That’s the last straw. The despair, picture it, seeing a girl’s eyes in that little chicken head! Goddamn granddaughter, that girl, if she wasn’t Cida’s child she would have given her what for. The dog’s yapping goddamn mutt, useless even for gnawing bones let alone for a good pot broth. The girl, her granddaughter, runs inside the house her legs covered in earth, goddamn earth that can’t even keep what belongs to it.

  Dona Penha huffs. The dirty look. And says nothing.

  ‘Grandma.’

  Fátima won’t shut her mouth, the brat.

  ‘Grandma, I’m going to São Paulo.’

  Are you telling me you didn’t see what was coming?

  When she got nervous Penha ate her fingernails toenails the roots of her hair cuticles whole hanks of hair eyelashes the row loose lash stitching from her clothes rice raw corn silk, she ate it all, then she washed after ironing after eating she walked backwards put her rags on inside out stuck out her tongue when the cockerel crowed and the owl hooted three times and she dreamed about teeth and Cida left the flip-flop sole up, but Penha didn’t die from any of this.

  ‘Granny, I know you think it’s easy to go far away and leave everything behind. But Scarlett’s so little, poor thing, in São Paulo we’ll have a new life.’

  ‘What did I tell you? She’s such a mule. What did I say? The chicken’s blood spoils when you feel sorry for the bird. Without the rage the chicken stays alive, goddamnit, my last chicken. What’ve you got in your head, Maria de Fátima? Bird crap?’

  ‘It’s for Scarlett, Granny, it’s for her.’

  Penha snatches up the knife and the chicken’s head.

  ‘Stop that, Grandma,’ Fátima screams, Scarlett tight in her arms afraid of what the knife might cut. ‘You can’t kill the chicken twice.’

  The dog howls, miserable amid the shouting. Penha aims the knife tip with care, sighting the creature’s eyes, she plucks them out one by one, this chicken’s looking days are done. Goddamn leery thing. The blind bird looks at Penha and her oldest granddaughter, one eye on Fátima the other on Penha, while the girl hiding under the table stays there alone in sympathy with the chicken. The girl cowering, two buckets splitting beside her, the girl is right there can be no fate more twisted than being born an egg and dying a chicken. Fátima cowering in her own way doesn’t look at her grandma but says her goodbyes:

  ‘Grandma, I think I’d better leave now, it’s late, Tonho will be back soon, as you know.’

  ‘You can’t go leaving twice over, Fátima, Lord have mercy. But go on then, Fátima, leave, go on. Leave and I’ll leave too, death doesn’t wait, Fátima. Soon as death comes by I’ll go and meet it.’

  Penha’s family died waiting for their hunger to pass, like any retirante who meets death while on the road, struck down by hunger they found death came to meet them halfway. Penha waiting at home like everyone else was found alive amid her family’s bodies, her father all dried up holding a bible, her mother all dried up holding a carving knife, there she was all plump in between her desiccated sisters holding earth-caked shuttlecocks. People went so far as to say that Penha survived by eating her relatives’ privates, can you imagine, don’t you see how she and death are thick as thieves?

  When the wind finally reaches Vilaboinha, Penha calls the girl inside, come on, little devil, come on, if the dog gets out let the wind deal with her. Maria da Penha sits her full weight down in the wicker chair to rest enough for a lifetime, she leaves her legs and arms out, leaves her whole body out for death, one last kiss goodbye, this time she’s goddamn going to die. Her soul is heavy, she knows, even heavier when she curls up in the wicker of the chair, her soul is heavy, there’s no way it can stay, but the wind died down, goddamn, the wind died down and Penha is still here, listening to her youngest granddaughter yelling Granny, Granny; shut your goddamn mouth, won’t you just let me alone to die.

  With her full weight in the chair, Penha takes her body back, the brief soul, Penha uncurls her body, the chair yields, she reclaims her body if only it could glide away. It was death, it had to be death, it could only be that: in Fátima leaving, in the girl’s stare, in everything she could hear when she was alone. It had to be death, it could only be death, and yet, goddamnit, it wasn’t death that rogue, once again it wasn’t. It was just another way for death to leave Penha half-alive half-dead, to leave Penha half day half night, just another way for Maria da Penha to be alone again. Hadn’t she had enough unhappiness in life, goddamn, she’d even lost her Cida. It wasn’t death, it was Maria de Fátima going off to live her life far away.

  It was death.

  You don’t respect your elders well you’ll see, ungrateful wretch, you’ll end up like mad old Penha. So you won’t obey me, you brat, if you go on being such a cocktease you’ll end up like Penha, with nothing. Aren’t you grateful you still have a family, unlike that madwoman Penha? She’s lost everything in life. Don’t you know she died, poor thing, everyone knows: she hasn’t left that house alive, that house she lived in with her family. We all knew it: mad old Penha is dead. It’s just that death forgot about her.

  It could only be her youngest granddaughter’s fault, the little devil, it must have been that brat, animal, miscarriage, heaven forbid, leper-girl, demon, that’s what she is, a demon. Old Penha should have done away with that animal as soon as she was born, she should’ve been chopped up and fed to the vultures, simmered in the saucepan, she should have planted that girl deep in the earth, put more soap in the feijão stew, and tied the ropes tight around her, she should have buried that brat even deeper in the earth, goddamnit, so she wouldn’t come back. She should have done away with her ah she should have; if regrets could kill maybe Penha died of regret.

  If only Cida were alive

  ‘Your mother was afraid of getting knocked up again, Fátima was growing up fast, your mother was afraid of having another daughter. She heard somewhere that tale about the curse of the sertão, she talked about nothing else my poor little pet. Babies born with two faces, one at the front one at the back, two faces just like a coin, she used to say, trembling all over. The one at the front could almost be obedient, but the one at the back was a loudmouth hungry for words, chattering like an animal it never stopped no it never stopped. Aparecida got so scared that the soul inside her couldn’t calm down, she was struck dumb, poor thing, couldn’t get her head around our dreams any more. I’ve a feeling she was prepared to eat herbs to get rid of her belly, but you weren’t hiding in any belly, we didn’t even see you coming. You arrived like the devil, without showing your face, not even your father saw you, not even Cida. You were just born, my poor little pet. You were born out of her death, is that even a human thing? That damn darkness in the middle of the day, everyone blind while you were being born. You weren’t born with two faces, that’s for sure. At least my Cida died peaceful. You weren’t born with two faces, but there are times I’d swear that the devil you met was your way of not settling in a single person. Your way that was beneath the surface yet we couldn’t help but see…’

  The girl never meant to kill her grandma

  What if we give the madwoman a drubbing and tell her she’s crazy, tell her no one laid a hand on her or nothing, the loony will believe it and the beating will’ve cured her? You’ll see the freak don’t remember nothing, goddamn, certainly not us all laughing at her, you’ll see the madwoman don’t even know how to remember. What if she remembers us beating her having our way with her? What if she remembers it was us beating her? What if she starts screaming? And what if we like it? But if the madwoman remembers then it’s all madness, nobody will believe her, she’s not said anything about anything since she lost her family, she went mad nothing to be done because she couldn’t have a daughter, don’t even stop to listen to what she says, don’t even stop.

  But what if she doesn’t remember us beating her tearing her dress our hands slapping her back, go on, bitch, is that how Tonico likes it? Maybe she doesn’t remember us all dancing around her? Maybe she doesn’t remember us doing as we pleased, her legs two struggling sticks, our hands on her dry back, her hard flat chest, heart on the ground? Maybe she doesn’t remember us doing it for her own good, this is how you cure madness, beaten flesh, animal frenzy, go on, no need to show mercy, come on, she hasn’t even any family left, tear her apart, she’s just the madwoman of Vilaboinha.

  D’you think she remembers us making a freak show of her? Counting up the scores to see who’s winning? The madwoman in the middle, spreadeagled, and everyone gagging for it, yelling go, go, go, they’re ahead, go on, they put more in, go on, much more hair’ll fit in the loony’s mouth. Everyone pulling out the madwoman’s nails, making neckchains, what if she actually does remember? The kids counting her pubes one by one to win a prize, goddamnit, what if the madwoman remembers? Everyone making little flags out of her clothes, leaving insects to live in the madwoman’s belly button, goddamn, there’s no going back now, d’you think she’ll be able to forget?

  If the madwoman remembers us all watching all of us, laughing, singing, we’ll say it’s your own madness, Maria da Penha, you’re making it up. If the madwoman remembers then no one will believe it; just imagine, everyone lining up to stuff whatever they could fit inside her, insects, fishing line, an arm. If the madwoman remembers people will just say it’s her madness and she herself will believe it, imagine us all lining up like that to stuff whatever shouldn’t fit inside her, a hoe, a whole hand for double points, a chicken’s egg. And if everyone forgets and says they didn’t do nothing, that’s how you cure madness by tearing it all to shreds: a beating for mad old Penha to save her from being retarded. Look, she’s full now.

  When Penha was young and knew nothing about life she tried to kill herself three times, once by eating stones, twice by trying to fly, and then also when she pretended not to see the tent’s exits in the fire at the baile, and also when she put soap in the feijão. Later the vultures come to take another piece of her flesh, and she lets them, she with her heart in the earth. She with flesh torn by the beaks of ravenous birds. She the remnants of all this, weary, my God, and dead from the moment she lost Cida. She who willed herself to die just this once, the whole town against her, she who asked death: Dammit, don’t my feelings matter?

  Not yours, Maria da Penha.

  Body: a forest of wariness.

  Madness: the whole town against you.

  A stump plus the part that’s missing

  In Vilaboinha, this hellish heat, it was easy to see obsessions growing in your own head. Grandma always used to say she’d stop and the obsessions wouldn’t, the obsessions didn’t listen to her. There’s no escaping it, Grandma used to say, people fret and hens peck. It was even easier to obsess and see nothing, see nothing behind the things that appeared emerged expelled birthed and not see the earth that remained, subdued, enraged, the exhausted earth all that’s left of Vila Marta, the earth caving into Fátima’s gaze.

  Now Fátima can see. Through the crack in her shack nothing escapes her. It’s true there are things it’s easy not to see, you’ve only got to look the other way, there are things it’s easy to pretend you didn’t see but there are things, dammit, there are things you can’t help but see, can’t unsee, there are things that stay, offend, before your eyes. Fátima’s grown-up daughter there before her, time trampling over everything, damnation, the excavators are unearthing an entire city! And she knows, goddamnit, Fátima’s sure of it: the worst is yet to come.

  Goddamn! Truth is it’s gotta hurt to have everything sprouting out of your own skin, Fátima watches through the crack sprouting out of her shack. It’s gotta hurt to break free without even saying goodbye without saying catch you later to things so long held close. So many houses, an empty gorilla skin, shards of bamboo, and now this train track cutting through the mud like a knife. Look, Scarlett, there’s even a train coming out of the dirt. Raising the dust. Look, Scarlett! The train bringing a crowd to see us.

  Fátima’s daughter had already sprouted like a little wart. Something so small like that shouldn’t hurt to come out, Fátima had warts, they’re painful when they appear, popping up in the skin, like wounds. It shouldn’t hurt the skin just for this wart to come out, this little baby wart, shrivelled, all shrivelled, it shouldn’t hurt, dammit, Fátima knew how to take it. Something else was hurting, something bigger than a wart, much much bigger.

  It was the surprise that hurt, the wart making a fool of her and sprouting like weeds in the conniving earth. This goddamn daughter of hers, they tore Fátima’s foot to pieces and from there she made an effort and was born. But it wasn’t the wart that hurt. What hurt was the surprise the wanting to pick the damn thing open right in the middle who doesn’t want to pick a wart open scratch out the fish eye burst the pimple, dig it out of its little injured shell, who doesn’t want to do that?

  It was what she birthed along with the girl that hurt: this desire anger longing, this mania madness courage, this desperation to pick open scratch burst tear out everything that is whole, simple or doubtful, everything that is familiar, strange or unhappy. Who doesn’t want to pick open a rash who doesn’t want to scratch an ulcer who doesn’t want to burst the pain like a pimple and watch the liquid drain away, the body this dry machine of liquids, who wouldn’t want that?

  It was the dog, Tonho always says. It wasn’t Tonho coming in and tearing Fátima’s clothes off, course not, Tonho’s a good guy. Fátima even wanted to ask Tonho what’s all this about a dog barking inside us, she doesn’t know, suddenly if Tonho explains Fátima’s dog will start barking. Ask — she almost wanted to, but she didn’t ask it was nothing, she kept quiet all nice and quiet, poor thing: Tonho with his dog staring out of his eyes making people stand like that in front of him, wordless.

  Fátima coming back from the bus station again this time running like crazy, like a maniac, to see the price of a ticket what nonsense, dammit, hope nobody saw her. She ran back raising the earth from the streets, she ran back digging an obedient dog up from inside her, oh hell, what is there for the dog to eat inside Fátima? Stray hair? Beaten flesh? Dirt in her navel? Worms?

  But a good dog don’t do forgiveness. Find a way to forgive me, Tonho says, but Fátima doesn’t. Imagine a dog inside Fátima forgiving Fátima for everything she did at the bus station? Imagine a dog inside her forgiving Fátima for everything she was going to do? A dog eating up all that guilt, a dog barking inside Fátima and Fátima saying it was the dog? Damn, that’d be so good.

  If there’s a dog inside Fátima, born along with her and living, perhaps, in the hump of her back; if there’s a dog inside Fátima that dog would be dead, just how Tonho likes ’em. Even so Fátima, burning with the desire to not be alone with her dog-kennel hump, Fátima thinking maybe it’s fine, Fátima went with a thwack to try to revive her dog by beating herself. It must be the smell of blood, Fátima licked her lips and tasted it, she’d just come back from the bus station, it must be the madman’s blood.

  It’s not like she was on edge she felt calm, very calm. Who doesn’t go out looking for a dog to beat with a plank now and then? She wasn’t on edge, she was calm. Thing is the girl, damn child, the girl with her way her habit of trying your intelligence, that way that habit you see getting her hand to do something so simple as simple as paring the rind off a cassava. Fátima didn’t come home on edge she wasn’t nervous she was calm very calm, but that girl kills all intention not to be on edge to be calm.

  Dammit, why does Fátima gotta have that wretched child for a sister? Come here, mutt, Fátima calls to her, come over here, dammit, come on. The girl hesitates, then comes. She wants to know why the calling. Then Fátima hits the creature from behind, yelping softly. The girl, not Fátima. That goddamn girl, does she wanna kill her grandma leave her to starve with no peeled cassava, does she wanna leave her grandma on her own, and it’s all Fátima’s fault, why does that wretched child have to be Fátima’s sister? Scarlett’s sleeping in the bedroom, poor little thing, all quiet.

  Fátima slams the table kicks the cassava it doesn’t reach the girl, her sister, she goes closer, the girl hides, does her damnedest to get away. She almost reaches the sink. Fátima goes after her, trips over the bucket the cassava rolls onto the floor in pieces the rinds almost slicing her leg along with the carving knife. Damn girl, didn’t I say to find a way to fix up with the knife? Fátima slams the table her hand hits the table hits the table this is what her hand likes, hitting, it just feels too good this time at least this one time it’s just too good not having to take it.

  So Fátima grabs beats with her hand she smacks the flesh, she grows, her rage grows and again she beats the girl hurls the girl far, the floor covered in cassava rinds, it’s not that she was on edge. The girl can’t even stand still, can’t she see that everything’s falling down, she’s making a mess of Fátima’s house? The girl can’t even hold a cassava let alone peel one, let alone stop crying, wretched child, that girl is a disgrace, she’ll have to stop the thrashing soon, it’s too bad Fátima will have to stop beating her. But the girl may not be made for surviving.