Grandma’s still, Grandma isn’t moving, and the girl whirls about, the wind inside her. Grandma isn’t moving in her chair, and the girl looks for the tail of the wind and finds Skinny’s. Grandma’s barely breathing and the girl panting corpse bone dead leaf sweat earth. Skinny can’t bear it either, running, barking, growling, beating her tail against Penha’s skirt, nipping Penha’s shin, licking all the grease from Penha’s nails and poor Penha doesn’t move. She stays in her chair, hands clutching her rosary, body poised in prayer.

  Penha’s granddaughter comes up to her grandma talking nonsense. The girl with her legs apart fingers in mouth tough-ass look. Grandma doesn’t move when the girl kicks her in the shin, or when Skinny’s teeth tug on her leg’s wrinkled skin, she doesn’t move when her youngest granddaughter gives it back she spits on her, or when the doggy pisses on her toes, nor even when her granddaughter, good idea Skinny, when her granddaughter goes and pisses on her. Grandma isn’t breathing.

  The earth in Vilaboinha — the wind picks up everything the earth holds, so Penha was used to shoving a corpse aside to open the door, can you imagine, this wind don’t even respect death. This earth chews over cadavers slowly, a cow ruminating people’s flesh, our sainted flesh, imagine that, this wind can only be in league with death. Goddamn earth that don’t keep nothing down, listen, Maria de Fátima, when I die I want to be strung up high.

  The vultures come on the tail of the wind, the vultures come and perch in the garden of corpses. They tear out an organ, they wait, and wait. Good at waiting, vultures are; they only have eyes for the afterlife. Penha could watch the damned things all day, all day long, goddamnit. They’re the hand of God devouring what the eyes can’t stand to consume, the hand of God, they can only be, they have to be, and they took Cida. Look at them, the martyrs, pecking away. Look how they peck out the worms first.

  At first, yes, Penha was afraid. She stayed hidden in the crannies of the house, seeing grace in these feeders upon wounds. Look at them pecking away, goddamnit, look at them, all eagerness, up to their necks in rotting flesh. At first she shut herself in the house, imagine, watching the creatures outside pecking away at death. Look how they chew. She throws them a severed arm, bones showing, blood, tendons. Look how they fly over to it, look how they fly.

  Dona Penha knew she would die this time when she went to close the window so as not to see the girl and heard the phlegm rattle just over her shoulder, with no one else there, can you imagine. She set off around the room rasping her feet over the floor, goddamnit, would you believe it, the rattle of phlegm right there in the silence, goddamnit, the phlegm of someone who isn’t even there. Penha set off making her feet squeal against the floor, imagine that, digging her heels down hard to fill up her other ear. Goddamnit, who knew so much could be unearthed out of silence?

  It wasn’t Cida, old Penha knew it, Cida didn’t come back even in dreams, Cida didn’t hawk or spit, Cida died and would never come back to Vilaboinha. Just as well Penha’s daughter was still in the tree that she’d planted, the only tree in all these streets to thrive. Cida was there in the branches, in the leaves; on a quiet day a still day Penha could hear her daughter’s breathing in the whispering of the tree. But this phlegm, she knew the phlegm wasn’t Cida.

  Penha hadn’t been shuffling long when the dog appeared at the door, Skin-and-Bones, her tail behind her. Get gone. The dog appeared, barking at the sound of her slippers. Go on, Skinny, go on, get. The dog wouldn’t stop growling she wouldn’t stop. Goddamnit, you can’t just take someone’s own feet away. Get out, Skinny, out. The dog was growling Penha was shuffling her feet the dog was growling Penha was shuffling the dog came closer, closer til she got a kick in the ribs, goddamnit, who told you to make such a fuss?

  Penha starts dragging her feet again, the silence buried inside her. She keeps on shuffling her feet, soothing the earth. The girl outside and inside her. Penha drags her feet, but the silence drags along too, like earth that’s raised by the wind, the wind that draws breath from the silence. The phlegm thickens. The whispering rises. The wind inside her confesses everything. She can’t hear what it’s saying she doesn’t let it speak, she shuffles her feet so she can’t hear.

  Her granddaughter watches her from outside, the girl with the punk-ass legs, one eye wider than the other, feet on the ground, still, feet finally still. The dog beside her barking, yelping, growling, goddamnit, she just don’t quit growling, does she? The girl watches her grandma, Penha doesn’t try to hide it: she keeps on dragging her feet while she can. Someone’s there very close by, where there’s nothing. That was when she knew that this time she was heading straight for it: it must be death, the bastard. You all know full well what it was.

  It had always been like this: everybody died, except mad old Penha. The wind would beat on the closed door, leaving an arm a torso a body part on the doorstep. Nothing came for Penha. Everything has its time, we all said, everything has its time, we’d repeat at every opportunity, everything has its time, goddamnit. Only Penha didn’t. But now this phlegm, now this silence all inside out, it can only be death, it can only be Penha’s time, it must be her.

  But everything does have its time, even the wind. All day long it brought death to their door, day in day out it tried Penha’s patience, tried it yet again: still it didn’t come. There’s a time for everything, and still the girl, that little devil pacing the earth outside, clearing up after the wind. And when Penha would think this must be it the earth’s breath, and when she was scraping the pot maybe this is the wind, just one more, it didn’t come not a whisper of wind came to claim her body for the earth, goddamnit, was it not her time?

  Everything has its time. Even this shitty wind.

  Once Maria da Penha choked eating a coconut shell and all and she couldn’t stop coughing up everything, shell coconut and all, and she couldn’t stop hacking up shell coconut and all, lungs like coconuts two little coconuts. Everyone was thumping her on the back, even relishing the chance to thwack her in the ribs, everyone was yelling spit it out woman, this girl can’t even spit, and she was thinking maybe this shell and coconut pricking her throat maybe this shell and coconut stampeding inside her maybe this shell of earth lodged in her throat maybe this is death? It wasn’t.

  Penha watches, the wind won’t come, it’s going to end up at the knees of the girl under the sink, goddamn sullen child. Get out from under there, savage, she thinks of saying, get out before I drop a bucket on that sorry face. Instead she just huffs, shoots a dirty look and says nothing. Fátima, blabbermouth, Fátima doesn’t shut up. She must be in league with the wind, goddamn ungrateful granddaughter, it can only be the wind in her body pushing out all that talk. Shut that mouth before I give you one, Fátima, she thinks of saying.

  Fátima doesn’t stop:

  ‘Cátia didn’t run away or nothing, Grandma, it’s not true. What would she run away for, Granny? She went really far to help… she’s got her mother and sister taken care of. Vera makes out like she’s got no money to make people feel sorry for her, she fakes it. Cátia didn’t run away, Granny, she sends everything she earns to her family. Cátia’s a good girl, she’s not like the others who run away, there’s not that many women who go leaving Vilaboinha behind.’

  Dona Penha huffs, shoots that dirty look and says nothing. She dries her hand on the dishcloth, nearly tearing it. Here comes blabbermouth, again with this threadbare bunch of excuses. Good people have their heart in the earth. There’s also people born with the goddamn high road in their chest, keep it to themselves, the quiet type, they come back at least. Vermin like this Cátia wear their hearts on the outside and they still go saying, can you believe it, they still go saying they went looking for something, went to do what? Their hearts led the way.

  ‘But don’t you know? There’s people who like making up stories’ — Fátima will not shut up. ‘But God’s watching everything…’

  ‘Don’t go taking the Lord’s name in vain, brat.’

  ‘Relax, Granny, it’s just what people say.’

  ‘Well find a way to not say it, you hear me? Oxe. And here let me take care of Maria. Drink your coffee, go on, before it gets cold drink your coffee. And don’t go believing all those stories, blabbermouth, you even look like one with that loose tongue, my God. You be taking care of your daughter, she’s growing up and you don’t even notice, you went off to look after other people, to dream of a life far away. I ain’t gonna be around forever, Fátima, so you watch yourself, listen good to what I tell you. You’re very shallow, you ain’t gonna die soon, but you should know this. All this land ain’t your home and every man ain’t your husband, you think any man stops beating before his wife starts praying? You got your eyes fixed on something pretty off in the distance and you don’t see straight in front of you, idiot, you mark my words, you’ll see, Maria de Fátima.’

  Grandma Penha, hips against the sink, takes Scarlett in her arms, leaving Fátima quiet to the side, finally silent. She’ll take care of her granddaughter’s child, small as she is, fine fair hairs sprouting from her forehead, she’ll take care of Scarlett, poor little mite, so scrunched up, so sweet. Penha feels her youngest granddaughter watching her Penha feels the girl turned animal staring crouched under the sink. If she didn’t know her granddaughter, strange girl, she wouldn’t even have noticed. Penha looks at Scarlett, all bony elbow flesh, so tiny. Penha looks at Scarlett Maria in her arms, she looks at the wind, she looks at the wind and, again, she sees nothing at all.

  Then there was the time Maria da Penha cut off the very tip of her finger, go fetch that knife Maria da Penha, go on, Maria, enough laziness, she just a hungry kid peeling cassava root, Maria da Penha peeling the cassava and she ate her fingers with the knife, she cut off the very tip of her finger and she was losing blood, losing strength, losing the will, what’s this that you lose with a cut what’s this that stays with a cut what’s this bucket of blood, is this death? Of course not, Maria da Penha, enough of your nonsense. Go on, get back to that cassava. Go on, you still got a whole bunch.

  ‘Let go of those legs, girl. Quit picking at your nails, goddamn obsessive, Lord have mercy. Take that hand out your mouth, you little devil, ain’t nothing tasty about your own flesh. You’ll end up tearing the whole nail out and whining if you get salt on it. And don’t pull that face, come now. Don’t go thinking you’ll be rid of me, savage, I’ll come back to grab you by the feet. You think Fátima plucks out her lice one by one, disgusting child? Leave that wound alone, come on, quit the disgusting habits, you don’t even look like a child of God. And stop sticking your feet in the earth, only the Lord can be merciful, d’you hear me? I ain’t gonna be around forever, everything has its time. Come here, savage. Come here, out from under the sink, lay your head here on my arm, come on, don’t pull that face. Lay your head here, wipe that nose first. Next you’ll be whining that I don’t come near you, would you believe. Come on, devil child, lay yourself here. Fátima, my child, everything has its time. Here, take Scarlett, it’s nearly lunchtime and the chicken ain’t gonna kill itself. What’d I say? I know it’s the last chicken, ungrateful girl, but you’ll be whining if there ain’t no food. What’s that in your hair, Fátima, child? Let go, I’ll fix it. Now I’m gonna repeat what I’m telling you, what’s that, Fátima? Take Scarlett, here, go on, and quit fooling around. Granny’s already giving you back, pretty one. What about you, devil child? Don’t stand there scratching your head, you trying to make me itch? Then go pray and ask for mercy, didn’t I tell you to quit talking like an animal? Let me straighten out those legs, no whining, ungrateful girl, now go and hit the earth, go on, go look after the gale, go on, girl, I don’t want you around when I’m killing the chicken. Go on, off with you, brat. Even a chicken feels pain according to this little devil. Did you ever see that, Fátima? At her age, body hair starting to grow and still she goes foretelling bad luck from a dead chicken, d’you ever see the like? Your sister don’t respect nothing, Fátima. She murdered my peace when she was born. And now she won’t let me be.’

  What about when Penha became a woman? She lost so much blood, my God, she lost so much blood that all her sisters, certain the little creature was going to die, they burned everything she had. They hung Penha’s scrawny body upside down, like a banana palm, they hung Penha’s body head-down, keep that blood inside you, come on, messy girl. The blood nearly broke her head, she could barely feel her legs, she nearly died like a chicken, dizzy and dripping blood onto the earth below, look Ma, if we cut her up she’ll fit in the cooking pot. Pale-faced, and everyone was saying how quiet she was at everything: it’s a blasphemy to die on Good Friday. As you’ll see, Penha didn’t die of that.

  With her belly propped against the kitchen sink, Dona Penha sees the girl running far far far, Penha sees the girl running as far as she can, raising the earth, then she suddenly stops short, unable to go on. When she gets close she straightens her legs she’s still close by trying to straighten out those legs, not knowing how to go on. A curse! What is it that girl keeps staring at?

  Whenever she finds her youngest granddaughter staring into the distance Penha doesn’t know what to do. She’s tired of telling the little devil to quit drawing attention to herself. Penha doesn’t know what to do with the girl: she stares along with her, stares along too peering and peering into what she can’t see. Goddamnit, Penha stares along too even thinking: in the girl’s eyes all these people make one great circus for running away from everyone, can you believe it, a circus driven by death. Penha stares too, goddamnit, Penha covers it up: you keep running, go on, devil child!

  The night of the baile was the worst. All of us were running, crushed, rushing, Maria da Penha was breathing heavily. All of us were running and she thinking she would burn to death. She couldn’t just get up and go outside and live, not now, pregnant, not now Toninho had left her, not now thrown out of her aunty’s house. She believing she only had to wait and all of us were desperate, a smell of burning flesh, she believing she only had to wait and we were all burning, my God, that’s people my God where’s the fire my God lost the child my God, not even Toninho came. Let alone death.

  Penha puts the chicken in the bucket, goddamnit, if we don’t kill it right away the bird won’t die. Maria da Penha says so. If we don’t kill it right away the meat gets tough, if we don’t want the blood to spoil, it won’t work. Penha skewers the chicken the last chicken the chicken for celebrations she skewers it deep in the bucket, the iron of the bucket cracks, the bird screeches, but the girl lying sprawled on the ground outside pretends her grandma isn’t calling.

  ‘She’s far away, Granny,’ says Fátima. ‘Don’t worry, the girl’s far away.’

  ‘What’s got into you now? You want to cross me, is that it? That girl sees too far, Fátima, don’t you see her eyes jumping out her head?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Granny, the girl’s all grown up now.’

  ‘Didn’t I say the bird’s blood will spoil?’

  ‘But Granny, the girl…’

  ‘Quit being stupid, Fátima, what’s the story this time? There’s no pity that helps with killing, your sister knows it, the brat, but she’s pretending not to hear, it’s a disgrace. If my legs were good and my hip where it should be, if I had it in me, I’d creep up behind that girl with the plank, I’d make that brat run far as hell I mean far as hell away from my chicken. Then she’d come back to eat.

  ‘Go on, Granny, kill the bird. The girl’s all grown up. She can’t turn the blood of a chicken just by looking at it. That’s the kind of magic only children do.’

  ‘Be quiet, Fátima. Don’t you go thinking you know the girl better than I do.’

  ‘Just drop it, Granny. She’s my mother’s daughter too. She’s your Cida’s daughter too.’

  What happened next, goddamn, if we told anyone they wouldn’t believe it.

  The blood from her first period was nothing compared to when she lost her other child. The child was already whole in her guts, it must have been, the blood she shed was a whole person split into triplets: the first out a well, the middle one a river, the last one pain. The child came gushing out, an agony in her guts. She thought it was being born, this is how a child is born, this is how the belly withers, how the belly button inverts, this is how flesh fights us back from inside met with hunger, but no it was none of that. Just another way for death to forget Penha. Talk about a twisted sense of humour.

  All done. Penha breaks its neck and leaves the blood all splintered what a splintering. The girl far away is startled by the chicken’s death, she twists her legs, can’t keep still. Let alone the earth. Her grandma starts, thinking someone’s coming, she loses the chicken from the bucket, and bites her tongue with the few teeth she has. She goes running after the chicken, her hip won’t let her, it’s clucking, her hip is clucking and Penha stays put, goddamnit, watching the bird’s final flight from a distance. The bucket rolling away.

  It’s running without a head the chicken doesn’t die. The chicken’s running running running far far far raising the streets the earth, dripping on them, the chicken runs past the girl stopped dead in her tracks, past the dog, past all of them and disappears into the distance into the stuff of the earth. It isn’t dead, the chicken isn’t dead. Goddamnit, that stare of her granddaughter’s. And now the little chicken head, beside a pool of blood, forgotten in the sink, near Penha’s hand, now determined to stare straight at Penha.