WHEN I AM WELL, Anninho brings me oranges and fresh butter.
First I saw his shadow standing outside the door and then he entered.
He kissed my forehead and mouth.
‘Did you see your father?’ I asked.
‘What?’ he said, frowning.
I said that his father had come in with many people. But he shook his head and said it was not so, that I must have seen his father through my fever and delirium. Then he lay the oranges and fresh butter beside me on the hammock, and went back into the street. There were two shouts but I could not make out whose voices or what was said. Then I heard plainly:
‘I can leave this place anytime I want to. Why do I stay?’
It sounded like the voice of the old man Xavier, the medicine man. Once when I had had menstrual trouble I had gone to him for some remedy. I sat on the mat with him outside his hut. He had taken me inside, touched me in places, rubbed my palms, then he had brewed me a tea to drink that did the work in three minutes.
‘What kind of root is it?’ I’d asked.
‘Maybe it’s no root,’ he’d said. ‘Maybe it’s scorpion dung.’
He was playful like that about his remedies, teasing me with all kinds of ingredients, though most times he was solemn and serious and guarded about the matter; and there was a certain young man whom he taught the real ingredients.
‘How do you feel?’ he’d asked.
I’d told him that I felt very fine now.
‘I should take an herb and leave this place,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t have to stay here, you know. No, Xavier does not have to stay here, he can leave this place anytime he wants to. But one day Wencelau (where he got that name I don’t know) – but one day he will take over, and Xavier will take off,’ he’d said, laughing. ‘Wencelau will have the workload and old Peixoto will be free. Peixoto’s my name too. A man has to have a name for his body and a name for his soul too, that’s what I feel. Old Peixoto will be free, and watch how he’ll leap through time then. Ah, I do it now, but I always come back. I return here. So many need healing. But watch how he’ll leap through time and space then, ha ha. Drop me off a cliff and see how I’ll soar.’
He’d looked at me and spread his arms out, and I’ll tell anyone he was a bird, then he became a man again. I’ll tell that to anybody.
‘I’ll go through real time and I’ll go through legendary time, imaginary time,’ he’d said with another laugh, pointing his chin at me and looking up. ‘Watch Peixoto make his leaps and bounds and move through time. He’ll move through names too. How do you like Alves, Pecanho, Ribeiro, Garostazu? I could leave here now,’ he said, looking at me firmly, ‘but I’m not. So many need my healing. I’ll have other names, but I won’t tell you. And I’ll have different shapes and forms. But I’ll have the same eyes. That’s how you’ll know me.’
I sleep and dream that I am looking at Anninho’s eyes. ‘What is it?’ he asks.
‘Your eyes haven’t changed,’ I say.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say quickly, then I ask him if the soul peeks out through the eyes as they say it does.
Xavier is standing before me smiling now.
‘I’m all shapes and forms,’ he says, ‘but my eyes haven’t changed. Don’t you recognize Peixoto? Don’t you remember Peixoto?’
‘Yes,’ I say, but it comes out funny, it comes out sounding more like ‘Yis.’
He takes both my hands and pulls me up off the hammock, and we are out in a flat, wide, sunny field. He begins to turn me around and around as he turns around, making a circle.
‘How do you like me now?’ he says again and again. With each turn he changes, but I can’t make out any of the faces. Then he’s a blur, but I don’t feel dizzy. He disappears, but still I’m not dizzy. Around and around in a circle with him.
‘Do you like me now?’ the invisible man asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
Around and around till we lift off, and I see the field and feel the sun against my forehead, then there’s my whole country, and my continent, and the round ball.
‘Watch how the universe expands and contracts,’ he says. ‘Watch how we go away from each other and come back.’
Then darkness, the sunlight on my forehead and face again. Anninho standing there smiling.
‘I told you I could leap through time and the spirit,’ Peixoto says. Anninho touches my forehead and jaw.
‘You sleep and dream and I always come back,’ Peixoto says. ‘Do you want to go down into the ocean and look at the turtle grass?’
‘What’s the matter?’ asks Anninho.
‘Nothing.’
‘One more time,’ says Peixoto. ‘See how that part of space moves away from us and this one returns. Now into the sea.’
I hold Peixoto’s hand and he dives down to the bottom. ‘Are you having a good time?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re such a good woman. I enjoy being with you.’
He makes circles and loops and strange patterns appear. I see colors of the rain.
‘Now you seem relaxed and calm. Do you like this place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you see the figure of a woman circling there? She circles and circles. Let’s join her.’
They begin to speak quietly in a language I don’t know or don’t remember. They speak as if they’re old dear friends. Then the woman swims away.
‘Who is the woman?’
‘Your idea is as good as mine. I see beauty everywhere. Somehow I always find it, or it finds me.’ He smiles gently. ‘Now let’s enter the school of fish. We must get to the middle to avoid being eaten. We’ve gotten to the middle, haven’t we? It’s not the middle, it’s the center. And how well we see each other. How well we hear. How well our spirits meet. Do you think we’re dreaming together or is it real?’
‘I’ve heard that sometimes one can enter the dream of another.’
‘Ah, yes.’