1

Gustavo’s old truck nosed its way into the canebrake… Tata looked around; it seemed safe enough here and would be concealed from anyone passing on the road…the methanol-fueled engine coughed a couple of times before giving up the ghost,
‘… finally out of gas…!’ she concluded…
She’d been nursing the vehicle along on empty for the last twenty k’s, looking for a suitable place to pull-in for the night… Tomorrow she would begin the hunt for fuel; the nearest town was at least fifty kilometres further west along 232, but she’d passed the rather imposing gates of the local estate ten klicks back, and most estates made and sold methanol…
Tomorrow she’d walk back there and hopefully be able to buy enough fuel to get to the next town…but tonight she could rest…
She’d been following 232, almost since she left Olinda. The old Federal highway had been reasonably busy and in a surprising good state of repair as far as Caruaru, but since then she’d seen no-one apart from local farm trucks and the ratio of potholes to road surface on the now two-lane blacktop had increased alarmingly…
Occasionally, she’d had to edge ’round a burnt-out vehicle, a reminder of how dangerous any road was in Brazil right now. As always in these moments, she reached under the dash for her carbine, and laid it on the seat beside her…
She’d had to fire it twice; once to shoot dead an obviously rabid dog, the second time to deter an attempted hijacking! The first round from her military issue firearm had blown out the bandits’ nearside front tyre as they’d tried to overtake. She had then pulled-up well out of range of their handguns and put a couple of rounds into the pickup’s radiator for good measure. A satisfying cloud of steam told her they wouldn’t be following any time soon…
The sun was dropping towards the horizon by the time she had eaten and attended to her personal needs, and she reflected on the last three months…
On her way through Nordeste, Tata had scavenged the roadside and sold what she found in local markets, she’d worked in local bars and cantinas, she’d done field work or domestic duties at local estates, often in exchange for fuel; when all else failed she’d turned tricks…
Anything to survive and keep moving westwards. She had met others like herself, lots of people were on the road these days, but no-one else she met seemed to have any definite purpose in mind; they just drifted, she had a plan!

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“…por que eu tenho que usar meu vestido, mamãe?”
The little girl was sitting on her mother’s lap in her best dress, having her hair brushed; she looked up at mama’s anxious face,
“…eu estou indo para uma festa…?”
The last time she’d been dressed up like this had been when she’d been invited to Heloisa Costa’s sixth birthday celebration! Senhora Costa employed her mother part-time in her bridal shop, and it was a great honour to be invited to her daughter’s party… Unfortunately Tata had disgraced herself by eating too much brigadeiro and throwing up on an expensive Persian rug,
“…Tata, você deve aprender a ouvir! Sra Choi está chegando hoje, eu lhe disse isso ontem…”
Mama expressed her displeasure with more furious brushing,
“Quem e a Sra Choi?”
“…e o seu benfeitor e você deve abordar en Inglés como a Mrs Choi! Lembre-se o seu Ingles!” 

Her mother then repeated this in the language in question, for added emphasis,

“Remember your English!”

Tata woke suddenly, instinctively reaching for her carbine and listening for anything out of place… Satisfied that it was her dream that had woken her, she relaxed and rolled a cigarette…
Out in the humid darkness all she could hear were crickets and the wind rustling in the cane stems…
Gustavo hadn’t liked her smoking and she’d more or less given up while she was with him… Three months on she found she could now think of him without the white-hot anger and sense of betrayal she’d felt in the immediate aftermath…think of the things he’d taught her, and the good times they’d had…
She thought she understood why he’d left, ’though the exact circumstances still mystified her…
While packing for her enforced departure she’d come across her hidden stash of tobacco and was now eking it out, one cigarette per day…
She knew she shouldn’t, her mother had died of cancer and her father had blamed it on her smoking…
Thoughts of her mother led her back to her dream; it was one she had regularly, featuring a small immaculately-dressed Chinese woman who’d come to see her when she was child. It stuck in her mind, because they’d had so few visitors, or at least few who were strangers; also she’d been dressed-up in her best clothes and had been told to speak to the old lady in English…
Her parents were, in retrospect, extremely deferential towards their visitor, although her child self hadn’t noticed this, focussing, as she had, on the words her mother had coached her to say,
“Good day Mrs Choi, I hope you are feeling well today…!”
The grande dame had given her a surprisingly warm smile before answering,
“…I am feeling very well! Thank you for asking, my dear…”
She hadn’t really understood the reply, although her mother had explained it to her later; but her benefactor seemed pleased, and her mother was positively beaming with relief! Mrs Choi had stayed for what to the six year old appeared to be an eternity, but was probably no more than an hour. She conversed with her mother in English, while Tata fidgeted and her father, who spoke only Portuguese, squirmed with embarrassment…
Eventually, the large black car that had brought her nosed down their street again; a rather scary-looking (and very tall) man got out and came to the door, and Mrs Choi was gone… She remembered that the man had been dressed in dark green, in what she now recognised as a uniform! His jacket had some kind of shiny badge, but no matter how hard she thought, Tata could never recall (at the time) what it had looked like…

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The morning mist had largely dissipated and the fields steamed in the hot morning sun; the land was flat, apart from drainage ditches, as far as the eye could see. If she turned her head, she could see the line of the cane plantation where she had hidden her truck, but the land around her was set to green corn, now sprouting vigorously in the sunlight!
She could see the house about two kilometres in the distance, an imposing Portuguese Colonial pile,
‘…all the changes…’ she reflected, ‘…and the same people still come out on top…’
Knowing better than to call at the front door, she headed down the side of the building, through a courtyard to what she assumed was the kitchen door; a dog barked mournfully in the distance…
She was met at the door by a greying houseman who greeted her civilly enough,
“Bon dia, Senhora…”
“Ola, voce vende metanol?”
Pausing to appraise her silently for a second, the servant pointed to a large barn at the rear of the house, and Tata was able to fill the jerry can she’d been carrying…
The mechanic who served her, filling from a large tank at the rear of the workshop he clearly ran, was friendly; and they talked for a while. She recounted an edited version of her journey from Olinda; he filled her in on local conditions, places to avoid, places that were safe, local bandido groups etc
He served her coffee, a real luxury as she had run out, and told her that if she brought her truck up the old back road tomorrow he could fill the vehicle’s tank and the spare jerrycans, enough fuel to get her to the next State and beyond!
They agreed a time and price and he gave directions from the highway to the back road; the price agreed was very low, and she recognised from experience that another form of payment would need to be forthcoming…
The following day she pulled up behind the workshop. The man greeted her cordially, and hesitated before gesturing that she should follow him… A doorway covered by an old horse blanket led to his quarters; a single bed lay in the corner of a room almost monkish in its simplicity…
The man smelt musty and came very quickly, but he used a condom and was reasonably proficient… After adjusting his dress, he attended to the pumps, before she paid over the small sum of local currency that had been agreed. In the circumstances, it felt strange to Tata to be handing over money, but the deal was a good one and they wished each other well…

2

The following morning found her on Federal highway 316 heading NW towards Rodovia Transamazonica. The first five hundred k had taken nearly three months, scratching around for fuel as she made her way through Agreste. Now she was in Sertao, the high desert, with all the fuel she could carry; once she hit Trans-Amazonian highway it would take her all the way to Maraba and beyond, and the river would be within reach…
She’d driven the two hundred plus kilometres to Caruaru on the first day, determined to get as far away from Vargas as possible! But that had used up almost all her limited fuel… She had hoped that this would be far enough, and banked on the rumoured hostility between the Olinda kingpin and the local bandidos to keep her safe!
It seemed to work; she parked on the edge of town with the other transients, and kept a low profile, hoping to lose herself in the general exodus. After a few false starts, she’d been able to get some domestic work at a local estate and was paid off, as was the custom, in fuel; enough to get her to next small town…
It struck her that even though she’d lived in Nordeste for fifteen years, it had never felt like home. It was (or at least the coastal bits were!) too Catholic, too Portuguese, too conscious of its own long history… She disliked the music, wasn’t keen on the food, and still found occasional difficulty understanding the local dialects, especially in more rural areas. She had concluded, long ago, that the people of the region were essentially beggars who thought they were kings!
So it felt good to be finally leaving the humid tropics of Zona da Mata and Agreste, for the clean air of the high desert. The topography and vegetation changed around her as they climbed. Always marginal at best, the farmland in this part of Sertao had reverted to the natural caatinga since the Collapse. She met no-one on the road that day, and saw nothing but endless thorny scrub and cactus. Occasionally the unchecked growth of the thorn bushes threatened to block the road, and she was forced to stop and clear the way with chainsaw and machete; it was clear that few came this way now, which suited Tata, and she thanked Providence for the deal she’d made the previous day. In ordinary circumstances she’d never have amassed enough fuel to reach Transamazonica by this route, and would have been forced to take the long way round, via 116.
As she backed in behind a large rocky outcrop sixty metres off the rutted highway, she reflected that she’d always been a loner; that her interludes of domesticity had been forced upon her, by pregnancy and necessity to raise her son; by the need to seek the protection of men! She’d been lucky in meeting Gustavo, but that was over and she felt like she was returning to her natural state. As she closed her eyes beneath the dazzling desert constellations she felt that she’d never been happier…

---

The following morning found Tata cooking her simple breakfast over a campfire of thorn scrub. She had managed to buy coffee in the last town and her coffee pot was now steaming over the smoky fire. The day had dawned cloudless, like endless days before; this was supposed to be the rainy season, but so far the rains had failed…
She’d had the feeling that she’d was being watched and had casually walked over to the truck and picked up her gun… Before she could return to her seat, a large black dog burst into the clearing, racing once around her barking furiously, before disappearing back into the undergrowth. She cocked the rifle,
“Eu sei que você esta ai! Sair e mostrar-se…”
Eventually, a ragged boy of about nine emerged cautiously from the bushes; he was holding the dog back by the piece of rope that served as its collar. The dog growled and bared its teeth…
Keeping her carbine trained on the animal she asked him who he was and what he was doing there… She didn’t understand the reply and thought the child was speaking Spanish; but it came to her that this was Portunhol, the lingua franca spoken in the border areas between Brazil and her Spanish-speaking neighbours… By degrees, and with many repetitions, she got his story…
The boy’s name was Mauricio, he lived with his father and several siblings in a nearby farmstead. The boy was unclear about his origins, only that they had come from far away to the north! Tata interpreted this to mean Colombia or Venezuela. The child didn’t know, he’d been too young! She concluded that, during their wanderings, the family had come across one of the many abandoned homesteads, and decided to stay!
Mauricio’s dog had settled on its haunches, and although keeping a weather eye on Tata, had concluded she was no longer a threat… She lowered her carbine in recognition of this fact. Eventually the boy said he had to go, but would come back later with his father…and maybe they could trade…

---

It was nearly nightfall by the time they appeared. Tata had very nearly left soon after her visitor vanished back into the scrub, but lassitude and curiosity had won out over caution!
The farmer’s name was Eduardo, and he’d brought his whole family; three boys ranging from fourteen to five, and two girls, also in their early teens. Tata relaxed when she saw them, and her heart melted. The children were dressed in what for them passed as their best clothes, and everyone had clearly had a wash before they set out…
As she had surmised, the family were from Venezuela, and had fled south after the Collapse; apparently things were even worse up there. Their mother had died three years ago; Eduardo wasn’t specific about how, but Tata guessed it had been in childbirth…
The family had brought food and the children helped her build a new campfire so they could cook it… The main item on the menu was a large capybara, which the the two older boys had hunted earlier that afternoon; the family had also brought vegetables: plantain, manioc, cornmeal and beans. Tata just let it happen; the girls, whose names she had now discovered were Astrid and Patricia, took over the cooking while Eduardo conversed in his limited Portuguese, and poured her a cup of alua, the traditional moonshine of Nordeste…
Tata learned that although the farm was essentially a subsistence operation, Eduardo had discovered a grove of cashew nut trees, but lacked the means to get his produce to market,
“…se eu tivesse metanol…” explained the farmer, “…eu poderia vender minhas porcas…”
‘…the reason for the show of hospitality has become clear…’ thought Tata, cynically…
But after an excellent meal and two more cups of alua, she was more inclined to be generous… Lounging back in the warmth coming from the fire, slightly drunk, stuffed with roast meat, tajadas and arepa, she listened to the family conversation. Later on, the farmer produced a battered guitar from a sack, and sang mournful Spanish ballads in a clear tenor voice, and Tata thought,
‘…maybe, I’ll stay here…just for little while…’
At some point during the evening, the little boy (his name, she now knew, was Rafael), who’d been watching with his solemn brown eyes from the safety of sister Astrid’s arms, crept over to her and climbed onto her lap. She held the child close, and a dam seemed to break within her; and she felt that the breath she’d been holding onto for more than three months could finally be released. She caught Eduardo’s eye,
“… eu tive que deixar meu filho…em Olinda…”
The farmer nodded, accepting of what life dealt, as the rural poor had throughout time…
Tata had avoided thinking about Felipe up to now… Her son…her son had betrayed her…had shopped her to gangsters! He could have got her killed! He could have got Gustavo killed! Never mind what he’d done to Ilse… And all for a suit of clothes, and a few drinks bought for people who wouldn’t give him the time of day, once the money ran out… For all she knew, Vargas had already had him killed!
Gustavo, she had forgiven; their liaison had always been temporary, they’d both known that… But Felipe, she couldn’t forgive…but she still loved him…
She found she was crying, and couldn’t stop…the family watched silently, they were used to grief… And she held on more tightly to the fragile bundle in her arms…

---

Coda

And so she stayed…stayed for nearly three months…
She paid for her keep with her labour, and some of her precious fuel; enough to get Eduardo to market at the nearest town, so he could sell the cashews he’d managed to harvest. She had helped him to fix up the old tractor, which he’d found abandoned in a barn; the pickup that they’d journeyed in from the old country proved beyond saving (the engine block was seized solid), but it was a start!
She stayed…long enough for Eduardo to start to give her hopeful glances…that was what finally persuaded her she had to leave…that she had to resume her journey…
…the children cried when she finally left, and no amount of hugs, no amount of false promises that she would return, could assuage the hurt in their eyes…
She realized then that she’d stayed too long, that she’d allowed them to hope…