A story set in present-day Brazil
No one else knew you could get into the side of the bridge. There wasn't any path down. The undergrowth was full of thorns. But Danilo knew the way. He dropped into the stream where it had dried up. Then he ducked through the shadows. And there it was: an opening in the concrete, big as a door.
Danilo looked about inside. The wood was propped by the wall. The tools he'd got hold of, nails, hinges. Everything was there. All he needed now was a pair of wheels. And he had to make up his mind if he was really going to do it.
Up in the house, Dad stared into the dented pot on the gas ring. He was a tall, wiry man with redness smeared into the corners of his eyes. When the water began to hiss he snapped off the gas.
‘Where the hell's Danilo?’ he muttered, picking up the pot by its rim. ‘It's Monday for Christ's sake. He knows there's work to do.’
Four years earlier Danilo's dad had been making a reasonable living. He'd been driving freight all over Brazil – up to the north, down to the south, right over to the border with Bolivia. Then, one night, he stopped to fill up and drink a coffee about a hundred kilometres outside Rio de Janeiro. As he came back to his lorry, two men were waiting, one with a pistol, the other with a metal bar.
‘Give me a chance, brothers!’ he said. ‘I'm only a simple man trying to make my living!’
But that was as far as he got. The gun jabbed his ribs. He dropped the keys. Moments later the two guys were off in the lorry with its cargo: 320 crates of T-shirts.
When the same thing happened to a white driver, the boss believed the driver's story. But he never believed Danilo's dad.
‘You're lying through your teeth,’ he said. ‘You planned the whole thing with your black friends.’
He sacked him. Then he got the police involved.
Dad's eyes burned whenever he spoke about that boss of his.
‘The son-of-a-bitch,’ he'd hiss. ‘If I'd made money from the hold-up like he said, I wouldn't have got us kicked out of the flat for not paying the rent. My wife wouldn't have run off. And Danilo and I wouldn't be doing the lousiest work anyone ever did.’
He dropped a spoonful of coffee into the pot and stirred it noisily. Then he pushed open the door.
‘EH!’ he yelled. ‘DANILO!’
Under the bridge, Danilo had a hammer in his hand. He was going to nail a strut of wood across a pair of planks. But when he heard his dad's voice he dropped the hammer. Then he threw the strut against the wall and kicked the planks apart.
When he appeared in the doorway, Dad was sipping his coffee.
‘Where in God's name have you been?’ he growled.
‘I had a headache. Went up to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy for an aspirin.’
‘It must be that stupid haircut gave you the headache,’ said Dad. Then he coughed loudly and spat out of the window.
Danilo smirked and ran a hand over his head. On one side the hair was shaved close with a stripe down the middle. On the other side the hair was long.
‘Zivanete did it for me,’ he said.
‘Well Zivanete should know better,’ muttered Dad. ‘You look like a freak.’
Danilo grinned. Dad sipped at his coffee.
‘What you gawping at?’ he snapped. ‘You've got five minutes to shift that black arse of yours up the hill and help me make some money.’
Danilo peered at himself in the small mirror hung on the wall then went to get the forks.
The sun was low over the tower blocks as they set off up the slope. Danilo led the way, trudging through wads of soggy rubbish bags, dry coconut husks, crushed milk cartons, bones, cans. Halfway up, a dog with ragged ears came padding through the sunlight.
‘Git!’ said Dad, flapping the bundle of empty sacks he was carrying. The dog ignored him so Dad reached down and chucked a bottle. PASH! Splinters of glass flew in the air, and the dog was off.
‘Lovely start to the day,’ said Danilo.
‘I don't like dogs sniffing at me,’ muttered Dad.
From the brim of the slope they could see the whole stinking stretch of the rubbish dump. One way it reached down to the high walls of Hildebrando's timber yard. The other way it climbed up to the grumbling traffic on the highway. There were fires smoking here and there and pigs snuffling at the blackness of the lake in the middle.
‘For Christ's sake!’ Dad hissed, ‘The lorry's here already!’
He was right. The lorry was crawling up the highway between a couple of buses. Ten or twelve people were waiting with forks and sacks up by the track.
‘Move it, Danilo!’ Dad called.
It was Domingos at the wheel. He drove with one hand dangled out of the window. As he swung the truck in through the gates, Dad waved his sacks.
‘OVER HERE! HERE!’
Domingos ignored him. He drove on.
Zivanete was standing with a half-filled sack sagging from her back. She had long, thin arms. She wasn't nearly as old as she looked. The lorry rumbled on and she put a hand up to her headscarf.
‘He's heading for the lake!’
‘He's not!’ shouted Dad, cutting across the rubbish then stepping out on to the track.
‘DOMINGOS!’ he yelled, ‘Dump the rubbish where we can sort it!’
‘Clear off! Domingos shouted. ‘I've been told to tip in the lake!’
Others came hurrying down. A short man with a big head of white hair stepped out beside Dad. He was Uncle Macaroni. Macaroni wasn't his real name. And he wasn't anyone's uncle. But that's what everyone called him.
‘We won't get anything!’ he shouted.
‘None of my business!’ yelled Domingos, revving the engine so that smoke spat out of the exhaust. But there were five or six people standing in front of the lorry now. Domingos's sunglasses flashed as he looked from one to the next.
‘The slope'll collapse if we dump more rubbish up here!’
Dad gritted his teeth. Danilo was coming round the back of the truck. He saw the look on his dad's face. He knew that look.
‘Dump the stuff where we can sort it! Dad yelled. ‘Or my boy'll put a fork through your tyres.’
Domingos's face filled the wing mirror. Then the door of the cab swung and the driver jumped down.
‘Any part of you that touches my truck, you're not getting back!’ he bellowed.
Everyone was looking at Danilo. No one was looking at Dad. And, in an instant, he was up into the cab. He got the lorry in gear and started reversing it up the track. The door was still wide open.
Domingos went off like a firework. He shook his head. He jabbed the air with his hands. But Dad was gone. The lorry crunched up the track. At the top he tipped the rubbish where everyone could get at it. A cheer went up and the rubbish collectors set off back.
‘He's had it!’ Domingos hissed.
‘He was just trying to help us, said Danilo.
‘What do you know about anything?’ snapped Domingos. ‘Eh? You're just a piece of black trash.’
‘I'm a person same as you,’ Danilo told him.
‘You're black scum… with a clown's haircut,’ said Domingos and he aimed a kick at Danilo's leg. ‘Brazil would be better off without the lot of you.’
Danilo picked a piece of wood off the ground. Uncle Macaroni put out an arm to hold him back. Domingos paced off towards the lorry.
‘Get out of my cab you son-of-a-bitch!’ he shouted up.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Dad, jumping down. ‘I didn't damage the truck. I didn't touch you. I've even got an HGV licence. What's the crime?'
‘Just shut your mouth and get away from my lorry.’
Domingos pulled himself back into the cab and straightened his sunglasses. Then he called through the window, ‘You step out in front of my truck again and I'll run you all down, you ignorant scumbags!’
‘You sound like a door squeaking,’ said Dad, poking about in the fresh rubbish. That started Uncle Macaroni cackling. Domingos pointed a thick finger out of the window.
‘I might do it right now!’ he said, revving the engine and making the lorry jolt forwards. ‘Just to wipe those smiles off your ugly black faces!’
‘Go and get us some more rubbish,’ said Dad.
The gears crunched and Domingos was off.
Danilo and his dad filled eleven sacks that day. Monday was always the best day. Saturday's and Sunday's rubbish came rolled into one. The two of them worked side by side. Dad found the tins and the metal. Danilo found the bottles and the cardboard.
They got four cents a kilo for glass, thirteen cents a kilo for cardboard, fifteen cents a kilo for clear plastic.
‘A donkey's pay for a donkey's job,’ Dad said. ‘But at least there's no goddamn boss.’
When the last of the sacks was tied up, Danilo started trying to get the motor out of a dumped washing machine. The screws came out with a knife and he only had to snap away a part of the casing to pull the motor free.
‘Dad!’ he called. ‘I'm taking this up to Senhor Zuza's’.’
‘All right,’ said Dad, filling the air with a yawn. ‘I'll take the sacks to the depot. You do it tomorrow.’
As he came round the side of the shop Danilo whistled, and the bald man leaning on the counter gave him a nod.
‘Everything all right, Senhor Zuza?’
‘Everything except that hairstyle,’ said Senhor Zuza.
Danilo shrugged.
‘You think that looks good?’ asked the old man.
Danilo shrugged again.
‘You look as though you've got a radio stuck to the side of your head.’
‘I brought you a washing-machine motor.’
‘I can see,’ nodded Senhor Zuza. ‘Thanks. Stick it over there by the storeroom.’
Danilo put the motor down in the corner. Senhor Zuza filled a cup from the water fountain and handed it to him.
‘How's life in the perfumed valley?’
‘All right,’ nodded Danilo, ‘except one of the truck drivers pissing everyone about this morning.’
He launched into the story of what Dad had done. At first Senhor Zuza nodded. Then he laughed. And the more he laughed, the more Danilo remembered details to add to the story: the look on Uncle Macaroni's face, the sound of the truck revving up the hill, the things Domingos had shouted.
‘Black scumbags!’ Danilo said. ‘You believe he called us that?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Senhor Zuza.
‘He's a son-of-a-bitch.’
‘There are worse than him,’ Senhor Zuza smiled. ‘Plenty of people think like him. But they don't all shout it out. It's just a story that nobody cares about the colour of your skin in Brazil. You know… we all mix and play samba and football and smile. Sometimes we do. But really it's just a story, Danilo. You know Brazil was just about the last country in the world to free its slaves. And look around… it's still the white people who've got the land, the education, the security. We black people live with poverty, with danger. With ignorance. That's the worst of all. The ignorance.’
‘Domingos called us ignorant,’ said Danilo.
‘And we are!’ laughed Senhor Zuza. ‘You've missed out on school just like I did. You and I are ignorant. Completely ignorant. But it doesn't mean we're stupid. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't try.’
Danilo poured himself some more water and Senhor Zuza carried on.
‘It's fifty years since I was your age,’ he said. ‘And I'll tell you, hardly anything's changed round here. Black people still live at the bottom of the pile. I had one piece of luck. Someone told me to try. And thank God, that's what I did. I tried to lay bricks. I learned to lay bricks. I tried to work with wood. I learned to work with wood. I tried to understand electrics. I learned to be an electrician. And when people didn't trust a black electrician was going to do a good job, I just made damn sure that I did. That's how I got this shop. That's how I bought a house for my grandchildren. And that isn't bad for a man who was born with nothing and who was told he'd have nothing in the end.’
Danilo nodded. Then he said, ‘Shame you lost all your hair in the process.’
Senhor Zuza picked up a length of hosepipe and swung it at him. Danilo let out a giggle and darted to one side.
‘What I'm saying is important, Danilo. You're going to have to try. You're good with your hands. You shouldn't be poking around on that dump with the vultures.’
Danilo shrugged. Senhor Zuza tutted.
‘What's this shrugging? You know what I've told you. You build yourself a decent handcart and there's a job for you here as a delivery boy.’
A part of Danilo wanted to tell Senhor Zuza that he'd already started getting the things to make a hand-cart. But a part of him knew he'd never really make it. There was silence. He stared at the building materials piled from floor to ceiling. Tools, plugs, fuses, ropes, wheelbarrows, sacks of sand. Then he drank down his water and said, ‘Dad'll go mad if I leave him.’
‘You sure about that?’ asked Senhor Zuza.
Danilo shrugged again. ‘I'd still like to work here,’ he said.
A customer came in. His neck was glistening with sweat. He shook Senhor Zuza by the hand and Danilo said, ‘I'm going to head back.’
‘Thanks for the motor,’ said the old man.
‘Hope it works,’ nodded Danilo. ‘The last one I brought did, didn't it?’
‘No, it didn't,’ said Senhor Zuza. ‘It was about as good as a pocket in a pair of underpants!’
The customer laughed.
‘At least I'm trying,’ said Danilo.
‘Cheerio,’ grinned Senhor Zuza.
And Danilo walked back out into the sunlight.
Dad and the others were sitting in the shade down from the tap. Danilo splashed his head with water then wandered across to join them. They were arguing about the way the best Brazilian footballers were all playing for foreign clubs. Nearly everyone was saying it was bad for Brazilian football. Only Uncle Macaroni stayed quiet. And only Dad seemed to think the players were doing the right thing. The argument got louder and louder.
‘Hey!’ shouted Danilo. ‘Let's see what Uncle Macaroni thinks.’
Uncle Macaroni just held out his hands and raised his eyebrows.
‘Uncle Macaroni: a man of few words,’ sniggered Dad.
‘The trouble is I keep on repeating them,’ said Uncle Macaroni.
There was a burst of laughter, then quiet.
‘Hildebrando's doing some painting,’ said Zivanete.
They all looked down the hill. There were two men on scaffolding, painting the walls of the timber yard bright green.
‘He's full of money these days,’ Dad said. ‘Twelve lorries. I've counted them coming in.’
‘Might have chosen a better colour,’ said Danilo.
Dad turned down his mouth.
‘Makes the building look like a frog with a skin disease.’
Another laugh filled the hot air. Dad looked round at Danilo.
‘Senhor Zuza all right then?’ he asked.
Danilo nodded.
‘How about you?’ added Dad.
‘I'm all right,’ said Danilo.
Dad put an arm round him.
‘You're the one thing I've got left,’ he said.
As he spoke, a stranger appeared up the track. He was carrying a couple of sacks; a short, stocky man, with narrow eyes.
‘There's a Japanese guy coming to join us,’ nodded Danilo.
‘That's all we need,’ said Dad, turning round. Then he smiled. ‘That's not a Japanese! It's a bloody Indian.’
They watched the man as he came closer, but the Indian didn't look at them. He had a big, squarish sort of head and long, straight hair.
‘Is it like an Indian from the rainforest?’ Danilo asked.
‘Probably,’ said Dad.
Danilo stared.
‘I've never seen one of them for real.’
‘Where's his bow and arrow?’ asked Zivanete.
‘They're meant to go about naked, with feathers on their heads,’ said Dad. ‘This one's got jeans on.’
‘And a watch,’ nodded Danilo.
‘Say something to him,’ said Zivanete, nudging Dad with her elbow. Dad brushed at the flies buzzing around.
‘He won't even know how to talk the same language as us. They speak some funny red-skin language that goes chucky nucky hock tock yam yam.’
He grinned at the Indian. But the Indian walked on without looking round.
The old Kankarurú people told me to protect the earth, the moon, the stars, the thunder. When I look round the white man's city I say, ‘It won't work. They have forgotten how to protect these things.’
But I think I have found the place I have come to find. I walk over the lake of rubbish. It stinks bad. But I won't be noticed. There are others – mad people all day carrying sacks, scraping as if they are planting or harvesting. I am carrying sacks, so I seem to be one of them.
In places the ground under my feet breathes the smell of bad dreams. In other places it smells dead. Dead meat. Dead plastic. Dead vegetables. Dead paper. Dead glass.
There are people sitting in the shadow. They are laughing now. There is a boy so black he looks burnt in a fire. And his father, the same. I can hear ‘Indian this…’ and ‘Indian that…’ This is what I get whenever I go beyond our land. Silly questions, jokes. Always with frightened eyes.
OK. I am thinking: call me names. I have work to do for my people. I will take your names. I will eat your names. And I will shit your names.
I cross the rubbish. I have my mission. I will do it, even if I die. I see pigs below. I see a dog passing. A good strong dog. The black father picks up metal, throws it and hits the strong dog.
Then I turn to him. I shout, ‘EH! ARE YOU A MAN?’
I raise my hand.
Everyone stared up at the Indian.
‘Who's he yelling at?’ asked Dad.
‘You,’ grinned Danilo. ‘He didn't like you throwing the tin at the dog.’
‘Well, he can get stuffed,’ said Dad. ‘Look at him. Standing there like Moses on the mountain.’
Uncle Macaroni gave a cackle. Dad called up, ‘If you want to hang around, you can help us fill some sacks with bottles. If not, you can stick a bone in your nose and shut up.’
The stranger stared. The look on his face didn't change.
Then he said, ‘You are like a monkey!’
Dad furrowed his brow.
‘What was that?’ he shouted back.
‘Hurting dogs is not for a man,’ said the Indian. ‘Hurting dogs is for a monkey.’
Dad was up on his feet straight away.
‘If I want your opinion I'll give it to you, lad! Now shut your mouth before I tie knots in your ears and send you back to your red-skin friends!’
The Indian raised his hand again.
‘My people are not called red skin,’ he said. ‘They are called Kankarurú.’
At that a great bawl of laughter broke out around Danilo.
‘He's from the kangaroo tribe!’ cackled Uncle Macaroni. ‘They paint their faces and jump up and down all day.’
He and Dad started jumping about making pow-wow noises. Zivanete bared her teeth and rocked with laughter. Danilo smiled. But once they'd danced round two or three times he'd had enough of the joke.
The air was hot and still. Up by the tap, a vulture was poking at a fish. It had pushed its head right inside, so that the fish's mouth opened and closed. Danilo didn't feel like sitting around any more. He got up. He wondered if he might find that pair of wheels.
He headed towards the egg-lorry slope. The egg lorry came from a chicken farm. What it dumped stank so bad that hardly anyone ever went up that way. It meant Danilo sometimes found good stuff there. He trudged his way up, round the shell of an old car, and suddenly found himself face-to-face with the Indian. Close-up he looked bigger. He was crouched in the shade. Danilo saw something shiny hanging inside his shirt. He thought the Indian was going to speak, but he didn't.
‘You all right?’ Danilo asked.
The Indian nodded. Then he looked away. He stared off into the distance as though Danilo wasn't worth talking to.
Danilo stood there.
‘That lot were only playing about,’ he said.
The Indian didn't reply. Danilo tried again.
‘You'd like them if you got to know them.’
‘Why should I trust white-skin people? Why should I trust black-skin people?’ asked the Indian. ‘I trust my people. I am here for my people. Understand?’
Danilo shrugged.
‘If you want to make some money I can show you the best stuff to collect.’
The Indian turned down his mouth.
‘Keep your help,’ he said.
He didn't speak again. And Danilo didn't want to stand about like a fool. So he walked on. He looked up the slope. There was nothing but broken eggs and chicken dung. He looked down. There were all sorts of things dumped in a dip in the slope: a fridge, a mattress and a trolley, upside down, with its wheels sticking up in the air.
The black boy has honest eyes. But I am not here to talk to him. He goes away. I get up. I am going to cross the rubbish, away from the people. I walk sideways. It is steep. The sky is hot. The smell is sweet, sour, sweet, sour.
Then my feet drop. The land drops. Everything drops on my head.
Danilo had seen the dump slip before. There was never time to react. There was a SWISH, then the rubbish came thudding, flopping down. His first thought was that he'd lost a good pair of wheels. The rubbish pounded on to the trolley, tipping it up then burying it under. But, at the same instant, there was a shout from behind him. It was the Indian. The whole of the slope where he'd been sitting had slipped. And he'd gone with it.
Dad and the others were staring up at the dust.
‘THE INDIAN'S CAUGHT IT!’ Danilo shouted.
And they all got straight to their feet. Everyone had been buried or partly buried before. The difference was that the Indian was underneath what the egg lorry dumped. And he was right under.
‘Use your hands, not your forks,’ hissed Dad. ‘We don't know where his head is.’
‘Easy!’ called Zivanete scrambling up the slope. ‘Looks as if more of it could come down!’
‘But we've got to be quick!’ shouted Danilo. ‘The guy can't breathe!’
They pulled away armfuls of dirt and feathers and it was Danilo who spotted the light-brown toes.
‘HERE!’ he yelled.
‘He's upside down!’ called Uncle Macaroni.
‘Typical bloody Indian,’ muttered Dad. ‘The son-of-a-bitch even has to get buried different to everyone else.’
They managed to get one thick calf free. Then the other leg appeared bent double. Dad shook it, but it just flopped in his hand.
‘We've got to pull him now!’ Dad shouted. ‘He's been under too long!’
So they did. Three people grabbed each leg and they strained upwards. Out he came. Slowly. Stomach. Chest. Neck. Then his head.
And he was smiling. His hair, his face, his whole body were grey with dust and feathers. But he had such a big smile on his face it looked as if he had two people's teeth in his mouth.
Zivanete put her hands round his cheeks.
‘You all right?’ she asked.
The Indian breathed for a few moments. Then he spat dirt and feathers from his mouth.
‘Now I can die!’ he said. ‘I've been to the bottom of the world and come out the other side. Now I am ready.’
Danilo and the others stood and stared. The Indian got to his feet. Then he put a hand on Zivanete's chest.
‘Thank you. Good heart,’ he said.
He did the same to each of them.
‘Thank you. Good heart.’
Uncle Macaroni bowed solemnly when it was his turn. Dad nodded. Danilo was last. He tried not to smile, but he couldn't help it.
‘Danilo! Show him the tap so that he can have a wash,’ said Dad.
As Danilo led the Indian down the slope, Dad sniffed, ‘Didn't seem such a bad lad.’
‘It might have been any one of us half dead in that chicken shit,’ shrugged Zivanete.
‘Might have been Danilo,’ said Dad.
Zivanete nodded.
‘This is no place for a boy his age,’ tutted Dad.
Zivanete nodded again. ‘He's smart enough to end up somewhere better,’ she said.
‘I'd love him to,’ said Dad. ‘I'd love him to find a way to get the hell out of here.’
The black boy takes me to the water tap. He says his name is Danilo. I say my people call me Tatatin. It means ‘Smoke’.
I say he should leave this place and find another way to live. I say the Great Father is ashamed of a young man creeping about in rubbish. He says maybe.
The black boy Danilo asks where I am from. I say from my people's reserve far away. The reserve is ninety hectares.
He asks if I can kill animals with a bow and arrow. I say we use rifles. I know how to use a rifle fine. He asks if we eat monkeys. I say yes and we also eat honey.
He wants to know what I wear round my neck. My necklace.
‘Is it gold?’ he asks.
‘Gold,’ I say. ‘From the river near our village. Found by my father's mother.’
‘Is there still gold in the river?’
‘Little,’ I tell him.
We come to the tap. I wash. It is better. The black boy Danilo looks at my watch. He says it is a Japanese watch. He says I am not an Indian because I have a Japanese watch. It makes me laugh. I say, ‘If a Japanese buys a hammock from an Indian, does he stop being a Japanese?’
I laugh and he laughs now. I tell him we have a generator in our village and satellite TV. I always watch football. I tell him I have a camera too. He doesn't believe me. I finish washing, then I show him the camera from my pocket. He asks why I have the camera. I decide to tell him my story. I sit in the low sunlight and say this:
‘I am here because white woodcutters are invading our reserve to cut trees. They are cutting big trees. When my relative tried to stop them, they shot him. The white woodcutters think Kankarurú people are nothing. They think they can kill Kankarurú people. They think they can shoot us like forest animals. We want our relatives to be alive. We want our forest. We don't want to lose our way. But we don't want to make war. We want to use the justice system.’
I tell the boy, ‘I have found who is sending the white woodcutters: a man called Hildebrando. I have been to the police and to politicians and they say that if I can give the proof they will stop Hildebrando. So I went to a shop and bought the camera. I took photographs of Hildebrando's lorry on our land.’
I show this boy the photographs from my pocket. The white woodcutters. Tree trunks in the lorry. The number plate at the back: BIP 2222. And I tell the boy that this lorry is coming to Hildebrando's place. I say, ‘When it comes, I will take photographs. Then I will have proof. That is my mission.’
He says he hopes I am lucky. I ask him if his children will live in a better world than us. He says he does not know. I tell him we must think about that. It is getting dark. He says he is going home. I say goodbye to the black boy Danilo, and he says goodbye to me.
Danilo woke early on Tuesday. He felt like getting out before Dad started his coughing and complaining. It was cool and quiet outside. He wondered about going down to the bridge. But he couldn't be bothered. It had been like that for weeks. He had the wood and the tools he needed, but he couldn't get started. He decided he'd look for another motor or a TV tube to take up to Senhor Zuza.
He climbed the slope and crossed the track. No one was about. Just some vultures coughing at each other up ahead. It looked like there'd been another slip in the night. He had to scramble up a fresh mound of rubbish. The vultures hopped sideways as he came near. Then he stopped. There was a man slumped on the other side, with a dog sniffing at his back.
‘Hey!’ Danilo called down.
The dog looked up. But the man didn't move.
Some of the rubbish collectors drank themselves stupid. Danilo had seen them sleeping sprawled out like that. But this guy looked worse than usual. His head was twisted down into the rubbish.
‘Hey!’ Danilo called again, jogging down the mound.
The dog backed off. Then Danilo realized who it was.
‘Tatatin?’ he said.
The Indian didn't move. Danilo tugged his arm. Tatatin's head lolled over to the side. Danilo knew he was dead. His mouth sagged open. Both eyes were half shut. His cheeks were swollen and caked with blood. One lip was torn. Danilo turned and ran.
It was early but it was already hot as Domingos's lorry came crawling along the highway. His arm hung casually out of the window but his face looked tense. He expected to see the usual clutch of rubbish collectors waiting as he swung in through the gate. But no one was about. He carried on down the track. Then he spotted them. They were standing off to the left, all of them looking down at the ground.
Danilo heard the truck rumble by. But he didn't look round.
‘Poor lad,’ said Zivanete.
‘Someone beat him inside out,’ said Danilo.
Uncle Macaroni shook his head. And Dad breathed out noisily.
‘The best we can do is get the body to the police station up the highway.’
Danilo and the others went off to find a hammock and wood to make a stretcher. Dad stayed standing over the body. After a time he reached down and tried to straighten it out. He tugged Tatatin round by one of his shoulders. As he did, the Indian's shirt fell open and out tumbled the gold nugget.
There was a hiss from down by the lake. The back of Domingos's lorry slowly tilted and the rubbish spilled into the water. Domingos reversed.
‘The scumbags can stop me now, if they want,’ he muttered.
Then he turned the lorry back towards the gate.
Coming up the track he could see Danilo's dad standing on his own. And now he knew what they'd all been staring at: a body stretched out on the rubbish.
The first thing Dad thought was that gold was no use to the Indian. The second thing he thought was that if he didn't take it some policeman would. The third thing he thought was that with some money in his pocket Danilo could get off the dump. He reached down and snapped the string.
Domingos saw him do it. He radioed for the police as he got to the gate on to the highway. He told them what he had seen. Then he clipped the radio on to the dashboard and said, ‘If the black bastard gets it in the neck it serves him damn well right.’
Danilo and his dad were still tying together the makeshift stretcher when the police cars came bumping towards them. If Dad had stayed calm things might have worked out differently, but he didn't. He swore at the policemen. He kicked one of them, tried to punch another. Zivanete did her best to calm him down. But one of the policemen grabbed her round the neck. Danilo told them they'd got it wrong. He told them about Hildebrando, Tatatin's camera, the photos of the lorry.
A policeman went through Tatatin's pockets. There was no camera. There were no photos. Then he went through Dad's pockets and pulled out the gold nugget. They checked Dad's records and found the story about the stolen lorry. Danilo saw the colour drain out of his dad's lips. He noticed the sour smell of his armpits as they pulled him into handcuffs. He was amazed by his dad's sudden silence. Everyone's silence.
‘Arrest Hildebrando!’ he blurted out. ‘My dad's not a murderer! Believe me!’
But blaming a dead Indian on a black nobody seemed to suit the police. Hildebrando owned land. Hildebrando was white. Hildebrando knew the Mayor. Arresting Hildebrando was going to make trouble.
‘I saw the photographs!’ Danilo yelled as they pushed Dad into a car. ‘You've got the wrong man!’
‘Prove it!’ said the police sergeant. ‘Bring us the proof!’
Then the cars were gone. Dad was gone. Zivanete held her hands to her cheeks. Uncle Macaroni was shrugging. And Danilo was walking off across the dump on his own. The saws hadn't started down at the timber yard. There was no one there yet. He was going to find the proof.
Climbing the scaffolding was easy and, from the top, he could see over the roof. Hildebrando's lorries were parked to one side of the yard. All of them were empty except one which was piled high with tree trunks. Danilo recognized the figures on the number plate BIP 2222.
He shinned on to the roof and crept across the tiles. There was a fire escape down the far wall. Danilo swung on to it. It was a long way down. Step by step he dropped down into the yard. But a couple of rungs off the bottom there was an explosion of barking. Two Alsatians flew out from under a lorry. Danilo only just yanked himself up quickly enough and, at the same moment, a door opened. Out came a man with a pistol in his belt.
‘EH!’ he shouted. ‘Down here!’
The dogs were going mad, twisting from side to side. Danilo didn't think twice. He scrambled back up the way he'd come, hoisting himself on to the roof again. There was no gunshot, but he heard feet on the ladder. He belted across the roof tiles. But the man was quick. He was up the ladder before Danilo had got to the far side. Ahead were the metal bars of the scaffolding. Danilo had to duck to get through them and, as he did, he glimpsed the guard behind him with the gun in his hand.
He panicked. He threw himself over the bars. The guard shouted, ‘Stop! You'll get a bullet!’
Danilo's ankle hit a tin of paint. The tin tipped up. He was thrown off balance. Next thing, he, the tin and a gallon of green paint were falling through the air.
The wall flashed by. Paint splattered across Danilo's face. Then he hit the ground with the biggest thud he'd ever felt. But he was on something soft. It was a pile of rubbish bags in a sort of enclosure out the back of the yard.
‘EH!’ came the man's voice, from somewhere above.
Everything was covered in green paint. Danilo scrambled up to his feet. One foot skidded from under him. The fence round the rubbish wasn't high. So he leaped at it, scrabbled over and dropped down the other side.
He could still hear the click of the guard's feet on the roof tiles, but the guard could not see him now. And he knew where he was. He was at the top of the slope that led to the bridge. He darted for the undergrowth and, moments later, was down to the opening under the bridge.
Once inside he stayed put. Hours passed. He imagined Hildebrando's guards kicking him in the head, beating him numb. He imagined Dad's voice booming out at the police station. He imagined what he'd do if Dad got locked up. He had paint down his neck and his arms. He was hungry, thirsty. But he sat there. Nothing seemed to move.
It was the hammer that did it. He'd been staring at the wood and the nails without really seeing them. Then he looked at the hammer where he'd dropped it the day before and he decided: ‘I'm going to find some wheels. I'm going to make this thing.’
He got up. He dropped into the stream and washed the paint off best as he could. Then he climbed, through the undergrowth, back to the dump.
The sun was hot. But Danilo didn't care about the sun. He walked the dump from end to end. Sweat streamed down his neck, his back. He saw a smashed stereo. He saw a headless doll. He saw newspapers. He saw tyres. He saw an album of someone's wedding photographs. He saw pigs. He saw bruised fruit. He shook his head to keep the flies off his face. But no wheels.
When he was too tired to walk any more, he sat in the shade by the gate. The nerves in his legs were trembling. One of the afternoon lorries clunked past. He watched it with a hollow look in his eyes. Uncle Macaroni and a couple of others pitched up with their forks.
Danilo watched the back of the lorry tilt. The rubbish tumbled out like a wave on a beach. He saw Uncle Macaroni hacking about in the puffed-up black bags. Then something caught his eye. He got to his feet. Five or six of the rubbish bags were splashed with green paint.
Uncle Macaroni and Zivanete helped. They went through everything in those bags. They found Tatatin's camera, smashed open. They found torn photographs of Hildebrando's lorry on the Indians' land. It was proof. The police couldn't argue. They let Dad go.
Early on Thursday, Dad was back, waiting with the others as the first lorry arrived. Danilo had wandered off on his own.
‘Danilo! For Christ's sake!’ Dad shouted. ‘The lorry's here!’
Danilo didn't turn round. He was off across the rubbish, looking about for something.
‘Leave him be,’ shrugged Zivanete. ‘He doesn't deserve to be shouted at. Not just when he's shown us the good sense he's got in his head.’
‘And God knows where he got that from,’ said Uncle Macaroni. ‘Not from his father.’
Dad scratched his chin and laughed.
‘Aren't many lads round here with a head like his,’ he said.
‘Not since I gave him that haircut,’ said Zivanete.
Uncle Macaroni let out a cackle. The lorry pulled up. As they walked towards it, Dad peered over his shoulder again.
‘He acts like there's something worth finding up there.’
‘Some chance,’ said Uncle Macaroni.
Sean Taylor went to school in Wimbledon and to university in Cambridge. He now spends part of his life in England and part of it in Brazil, where his wife is from. To write ‘Smoke’ he spent time with families who work on a rubbish dump at the edge of a town in Brazil. He would like to send thanks to Senhor Benedito Tomé, who helped make that visit possible.