephen,' said Mark.

I laughed.

'Hey, how come you are still here? Shouldn't you be a day ahead of me?' I asked.

'Well, yes, but only if you think we would walk every day for long distances. As that is not our goal – we are religious, not crazy! Although some would p-p-probably say that that is the s-s-s-same thing...anyway, we decided to stay in Ron-Ron-Roncesvalles one more day, to p-p-pray and chill out aaaaa little. You see, we're not m-m-moving at God's speed, but at 'our' spp-p-peed – ha!' said Stephen.

'Mark, how can you stand him?' I asked Mark.

'Ah, the Lord gave me infinite patience. Can we buy you a beer?' said Mark.

'Sure, I was about to finish my second glass – the beers are very small in Spain, aren't they?' I said.

'They sure are. Let's make sure they keep coming at least until we get a proper pint out of it!'

'You're not too bad, for priests that is!'

'Why thanks, mate, you're not so be-be-bad yourself, for such an ungodly p-p-person,' said Stephen.

We drunk the beer and I ordered some more. Then I had to bid farewell to the monks once again – they were taking a taxi to Pamplona that same afternoon. I paid up and went to register for a bed in the great pilgrim hostel. I filled out the form and the young volunteer behind the desk stamped my pilgrim passport with the seal of Roncesvalles. I was suddenly remembered of when my visa to the United States was denied. But this rubber stamp sounded more amicable. Then the girl told me the rules of the place: don't be noisy, be considerate when walking about so as not to wake other people up, 'and for god's sake, try not to get too drunk – you're in a monastery, not a brothel! The lights will go off at 21:00 and on again at 5:30 in the morning and you have to get out by 8:00, the latest.'

I paid the five euros for the bed and a shower and thought I'd have dinner across the road in one of the hotels. They traditionally served trout and chips as part of the pilgrim menu – a cheap, three–course meal, including wine, bread and water. I picked up my rucksack and could barely lift the thing after that day's walk and all that beer. Finally, I got to the hall where about a hundred bunk beds stood next to one another. I was given a pillow at the entrance and asked to leave my boots on a rack before going to my allocated bed. I had to climb up to the top bunk, and that proved to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. The girl sleeping on the bed opposite mine looked at me with a smile on her face, and then laughed out loud when I missed my footing on the ladder and fell backwards onto somebody else's backpack. I was so annoyed I gave up trying to climb up the ladder and went to the shower room instead. In my haste I forgot my towel, so after the shower I had to dry myself with my underpants.

When I came back I found the ladder waiting for me again. This time, however, I managed to climb all the way to the top – like an invalid with diarrhoea. I landed on the bed and stayed there until I woke up the next morning to the sound of a singing monk. If I'd had a shotgun in one hand and a spoon on the other, I would have shot the fucker in the head and then scooped out his intestines. But I had neither a shotgun nor a spoon, nor the strength to pull a trigger. The monk walked around and in between the bunk beds, singing and swinging his incense burner. I opened my eyes very carefully, because even my eyelids were in pain. I looked up and noticed the heavy, enormous chandelier hanging above my head. It reminded me of an ancient cartwheel. I turned my head and saw a sea of people, some still snoring loudly, others pretending they had not heard the monk by burying their heads under their sleeping bags. The girl lying next to me, a young blonde from some Nordic country, was looking at me with her penetrating bright blue eyes.

'Good morning,' she said, in a sweet accent I couldn't decipher.

'Good morning,' I replied. 'How was it? Was it as good for you as it was for me?' I added in a joking manner.

'Excuse me?' she asked.

'You know, considering we have slept together, I'm asking what you think I was like, you know what I mean?' I explained.

'What? What do you mean? I have never been more insulted in my whole life! How can you assume that only because we are sleeping in the same bed – technically speaking – that we would have had something?' she asked, her forehead now frowning.

'Hey, look, I'm sorry, I was only pulling your leg; I didn't mean to insult you, oh no, no, gosh, how embarrassing...you are pulling my leg now, aren't you?'

'Ha, ha, ha, yes, and you fell for it, did you not?' the girl said triumphantly. 'You're weird.'

'All right, all right – damn, what a fool!'

'I'm Isabel, I'm from Denmark,' she introduced herself. She was a very fine girl: soft white skin, Viking red hair, little freckles on her nose, voluptuous lips, perfectly round breasts that, like mango fruit, looked juicy and ripe, and her eyes bluer and truer than any anise–coloured sky. And yes, she had a boyfriend: Markus, who was sleeping on bunk bed no. 47. They had arrived very late and hadn't been able to find a place for both of them together. She saw a free spot next to me and hoped on while I slept. In the morning the three of us left together. Two other girls from Barcelona, who they had befriended on the way over the Pyrenees, joined us too.

It was a struggle to try to fit my puffed feet back into those narrow boots. Then I stumbled and limped all the way to Burguette. When we finally arrived there the sun had not risen yet. We seemed to be the first people in the village, except for the bar owner, who greeted us cheerfully and asked what we would like for breakfast. Almost in unison, we said: 'café con leche.'

I looked at the board and saw they served hot food. I ordered two eggs with bacon rashers and toast. I swallowed my breakfast down as if I hadn't eaten for a week.

The weather was moist and a little cold and I hid behind the steaming cup of coffee while the others talked about their trip, their reasons for doing it, how long they would need to get to Santiago, how much weight they were carrying, what they expected to find at the end and how much time they had to get there. They talked about the weather, their damn blisters and the cold shower they had had the night before. One of the Spanish girls told me she had walked to Compostela many times, always the same route at the same time of the year. When Markus asked her the reason she said it was like coming home: 'The Camino is my spiritual home. I live in Barcelona...it is nice there. But it is busy and it is full of people and people are always in a hurry, angry, diverted from the life they really want to live. But not on the Camino; it is different here.'

I finished breakfast, paid the bill and said goodbye. It was time for me to walk alone again. The people seemed nice enough, but I needed time on my own to concentrate and think about the book. I wanted to hear people's stories, but I didn't want to get too close. I was on a mission and my pilgrimage was more of a literary kind – or so I thought.

I left the bar and headed to a small inn where I knew Hemingway had stayed with his friend when on a fishing trip. The way he only vaguely described the place in his book made it difficult to find the right spot, but I talked to a local woman who was already sweeping her front door step. She pointed to an unassuming building at the end of the row of houses. I approached it and tried the door – it was locked. The place seemed to be the right one, but it was way too early for it to be open. So I took out a piece of paper and a pen and copied a brief passage from Hemingway's book where he described his passage through Burguette: 'We stayed five days in Burguette and had good fishing. The nights were cold and the days were hot, and there was always a breeze even in the heat of the day.' I folded it and slipped it under the door and carried on.

I walked that entire day. The blisters were drying out nicely and my feet were holding on well. The boots seemed a little more comfortable as the leather stretched and moulded to my feet. I walked that day mostly through farmland, over bridges and streams and fresh green grass, until the road disappeared behind the rolling fields only to emerge again at the top. I bought a bottle of wine, some bread and cheese, a few slices of chorizo and some cherries from a farmer. I made regular stops thereafter to eat and drink and scribble in my notebook. I wrote throughout that day and if happiness could be ever defined, then it would have to be a gulp of wine, a patch of grass, a shade, a notebook and a sharp pencil.

I wrote for long hours as pilgrims walked by, one by one, tick–tack–ticking their sticks. Words seemed to flow onto the page with ease and I felt as if I was in some sort of trance. I remembered that there was something William James had described as a 'stream of consciousness,' which could be tapped into while writing. It was as if the stories were coming from somewhere other than my mind.

I stayed under that same tree for hours on end, until my legs went dormant – I had them crossed all of the time. It was time to get moving again. I walked for two more hours, mainly through the woods, until I reached the top of a pass. Looking down, I could see the rooftops of Zubiri and a small medieval bridge, a stone arch that gracefully stitched the two margins of the Arga River together. The bridge, I was later told by a local, was called La Puente de la Rabia, because it was said to cure rabies when pilgrims suffering from such infirmity walked over it in the Middle Ages. I could hear kids splashing in the fresh waters of the river as an old man fly–fished downstream.

After a very short, knee–killing descent, I finally stepped barefoot on the green grass of the north bank of the river, where locals sunbathed and ate food and drank wine from picnic baskets. The sun was warm, and butterflies tumbled in the air inches above the fresh clear water as the canopy of weeping willows moved gently with the breeze. I unburdened myself from the weight of the backpack, letting it rest on a wooden bench. Then I took off my trousers, shirt and socks and dived into the water. It was cold and refreshing. I took a deep breath and swam for a little while, until I ran out of breath and popped up again a few metres from the other bank, turned around and swam back again. When I reached the bank I dropped on the grass and let the sun dry the water off my skin.

I woke up an hour later and most of the locals were still there, the sun still shining. I went to the wooden bench and found my rucksack standing against it. I took out the bottle of wine, the cheese, the chorizo and the bread, and had a small lunch on the grass. Then I got up, got dressed and packed everything in. That was the last time I saw Zubiri. I waved goodbye to the locals. They smiled back: 'buen camino, peregrino!'

The cold water had made my feet feel good again and I was ready for another ten kilometres. I wondered if, in the Middle Ages, people would have considered such quick recovery a miracle.

A twenty–seven kilometre walk separated Roncesvalles from Larrasoaña, and Zubiri was somewhat in the middle. I did not want to stay in Larrasoaña as I wanted to press on to Pamplona and spend a couple of days there. There was nothing to do in Larrasoaña and much to do in Pamplona. I also wanted to have dinner with the priests, so I marched through woods, villages and rivers, like Napoleon ahead of his army. I was no longer in pain – nothing hurt for the rest of that day, feet, knees or back, and I suddenly felt strong as a bull. Life was the sun, blood was the wine and there was plenty of both.

At last, I arrived at a small derelict village called Urdániz. There I stopped for a moment at the fountain, took a sip of water and changed my socks. That's when an Andean–looking man approached me with a big smile and a bottle of wine under his arm.

'¿Hola, peregrino, que tal, va a quedarse aquí esta noche? Hay un pequeño sitio a la vuelta de la esquina – la comida se ve bien. Estoy pensando en quedarme pero estoy solo ¿Le gustaría hacerme compañía? ¡Tengo vino y chorizo! – Would you like to stay here tonight? There is a place around the corner from here with good food. I'm thinking of staying, but I'm alone. Would you like to keep me company? I have wine and chorizo!

I thought the offer was attractive, but declined it. I was still feeling good and thought I could make it into Pamplona in reasonable time. The man looked disappointed. So I offered to buy him a beer in Pamplona if he came along with me – I felt I could do with some company. He agreed and we walked on.

'I'm Jaime, Jaime Currión,' said the man with his broad, white smile.

'João de Deus, encantado,' I said. I'm Brazilian – you?'

'Soy del Equador, pero vivo in Madrid ya hace muchos años.'

'I see. Don't you miss Equador? Madrid is so big and grey, isn't it?'

'No, no, it's ok. It is very busy and not as interesting as Quito. But it has more jobs so that's the way it is. If you want to dance you need to go where there's music. One day I'll go back to Ecuador and live there with my wife and five kids. For now I'm just a lonely peregrino on the road to Finisterra.'

'Where are your wife and kids?'

'I don't have any, yet. But I will. That's all I want from life, a woman and some kids. They keep your heart young, you know?'

'What's this Finisterra thing? Aren't you going to Compostela?' I asked.

'Ah, si señor, claro, hombre, Santiago is Santiago – always to Santiago! But after Santiago there is the real end of the journey: Finisterra, the end of the world. That is where I'll go after Santiago, amigo. I will go to the pilgrim's beach, swim in the sea and burn all my old clothes, because that's what pilgrims need to do to be reborn. You see, when a person walks the Camino they are on another plane, they reach a level of consciousness that is beyond anything you have experienced before in normal life. You live very intensely so then your old self must die so that the new self can be reborn. It is very important that you mark that moment with a ritual. So when I get there I'll burn my clothes, as a symbolic gesture to show that I am leaving my old life behind and that I am coming back afresh. Es una jornada spiritual, muy spiritual ¿entiendes? – it's a spiritual journey.'

Jaime told me about the pilgrimage as his eyes fixed ahead on the road, as if he could see what he was describing in detail, the whole thing manifesting itself before his eyes. He clasped his hands and moved his arms like an Italian man with Parkinson's disease, frantically, almost uncontrollably, his voice becoming graver and graver every time he pronounced the word Finisterra. Then he started shouting:

'¡VENGA LORENZO, VENGA!'

'Who is Lorenzo?' I asked.

'This is how they call the sun over here, 'Lorenzo.' It is a nice way to acknowledge he is a living thing like us,' Jaime explained. 'Go on you can do it too. It feels really good!'

'¡VENGA LORENZO, VENGA!' I shouted at the top of my voice, gorging in the light that reflected on Jaime's white teeth, the white that contrasted with the deeply tanned skin of the little Amerindian man.

'¡Esto, João, esto, Venga, Lorenzo, Venga!' he laughed.

We walked that way until we came to Larrasoaña, passing the bottle and shouting 'Lorenzo' to the sun, until Jaime came to a stop and let out a loud cry of pain. His feet were swollen and covered in blisters so big he couldn't take his boots off anymore. He was forced to stay behind in Larrasoaña. We didn't say goodbye because we agreed to meet in Pamplona for a fino at Café Iruña. I continued walking, drunk from the wine, the sun and the world.

18

The Fortress

I arrived in Pamplona at ten o'clock on the dot. I made my way up the hill and into the fortress, through the large medieval gates and uphill again, walking over the cobbled streets of the old town. I looked left and saw the tall cathedral tower. I took off my boots in the middle of the street and walked barefoot towards it.

The air inside the cathedral was cool. It felt good to step onto the cold stone with bare feet. I dropped my backpack by the entrance and walked through the congregation. I picked a seat in the middle. I kneeled down, and in a state of semi–lucidity, no longer drunk but over-tired; I clasped my hands together and let my head rest on them. I closed my eyes and thought of nothing whatsoever. I let the silence take over, until the sounds of bustling Pamplona became a distant background. I felt the tiredness suddenly receding and giving way to a feeling of warmth that lingered.

A band of travellers walked in, tack–tacking their wooden sticks and talking as loudly as if the church was a karaoke club, breaking the spell and driving my attention all to them. I felt so annoyed I could have stormed out shouting 'BLOODY TOURISTS! CAN'T YOU SEE I AM ONTO SOMETHING HERE?' I contained my frustration. I got up and left hastily, looking at them as if they had disturbed a funeral. But nobody noticed my bad temper, nor would they have given a flipping toss about it if they had. I got out of there and walked still barefoot through Pamplona looking for the pilgrim hostel. It was late and the place was shut. I rang the bell. The woman was not happy, but in the end she let me stay.

I took a warm shower that felt like the best shower I had ever had. I had no shampoo or soap. I wrapped myself in a towel and walked around the albergue feeling good.

The place was very quiet and very dark and I slept very deeply. I woke up very early the next day to the sound of people rummaging through plastic bags and some loud snorers. I was still trying to open my heavy eyelids when a bright blue light appeared out of nowhere and very close to my face. For a second, I thought aliens were invading the earth. It was a woman with a headlight switched onto full power; she was looking for something she had lost under my bed. I took the chance to get up and go to the toilet. On my way back, I re–packed everything while shovelling it all into the backpack with the intention of leaving. But when I tried to put my feet back into my boots they simply wouldn't go in. They were double the size and hurt like burning hell. I walked to the reception and asked the woman if I could stay another night in the hostel. I pointed to my feet. She said yes and then shook her head as she looked at my feet 'That's nasty!' I paid her the fee for the day and went back to bed. I watched everyone get ready and disappear through the door with great haste as if they were about to miss a train or something. 'And I thought that the whole point of walking is that you slow down...' I thought to myself.

I slept until past eight. Then I got up, got dressed and went out for breakfast. I found a café in the modern part of Pamplona, the bit with the shopping centres and supermarkets and broad avenues where fast cars zoomed through amber–cum–red lights. I had the usual eggs and bacon with toast and coffee, but they were not as tasty as the breakfast I had in Burguette that by now seemed like a far away place. After that I took a long aimless walk around Pamplona until I got bored of walking like Groucho Marx in those damn slippers and went to Café Iruña. There I broke all manner of courtesy. First I asked for a table outside. Then I dragged another chair over, put my feet up and took all the space around me, arms spread wide apart over empty chairs. Like a sultan in his harem, I watched the people walk through the plaza.

The waiter came by and asked for my order. Then he asked:

'Sir, are you a writer?'

'I'm trying to become one. Now, Could I please have a fino to start with?' I replied. 'Why do you ask?'

'Your hat...and the notebook.'

'Many people around here wear hats and carry notebooks with them,' I said.

'It's also the way you look. Also, the way you move. There is something about the way you look at things. I can tell you are observing and not just looking.'

I wasn't flattered. By then I did not consider myself a writer, but someone who was attempting to write: two very different things. Hemingway was a writer, Fante was a writer, Orwell was a writer, Bukowski was a writer...I was nothing but a shadow.

But I was glad to be sitting at Café Iruña. To me it had the same effect as going to Mecca, if I were a Muslim – I can only imagine, I have never been to Mecca and I am not a Muslim and I don't care about Allah or his imams either. But it felt good being there and that was a fact. I felt pathetic too. Then I thought I was justified in being there, because other people bend down and pray on their sore knees to a man they believe was the Son of God, a man who lived some two thousand years ago – if he existed at all. So I thought why on earth should I not be excited about having a fino in Hemingway's homage because I admired him and felt like he had taught me more than Jesus or Mohammed ever would?

It was still before midday and the waiter made no fuss about bringing me the cognac. Then it turned into noon and the waiter brought me the wine list. At that moment, I noticed a little Amerindian man emerging from the crowd.

Jaime and his very white smile walked through the plaza wearing a black t–shirt with a yellow arrow printed on the front.

'Aha! João, peregrino! So nice to see you here, man! See this t–shirt? This is so I don't forget which way to go!' he said in all excitement. Then he sat down and I ordered another fino for him. We cheered.

'To Santiago and beyond!'

We sat under the arcades of Café Iruña, drinking fino and chilled Rioja blanco, and in between those we had cognac. Every time we ordered a drink the waiter brought something for us to nibble on – un pincho. The more we drank, the more we ate. Before long we were full and drunk. I felt full like a pig ready to be slaughtered. We watched people going up and down with heavily loaded backpacks, sore knees and plaster–covered feet. We could see the despair on their faces when they saw the climb they had to face before entering the fortress. They walked as if they'd galloped naked on a horse without a saddle on a hot day – legs wide apart like a pair of pliers and bright red thighs. Once in, they headed straight to the fountain and gorged, sticking their feet in the water at once. It was a bright and very hot day and Jaime and I were as drunk as two flies swimming in beer. We got up and decided to walk it off. We paid the bill and then took a long walk around Pamplona's calles and their walls covered in Basque nationalist graffiti – '¡País Vasco para siempre!', '¡Viva el País Vasco!', '¡Libre es el País Vasco!', '¡Vascos hasta la Muerte!'

'¡Hijos de puta, hijos de puta madre!' exclaimed Jaime with dark red eyes.

'What's with you?' I asked.

'I tell you man, I tell you, those cowards man...hijos de puta... all of them.'

'What about them? Why are you so upset?'

'My brother...he died in the Madrid bombings...just a boy coming home from work. He worked as a porter...the poor...blown to pieces...we couldn't even give him a burial.'

'Jaime, why are you here?' I asked him.

'No matter, man, no matter...it's a long story...I will tell you some time, if we stick together for long enough.'

'All right, if we stick together I will listen.'

'That's a deal, man, that's a deal ¡Ahora, venga vamos, siesta time, man, siesta time!'

Jaime and I walked out of the fortress and down to the river. There was a wide patch of fresh green grass covering the south bank. We walked over and lay under a tree. Without much care, pretence or doubt, we fell asleep as I listened to the hypnotic sounds of birds, water lapping on the shore and people talking in the distance.

I woke up an hour later with a headache and in need of a toilet. Jaime had vanished. I looked around and saw him talking to two people by the river. They seemed to be having a good time. I looked at them and Jaime was pointing at me. Then he began to laugh. The two others laughed too as they began to walk towards me. I got up and brushed the dust and the grass off my legs and back. I adjusted the hat on my head and stood there waiting for them.

'Hello there, I'm João.'

'Hola, encantado, me llamo Julián,' said the man, shaking my hand firmly as if to squeeze all the blood out of it.

'Hola, que tal, yo soy, Carmen,' said the woman with a large smile that was followed by two kisses, one on each cheek.

'¡Este es mi compañero el señor doctor João, my road mate!'

'Doctor, doctor of what?' asked Julián.

'Doctor of crap knows what,' I said rather embarrassed. 'Jaime is only pulling your leg.'

'João, estos dos peregrinos are here because they are getting divorced!'

'Really? And you're here c–e–l–e–b–r–a–t–i–n–g it?' I asked sarcastically.

'Well, no, one does not celebrate such things, of course. We decided to walk together to see if things get back into shape. We're thinking about divorcing afterwards if we find there is no way forward,' said Julián with a sad look in his walnut eyes.

Julián was a man in his mid–forties, an Argentinian who had migrated to Barcelona to work as a cook for a big hotel. He had been living in Cataluña for fifteen years, always alone, working day and night to help his family back in Argentina – his sister who went to university and whose tuition fees Julián paid for, and his brother who needed a new car so he could work as a taxi driver and earn some money for the wife and two kids he'd had when still a teenager in Córdoba. Then, one night, Julián met Carmen. Carmen was an apprentice chef who came into Julián's kitchen as a replacement for a Peruvian man who got deported.

Carmen was young and beautiful and eager to learn, and Julián was told by the head cook to show Carmen around, teach her the basic dishes and the cooking style of the restaurant, how to keep things refrigerated, how to order fruits, vegetables and the right kind of meat, how to deal with suppliers, even how to sharpen a knife and how to chop onions with it, how to label and date leftovers and ingredients for the next day – he taught her everything there was to know about running a kitchen. He showed her how to make a fresh, colourful gazpacho in such a way that tourists would think the whole of Cataluña was contained inside a bowl, its incandescent summers and the colourful people. Julián was passionate about food and about Cataluña and it took only a few weeks of working with him for Carmen to fall head over heels for Julián's enthusiastic, handsome face. Being Argentinian, he let a charming 'ché' slip in between every other word he said: 'you see ché you must hold the knife like this, or else you will chop a finger off one day...ché.'

But after many years of marriage, love was not enough. Julián found he couldn't have kids, and that was all Carmen wanted. The pressure of owning their own restaurant, a seafood place at Las Ramblas added drama to the story.

Carmen was particularly fond of the idea of going out on an eating spree. We agreed to meet up for dinner. Before we went our separate ways, I noticed Julián had a lightning bolt drawn on his t–shirt. It was bright yellow and it was encased in a red rectangle. I asked him if he knew Shazam, a favourite superhero of mine.

'Of course, man, of course! Shazam is the best, man, the best! Do you know him, too?' asked the forty something year old, getting excited like a little boy.

'Yes, sure, when I was growing up I watched a lot of Shazam.'

'Hey, don't you mean Captain Marvel? said Jaime.

'No, man, we mean Shazam!' said Julián.

'No, I do think you mean Captain Marvel. Shazam! is what Captain Marvel said when he wanted to transform from human into superhuman.'

'No, no the name is Shazam, got it...SHA–fucking–ZAM!' said Julián.

'Ok, ok, Sha–fucking–zam it is then,' said Jaime sarcastically.

I went back to the pilgrim albergue and Jaime back to his hostel. We agreed to meet at nine o'clock in front of Carmen's favourite tapas bar in Calle Estafeta. I had a shower, shaved, put on a fresh shirt and the same trousers, and with my hat on my head I headed out into the night of Pamplona.

It was warm and people were sitting out. Young people drinking kalimotxo sitting on the curb, out of Coca-Cola bottles. Older people drinking fino standing in clean clothes outside fine–looking bars. There was music, colour, food, streetlights hanging from above, a light breeze blowing from the south and some guy playing guitar in the corner where the bulls turn. My feet now looked a little better and I was hoping that after some fresh air between my toes – I was walking in flip–flops – and a day without walking, I would be able to move on the next day. Then I found the bar and spotted Jaime, Carmen and Julián, already tucking into some food and lifting glasses of red wine.

'Hey, hey, hey, look, it's Shazam!' shouted Julián. 'Come, come let's have some Basque tapas ché, good stuff sir, really good stuff!' he said enthusiastically.

'Yeah, have some, man, estas gambas estan de puta madre tio!' – (munch, munch, munch) – 'uhm, uhm, have some, man, have some,' – (munch, munch, munch). Jaime was having a party.

I had never seen so many different dishes. Food poured out of a small hole on the wall. A bell would ring and dishes would appear through the hole. The smells were so intense, the flavours unique; I wanted to eat them all. I convinced the others we needed to try every single one: prawns coated in avocado source with palm–heart mousse, fried mini–polenta with manchego cheese and olive paste, grilled anchovies, and red sweet peppers filled with rice and morcilla. There was chorizo in red wine reduction, patatas bravas, fried giant calamari rings, octopus with olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika, paella, scallops, Serrano ham on toasted olive bread with herbs, goat's cheese coated in bread crumbs and lightly fried with fresh cherry jam and sage leaves and croquettes of spinach and blue cheese. Chickpeas with onions, garlic and parsley, spicy chicken wings, duck comfit, fresh mini tuna steaks wrapped in ham coated in strong creamy cheese...

We ate and drank until we couldn't move anymore. Then we counted the dishes and paid the bill. We went outside with our glasses and a new bottle. The night was alive and paper bags floated in the air and life exploded out of every corner of the town. I looked at an adjacent wall and saw a black–inked graffiti. It read:

'This is a message for you, you who have come from far away and who do not know where you are going to. This is a message to you who have lost everything you never had and who is now looking for something you don't know is there. This is a message to you, João de Deus.'

The glass fell out of my hand. Julián, Carmen and Jaime asked what was wrong with me.

'Hombre, you look pail! What's up man?' asked Jaime with a worried expression on his face.

'Nothing, I've just seen a ghost, I think,' I said feeling my knees giving in.

'What ghost? What are you talking about?' asked Julián.

'There,' I said, pointing to the wall.

'There, where?' asked Carmen.

'There, on the wall, that graffiti on the wall,' I said.

'What is wrong with the graffiti? I don't understand,' said Jaime.

'Look, can't you see? It's talking about me, it is that man again...he is talking to me again!'

The three looked puzzled. I was sure it was real. It was there; how could they not see it?

'What's wrong with you people? It's there, look, written in black ink – big letters, can't you people see it?'

As they looked they saw nothing but a man leaning over and pissing against the wall.

'Why...it was there, just now...it was there!'

'Don't worry man, it is normal – it is probably just too much seafood,' said Jaime. 'It was probably not very fresh.'

'Hey, careful, you're talking about Basque food here! You don't want anything bad to happen to you, do you? Take it back – the fish was very fresh all right!' said Carmen, and then Jaime laughed.

I just couldn't understand. The others were too drunk to be bothered.

Then Julián excused himself, saying he needed to go to the toilet. Carmen and Jaime were talking avidly about what life was like in Quito, comparing and contrasting it with life in Barcelona. They talked and their arms waved in the air and their heads tipped to the side and their eyes got bigger, and one would be excused for thinking that it was a fight rather than a light conversation. Every statement was like an old car starting up: first there was a huge roar, and then by the end of each sentence the sound had subsided and quietened down, until the next phrase came out, and the sound went up and down in a sort of syllabic rollercoaster.

Julián was taking too long to come back, so I went to check on him. I went down some narrow steps and squeezed past the masses of people ordering food at the bar. I asked the barman where the toilets were. He said they were downstairs and that I had to walk down a wooden staircase to get there. I found the place and was starting to make my way down when I heard loud shouting and the sound of things breaking.

'¡Hijo de puta, toma, toma esto, y esto!...¡ahg! ¡Ahg! ¡Toma esto hijo de puta!'

I rushed down and saw Julián and a man of a similar age wrestling, rolling over one another on the toilet floor. Julián was on top, punching the man everywhere he could while the man tried to defend himself by biting Julian's left arm and hitting him with his knee. The mirrors were broken and there was glass all over the floor. The door of one of the cubicles had come off the hinges and was laying half–way out across the entrance. I jumped over it and reached out for Julián. I pulled him back as he kicked and screamed. The man remained on the floor with his hands on his nose, which was probably broken judging by the way it bled.

'What on earth is happening here? What's going on?' I asked.

'Shazam!' said Julián, trying to regain his breath.

'What?' I asked puzzled.

'I told this hijo de puta he looked like Shazam. Then he asked 'Who is Shazam?' I explained. Then he said, 'That's a lie, Shazam does not exist!' Then he went on and on about how I was crazy and how Shazam never existed and that I was inventing the whole thing. Then he said I was an Argentinian and that all Argentinians stink. I couldn't have that, you know, I just couldn't have that.'

'¡Este hijo de puta y el coño del Shazam! Now look at me, my nose is fucked – fucked, man, totally fucked!' said the man now getting up and cleaning himself with toilet paper.

'This does not look good, and you too Julián. Look at you, that arm needs some attention.'

'Are you saying I have rabies, man? Are you saying I have dog shit? Screw you man, screw you!' said the man as he jumped over the toilet door and left without looking back.

Julián and I looked at one another and began to laugh, and we laughed very hard until he began to cough up some blood. Then I said we'd better leave quickly, before the owner of the bar decided to charge us for the damage. When we came out Julián suddenly stopped, saying in a very low voice:

'Now you just look at that ché, por dios mira que cosa...just look at that...can you believe that? What on earth is going on? Am I going crazy or what?' he said, as he pointed to Jaime and Carmen, who were both locked up into fervent kissing.

'CARMEN? How can you do this?' shouted Julián.

Carmen turned her head as Jaime still tried to kiss her. Then he too turned and saw Julián and I standing in front of them, both looking surprised. They did not look very surprised. In fact there was something natural about the two together. I looked at Julián and waited for the worst to happen. Julián grabbed the bottle of wine from off the table and poured himself a glass. He turned it down his throat in one gulp. Then he looked at Carmen and in one breath of air he said:

'I want you to be happy, Carmen; you mean a lot to me, ché. Jaime is a nice man and you both seem like you were made for one another. I took you this far Carmen, now he'll take you the rest of the way. I can do nothing else for you ché, now it's with you Jaime. I wish you both great luck and happiness. Come home whenever you want – I'll be there, waiting. We sort everything out once you get there. I'm going back now. My pilgrimage is over.'

'But Julián, wait!' said Carmen.

Julián did not listen. He turned his back and walked off down the street. He disappeared in the midst of all the colours and smells and the energy of the night swallowed his shadow.

'Wow, what a night, man, what a night!' I said.

'Well, it was bound to happen,' said Carmen.

'Oh, look, Carmen, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I think I am drunk. I'll go and talk to Julián...'

'No, please, let him be. You will not talk to Julián, because Julián will not talk to you. Besides, he is right. It is over. There is nothing more to talk about. It is better this way. I will continue my pilgrimage and I think you should do that too.'

'Shit, I'm sorry Carmen. But now that you mention it, I'm going that way anyway!' joked Jaime.

'So that's that,' said Carmen.

'Ok, listen; I'm going to get some sleep. I'll meet you tomorrow on the road somewhere,' I said.

'All right, good night, majo,' said Carmen.

'Good night, doctor,' said Jaime.

I walked along the dimly lit streets of Pamplona until I came to the gates of the fortress. I looked up and saw the stars exploding above.

The next day I left Pamplona. My feet were looking better and I was able to put my boots back on again. It was raining and much colder than the day before. I walked through the green grass of the University of Navarra, my walking stick tick–tick–tacking on the clean pavements of the campus, the rhythmic sound echoing in the distance. Soon I was out of Pamplona and walking through golden wheat fields, until I reached the village of Cizur Menor, where an old church stood on the hill. I wanted to walk in but the doors were shut.

I pressed on, stopping only occasionally for a drink of water. I walked at a good speed and before noon I had reached Puente la Reina. I crossed the old bridge, walking over the stone arches that reflected in the waters below and that formed full rings. The reflection made the bridge look twice as tall. I took a moment to look down into the water. There I could see my own reflection and for an instant I thought I had grown old, much older. In the water, there was a man standing next to me. When I turned, he wasn't there.

I could have stayed in Puente la Reina for the night. I had already walked twenty-four kilometres that day. But I felt I could go on for another twenty. I pressed on. After picking up a bottle of wine for seventy cents in a small shop on the outskirts of the town, I walked until I reached Estella, some twenty kilometres from Puente La Reina. I walked over a roman road outside of Cirauqui, a road that was still visible and remarkably well–preserved. The road went down and around the hill and culminated at a half–collapsed Roman bridge. I sat at the margins of the nearly dried–up river and did a good amount of writing. Then I got up and continued on through Lorca and then Vilhatuerta, where I drank fresh water straight from the fountain, even though the sign read 'Don't drink this water, not treated.'

I arrived in Estella late in the afternoon and the sun was nearly setting, so I decided to give him one last salute '¡VENGA LORENZO!' It made me think about whether Jaime and Carmen had decided to stay on in Pamplona for another day, since I had not come across them on the road. But then I had walked more than most people would normally have walked in a day, and the odds were that they were now behind me. As I walked into Estella I began to think about the night before in Pamplona and I laughed out loud. What a crazy night! Now I had to look for a place to stay.

Before long I spotted a sign for the local pilgrim hostel. I followed the arrows and in a few minutes I was there. I knocked at the door and was welcomed by the host, a man from Seville called Paco, a friendly gypsy type. He gave me a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce, even though all the others were getting ready for bed. When I finished he showed me the bunk bed I was to sleep on. The room was packed full with people snoring their socks off, and my bed was on the top. There was no ladder, so to get up I had to swing my right leg high up lifting my whole body in the air while holding onto the railings. The whole bed creaked and banged against the wall. The woman sleeping below me woke up and looked cross. I got into bed without having a shower – I was too tired for a shower. When I landed on the thin mattress it sunk a little into the frame; enough to make me think I was going to fall through and land on top of the fat woman down below.

I turned on my back and realized my face was very close to touching the ceiling. The patterns made by the paint were somehow interesting. I could see deserts, dunes, lakes, and snakes, even giraffes and rats. I pictured myself in some African savannah, hunting. Then I saw a hand–written message from some pilgrim who had slept there sometime before: 'When I get to Santiago, I'll drink and have fun and I'll jump on the Botafumero and ride it like a wild horse. Then I'll look for a McDonalds and I'll have a cheeseburger. After that, I'll find a pretty woman and I will fuck her hard. Yes, I'll fuck her hard...I'm so bloody HORNY!

P.s. Don't you think these patterns look like giraffes?'

19

The Fountain

I woke up the next day to the noise of cars driving by in the street below and people talking in the next room. I did not hear the snoring, the plastic bags or the odd alien with blue flashing lights searching for shoes. Neither did I hear the call for breakfast. I got up and had a quick shower, much to the disapproval of Paco, who told me 'Pilgrims should not care for their appearance.' A fine point, I thought, but I really needed to get rid of the smell of fried onion with armpit that impregnated my skin. I left the pilgrim hostel after a pan tumaca, as the people in Cataluña call bread with tomato, and a cup of coffee. I left a tenner in the collection box and told Paco to look after himself. He told me to go dirty for some time, commando if necessary.

I made my way out of Estella and I still had my underwear on. I wasn't in a hurry. Two kilometres later I got to Ayegui. There I was confronted with a vision: a wine fountain. Could this be true or was it another day–dream? No, it was true. It was a w–i–n–e f–o–u–n–t–a–i–n. I got closer and opened one of the two taps that came out from the stone wall. Wine, real wine, flowed out in a shy but constant stream. I opened the other tap and fresh water gushed out onto the metal sink below. I had a small bottle with me and I filled it up to the brim. Then I read a sign in Spanish that said 'Do not take the wine with you, drink here,' or something along those lines. I did what the sign said and sat on the floor by the taps while sucking from the bottle as if it was juice. It was free and it was possibly the worst wine I had ever drunk. Still, it came from a tap in a wall in a random village in the middle of nowhere – who cares whether it was good or not? As I tasted the sourness of the wine on my tongue, I saw two familiar figures approaching with a satiric smile.

'Fuckin 'ell, mate? A party for one? And before lunch? Hard core, mate, hard core!' said the monk, laughing.

'Oh well, someone's got to keep things going or else they'll notice nobody is drinking, and then they may close it down. You see, I'm doing you people a favour by sitting here, I'm just keeping the tap running,' I said.

'Oh my, oh my,' said Mark. 'We've just had breakfast and you're already drinking? Mate, you've got to take care of this condition of yours.'

'Hey, hey, hey, who said I have a condition? There is no condition. I am not only sober as I am also sure this will not make me drunk anytime soon. I mean, come on, I'm not a virgin, am I?'

'God forbid,' said Stephen, as Mark stared at him disapprovingly for using the name of the father in vain.

'Ok, listen, both of you, if you're so concerned sit down and help me out with this. I still have a whole bottle to go through and we can't take the wine away – that's what that sign up there says,' I said.

'Ok, but we're not drinking much... it's just a taste,' said Mark.

'Yes, sure, we'll just have a taste and k, k... keep you company a...a...a... little. Then we must be on, on, on, on... our way. We have very little time to walk be, be, be, be...be-fore our flight back to, to...to...to... En-gland,' said Stephen.

'All right then you chaps, sit down and have a drink – it's on me!'

Four hours later, the two priests and I staggered along through the woods. We held onto each other's shoulders. Then we stopped and were sick in succession. I could barely see where I was going, so I lay down in between two very tall trees and began to moan something about how much my head was spinning. Mark and Stephen crawled on the leafy ground towards me because they couldn't walk in a straight line anymore. The three of us had picked up cherries on the way and we ate about a kilo of them. Cherries were all that came out of my mouth as I gasped for fresh air between one gushing and the next. I was so sick I thought that would be the end. The two monks were not looking any better. Mark was shaking like a shitting dog. I could see veins growing on Stephen's face; he looked like a wedge of Blue Stilton. That's when the rain came.

It began with a few drops. It was followed by a gush of wind that blew through the trees, so strong that a whole branch broke off and nearly hit Mark on the head.

'Lord, why has thou forsaken me!' I heard him cry.

'Hey, guys, he, he, he, he-re is a question: if a... a... a... t-t-t-t-t-tree falls off in the forest and kills two ma, ma, ma, ma...monks and a Brazilian and nobody s,s,s,s, seeeee sees it, did it a...a...a... a-ctually happen?'

'Shut up Stephen!' shouted mark.

'Yes, shut up Stephen!' said I.

'Ok,' said Stephen.

We staggered up and down in the hilly forest, holding onto one another until we emerged out into a wheat field. That's when the real rain began. The skies went black as enormous dark clouds blocked the sun. We thought it was an eclipse. It was night-time again. For a second I thought we were in the middle of the American prairies with a hurricane about to strike us. I could see a town in the far distance, but to get there we would have to cross an entire field with hail the size of ping pong balls hitting us hard on every body part.

The three of us sobered up very quickly; quickly enough for Mark to produce a map from one of his pockets and find out where the hell we were. He had to read it very quickly though; because the rain was so strong the map was dissolving like instant noodles in a pan, breaking up and losing its colour. A ball of ice half the size of a billiard ball ripped through the middle of it, leaving a hole where Cordoba was supposed to have been.

After much deliberation, Mark decided the town we could see in the distance was called Villamayor de Monjardín, that we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and that to get to Monjardín we would have to crawl through an aqueduct – which was really only slightly larger than a normal drainpipe. The pipe went under the busy motorway that slashed through the fields. To get to the other side we would have to squeeze through it with our bulky backpacks.

'Be, be, beggars can't be choo-choo-choosers,' stuttered Stephen.

'No, idiots can't be choosers,' Mark retorted.

'I'll never drink again,' I said.

They pushed me in first. It was very cold and water gushed through it so violently I could barely push through. I had to crawl on my knees and elbows, dragging the backpack with one hand and holding on for dear life with the other. The two priests followed me – Stephen was laughing, Mark was praying.

'Oh God, let us survive this hurdle so we can come to thee and thank thee for your patience and wisdom, oh good Lord... oh Supreme Being...' so he went, la, la, la... '

'I, I, I, I, I, I ha, ha, haaaaa! Now this's what I c,c,c,c, call fun!' shouted Stephen. 'João, you don't worry. If something h, h, h, h, happens to you I am a q, q, q, q, q, qua-lified priest and I'll pray for your so, so, so soul – it's all good m, m, m, mate, all good.'

'Thanks, Stephen, you are a saint.'

'Ah, mate, it's all right, just don't for- g, g, g, g, g get your friends when you write your book and get rich.'

'Stephen, I was being sarcastic.'

'Yeah, so, so, soooo was I!'

Despite the tunnel being about two hundred metres long and the fact that I could feel every car driving right over my back, and despite the feeling that any moment the whole thing could collapse on our heads, we made it to the other side. The only problem was that on the other side there was an electric fence. If we wanted to get over to Villamayor we would have to either walk for twenty or more kilometres to find an access point, or jump over the fence right there. The rain got heavier and the wind got stronger and the hail went from ping–pong size to tennis–ball size. We were forced back into the pipe. Like rats, we sat inside. We shivered and coughed and hoped for a miracle.

Somewhere between Mark's prayers, Stephen's rampant nervous laughter and me trying to rescue my bag from the muddy bog it had sunk into, we heard a tremendous noise.

I poked my head out and saw that a car had smashed into the electric fence that by now had a hole in it. Amongst sparks and scraps of metal, a car was laying upside down, the wheels still spinning. A young man crawled out of it through the windscreen. Then he went around the car and from the other side he pulled a young woman out. They had a few bruises and cuts and looked perplexed. Without realizing the three of us were inside the pipe, they walked away from the car and up to the motorway. It was our chance.

I got out first and walked through the muddy bog, over the overturned car and finally onto the other side of the fence. The two monks followed. Mark prayed, Stephen laughed. From the other side, we could see the couple that had crashed their car in the fence. They were talking to another driver who had stopped to help them.

From there it was a steep climb up to Monjardín. We slid backwards and forwards and sank knee deep into the mud, until we reached the top of the hill. We walked a few metres down and through a vineyard. It took us about half an hour to reach the town. I stopped at a bar and asked where the pilgrim hostel was. The man looked at me with a face full of disgust. Then he pointed the way as if he was afraid I'd step into his shop. We walked around the church tower and up the hill. We arrived at the refuge, tired, cold, a little shaken, but no longer drunk. The nice woman from the Dutch–run refuge made us take off our clothes and she showed us where the showers were. Then we sat in front of an open fire and drank tea.

'I thought we were gonna die,' said Mark.

'I was sure we were gonna die,' I said.

'Oh co, co, co, come off it, bo, bo, both of you – that's all just si, si, si silly. It was only a little water – you gi, gi, girlies!'

'Right, Stephen, so you're saying you were not shitting in your pants?' asked Mark sceptically.

'No, n, n, n, not a bit mate, not a bit!' said Stephen shaking his head vigorously.

'Right, so how do you explain that when that car crashed into the fence you held my hand as if you were a little school boy about to cross a busy road, huh? How do you explain that?'

'Well, I was t-t-t-t-t- trying to comfort you – I could tell you were shi, shi, shi, shitting in your p-p-p-p-pants,' he replied.

I laughed as I sipped tea and tried to get dry. I moved closer to the fire when the good woman from the refuge came and announced that dinner would be ready in half an hour and that if we wanted we could move into the other room and meet the other pilgrims who were staying there for the night. They were a religious charity and they had been running the refuge for a long time. She told us that dinner was going to be preceded by prayers, and that they had some musical instruments and that they usually 'jammed' afterwards – depending on the talents of those staying for the night. We all agreed to come in as soon as we got a little drier.

The woman was a young and tall blonde with enormous blue eyes and good, firm, breasts – not too big, not too small. She looked more like a KLM stewardess than a religious volunteer.

We prayed. Mark and Stephen both thought the whole thing was jolly good – except that our Dutch hosts were Evangelicals and Mark didn't quite agree with the way they did things. But the mood was jolly and the other guests were nice enough – mostly French for some reason. We had chick pea soup, sopa de garbanzos for starters, spaghetti ali–oli for main and flan and fruit for dessert. Wine was abundant too and despite our experience earlier, I shared a bottle of tinto with Stephen – Mark nearly puked at the sight of it.

After dinner, we helped them to clean up the place. Then they cleared the space and the woman and her helpers, two tall Dutch men from Rotterdam, produced a bongo, a banjo and two guitars. One of the pilgrims got a flute out of his bag.

Mark and Stephen grabbed the banjo and one of the guitars. A man from Lyon got hold of the bongo, while his wife produced a harmonica from her purse. I sat in the corner of the room with the bottle of wine. The band was formed. They played Johnny Cash songs and the banjo went well with it. Then Stephen, who played classical guitar during his seminary years, impressed everyone by playing Francisco Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra as if he was some kind of John Williams. The woman from Lyon, a sandal–wearing old hippie, and her husband, the man with the bald–patched head backed by a pony tail and tattoos of cobras on both arms, made everybody cringe by playing Hit me baby one more time on the harmonica and bongo. Then they asked the others to hold the key in C and began hammering away some crazy Celtic–inspired tune they had written. That's when the woman began to sing – and what a voice! I looked around and everybody looked like they were about to run away; she sounded like a cat in a bag being bitten by teenagers with cricket bats.

After the second song we couldn't stop laughing, but she thought it was because we liked it, so she pressed on until everyone had left the room. She had drunk a bottle of wine on her own and could see no harm in singing her guts out until late at night – despite the fact that she was by now all alone.

Mark, Stephen and I stayed in the same room – at the top floor of the old house, in a sort of attic. There were four mattresses on the floor. I chose the one closer to the window, and Mark and Stephen took those closer to the wall. The other mattress remained empty so I put it under mine to make my bed more comfortable.

'Hey, that's ch, ch, ch, chiiiiting,' said Stephen.

'Shut up, Stephen,' I replied.

'Hey, I'm a priest: r–e–s–p–e–c–t, man, re, re, res-pect!'

'Shut up, Stephen,' said Mark.

'Ok,' said Stephen.

'Good night everybody,' said Mark.

'Good night, Mark,' I replied.

'Huh,' Stephen mumbled.

The three of us slept until half past seven in the morning. I woke up feeling like there was something wrong with my throat. I went to the toilet and coughed out some goo: some sort of throat infection. I was feeling very hot, so I borrowed a thermometer from the good–looking woman, who told me I was looking pale. The thermometer pointed 39.5 degrees. I was going nowhere. The two priests were fine and, after breakfast, they pressed on. They had to catch a bus in Logroño the next day and they wanted to walk the last leg before going back home. So we said our goodbyes and I stayed behind, shivering with fever on my pile of mattresses.

I slept most of the day and my hostess sent her two big boys with plates of hot soup and water and tea. I stayed there for three days and on the fourth they told me I had to go to a hospital because they couldn't look after me anymore. They got me into a cab and the moustached man drove me to Logroño, where he dumped me in a Catholic hospital. I was taken into the emergency room, where two doctors examined me and concluded I had some kind of infection of which they couldn't detect the cause. I would have to stay there until further notice. What a bore, what a stinking bore! A whole week in hospital, what a bore, what a stinking bore!

After the third day, I was going insane with fever and boredom, and that's when the crazy nightmares started again. They came in quick succession. It was always the same thing: a huge soup spoon that grew and grew and grew until an old man, who was sitting on the handle of that giant spoon slid down into the middle. The old man sat there with his legs crossed in a Buddha–like position, his forefingers and thumbs linked into a loop, his head tipped back as if he was looking up to the skies above him. It rained on him and it rained on the spoon and the spoon got filled up with water and I could no longer see the Buddha–like man because by now the water had covered him completely. Then, as if he was some kind of divine mystery, he emerged out of the water floating above it like a polystyrene statue with his legs still crossed. Now he looked straight at me, his lips moving slowly apart. The words that came out sounded like an ancient kind of music, music I had never heard before, but which I knew was ancient because it had been sung many times through the centuries even though nobody ever paid attention. And the song sounded like the waves of the South Atlantic Ocean and the wind blowing over the dunes of Qatar and the sun glimmering over Sydney Harbour. It was the same song that was sung when the Grand Canyon was dug out by the waters of the Colorado River, the same song that jutted out of the gored men who died in Pamplona, the same song that was sung by the child–soldier who killed and got killed in some space in between, in the hot mountains of a wild country or in the rainforests of some exotic misfortuned paradise. It was the song of the seagull and the whale, the song of the rock that sits forever on the impossible landscape of some distant planet floating in an unthinkable orbit in the dark universe; the same song that is heard when the planets turn and swing about in infinite emptiness, the sound of the clouds moving over the sea, the song sung by the rain when it hits the ground.

I was woken up by one of my roommates, who snored so loudly and waved his legs and arms so dangerously close to the monitors that the nurse felt she needed to give him a tranquilizer. I begged for one too, but she said my doctor did not prescribe it. Then the doctor came in and told me I was getting better and that he would let me go the next day, if I promised not to try and walk to Santiago. I told him I would not try that.

The next day I got out, but I was still feeling pretty rough. I wanted to ignore the doctor's advice but limited myself to riding by coach from Logroño to León. Somebody had told me that León was a good place to stop for a couple of days – cheap, good food and easy to walk about, good bars, cheap beer. I had the address of a pensión that some pilgrim had given me, 'it is cheap, well located and the landlady is often horny – although mind you, the whole place smells of garlic.' I was fine with garlic, but in that condition, I could not have helped the horny landlady.

I got off the Alsa bus at León's coach station the next day. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and walked towards Plaza Mayor, where the pensión was located at the far corner of the ample square, opposite an old–looking restaurant.

I rang the bell and the door opened. I went up two flights of stairs. After passing some dwarfed ballerinas coming out of the dance school on the second floor, I was welcomed by a sombre–looking woman in her forties. She was very pleasant and didn't ask questions. She showed me the room, which contained an old wardrobe, a double bed and a desk with a chair. She opened the French doors and a balcony emerged as light flooded the room. I walked out onto the balcony and I had Plaza Mayor at my feet. 'I'll take it.' We agreed on the price for a long stay: I told her I'd stay for a week.

'Dinner is not included,' she said, 'although if you do some light repairs in the flat I can cook some extra food,' she said.

'I'm not good with repairs, I said.

'Too bad,' she said, 'I can always do with a pair of strong arms.'

She then told me about the area and the best places to eat.

'I'm Angela,' she said.

'João.'

'Welcome, if you need anything, I mean a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g, don't hesitate to ask, João'

I closed the door and dropped the backpack on the floor, got changed, and went out to look for food.

I walked up towards the cathedral and passed the old council building on the left. I walked up along Calle Larga until I reached León's Plaza de la Catedral, with the cathedral of León towering high on my right. On my left there were tourists and pilgrims mingled into a large crowd. I spotted a café and noticed people eating outside. I sat down and ordered a tortilla Francesa and coffee. Next to me a man was painting watercolours of the cathedral. I told him they looked good.

'I'm not selling,' he said.

'That's fine,' I said, 'I'm not buying.'

'You seem nice,' he said.

'Hi, my name is João.'

'AH HA! FUCK YOU, JOÃO, FUCK YOU,' the man shouted. Then he packed his things and left.

'Don't worry, he's like that – loco, loco!' said the waitress. 'Comes here every day and does the same thing...'

I finished eating, paid the bill and left. I wondered through the crowd for a while and observed. Some took pictures of one another in front of the cathedral, others walked about with their sticks, tick–tack–ticking on the polished stone of the Plaza. I sat on a bench near a large stone sign made up of the letters L–e–ó–n, onto which a little girl sat while her mother took pictures of her holding a bouquet of flowers. The sign was covered in flowers too, and the whole plaza was vivid with colour and the sounds of people talking. I sat there and opened my notebook. I wrote for about an hour, maybe a little more. Then I went back to the pensión and locked myself in the bright and breezy room. I lay in bed for a while to get some rest. When I woke up, I moved over to the desk and began to write some more. I wrote about fifteen pages. I felt inspired and decided León was a good place to stop and write for a while. I thought that after finishing the pilgrimage I would return there and rent that same room again for a month so that I could work on some ideas.

At night I went for long walks along León's ruined walls. I ate bread and morcilla. I looked over the snow–capped mountains to the south of the city. They reminded me of Curitiba. I saw pilgrims coming and going and I felt like going with them, but the writing was going well and I still felt very weak. Since the doctors never mentioned I shouldn't mix my medication with alcohol, some nights I went to the Barrio Húmedo, where I ate good tapas and drank cheap beer from the tap and wine from terracotta pitchers. I hung out with some pilgrims and collected some stories. Then I went back to the room and wrote them all down before memory failed me. The next day I nearly died in the toilet after all the drinking. But overall it was a good week; León was every day a good place to be.

On Wednesday I opened the windows and discovered bright, multi–coloured tents standing below in the plaza. It was the fruit and vegetable market that my landlady described as 'the best market in the world.' I walked amongst the stalls and the vendors threw apples and oranges at me without me asking for them: 'Take it pilgrim; it's for free; pray for me when you get to Santiago. Here, pilgrim, have an apple, juicy, lovely apple, god bless you, pray for me...don't forget me, the name is Carlos...'

Did they really expect me to pray for them? I asked them for their names, wrote them in my notebook and told them I was going to do it. But I wasn't sure I would. I was repulsed by the idea. But on Saturday, the market was on again and I got some more fruit for free and loaded my notebook with some more names to pray for. Now I began to feel like a proper pilgrim, carrying people's prayers to Santiago: a spiritual postman. The idea sounded less ludicrous as my money began to run thin and I began to depend on the Godly apples and grapes for survival.

A week in León and I was feeling better. The weather was perfect for walking: not too warm, not too cold. There was no rain in sight and my muscles felt vigorous. I decided that I would walk the following day after one more night in León.

The night came and I was ready to leave the room when I heard a knock on my door.

'Yes?'

'It's me, Angela.'

I opened the door wide open to find the landlady standing there in a long semi-transparent silk sleeping gown. Her hair covered her shoulders and her large dark yes looked at me intensely. Her lips were full and coated with a thin layer of red lipstick. I could see small wrinkles in the corners of her yes and on her neck.

'I need to ask you a favour,' she said.

'Sure.'

'My television...it won't tune in to the channel I want to watch. Do you think you could check it out for me?'

'I don't know much about this,' I said.

'Please,' she insisted.

I fiddled with the antenna for some time and pressed some buttons randomly. Of course, nothing happened and the image continued to show nothing but multi-coloured lines.

'As I said, I am no good with these things.'

'Oh well, gracias, anyway.'

'Can I offer you a beer?'

'Sure,' I said.

We sat on her cough and talked for some time. I don't think she had talked to anyone for quite a while. On the wall above the sofa, there were old framed pictures of old people.

'Your parents?' I asked

'Yes,' she replied. 'I've been very lonely since they departed. I loved them dearly. Would you like to have another beer?'

'Sure,' I said.

Time passed by and we drank all the beers Angela had in her fridge. She pulled a bottle of red wine from a shelf in the kitchen and we drank that too. We talked some more and the bottle got empty. Then she found a bottle of sherry somewhere and we drank that too. Before I knew we were in her bed, naked.

'Take me away from all this emptiness...' she whispered.

I got on top of her as she groaned and moaned. I put all my weight onto her and she took it. She scratched my back with her long red fingernails. It hurt terribly. I slapped her across her face.

'Again,' she said. 'Make me feel something... something...'

I slapped her again, this time harder.

'Again,' she said. I hit her harder. A cut opened in the corner of her mouth.

'Again,' she begged.

I hit her again, then again and again, until she stopped asking me to hit her.

'Get me from behind. That's it! Just like that. Now, strangle me... please, release me...'

I held her throat with both hands now, pulling her backwards as she gasped for air.

'Don't stop, keep pressing,' she begged me, 'mama, papa, I am coming...' she said, as her voice faded.

* * *

I got up early in the morning with a banging headache. Angela was lying next to me. There was blood in the sheets.

'Hey, listen, I'm going... it's time for me to leave,' I said.

Angela did not respond. I turned her over and saw her bruised face. I took her wrist in my hand and there was no pulse.

'I did it again!' I thought to myself as I looked at Angela's pale bruised face. Something profound happened that instant. Something inside me wanted to have her back alive. Suddenly, I did not want her to die, that was no longer my wish. I did not want that woman dead. The feeling was strange, something alien to me. Remorse. Something I had done, something that could not be undone. I should have helped her, but not by taking her life away. Who was I to decide who should live or who should die? I wasn't God. 'Don't blame yourself, the bitch begged you to do it,' a voice in my head told me. 'No, she did not tell you to go all the way' my other half rebuked. 'You've got to stop it, at some point you've got to stop this! How many more will die because of you? How many more will have to die before you can feel something, before you can feel some kind of connection to this world? How many more deaths will it take before you can finally convince yourself that you are not a simple mirage, that you are no hologram, that you are alive, just as they are. That the consciousness of the universe was made flesh when you were born? Enough!'

I touched Angela's cold pale skin again. I fiddled with her hair and caressed her face. Life had departed from that body. There was nothing else to be done. 'You can't bring her back, but you can make a promise. You can make this better. You can promise never to do this again. You can't go back in time, but you can project a new future. You can stop this now. Yes, you can! You can do anything you want. You are your own lord. You are in control of your destiny – remember? You and you only!'

I picked up my things and pushed everything I owned inside my backpack. I wiped the place clean and made sure I had left nothing behind. I left quietly through the back door. On my way down the stairs, I passed a ballerina who smiled at me and wished me a good day.

'Buenos Dias,' I replied, turning my head towards the wall and walking down past her.

That day, I walked from León to Hospital de Órbigo. It was a fine walk. I felt good for the first time in days, despite the hangover. The scenery was pleasant. It was one of those days where you are glad to be alive. I let the sun soak into the skin and the images and sounds of nature entertain my eyes and ears. Angela wanted to die. It wasn't my fault. She wanted to die. I did not murder her. She wanted to die.

The first thing I saw when I approached Hospital de Órbigo was a very long medieval bridge, the whole two hundred metres of it stretching itself over the river Órbigo, marking the spot where a noble knight, once upon a time, fought for the honour of his beloved. Now the place is called El Passo Honrroso – the honourable way – because in order to cross the bridge one would have first to defeat the courageous knight, a mission that was very much impossible because that knight was a tough mother fucker. The knight was called Suero de Quiñones and was said that he broke one hundred and sixty six lances, one for each knight whose arse he kicked. It is said that Cervantes used elements of the story as a basis for Don Quixote.

I spent the evening in a pilgrim refuge run by a chubby priest with the cheeks of a paedophile. I don't think he was a paedophile, but he was definitely a priest. There I came across an animated group of Italians who invited me for a 'spaghetti night.' I agreed and went out and got some wine. The priest ate with us. A cheerful chap he was, but he stopped us from talking about the sordid pilgrims who shagged behind the bushes. As an Australian business man began to tell how he got sucked behind a tree by a crazy Japanese woman twice his age, the priest cut him short by blasting '...the Camino is a spiritual awakening, neither Disneyland nor honeymoon suite – Amen!'

I went to bed late, after spending a couple of hours talking to an ex–convict from Valencia who was about to start a walk to Jerusalem. He had lost his wife in a car crash. Then he turned to worst and began to steal. He got caught and went to jail and there he stayed for five years.

'I'm walking to Jerusalem, from home. But first I wanted to walk to Compostela, to say thanks to the Apostle for freeing me from jail.'

Did he do that? How? I asked the man as I drank the wine from the bottle.

'I prayed to him and one day I was out,' said the man.

'How do you know it wasn't simply that your sentence was up?' I asked.

'Well, because I was supposed to stay for another year at least. But suddenly they changed their mind, after I prayed to Santiago. I never asked why. I was just happy they let me go. So it must have been the saint. Viva Santiago!'

We cheered and I got drunk. I had always been amused by that kind of random mystical association between an event and the spiritual world. Then I had this image of Saint James, the thunderous knight, on his white horse, dragging down the doors of the jail while the man walked to freedom, and I laughed out loud. The man didn't understand why I was laughing. I explained: 'I just thought: imagine if you were taking a shit when St. James came to rescue you?' he laughed too.

Sitting next to us was a pretty girl from Sweden. She was with a blonde, tall, super-strong Swedish bloke, they were both very pretty – 'are they all sexy in Sweden?' I asked myself. The man from Valencia told me that the Swedes had stayed with him in another albergue and that they kept him awake with their honey–mooning, which, as I was about to discover myself, was far from over.

The room was small and crowded and the two Swedes were at it the whole night. What stamina! I nearly rode with him all the way there.

'Go, baby, baby, go, baby, go!' – flip, flap, flop, flip, flap, flop. Oh boy, go, go, go...'

He flipped and flapped that thing and the girl groaned and moaned and I felt her body vibrating through the wooden bedframe – the whole room vibrating with her. They huffed and puffed and groaned and twisted and turned and hot like iron they went, all night – what stamina, what stamina! I got up at 5 and I hadn't slept a wink. I got dressed, put my boots on and picked up my staff. When I got out of the place it was still dark. The moon and the stars were out; all else were shapes and shadows.

I walked over the cobbled medieval streets. The wind blew from the east, as the stars guided me west. From Órbigo I walked to Astorga. I got there very early, as it wasn't that far. In Astorga I had coffee with churros with a man with the hugest nose I had ever seen. As I walked through the town plaza, I saw two pilgrims walking hand in hand, innocently looking around at the buildings, like tourists with time on their side. I approached them carefully, until I was very close. Then, all at once, I let out a wolf cry that startled Jaime so badly he pushed Carmen off and ran through the square screaming 'Madresita, madresita, ayuda–me, ayuda–me! – help, help!'

'Ah, IT'S YOU JOÃO! IT'S YOU! – ¡que cabron que eres tu, ¡que cabron! – pero oie, you nearly killed me, man, you nearly killed me! You know, my heart is very weak, man, very, very weak!'

'Don't pay attention to him, João. Did you see how far he ran without turning back for me? If you were a wolf about to eat me alive I'd be dead by now. So much for my knight in shining armour... he, he, he, he,' laughed Carmen.

'How come you are still here anyway? I thought I'd never see you two again.' I said.

'Well, you see, we've been enjoying each other's company a little too much I think, and we took a long time to walk here. But every now and then we took a bus and a train just so we wouldn't forget what the good life looks like – we prefer to leave all this walking stuff for the young people. But how about you, what are you doing here?' Asked Carmen.

'Long story. Have time?' I asked with a smile.

'Sure, a lot of time,' said Jaime now flashing his perfect white teeth at me.

'Good to know, you will need it,' I said.

Late that afternoon the three of us arrived in Rabanal del Camino; a medieval hamlet encrusted in the Leonese mountains. We got there in time for the mass that the Franciscan monks were giving in the old crumbling church. We stood and kneeled down and stood and kneeled down so often I thought I was in an aerobics class. Then we left the church and went for dinner in a nearby restaurant, where they served home–cooked lentil soup, eggs and chorizo, salad, bread and potatoes. We had red wine and ate flan for dessert and the conversation was flowing and the evening was good. When we came out, the sky was clear and the stars shone brightly and it was warm too, so we sat outside the albergue and drank some more wine. Jaime handed over a cigar he had bought in Astorga. I took it and puffed rings of smoke into the night while Carmen sang us an old Spanish lullaby.

The next morning we left Rabanal and walked through the day under the blazing sun and up and down valleys and mountains, until our knees and toes and backs couldn't take us any further. Eventually we arrived in Molinaseca where we stopped for the day. Jaime and I had struggled with the walk. Carmen walked on like a Soviet general, ravaging the soil as she sank her heels deep in the dirt bringing her knees high up in the air in an incessant march that made Jaime and I look like two marionettes made of molasses.

'You two are like two little girls! Honestly, what happened to those good, strong men they used to make in the good old days? Madre mia, are you made of sugar or something?'

'No, Carmen,' I answered, 'it is just that our sugar turned into alcohol a long time ago. Now we're like cars running on cheap ethanol – lots of noise and smoke and not enough power.'

In Molinaseca we put our feet into the fresh waters of the Meruelo river. After a quick rest, we walked over the medieval bridge and into town. There we stopped for some drinks in a large restaurant. The waiter came by and served us pinchos with the drinks and two hours later, on the waiter's advice, we managed to get three beds in the pilgrim hostel that was located just outside the medieval town centre.

The hostel was run by a man whose legs were so bent he looked like a zero. And they were damn ugly too, covered in scars and pins and holes. His name was Raúl, but he preferred to be called 'Muli,' because 'that's what my friends call me.' Muli disappeared behind a glass of beer and we didn't see him again until the next morning, when he came to wake everyone up and tell us to go presto because he needed to clean up the place. We knew that was a lie – he had never cleaned that place.

We left Muli in his dirty shack at the break of day. The road ahead looked uninspiring and it was raining a little. Time went by slowly and nothing moved except the wind.

20

The Wizard and the Storm

The walk was monotonous – too monotonous –, so we decided to board an Alsa coach that took us from the outskirts of Molinaseca to Villafranca del Bierzo where we intended to spend the night. We came to the Albergue Municipal only to be told it was closed because of a 'bedbug invasion,' so we walked down the road and found another place not far from there. This one was run by an eccentric man with white hair and a loud croaky voice, who went by the name of José. José received us with a smile. He took our backpacks off our backs, offered us cold water and gave us something to eat, 'apples from my garden up the hill,' he proudly explained. Then he looked down at my feet and said:

'You are most welcome, most welcome dear pilgrim friends you are most welcome indeed. Where are you from? Have you walked here?'

'Well, thank you, I'm from Brazil,' I said, '...and yes, we've walked,' I lied.

'Oh, I see, you're from Brazil! Brazil, Brazil, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan...tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan, tan,' the man continued 'wonderful wonderful place – I love Brazil. Been there many times. Curitiba, it was called... I went to Curitiba many times!'

'Well, dear sir, you won't believe this, but I am sort of from there myself.'

'No, that's not po-ssi-ble! How small is this world, huh? How small is this world...? I ask you.'

'Very small, sir, ve-ry small,' I said sarcastically. 'But did you have a good time in Curitiba?' I asked.

'Oh, yes, I did indeed. I went there to talk about the Camino, you see, they are all very interested down there – very religious people, very religious! – madre mia!' he said crossing himself.

Then José turned to Jaime and asked.

'So, did you walk here, fellows?'

'No,' said Jaime, 'we took a coach. We're all fucked up really – take a look at dis ni (knee), just look at dis ni, it is the size of a chicken man, the size of a chicken!' said Jaime.

'Ok, listen, then you can't stay here; I don't care about your chicken 'ni.' This place is for pilgrims only.

'But we are pilgrims,' said Jaime.

'Did you walk here?' asked the man.

'No,' answered Jaime.

'Then you're not a pilgrim. Pilgrims walk. Understand? Pilgrims w–a–l–k! With or without good 'nis.' Now take your bags with you and out you go – the hotels are down in the town centre; that's where tourists stay,' said José, already pushing Jaime out the door.

Carmen grabbed the old man by the hand and looked straight into his eyes. 'Mira, señor, mirame y escuchame – here we are and here we'll stay, is that clear?'

'Over my dead body, señorita, over my dead body! This is a respectable pilgrim house, a house for tired pilgrims who need rest, not a hotel. Get out, get out, now!'

'Ok, it was nice to meet you anyway, Señor José,' I said.

'No, no, no, mas nada hombre, tu puedes quedarte aqui. No, no, no, you can stay. I like Brazilians very much! I was very well treated in Curitiba – you are my guest of honour tonight!' said José, again sounding like the nice man who had welcomed us before.

'I'm sorry, José, it is very kind of you, but you see, without Jaime and Carmen I will not stay.'

'Right, then I have to let you two stay as well,' said José now talking to Carmen – 'I can't chuck this Brazilian out,' he said pointing to me. 'But pay attention next time – no tourists, NO TOURISTS! And don't tell anyone out there I let you stay. I'm proud of serving, but only pilgrims, you hear me, ONLY PILGRIMS!'

'Ok, ok...Jesus, Maria, José! Do you always talk that much?' asked Carmen.

'That's right, señorita, the name is José and you need to respect the trinity. Pilgrims are pilgrims, tourists are tourists,' retorted José. 'And yes, I used to be a priest, so I guess I do talk a lot,' said the man as he walked away.

'Well, and just like a priest you talk a lot but say very little that's useful...' continued Carmen.

'Ok, ok, you two, cut it off...please show us where the showers are, I'm dying for a shower,' said Jaime.

Then came dinner and José served us some local food – and what a fine dinner it was! We sat at a long table laid for thirty or more people. I stuffed my face with all I could get my hands on. José came from the kitchen holding an enormous pot filled up to the brim with soup. Then came bread, and bottles of wine were placed all along the table by a helper. We were served meat and fruit and cheeses and vegetables and eggs and chorizo and more meat and then a whole load of pasta in tomato sauce. Before we started eating, he asked us all to stand and hold each other's hands. We formed a large circle around the table as José said a prayer:

'Lord, bless this food that is fruit of the earth and the energy of the sun and the hands of the men who work the earth. Bless the pilgrims who come a long way from the corners of the earth searching for you. Bring light to these pilgrims, bring happiness to their hearts and... well, bring them to where they need to go. Ultreia y Suseia!'

Everyone applauded the man and then carried on with the eating. For dessert we had fresh watermelon, apples, oranges and ruby–coloured cherries. When we finished we helped José to clear the table. Afterwards, we moved the large wooden table to the side of the room and José placed a small table at the centre. He went in the kitchen and came back with a caldron and some bottles. He then asked us to make a circle around him. Then he mixed the contents of the bottles into the caldron and set fire to it. As the liquid burned somebody switched off the lights, leaving us in pitch–black darkness. All we could see were the blue flames emanating like indigo spirits from the substance. The flames danced in the air like odalisques in the sultan's fiery world, seducing us into a hypnotic trance that took me many years back into the past, throwing me into the abyss of my fading memory and the feelings and smells of a past and a person I no longer recognized, of voices I could no longer hear, eyes that no longer gleaned and places and a time that no longer mattered.

José began the conjuros – a sort of witch chanting to expiate the devil – with a cry in Gallego that was both ridiculous and fitting to the craziness of the man and the place.

'Owls, toads and witches;  
demons, goblins and devils;  
spirits of mist and streams,  
crows, snakes and witches;  
tail–straight black cat  
and all the spells from beyond...'

Then he paused and stirred some brown sugar and some other liquids into the pot. Now he raised both hands in the air and dropped his chin to his chest.

'With this pan,  
I'll throw up the flames of this fire  
that looks like the fire from hell  
and the witches will become purified  
of all their sins.  
Some will flee  
riding their brooms they'll hide in  
the sea of Finisterre...'

The wizard went on until he reached the part where he expiated all the bad omens from us who watched, and all the witches were gone as we drank the potion.

'Forces of air, land, sea and fire!  
To you I make this call:  
it is true that you have more power  
than the human people,  
clean evils of our land  
and make it here and now  
the spirits of absent friends  
share with us this burning. '

With a plate, he extinguished the flames and everything fell into silence. We toasted and cheered and drank it all in a gulp. It was strong aguardente, but the sugar made it bearable. The lights came on again and as everyone adjusted their eyes to the light one thing was clear, that José had vanished into thin air. We looked at one another suspiciously and I could see the incredulity in everybody's eyes. Was it a trick? If so, how did he do it? We were left without answers. José's helper came by and told us to go to sleep. He cleaned up the kitchen and switched off the lights. We all looked tired and yet it was hard to go to sleep after that.

Full of food and a little drunk, I went up to the dormitory where mattresses were spread over the floor of a place that looked like a tree house. When I finally got to sleep, I do so without being disturbed until the morning came with strong rain, lightning bolts and thunder.

At breakfast, we ate freshly made tortilla Francesa with fresh bread and coffee. That was after José's helper came by and placed his hands over Carmen's back and recited some unpronounceable words in Galician. He moved on to Jaime's 'chicken nis' and did the same. Then he turned to me and made me stand. Placing his hands over my head, he recited some more unpronounceable, unintelligible, things. Then he sent us off on the road with a small packed lunch for the way: fruit, bread, cheese and chorizo. 'José told me to look after you well,' said the Spaniard. 'Where is he?' asked Jaime. 'It is not important. He is where he must be,' answered the man.

When I opened my backpack I also found a bottle of wine in it and a note 'open my heart to the universe at the end of the world,' it said. It was all very strange and I did not try to make sense of it.

We reached O'Cebreiro ten hours after we left Villafranca. Somehow, neither Carmen nor Jaime nor I complained of any pains during the hard climb.

O'Cebreiro was another small hamlet standing on what was once a Celtic village, some thirteen hundred metres above sea level. Perhaps it was the food, or perhaps it was the wine that was dark red and full of the flavours of the red earth we walked on. Perhaps it was the generous and honest food that warmed our bodies from the inside, providing us with the energy we needed to face the high climb over the mountains. Perhaps it was the hands of the wizard – I guess we will never know.

The path took us over Roman bridges and valleys and meadows abounding with wild flowers and a lot of cow dung. Peasants working in the fields and in the stables of the small villages we passed through waved us through. It took us through a Galicia that was ancient and green and welcoming. Galicia looked very much like some place in Ireland: lusciously green, colder than other places in the same latitude and poorer, but only insofar as wealth was concerned and not in nature or spirit.

Clouds gently sailed through the blue–anise sky. I began to think of José and the stories he had told us. He said he grew up around pilgrims who slept amongst the dogs and their fleas, way back when the wars were on and people were dying and pilgrims took the road, as they had done for millennia, in search of salvation.

'Times have changed,' he told me, '...but the need for salvation is still there, in one-way or another. If today there are more tourists than pilgrims, that's because tourists are the new pilgrims – so there is still a problem, you see?'

'What is it I am looking for? Why was I on the road? What was it? Is it some kind of primitive instinct? Or is it simple curiosity, alienation perhaps? Pure loneliness? A deep-seated need to find roots while living uprooted? Is there any difference between 'I' the migrant, 'I' the tourist and 'I' the pilgrim? Aren't we all nomads in one form or another, all moving vagrantly so we can find what we don't even know we're looking for?' I asked myself, but I heard no answers back.

We continued walking and the walking got harder and harder, until we came across a small village – not more than a couple of old stone houses and some stone barns. It was called La Faba. I needed water. There was a small shop selling basic products and a well–supplied fridge containing cold drinks. I helped myself to water, a Coca Cola and a bottle of beer. I drank them in succession: first the water to hydrate, then the cola for some sugar and finally the beer for the taste and to keep my inherited alcoholism at bay. I sat on a bench under a tree while Jaime and Carmen disappeared somewhere. Knowing that it could take some time, I placed my backpack on the bench, took out my notebook and lay on the bench with my head on the backpack. I took a pencil out of my pocket and began to write. I wrote for about an hour, until I fell asleep and both notebook and pencil fell out of my hands. A confused breeze blowing from all directions made the trees wave their long leafy arms like cheer–leaders: first to the left, then to right, then back to the left.

I could hear the sound of the leaves shaking as I began to travel towards the middle of a deep cave and in no time, there I was, in front of that great subterranean waterfall. The water was ice blue and there was a light coming from underneath the lagoon that had formed under the cascade. The light seemed to come from underwater spotlights that were numerous and formed a wide, luminous circle. It looked like some bizarre scientific experiment in some lost world, and I didn't dare go into the water. I felt like some sort of Edward Prendick.

I walked around the pool, gripping the slimy rocky walls, treading carefully as I made my way around the lagoon. That's when I saw a passage that led through and behind the fall. I followed it. It was dark, but I could see a little light at the end of what seemed to be a long tunnel. I went through the passage, always following the light. The rocky walls sweated as I walked by. Suddenly, the walls began to move. When I touched it I could feel the rock was fury. Spiders. They moved slowly, making the walls look as if they were alive.

I finally reached the end of the tunnel. When I came out I found myself on top of a narrow rocky platform that overlooked an immense valley, a thousand or more metres down below me. There was no way to get down, only a rudimentary ladder made of rough rope on the side of the wall leading upwards somewhere. I climbed it. I struggled with the unsteady bouncing ladder and with vertigo. Eventually, I made to the highest point of the rock and there I stood at the top of that raw and rugged landscape. I could see the whole valley – a world of weirdness and beauty. Waterfalls abounded all around the precipitous gorges down below. I saw rainbows forming out of the water vapour, and sunlight shone on all the lakes and ponds where the water accumulated as it carved its way through the valley that opened up into a vast plain. I saw the delta of a powerful ancient river. By its banks, hordes of wild beasts grazed on luscious green pastures. Majestic trees, covered in white and red bloom, sprang from the earth. Yellow fruit dripped from the branches of voluptuous bushes that stood horizontally on the hillsides, abounded with red and yellow birds. I stood on a small and rocky plateau not larger than a few dozen square metres, and I was not alone.

Out in the centre of the plateau there was a giant tournefortia tree. A man sat on a chair under it. He had his back towards me. I walked up to him, but he seemed undisturbed by my presence. Suddenly he stood up and turned, slowly.

'I have called you here so I can show you something,' said Emmanuel.

He opened his mouth and the whole sky turned black. Stars appeared in the heavens above and I could no longer see what was around me as everything fell into darkness. A perfect flash of light appeared from Emmanuel's eyes and was projected into the air where vivid images appeared: my parents playing with me when I was young in the garden of my grandmother's house. It was me, still bearing long curly hair, and my father wearing 1970's clothes and hair–style; he had naturally dark, curly hair and it grew from his head like an unstoppable force of nature. My mother laughed – I couldn't remember ever seeing her laugh – as I ran around and through her legs, ducking under her flowing lilac dress. Her hair was pinned back with a white flower and for the first time I saw happiness in her eyes.

'Who are you? No more riddles. I must know! Once and for all, who are you?'

'In due time, in due time,' said the man. 'Good things come for those who wait. All you need to know is that there is peace at the end. You must go to the end, to the end of the world.'

'João...João, wake up, João, wake–up!' I heard Jaime's voice calling. Suddenly I felt drops of rain and the cold wind blowing on my face. Jaime stood in front of me with Carmen at his side. The image was distorted but soon it came into focus.

'The weather has taken a turn for the worse and we still have to find a place to stay, man...¡estamos jodidos, bien jodidos cojones!'

'Oh come on, it is just a little rain,' I said, still trying to adapt my eyes to the light.

'No, you don't understand, look at that, just take a look at that,' said Jaime pointing to the sky with his finger.

I looked up and saw one enormous black cloud, dark as oil, gliding above like a zeppelin of death. Jaime pointed his finger high up in the air. Lightning bolts appeared, so intense they burned the air living a mark in the atmosphere like when skin is burned with hot iron. Then Hail descended upon us like a sheet of broken ice and there was nothing else to do but to seek shelter under the canopy of an old stone barn. But it was no use. The curtain of ice was so strong we couldn't avoid getting soaked to the bone, as the water and ice hit the ground and bounced back up high in our direction. The larger pieces of ice falling on the tin roof made such a terrible noise that it was impossible to stand under it for much longer. We crossed the muddy path where torrents of water now gushed by, carrying everything in its path: tree branches, empty cans, cow dung, stones, gravel and mud.

We ran across and found shelter under the porch of an old farm house. As we stepped onto the old floorboards, the whole porch shook and creaked. It looked like an abandoned house. Suddenly the door opened and a small Galician man with piercing blue eyes, and not much hair on his head, leaped out and began to talk to us.

'Come in, quick!'

Carmen, Jaime and I stepped into the man's kitchen.

'Take off your shoes and clothes; we'll dry them in front of the fire. Here, I've got some towels,' said the man.

We did what he said as he pointed to the wooden chairs around a long table and made a sign for us to sit on them. The man brought a pot of coffee from the stove, a plate of pancakes topped with sugar, and a flask with hot milk.

'Eat some of these and drink some coffee and you won't catch a cold. The bathroom is in there,' he said pointing to the corner of the room. 'You can have a hot shower if you wish...the shower is good, good water pressure. I installed it myself. The weather around here turns to the worse very quickly, doesn't it?'

'It sure does. Many thanks for taking us in, Mr...' I said, hoping he would fill in.

'...Mateus. Mateus Ribeiro. This is my land. My great grandfather was born in this very house and my mother in this very same room. I am the last of my family – everyone's gone; all gone abroad. I have two brothers who live in Brazil, one in the United States and a sister in Australia – all looking for a better life. Me, I prefer it here, but it is a hard life,' the man said in a low croaky voice.

'Nice to meet you, Mateus, I'm Jaime and these are João and Carmen, and we are pilgrims on the road to Compostela,' said Jaime proudly.

'Yes, yes, I know who you are, I know. There are a lot of you around here these days. I recognized your backpacks from far away...you people are crazy! Why do you walk for so long? What do you want with Santiago?'

'Well, you see in my case, it is not so much a question of walking as of knowing when to stop. I have not as yet found the right place to stop, but when I do then I will,' replied Jaime, stuffing his mouth with a pancake.

'What in the name of Jesus are you talking about?' asked Mateus.

'Well, you see, I was born the son of an alcoholic father, my mother had too many of us to look after and could barely remember my name, so I left home when I was ten and have never looked back since. I've been rumbling and tumbling along through this world like a pebble at the bottom of a river bed that is pushed around by the currents, never stopping anywhere for very long. Today, I'm here tomorrow I'm there. Perhaps Carmen is the place where I need to stop,' said Jaime, now looking at Carmen with eyes the size of ripe plums.

'Well, well, horses for courses,' said Mateus. 'I much prefer to stay put – all this rolling about is not for me. But now you fellows will have to excuse me; I need to get on with some work – running a farm, however small, on one's own is a bloody tiresome thing to do. I have an entire fence to fix. One of my oxen went through it yesterday. Today it's the rain. Tomorrow, well, God only knows...'

'But it is raining cats and dogs out there still!' exclaimed Carmen.

'There is nothing I can do. Somebody needs to do it and that somebody is me,' said the man cleaning his mouth after a mouthful of coffee.

'Well, in that case we'll help you,' I said, not knowing exactly what I was talking about.

'Really? Why, this is good news. I really could do with some help around here. I'll cook us all dinner then, and tomorrow I could drive you up to O'Cebreiro,' said the man now smiling. 'Tonight you are my guests.'

'It's a deal,' said Jaime.

'Ok,' said Carmen, '...then I'll stay here and do some house work if you don't mind.'

'Oh no, señora, said the man, you must not do anything. Please, this is not acceptable,' said Mateus now frowning.

'No, really, it's ok. I will get bored otherwise,' said Carmen looking around as if to make herself familiar with the place '...do you have a broom?'

The rain passed the same way as it had come and quite suddenly the sun was shining again and all that remained was mud. The three of us worked on Mateus' fence until the evening. The planks had all become rotten and needed replacing. He had cut down a tree and with his old chainsaw he cut the wood into smaller chunks, until they were the right size to serve as posts. He had some straight planks inside his barn that were varnished and dry and ready for use. We worked the whole day, transporting them from the barn to the field in two wheelbarrows. It was fine work and it felt good to be out there in the fields. There is something very dignifying about that: working with bare hands with some good men, knee–deep in that mud. At some point you begin to feel part of that earth.

At the end of the day, the fence was fixed and we were proud.

'Look at this, just take a good look at that, chicos: a brand new fence!' Mateus was so cheerful you could hear his heartbeat.

'Now, you come with me and we'll have a hell of a feast. I slaughtered a sheep a couple of days ago and I have an excellent piece of meat in the fridge waiting to be roasted.'

When we returned we could barely recognize the house. Carmen had scrubbed the kitchen top to bottom. Pans, cutlery, plates and glasses and all the crockery had been washed, polished and tidied. The doors now closed properly, – she had even tightened the hinges – the lampshades shone and the skirting boards were gleaming. The floor was so clean one could probably eat from it. The table had been rearranged so to make more space for walking around it. A vase with wild flowers now stood in the middle of the table and a fragrance of fresh clean clothes hanging outside was enlaced with the smell of baked bread that exhumed from the oven. In one afternoon Carmen had transformed the old farmhouse into a quirky rustic home in the way only a good woman with the heart and dignity of a lion can.

'Welcome home, Mateus. I hope you don't mind the small changes,' said Carmen with an air of victory.

'Mas por Dios mujer, por Dios, esto es un milagro – that is a miracle! I think you just made me believe in God again. How is this possible? What an angel you are – this house has never, n–e–v–e–r looked so good, even when my mother was alive – God be with her and may she rest in piece but she was no housekeeper. Not like you!'

'Jaime, now I need you and João to have a shower – I don't want either of you sitting around and making it all dirty again. And you too Mateus – all in the shower, vamos, vamos!'

We duly obeyed her, like schoolboys before the headmistress. While Mateus and I queued to use the bathroom, we heard Jaime whistling Bizet's Habanera. Then it was my turn to have a shower and, after Mateus did the same, we gathered in the kitchen while Mateus and Carmen prepared us dinner. He stuck a whole leg of lamb on the grill he had prepared outside under the garage roof, where he kept his old tractor. Carmen chopped peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes and made gazpacho. She had also baked olive rolls, which she served steaming hot with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Mateus poured us wine from Ribeira Sacra; and what a wine it was – more like the blood of the gods than the juice of grapes.

Mateus's house was large enough to accommodate all of us in separate rooms but, of course, Jaime and Carmen slept together in the same bed. I could hear them giggling and rolling about in bed before I fell asleep, full of wine and lamb. The bed was a proper farmer's recipe for a good night's rest: feather pillow, sprung mattress filled with horsehair on a solid wooden frame and a blanket. I fell asleep after filling up page after page of my notebook that was, by now, amounting to a full manuscript. Eventually, I fell asleep with the notebook lying on my face. It was morning when I woke up and heard a knock on the door: 'breakfast's ready!' said the female voice coming from the other side.

'Good morning, Carmen, I'm coming,' I shouted back.

Carmen prepared us a tortilla with milk and breadcrumbs and eggs, onions and small pieces of smoked wild boar, all which came from the farm. Mateus served us coffee and milk straight from Orange – 'my best cow,' as he proudly described her. After that, he took us in his jeep up to O'Cebreiro. We stopped there for an hour to wander around. Then he insisted on driving us to a town called Melide. We all agreed to go. There Mateus took us to a place called Pulperia Ezequiel where an old lady dressed in a long black apron and two helpers dipped long metal rods into large copper pots that contained boiling water. They used the rods to fish out the giant octopus that they cooked in seawater. They hooked the beasts out and quickly placed them on a wooden board in full view of the customer. Armed with large scissors, they chopped the whole thing up, tentacles, suckers and all and seasoned it with sea salt, black pepper and olive oil. They pierced the meat with toothpicks and served it on a wooden dish, with bread on the side.

We stood there watching until Mateus took us inside and told us he would order four raciones de pulpo and a bottle of chilled Albariño. Food, food, food, glorious FOOD! I couldn't wait to tuck into the octopus. Jaime was less enthusiastic but having lived for a long time in Spain; he thought he had to face it. Minutes later, Mateus came from the front of the restaurant carrying the dishes. A waiter came by and brought the bread and the wine. We drank the wine out of small terracotta cups, and it was fresh and fruity and slightly fizzy. The octopus was tender and nearly melted in the mouth. We ate and drank until noon. I sucked the octopus through my teeth while grinning at Jaime just to put him off. He placed two toothpicks under each of his eyelids in retaliation.

'Honestly, you two are like children,' Carmen scolded us, much to Mateus's delight. I kept eating and playing with the octopus way after everyone had finished eating. Then I ordered another ración, to everyone's surprise:

'What kind of a kid is this? If he is a kid, he sure eats like a grown–up man!' laughed Jaime.

'Or a kid who never ate octopus before and loves it,' I said, now holding a fat tentacle up in the air and slowly dropping it straight into my mouth.

'You are truly disgusting, my boy,' said Jaime.

'Well, the bigger eats the smaller,' I said, '...laws of nature. When the bigger doesn't eat the smaller, the smaller gets bigger and eats the other.'

'What do you mean? Is this supposed to be a theory?' laughed Jaime.

'No, it is no longer just theory: it is a proven process called evolution, friend, and it's a fact! You either eat or you get eaten: isn't it wonderful?'

'Only if you're not the one getting eaten,' said Jaime.

'Will you two shut up? Please!' said Carmen.

After that, Mateus drove us to a meadow that was cut through by a stream that flowed under a small roman bridge that was covered up with centuries of vegetation. We spread ourselves under a tree while Mateus got a fishing rod out of the jeep. Before long he had both of his feet in the water: a cup of wine in one hand, the fishing rod on the other, the line flying above his head. Jaime rested his head on Carmen's lap; she ran her fingers through his thick Amerindian hair. I sat there writing in my notebook. I was too full to move or do anything else. It was hot and bright, but the small oasis kept the air fresh and life could not get any better.

After a while, I watched two pilgrims approach, ready to cross the bridge, when one of them shouted 'João...? Is that you? Mark, look...it's him, João!' shouted Stephen, and the two priests rushed over the bridge and toward us.

'Oh why, oh why, mate, what's the matter? What's uuuup, man? What's up?' Stephen shouted as he greeted me and hugged me and kissed me on the cheeks.

'That's not very English, is it?' I said.

'What isn't? What's not very English? Ah, I see, you mean Stephen! No, you're right, he was adopted – he's originally from Bangladesh you see,' joked Mark.

'No, I mean the kissing and the hugging...'

'Ah, well, you know, we get all continental down here, don't we brother?' said Mark.

'Ah, you bet, you bet – co-co-coooontinental is the way to go mate, the way to go... uha, uha!' said Stephen.

'Is he ok?' I asked Mark.

'Well, tell me about it. He is as ok as a mad Franciscan walking the Camino will ever be after having met THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE!'

'What?'

'That's right, mate, that's right 'what!'' said Mark, now rolling his eyes.

'What's Mark talking about, Stephen?' I asked.

'See, the thi-thi-thing is...well, the t-t-t-truth, and I swear by G-G-G-God, that has nothing to do with anything re-re-reeeeally, because...you know what m-m-mate, I'll just tell it straight because that's how it shu-shu-should be told right? So here it goes...the thing is...'

'Oh for fuck's sake, Stephen, spill the fucking beans, for crying out loud!' shouted Mark. 'Here, João, the thing is...Stephen set eyes on a girl and he is thinking of doing something insane and...' Mark stopped and with wondering eyes he asked '...why are you here anyway?'

'Well, I was going to ask you the same question. Should you not be back in England by now?' I asked.

'Yes, yes, that's right, and that's what I'm trying to tell you, we should be back home by now, but – and this is a HUGE BUT – this thing with Stephen happened and now we are walking about trying to give him some time to reflect on it all and see if we can get it sorted out in his head before we can go back home. He cannot go back without first having resolved the dilemma – he needs to make a decision, a serious decision. God cannot wait,' said Mark.

'Yass, yass, well, you know how it wo-wo-works, João, I'm a Fraaanciscan m-m-m-monk; the girl isn't. If she w-w-w-was, there wouldn't be a p-p-p-p-problem.'

'Stephen, that's no joke,' reprimanded Mark.

'True though. Why I can't I love G-G-G God and also love a wu-wu-woman is truly b-b-beyond me. Yes, yes, the scriiiiiptures, the damn scriiiiiptures, but the scriiiiiptures say a lot of thi-thi-thi-things that we also decide to i-i-i-i-ignore – like she-she-sharing wives, sacrificing g-g-g-goats and burning te-te-temples and kkkkkilling God's enemies aaaaand believing in eeeepi-pi-phenomena such as M-M-Moses parting a whole sea so his p-p-people wouldn't get wet and J-J-JJesus multiplying food, raising d-d-d-d-deeeead people and shi-shi-shiiit like that. You see, I am going to write to the PPPPPope,' said Stephen. Now I wasn't sure whether he was joking or not.

'Right, as if you would stand a chance with the Rottweiler, mate,' said Mark.

'That's what happens when you get a G-G-G-German to be the Pope,' said Stephen. 'The b-b-b-bugger thinks he is always right. HA! HA! Got the j-j-j-joke? Right? Like right-wingers.' Then he lifted his right arm right up and stretched it, and with his left indicator and middle fingers he covered his mouth to imitate Hitler's moustache.

'Oh Lord, heavenly father, why has though forsaken me?,' sighed Mark.'

'I'm sorry, I'm Ste-te-stephen by the way – sorry to ba-ba-barge in,' he said, now looking at the others.

'I'm Jaime, and this is Carmen. The fisherman over there is Mateus, our new friend, replied Jaime very politely and in good enough English.'

'Nice to m-m-meet you,' said Stephen. 'This is M-M-M-Mark, my brother – not just in the eyes of G-G-G-God...'

As the others looked puzzled I translated. They laughed. Carmen wanted to know what the problem was. I explained. She crossed herself. Jaime had understood the context and circled his left ear with his indicator finger suggesting Stephen was mad. I nodded positively. Then he added 'But if the girl is really worth it...' in English.

'Well, th-th-thank you,' said Stephen. 'You should see her bu-bu-boobs, mate – I mean, Wow...!'

'Shut up, Stephen!' said Mark.

'True though, G-G-God has si-si-serious competition.' Then he looked at Mark and said 'All right, all right!'

'Anyway, this is lovely. It is really nice to meet you, and especially you João, nice to see you again, but we ought to go. We're now walking to Santiago to see if on the way there Stephen gets some fresh air into his head.'

'Listen, if you wait a little we're about to set sail as well. Would you like to walk together from here on?'

I translated to the others and they agreed with my idea. Mateus looked all of a sudden rather dishevelled and I asked him what was wrong.

'It's been really nice having some nice people like you around. I'll be looking forward to seeing you again someday,' he said.

'Oie, Mateus,' said Carmen, 'we will come and see you, rest assured. Now we need to get to Santiago and you have a farm to look after. We'll come back to see you – I promise.'

'That's right, Mateus, it will be a great pleasure to come back,' Jaime confirmed. I just nodded in agreement.

'Great then, off we go – BUEN CAMINO!' shouted Mark.

'BUEN CAMINO PEREGRINOS!' shouted Mateus back.

We packed our things and set off with the sun following behind. It wasn't as hot and the sun looked more orange than yellow, and our shadows sprang forth like long–legged aliens. We walked and talked and Stephen stayed behind. He was quieter than usual.

It was an easy walk. The air was fine and, despite the sometimes-strong wind, the temperature was just perfect. We walked separately, each to our own, me thinking of my book and what Emmanuel had told me: that we were going to meet at the end of the world. I didn't know what it meant, except that the end of the world was no longer far away. We walked and we walked and my feet seemed to be made of pure rubber. Memories of my childhood flooded my brain in random episodes – sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. Sometimes they meant nothing. As I walked I laughed and cried like a man suffering from depression. Nobody was aware. I spotted a tree in the distance, a perfect tree. It was heavy with red fruit, lonely in the green rolling pastures. A gentle stream circled it and disappeared behind the green.

We walked through Ribadiso de Baixo, a small hamlet with a stream and some stone buildings on one side of the water. Then came Arzúa, which was really nothing but a few scattered houses on the side of a busy road. We walked through Santa Irene, where we had a sip of water. When we reached Arca do Pino we walked through pine forests that were burnt and smelled of charcoal.

Just as the sun was setting very low on the horizon and the sky turned to a scarlet red, we reached Monte de Gozo (Mount Joy), the last stop before Compostela.

Part V – Revelation

21

The End of the World

From where we stood, at the top of Mount Joy, we could see the Cathedral spires shooting up towards the sky like two giant, over–decorated candlesticks. We walked downhill, over traffic lights and busy roads, through parks, over cemented pathways, suspension bridges, along boulevards, on cobbled streets and between old buildings made of limestone, sand, cement and compressed dust. We followed hordes of people; we followed them until we entered the old city and came into some fake and some real history, some fake and some real faith, and after two thousand years in the making, a galloping roar drove us upwards, lifting our energies, higher and higher until we exploded onto Plaza do Obradoiro, flooding the open space and occupying every metre of ground. We faced the baroque Cathedral. It radiated the light from the sun.

People laughed, some cried. Some sat quietly under the arcades of the building in front, looking meditative, exhausted. Some took photographs, others posed, some sat cross–legged, basking in the sun, eating, drinking, and singing. Others walked aimlessly, looking up and down and around, and still others stood still on the same spot, quizzical chin resting on hand, waiting for their Godot. The sky was blue and I never thought so much light could come out one single sky. I looked at the others and they were completely still. They sat around on the ground looking exhausted.

'Right, you folks, now we're here, so what?' asked Jaime.

(I was busy translating to Mark and Stephen.)

'Good question,' said Mark. 'How about we go in and attend the eleven o'clock mass for the pilgrims? It should be about to start. We can decide what to do afterwards.' I translated that to Jaime and Carmen, but they had already understood and nodded positively.

'I'm in!' said Stephen, 'but under one condition: that we drink good wine after.'

'It's a deal! Now you lot, let's get in,' I said, 'all this translation is doing my head in...'

We walked up the stairs and into the building through the main entrance. I was blinded by the darkness inside and bumped into a woman who was kneeling down on the ground. '¡Ay, perdon, lo siento!' I apologized, but she took little notice of me and carried on praying. I noticed she was kneeling in front of a column. The column was carved, El Pórtico de la Glória – the gates of glory. There, an image of St. James the pilgrim welcomed travellers into the church. People touched the stone so often it was worn down. After praying, the woman placed her hand inside a hole in the column and said something. Then she got up and walked into the building, crossing herself and looking around her, mesmerized. Then, she took a camera out of her bag and began taking pictures. I walked through the nave of the cathedral and looked for seats in the congregation, but I couldn't find a place. I told the others we couldn't sit so we headed to a pillar near the main altar and sat all together on the stone at the base of the pillar, but from there we couldn't see very much.

A nun walked up to an adjacent pulpit and asked everyone to sit down. Her voice resounded inside the building, bouncing off the walls back and forth like a bat with wax stuck in its ears. The nun took the microphone and adjusted it closer to her button-like mouth. She raised her pale arms into the air and closed her bright blue eyes. She began to sing. The voice that came out of the small woman was not the voice of a human being, but the voice of thousands of years of praise and sorrow: praise for a God her precedents so deeply believed in, and the sorrow of all of those who died in his name. She sang centuries worth of faith and destruction; she sang oceans of time's worth of building and re–building and all the justice and injustice and pain and healing and joy that accompanied every gesture, every note she reached, and her voice went higher and higher as if she was not singing to us but to the heavens, her voice so high now that the words dissolved into thin air and only the purest of the sounds she made was able to survive the space. Waves of tantalising joy and torment now ripped across the nave, bathing everyone around her in showers of pure melody that seemed no longer to come from the woman, but from echoes that bounced off the stone maze. The sounds came from the labyrinths of the soul and the fading consciousness inside every head and every heart, as the music drifted through the galleries of the church like a spirit looking to incarnate: traversing every bone and marrow of everything that breathed.

I reclined my head against the pillar and felt numb. I let the sound invade every thought and every feeling I had and before I knew it I was drifting around the galleries with the music, floating in the air, light and detached from my body, above the ground. The nun lowered her voice, gently, very gently and softly like a feather; I was pulled back down, landing my naked feet on the cold stone floor beneath. I opened my eyes and images, the shapes of people, began to form in a mystical penumbra. I looked at the others and they looked as if they were elsewhere and in a world of their own.

An old man dressed in various layers of garment, in gold, red and yellow with crosses embroidered all over his many capes and skirts, wearing an equally ornamented coniferous hat, came onto the main pulpit and began his sermon. The congregation rose to its feet and the preaching began. He spoke for a while. He sounded bored and I felt the same way. Then he stopped talking and the moment came when the Botafumero was lit. It swung across the nave and the large incense burner smoked the whole church top to bottom, leaving a trail of vaporised ash as it travelled through the air at great speed. In medieval times it was used to expiate the putrid smells coming from the congregation of dirty, miserable, dying, pilgrims. Now it served the symbolic purpose of marking the arrival of pilgrims, blessing the crowd, purifying the spirit, so to speak, and entertaining the tourists who held digital cameras up in the air, trying to capture the movements of the silver and copper canister that swung uniformly, tossing smoke above the heads of souls below.

'¡Madre mia, un dia voy a meterme de un salto en ese Botafumeiro y voy a galopar hasta el cielo!' – I'm going to jump on top of that thing and ride until I reach heaven, murmured Jaime, to Carmen's delight.

The mass was over and Jaime insisted he wanted to get out and find the nearest bodega where he could get drunk.

'I agree... I'm bored!' said Stephen, anticipating my translation.

'Si, yo también estoy de acordo, pero aunque prefiero una ducha y una buena ración de pulpo a la gallega que enborracharme' – Carmen preferred a shower and a plate of octopus to getting drunk.

I thought this could all be combined. After leaving the church, I walked around Santiago looking for a room of my own. Jaime and Carmen and the priests wanted me to stay with them in the albergue de peregrinos, the large building up the hill that overlooked the cathedral, but I wanted to be alone for a while. I wanted to have a shower room and a bed all to myself – without snorers, rustling plastic bags or aliens and their blue torches. I found a small cheap pensión in the centre of the old town, not far from some wine cellars. In fact, I discovered that my room had a small balcony that overlooked a bodega, and there is where I headed to after I cleaned myself up.

I removed the now long beard that had grown like a wild bush around my face, first with the help of scissors, then with a blade. My face had three colours and looked much like a Knickerbocker glory. The bottom part, the part around the chin and the mouth, was pale white. The part between the tip of my nose and the middle of my forehead was brown. From the middle of my forehead to the middle of my skull I was as red as a hot chilli pepper. I stood naked in front of the mirror and my body too looked stratified like one of those geography lessons where the teacher shows you a transactional cut of the different layers of the crust of the earth: the feet and ankles were white, the shins, knees and thighs were brown, and the middle part was white again. My stomach and my chest were a little brown, and a little red too. My neck was brown again. My arms were equally divided in the following order: shoulders white, biceps brown, elbow very brown, forearm also very brown, one wrist very white (I was wearing a watch), hands brown and fingernails very white. So, I covered myself as much as possible, even though it was warm outside. I dressed in a white shirt, beige khaki trousers, sandals and a hat. I looked like an Australian tourist in Naples.

I went down two flights of stairs, out the front door, across the narrow cobbled alley and into the wine bar. I ordered a bottle of Ribeiro and sat by the window. The woman behind the bar gave me the bottle and some extra glasses, and served some mixed pinchos to go with it: jamón serrano, queso de tetilla, pan y aceite de oliva. I helped myself to some bread and ham. I splashed it with olive oil, stuck it in my mouth and waited for the salt to dissolve on my tongue. I washed it down with the oaky, full–bodied, smoky flavours of the Ribeiro.

'Bloody hell, João, nice choice – lovely wine old chap!' said Stephen.

'Yeah, well done mate...love the little nook,' said Mark as the monks came in, their robes floating in the air as the wooden crucifixes dangled around their necks.

Jaime and Carmen got there later – Spanish punctuality – and by the time they arrived the two priests and I had already emptied two bottles of Ribeiro and eaten half a leg of ham as the proprietor of the bodega was increasingly generous with the food.

'¡Oye, que tenemos aquí, sí señor, sí señor, así se hace, João, muy bien hecho, un vinito, un pinchito y ahí estamos... VENGA, VENGA! – That's how you do it, a little wine and a little pincho and that's how you do it,' said Jaime.

'Oh how hungry I am, madre de Dios,' said Carmen looking at the list of dishes available on the board that hung above on the wall.

'Me pone dos de pulpo a la gallega,' ordered Carmen. 'Vale, vale,' replied the woman behind the counter.

'Los Gallegos...' started Carmen, 'are normally very grumpy, but this woman is nice. She even smiled at me when I ordered,' she said surprised.

'I thought all Spaniards were cheerful,' I said naively.

'Ah, no way, man, no way,' said Mark. 'The first time we were on the Camino – you see, we've done this a couple of times – anyway, Stephen and I had a terrible fight with a woman in Astorga. She ran a private hostel, that place close to the Gaudi palace. Anyway, the two of us were there sipping wine in the kitchen after everyone went to sleep. We'd had a little to drink, true, but we were by no accounts 'noisy,' as she accused us of being. She commanded us to go to bed like two spoiled kids and I just couldn't have that. I got up and told her to stick her bed up there, you know, up that place – just because I'm a priest I don't have to take shit from a stupid cow like that!'

'I agree,' said Stephen, 'the woman was a b-b-b-bitch!'

'Then what?' I asked.

'What what?' Mark replied.

'Then what happened, Mark?' I insisted. 'You can't start a story and then stop in the middle.'

'Ah, sure, well...then the cow told us that if we didn't go to bed we should get out and find another place to sleep, would you believe the cunt? So we said 'Ok, we'll go, all right, but first we want our money back' – we'd paid seven euros for the bed. And do you know what she told us?'

'No, what did she tell you?'

'Oh, that's it, that's it...I'll tell you what she told me...' said Mark.

'No, no, no, let me t-t-tell you,' said Stephen.

Stephen stood up and banging his wrists on the table said,

'Sh, Sh, Sh, She... told us she couldn't refund us be, be, be, be because we haaaad.... a shower – which we ha, ha, ha, ha hadn't, can you believe her che, che, che cheek? What a ca,ca,ca cow! Then she told us to leave immediately or else she was going to call the po, po, police! Can you believe th-th-that? Call the po, po, police?!

Then, Mark interrupted.

'Can you imagine the newspapers of Astorga the next day: 'Disturbance in pilgrim house, two monks arrested for vandalism.' That wouldn't go down well with the Pope, would it? So we decided to leave quietly. But we were fuming. We walked as far away from Astorga as we could that night, in the dark! At least until we saw a small chapel outside of the city limits. We jumped a small fence and went to sleep on a patch of grass at the back of the chapel where no one could see us. We slept there the whole night – although Stephen didn't get much sleep because he was scared that a fox would eat his toes.'

'Nonsense!' objected Stephen. 'You're so full of shi-shi-shit, Mark, so full of shi-shi-shit! Look here, m-m-m-mate, if you're going to t-t-ttalk such nonsense, I'll just t-t-t-tell these p-p-p-people about the time you freaked out b-b-b-because you ate a sandwich aaaaand when you looked at it again you s-s-s-saw the face of the Vi-vi-viiiirgin Mary printed on it!'

'It was Mary, I swear, it was her!' said Mark, fully convinced.

'Yes, yes, you see, Mark, in my b-b-b-book a splodge of HP s-s-sauce and ketchup on a p-p-p-piece of white toasted b-b-b-bread hardly counts as a 'p-p-p-portrait,' let alone, as I reeeeecall you saying at the t-t-t-time, 'the perfect configuration of the mother of God smiling at me.'' (He said that without stuttering and with an aristocratic English accent).

While this discussion was taking place, Jaime, Carmen and I stuffed our faces with more food and more wine and roared with laughter.

It was a good night, until we had to say farewell. Except that it wasn't farewell at all, as we discovered the following day. None of us could really stop walking and the aim had always been Finisterre, not Santiago. We were caught in the primordial need to keep going, to never stop until the trail comes to an end. The next day we met again on the road that led nowhere – finis terrae – and nobody was surprised at that. We had vaguely discussed going to Finisterre: Jaime was certainly going, Carmen was still thinking about it when we entered Santiago the day before. I was certain I had to walk further. I had to. My cards had been played and I had an encounter with the man that was now as much part of my life as any other made of muscle and bones: Emmanuel.

I left very early the next day and walked on the trail that led me over more bridges and through meadows and villages that looked primitive and valleys that looked painted on canvas and not real. The colours mingled and mixed with one another as the sun flooded every molecule in every plant and luscious greenery exploded all around like a giant protuberant weed with tentacles. I walked quickly and steadily. Eventually, I caught up with the monks, Carmen and Jaime just before I reached Negreira. I had bought a small, cheap, tent because I anticipated that camping would be a better choice than being packed like a sardine in the small pilgrim refuge at Finisterra.

I became increasingly uneasy about arriving in Finisterra. I walked slowly while the others rushed ahead, laughing at not being able to understand one another and stopping for the odd rest. I spent most of the three days it took us to get there in silence, looking and listening to everything around me as if it was the last time I was going to see poppies and green fields, or rocks, or the dust, the scent of wild flowers, or the sheep and the cattle on the hills, the rolling green hills of Galicia, the ruins of houses where once upon a time families sat together for meals and celebrated everyday life, the sun, the warmth of the sun and the wind that blew behind the rain that descended upon us in short torrents, only to dissipate, moving into the continent as the Atlantic winds carried the clouds back into the peninsula.

'¿Estás pensando en la vida, verdad? In all that exists and that surrounds us – what is it all for? No?' said Jaime approaching me with tenderness.

'No, Jaime, actually, I was thinking about how much I miss having my own bed,' and we both laughed.

'Well, then it's time to go home. After Finisterra you should go back and give yourself some rest.'

'There is no going back,' I said, to my own surprise.

'What do you mean?' asked Jaime, intrigued.

'I never had a home. I don't know where home is,' I said.

'He means he dies at the end, as most of us will when we reach the end,' said Carmen from behind us.

At that instant a chill ran down my spine and then I knew that it was more than what Carmen had suggested. I was not only heading to a metaphorical end.

We had reached the last leg of the journey. The priests, whom had been an hour or so ahead of us, appeared out of some woods.

'Hi there, were you meditating?' asked Jaime.

'No, taking a shi-shi-shit,' said Stephen.

'Shut up, Stephen!' said Mark, thumping him on the head.

'Yes, we were meditating amongst the trees for a couple of hours,' said Mark.

I thought they were probably just sleeping after some wine, but 'meditation' sounded more glamorous. We stopped every now and then for something to drink and when our belly muscles became painful after laughing and our eyes overwhelmed by the beauty of the way and our senses overpowered by the rawness, the primitive nature of sea and earth, we lay on the green grass to absorb it all. We met pilgrims walking in the opposite direction, people who had already reached the end and had nothing better to do but to walk back. Some looked disoriented, others completely at ease. Some had found what they were looking for. Others hoped the epiphanies they sought would be waiting for them on the way back home. Some looked sad, most looked lost.

Then Carmen looked at me very intensely and with a serious look on her face, she said:

'Estamos todos perdidos... all lost, helpless, and confused. Maybe we are like characters in a book; poor souls all of us, sailors adrift on a dingy, searching with our desperate eyes in the darkness of the sea and night, searching for that beam of light, the lighthouse that will bring us safely ashore; characters, all characters looking for an author. Maybe God is nothing more than someone like Shakespeare, or Cervantes, a man behind his wooden desk, feather in hand, writing us into being; erasing acts, building plots, creating conflict, determining when it is time for war or time for peace, when it rains or when it is time for a drought, as we move across the pages of life, one by one, living, dying, falling in love, surviving, laughing at our own mistakes, trying hard to understand what this is all about. Until the forgiving hand of our creator, the hand holding the feather, writes our names between some commas, or before an exclamation mark and our destinies are changed forever, our course set and our lines written on some old manuscript, long before we can utter them.'

'Madre mía, you don't speak much, but when you do you know how to do it,' said Jaime, '¿Oye, y sabes otra cosa? You're very pretty too.'

'Why thanks,' said Carmen, now blushing from head to toe.

'All right you two, just invite me for the wedding all right?' I joked.

'Wedding? What? Oh come on João, what a thing to say! It would take months to prepare something like that. Just imagine the preparation, imagine the amount of preparation...' said Carmen. Before she finished Jaime and I looked at one another and laughed.

A month later, Jaime and Carmen, the little man from Equador and the woman with the lion heart from Barcelona, got married in the Templar church of Eunate. I was not present at the occasion, but I am sure it was a grand wedding: the two pilgrims who found one another on the road to Compostela, two lost souls who found in one another a little of that light. That is something that always puzzled and amazed me, how some people seemed to simply find one another just like that, like magic, as if someone had switched a neon light above their heads saying 'Hey, I'm here, pay attention!' The time always seeming so right, that time when everything freezes – breathing, phones, traffic, even the rain – and nothing else matters except for the eternal gaze cast by a soul that has found another soul. The moment when someone notices your presence and you realize you are no longer only a reflection in a mirror.

And the time came when we stood at the end of the world: Finisterra. We stood still looking over to the immensity of the blue ocean beneath us, the sun slowly descending towards his grave, destined to die in the waters he once reigned over from the sky. The two priests, Jaime, Carmen and I looked on, mesmerized at the drama unfolding before us; a giant ball of fire sliding down and into the earth, waves rippling across the mirror of water that was bent at the edges, giving away the earth's curvature. Our shadows, elongated distortions of ourselves, sprang from our feet, lying on the rocks behind us like Munchian lithographs.

'Incredible,' said Mark.

'The work of God before our eyes,' said Jaime.

'¡VENGA LORENZO, VENGA!'

'The end of the world as the ancient tribes of Iberia once called it,' whispered Carmen, '¡Y que Dios todo poderoso los bendiga!'

'And now fucking what?' asked Stephen.

'What do you mean by 'now fucking what,' Stephen?' asked Mark, who now sounded annoyed.

'Now fucking what?' Stephen replied even more annoyed. 'You know what? This is bloody typical, innit?'

'What are you talking about now?' asked Mark again.

'Of course...now it all makes sense. Listen to this. So, God places us here. He drives us to walk this bloody path, incites our curiosity, makes us crave him and his mysterious ways – I nearly broke all my bones and lost my wallet! I saw gorgeous girls – those girls nearly drove me insane, you know? Then I deprived myself of showers, of hotels, of the bare minimum, because God needed to be respected. Then I walked and walked, thinking and praying and asking that God would give me a sign and rid my mind of all doubts, of all desire, that is, the cause of so much suffering and pain inside me. I asked him to show me the way, to give me an indication, for I am made of flesh and nothing but flesh, and I am human and an animal and not divine. I am NOT perfect! Nothing I could or would do could possibly compare to any of his works. I am his work, all right, and I am imperfect, but I am his work! And so I do not understand any of this – his so–called mysterious ways are too mysterious for me. So I do all that, I give up my life in his favour and I live for him, I breathe him; he is my bread and my sole reason for existing, the supreme cause and effect; Alpha and Omega. AND THEN WHAT? FOR FUCKING WHAT? Look at this, look at me, look at you, look at us, here, now, standing on the top of this ridiculous rock, looking at this entire ocean of possibilities, this entire ocean, this infinite fucking ocean! Man, what are we, who are we? We are here witnessing how we swing around this ball of hydrogen burning at a gazillion degrees, melting everything in its path, dragging us all along with it into the expanding infinite nothing. AND FOR FUCKING WHAT? I AM SO SICK OF THIS! I AM SO SICK OF THIS! God can stuff all his quizzes, all his enigmas and charades up His Holy Arse!!! Fuck God, man, FUCK GOD!!'

We looked at one other and nobody said a word. Then a roaring laughter burst out of Mark and the whole thing came crashing down like an old roof top. Mark was laughing so hard he hung himself on me or else he'd fall, and I held my own stomach for fear of cramps. Carmen and Jaime, who did not understand English well, were puzzled, but they got enough of it to know it was reasonable to smile at Stephen. Even Stephen, who I'm sure was serious about the whole thing, couldn't stop laughing at himself.

'Hi, hi, he, he, hi, ha, hi, ha, I couldn't be more useless, fucking useless, man! What a load of shite, what a load of shite!! He, ha, he, hi, hi, ha.'

'Yes, yes man, you are, absolutely, absolutely' said Mark, and 'hi, ha, hi, ha.'

'And, in case you have not noticed, Stephen, you have not stuttered even once!'

'Bloody hell, that's true... Mark, João, Carmen, look, look at me, I'm cured, I'm cured! Look at this, I don't stammer anymore, I don't stammer!! It's a miracle!!!'

'There you go mate, your fucking God finally answered your prayers – now repent you sinner!' I said, and we all laughed again.

The sun was now nearly touching the water and the sky was tinted with oranges and reds and dark blues. The water became still and the ocean looked like the enormous lens of a giant telescope hidden under the crust of the earth. All we could see were small white sails crossing the horizon in the west and people down below burning their clothes. We climbed a few metres down and reached the people who drank wine and sat around the fire.

We sat next to one another and waited for the sun to die. Now it was half way into the water and the colours in the sky were becoming surreal oranges, reds, violets, pinks, deep blues, all mixed, intertwined, silkily slipping and sliding, one under the other and in between, cavorting in each other's light. The sun finally gave out its last gasp of energy before burying itself in that cold cosmological grave.

Nobody moved or made a sound. The wind was now blowing and the temperature dropped. A seagull played in the currents of air above. The only sound to be heard now was Stephen's sobbing. I looked at him and tears rolled down his face like small diamonds. He saw me looking at him and buried his face between his knees while covering it with his arms, like a child who had done wrong. Then I looked at Jaime and noticed he too had tears tumbling down his cheeks, but his were of joy. His face was lit with light. He got down on his knees and with his arms outstretched, tossing his head right back up, he began to pray.

'Señor, Haced de mi un instrumento de paz.' He paused for a second, and still kneeling, he said:

'Where there is hatred, let me sow love;  
Where there is injury, pardon;  
Where there is doubt, faith;  
Where there is despair, hope;  
Where there is darkness, light;  
And where there is sadness, joy.  
O Divine Master grant that I may  
Not so much seek as to be consoled  
As to console; to be understood,  
As to understand; to be loved as to love.  
For it is in giving that we receive,  
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.  
And it is in dying that we are  
Born to eternal life.'

Jaime recited the whole prayer as if he had preached from many high pulpits before. The two priests sat there with their heads buried in their hands. When Jaime finished the prayer, they jumped up as if they had springs under their feet and in chorus they said 'AMÉN!' Carmen crossed herself. I stood there, with the ocean at my feet, in a trance.

When the first stars began to shine in the crepuscule, I opened my eyes and saw multi–coloured stars falling from above, burning meteors showering the earth, plunging in the water down below. Time had stopped. All sounds were muffled, all vision obscured, the air split into its subatomic particles and I knew it was no longer oxygen. A void seemed to suck in all that lived and moved, and all stood still in a singular amorphous colossus. Like a flower opening its petals, the universe seemed to bloom. The Milky Way split the darkness into east and west and light poured out of the face of the deep as if the whole of the cosmos was but a dark veil covering all the light that there was and the stars were not three dimensional bodies but simply small holes through which the light sifted through. Suddenly, the light faded and everything contracted into itself and everything no longer was.

I stood on the edge of the rock, at the edge of the unstoppable precipice. I looked behind me and darkness had fallen all around. I could see nothing ahead but emptiness. A man dressed in black emerged out of the dark. 'It is time,' he said without moving his lips. I nodded, and looked ahead again and I did what Emmanuel told me to do. I took a step into the abyss and disappeared into the empty space.

22

Emmanuel

'It is just another story about an alienated man, another man on a journey. Have you ever read Homer, Dante, Joyce, Camus or Celine? The same shit, only this one you can understand; it is a story, not an exercise in style,' wrote Emmanuel da Nóbrega, the author of The World According to João de Deus, to the last person who asked him about his book. He had rejection letters stacked up on his desk and bad reviews of his other published, but largely unsuccessful, books pinned to the kitchen wall; like odd self–defeating souvenirs. But they didn't hurt as much as this one:

'It [The World According to João de Deus] is the lousy work of an author with little imagination and who lacks any idea of the disfavour he is doing to the true immigrants whom roam the world, with nothing to sell but their own bodies...' wrote one anonymous reviewer. 'A great piece of postmodern junk, lacking in everything a good book needs and abounding with everything a bad book is known for: dreams, flashbacks, clichés, bad grammar, fragmented plot, plagiarism...you name it, they are all in there,' cried another.

Yes, Emmanuel was used to bad reviews by now and he was glad someone took the trouble of writing them. He'd had higher hopes for The World According to João de Deus. He was no longer thirty or forty, and he was tired of the game. He no longer held any hopes that he would be referred to as a great writer someday. His own opinion was that The World According to João de Deus was the most honest fiction he could write, the best thing he had ever written. And now he knew his best was not good enough.

He thought about the essence of his main character – João de Deus – and how his awareness of emptiness reflected his own. Emmanuel da Nóbrega had never felt he was real, that real blood flowed in his veins. He had always thought of himself as a character in someone else's book. He always felt as if he was being watched all of the time, and that he needed to play a part, the part of a mad and failed writer. In turn, he made João into his own image: he was nothing for all his life and so he lived in nothingness. Da Nóbrega was very much that: nothing, a nobody living in the suburbs of wasteland. Yet, somehow, he held onto the belief that his sun would someday rise and that as long as he carried on writing things would fall into place. He went about in his own world looking for things to describe, looking for a way to keep his head just above the borderline of insanity. At the end of every hour he seemed to find it by dragging a line out of the depths of his empty soul. But even then, his words were allusive and unimportant. 'Kafka was wrong,' thought Emmanuel, 'no one can be literature. Literature is nothing. It is neither reality, nor fiction, nor the way to nowhere. It is our emptiness, our angst. That's all.'

Emmanuel stood up from his chair and left the dirty four–square–meter kitchen in which he wrote, perched on a wall–mounted table, work that had been refused again and again, all except for one poem entitled Kant never showered twice a day, which was published in The Kentish Times and was probably read by no more than a handful of old pensioners who didn't think much of it. That day, a day like any other day, he laid his body on his old sofa in the living room. He took off his belt, unbuttoned his worn-out cords and kicked the tired-looking sleepers off his feet. He placed his legs on the arm of the couch, crossed them and then propped his head higher with a cushion. He placed his glasses at the tip of his nose and looked over an article in The Economist – 'So much bad writing out there...how come they don't get rejected?' he humoured himself.

Emmanuel da Nóbrega was forty–nine years old and he didn't know how he'd gotten there. Writing had finished him. He had spent his whole life trying, and he had failed. All those perfectly good years had gone by as he told himself that nothing else was worth pursuing. He looked at his own reflection on the beer bottle: he looked awfully old. He had become an old cynic, his heart was sour, his soul corroded. He rolled the left leg of his cords up to his knee and he saw varicose veins running up his shin. His face was melting like wax, gridded with wrinkles, his nose was red and bulky with liquor and hair grew out from his ears and nose. His eyebrows were uncontrollable; his hairline had receded back to the middle of his skull.

His writing reflected his image. His lines showed an ageing man without hope, and the critics knew it. After all these years he could still barely afford to pay the rent. He called himself a writer, and still he had to work part–time at the local Co–op as a maintenance man, stacking shelves, driving a forklift up and down a warehouse, changing light bulbs and taking shit from a boy twenty-five years younger, a boy, whose face was still covered with pus–oozing acne. 'You know nothing, kid, you're nothing but a child,' Emmanuel once told the boy. 'Yo man, I'm yun, yun–ger then ya, in it? The fing is...get ya foki'n arse up that la–dder and get dis fokin' lights to werk, I'm yun but I'm ya fokin' mana–ger, innit?'

Emmanuel da Nóbrega was not only poor in the material sense, but also in the spiritual sense. He had no family and only a handful of people he knew, people who no longer expected anything from him, except perhaps for a game of bridge on Sunday afternoons at the local pub. He was often too drunk to know his cards. He was alone, he was an outsider and he was never invited in, even when he wished for it. He no longer wished for it.

Emmanuel had immigrated to England when he was twelve years old, after his father lost his job in his native Brazil. They came to London on the advice of some acquaintance in the hope of finding fortune. In England his father became a shoemaker and remained a shoemaker for the rest of his life. He opened a small shoe repair shop in Kent. Emmanuel and his father lived alone in a small flat above his father's shop on West Wickham High Street, a place that smelled of the burgers and bacon that were fried all day every day at Wimpy's next door.

Da Nóbrega was not Emmanuel's real surname. That was his mother's maiden name. His real surname was Oliveira, just like every other Brazilian. Oliveira made him feel common and disposable, so he changed it in the hope for distinction, in case of future acclaim and to keep something of his mother alive. She had died in a car crash when Emmanuel's father drove through a red light in the centre of his native Curitiba. He was drunk. Emmanuel was lying on the back seat and was too small to remember the size and shape of the lorry that rolled over the car and shattered his mother's body into a million pieces. It had been thirty odd years since Emmanuel had left Brazil, or thought about his mother's death. He liked to think every now and then of what Brazil looked like, and he worried that he had forgotten how his mother looked. He was one true embodiment of the myth of the return. He had forgotten almost everything about Brazil: the trees, the sky, the sea and the people and the noise they made. Such elementary props lived in a reality of their own, in his soul, under his skin, in the same way they live in the hearts and minds of men and women who crave homeland, but have forgotten the way back.

Emmanuel could neither remember his mother's eyes nor how she smelled, the colour of her hair or the way she walked. If he had relatives, he didn't know them. He felt his present simply didn't match the idea of the future he had had as a child. He thought about all the things he could have been, all that he could have become. But reality looked different. He lived on a dirty old couch in a dirty old flat on Potters Road, north London. His father was long dead, and his future was dead too. He contemplated suicide. He was not only mediocre, he was also a coward, and cowards are too vain to die by their own hands.

He knew that all characters in The World According to João de Deus had shaped their moods and angsts, fears and hopes in all that was peculiar about him, and he could not help but take a long and deep look into João de Deus's eyes, only to see himself as João was: young, daring and full of impossible dreams – a man happy not to have a clear destiny, a man with a tragic past who was determined not to let the past ruin his present and future. 'João de Deus is not Emmanuel da Nóbrega,' he thought to himself. 'His stories are simply informed by my unlived experiences. He is not real; he is simply everything I wanted to have been, everything I wanted to have done.'

None of this mattered now. The end was nothing except the end, nothing but the end. Where could he go from here? He took one of the cheap cigars he stole from the Co–op warehouse and lit it. With one hand under the cushion and the other holding the cigar, he puffed smoke rings into the air while looking through the window. The weather outside was grey. The water drizzling on the windowpane made him feel good about being inside. 'People say they like the cold and the rain and the snow and the night,' he thought, '...or to be alone. But what they really like is none of these things. They only enjoy knowing that they can escape those things at will.'

The heating was off and the room was beginning to feel cold and damp. He took a blanket from the floor and covered his legs. He did not know why but he felt like smiling. It simply happened. Point proven! 'Is that it? Is this happiness?' he questioned. 'A blanket...a fucking blanket? Is that all it takes? Much worse had been done to other unfortunate souls. Pessoa never lived to see his books published, let alone long enough to see them being rejected,' he thought to himself, '...and Kafka died much in the same manner. Worse even, his best friend not only broke his promise and published all of his unfinished books but also finished some of them for him. Nietzsche's sister turned him into a Nazi.'

He didn't dare to compare himself to those great writers, but he felt happy simply knowing that no matter what he did or did not do, whatever recognition, whatever acknowledgement he may or may not have received, it would be of no relevance whatsoever in the great scheme of things, because the end is the end and nothing but the end, and what happens after happens after and no one can have any control over it: not him, not the great writers he admired, not Mohammed, not Christ – they all died, some in some dirty little attic, some of madness, some with syphilis, some shot themselves in the head on a Caribbean island, some hung on a cross; no matter – they all saw the end. That was the fate of Alexander the Great and Napoleon, and all the Pharaohs and all the kings of France and England, and it would be his fate too, because the end is nothing but the end. Except that all of them survived death in one way or another, not by what they did or did not do, but because they had seen it coming, because they saw the light and they saw the darkness and they gave up trying to see reality and instead imagined a world of their own; they became characters in the human story. As people they were nothing but assassins and gamblers, time–wasters, womanizers, rich kids with powerful parents, people with issues, megalomaniacs, homosexuals, men with small penises and confused lust; humans, mortal humans. As characters in a story, they were immortal. That's why they had never been forgotten. They have never been more alive, dozens, hundreds, thousands of years later. Think of Cyrus, think of Cyrus!

Emmanuel understood that his momentary happiness came not from being under the blanket, but from knowing that death was not a threat but a release, a letting go of all that the world asked him to care about, all that was to him, deep down, not important, not real. Emmanuel da Nóbrega felt contented because he had found the reason why his novel had not worked: João de Deus had never achieved his ultimate goal. He was never really given a chance to become immortal. He ended his journey in a pit of blackness consumed in cathartic euphoria, but never finished what he had started. The novel was incomplete. The prophecy was unfulfilled.

An idea occurred to him. He stood up with purpose; he was excited in a way he had not been for a long time. He headed to the kitchen. He was going to give João de Deus the one thing he wanted: immortality, immortality at any cost – including his own death.

* * *

João de Deus had his name printed on a United Airline's ticket from London to New York. He was to board flight UA–57045 at 6:45 AM from Heathrow's Terminal 5. It was to be his first time in New York City. His agent had told him the meeting with the New Yorker publisher was going to take place the next day at 10 AM on 36th Street at the headquarters of Bertrand Llessur Publishers S.A. It was a meeting of great importance, a meeting that could cement João de Deus as an upcoming talent from the new world.

It was 1 AM and João could not sleep. The Invisibles, his second novel, a follow up from Pilgrims on the Road, was a book that had won various awards and had enjoyed excellent reviews. It was already short–listed for a major literary prize: '...a writer of great feeling and depth' said one critic from the New York Times, 'nothing short of powerful – not since Orwell has a writer achieved such clarity of thought,' another critic enthusiastically wrote in the Guardian.

João de Deus rolled in bed, his eyes wide open, his mouth was dry. He decided to get up. He walked drowsily into the kitchen. He opened the tap and let the water pour into a glass. He took a sip. He turned around slowly and looked ahead until he caught a glimpse of his own reflection on the windowpane of his small flat near Primrose Hill.

João could see himself very clearly but something wasn't right. The image reflected was not his. What he saw was the image of an old man with a cheap cigar in his mouth and a beer belly. He wore a ragged t–shirt and his hair were almost all white and receding at the front. The image was unmistakably real, so real he turned around, certain he was going to see the man standing behind him in the kitchen. He turned, and he saw no one. Perhaps the man was outside. That would have been impossible. Still, he rushed out and opened the sliding door that led to the terrace – nobody. 'What a fool!' he thought to himself. He came back inside and the reflection had vanished. His own image was now on the windowpane. He sunk his head between his shoulders with relief. 'I'm going mad,' he thought.

It had been four years since João de Deus had returned from his wandering trip in Europe, the journey that produced his highly acclaimed debut novel, The Pilgrim. He still bore the scars from the moment when he stepped into the darkness and let his body fall into the cavity between the rocks of Finisterre. He remembered when he woke up three days later in a hospital covered in bandages and stitches. His road companions all around him: Jaime, Carmen, Mark and Stephen. He remembered opening his eyes saying: 'I dreamed I was awake – like I never been before.' It took another week before he was out of hospital. The two priests had offered him a place to stay in London – a shelter run by the Salvation Army. They got on a coach and headed back to London, João being little aware of the effort the priests made to get him through the border. He had no visa and no other papers. Somehow, the priests got him in as a poor priest who had lost all his papers in an accident. Clergymen get away with many things.

In London João sat down in the library for the first time one sunny morning – one of those rare mornings in London. After six months of work, he had finished the three hundred and fifty five pages of The Pilgrim. It took him six months to complete the book.

He found himself a low–paid job at the Barbican, as a cleaner. During evenings and weekends he worked to pay his rent and to provide his body with nourishment and he did most of his writing from the Library during the day. He loved to sit by the window on the balcony level, looking out at King's Cross, imagining all the people who were coming and going from Europe. He wrote and he wrote, and as he wrote, sunlight would sometimes flood the library. When that happened he noticed small particles that floated inside the beam of light and the particles, like tiny angels, would descended to earth after their one–hundred–and–fifty million kilometre journey from the sun and across the universe.

One day, he decided the manuscript was complete, but he did not know what to do with it. At first he felt compelled to erase the entire thing from his computer and start it all over again. But before he did so, another thought came to him; he should send it as an unsolicited manuscript to an agent. Her name was Sarah Lee. She was a friend of the two priests and she was starting up a small publishing house in Cambridge. She was looking for new authors to represent. Sarah liked the book and asked if João would like to publish it, providing some changes were made. They had a deal.

It took some time, and the first reviews were lukewarm. Then the man from the Guardian picked up on it and gave it a good, excited review. Before João de Deus could blink, the book was being short–listed for literary prizes. Was he satisfied? Was he a man about town, proud of his achievements? Something was missing. He knew writing wasn't everything. João de Deus knew there was more to life than writing. He knew that if he really was to transcend himself and become a true artist, his own self–imposed limitations and those that others had imposed on him since he was born on a cold, flat, metallic, hospital table, he would have to set himself free from pride and desire. João de Deus knew that everything he had accomplished was nothing but thin air, an illusion, like the illusion he saw reflected on his windowpane and which he recognized as the spectre of Emmanuel.

João de Deus understood, in a moment of unprecedented self–awareness, that Carmen had been right all along. He, João de Deus, was nothing but a character in somebody's novel, the end result of someone else's dreams and aspirations, fears and reluctance to live and not only survive, but to find the moment of singularity, to fly higher than a kite and deeper into an awareness that he experienced, only for a second, when he reached the end of the world, and which despite its brevity, was enough to shake him to his core, to the point when he began to regard his life as he had known it until now as an irrelevant chain of broken and meaningless events.

João de Deus was certain that Emmanuel da Nóbrega was in fact himself, João de Deus, as an old man, defeated by his own obsessions and vanity, a man who was only alive because of his characters and not because of his own virtues. Emmanuel, the man who had never experienced pain, but who made it a pre–requisite for João de Deus's murderous existence, the man who tortured him by giving him that rage that burned inside him while stripping him of everything else. Questions, that's all he had left him with: questions, questions and more questions. He, Emmanuel, ought to pay for his arrogance. He must pay for playing God because Emmanuel wasn't God and like all mortals, he too must die.

* * *

Emmanuel da Nóbrega was sitting at his kitchen table, rewriting the end of his novel, The World According to João de Deus, determined to give his character another chance. He worked all day, mostly undisturbed by the various incidents that usually occurred during his day: the neighbour who, with atomic precision, knocked on his door at the most inconvenient moment to ask him some ordinary question or to borrow eggs, which she knew he wouldn't have. Or the woman from the flat above, whose annoying absentmindedness prevented her from being more careful with her front door keys and who consequently rang his bell twice a day to let her in.

He worked hard that day, re–typing almost twenty pages worth of reformulations and corrections, adding scenarios, deleting passages, rethinking sentences. At the end of the day he felt satisfied with himself: João de Deus had been given a new life; he was now a happy man, a successful writer, of growing international renown, a self–made man who was dragged through skid row and desperation alley and made it to the other end; a survivor like himself.

Just as he was about to retire to his sofa and smoke a cigar, Emmanuel da Nóbrega heard the bell again. 'Stupid old cow!' he cursed. He pushed the button and heard the downstairs door opening and then shutting. He heard steps up the stairway, but this time the steps stopped at his door, when they normally would have continued up to the next floor. His doorbell rang.

'I can't believe it! She knows I work at this time and don't like to be disturbed! Old witch!' he cursed again. 'Hang on, Mrs Conway, hang on, I need to put something on.' There was no reply.

Emmanuel went into the room, put his bathrobe on and came to the door. He unchained it, turned the key – twice. He turned the knob and pull the door wide open expecting Mrs Conway to be standing on the other side, ready to bombard him with her trivial jibber. But this time it wasn't Mrs Conway. Instead, a young, determined looking man stood in front of him. He looked straight into Emmanuel's eyes. His eyes were glazed with a blank stare and his face bore a terrifying rage.

'Emmanuel?' asked the man.

'Who wants to know?'

'I have something for him,' said the man.

'Yes, I'm Emmanuel.'

The man revealed the knife he held behind him and with a sudden and precise movement João de Deus stabbed Emmanuel, again, and again, and again, on and on and on, twenty–two times counting out loud every time the knife sliced through the skin. Blood gushed out of Emmanuel's body as he lay on the floor of the dirty, run–down apartment with twenty two seconds of life left in his veins. He gasped for air. Darkness came over him. It was time.

The man towered over the old man at his feet, both awash with Emmanuel's blood. He looked down at the gored man on the floor, eyes wide open, mouth oozing a foamy liquid, blood sprayed on his face, and he felt nothing. The man walked over to the kitchen and saw a manuscript on the kitchen table. He picked it up and read the last paragraph. He dropped the knife, walked over to the living room and threw the manuscript next to the dying man. He then went to the bathroom, took off his clothes and climbed into the bathtub.

* * *

The day Emmanuel da Nóbrega died he had failed to notice the weather, or the flowers at the flower shop around the corner from the underground station. He failed to see the dew that had settled on top of the milk bottles that stood like bowling pins outside his neighbour's front door. He failed to notice the black Labrador that guided the blind American student across the street – the sweet American girl who recognized the smell of cigar on his clothes and said 'hello Mister' every time he passed by. Neither did he notice the pigeon that died electrocuted on the grid and hung upside down from the wire above the High Street, like some tattered, weathered Christmas decoration. Nor did he notice the dead fox that lay in the supermarket car park, engulfed by flies and half eaten by crows and pigeons. Emmanuel was concerned with one thing and one thing only: the need to give João de Deus his deserved immortality. He was absorbed with his newly–found hope and his death was not welcomed by his ego, which that day, above all days, had told him that there are some things worth living for.

When the police broke in, they did not find any evidence of struggle or the presence of another human being in the apartment. It seemed that Emmanuel da Nóbrega had ended his own life. He had bled to death. His body was found in the middle of the living room, his arms bearing various wounds and his wrists sliced open. One large cut traversed his abdomen that let out his insides: twenty-two wounds in total. They found a bloodied knife in the kitchen and a bloodied manuscript next to his body. Nobody understood how he could have done that to himself, but suicide was the conclusion they came to. The place was locked from the inside.

Emmanuel died one sunny afternoon, alone, sick with longing, drowned in emptiness, and utterly unaware of anything except the futility of his meagre life.

