Memórias de Guilherme de Faria, pintor e poeta: July 2024

THE HERITAGE

The Blood of the Earth

___________

A Novel by ALMA WELT

ISBN XXX-XX-XXX-XXX-X

First edition: XXXX 2024

Distribution for the United Kingdom: Vine House Distribution ltd

Printed for Italy by Rotomail Italia S.p.A. - Vignate (MI)

Stampato presso Rotomail Italia S.p.A. - Vignate (MI)

THE HERITAGE

The Blood of the Earth

___________

A Novel by ALMA WELT

To Werner Friedrich Welt (Vati, my Dad), Rudolf Welt (Rôdo, my brother), and Aline de Marco (my love)

Thanks to

Joachim Welt (my grandfather in memorian)

Lucia Welt (my Sister)

Galdério Ruiz

Matilde Ruiz

Guilherme de Faria

(animus mei)

Eliana Tavares de Mattos

Giuseppe Baccaro

(in memorian)

Eduardo Mercier

(in memorian)

Ana Tamanini

Fedra de Faria

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on

earth, and all ye need to know."

(John Keats- Ode on a Grecian Urn)

Contents

Introduction....................................................................................... 17

First Part.............................................................................................. 23

Chapter One. The Inheritance in Peril............................. 23

Chapter Two. The Ara............................................................. 57

Chapter Three. The Blood of the Earth........................ 111

Second part...................................................................................... 147

The Ara of the Pampas......................................................... 147

Chapter One. The Rape........................................................ 149

Chapter Two. The Cave....................................................... 167

Chapter Three. Solange’s Judgment.............................. 183

Chapter Four. The Prison..................................................... 195

Chapter Five. The Judgement........................................... 205

Chapter Six. The Matron’s Bed....................................... 229

Epilogue............................................................................................ 231

What Does Alma Welt Mean?............................................... 235

Introduction

By Guilherme de Faria

This is Alma Welt's first novel, and it seems grandiose to me. An autobiographical novel. A family saga, a novel... romantic, in the great tradition of romanesc liter-ature.

The last great lyric of the 20th century, as I usually call her, the poet Alma Welt, approaches her narrative with the lyricism that is characteristic of her, often torn like a song, poetry in prose sometimes, musical as a rhap-sody, at others like a symphony. We listen to the music she wants to offer us, to make us heard. Like the noise of the Minuano wind, like the creaking of doors and walls that turn.

We feel the mystery and beauty of her land, her home, her origins. We are moved by her love for her land, for the Pampa that extends like the world around her house and where she gallops accompanied by her Aline, like two “centaureses”, naked and graceful. I have rarely seen such beautiful moments in a novel as in these paragraphs. Alma Welt is not ashamed of being romantic, because she knows she is heir to a great tradition of her Germanic blood. She leads us like Hoffmann through the corridors of her house, through the underground of the mysterious cellars. Like Goethe, she takes us for a walk in the gar-dens around the house, in an idyll with that other beauti-ful woman, Aline, crowned with flowers. The children, like bees, flutter around us, boisterous, and adorable.

We immerse ourselves in this “Weltian” universe with a rare pleasure, following the flights, the ramblings, the daydreams and the real memories of the author-character. Or the author-protagonist. She seduces us with her uni-verse through the lens of beauty with which she sees her daily life, which is not strange to us because it is true, subtle, human, without fancy, without artificiality.

Alma Welt doesn't want to be sophisticated. She is so because of the height of her clear thinking, the evident purity of her romantic heart. She loves passionately. And with explicit eroticism at the same time elevated, by the superior aesthetics with which she naturally describes him, without ulterior motives. She bumps into sex like we do in life, and she doesn't swerve. She stares at him with voluptuousness. She loves love and sex and invites us to partake of her enchanting intimacy with a captivating freedom that seduces us.

As a modern heroine of the freedom and pleasure of sex enjoyed with dignity and with the hint of mystery that sex always hides with those attractive little perversions of which she makes us see the beauty, allowing us, there-fore, to recognize them in ourselves. This is her delicacy: to love the human being so much, that her acceptance by him is full, almost total. Only evil does she refuse, she denounces as something outside the human that intrudes and shocks this life. Heir to German idealism, she moves us to a high degree of humanist vision, which dignifies man for his unconditional commitment to his original pu-rity, in his beauty inherited from the gods, if not from God.

In addition, she still moves us with a rare quality, the candor that she does not give up, even in her critical

lucidity. How, then, could this little Eve maintain her pu-rity having bitten the apple of reason without being com-pelled to even cover her sex with her hand? That's what impresses me most about her text. The pride with which she exposes herself as a nymph, often as a mischievous girl filled with delicious innocent malice. Alma loves a certain ambiguity, certain paradoxes, elegant as she is too. She must therefore like Oscar Wilde that she reflects not so much in style but in the spirit of certain attitudes. But there is no dandyism in it. It is simple, never far-fetched. Never art-nouveau, except for its less formal symbolist aspect. She is more reminiscent of Emily Brönte of the heaths than the English of salons and casi-nos. She loves Turner on his prairies more than the Im-pressionism that is his descendant.

We hear Schumann, but above all Schubert in his or-chestrations of words evocative of beautiful landscapes. Alma Welt enchants us. Finally, all that remains is to evoke the tribute she pays, consciously or not, to the great author of “O Tempo e o Vento”, our Érico Veríssimo, which she cannot deny as an author from Rio Grande do Sul. Get ready to enter the heart of this fabulous land, the Pampa, in an estancia, a rather haunted mansion, beaten by the Minuano, loaded with heroic and tragic memories of revolutionary battles, and where we think we can see the shadow of Anita Garibaldi projected at a glance on the ghostly white walls.

São Paulo, 08/12/2004

__________________________________

Cover: The levitation of Alma Welt - oil on canvas by Guilherme de Faria, 2006, 150x150cm

Big house dream (by Alma Welt)

At midnight the dream began

As the final blow from an old man, like twelve knocks on a knocker, like a sad dig wooden storker.

Now far beyond the mansion itself like a castle in celebration revealed, with all the fairy and each elf

by the basement shadows no more vealed.

But this will only occur in the same dream, suspended time as a pause lazy and ocious that entangle the old kingdom team...

There sleeping bottles still reposes waiting, more and more precious, a new age of wine and roses...

“I squeeze the tubes onto the palette I put these verses on paper

and the paints and the words refer me

to our resort

that is still there

like a ghost

sailing

in the vastness of the Pampa like a ship

the mansion beaten by the minuano refuses to sink.”

(Final lines of the poem Pampa, by Alma Welt)

First Part

Chapter One. The Inheritance in Peril

Rôdo, my brother, wants to sell our ranch. I can't even bear the thought of that happening. I pack my bags hast-ily, not forgetting, however, to throw my poetry and note-books over my clothes.

During the bus trip, I found myself in a state of great anxiety and so I made an effort to tune in to that present, even though it was a transitional present, with the land-scape rushing through the windows. After a whole day and two transfers, I finally arrive at the little station to catch the old train that crosses our lands, in the middle of the Pampa. My beloved Pampa, eternal, unchanging.

When at last the buggy comes to pick me up at the little station, I am already back to my childhood and early youth. Moved and tense, I greet our caretaker, Galdério, whose wrinkles now emerge from an immense gray mus-tache, and whose pumps remind me of my true universe. I am home.

On the way, rocked by the “coxilhas,” and by the sing-ing voice of our male housekeeper, I find myself in a kind of dream, in which, in the background, I hear the noises and music of the fandango and the song of the Nau Ca-tarineta, which I used to hear in childhood, like an anti-calanto, if I may say so, that took me out of bed and made

me run to the balustrade, to observe the adults' party, to follow that wonderful story of the almost cursed ship, which finds its redemption through the unshakable faith of its captain.

Now, the ship that is in danger is our own mansion, which seems to be sailing, motionless, on the astral plane of the Pampa, beaten by the Minuano, in the cold season.

But we are in the middle of summer. And the days would be wonderful if that threat didn't hover inside, in my soul. Our ranch in jeopardy, our home about to be lost. What's going on with Rôdo? How can my brother betray me like this? Was he not self-appointed as the faithful guardian of our father's estate? Of our sacred her-itage, of our roots?

I long to meet him right away, and fear coming in screaming like a rage, which is definitely not my thing.

When I see Rôdo, however, on the porch, standing, with his breeches, and his black hair tousled, majestic in his youthful beauty, my heart softens, warms up, and I relax. I run to hug him. He holds me against his heart, and I go back to our childhood, when our hugs were more frequent than usual. His scent, his perfume, the softness of Rôdo's black hair, my first love, in fact...

But soon I let go, move away from him at arm's length and look him in the eye, shooting it.

“Rôdo, what's going on? How can you think about it? Selling our ‘estância’... I prefer death, you know. Do you want to kill me? Do you want to kill us all?”

“Alma, don't exaggerate! You are always extreme in your feelings. See: we have no way out, it's either that or

a mortgage, which we'll never pay. We're broke. This is the truth. I can't get another dime off the property. Times have changed. You're an artist, you don't know anything about this universe, the practical world, the immense debts we've accumulated since even before Vati's death. You delude yourself. We have no way out.”

“But, Rôdo” - I almost shouted - “You promised, you swore to defend our heritage, the legacy of Vati, our li-brary, the piano, the garden, the vineyard, the orchard, our apple tree, but above all this house. Oh, Rôdo, I can't bear the thought of losing everything...!”

I fell into a huge weeping. I felt faint. Rôdo supported me. He then took me in his arms, as he did when we crossed the marsh, and carried me like a child, to deposit me on the sofa in the living room. I abandoned myself for a moment, as if that would soften him, take him away from his intention, which I felt powerful, since the idea of the blindfold had been installed in him for a long time, I realized.

I sobbed until I fell asleep, exhausted, in a torpor of accumulated pain and fatigue, from the journey and the fear that accompanied me.

_____________________________________________

I woke up to my brother's face, very close to mine, with his eyes resting on my lips. Had he kissed my mouth in my sleep? Oh, Rôdo, it's too late...

I ran my hand through his beautiful black hair, silky, slightly wavy, as if the pampeiro were always shaking it. My brother, my little brother... I need to talk to him,

convince him. There must be a way out. I don't consider myself a person attached to material goods. But the re-sort? It is our spiritual heritage...materialized. No, it's not possible, it will be my death, our death. I will be con-demned forever to those empty Gardens, in São Paulo, where I can only have my studio, with comfort, sur-rounded by art galleries, just to provide my livelihood, to continue creating from the internal source of this herit-age, of this soil, where my roots are. No, Rôdo, I won't allow it. I will fight everything and even you, if you betray me, if you betray us.

I get up and ask Galdério to saddle a mare. I gallop across this vastness, the infinite meadow. I gallop for a long time, accompanied from afar by the gaze of my brother, who watches me as in the past, when this gallop was happy. Oh, what can I do but gallop? How can I fight, what do I know about life, papers, debts... in this sordid and sad world of the commonplace realities of the practi-cal, real world? I am an artist, I am a poet, alas! Am I then so vulnerable? I didn't know that it could be achieved in this way, in my core, where my creative forces spring up, in my heart, in my soul. They will kill me! They will kill me if all this is lost, this house, these books, Vati's Stein-way, with its music that still resonates. Will my memo-ries survive? Without their gold backing, will they not be devalued? I know, this question contradicts the essence of memory, its permanence in spirituality, but... is matter, then, nothing? Why is it there then? And it's so beautiful! As much as the spirit, no less. That's the truth. As an art-ist, I love matter as much as the soul that resides in it. That's why I describe it, I paint it, I root it in the canvas and in the verses. I describe the beloved beauty, of all, my own beauty. I want to fix it. I want it eternal. I want

to believe in the resurrection of the flesh, with God, or among the gods of Olympus, I don't know anymore! Among the gods of Pampa!

At dinner, at the table, Rôdo, at a great distance, that we are seated, father and mother, who are at the same distance, in their great distance. Matilde, our cook sends her niece to serve us. Matilde is very quiet, after we cried a lot, hugging each other. Now a shadow and she doesn't have the courage to approach this empty table, with her children (as she says empty) sitting like this, separated by the table itself, empty, forever.

Where are Lucia and Solange, our sisters, so silent? They already love the loss of our stay. Indeed, they craved it, full of rancor and greedy for the spoils of our heritage, like harpies. “They will arrive soon,” Rodolfo said. Soon we will be here, pumping the sale, claiming, disputing. There! I will not offer. I will fight, I won't let them ruin everything. They won't take a book, a record! Don't you dare covet the piano. Nothing must come out of here, now I see.

Yes, I myself would never have imagined myself de-fending these things tooth and nail. But I know Vati wants me that way! I know he was more attached to his books, to his piano, to his paintings than to our lands! They are your spiritual heritage. Symbols of his love for the culture of all peoples. For universal art, for the music of the Masters. There! I can't let this go. The essence of a collection is the personality, the spirit of the collector, which is thus shaped. A scattered collection is the

betrayal of a life, an act of cannibalism, of mutilation, of depredation. A shattered soul, like a body!

Vati, Vati, I will defend you! But how? What can I do?

Lucia and Geraldo arrive, with my nephews, the Twins, Christian and Hans. Then Solange and Alberto. Patricia, almost a young woman, runs to hug me, then Pedro, handsome, quiet, sensitive. How do all these won-derful children come out of the womb, that's what they ask, in their parents' house already fighting for carrion.

Solange hugs me, however, with apparent emotion. She likes me a little, in her own way. Perhaps out of sis-terly duty. She is like that, and soon starts complaining about her husband's drunk, who is already there, trying to - dusty bottle, looking with satisfaction at the label, de-signed by me. Handing out as cups makes a quick, cyni-cal toast to our resort. For the money I was expecting on hand, actually. Oh, how pathetic all this is... and painful.

I go out with Patricia, hand in hand. This young woman wants to open her little heart to me, I see. She is in love (maybe) and her mother naturally watches over her, forbidding her to approach the boy. All so predicta-ble! But the truth is, my spirit is no longer serene, cen-tered, there. I'm disturbed by the threat hanging over my house. Can my brothers live so easily plucked from our ground? And Rôdo? The estancia felt as vital to him as it did to me. And it was he who fought for it, on the occa-sion of the division of the spoils. After all, they all remain together in possession, by my influence. If Rod had ob-tained it, by agreement, in the division we would have

nothing, now we see. It's all lost. My brother became a prodigal. His sports car, his Ferrari, reveals this.

I sit under my apple tree and daydream. Far away im-ages begin to come to my mind, from a time other than mine, but which are in my roots, perhaps as deep as those of this tree that contains my heart, not only engraved in its bark, but in its core.

They transport me rural images of a “German” Mora-via, yes, of the Sudetenland, well before the Second World War. My grandparents, German farmers, returning to their cottage, Bavarian but humble. They have hoes on their backs, and I can see their thick calloused hands. The scarf covering my grandmother's head, rough-looking, her face puffy, from which small blue eyes emerge, amid the reddish fat of her round face. My grandfather, very tall, thin, with huge bony hands, holding a pipe that goes with him to work in the fields. Her blue-green eyes seem obtuse, but at the same time obstinate. The same obsti-nacy that will pull him out of this land where he feels oppressed, like all the farmers who wanted to feel like a German, in the heart of Bohemia and Moravia. This re-volt will bring him, long before the war, to the south of Brazil, the promised land, which he had heard about, a certain valley of the Itajaí, an exotic word that they barely knew how to pronounce. That nefarious Hitler would take advantage of this, with pretext, to invade Poland and Czechoslovakia and destroy them. His struggle, his as-cendancy to power campaign already insisted on this du-bious theme.

My grandparents, I accompany them in my sleepwalk-ing retrospect, there under that ancestral tree, whose first branches correspond to this couple of rude peasants, brave after all, who would first stop in the region of Blu-menau, in Santa Catarina, in a German colony, not so far from another, Azorean, where the young Ana Morgado would be born, ardently loved, since childhood, by my father, the young Werner Friedrich, a dreamer, who wanted to study, leave this agricultural life, be a musician or a doctor and rescue the beautiful Azorean, as he said, from that universe, restricted to him, and carry it with him to the world, so vast. He dreamed of returning to Europe, he who had been born there, in that ideal valley, some-how Brazilian, German, Portuguese, Italian. Typical rural courtship had not been the predestined cosmopolitan spirit of the young Werner, whose rebelliousness was tol-erated by the rude Germans, because he revealed the heir of a wider tradition, which included the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and the wisdom of Goethe and Nietzsche, whom he had discovered practically alone, in the library of the priest, the pastor of the Lutheran church in that valley.

I like to think that the embryo of this Soul here, was already in that valley... and in that dream of the young couple with half-clandestine boyfriends. Yes, because this union was not easy, and there was an escape, because the two colonies did not get along, and the families, so different, apart from their rural roots, that this was the only common point. Ana, little Catholic, churchgoer, devotee of the virgin, of whom she carried the image on a medal around her neck, how could she have fallen in love with the young German-Brazilian? In fact, more German than anyone else, in its cultural universalism that

foreshadowed an erudition that was to become astonish-ing. How can he fall in love with the naïve “Portuguese girl”, but at the same time austere and hard, whose relig-iosity still contained so much fetishism, with so many venerated images, and so many moral restrictions, which in fact were the only meeting point of the two cultures?

But my father, this one was libertarian, far-sighted...

and adventurous. He would kidnap the “rapariga”, the be-loved daughter of the Azores, with very white skin and black hair, which would only reappear in my brother Ru-dolf, Rôdo, the most beautiful of all, in my opinion. But before me would come Solange and Lúcia, names dear to Brazilians.

How many adventures, indeed, preceded this stage! Young Werner had managed to get sent from the old men to Germany to study. That Germany of the rise of the fu-ture Führer, which, thank God, produced an immediate dislike in the enlightened young man.

But this stubborn young man concentrated on his stud-ies, despite everything, the social disturbance of that irre-sistible rise, that tyrant, whose screams would echo to that ideal valley, back in Brazil, and make my grandpar-ents put on armbands to parade in honor of the fanatic who promised to liberate the Sudetenland from Czecho-slovakia and Poland as well as annex Austria. My dad wouldn't see this depressing scene, of my grandfather with that swastika armband, and his right arm out-stretched, yelling “Heil!” while they marched through the streets of Blumenau, tolerated even with some conde-scension by the rest of the population, in a political mo-ment under the aegis of Getúlio, who until then, did not

disguise his sympathy for his colleague from the Third Reich.

It took the war to end, and the lurid secrets of Nazism to come to light, for my grandfather to reconsider his po-sitions and renege on that ideology. At least he did. And he laid a stone on the matter, as, it seems, all the German people from those years, I learned much later about my father's footsteps, from the letters to my mother, which I discovered in his vaults. Letters and postcards, passion-ate, romantic, with an increasingly elaborate language, denouncing a growing culture, which, without knowing it, would distance him from the poor Azorean girl, more used to a park bench, simple, in front of a small village church, like the one you chose to marry on your return.

The young man, tall, with blond hair and brilliant blue eyes, would return with an unusual baggage: an immense library, which he seemed to have digested perfectly, such was the extent of his knowledge and the foundations of an erudition that he would grow each time more through-out his life. And the piano? A wonderful black Steinway that he had brought back by ship and that he played with refined technique, learned who knows where and how, with what time? How could he accumulate so much knowledge, and still play in that romantic way, having graduated in Medicine, and even become a surgeon (an activity that, in fact, he almost never practiced)?

What would have impressed me most in my childhood would be his absolute musical ear and his knowledge of the works of Romanticism, including the world of Ger-man, French and Italian opera, above all. Yes, my father was a romantic and he would pass this innate tendency on to me, his favorite daughter. But before that, a lot

would happen on that return of his, on the eve of the con-flagration that would change the world.

This retrospective dive of mine is interrupted by the adorable voices of my nephews who come running and playing. Especially beautiful preteens maintain a pleasant harmony between them. It is beautiful to observe the sweetness of the relationship between Patrícia and Pedri-nho, their complicity, the result perhaps of the need to unite, in a home troubled by an alcoholic father and an excessively controlling mother. I can imagine the con-flicts and scenes, of which I have already witnessed some, that these children are forced to live with. As for the twins, Christian and Hans, they are two sweet conun-drums. All that's left is for them to speak in unison, like those twins in Bergman's film “Wild Strawberries”. I join them, who surround me offering me fruit and beautiful smiles. We walk together, entering that orchard, and I surrender to the immense pleasure of that moment, until the moment I remember the threat that hangs over all this. The imminent loss of this paradise, of these moments that I wanted to immortalize for generations. I run out sud-denly, crying, towards the mansion, much to the chil-dren's astonishment. I needed to see Rôdo, urge him, somehow dissuade him from his intent.

I find Alberto's rubbish in the living room with another bottle in his hand, looking for a glass. Soon he'll be drink-ing from the bottle, dirty or not. Solange, who appears immediately, looking irritated as usual, looks at my tear-stained face and opens her arms slightly to let them fall over her broad hips, in a gesture of “patience”.

“There you are again bursting into tears. Have you be-

come a crybaby now, Alma? You weren't like that... What do you want? You don't accept reality, do you? You never accepted her, did you? You and Vati, two dream-ers. They never knew that families need money, money, do you hear? You don't raise children with just books and music, you know? No, you don't.” And bla, bla, bla...

I run out of that room and go knock on the door of Rôdo's room. I don't find it. I go to the library and there he is cleaning a gun, a hunting rifle that my father never touched and kept only as a souvenir of my grandfather. It caused me immediate revulsion to see that weapon at that moment. Why didn't I find him with an open book? One of the many illustrated books by Vati, so dear to our childhood?

“Rôdo, I need you to listen to me. Put down that weapon and reason with me: there must be a way out. How much is the resort's debt? Why don't you sell your Ferrari? Why do you need such an expensive car? Isn't it the most important resort for you, for both of us at least? And the children, Rôdo? Can't you see that they cannot be deprived of these gardens, this orchard, this all? The Pampa, Rôdo, the Pampa!”

I burst into tears, shaking him by the collar of his shirt. I hugged him tightly and he pressed me deep against his chest before pushing me away in exasperation.

“Alma, stop it. You are making everything more dif-ficult. Aren't you the one who always spoke of detach-ment? And your philosophy? What about Tao? Are they just bullies? Words? See, Alma, this too is fate. Our

ranch, this house, our childhood has come to an end. So, don't you see, Alma? Ended.”

“No, no, Rôdo! Don't try to confuse me. I know, I know it's not over. I feel Vati hovering over this house, and the music emanating from his fingers on the piano wakes me up at night. He's here and he wants us together, at least the two of us, under this roof, in this library, re-reading these books... or simply worshiping them. His pi-ano, Rôdo, the Steinway... we can't, Rôdo, he's still alive!”

Rôdo looked at me desolately, now with tears in his eyes, and hugged me again, both sobbing. Rôdo had also collapsed, his strength was fictitious. I knew it.

At dinner, everyone at the table, our big table, whose heads were now occupied by Rôdo and Solange, since the latter would never let me occupy that place, Alberto, in-opportunely, made a point of making a toast with another bottle from our cellar. Everything was a pretext for the drunkard, notwithstanding the lack of real joy at this fam-ily gathering, in which the children themselves were more silent, as if sensing something, the imminent end of those meetings. His little antennas were already catching the disaster, the dispersion, the end of the dream. I knew how important the mansion and ranch were to them, they were a kind of safe haven anchored in their ancestral land. They lived in the city, but they were always here every year, during school holidays, and here they grew up, stretched out, every wonderful season. His eyes searched mine, instinctively seeking safety. I realized that I was for them the stability reference of this place, despite

everything, despite being just an artist. But my love and my joy were the thermometer of the continuity of that grandparents' house, of its roots. Solange, I could see, was irritated by this, since it seemed to her that this role, as the eldest, belonged to her. But how could this arid woman, without true love, as it seemed to me, be able to take the place of Vati? He was pure love and compla-cency, combined with rare strength and wisdom. He was the true spirit of this estancia that my grandparents bought, in the midst of the decay of an old breed of au-thentic gaucho ranchers, but so old in this Pampa that they have rotted away.

When my grandparents, farmers who had so pros-pered, out of sheer Germanic effort and discipline, bought this farm, perhaps the situation was analogous to what it is now. There must have been a Pampean Alma there and... a Rôdo. Also, a hard and dry Solange. And children who lost everything. I can imagine the burden of pain and resentment in the change of hands of this prop-erty, whose stability depended on enormous dedication and love. Perhaps the property itself had a spirit that con-ditioned us, that directed us, and that did not forgive our own decadence... and finally expelled us. No way! I have-n't resigned yet! I'm not ready, I thought, at that table, at that sad dinner indeed, where a drunkard's toast sounded strangely inopportune, and in which no one was inter-ested. However, when touching the glass after the toast, my lips first tasted the wonderful land of this pampa, the cold smell of minuano, the aroma of jerked beef, mate in the gourd, and the endless vines. Then I realized the ex-cellence of that wine that I hadn't noticed before. And it seemed to me a heavenly flavor, which somehow pointed

the way, in a language or code that I could not then deci-pher.

Evening ride with Rôdo after dinner in our glowing garden of fireflies. Patricia and the children, delighted, run after the lights trying to catch them. This scene would etch itself on me forever, I knew, but I didn't believe it would be the last nighttime image of that wonderful gar-den of my childhood extensively extended there by those beautiful children. Rôdo and I in our boyhood had done this so much! He would put hundreds of fireflies in a jar of jam or even an empty bottle of wine, to shine in the night, concentrated, while I protested, until I took the bot-tle from him to free the bugs. Rôdo, in fact, let me do it, because he was loving by nature, at least to me. He would then charge me in return, just kisses on my lips, which I naively haggled over, excited, half fearful. Once he made me lie down behind a flowering hedge, there in the dark, and surrounded by the twinkling of a thousand stars in the sky and on the earth, he kissed me for a long time on the lips, awkwardly but sweetly, while his little hand roamed my body, groping me. There I felt those things for the first time, when his small hand covered my shell, under my skirt. Only… he had broken the spell, bringing his fingers up to his nose and grimacing. “Smells like pee,” he said, and I, bewildered and embarrassed, ran into the house.

Now, there, with him, this scene popped up from the back of my memory and made me smile in the dark, a smile he hadn't seen. Maybe he thought about it too and smiled in the dark, remembering my smell and how he had been obsessed from that moment on, and had sought

so many times to renew that experience, until the bitter day when, denounced, we were caught by our mother, under our apple tree.

Rôdo took a deep breath, perhaps from the depths of his memory, and said:

“Alma, I don't want, as much as you, to lose all this. Here our memory is alive, I know. I'll do what you want, but have an idea, for God's sake. I will sell the Ferrari if need be, but I warn you that the debt is much, much greater than what I can get out of this sale. At least dou-ble. And my car is not new anymore, you know how I run on these roads. The mileage is very high. You remember how I once destroyed a Porsche... and almost died. Can I live without speed? Maybe not... but I know, we're on edge, and there are more people at stake. The children...

But remember: Solange and her brothers-in-law are dy-ing to get rid of the house, the ranch, everything. They hate our roots, with the exception of Lucia, who I think we can count on, the others are barren people, with no real roots, except for the beautiful children they had, sur-prisingly. So, Alma, think, think! But get a better idea, because I... I don't know what to do anymore.”

“Rôdo,” I said. “I will pray, I will have an inspiration, I know. But I will pray to the gods of Olympus and Pampa, as Vati taught me. He wanted his girl to be pa-gan... and he got it. I'll look for our apple tree, do a ritual tomorrow night. Only you should know this. Keep eve-ryone away, disguise. For all intents and purposes, I will be locked in my room. You know me, I don't play with certain things. Thou shalt see. Something must happen that will get us out of this stalemate.”

I'm getting ready for the ritual I've managed to do next to my apple tree. I stealthily gather herbs throughout the day. I don't forget to add to my collection the sacred yerba mate of the pampas, and leaves from our vineyard. I spend the day concentrating, having given Rôdo the task of avoiding the gossip of Solange and Geraldo, Lucia's husband. As for Alberto, he is too busy with the bottles, decimating our cellar. I'm only afraid that he will soon start to embarrass, shocking the children, and Patricia, that precious flower that remains untouched like a lily of the Pampas, or like a seraph. How could these kids pre-serve themselves like this, so pure, with parents like these? Well, I leave it at that, I can't help but keep my arms always open to welcome these wonderful children.

At dusk, I sneak in with my herbs and other accesso-ries, to hide them in the orchard and get back in time for supper. Rôdo kept entertaining the children so they wouldn't see my maneuvers. At dinner, Patricia ex-pressed how much she missed me, slightly hurt. I ca-ressed her a lot, under the sideways glance of her mother. Her father was already so drunk that he didn't sit at the table. So, we drink water from the spring during this din-ner. However, as I touched the glass of pure water, I felt again the surprising and delicious taste of the wine from the night before.

I cross the garden, whose daisies, under the moon's glare, have a phosphorescent and spectral aspect. Trees, bushes, and hedges cast shadows that blur my vision, and make me feel like I'm in a dream. In the silver-topped orchard, the more compact shadows on the ground

highlight an area of light soil around my apple tree, all of it looking magical, silver, shimmering.

I carry with me a three-legged stool, which will be my makeshift tripod. I install it next to the apple tree, in front of the heart engraved on it with our initials. This is for me the face of my tree. As the bench is rather low, I try to keep it on piled stones that raise it to my chest. I hope that the connection of my tripod with the ground is assured by these stones, and they do not isolate it. It is necessary that the link between heaven and earth is perfect in its flow of energies. So says my instinct. I am the Pythia, or the py-thoness of this temple: my orchard. I am taken by this feeling, rare in me, of the intermediation of occult forces and vague esoterism, like a terrain that, in fact, I don't know. However, an unknown instinct in me guides me. Ancestral powers, very ancient, come together for me, I feel them, coming from a distant antiquity. Perhaps a dru-idess acts, or a Greek pythoness, or even a fusion of these oracles, from their Celtic, Germanic and Greek strands, gathered in me on this solemn night.

The chorus of crickets, frogs and other nocturnal sing-ers like the nightjar, and even dogs in the distance, howl-ing at the moon, prepare the moment of absolute silence that will install, I know, at the moment of the magical invocation.

I am seized with a sacred fervor in relation to forces that I sense, without knowing them well. They are not the fruit of reason, and I am already in a semi-delusional state that mysteriously settles in me in this propitiatory night. It certainly couldn't be another night. Only this date awaited me, priestess of a single moment, vestal of vir-ginity remade for a few hours that will never be repeated.

I start to burn the herbs I gathered during the day and which I had hidden nearby. I start with the yerba mate of the Pampas, invoking, while the smoke rises, the pampei-ros, including that tender and tragic little black from the grazing, emerged from the memory of my childhood. I invoke the holy captain of Nau Catarineta and the gaucho of Salamanca do Jarau, I invoke Martim Fierro, or his model, a real gaucho, the mold of all brave and telluric gaucho pawns. I continue, then, with the burning of the smoke of our estancia, very strong and forgotten. Finally, I add leaves from our vineyard, invoking the eternal Di-onysus, who appears in my spirit with my father's face.

So, at this moment, the orchard seems saturated with presences. Each nume brings with it its procession of ag-gregates. Dionysus presents himself with the blond beard of my young father, crowned with vine leaves, carrying his wine glass in his hand, and with him the entourage that always accompanies him. I see them, all of them: sa-tyrs, nymphs, and the bustling little fauns. Soon this or-chard erupts in an immense sacred bacchanal. I find my-self in a hyperesthetic state, of confluence of all spirits. My hair stands on end and I feel the radiance that exudes from me through my pores, through my fingers, which manipulate the conclamatory herbs. All the gods, some witches, sorcerers and druids converge there. I see the Wizard Merlin, from King Arthur, and the fairy Mor-gana, also Queen Mab in her nutshell, followed by all the faerie. Deirdre, daughter of ancestral Ireland, follows her, with Fingal and Ossian. My saturated orchard becomes a great “Night of Walpurgis”, with the wandering presence of Faust accompanied by his Mephistopheles; and that of Eros and Psyche, and Helen of Troy, “she whose face

threw a thousand ships into the sea”. I see Thor and Odim out of their Walhala and the Valkyries on horseback.

In a kind of Alef moment, I see everything and every-one, around Leonardo da Vinci's immense beard, on this universal Sabbath, before collapsing, fainting, with my sweater torn apart by my own claws, half naked on the ground carpeted with dry leaves and small skittish be-ings, a space silvered by an immense moon that makes me levitate horizontally, one meter over the ground.

Rôdo, screaming my name, arrives, running, and picks me up in the air, stupefied, as he would later tell me. He had to put me down on the dry leaves forcing me down. Never again, he said, would he look at me with the same eyes.

I spent the next two days soaking in bed, exhausted, to the point of suspecting that all this, gods and numes, had come from within myself, and not from the surrounding nature, from my orchard, the earth and the air, anyway.

But never mind, I had summoned them... and they ap-peared. They came together, alive, somehow. They were all there, they did not miss the meeting, which made me sure that I was not alone, and that they would not abandon this land. And I would always be in their midst, for my roots were solid, and somehow, my faith was so power-ful, that I wouldn't be defeated by the lesser deities of money...or lack thereof.

My sisters and brothers-in-law attributed my condi-tion to an understandable depression given our financial situation. The children surrounded me with affection, climbing up to the bed and coming in, at night, under my

covers to hug me. I realized how much I was loved by these children, and I was sure that I was on the right path. Patricia, the little maiden, said to me:

“Aunt Alma, I understand that Mom and Dad want to sell the ranch. I can also see that you suffer more than anyone else for this, and that you are fighting, in some way, to save it. Tell me, aunt. I will do what you want. I won't let that happen, either, without a fight. Daddy just wants to drink, I see. He will drink all the money that falls into his hands. He'll drink the whole place if we let him” (a tear ran down his face). “But, Auntie, you must tell me what to do. I will obey you, whatever your instruc-tions. Tell me, Aunt Alma, what can I do?”

“Patricia, my love, you are my favorite girl. I knew I could count on you. But I don't know how you can help. When the time is right, when I find out, I'll let you know, stay tuned... and tell me everything you hear from strangers. I just didn't want you to be a little spy. But the time is war, and we must take our positions. I am infi-nitely grateful for your words. You are a golden girl.”

On the third day, regaining strength, I left the bed and participated in the dinner, when Alberto took the oppor-tunity to open another bottle to make me a toast. And once again, the wine seemed too delicious to me. Alberto spent dinner drinking, without touching the food, very excited, as if it were a party time. And one way or an-other, he distracted us from our worries.

Rôdo, that night, after dinner, arranged for me, in whispers, as a child, to meet me in the office. I arrived there, at the agreed time, and found him with his boot on the desk and with the gaucho knife of carved silver, in his

hand, in his favorite scene game, since childhood. He played the gaucho type, with a smile halfway across his mouth. But soon he composed himself and said:

“Alma, I don't know what you did, but you scared me. How could you stay like this, hovering above the ground? What happened? What are you up to? You're crazy, I'm almost afraid of you. What are you up to?”

“Rôdo,” I said, “the details are none of your business, although you arrived at a good time to interrupt the ritual, which I really don't know how it could end. All I know is that the pact was made, if I can call it like that. We are not alone. Have you seen the hosts with which we are accompanied?

“Alma, I saw nothing but enough: you lying in the air, your hair almost touching the earth... and it was too much. I don't ever want to see that again, you sorceress. You scare me. Since childhood you have had your mys-teries, which I cannot share. It is not fair. But what did you do? What is the practical result, come on, say it!”

“Look, brother, I can't tell you everything. I myself find it hard to believe what I saw now. Nothing was said, properly speaking, but the presences I invoked, and who appeared brought or not by our herbs, were enough to know that we are not alone, but accompanied by powerful beings, who watch over us and this land, this house. This has given me confidence, and the result, for now, is just this: confidence. I know that a sudden inspiration will come to me, from them. Just wait.”

“Well, Alma, let that inspiration come soon. We do not have much time. The economic pressure, from our

creditors, doesn't let up, you have no idea... Until now I wanted to spare you the details, since you are an artist, for whom all this would be even more painful than for me and the sisters… Our brothers-in-law, you know, are two zeros on the left, especially Alberto, the king of bottles.

We were talked. Quietly, I began to caress his hair, which I had loved since childhood, and he nestled his beautiful head against my breasts.

I walk in the morning among the flowers in our gar-den, picking daisies, dandelions, violets, and making a bouquet. Patrícia accompanies me, delighted, and we decorate our hair with the girls. As we wear white, airy dresses, we must certainly look beautiful. Our brothers-in-law watch us and even Alberto, the numb one, is sen-sitive to this scene. I am aware that things like this, which are at the heart of everything, give meaning to this rural property, whose ultimate goal is also beauty. Nothing would have meaning without it, this is the tradition of this gaucho land, in the end, the tradition... of beauty, of this Pampa and of our people. I am convinced of that, and don't accuse me of being an artist... as if that meant a par-tial, subjective view. The Greeks knew, as in the urn poem by John Keats: “Truth is beauty, beauty is truth. This is all there is to know.”

From inside the house comes the sound of a Chopin prelude. One of the “Five easy pieces”, which Rôdo knows how to play with unparalleled delicacy, although he never thinks of himself as an artist. The musical bent inherited from Vati is present, in him, as in me. I can't play like that, only dance, paint and write under the

influence of this wonderful music. For the past few days I have been chronically moved, as if my life was at its limit, which may well be true. It's time to mount my bay horse, and even with this dress and these flowers in my hair, gallop across these prairies, across the infinite Pampa. Well, that's what I'll do, after asking Galdério for the saddled mount. Solange appears on the porch trying to stop me, scandalized.

“Alma, you crazy one! When are you going to stop behaving like this? You were doing very well picking flowers with Patricia. Will you have to gallop once more, like when you were a child? You've grown up, stop it! You can get hurt, can't you see?”

I'm already mounted, and I hear their screams in the distance. I shoot across the meadow, as if I were the pam-peiro itself, humming in the crotch. Rhodo will then mount and pursue me, I know, as before, as before...

I inform Rôdo that I need a female companion, a friend, here, at this moment, and that I am thinking of inviting Aline, who has always wanted to visit our resort. Now is the time. We are separated, but as friends, and I know that she will not miss this opportunity, besides the fact that she wants to be with me, I know, with a pretext that that Pedro will not be able to resist. Rôdo agrees, of course, he doesn't need to know the timbre of this friend-ship, which doesn't concern him. As for Solange, I don't even think about giving her any satisfaction.

Soon I start phoning Aline's house, until I get to talk to her. I tell her to come, that I need her…desperately. That this is a delicate moment, that I need her support,

her confidence, even her advice. In fact, her love. She, touched on the phone, says yes, she will come. That I ex-pect her within three days at the most.

While waiting for her, out of my anxiety and excite-ment, I wrote this frantic letter, as if we hadn't already spoken on the phone:

“You're on your way, Aline, I can already see you coming back. You received my letter and replied with a laconic note, but so suggestive that it was enough: my heart lit up. Am I dreaming? Did I interpret your few words from the perspective of my passionate hope? I don't think so. I feel your steps on the road, on the long road that separated us. And my heart follows the pace of your walk towards my arms, to my recovered joy.

Do you remember, Aline, our endless nights, when we would shed tears of rapture and pure joy at our meeting in this life? How we held each other in our arms crushing our breasts, areola against areola. How did our pubes stick together, our bellies, our lips? How did we ex-change our fluids, like sister-lovers? How else to define our intense symbiosis, our indescribable passion? And yet, you left... almost killing me for how much I had con-fused myself, lost myself or... gained myself in you. The ecstasy, Aline, the ecstasy, we know it in this life. And that is holiness, Aline, true holiness! Nothing was lacking in our carnal love: we seized everything, without reserva-tion, and possessed ourselves as woman to woman, man to man, man to woman and androgynous to androgynous, with the help of artifacts, imagination and ardor, Aline. Soul and carnal passion!

Come Aline, I have open arms and so I will remain like a crucified person, waiting and hoping, on the threshold of my door on the veranda of the mansion on my farm, until you arrive and place yourself between my hardened and sleeping arms, which will finally fold about you. They already want to admit me, Aline, but they don't dare. Something in me, in my eyes perhaps, makes me be-lieve I'm right, that you're on your way. And the others wait for the confirmation of an announced miracle, like those who want to see to believe. O beings of little faith! So, they don't hear your footsteps? They think I'm crazy...

When you return, I will take you in my arms so that you can discover my flowering garden, my orchard and my apple tree engraved with an AR penknife, where I will add your A, transforming air into sacred stone. Ara of the Pampas will be your chapter. I will take you with me with the apple finally harvested, to my river, and to my grove. And you'll ride on the rump of my pampeiro in an endless dash across the coxillas, clinging to me from behind that I'll feel your body forever, even dismounted, naked, you glued to me, in front, behind. I won't leave you anymore! You won't leave me because I'll make you so happy that you won't risk losing me anymore! I will possess you and you will possess me to the point of blood, until we form the sacred Hermaphrodite with our bodies and our minds on fire. The salamander will govern the nights of our bon-fires in the middle of the prairie, preparing the mate that we will share, the bitter that will taste sweet to us and that will warm us under a shared pala in the sacred and cold night of Minuano. They will no longer be able to separate us; they will no longer dare, though terrified!

Oh! Everything we will do when you return!

What long days, the ones that followed, until it was time to pick her up at the station. Galdério transported us in the buggy, me and Patrícia, who is euphoric at the pro-spect of living with yet another young woman, who she knows is beautiful and sweet, according to my descrip-tion.

When she saw her, on the platform, with her backpack, her indefectible jeans and T-shirt, her sneakers, so mod-ern and at the same time so timeless, Patricia liked her at first sight, and wanted to help her with the backpack. But Galdério took care of that, and we got into the buggy, Patrícia moving to the back with her ears attentive to Aline's soft voice, who whispered as was her way, with that softness that had won me over from the first meeting. Before her, my heart stretched, I wanted to hug her never to let go of her. Her sweet smell invaded me, and tears came to my eyes. She knew. She continued, generously, to let herself be loved by me, and I... would be capable of anything for this girl who had completed my life, the gap in my insatiable heart of love and beauty.

The return journey would never leave my memory. I laid my head on Aline's shoulder, unconcerned with any possible judgment by the faithful Galdério, who re-mained discreetly silent, and we sang together, accompa-nied by Patrícia's high-pitched, youthful voice, a beauti-ful lullaby that my nanny, Matilde, the driver's sister, sang to me in the cradle, at bedtime, and who spoke of wonderful things, like a blue horse, a golden bird and a maiden who sang all that, in an endless circular meta-lan-guage.

When we arrived in front of the porch of the manor house, I was half asleep, my head in Aline's lap, in an old snuggle, which I wished would never end. Awakened by her, I wanted to be tiny so that she could carry me on her lap, put me on the couch or in bed, and continue to sing so I could fall into a perfect, deep sleep. Oh! But Aline longed to know everything, what was going on and I...

had forgotten all about my problems, as I always did when I was with her, my love.

“Darling,” I said, “I almost forget about my problems, as if I just called you to rest on your lap. But that's it. I need your affection more than any advice, because I know you can't do much, since the problem is basically financial, and you understand it as much as I do. But we will have time for you to find out what is happening. I'll arrange for Rôdo to tell you everything. The important thing is that you are with me, for if my heart is supported, the inspiration of the gods I invoked will be more likely to come, to save our place, which is everything to our family, or at least to myself, and to the children, who live half their time in the city. Aline, I'm involving you in this problem, in terms, but if you support me with your com-pany, complicity and affection, this land will be yours too, I promise you. Do you accept?”

“Alma, I want nothing. You know I love you as much as you love me, and if I haven't left Pedro, it's also for consistency, because I don't love him any less. You know you can love like that, two or more people alike. I know how you feel about your brother, and you made me un-derstand and accept that from the beginning of our rela-tionship. We are open, it is a fact, and our complicity is tacit. You can trust me, but tell me, what have you done, whose secret I see in your eyes? What's happening?”

I told Aline everything, the threat that loomed, and my adventure, the pact with the numes and gods, who de-scended, or appeared in an avalanche on that amazing night. Aline's big blue eyes widened, startled, shaking her head. I feared she was thinking I was going crazy. But she didn't let me down. She grabbed my hands saying:

“Little sorceress! You never deceived me. I've always suspected your powers, ever since you tangled me in your web that first day. You seduced me, and there is no greater power than that: that of seduction. You trapped me forever in your beautiful heart, where your power ac-tually comes from. Your purity, Alma, is your strength, do not doubt it, and never lose it. Such purity can do an-ything and will assure you of the continuity of possession of this land, which you love so much.”

With tears streaming down my face, I brought my lips closer to her wonderful mouth, missing her kisses and ca-resses. She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her lips to mine, breathing in my soul.

Not far from here are the ruins of the Missions, “Seven Peoples”, that my father took me to know when I was still a child. The grandeur of those wreckage strengthened my conviction of the grandeur of this land, whose Indians, guided by the Jesuits, were able to build such portentous walls. There are those who say that the Indians should not build anything out of stone and lime, and that all this is nothing more than violence and distortion of their cul-ture, wonderful when in its primitivism. But the truth is that everything was destiny, and it is an integral part of this land, whose history cannot do without any of its

dramatic fragments: the colony, the Empire, the Far-roupilha revolution, with Bento Gonçalves, Neto, and Garibaldi. And that wonderful Anita, whose integral Bra-zilianness I envy, in love with an Italian hero and dying in a foreign land. The German blood, which runs in my veins, is also assimilated by the sap of the Pampas, and our wine of so many strains tends to become one of the best in the world, second only to the French. Who knows, maybe we will unseat it in the distant future, when that exhausted soil of ancient Gaul will be completely ex-hausted.

So meditating, I make my way to our vineyard, almost ashamed to prioritize our orchard on my arrival. There I find Rôdo supervising the work, conscientiously, as if, for him too, there was still hope. I admired him to see him like this, as he had confided in me his despair, his defeat. Perhaps he wanted to hand over productive land, in order to get a better price, in the sale he planned.

Rôdo offered me a bunch of grapes, which gleamed perfectly, and placed vine leaves on either side of my head, exclaiming cynically:

“Ave Anima Mundi, morituri te salutant!”

That sounded ironic, but auspicious at the same time. I removed the leaves and putting a single grape in my mouth, I placed the bunch in the basket to be taken with the others. It was my affirmation of the need to go on, to continue the production of our wine, and that we would never die. This is what life wants: that we live as if we were eternal, disdaining the deceitful offer of the gods, as if immortality were in the present moment, eternalized. Thus, Odysseus had rejected Circe's offer, and therein lay

his immortal human honor. He did not deny his mortality because he knew it was relative: the sublime moment, of courage, adventure and curiosity, already configured an eternity, and he would not allow himself to be corrupted by the temptation of the gods, who tested souls, as the Devil would later do to Christ, and Mephistopheles, in-carnation of that one, who would tempt Faust, the penul-timate modern hero, since the last ones were Garibaldi and Anita.

The taste of grape blood in my mouth gave me, for a long time, the sensation of the indistinct embryo of an idea that had not yet found its configuration. What would it be? What, then, was insinuating itself into my spirit, so still amorphous, faceless?

Aline came to meet me in the vineyard, and we walked around for a long time, sucking grapes and waving at the harvesters, with their headscarves, which looked at us cu-riously. Two girls so tall… leggy, they must think. That's weird! But they knew me. Maybe they didn't imagine there was another girl like me, like me.

Aline, with her jeans, which did not take away from her femininity in the slightest, with her breasts whose nipples protrude from her white shirt, must cause a slight scandal in the minds of these peasant women. But I'll never know... Talking to them was almost impossible. His thoughts seemed hidden, by reserve or natural isola-tion in an unfathomable world of restrictive traditions and customs. I never really knew what the peons and their wives and daughters thought of me, of us, of the big house. The Germans, the Boches? How did they refer to this family? From Galdério and his sister I knew their loyalty beyond measure. Matilde, former nanny, now

cook, loved me more than anything and I compared her to Desdemona's nurse, Othello's, who would have died for her mistress. Oh! The Willow Song, by Shakeapeare and Verdi, was for me the best portrayal of the fidelity and sadness of the world of these peasant women, which a poet could never describe so well. It reminded me of Vati, who showed me for the first time, this aria from “Othello” by Verdi, who won me over in the right way for the opera world. Oh! Vati, I owe it all to you, the world of art and this vineyard, which I now promise never to dry up.

I ran out of there, followed by Aline, amazed. Facing the porch, my friend grabbed me and pulled my head to her chest.

“Alma, Alma, calm down. You'll get it, I know, you'll get an idea. I know you. But don't suffer like that. I can't see you suffer. It breaks my heart. When I left her, that time, her cry, as a child, she wouldn't let me sleep any-more. My friend, you are a girl, deep down. And you al-ready carry the weight of an entire vineyard. Now I know you better, here, in your land. Come, come, I'll pack you, my dear...”

Aline's immense tenderness made up for almost eve-rything, and I then felt that without her, I could not bear the threat, the fear, the imminent loss.

In our room, Aline laid me down on the bed and began her caresses. She had left the door open, and that was dis-astrous. Lucia was passing in the hallway, at that mo-ment, she stopped, and saw the scene. We don't notice its sneaky shadow presence. Was Lucia a spy for Solange?

She witnessed our kisses, Aline's hand that roamed my body, lifted my skirt, roamed my thighs and plunged into the confluence of my legs. Lucia, unable to contain her-self, ran in that corridor, when we then noticed her fugi-tive presence, and we were sure of the scandal. Solange would know everything...I was lost. I would lose what little moral strength I had left in this house, in front of her and my brothers-in-law.

At lunch, Aline and I, wary, approached the big table. But surprisingly, nothing happened. Lucia just kept her eyes down, while Solange remained the same sergeant as ever.

The meal went on normally, with its pleasant bits, oth-ers not so much, but with laughter at Alberto's inconven-iences, and Geraldo's snobbery. Noticing this brother-in-law, I imagined the horror that this lunch would be if he already knew everything. And Solange, then? This one would throw me off the table, screaming, and forbidding me to ever approach her daughter. I would die of pain...

and of shame. No, nobody knows yet. Lucia kept it a se-cret. Why? What does she want? A mystery, for now.

After lunch, I call Lucia, surreptitiously to the hall-way. I question her with my eyes. She, with downcast eyes, raised them and, taking hold of my shoulders, with firm delicacy, to my surprise, pulled me to her and said:

“Alma, my sister, fear nothing. I admire you, I love you. No one will ever know from my mouth, anything. Solange thinks I'm her spy, but I'll never be loyal to her. She doesn't deserve us. Alma, I will keep your secret, and Geraldo will never humiliate you, that arrogant one. Rest

easy, my little sister... and love your friend as much as you like.”

I knelt, then, suddenly, at Lucia's feet, and humbly and sincerely kissed her hands. I was saved.

Chapter Two. The Ara

In my little patent-leather shoes, I ran through the fields around our big house, often losing sight of it. With an old-fashioned, useless apron over my very long skirt, I looked more like a girl from the previous century: long hair, with a ribbon, sometimes braids. I ran or just wan-dered around, picking flowers, blowing the grass seeds in the wind, daydreaming, until I heard the sound of Vati's piano, which was the way to return to earth... to continue dreaming.

I ran to the library, to get under the big Steinway (which now, on my return, seemed much smaller). I would stay there, lying on my stomach on a very soft rug, which Vati would place for me. With my chin in my hands, I watched his feet on the pedals, whose usefulness seemed to me a mystery, and let myself be lulled by the wonderful sound of Chopin, Shumann, Shubert, Lizst, Debussy, Scriabin, Satie and Poulenc. I would then get up so that, beside him, I could observe his hands, his nim-ble fingers, skillful as an old musician-surgeon.

When he was finished, I would sometimes pick up his resting hands, inert on the keyboard, and watch them carefully, examining the smallest details, which seemed to amuse him. One day I kissed them after their concert for me. Yes, because I thought it was just me he played for... and he let me think so. Then he would put me on his lap so we could talk about music, about composers. He told me stories and anecdotes about their lives, and I transported myself to that world, where I saw myself as

their companion, and precociously, their loved ones. Yes, all of them. I identified with his muses, which my father described with reverence, denouncing his fascination with women... with the beauty of the woman-muse, which he himself did not enjoy, I later realized. My mother was anything but that... Her unyielding rectitude, her gradual bitterness, her practical outlook on life, ruled by an excessive sense of duty, devoted to her family and the man who had chosen her. Yes, because she had been passively chosen, and I could never feel in her a great love for Vati, as I projected it, in my imagination fired by the romantic world of artists: musicians, poets and paint-ers of that wonderful 19th century.

Then he would pick up the large volumes from the shelves to show me the illustrations by Gustave Doré, or by Flaxman (in the case of the Iliad and the Odyssey), and he would often read to me selected passages from those works. And I shed tears of enchantment, and more, because that was being transmitted by him, with that af-fective charge, with that feeling of identification and do-nation that he had for me. I was his hope, now I know, his repository of dreams, and if possible, of the artistic culture that he had no one else to bequeath, since my sis-ters were not moved by that universe, and lived stuck in the kitchen, or in the practical work around Mutti.

Rôdo was a different case. But they were excellent soulless embroiderers, and their work did not interest me. I preferred to imagine Penelope's endless web at the loom, reconstructing the adventures of her beloved Odys-seus, as she imagined them from the vague narratives of the returned soldiers, to follow him on his bumpy path towards herself. I identified with her, this queen that I knew held true fidelity: that of the complicit imagination,

and of true devotion, that of the passionate soul, which I did not see in my mother.

Fortunately, she, Ana Morgado, had the common sense, at least, not to interfere in this father-daughter re-lationship, whose affinities were almost absolute, with the exception of the obscure world, for me, incomprehen-sible, of Medicine, which I rejected from my life. Imagi-nation, as a bloody, ugly, raw thing. I could never under-stand, with my senses, the fascination he had for what I considered the demystification of the flesh, since I saw it and wanted it that way: a perfect envelope of the soul, full of beauty and personality, of brightness and sensual-ity.

My mother feared this above all: the precocious sen-suality she saw in me. And she tried to repress it, without succeeding, since she exuded from me through my pores, through my movements, a little student of eurythmy and ballet, two opposing disciplines, which Vati was trying to combine in me. But, even without that, this sensuality, above all, was innate in my movements, and coming from the beauty that always accompanied me, as everyone said, since my birth.

Very white, as I still am today, with my wide-set green eyes and blond hair with red highlights, this beauty was what produced a certain complacency, even in my mother, who otherwise would have tried to castrate me completely, or repress me all those flights, which in fact, at least she tolerated. Except for that bad day…

In Rôdo I had an adventure companion, and a confi-dant, because we had complicity in new experiences and

discoveries. And in the physical discoveries, yes, of our own bodies, which attracted us so early.

Rôdo, in those days, had discovered the kiss, on my lips... and that had triggered a growing desire in him that would resonate in my own nascent desire for the other's body, of the beautiful human being, pure, a child like me. His kisses became longer, until they left my lips numb and swollen. My mother fixed her eyes on my red lips, I noticed. Was she suspicious? Yes, because she surprised us after all, under our apple tree. Solange had betrayed us, and under that tree, which I instinctively considered a symbol of my life, and on whose trunk I had engraved a heart, with the initials A and R, which produced the word that summarizes the consistency and secret of the soul: air, atmosphere, breath, inspiration, enthusiasm; she had surprised us, naked, lying side by side, with my hand on Rôdo's “little chick”, while his small hand emotionally covered my “shell”, as we said.

Surprised, we were grabbed by Ana Morgado by the hair and lifted up. Instinctively, we held hands, which were brutally separated, and dragged by the wrists, while with harsh words, almost shouting, she ordered us to cover our “shame” with the other hand. Driven merci-lessly under the laughter of some pedestrians, on the way home, expelled from our orchard, which would be forbid-den to us for a long time, perhaps forever.

At home, we witnessed the drama and lamentations, Mutti's protests of shame and sin, while my father laughed complacently, good-naturedly, wisely, trying to calm her down, appease her. I remember his words more than my mother's “catilinarias”.

“Ana, what an exaggeration, don’t you know that chil-dren are like that? You never read Freud, you ignorant...

Childish curiosity is normal, it's normal, don't you know? Leave them, don't traumatize them! Don't scandalize them. You're bad, you know?”

“Come, my flower”, he hugged me and lifted me onto his lap, naked and in tears, and placed his hand on Rôdo’s head. “Don’t touch them, they’re naked!” my mother screamed. And my father: “Go get dressed and go back to playing. But enough about experiences, huh? Enough, Ana, stop this drama! Leave the children alone!”

His immense, pacifying, serene authority, his wisdom, his generosity... saved me. I imagine Rôdo too. My brother would become a terrible flirt, as erotic as a satyr, and I... no less. My nymph soul would be saved, I would not become a prostitute as my mother, deep down, pre-dicted. But I would love and desire everything: men and women, with equal intensity, pantheistic, pan-loving, I would save myself perhaps through excess, I don't know. But, at the same time, that pain would accompany me for-ever, like an injustice, an imputation of original sin, which I would never recognize, and against which I would always rebel, not with bravado, but from the depths of my indomitable soul, with that God himself had gifted me.

I walk around the house now, appeased, on the one hand, by Lúcia's surprising complicity, but restless, my mind agitated, looking for a solution to our impasse. The ritual I had presided over in the orchard would bear fruit,

I hoped. There was, as it were, an embryo of an idea, still formless, planted in my spirit, or in the back of my mind. At meals, we would get together painstakingly, always under Geraldo's nitpicking, Rôdo's sarcastic answers, Solange's scoldings and teasing, Lucia's downcast si-lence, and Alberto's sometimes amusing nonsense, emp-tying the bottles, which he, with difficulty, shared with us. The delight of these wines ended up relaxing, mini-mizing the rough edges of this family mismatch. Blessed wine! I understood in those days the catalytic function of this nectar of the gods, given to men by Dionysus, to sof-ten our fate, although often, I know, it overloads it, such is its fascination.

Alberto, our Bacchus, with a reddish nose, was the one who stood out the most in our repasts. Yes, drunks, in general, channel to themselves, in one way or another, the attentions, caricatures that become of all of us, human beings. I remember, however, the shock that my father took me to a circus as a child. The clowns caused me hor-ror, and a painted face, which sank into an immense col-lar, like a turtle, made me turn my head in revulsion, as in a nightmare. The slaps and false, clattering blows res-onated to me as real and brutal. I wanted to run away, but I hugged my father, closing my eyes and turning away from that grotesque spectacle, which left me forever with this repugnance for the poor clowns, caricatures of the drunk, with their red noses, their loose, flowing pants, their oversized shoes, made for stumbling.

Solange insisted on leading the meal ritual, but we paid no attention to her. We knew not to take her seri-ously, or she would bully us. In childhood, Rôdo and I had managed to escape their oppression, through this tacit attitude of humor and relaxation, which we found in

our own temperaments, supported by Vati, who enjoyed it enormously. I can imagine how much resentment Solange had built up all these years against the three of us.

Speaking of Solange, I have just remembered, with nostalgia, our Christmas and New Year parties, at the es-tancia, during my childhood. Glorious days, those, when I got up early, on splendorous summer mornings, almost screaming with joy to exist, and to feel... so happy! The parties, for me, started with the preparations, in the kitchen, and in the prepared room, especially with the as-sembly of our big Christmas tree. Matilde was the great party girl, responsible for the wonderful roast turkey, side dishes, salads and sweets. Vati took care of the choice of wines, of our own production. Mutti managed every-thing, starting with the decoration of the room and the decent preparation of the big table that would bring us all together. Solange and Lúcia helped them, while Rôdo and I had fun watching and clapping, or simply picking flowers and enjoying the lovely atmosphere of Christmas preparations.

But I particularly remember the Christmas when I was thirteen years old, when Rôdo, in a great restlessness of his pre-adolescent libido, decided to create an excuse for me to visit him in his little attic room, on the Eve of Christmas, at midnight, when everyone was asleep. There I was, as so often, in that cozy environment of a boy's room, which fascinated me with its virile mess, where all their tastes showed themselves: cars, model airplanes, miniatures of motorcycles and boats, photos and posters of mountains and beaches, some typical Pampas photos, of cowboys lassoing or launching the “boleadeiras” at full gallop, wonderful horses, everything that an

adventurous boy loved, and... a beautiful photo of me, my best photo, which touched me to be there, among his be-loved things.

I hugged him in a more emotional way than usual, alt-hough I knew that Rôdo didn't like sentimentality. But that night, in particular, for some reason I wanted to cry with happiness at having him as a brother, I, that didn't identify with my sisters at all, and wasn't even sure I loved them. I pulled him over me, instinctively, like a lit-tle lover, but we were sleepy and we fell asleep like that, dressed and cuddling, dreaming of ourselves, cuddling, dreaming...

We woke up startled by Solange's high and aggressive voice. The fat little shrew, in front of us, with her hands on her hips, glared at us:

“Oh! You bastards! Already hooked up again! Mom will know about it! You'll run out of turkey at Christmas and no dessert! You won't even sit at the table, you'll see!”

I was embarrassed for her, not myself. For the petti-ness of my sister who insisted on tormenting my life, con-spiring against my happiness, which, after all, for me, it was right there, next to my brother. I retorted, extending my arms to her:

“Solange, jealous little sister! Do you want to hug me too? Come, come Sol, I'll make you happy!”

Solange flushed with confusion and anger but ran away. I had disarmed her. I looked at Rôdo and he was rolling with laughter, panting. He finally managed to say:

“Alma, you have each one! You are always unex-pected. You, hugging Sol! Can't imagine!”

“Well... she wouldn't let it. I would hug her and even kiss her if I won her over and she stopped chasing us. By the way, are we out of turkey and dessert?”

We laughed once more together, and I was so happy there, with Rôdo, romantically in my little brother's arms, that I began to hear the sounds of Christmas Eve, the noise of crystals, wine glasses, and silverware, from the happy laughter of the family members I loved so much, which I wouldn't exclude Solange, whom I saw smiling at me, chubby and... even nice. I didn't even need Christ-mas Eve. I was so full and happy, that I heard its crystal sounds, and I didn't need the Eve to arrive anymore. My Christmas was right there, in that moment, present for-ever, feeling with my little nascent breast, the beats of my brother's beloved heart.

But going back to the present time, Lucia, whom I thought was the helpless victim of our older sister, now revealed another face to me, albeit an equally resentful one. She would get even, secretly supporting me, and I would be grateful for that.

Exercising the security that this certainty gave me, she took advantage of meals to cuddle my dear Patrícia, the twins, and Pedrinho, as never before. The keynote then became the children and their untouched world. They would be the focus of attention, and not even Geraldo dared to exercise his corrosive poisons anymore. Once, he just said:

“Alma, you are still childish. You will never grow up, will you? Not even in the face of the limit situation in which we find ourselves.”

“My brother-in-law,” I replied, “let's leave the adult conversations to the office. Children are serious too. Laughter and joy... are serious business, aren't they, chil-dren?”

They shook their heads in bursts of laughter, and we continued talking pleasant nonsense, with the exception of Patricia, who was daydreaming with a lost gaze. Taken by her first love, she was at that timeless age of lovers. I thought of Romeo's Juliet and her simultaneous maturity and naïveté. Maturity, yes, because Juliet understood the real tragedy of her situation. Can we imagine the rape she was destined for by her parents, the rape that awaited her at the hands of a hateful older man under the circum-stances? The being in love cannot even imagine being touched, taken, but by the object of his passion. Juliet would be dead forever in her heart, in her flesh and in her soul, if defiled by that Count Paris.

Thinking like that, I would hand Patricia over to her love, hand in hand, if she were my daughter, at most, as a representative of our time, she would present them with a dozen condoms. But I still didn't have children, and maybe I saw things with too much detachment. The fact is that I moved my spirit at will, between the centuries, positioning myself at the end of the millennium when it came to the sexual question. I had always been a libertar-ian, with the encouragement of Vati, and being an artist, I could not accept any oppression, at any age. I could barely understand the subjection people had to authority and hierarchy. I would never give an order: I would never

order anything from anyone in my entire life, even an em-ployee. I would ask please, as I always have. A human being should never exercise power over another human being, I think so. And the one who submits to tyranny ends up legitimizing it or becoming its accomplice.

Alberto, drinking our wine, tried to be childish, like us, but he didn't, that's the truth. It was out of tune. We then ran away right after dessert, leaving the adults enter-tained with coffee, cigars and liqueurs. We would run to the garden on a tag full of laughter, or stroll peacefully, hand in hand. With these beautiful children, I truly feel like family.

Days passed and I, safe again, took a chance on ca-resses with Aline, but with a little more care. We didn't want to shock the kids either, of course, and at most we strolled hand in hand, like two good friends. I knew Solange was watching us all the time. It bothered me, of course, and I wanted to be able to stand up to her. If it weren't for the children, I would kiss Aline on the lips, everywhere, and make her sit on my lap on the benches in the garden. With that reproach, my love and desire in-creased... and I felt like a Juliet too. Oh! Why don't peo-ple just leave each other alone? Why so much intrusion and disrespect to other people's individualities?

I know that there are those who think that the attitudes of others also disrespect us, even when they are not di-rected at us. I don't think so. I wouldn't even report a thief. And I would never be part of a jury to convict anyone. I wouldn't judge anyone in that sense. The human being, I believe, must never usurp the prerogative of destiny. The

wicked will be punished by time, and by their own wick-edness. The good will pass through their faults unscathed, for their hearts will preserve them. And the innocent are already in paradise. That's how I've thought since I was little. I don't believe in a punitive God. This would not match the immense love that is the reason for the uni-verse, for God himself.

For me, the evident proof of God's love, the closest configuration of his immense power, is the sun. A small displacement of a few thousand kilometers would be enough for it to roast us or freeze us. But no, it remains careful, looking at us and warming us, from the exact dis-tance, to produce this beautiful nature, contemplating us with countless gifts, particles and mysterious effects, to create life... and beauty. His love is evident.

With that in mind, I pull Aline by the hand, all the time to all the gaps I find, or behind the trees in our orchard, to kiss her on the mouth, greedily. I cannot take it any-more. I want everything from my love.

I then take her to our old shed, after losing the chil-dren. There, in the midst of hay and tools, empty barrels and harness, I toss it onto the straw and dispose of it at last. Oh! I miss that beautiful body! I also get ready, and naked, we surrender to our ardent caresses. We are soaked, and we drink our fluids, thirsty, ecstatic. Her per-fume, her liqueurs, I love everything that comes from my love and... I wanted to swallow her whole, if possible. I can never get enough. That's the curse: a permanent taste of the unfinished, the incomplete, the lack. The human being can never feel complete, finally unified! Here is ev-idence of the original unjust punishment, if not the in-comprehensible sin.

And behold, we were caught once again. This time by the twins, who blushed simultaneously. They remained static before our nakedness. We then got up at the same time and slowly... carefully put ourselves into a beautiful statuesque pose. The boys laughed and ran away happily. I'm sure they understood or were touched by the beauty of the scene we forged. It was an inspiration.

From then on, when we were alone, they sometimes repeated our pose together, and smiled beautifully at us.

We knew, then, that they would not tell adults about what they saw.

Rôdo comes to show me a proposal for the purchase of the estancia by a farmer tycoon. I do not want to see. Solange and Geraldo are furious, encouraging the sale, putting pressure on Rôdo. Alberto is more concerned with drinking. I approach him to co-opt him to my side, that is, against the sale. I tell him, in cryptic, indirect lan-guage, that the bottles will run out for him, naturally, if the estancia is sold. But they will be inexhaustible, if we keep our vineyard and all. That argument sounded logi-cal. Drunks seem to have a very simple logic: there is no life outside of bottles. This ends up taking them com-pletely, no matter how smart they are. It's amazing the power of alcohol over them. It is something that renews the meaning of life for fleeting fractions of a second, but under constant use allows them to remain alive, with a certain sense of fleeting pertinence, in a chaotic world. I will never judge them. But at that moment I allowed my-self to manipulate that poor specimen, which was the only ally I had left, since Aline and the children didn't have a vote.

The sad thing was not being able to count on Rôdo, who simply didn't believe it was possible to keep our property anymore. I was trying to buy time. I felt that something was going to happen that would change the course of events if we put off the sale for another month. Faced with this deadline agreed with Rôdo, he also felt he had the right to call a friend, a girlfriend, to assuage his loneliness or the thirst of his body.

In a few days Laís arrived, a brunette, beautiful, mys-terious young woman who made him lose his mind. Rôdo was transformed. When he returned from the station with the young woman, his face was different. That night the house reverberated with the girl's moans and squeals coming from the bedroom, and a kind of howls from my brother. It was really funny for me and Aline, but scan-dalous for others. Solange dawned more frowning than ever. Oh! If she only knew that Aline and I, we would tiptoe to observe the couple's fantastic maneuvers through the keyhole! We could barely contain our laugh-ter and the excitement it produced, of course.

The girl was versed in the Kamasutra, or at the very least in Yoga. She put herself upside down and expected the same jugglery from poor Rôdo. Her sex was exposed at 180 degrees, and we couldn't help but admire the beauty of her rosy orifices, with carefully shaved hairs. Aline and I fought over the keyhole, almost bursting to keep from laughing. Then we ran to our bed and try to replicate the exploits. That was hilarious... and a little frustrating. I remembered Freud and his penis envy the-ory, and for a moment I thought he was right. But I wanted to be complete! To possess and be possessed sim-ultaneously by my Aline. Yes, the perfect Hermaphrodite was the ideal being, lost forever in us!

I wake up with Aline's nipple next to my lips and I soften again. I look at this beautiful woman with skin al-most as white as mine. What makes her brunette? A mys-terious shadow perhaps, which veils her incomparable beauty. She opens her blue eyes and smiles. I want to drink her breath first thing in the morning. I will bathe her with my tongue so that she can wake up and rise in fullness. That's what I dedicate myself to doing for the next half hour. She stretches and rolls over in bed to ex-pose herself from all angles. I leave it clean with my ea-ger, loving and even... motherly tongue. She returns to a languorous sleep with shudders of pleasure. I noticed her multiple orgasms flooding her vagina. I want that beauty forever, that perfume, that elixir of long life, of the eter-nal life of passion!

Then I head to the bathroom. A long bath where she will finally find me so we can continue our caresses now with soap and hot water under a voluptuous shower. When we finally come out of the bathroom and bedroom, light, smelling and beautiful, Solange is waiting for us at the breakfast table with that disapproving face. She seems to know or guess what goes on in our room. She notices the ostentatious sensuality of our bodies, our swollen lips, our slightly open nostrils. She looks like she wants to beat us up, that's the truth. But this is at a level that is still semi-conscious in her, which does not allow her to manifest herself, of course. It lacks conscious ele-ments for it to exercise its censorship. That's why she dis-plays a forced kindness towards my friend, offering her rolls and bread, buttering them, almost spoiling her with a kind of derivative irritation.

I admire Aline's candor, which accepts everything with naturalness and grace. She's really adorable and cyn-ical, just the way I like her. Sometimes I want to shout out to the world, to the Solanges of the world, my love, my desire, my happiness. Do you not see then, you hyp-ocrites, that love has no sex, or has all sexes? It is to the eternal other, that we fall in love. Our wonderful reflec-tion of Narcissus in the mirror of another human being, the sacred lake that surrounds us. We want our reflection, we love and desire this complementary image, inverted or not, of ourselves. We want to know about ourselves, to get to know each other in our hidden depths, in our meanders and cavities. Our moods, our mysterious sources.

Rôdo and Laís join us at the table, to the complete dis-orientation of Solange's senses. The smell of sex, of pas-sion at this table, is too much for her prudish nostrils and she soon gets up, pretexting tasks, arrangements. The children have been playing in the garden for a long time, on the lawns. Their squeals and giggles are music to our breakfast. These are for us, perhaps, the last days of a happy Pompeii under the steaming shadow of Vesuvius.

On horseback, Aline and I walked around the estancia and went a long way from the mansion. Aline hugs my belly on the croup, laying her face on my back. She squeezes me tighter than necessary for her safety. She's holding me close emotionally, I can feel it. Aline's love fills me with joy and tenderness. I always wanted her like this, glued to me. I feel happy and legitimized by this love because it gives me strength, adding hers to mine, but above all because of the fullness I feel when I'm with her.

However, I do not forget my nature as an artist, and I al-ways try to be creating, writing, painting. I don't know how I'm going to be able to take it all together, moving forward. Such a love is progressive, not like an illness, but like something that will finally take me whole in a final ecstasy. So, I want my death. I won't ask like Goethe for more light, but more love (which after all, I know, is the same thing).

I get off the horse in the middle of the deserted prairie, and grab Aline around the waist to make her dismount. This typically masculine gesture exceeds my strength, and she falls on top of me, both of us laughing. She sud-denly stops laughing and in the sudden silence that seemed to take over the entire nature of that Pampa, she slowly brought her lips to mine. I wanted to die in that perfect moment, and her kiss took my soul so deeply that I thought I wouldn't have to live anymore, I wouldn't even have to watch the final fate of our estancia, our world, our vineyard in danger. I was full, complete at that moment and I would have stayed that way forever, completely kissed in my soul and my body if we hadn't comically felt the stings of the ants on whose anthill we fell.

We jumped up, struggling with screams and laughter. Afterwards, freed from the ants, covered in blisters in our arms, we looked at each other again, enraptured, knowing that we would never forget those moments and that the comic element, the laughter, would help us in the remote future to remember those wonderful sensations. Tears ran down our faces...maybe with the same thought, we hugged like two fellow warriors during a truce, before re-mounting and returning to the battlefield.

This war was going on silently, without explosions, but it was still far from over.

Solange was waiting for us on the porch, and with her cold, cutting tone, she immediately said (and brandished some sheets of paper):

“Girls, where were you? Alma, we were waiting for you to sign these proposals. We are all in agreement. The proposal is great. Read and sign, please.”

“I won't sign anything, my sister,” I replied. “I won't even read those papers. I'm not ready for that yet. Every-thing is too sudden for me. I knew nothing about what was happening here, while I was there, in São Paulo, working. Now they want me to agree, like this, all of a sudden, with this nonsense. No, never!”

“Oh! Working, isn't it, dona Alma! Painting, yes, and raving over there! You're crazy, always have been, and now you're stuck in a business we're all interested in. Be-sides, can't you see we don't have a choice, you alien! Can't you see that while you were painting your canvas, come on, we were struggling with the debts left by Vati, that other dreamer, who would bury us all in his debts, if there hadn't been at least the patrimony left, still liable to cover the debts, and some left over, to support ourselves, each one for himself, from now on. Are you going to ruin everything?”

“Solange, my sister, I won't do it again. All is not yet lost. I know, I feel it. I have faith... in fate. Don't ask me how I know, but we are close to a saving solution for our resort. You owe it to Vati, and to our grandparents, who

created not the estancia itself, but the vineyard. The old man made the vineyard grow and made our wine, our brand, known. Since I was a child, I designed the labels that became famous. I do not accept defeat. I know what moves you. Yes, you and your husband never loved the land. But the same does not happen with Patrícia and Ped-rinho, with Christiam and Hans. These beautiful children love this land that is vital to them, you have to know. The land, the Pampa is our sacred heritage, you cannot dilap-idate it, destroy it. I will not allow it! I will not allow it!”

I ran out of there, followed by Aline. In the room, very nervous, I was soothed once again by my wonderful girl. I took her hand again and across the hall we went out through the kitchen and out the back to reach our orchard. I took with me the old Swiss army knife that had be-longed to Rôdo in our childhood and that I had used to engrave our apple tree. In front of her, solemnly, holding Aline's hand, I would begin to engrave the initial of her name, her A, after the R for Rôdo. And when I finished, I said to her:

“Aline, you are now part of our alliance. If before our initials expressed air, inspiration, breath, soul in short, now they make up the altar, the ARA of our sacred pact. Swear to me, Aline, that you will not abandon me in this fight and that you will participate with me in the final battle. The land will be yours, too, since you are mine, as I believe. You will not return to São Paulo, you will stay here with me forever. With you I will face everything, I will have the necessary strength, with you. Promise me, honey. Look, the altar is our tree, the apple tree of my happy childhood, yes, despite some pains, despite my poor misguided mother, despite my initially misguided grandparents, but who got it right by planting this

orchard, this apple tree and the vine, the vine, now I see! I'm not sure yet, but something will come from the wine, from the blood of the earth that I will sacrifice on this altar. Aline, we'll be back here tomorrow night. We will sacrifice to the gods, you will see!”

Aline looked at me a little scared, I realized despite being in a state of almost delirious over-excitement. She remained speechless and her whole body trembled. She was almost fainting when I realized she had a fever, and her forehead was sweating. Then I hugged her and sup-porting her, led her to bed. I would take care of her. It had all been too much for this delicate flower of the city. I had gone too far, perhaps. I needed to be careful with my love.

Aline remained feverish and delirious for two days and nights. I stayed the whole time by her side, with a heavy heart, drying her whole body, and putting com-presses on her forehead. In her delirium, she struggled and screamed my name, but in a strange context:

“Alma, Alma, you are among us, after all, set me free, Alma! Take me with you to your kingdom. To the palace, Alma, I don't want to live here anymore, it's dark... Alma, Alma, free me from the dark, I want to see, Alma, I want to see! Alma, take me! I will cling to you, you can fly, I will not touch your wings, I will cling to your belly. The light, Alma, the light! It's your kingdom, we're coming!”

I was in tears, which burst from time to time, in copi-ous weeping. My lover moved me more than ever and I would do anything for her. I was afraid that she would die, and I felt that I would rather die than her. Aline's

fragility, her vulnerability that I hadn't realized until then, like the wings of a butterfly, like a very fine crystal, like the gold blade of a micron, which could crumble in the slightest breeze. This portentous being, whose beauty was the expression of the ideal nobility, possible for all women. My precious Psyche, projected from my own soul, from myself. We were two faces of the same anima.

I wouldn't know how to name them: Sofia...Eva? Or Helena?... I wanted to merge with my love, but I needed to live and take her out of the prison of her delirium, of that darkness she referred to and which I sensed. We would go together to sacrifice on the altar of our apple tree. We would save the ranch and the vineyard, we would save the sacred orchard, the immortal apple tree from our undying happiness. Aline, Rôdo and I would transform ourselves into the immortal, perfect Hermaph-rodite, unattainable by solitude, eternally. In the realm of being, where material possession would no longer exist, where all symbols expressed by matter would have their purely spiritual revelation, all codes finally revealed. We would finally know what the tree, the house, the vineyard and the pampa are, in immaterial, infinite Eternity. I would know what pure Art is, devoid of its visible signs, of its rudimentary, material expressions. I would know what the gods are. I would know, perhaps, who HE is!

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Aline is fine now. The fever stopped. She sleeps peacefully, peacefully. I can move away from her bed to confront Rôdo, who owes me an explanation. He can't be betraying me, and our pact. I find him in the office, busy with papers, with Laís beside him.

“Rôdo, what's going on, what papers were those Solange wanted me to sign? Didn't you say you'd give me time? What pressure is this? Rôdo, are you with them or with me? I already told you I won't sign anything. I prefer death, I told you. I'm sorry Laís, you hear such things. You had nothing to do with it, I hope.”

“Alma, I've known everything for a long time. I'm with Rôdo above all. That means I don't oppose you. I learned to respect you through him, Alma, and I would not be foolish to defy you. But you don't seem to know what your brother has been through. How much he's fought to save this resort. Now he is willing to sell his Ferrari. But it's too late and it won't do any good. The fight is lost. However, he says he will wait for the dead-line he has given you. This is all an enigma to me, Alma. How do you intend to save the resort? As for me, I just want to leave with your brother, take him with me... and make him happy, far from all those lost dreams.”

“Rôdo,” I said, turning my eyes to him. “The deadline hasn't passed yet. Tomorrow I will make one last sacrifice that will bring to my mind the revelation I have been waiting for, and I know will come. Counting on you. If Laís wants to come too, I won't object. I hope Aline can be there with me, too. The four of us will make a strong chain, if Laís is not opposed, deep in her heart. But this I will know right there, in front of our altar. I'll see you tomorrow... at the cafe, and then only in the evening, at our time.”

Rôdo was looking at me enigmatically, intensely. But he said nothing. I withdrew from the library.

The ranch of my childhood seems distant or underly-ing this one of the present. I can still hear the echoes of the sheds, in the fandango, the peonada parties, which Rôdo and I would attend, dazzled, sometimes hidden, late at night, fleeing our beds. There I heard for the first time the “Nau Catarineta”, sung, accompanied by the accor-dion and the clapping:

“Listen all my lords,

an astonishing story!

Here comes the Nau Catarineta that has a lot to tell

More than a year and a day ago they roamed the sea:

They no longer had anything to eat.

They no longer had anything to eat!

Cast lots of luck

which one was to kill

Then the luck fell

on the Captain-General!”

The dances, where the thump of boots, accompanied by the jingle of spurs, produced a shiver of pleasure, and the grace of the “chinocas”, evolving around the bomb-shells of their peers, made me deeply understand our fem-inine essence, cultivated in this south, as in few places in our current world. Perhaps only Russian peasant women, in their folk dances, express the male-female opposition so clearly and expressively. The dance of the handker-chiefs enchanted me greatly... and I wanted to be a “china”, with all the ambiguity that this word carried.

In the past, she expressed an intermediate category be-tween a prostitute and a pawn's girlfriend. Or even vivan-deira, the woman who accompanies the soldiers, in the rear of the armies in displacement. Hearing and seeing our people, our dances, I wanted to integrate myself into the past of this land, in all the women, in that wonderful Anita, a gaucho woman par excellence, and I saw myself as the chinoca of all the peons, a kind of sacred Hetaira of the Pampas. I've always been delusional...

However, it's as if I wasn't born here, in this south, be-cause my Germanic blood confuses me when I think of the gaucho and the Pampa, the mate and the charqueada. My grandparents planted this vineyard, in a very Euro-pean tradition, looking for a French wine, and my father's library threw me in all directions, expanding my mind, and overloading my heart with a universality conflicting with the ingrained spirit of this Earth.

But my happy childhood is the childhood with Rôdo, the one of our escapes and discoveries. That of our apple tree and the galloping ones; of the Minuano that made us shiver under the pala and made us shiver not only from the cold, but above all from fear and respect for the mys-terious power of that wind, which swept the plain and en-tered through the cracks in the doors and windows, howl-ing, and haunted us like the breath from the past of this mighty land, filled with the spirits of the dead from so many battles.

I find myself in the deserted room with Geraldo, whom I wanted to avoid. I salute him quickly to escape the confrontation. But in vain. He holds me back,

touching my arm and looking me in the eyes, with con-tained aggression:

“Alma, it's time to have a conversation. I know you don't like me, but I don't care. You are in my way. In fact, you are in the way of all of us. You're the only one who wants to keep this bankrupt property. Can't you see that you're stalling everyone's lives? What do you want any-way? Do you have any trump cards? Some hidden capital to pay off our debts? Yes, because you're some kind of sorceress, say your sisters, and you might have a magic wand...maybe.”

“My brother-in-law,” I answered him, “unfortunately I don't have a wand, and I'm not a player like you, to have an ace up my sleeve. But something tells me that the re-sort will be saved, that it will itself point the way. It be-longs to us, or rather, we belong to it. At least me and Rôdo. The children too...”

“You really are a dreamer; can't you see that Rôdo is the first to want to sell? He is the one who showed us its infeasibility. Why do you artists never accept reality? They live in a dream, fantasy world, which ends up throwing them into the gutter. Good thing you don't have kids...”

This comment, pure commonplace, just pissed me off. I looked Geraldo in the eye, and I could see all his hatred, his spite. He and Solange looked alike. The pairs were mismatched. I immediately thought of the twins, those angels, and thought of them as my children. I didn't see in those children the slightest vestige of that father. Oh! I wanted them for myself, and more Patricia and Pedrinho! The world was, after all, unfair.

“Geraldo, from now on, let's avoid talking to each other. It's no use. There is no possible dialogue between us. You're a practical man, I know, and I'm a dreamer, like my father. Let's stop here.”

I walked away quickly, feeling my brother-in-law's spiteful gaze, his pent-up anger. On the balcony, I come across Alberto, staggering. As for this one, it's also a hopeless case. Now he doesn't hide it anymore, he's a full-time drunk. I know this is a disease, I am well informed, but I do not easily see salvation for him, as he is happy in his unhappiness. Drinking still gives him pleasure, may God keep him that way. He hasn't seen the wolf's face yet. But what about the twins? These two cherubs, little Cosme and Damião, Christian and Hans. This one came out first and then Lúcia paid tribute to the great Andersen, which for me is a sign of his poetic sensibility, to which I should have paid more attention, I now see.

Lucia, my sister, I am so sorry to have underestimated you for so long. It comes from you, now I know, the kind-ness, perhaps the sweetness of these children. You were so quiet in my childhood. You seemed so dominated by Solange... and I was wrong after all. You are on my side, I know, like Rôdo, that you will not disappoint me, or all will be lost. We are a force of eight, including Aline and the children, who are opposed to the sale. On the other side are only Solange and Geraldo. Alberto, I don't know, is on the fence, like Humpty Dumpty, and he's going to break like an egg at any moment. Will I be able to co-opt it? Lucia, with your benevolent attitude, you proved to love me, and therefore you will be with me at the last moment.

Alberto also held my arm as he passed, but in another way. He wanted to show me an unlabeled bottle, but I paid him no attention and shrugged it off. He needed to walk alone, to think. That night I wanted to gather the four of us, counting on Laís, in front of my apple tree. Would Laís be an unbalancing force, a dissonant mind, in this encounter? I needed to get to know this girl better. I decided to look for her and sound her out before our ritual. She seemed to have too much personality to be simply a “nice girl”. And he wanted so much to take Rôdo with him far away from here. My brother! Will you be in danger? Will you betray your land to go with that love...doubtful? No, I can't imagine you cheating on me.

I went back to the big house when I was almost at the edge of our garden, on the border of our endless prairie. I'm going to look for Laís.

I meet her actually in Rôdo's room. Seeing her through the half-open door, I tap my knuckles on the wood so as not to invade her space. She looks at the crack from afar, notices me and invites me in. She is in lingerie, and how beautiful she is. She wears a provocative bodice that em-phasizes her perfect, round breasts. She seems content to let me see her like this. That's very womanly. Don't you say, after all, that it's for other women that we dress, us women? Maybe it's the same thing with undressing. And lingerie is the exact halfway point in both directions. I look at her all over, what magnificent legs! My brother has always been picky about his delicacies. The bon-vi-vant, the gourmet, the expert in women, the hustler too. Lover of speed and clear pleasures but with a certain re-finement, Rôdo chose this luxury filly. Or was she the one who did it...

“Laís, soon we will meet for a ceremony that will cer-tainly be attended. But I'm not sure where you stand. It wasn't clear to me. You love Rôdo, don't you? And you mean well, so I presume...”

“Alma, fear nothing. Yes, I love your brother and I know he loves me. I also know what the ranch means to him. He told me his whole life, his childhood with you in these Pampas. So, I don't want to force anything. If they manage to keep the property, he will not be physically tied to it as he is no longer. There are ways to do this. A good administrator, for example. Or will you bear it your-self? Yes, because we like to travel, and we have many plans to visit the four corners of the world. Only... I'm still not sure they'll be able to pay off those debts and save the property. How are you going to do it? Your brother is convinced that you are some kind of sorceress, pardon my expression, and he tells me amazing things about you. I don't doubt anything, but I confess that I'm afraid of these things. What are you pretending this time? Do you really need my presence? I'm afraid I'll get scared and lose sleep.”

I smiled, more reassured. Laís was, after all, a normal girl in a good way, and she couldn't have harmed my brother. In addition, Rôdo was educated in life and was never naïve. He had a lot of experience around the world. He was a man of the world and the last thing anyone should do is worry about him. Independence from him was so much that he hadn't even attached himself to the land of our childhood. He was perhaps freer than I am. But that was precisely my concern: he seemed to be able to live without our stay, without our roots. I saw him around the world, at high speed in his Ferrari, stopping only at casinos for quick games, like in the distress calls

he went through, poor Laís... Or was she also an adven-turer, asking for beds? It didn't matter, this beautiful woman didn't have Lilith's mark, her rictus in her brows, and that was enough to reassure me.

“Lais, I'm happy. You've been honest with me, and that's enough for you to participate in tonight's ritual. I know something tolerant that will provide me with a weapon or a lifesaving idea. Why do I know this? I don't know, that's who I am... I feel close to a solution that has-n't yet taken shape in my mind but that is close, I feel it.”

Laís hugged me and kissed my cheek delicately, smelled her, her French perfume and thought: ‘she is a little lady of luxury, but as honest as it is possible for a beautiful woman to be in this world.’ Beauty in our soci-ety is worth so much per square centimeter, that it is im-possible not to sell or buy it, somehow, since the face of Helena “launched a thousand ships”.

I walked away and went looking for the children. I found the twins and Pedrinho playing. They surrounded me and I, disguising myself, led them to the garden, where in a corner, in a small arbor, we were able to talk alone without danger of being observed.

“Hans, Christian, Pedrinho, I need you. Let's play spies, shall we? I want you to keep an eye on everything that goes on in this house from now on. In the conversa-tions of adults, mainly, and also in their steps, where they go, what they do. It’s ok? It will be fun.”

“Aunt Alma”, said Pedrinho, “I know what you want, and I'm with you. I'm going to follow Dad, okay? He's very mysterious, he disappears all the time and it's not

just to drink, I know. He never hid it from us, he can't.

But I think you should put Patricia in the game too.

“I know, Pedrinho”, I replied. “Patricia will also be a special agent like you. Comrade Pati. Come on, come on, go out playing normally. But no getting out of their beds at night to play that, eh? I know you. Leave now, I'll go later because Aunt Solange and Uncle Geraldo might be watching our movements.”

The boys left. I had formed my network of little spies. I just hesitated to put Patricia in this game. She looked very vulnerable to me in her purity, or too passionate to play spy. I quickly headed back to my room to see Aline. I already felt homesick and longed to find her well and restored, cured. I found her standing there in her night-gown, a little hesitant.

“Go back, go back to bed, you crazy girl. You should-n't get up yet”, I said, hugging her and leading her to the bed. I laid her down as carefully as if she were made of glass, my heart filled with tenderness. I couldn't resist and kissed her lips, which seemed very warm to me.

“Alma, I'm glad you're back. I missed you so much... how much time has passed? You went to get me there, where I was, in the dark, you saved me from the dark. Then she left me in the light, but alone, I don't know which was worse. Where did you go?”

I looked at Aline's beautiful face, her wonderful mouth, and I felt overflowing with love. I wanted to rock her like a little child. I realized that she was, after all, a woman-child in the best sense of the term. I was very lucky; I fell in love with a woman whose femininity has

the sacred imprint of a Psyche. And she loves me. She loves Me.

I stayed for a long time caressing her, caressing her, kissing her beautiful hands. She had her eyes on mine, tenderly, and she began to abandon herself, half-closing them, until she finally sank into a peaceful, serene sleep.

I got up and went out, tiptoe. I was going to prepare everything for when Aline is ready, healed, to participate in our apple tree ceremony. I'm in a hurry, but I'll wait for her to recover. The nights are hot, they can't hurt her. Af-terwards... what she had doesn't seem to have been the flu or a cold or anything. I suspect a kind of emotional burn-out. My girl is hypersensitive and so involved with me that it was beyond her strength. I must be careful. I will not call the gods and the numes as before. I just want to pay homage to the spirit of my apple tree and focus on a stream together with my companions to receive an inspi-ration. I will be fertilized by an idea, I know that.

_____________________________________________

Days passed, and time seemed suspended. My net-work of little spies constantly brought me news, mostly superfluous. But certain pieces of information, stitched together, built a frame of conspiracy in which Lúcia no longer participated. Solange and her brother-in-law seemed to be plotting against me to overturn my vote. They also spied on me. They wanted to find something that would allow them to block me as alienated or some-thing. They conferred with a lawyer they brought from Livramento who looked like a fox. Danger was immi-nent, but how could they achieve that? Had my relation-ship with Aline transpired? No, it wouldn't be enough.

What are the arguments of this conspiracy? I couldn't plant a child spy in these closed-door meetings of yours. I myself tried to listen behind the doors, but in vain. The house has thick, solid woodwork. They met frequently in the library, which to me sounded like sacrilege. I wish I could shoo them out of there. There was, for me, a sacred place. My father's throne room. They were defiling her. Solange and Geraldo were usurpers, and poor Alberto, a court jester, the little opportunist of the moment. For some reason, I came back to remember another episode referring to Solange, in our childhood:

I had a diary when I was a kid, given to me by Mutti, and it had a secret lock that I considered safe. It was a nice little book with a hard leather cover, and I had en-graved my monogram on it with a pyrograph. In its pages I began to exercise my gift of recording the impressions of my day, my feelings and fantasies, which were part of my reality that I already valued so much. I loved the idea that my records were secret, so I could dare anything and go unnoticed in my daring, mental and spiritual, under the scrutiny of my own mother and Solange, the enemy.

My older sister naturally hated that object at first sight. Alma's diary! What things would there be? What bold-ness, what transgressions, what sins? I was perhaps more vulnerable to it, with the existence of my diary. My mind could be invaded after all, violated. My secrets, my treas-ures... looted!

And that's what really happened. Solange discovered the hiding place of the album and managed to break the lock. I caught her red-handed reading it and laughing. I was furious. I walked towards her, and she ran with the book in her hand to the pool, threatening to throw it in the

water. All would be lost, the book would be smudged and useless, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I begged her to give me back my diary. She then threw it to me, saying:

“Here, I already know your thoughts and they are worth something especially for Mutti, you understand? Now you are in my hands. Come kiss my foot or I'll tell her mostly the third page. Come, kneel and kiss my foot, slave!”

And I, trembling with rage and humiliation for the fear I really felt, knelt down and kissed her fat little foot, which I unfortunately washed away with my tears. It would take me a long time to feel ready to tell every-thing... to the world.

So, now, this new character joined the meals: Solange and Geraldo's lawyer. This weasel face was not able to face me. He understood the sordidness of his acting and wouldn't dare look me in the eye. Oh! But I needed to act fast. How could they embargo me? What legal arguments would they forge? No, it wasn't possible! And Rôdo, why is he so inert? He would defend me, I know, but with what arguments? I was unsure, I knew that their attack would happen at any moment... when they solemnly sum-moned me to the library. If they dare to touch Aline's name, I don't know what I'll be capable of...

What if they saw something of what went on in the orchard? Could they admit me like crazy? No, no, it's un-likely... they would have already betrayed themselves, made some allusion to that. I had become defensive, which is a sign of weakness. I'm not helpless. I have my spy network and I have to be combative. Aggressive, if possible.

At the table, Solange, one night, threw her barbs:

“Alma, soon we will be signing the sale papers, with you or not. You'd better prepare your beautiful handwrit-ing. Doctor Lucena has already prepared all the papers. We have a great offer that we have already accepted. It fully covers the debts and still has enough left over for all of us to start a new life away from the ghosts that only you, around here, appreciate.”

The lawyer looked me in the eyes, but before the fire of my gaze he lowered his and raised his napkin to his lips. I realized that this fox had trump cards that he would pull out of his sleeve at the last moment. I had to be care-ful. If any unknown doctor, with or without a nurse, came through here, I would know the danger of a low blow. They might well be able to. As a last resort, I had to flee with Aline, not to sign anything and gather forces far from here, as a war strategy for the final battle.

As I thought so I realized that I was, after all, rather childish in my imagination, and that they would latch onto that. The adults... Ah! Being an adult is hateful, I always thought so. That's why I've always dialogued in imagination, or even in life, with artists, geniuses, poets of all times. The so-called adult man is, for me, a degen-eracy. He created the world's ugliness, bureaucracy, laws, prisons, and asylums. I will never be an adult. I'm an art-ist. I am a child.

I remember the day my father died. We were already tiptoeing around the house, and I hadn't been called to bed for three days. It hurt. I didn't realize that Vati was dying, although that thought occurred to me sometimes,

then dismissed. So, he called me. Solange, who managed that door, that room, conveyed the old man's wish, it seems that against her will, I don't really know why. She thought he shouldn't wear himself out, get tired. And the old man was dying...

I entered, slowly, I was already a girl if not an adult. It's only been six years. The old man, lying in the big bed, propped up by huge pillows, with his white beard and well-worn blue eyes, looked to me much older than I usu-ally thought. But it seemed to me that his eyes lit up as I entered, and I saw that his hand made a slight movement which I took as a signal for me to come over and sit at his bedside.

With difficulty, her head immobilized, sunk into the big pillow, she only looked at me sitting on the edge of the bed holding her hand.

“Alma,” he said in a whisper, “daughter of my heart… I want to ask you to watch over the ranch, the pictures, the books… and the vineyard. Don't get rid of the piano, I'll come and play for you on nights when the pampeiro doesn't blow. You will hear me, I know. Only you will cry remembering me. Maybe Rudi will too. But I want you to cry only for the joy of good memories, which I taught you are the salt of life. I don't regret anything, don't regret it either. My life was beautiful, especially with you, Alma, and I am deeply grateful to you, my girl. Now I'm going to leave... and I want to do it looking at your green eyes and that golden hair that lit up my life.

Having said that, he began to rattle. Frightened, I thought of running outside and calling everyone, calling Rôdo, but he held my hand, holding me back. I

understood that it wasn't just a spasm, but that he wanted me there, only me. And I watched him go. I was the only one who saw him leave his noble tired body and I felt his soul leaving, I almost saw it or had this impression that it would never abandon me. I would cry for him, perhaps not just for the good memories but for his loss that seemed catastrophic to me, despite everything he taught me. I would cry daily for five years. Until I went to São Paulo, to those anodyne Gardens where I would set up my painter's studio, in a vain attempt to uproot myself from the Pampa, which had become an open wound.

But it didn't take me long to reconcile with the ranch, with the memories, which the more beautiful the more painful they seemed to me.

Now I was here to look after, as he asked me, our true heritage: the sense of beauty that only the two of us saw in all of this.

_____________________________________________

I head to the bedroom, anxious to see Aline. I find her healed and radiant again. She looked prettier than ever, already dressed in her usual jeans. Eager to get out of the room, she found in me all the support and encouragement to do so. I'm not one to cultivate diseases and guards. I grabbed her hand, and we ran out of that room, laughing, into the garden, which seemed more flowery than ever. I plucked handfuls of flowers, armfuls, and covered her with them. I wove a garland of flowers, a crown, and girded her forehead, her beautiful black hair. Life seemed to smile again, and I was filled with hope. If my love rose to life, it would certainly have to rise from that limbo of uncertainties, of dangers.

The children came to join us, predictably. Like little bees on sugar, around my beloved's flowers, they swirled in celebration, in laughter. Who could stand against it, who would dare take us out of our element: laughter and flowers? Later we met at our headquarters, the arbor in the garden. Surrounded by a thick, flowering hedge, we could not be observed. There I collected the information of the day, sometimes of the previous day. My small team of spies worked harder and harder, bringing me precious information, suggestive fragments of conversations that I was collecting and stitching together.

But what impressed me the most was Pedrinho's con-tribution. He had decided to concentrate on following his own father, Alberto, without being noticed. He told me that he followed him to the cellar, but that when he en-tered, sneaking down the stairs and the corridor, when he reached the basement, he did not find him. Stunned by the fact, he ran away. In the following days, having ob-served his father leaving the cellar, he repeated the feat of following him, taking a risk. Again, the same mystery. His father, Alberto, the drunk, simply disappeared into that cellar, small, confined, with no way out, like an un-derground alley. The boy was scared.

It left me perplexed and thoughtful. I thought I knew that house like the back of my head. Where did our court jester go? I needed to find out how my brother-in-law dis-appeared into that basement, without my interest show-ing, of course. I asked Pedrinho not to talk about it with the other children, telling him it was our secret. I made my way safely to the cellar and stood there, examining every inch of those solid walls. The damp smell and the cold inside were constant. There were, of course, many shelves of bottles, but a perfume came from some barrels

of wine that sent me back to other times, other memories. Until I realized that one of the barrels was empty and very dry. Then the idea came to me to get in there. But for that I needed to prepare him not to experience too much dis-comfort. I went out and came back with two pillows, a blanket. In the upper part of the barrel there was that hole for the stopper... Inside the barrel I could observe, even in the dark, all that cellar.

I got inside with a battery-operated flashlight, well wrapped up and wrapped in a blanket, with my wrist-watch, and prepared to wait as long as necessary. The si-lence and darkness left me a little fearful and with the feeling of being in that subterranean realm where souls are forced to descend to cross the river of oblivion to choose a new life. I began to hear the loud ticking of my wristwatch, hammering, almost torturous. I'm not sure how much time has passed. Time is a subjective sensation and therefore elastic and liable to be compressed. I re-membered the episode of the divine comedy, in which Dante sees, in one of the bolges of Hell, a giant demon, an archer, who flexes the immense bow armed with an arrow, slowly and powerfully, aiming at any target. The giant lets go of the rope, and Dante then, amazed, sees the arrow come out slowly. Perplexed, he asks Virgílio why the arrow came out so slowly from such a powerful bow. Virgílio then answers him concisely, as was his na-ture, in this relationship with the Florentine: “The greater the expectation, the slower the arrow leaves.”

I felt this truth clearly, comparing my inner time of anxious waiting with the progress of the clock on my wrist, under the lantern, inside that vat, womb in the womb of the earth whose epidermis was the mansion.

Finally, the door opened, and I felt, rather than saw, a figure enter the cellar. It must be Alberto, which I con-firmed when he lit a candle with his lighter illuminating his reddened face, the nose more than the rest. I practi-cally held my breath and prepared to watch her every movement. I remembered that when I was a child, I asked my Daddy what the navel was. He, with his usual sense of humor, replied that the little hole was the baby's peep-hole, a kind of periscope in their mother's belly, so they could observe the world and know when it was time to go out. Despite being very young, I realized that it was a joke, a joke, and this precocious understanding of a naive grace, awakened my sense of humor, which I would de-velop since childhood, a sense wisely encouraged by my father.

Now, there, in the barrel's belly, I had replaced the spirit of the wine. So, I digressed for a second, and then concentrated my eyes on my brother-in-law's hands, which, illuminated, were groping the back wall of the cel-lar.

Then suddenly the wall swung open, I don't know, and I saw him enter an even darker area. The wall closed again. I tried to quickly leave my observation post. Leav-ing all my equipment in the barrel, I quickly slipped out of the cellar before Alberto returned. I would have plenty of time to explore the buffoon's discovery. Now I had to get ready for the ceremonial of my apple tree, which I already knew would be just a thank you although I still didn't know exactly why.

The memories I have of Ana Morgado, my mother, are not exactly pleasant. We lacked affinities, that's the truth. I know that this is not usually decisive in the issue of af-fection between mother and children. Sons love their mothers, more or less unconditionally, and vice versa. But in my case, due to my nature as an artist, this pro-duced an enormous distance, since my mother did not ac-cept the artist in me. She was, poor thing, narrow-minded, and she wanted only "normality" for all her children. This means a gray mediocrity, because a Catholic descendant of Azorean Portuguese feared prominence, passion, no-toriety, in short, talent. The artist for her was a strange being who showed off, who didn't behave well. A being who loved life and beauty too much, which for her was a kind of sin because she was convinced of the doctrine of the “valley of tears” that she had inherited from her up-bringing and from her Portuguese grandparents.

I remember early arguments I had with her and how it hurt. Above all, she was afraid of the sensuality she sensed in me, which nevertheless, I believe, did not com-promise the purity of my heart... and even that of my mind. Due to these characteristics, I would become a lyr-ical poet, a sonnetist, as well as a confessional short story writer who would hide nothing from the public. On the other hand, I was encouraged, fortunately, by my father whose affinity with me was almost total. This produced a strong attachment and mutual admiration between the two of us. I had the privilege, after all, of being totally accepted, believed, incensed even by the old artistic sur-geon whose talent for music and enormous literary, phil-osophical and artistic erudition was a source of wonder and learning for me.

My mother sometimes tried to repress my outbursts of joy and even a few tears of beauty sensitivity, and this produced small wounds of frustration in me and even a certain resentment that I had to fight to overcome.

However, the most serious episode was really the one when she caught Rôdo and me naked under our apple tree. That, I agree, may have marked me more than I re-alize. Once I was young, I would give myself over to pas-sions with an intensity that was perhaps immeasurable; and a certain slightly masochistic timbre which I must recognize in my sexuality, and which gives me so much pleasure is certainly due to that incident in my childhood.

But I was talking about my mother. The poor thing died when I was thirteen years old, I think it was due to a pure lack of élan vital, of love for life, for love. However, she wasn't bad. I could write a tragic poem about her and her life, arid, colorless. Or at least a pathetic poem. It is up to the poet, always, to reveal the poeticity of beings and things. And my mother, after all, would not escape deserving of a poem. But I think she would be embar-rassed, where she is, to be placed for a moment in the spotlight, I mean, in the minds of some outsiders: the readers.

In addition, she lacked (serious lack) the wonderful sense of humor that distinguishes the human species. I remember an episode in which, as a child, at the table, I uttered a comic tirade truly inspired, it seemed to me, by the sudden burst of laughter from Vati and my brothers. My mother, however, frowned and gave me a small slap, saying: “Shameless! You always want to show off, don't you?" It hurt me very much, and I laid my head down on my arms on the table and sobbed bitterly. But I was soon

consoled by my father who scolded Mutti and took me in his arms with enormous affection and carried me in his arms even though I was already a big girl. That made up for everything. And I, as a child, could not help but show my mother my tongue surreptitiously.

I spend the day concentrating, seeming a little oblivi-ous to the children who tried to play with each other, nat-urally moving away. The sensitivity and respect these children show is incredible.

Arriving at night, I prepared myself in thought for the ceremonial I had planned. Also bodily, as I dressed in a kind of white tunic reminiscent of the ancient Greeks, down to my ankles. I put on thin, light, silver sandals. I did a hairstyle like I saw in the illustrations of the ampho-ras, in the books. I outlined the eyes with a long black line, highlighting them. And a light lipstick on the lips. Aline helped me. Then I would dress her in a similar way, carefully, taking care of her makeup. I was better able to appreciate, in her figure, the effect of our preparations. She was beautiful, charming, as I projected her in my im-agination to those Blessed Isles, in whose existence I had always believed on a spiritual plane. We walked out hand in hand through the back of the house directly into the orchard. It was important that we were not seen by the others in the house.

We found Rôdo and Laís near our apple tree. The night was splendid, in a true feast of lights and sounds. The full moon, as I had expected, the frogs and crickets in a merry uproar, but the more discreet fireflies before its glow.

Rôdo was dressed as usual in his breeches that he wears when he's here, but I noticed a certain care in his shirt, slightly embroidered on the neckline and on the cuffs. He had a sash wrapped around his waist, the ends of which were also embroidered. In his boots, he had also had the sensitivity not to wear his silver spurs, which, in addition to clanking, denounced arrogance, inappropriate for our ceremony. Humility would be the keynote of our rites that night. Laís, fortunately, had not escaped this tacit agreement and was beautiful and discreet in a simple pearlescent long dress, with beautifully braided hair. She was perhaps a little more ostentatious, with a gold and pearl necklace and matching earrings.

In front of the pole of our apple tree, I lit my tripod with aromatic herbs, adding a large vine leaf, which be-ing green produced an intense smoke that ascended to the moon in an almost straight column, as we did not have the slightest breeze, which I considered propitiatory.

We held hands around the pyre, looking up at the moon, where the smoke was disappearing, and we re-mained static, arms outstretched, linked by our hands. We looked at the white glow of the big moon, until our sight was dazzled, and we entered a state of suspension of time and space in which our matter seemed to lose weight, feeling as if we were levitating. Then I heard my own voice solemnly saying:

“Moon, bright Moon, shining eye of the Night, look at us! Accept our offering, the smoke of the vine and sister herbs! Before the sacred apple tree of Paradise recovered from our childhood, from which we were once expelled, naked and children, accepts the Moon, before the Ara of the Pampas, our devotion and humility. Give us, Oh

Moon, your maternal, benevolent, womanly wisdom, since evil cunning, Lilith, belongs to your dark side that we will never see! Say, Oh Moon, what we want to know, the answer to the danger that afflicts us. How to save the ranch, the house, the vineyard and the orchard? How to save your Ara, Oh lady?

We remained like that, suspended in the air, and I be-lieve that the levitation really took place for an indefinite, perhaps infinite, time of the spirit, and when we landed I already knew what to do. The solution was present in my mind... and in my heart!

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When the Welt arrived in Alegrete they brought con-siderable capital. They had prospered through hard work on the land, in the German colonies in the Vale do Itajaí region of Santa Catarina, never forgetting their ambition to become masters of a large farm. They heard about the extreme south of the Rio Grande, in the Pampas region, which grew into an obsession in my grandfather's mind. Become a rancher. From there to finding the land that would finally fit him, it was just a step away. But such a step would not exclude a tragedy.

In the region on the border with Uruguay, between Alegrete and Santana do Livramento, there was a large, very old ranch that had become decadent after two hun-dred years of work, battles and waste. Their owners were “maragatos” in the “woodpeckers” war against the Em-pire, and they suffered a lot from it. After the overthrow of the monarchy, the decline of that family was gradual over two or three generations. Until my grandfather ar-rived there, a tough old German who made a tempting

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offer to his last owner, a “gauchão” broken by debts and gnawed by resentments. My grandfather was very poorly received despite presenting himself as a solution for that family that already saw the need. The gauchos called him the “Teuto” or the “Boche”, but only behind his back be-cause my grandfather was not a man to be disrespected and his imposing bearing and his extreme Germanic se-verity were immediately imposing. Six feet tall with huge hands, horsepower and a face like no friend, old Joachim Dietrich Welt had that majestic presence of the ancient Germans, or the Vikings. And a restrained, cutting ag-gressiveness that came out of his thin lips like a slit.

I knew my grandfather for a short time, and I didn't like him. My father's sweetness and wisdom contrasted too much with that warrior from Walhalla installed there in the Pampas. However, I must recognize his value, his enormous strength of work, his obstinacy.

But it must be said that the gaucho rancher, shortly af-ter making the sale to my grandfather, completely dressed in character, with embroidered breeches on the sides, boots and spurs, a sash around his waist with a sil-ver dagger crossed, a red scarf around his neck and a goatee hat turned up over his forehead, he hanged himself in the attic of the mansion on a roof beam by his braided leather noose. At his feet, the bomb and the gourd sprawled out, as he had drunk the mate until the last mo-ment, letting it fall as he threw himself off the stool.

His family, his widow and children, mourned him in the main room amidst four torches, sobs and screams. There was also no shortage of imprecations against my grandfather and even a gaucho plague, which apparently did not catch on or caught on late, judging by our current

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situation. After the burial at the ranch itself, that family left in an arched wagon that slowly left the house. My grandmother told me that she saw, as she passed the gate, inside the wagon, a girl from that family brandishing her small, clenched fist against them, my grandparents. I im-agined myself in that situation and thought that maybe I wouldn't let that family go, which I know, however, would be unfeasible: the hatred of those women and chil-dren would corrode these walls from within.

In my childhood, however, I saw no signs of this curse, and the hard work of my grandparents and their servants, many of whom were leftover pawns of the pre-vious owner, neutralized any curse that might have weighed on this house. My grandfather would not take long to become respected in the region as a serious and hardworking man. However, the ranch no longer pros-pered just with the rest of the cattle, beef jerky and mate, and that's when the old man had the idea, which was ac-tually an old dream, of planting the vineyard that would make him known in the region.

When Werner finally reconciled with my grandpar-ents and brought them the unwanted daughter-in-law, the period of planting the vineyard, building the cellars, the wine press and the large wooden barrels began. Ana ded-icated herself to gestating and giving birth to another child and taking care of the three grown-ups, like a good wife and mother while my father began his career as a surgeon in rural areas and in small towns. My grandfa-ther, busy with the vineyard, reigned like a despot while my grandmother fulfilled her role as benevolent emi-nence grise. It was at that time that my father began to form his large library, which he had brought from Eu-rope, in German and French, and which would become

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the center of our world, mine and his. Then there was the entry of the great Steinway piano, used but perfect, which he had managed to acquire not without some altercations with old Joachim whose Germanic blood spoke louder, after all, when his son, the young surgeon, played to con-vince him the "Well seasoned clove".

That was, my father told me one day, the only time he could see a different, wet glint in the old farmer's eyes.

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I was now prepared, with great anticipation, for the discovery of the cellar's mystery. After the ceremony in the orchard we talked, and I then told my partners what was happening to Alberto, the riddle of his disappearance behind the opening wall. They were very excited, and we agreed that that night, very late, when the sisters and brothers-in-law were fast asleep, the four of us would meet in the cellar to reveal that secret.

So, we did. That night, one by one, tiptoe, we left our beds. Excitement did not allow us to fall asleep, and still in our night clothes we found ourselves in the corridors and went down to the cellar with our lamps.

Once down there, with racing hearts we groped that back wall hungrily. It took us a long time, but finally we found a fake crack in the brick, whose piece, when pressed, worked like a button. The wall began to rotate on some axis in its exact half, letting us see a deep, terri-fying darkness. As if we were in an Egyptian tomb, in a pyramid, our emotion reached a pinnacle where we could hear our four hearts galloping. We entered.

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Raising our four lamps at the same time, we saw the largest cellar imaginable, immense, like a hall whose di-mensions we could not calculate because its ends were lost in the dense darkness that retreated only in a certain radius around our four modest sources of light… There was a veritable sea of shelves with bottles. My brother, going through the shelves, roughly estimated that there must be about five thousand bottles. He grabbed one, then another, unlabeled, dusty, ancient. He went back to the front of the hall and took one of the first bottles from the first shelf. There was a tentative manual label with a yel-lowed handwritten label, which he read aloud:

1962 CROP

For my grandchildren, with my blessing Joachim

Thrilled, we saw Rôdo “sabrar” the bottleneck with a dry blow of his gaucho knife, like a hussar, suck it up and then pour it into his mouth, swishing it before swallow-ing. It didn't go “to vinegar”! I grabbed the bottle, took it from his hand, repeated his gestures, and amazed I rec-ognized the best wine I had ever tasted in my life, the one that appeared on our table by Alberto's hands. Only now I realized the scope of it all. The message contained from the beginning in those unlabeled bottles that arrived still a little dusty from the hand of our blessed drinker. We were looking at an entire exceptional vintage from forty years ago, the true inheritance of my grandparents, which I have doubts about my father's knowledge, who died in debt.

How then could there be such a vast subterranean space that extended under all the dimensions of the man-sion without my father having mentioned it even once in

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his life, much less on his deathbed or in his will? How could my grandfather build that without his and my mother's knowledge? Maybe that already existed there for a long time, certainly built by slaves in dark times, with other purposes.

We grabbed a bottle each of us and left. I already knew what to do. The first step would be to call in a specialist, a winemaker, to judge our wine and give a verdict. Eve-rything depended on the quality of that crop.

Excited, we made our way back, closing the wall on our way out, and with our flashlights whose light flick-ered in our hands, trembling with emotion, we returned to our rooms.

That night I loved Aline with all the strength of my renewed enthusiasm, and we fell asleep in each other's arms and sated. I was already happy in anticipation. I al-ways had the vocation of hope, and something told me that that wine would be our salvation, the true blood of our land that flowed again in our veins.

Early in the morning we had our room invaded by the children, happily, like a flock of morning birds. They sur-rounded our bed talking at the same time, laughing, not at all surprised to see us together under the same sheet, the wonderful children! They kissed us, asking in joyful anticipation the auspicious news they sensed.

“Children,” I said, “general meeting in the garden at 9:00 o'clock! All there, in our headquarters! I will reveal to you the news. C'mon, C'mon! Leave now to bathe and dress.”

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After a cheerful breakfast with Lúcia, Geraldo and Patrícia, in which my brother-in-law did not stop looking at me suspiciously, wondering at my excitement, I pulled Patrícia towards our meeting in the arbor.

Gathered there, I made a certain suspense with the children who were jumping with excitement around me and Aline, and announced:

“Children, we discovered something that can save our resort. But I can't reveal it to you yet. It's better that way, believe me. This way we will avoid possible disappoint-ments. But I count on your discretion. Remember the oath, my little spies? So, I need the uncompromising fi-delity of each one of you. And discipline, we're a team, aren't we? Keep investigating. In the end you will have good news, I hope. We will save the resort. But for now, remain as usual spying on the adults. I promise you kisses and joy in the end, forever.”

The children jumped up and hugged me and Aline one by one. Thrilled, I had a slight fearful thought that some-thing might let us down. But I dismissed that thought as usual. The gods could not fail us because I loved them like never before.

I went for a walk with Aline far beyond the garden, penetrating that border where the Pampa could be seen in full, with the wildflowers greeting us in the plain sown with rare and sparse trees, some imposing in the distance. I looked Aline in the eyes, her beautiful blue eyes and said:

“My love, I want to ride with you side by side. If you're afraid, you'll stay on my back, holding me tight. I

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want to run these thighs like never before. The Pampa is mine, it is ours, again. I will never lose it, I believe. Come, come, let us saddle our horses.”

We went back, looked for Galdério who saddled us two “pampeiros” and helped us to mount. We left the ter-ritory of the mansion and entered the prairie followed by birds and butterflies, as it seemed to me, believe me. Eve-rything seemed auspicious to me and the beautiful cloud-less day, in a purest blue, was reflected in my Aline's eyes with an unforgettable glow.

We galloped like never before and I was amazed to see Aline's courage galloping because she had never done it alone before. Her joy gave her that harmony with the mount, and once again I wanted to eat her with kisses, swallow her, put her inside me, my wonderful Aline, my partner, my beloved. With her I would share my inher-itance, my body and my soul. I felt myself flying over the shoulder, reaching the Missions, circling the ruins of our grandiose past in the air. And these ruins became, in that slight delirium, the foundations of our resurrected man-sion. Martim Fierro ran with us, at our side; Rodrigo Cambará and his Bibiana, Ana Terra and the Indians with their red bands on their foreheads, in an immense caval-cade that escorted us in our joy, our revived enthusiasm.

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I wrote a careful letter to Hermann, oenologist and sommelier, in Porto Alegre. I mentioned my grandpar-ents, in addition to the name of our farm and our best-known wines, but above all my father's name, which he said he knew. I asked him to come and stay at our house, that we would receive him with all honors, so that he

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could offer us his knowledge and give the verdict on our newly discovered crop. I piqued his curiosity with my calculated words, I believe. Then I sealed the letter the old-fashioned way with red wax and my initials A. W, and sealed it. I went to the kitchen, taking care not to be ob-served by anyone, and called Galdério. I asked him to take the letter to the post office at our train station. I asked him to be discreet, to take the buggy and, in case he was intercepted by Solange, never show the letter and give some reason for his departure, a purchase of writing ma-terial for my poems, for example. Then I found Patricia, who took me by the hand to her room, and opened her heart:

“Aunt Alma, please send Galdério to take my letter too, I know you gave him a letter to take. Forgive me for spying on you. But it's my chance, auntie, please take my letter too. That way mom won't notice.”

I took her little letter, brought it to your lips and hugged my niece for a few seconds of infinite tenderness. I left quickly and found Galdério harnessing the mare and preparing the cart. I also entrusted him with my niece's letter, recommending that he hide it with his life in case Solange questioned him when he left or when he re-turned, at any time. I knew that Galdério would always be faithful to me. Why did I know this? Because he be-lieved he owed me his life. Here's the story:

When I was still a teenager, Galdério, a grown man, had a troubled period in which he practically became ad-dicted to the game of truco for money, and he got into debt with another pawn. Gambling debts are always sa-cred, and he, unable to pay off his debt, was sworn to death by a truculent pawn who was reputed to have

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dispatched more than one foe to the kingdom of Sala-manca. This man fought with a knife like a demon and shot like a henchman of Satan. Galdério was terrified and was about to face the other gaucho in a duel with a knife that he would certainly not come out of alive. Having learned this from Matilde, his sister's desperate outburst, I had no doubts and gathered all my savings and a little of Rôdo's and gave them to Galdério so that he could pay off his debt, recommending that he never gamble again. The gaucho fell at my feet and touched the hem of my dress, saying:

“Miss Alma, I owe you my life. I will be faithful to my little missus for life. Count on me forever until my death and beyond. I will watch over you like a shadow, and I will not allow anything to threaten your happiness, as far as I can.”

I felt like a princess and placed my hand on her shoul-der, blessing it. Now I knew he would allow himself to be tortured without ever revealing my secrets, and by ex-tension those of my protégés. We could trust him.

Then I went to look for Rôdo. I found him grilling, cutting strips of a blanket for our lunch with his silver-handled knife, while the kettle simmered for mate. He stopped and prepared the “chimarrão” to share with me. He was fine, appeased. He also had hope for our wine. He said to me:

“Alma, if that forty-year harvest is as we think it is, exceptional, maybe we can settle our debt if we know how to negotiate it well, efficiently. For this we will have to avoid intermediaries as much as possible. I want to sell it to the big restaurants myself. But we also need to do

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some kind of advertising, at least among aficionados. Alma, you will have to design a beautiful label and design brochures and texts that incite curiosity and appetite, the thirst of potential customers. My sister, dedicate yourself to this as soon as we have the proof and the note from our expert. I count on your most beautiful work of art. Do you already know what our wine will be called?”

“Yes, Rôdo, I already know. We're going to name it ‘Ara dos Pampas’ and the design on the label will be cir-cular, of that I'm already sure. Drawing will take place on time. I trust the inspiration of the moment. But the letters must be Gothic, in honor of our grandparents. They were the ones who bequeathed us the salvation of our house, our Inheritance.”

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Chapter Three. The Blood of the Earth

Two mounted figures trotted across the Pampa, wrapped in awnings in the freezing cold of the minuano. On that dawn in 1974, the brothers Matilde and Galdério would arrive at our ranch, coming from the “Oriente”, where they worked for Uruguayan hacienderos who, in the end, let them down. They then returned to our side with a language full of Castilian expressions, but willing to regain their place in the Brazilian Pampa of their an-cestors. My father would receive them, as a complimen-tary letter had preceded them recommending them. I was already born, Matilde was Rôdo's midwife and practi-cally raised him with absolute love and dedication. Gal-dério would be my page, my servant, until that moment when I saved him from his debt, he would raise his dedi-cation to a level of devotion that would move me so many times.

My childhood on the estancia was, in general, won-derful, thanks to my father's affection and his teachings, to the great emulation I felt with his artistic inclination, but also to the dedication of those two brothers. Also, Rôdo, who would always be the love of my life, my little brother and the most full of personality, vitality and per-haps intensity of all of us. He would give my parents a lot of work, a lot of worries... but for me he was one of the sources of joy, having exercised my soul in love. In fact, he was the first, because I loved him more than a brother and I don't regret it.

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I don't regret anything, although I was hurt by my mother for it. I would always be the little rebel, almost misguided, for her, while for myself I was always sure of the unquestionable reasons of my heart, of her wisdom that always led me on my path as a predestined artist. I never let myself, and I am proud of that, be contaminated by guilt, by remorse, by any specter of “sin” that they wanted to foist on me. So too, Rôdo, perhaps because of my example, went through that episode unscathed and re-mained faithful and loyal to our pact of love, and the proof of this was, paradoxically, the large number of pas-sions, courtships and lovers that he would enjoy through-out his life, his youth, without ever disowning his uncon-ditional affection for me, his dear sister whom he kissed the palms of her hands every time he met again, in his turbulent existence as a young adventurer.

On the other hand, Solange constituted the threatening shadow of my life. My older sister couldn't hide her jeal-ousy, her teasing, her spite at my father's and my brother's affection for me, which she didn't even know how to dis-pute. She didn't understand that this affection was natu-ral, the result of our affinities as artists. She pursued me with her vigilance, her rancorous moralism, and she fre-quently intrigued me with my mother. But I have to tell here a strange episode of our childhood together, in which for a moment she moved me:

I was a sixteen-year-old teenager, and my spontaneous sensuality, somewhat above the average of that time, made me the target of my sister Solange's criticism and teasing, and of my Azorean mother's vigilance, which I actually managed to deftly dodge.

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Rôdo had gone on a trip with his schoolmates for a while, leaving me a little lonely and needy, in a period of melancholy introspection, when I received news of the arrival of a German cousin who had come from Bavaria, to meet Brazilian relatives from the extreme south of Bra-zil, especially cousin Alma, who was the same age as her, and about whom they spoke so much in letters: the beau-tiful cousin who wrote poems, danced ballet and painted, which was me.

So, finally, this cousin arrived (I'll call her Helga), and she surprised me. A beautiful German girl, blonde, blue-eyed, typically Germanic, whose element of surprise therefore was something other than her physical charac-teristics, but the active, almost virile timbre of her unex-pected sensuality. Helga arrived, set her eyes on me and fell in love immediately. I was a little surprised, although I was used to the recurrence of this fact, even then, in my life since childhood.

But Helga, being beautiful and a cousin of the same age, would never arouse suspicion in my mother, alt-hough she would, yes, in Solange, my sister and tireless spy. I managed, however, to be alone with my cousin and hurriedly confided to her, as if by tacit agreement at first glance, the surveillance situation I was living in, without needing to explain the reason, of course. Okay, we under-stood each other, and complicity was established. From then on, we'd take each other's hands and run this way and that, looking for the relatively safe nooks and cran-nies we could find to outwit Solange. And that, in itself, made our hearts beat faster and brought us closer and closer. Soon we began to kiss each other on the lips, to celebrate, as soon as we discovered a new hiding place.

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The danger of that game of hide and seek, with my sister's little shrew and the repressive threat of Ana Mor-gado, my mother, made that season adventurous for two girls, and, consequently, we began to feel in love. As we slept in the same room with Lucia, my other sister who remained neutral even though I suspected her of being Solange's undercover agent, our night only began when she was safely asleep, and we tiptoed out of our beds, fled the room and crossing the living room of the sleeping house, we reached the veranda and reached the flower garden, ghostly, silver under the immense summer moon, and we arrived hand in hand and already kissing my old dolls house, which although small offered us relative safety, because I took my poetry notebooks with me, as an alibi to pretext the poetic confidences of girls, or to help translate my verses into German in case we were surprised. For all intents and purposes, I would be read-ing my new poems to Helga since we both had insomnia.

There, we would fall into each other's arms in passion-ate kisses, panting, with our hearts pounding, as I also did with Rôdo in similar situations. Helga was ardent like me, and our affinities left me in ecstasy, I didn't feel alone anymore, swearing eternal love to each other. Soon we were lying on a mattress that I camouflaged in the dolls' house and that we spread out on the floor to spend the night hugging and kissing until dawn, when the songs of the birds, together with the first dawns, reminded us of the lark and the nightingale of a Double Juliet, that was us, that contained a Romeo, too, in our passionate souls.

Our nights grew more and more hot and exciting, and soon we were instinctively discovering ourselves in our most hidden recesses, feeling each other, panting, our hearts racing with fear and passion. We were left with our

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beautiful and pink vulvas soaked inside as we already saw and tasted. We were already instinctively looking for the wonderful and happy position of sixty-nine, naked, sweaty and feverish, on the summer nights of our ardent youth, found in love and desire in my dollhouse, in my garden, with that beautiful German girl, guest of the my heart forever, I thought, and my Pampa, which I wanted to present to her in its essence and fullness, but which I could only offer it in my Germanic maiden's body, like her own.

Then, as always happens in true love stories, fate in-tervened to separate the lovers. We were caught: Solange, who followed us one night, she too in her nightgown and leaving her bed like a dog sniffing out our trail of love, violently opened the door of my dollhouse and caught us both naked and with her hands in our wet sexes, whose perfume dominated the small environment of our ‘love nest’. With a furious look, the little, chubby, and envious shrew shouted: “You, eh, shameless? You'll see when Mom finds out. She’s going to throw Helga out and put you in boarding school, you'll see, after being beaten with a quince stick!”

My heart stopped, more than from fear, from shame and humiliation in front of my little lover, who didn't un-derstand the words spoken in Portuguese but caught the danger in Solange's hateful and tyrannical intonation. And so I began to beg, for Helga, for us, on my knees before the oppressor... Holding her chubby hand, I there, naked at her feet, humiliated myself in an attempt to spare my love greater embarrassment, and its irreparable loss: I, a melodramatic little girl, like a princess in an unusual operetta, was about to hug the fat little shrew's legs.

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Then the unlikely happened. Helga, the little German, rose up naked, like a moonlight nymph or naiad, white and fair as an apparition of beauty, and stretched out her pretty arms, softly, to Solange, and took her hand in hers, looking down at her, mesmerically in the eyes, and whis-pering in German: “Komme, komme, meine Geliebte, und schlieb' Dich uns an!... Come, come my love, join us.”

I, astonished, taken by surprise by that unexpected gesture, which nevertheless, due to its smoothness, did not sound like a desperate departure from my cousin, par-alyzed, I saw my girlfriend, my love, embrace Solange, unarmed, who began to tremble while the blonde nymph undressed her of her nightgown letting it fall to her feet, and I who looked with real tenderness, noticed, the round forms of my little older sister, not devoid of charm, in-deed, like those of a Germanic peasant girl of yore, with her thin tuft of red hair topping the padded and white mound of Venus. And then, astonishingly, I saw Solange, the implacable little farm girl, trembling with emotion from feet to cheeks with plump cheeks flushed like an apple, flushed with emotion, kneeling down with Helga on the mattress, in the enveloping, appeasing embrace of that amazing little German girl, and together they lay down, eye to eye, Solange's filled with tears of unsus-pected gratitude.

My sister also wanted love. Also the fat girl, of hidden beauty, revealed in a minute, needed, like me... to love and be loved!

As for Lucia, the second, she was dominated by Solange and spent a constrained life, practically erased in her yearnings, which we were unaware of. They married

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mediocre men. Perhaps Alberto escapes this classifica-tion, since alcoholics, it seems, have superior intelligence and sensibilities, but unfortunately accompanied by an emotionally outdated, immature, spoiled child side. It is a lame tripod, which unbalances the set. They become unbearable when they are drunk (and they are almost al-ways drunk) and we can only perceive that sensitivity and intelligence in the few moments of relative sobriety, mainly in the first stages of the disease, before turning into real psychological monsters in the final stages. Al-berto was, it seems, at the beginning of the third stage, where the monkey was still visible and laughing, before the lion took his place. The last stage, that of the pig, I hoped would never come. I couldn't even think about it. My brother-in-law, in fact, seemed to like me, in his own way, always below the bottles, since the affective part was constantly undermined by alcohol, which would end up completely exterminating it. I felt sorry for that, for my niece Patricia and her little brother, beautiful children who naturally suffered a lot with a father like that, mak-ing them mature prematurely. As for Solange, that would only exacerbate her shortcomings as the typical code-pendent that she was.

Patrícia, from her earliest childhood, revealed herself to be an enlightened child, of uncompromising purity and candor. Her sweetness was that of an angel, and now, in love for the first time, I was moved like never before, lit-tle Juliet who was beginning to be pursued in her passion. Solange would never allow her daughter to date a class-mate, a schoolboy rogue, without a fortune, and with a little earring in his ear.

I was willing to be a kind of nanny, almost a procuress, since I trusted my niece's heart, and I had seen in a recent

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photograph the absolute purity in Romeo's eyes, a beau-tiful teenager who, according to her, adored her, which was easy to believe. I've always been convinced that love, at any age, is the only thing that matters in this life. Noth-ing they say to me can take away that conviction, the in-corrigible romantic that I am. What can be more im-portant for life than affections, than the supreme affec-tion? Everything else is bullshit, grown-up talk, as we used to say in our childhood, with a certain distrust, be-cause what my father showed in his wonderful books I could always understand and immediately identify with: the grandiose world of art and artists, their true dreams. “Poetry is the authentic absolute real. The more poetic, the truer”. This sentence by Novalis would guide my life.

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Galdério had put the letters in the mail, and all that was left for us, Patrícia and me, was to wait. It is clear that expectation placed the answers as decisive for our destinies, and anxiety made us walk around the house, the garden and the orchard, looking at each other, accom-plices, wringing our hands surreptitiously, like two girls about to run away from school.

At last, after an agonizing week, we got our answers. The letters that Galdério went to get at the agency would give us new impetus.

The oenologist I had written to was on his way and Romeu de Patrícia had replied with a simple love letter that dazzled her. Her eyes sparkled as she kissed the pa-per a thousand times. She hugged me in laughter and tears, and my heart wanted to embrace her all, that angel of purity, of love. How beautiful a human being is (I

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thought), when he is beautiful! Image and likeness of an angel, if not of God himself (I still saw the Christian God with a big gray beard, a look-alike of my father, that was the truth).

At the table, during our lunches, I savored Alberto's wine with renewed pleasure and smiled at him, which ap-parently pleased him. He would then fill my glass several times, wanting to get me drunk as a sign of affection or the complicity of drunks. Solange, naturally, was watch-ing us and seemed intrigued, suspicious. What were we up to, those on the other side? She looked at Rôdo with her inquisitive eyes, but my brother was the best dissem-bler of all of us. His cynicism was wonderful, and I could now understand why he was as successful with women as he was at the gaming tables, where he never lost more than he won, exercising his talent for bluffing as a sport, not as a vice, unlike Geraldo.

Laís looked at my brother with visible admiration, if not adoration. This girl would perhaps be the ideal com-panion, as she would accompany him to the casinos of the world, helping him to bluff, perhaps to steal in the game. A lovely adventurous couple. In a certain sense I envied them, as they seemed to me to be inhabitants of the real world, uncertain and adventurous, but never or-dinary, and not very commonplace, while I felt myself the eternal inhabitant of the world of dreams, of almost limitless thought and imagination, no doubt, but impal-pable: the world I could only project as a reflection on paper and screens. The world of Art, a mirage of reality, perhaps clearer than reality, but which vanished when touched.

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I got up from the table, slightly “zoró”, with the re-peated glasses of wine that I had given myself the right to toast inside, savoring the delicious nectar that seemed really superior to me. My hope gave me a glow, which despite my drunkenness was noticed by my brothers and brothers-in-law, and which amused the children. I stag-gered a little as I walked, and Rôdo ran to support me, taking the opportunity to whisper in my ear:

“Alma, go cure the little drunk, and then meet me at midnight in the library. I need to talk to you.”

I gave a small laugh hugging him and running my hand over his face. I saw myself in these attitudes, revel-ing in being a lecher just to scandalize my sister and brother-in-law. Aline ran to replace Rôdo and took it upon herself to take me to my room. Sitting up in bed at last, I pulled Aline over me as if to cover myself, with her lips on mine. Aline let me do it, but then she got up and covered me with the blanket, making schchchch... I fell asleep.

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I was woken up at midnight by Aline, with a mate, and forcibly getting to my feet, I said:

“Alma, wake up, you have an appointment with Rôdo. Let's go to the library, I'll go with you, Rôdo allowed.”

The slight intoxication was gone, I was awake. I washed my face with cold water and went out with Aline, sucking the mate. The house was dark, silent, and once in the office I found Rôdo with an open letter in his hand:

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“Alma, the sommelier is coming tomorrow. We will pick you up at the station. He agreed to come, using our father's name, which he already knew. Everything is run-ning according to our expectation. But actually, I called you here for something else. I found in the Vati’s archives a letter, in German, that I had never imagined existed. Look at this, I will translate it so that Aline also under-stands it:

‘My dear son,

There, where you are, in the land of our ancestors, im-mersed in studies, as I hope, you don't know the immense work your mother and I dedicated ourselves to in this piece of Pampa that fell to us. I planted the vineyard I owed my parents, which I promised them, back in the Su-detenland. The land of this prairie accepted the vine, sur-prisingly, this is the truth, as the neighbors laughed at me for this dream, and shook their heads. I had stone wind-breaks built to deceive the minuano, around the vineyard. The vine grows, our wine will come from it, for which I still don't have a name. I don't even have the grapes, ac-tually. But everything leads to believe that we will suc-ceed, with work and intelligence. I have already started building the wine press, the wooden barrels and the cel-lar, putting the cart before the horse, as they say here, such is my confidence.

I want, therefore, that once formed, you come back soon, I need you here.

The earth needs everyone. Take the opportunity, there-fore, to study the chemistry of wines as you study the chemistry of blood. Remember that wine is the blood of the earth, as Odysseus said to the giant Polyphemus, in

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that book you read to me. As you can see, your father, an ignorant farmer, learned a little of your poetic meta-phors, didn't he?

Come, son, as soon as you can, the vineyard needs you.

Your Dad,

Joachim Friedrich

I was moved by the letter, which I felt was extremely auspicious. I immediately had the idea of transcribing it, in the German original, on the back label and on the boxes of our wine, which I was already mentally project-ing with a circular design that would symbolize the Nie-tzschean “eternal return”, in which the soul, or rather, Anima would sign up, from the back as she usually ap-pears, with wine-colored hair, and loaded with figures, which in their hair are transformed into vine leaves. Its shapes would be those of my torso, my shoulders, the back of my neck and my hair, I decided.

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I hugged Rôdo, and Aline joined us in that hug. Our hope filled us with euphoria, and like children we kissed on the lips, and Rôdo kissed Aline too, which caused me a strange feeling. Out of jealousy? No, completely.

Laís entered the library at that moment, late. She didn't have time to join in the hugging and kissing. So I decided that she would taste the lips of that beautiful woman, since Rôdo had done it with Aline. Not as revenge, but so that reconciliation, the union would be complete. That's what I did, to the surprise of all three. I approached Laís and kissed her on the lips, sweetly. She froze, blinking in

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surprise. I left with Aline, who was digging her fingernail into my wais.

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In the bedroom, Aline threw herself on top of me and practically devoured me with kisses, bites and licks, in an almost furious eagerness. She squeezed my breasts until they hurt. She reached down there to grab my clit with her teeth, and for a moment I feared she was going to cut it off. She introduced her fingers into my orifices, open-ing them, which actually hurt. I moaned, and soon sobbed. I burst into copious tears, which in the end gave me great relief. I needed that:

“Aline, Aline, my love, hit me, hit me in the face, hit me in the ass. I'm your mischievous girl. I need to be pun-ished. Ground me. Take my mother's quince stick. Whip me! I want to bleed. I'm bleeding with love, hope, and thirst for life. I want to die from being beaten so much, from enjoying so much love with you. I want you to drink that wine from the cup of my lips. Also on the bottom. I want it all, I want it all, my love!”

That night we would roll around in bed, naked, like two mad Bacchantes, in a dignified celebration of wine and blood. Dionysus would also preside over our dreams, full of auspicious, happy and confused images, while we would probably smile in our sleep, embraced, satiated.

Finally, the day arrived to welcome the “sommelier”, a winemaker himself, called Hermann, who we had been

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waiting for so long. I was tense that morning when I went to pick him up at the station, with Galdério in the buggy.

He was a middle-aged, gray-haired, elegant gentleman in a beautifully tailored suit with a beautiful leather brief-case in his hand. He climbed into the buggy beside me, a little cramped of course. Like an English lord, after hav-ing greeted me with some ceremony, but with a pleasant smile.

I was describing, better, interpreting some accidents of our landscape, in an inspired way, which made him burst out laughing. This man was friendly, as good con-noisseurs of wine are in general, but I felt that I was trying to win his sympathy, as if that would influence his favor-able judgment of our wine. A subtle kind of bribe, use-less. Winemakers tend to be the most incorruptible pro-fessionals that exist.

Arriving at the mansion, we went almost directly to the lunch table. We wouldn't serve, of course, any wine, but the purest water from our source. Your palate should be clean for the solemn appreciation, that afternoon, of the wine of our hope. The supreme wine of my grandpar-ents.

Lunch was a happy one, despite the curiosity and strangeness expressed by Solange and my brothers-in-law, who knew nothing about the reason for this visit. Hermann submitted himself to some questions from Solange, Geraldo and Alberto, which surprised him. He thought everyone there knew about his mission. We dis-guised it well, Rôdo and I, as if he were just a friend of ours, but Solange, naturally, remained suspicious:

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“So, how did you meet Rôdo in France, huh? How have we never heard of this, Rôdo? Well, we know noth-ing about your life, do we, my brother? You are so mys-terious. We don't know where you are most of the time. But your friend is nice. It can be seen that he is well trav-eled. Where do you live, Mr. Hermann?”

Our guest was a little embarrassed by Solange's atti-tude, and looked at me and Rôdo, as if asking for guid-ance in dealing with that harpy.

We stalled Solange for as long as we could. We wanted to surprise everyone. And Hermann collaborated with us, instinctively hiding his expertise.

We retired after lunch to our rooms for a siesta, and our guest was given the best suite in the house. As for me, I went out with Aline, and we went for a walk hugging each other in the flower garden.

We immediately began to do our subtle, eurythmic ballet, placing flowers in each other's hair, as soon as we noticed that our guest was watching us from his bedroom window. We took great care in the gestures, in the hand touches, in the slow arm movements. A semi-smile from Gioconda on the lips, to give even more lightness to our dance... and mystery. From there, at a certain distance, we felt our fascinated guest, until he closed the curtain, sleepy. We embraced in a crystalline laugh, half muffled, mischievous, seductive.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, we were in the hall for the wine tasting, Solange, Lúcia, Alberto and Geraldo, all of us. And even the children, curious. The adults, confused, not knowing what to expect.

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The winemaker entered the room with his briefcase. He opened it meticulously and took out a glass and an immaculate handkerchief from a case. He wiped the out-side of the glass with his handkerchief, looking at it in the backlight, and set it down on the table. He took out an-other cup, different from the first, and repeated the ges-ture. Then he took a bottle of Perrier mineral water from his briefcase, opened it, and filling the second glass, he raised it to his mouth, sipped in the right measure, and swished. He was going to spit but decided to swallow. He repeated the operation. We followed along, amused, if not fascinated. Hermann then reached out to me and took the unlabeled bottle I held out to him, quite clean of its dust, almost polished by me.

He looked at the bottle against the light for two seconds, then took a fantastic antique gargoyle bottle opener from a case. This man certainly wanted to impress us. He removed the cork with great skill, without missing a single fragment, I noticed. He lifted his glass, glanced at us all, quickly, and concentrated on his visual examination of the wine that glistened in the glass raised to eye level. I thought I saw a spark, the color of blood, in the wonderful transparent glow of that wine. Then he lowered the glass close to his nostrils and sniffed the bouquet, with a small circular gesture under his nose. He held the cup only by its base. Then he brought it to his lips, always with an absorbed, inward gaze of great concentration. He filled his mouth moderately, and swished it around discreetly, or rather, circulated it in his mouth, and then swallowed, looking up a little and... said nothing. He didn't even smile. Our tension peaked. We couldn't take it anymore. We almost exploded. I think I let out a groan.

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He, without looking at us, said: “The 1962 vintage, for sure. A Cabernet, but with the addition... of a German strain, from the Rhine. Smooth but full-bodied. A dry bouquet, rare, but with a Germanic tone, not a French one. The color, ruby, transparent but autumnal, gold and blood, peculiar. Retro long taste. Memory indentation on the foot of the papilla. Nostalgic persistence, almost dis-turbing, but of brief assimilation. False threat of after-taste, producing relief, with Nordic, not Mediterranean charm. Flavor... stupendous. The best old wine I've tasted in the last 10 years, pending confirmation of a second bottle at least. Where did you get it?”

We exploded, Rôdo, Laís, Aline and I. The children too, began to jump, realizing that it was a very important victory.

While Hermann repeated the operation, now with a new bottle, we hugged and celebrated, kissing and laugh-ing, in a joy that we would never forget.

I hugged Hermann, surprised, kissed him on the cheek and asked him:

“Tell us, tell us how much one of these wines is worth. How much would a bottle like this cost in a luxury res-taurant, here ... and abroad?”

He hesitated a moment, and almost pedantically re-plied:

“Here, R$.................... the liter. Perhaps a little more, if

they know how to advertise it discreetly, only in the me-

dia, and if it has a decent label.”

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We explode again. We quickly did the math by multi-plying that figure by the five thousand bottles of our vin-tage. We were saved. The resort was saved. Solange, who stared at me in astonishment, asked:

“What does all this mean, may I know? What are you up to? What's going on here?”

“Solange, Lucia, my sisters, and you my brothers-in-law, listen. We won't need to sell our estancia, we have a wine left by our grandparents, which we discovered in an immense cellar under this house. Five thousand bottles of the best wine in the world, the French forgive us. The true heritage of our grandparents. Actually, Alberto discov-ered it first - didn't he, my brother-in-law? We will dis-tribute it to the best restaurants from Novo Hamburgo to Porto Alegre, from Gramado and Canela to Florianópolis and Curitiba, from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Recife, and then abroad. I feel that the world needs to know this wine for which the gods of Olympus collabo-rated with those of Walhalla... and with the ‘numes’ of the Rio Grande. It will be called ‘Ara dos Pampas’, and I will design the label, which I have already designed. On the back of the bottle, I will reproduce my grandfather's letter. Prosperity will return to this home, I promise you all.”

Solange and Geraldo dropped their arms in disbelief or disappointment. Lucia was smiling at me, and for the first time, I thought I saw a glint in her eyes. My heart was full, and I kissed Aline on the lips, in front of every-one.

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The next day, Rôdo and the winemaker, very early in the morning, were ready to leave. The night before we had gone down with the specialist to the great cellar, which left him in awe. He confirmed that we had a treas-ure there, and so we presented our friend with two bottles, promising that we would send him the label as soon as it was ready.

We drove them, Aline and I, by car to the station. Rôdo with Laís, and Hermann would go to different places, but they agreed to meet to collaborate in present-ing the wine to restaurateurs and sommeliers. With Her-mann's approval, who would receive a commission, our wine would impose itself on the market.

We drove back, Aline driving, but we stopped on the way, on the road that cut through the immense prairie, and we looked, hand in hand, at the infinite horizon to-wards the border, to the south. My heart felt warm in my chest, comfortable under that radiant sun, and I thanked the gods for accepting my prayers. I remembered Vati and looked at Aline, as if to introduce her to him in my mind, although he had certainly already been watching her, from where he was. I always thought, ever since I discovered Aline and fell in love, that Vati would ap-prove of her, open and enlightened as he was, and above all, loving me so much, with so much acceptance, since my happiness was really what interested him in his wise life.

My heart once again filled with tenderness, and my eyes filled with tears contemplating this girl that I had chosen with adoration as my muse, as well as my com-panion. Her beauty filled my eyes and I never tired of

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looking at her, like a work of art, which she really was. I have always been convinced of this: women, when beau-tiful, like men, beautiful, are works of art, from God. So is a virtuoso violin piece, a perfect song, or a great mas-ter's painting. Perhaps more so, as it is a living, speaking and singing sculpture, the Galatea of a more powerful Pygmalion, and as such, also liable to escape us. This de-tail of my thought tightened my chest slightly, reminding me that I had already lost Aline once, or so I thought, throwing myself into a Hades that I found right here on this prairie, where the river Lethe had only to run.

I hugged Aline in front of the car, and pressing her against me, I sobbed profusely, saying:

“Aline, my Aline, love of my life, stay with me for-ever, or kill me before you leave, and I will die happily in your hands.”

Aline was scared. She pushed me away a little, look-ing at me sternly in my eyes:

“Alma, stop it. Why do you speak like that? I won't leave you... and if I do, it will only be for a little while. I have to go back to São Paulo to settle everything, hand over the apartment... and break up with Pedro. Rest as-sured, I will never betray you again, you are also my love. My little fool, don't talk about death, it hurts me, it scares me.”

I sobbed with my head down, and she lifted my chin and kissed my lips ardently. I was suffocating with love and anticipated pain. To be separated from her, even for a few days, was an unbearable idea. Besides, I knew I would face the anger of Solange and Geraldo, who were

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sharpening their claws against me. She felt me fragile, I who until now had been a fighter. I wanted to curl up in Aline's lap, perhaps in her womb, in an ambiguity of feel-ings that confused me.

We returned to the ranch, the rest of the journey in strange silence.

As we got out of the car, I already saw Solange on the porch, matronly, hands on her hips, her eyes very severe, glaring:

“You two, aren't you ashamed, you naughty ones? I already know everything. You couldn't fool me long. You are freaks, shame on women! So, friends, huh? I've been watching you. Those hugs, those kisses. Pure naughty! Shameless! You have to go, I won't admit it in front of my children, my nephews! Out of here, monsters!”

We were livid, I staggered for a second, my vision went dark, my heart stopped. I was facing the Harpy. But beyond the fear, I felt an immense shame, not for myself, but for Aline, for exposing her to this humiliation, and for my own sister who was thus polluting, like a sow, the pearl of my soul: my love.

I gathered strength, I don't know how or from where.

And I retaliated, glaring at her with my eyes:

“Shut up, witch! Don't you dare touch Aline. You don't know anything, you don't know about love, dry creature. If you speak to me, I will plague you with the Pampas. I have that power, the numbers confirmed me in my orchard, in front of my Ara. ‘Arreda!’, we're going to pass!”

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Solange, dumbfounded, immediately shrunk, coward that she was, at the mention of said plague. But she still stammered fearfully:

“You are a sorceress, I always knew it, you are a beau-tiful witch, yes! You are a witch; you will burn in hell. Don't you dare...”

We passed, I pulling Aline terrified, by the hand, and went straight to our room. I knew I had temporarily neu-tralized Solange's fury, out of the superstitious fear I'd al-ways known she had. In fact, I had used this fear of hers since my childhood to immobilize her in her evil. This has always been easy, since I am really convinced that I have access to the world of numes and gods, since I was a little girl, that I cultivated them in my soul, with the complicity of Vati, the great pantheist priest who had raised me.

In the bedroom, Aline was shaking all over from head to toe. She was in shock. I made her sit on the bed, and I knelt at her feet, kissing her hands.

“Aline, my love. It doesn't stay like that. Passed, see. I'm not afraid anymore. Now everything has exploded, the tension is gone... Come on, it's not like that. There is no more danger. The danger is the before... now it's the after. The scandal we feared has already happened, and it cannot destroy us. Our love is stronger. It's much bigger. We will win everyone. Afterwards... it's just Solange and Geraldo. The others all already know and are on our side. Even the children, who adore me so much that they un-derstand everything. They know our pure heart, like theirs. Look, I'm not afraid anymore, I'm stronger than

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Solange, that's why I'm worthy of you, my love. Trust me.”

Aline was now sobbing on my shoulder, in a painful cry, which came from far away and pressed me against her, with her nails almost buried in my shoulders. My girl, my little girl... I wanted to protect her from the evil of the world, I who had not been able to spare her from such a vexing scene, so shocking for her, so revolting in the face of her extreme candor, her adorable purity. I had to protect her, my love. To this girl, this woman of my heart.

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The following days passed full of tension in the air. But Solange remained quiet at the table, her eyes down-cast. The children found this atmosphere strange, and they spoke softly, too, without knowing why. Only Patri-cia remained with that happy, dreamy look in her perfect world of Juliet after the ball. I tried to keep it natural, and I held Aline's hand every time she moved me with a pur-pose to the garden, or even idly. She, at first, kept her hand slightly stiff. She still had fear and shame, and also the lowered eyes. I couldn't touch her intimately any-more, in our room. She was traumatized. Like after rape, that was the truth. I hated Solange for that, this mean, de-structive woman who happened to be my sister. What Sister! No, I don't believe in a brotherhood of blood, im-posed by the genes, not the heart.

Rôdo, you are my brother, like a soulmate, you are my “animus”, strong boy, warrior, my Achilles, beautiful as a girl, if you dressed up like that one did before the war, with his mother's tunic. But, bah! What fury, when they

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mess with you: you will divert a river, you will level a mountain, you will defy the gods themselves if they dare to touch the heel of your pride. Rôdo, I miss you already. If you were here, you would protect us, and I would snug-gle up to you, with Aline. No, it can't be like that! Cir-cumstances demand my strength, or we will be destroyed. The Harpy can still get up. So that doesn't happen, I'm going to take Aline with me tonight to the orchard and enshrine her in the Ara. I will bathe her with our herbs, I will crown her with the leaves of our vines, and she will be as strong as I am, that I will do so, with myself, too. Tonight! Tonight!

I went to the orchard, then to the vineyard, picking herbs, leaves and roots. The mate, as always, and the vine leaves. Aline remained in the room, lying down, her eyes fixed and motionless. In shock or depression. She was deeply hit. And I wouldn't forgive Solange, ever, for that. Oh! The corrosive, poisoning power of words! Close to them, bullets and stab wounds were few. Wars begin with words, and they can only end, too, with them. I remem-bered Chaplin, in “The Great Dictator”, and his final speech, which when watching it for the first time seemed superfluous. Now I understood. The words of peace. Re-membering them, I consolidated in myself the purpose of pacification. That's what my new ritual would do. It would not be a preparation for war, but for peace. Other-wise, all would be lost, we would be muddy in the pigsty where we cast our pearls. We needed to stay sober. With the sobriety of peace. None of the drunkenness of war.

We were princesses, I would have put a hundred mat-tresses on Solange's pea grain in our bed, but we would wake up rested. Peace was the answer, and for that I knew now that I had to learn to forgive our offender. I would

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rescue Aline from her descent into Hades, like Eurydice, or like my Psyche. I would carry her up with me for my immortal love!

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Close to midnight, I took Aline out of bed and dressed her like a doll in a white tunic like mine. She remained inert, as if paralyzed, and I had to practically carry her with her arm around my shoulder and mine around her waist. With difficulty, as her steps dragged, we crossed the darkened house. I thought I heard a door creak, but I couldn't stop for nothing. It was necessary to reach the orchard in front of the Ara. It was a long way, in the clear night, but dark in the soul, crossing the garden, dragging Aline to the orchard. We fell twice, my dress ripped, I skinned my knee. Aline moaned as if injured. We arrived at last, at our apple tree, where I had already prepared everything. I undressed Aline and myself, and with a sil-ver gourd filled with spring water from a pot hidden in a clump, I bathed her slowly as she shivered despite the in-tense heat of the summer night. The moon appeared through the clouds and bathed her body in light.

My Aline's beauty showed itself, moving, despite her depression. We bathed each other while the herbs I lit during a break steamed, rising to the moon. Aline woke up slowly, bathing me too. We ran our hands over each other's bodies, in all directions, in all the crevices, as we do with babies or children in a bathtub. I heard heavenly music, which came from among the clouds, or among the trees, I don't know. I heard her, softly. And the water felt delicious on the skin. We would smile at each other. My Aline was smiling at last, wet, shining in the moonlight,

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like a nymph, like a naiad from a river of light. And I felt that I could stay like this, bathing her forever, with the purifying water of pacification, with the tears of my love, and that she would also stay like this, bathing me forever.

Fireflies surrounded us, twinkling their tiny lanterns, in such numbers that they seemed to want to transform us into the Constellation of Aquarius, and I could see us from the outside, in this scene of dazzling beauty, our beauty as divinely endowed women. Then slowly I dried her, we dried each other, and we dressed, first I her, then she me. Then we kissed, palms pressed together, in front of Ara, whose column of smoke rose straight towards the moon. I saw that Aline had risen, I had taken her out of her inner Hades, and she was resplendent before me again, surrounded by fireflies. When a small breeze pro-duced a slight shiver, I felt that the ceremony could end. I looked around when a sudden suspicion washed over me. Could that cold breeze be the enemy's gaze? From the enemy? No, I shouldn't think like that. We had just prepared for peace. And we were unassailable. I believed in it. We could go back to our bed.

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When, five years ago, my father's illness began, I felt that these skies that covered us, darkened, lost their shine. Secluded to his bed, with the windows always closed by the curtains in semi-darkness, the sadness that devoured him seemed to come from outside to inside, and of its own accord. He stopped wanting to live. What ate it? I have a suspicious vacancy. A love that he hadn't realized, and that wasn't my mother's. My father, heir to German romanticism, albeit late, had he ended up being the victim

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of a lost, unrealizable love? I still wonder today. Anyone who played Chopin and Schumann like him, with such delicacy... and sadness, must surely know what he was playing.

I had always suspected this in my childhood, and my tenderness for him made me sometimes imagine myself as a lover, adult, caressing him passionately, kissing his lips. Today I know that this daydream is common in girls, although deeply repressed. No wonder my mother got ir-ritated when she saw me sitting on her lap. She feared, she suspected the deep, carnal, soulful nature of our rela-tionship. And yet, this woman could not be the nymph, the muse, the goddess he deserved, being only the mother of his children. A case, after all, common. But not him. He wasn't ordinary. His gifts were exceptional, and such a man deserved the numinous figure of a woman that we were never able to discover, and that inhabited his dreams until the end. Even today I imagine that I discover her, I find her whereabouts and I pilgrim towards her, a beauti-ful mature woman, who receives me almost maternally. Yes, motherly, hugging me and saying:

“Alma, take my hug to Werner, who will remember him. Take my kiss to your lips and place it on his. I will stay with him at last, through you.”

Oh! I want to die when I remember that, I'm even ashamed, I'm not ashamed of anything anymore. I am ashamed of so much love that I nurtured for Vati without being able to, without knowing anything, imagining eve-rything, projecting everything... and absorbing his won-derful mental and soul world. I'm your incurably roman-tic heiress, and I'm proud of it. But the wounds opened by so much love on the very thin skin of the soul, and

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which bump into the rough edges of everyday life, don't close, they don't heal anymore... and I bleed. I bleed.

Vati, I fled from here, from this room, from our hall with your coffin between four torches, like a dead knight, like a grand master of a Teutonic order, whose solemnity in death overwhelmed me. I felt, then, that I couldn't bear the weight of your inheritance, and I ran away from here, running, at random, and ended up in those innocuous Gardens for me, of that immense city of São Paulo, the “desvaired Paulicéia”, which little or nothing has to do with me. But there, in the end, I found my love, I attracted him to the beautiful studio I set up, despite everything, all the pain. There, Aline came to meet me, and today I bring her to you, to present her to you, that you will enjoy her through my love. She cannot know this. Or does she al-ready know? She would not be offended... She knows that she worships my gods, and that you are the greatest of them, next to God. She is docile in my hands, and I love her more for that, adorable little nymph, who knows, despite everything, the purity of my heart.

None of that makes me a manipulator. I have the right to my loves, and I join them all in my soul: Rôdo and Aline, and you, Vati. I will add Patricia, my sublime child. And even Vânia, who loved me so much, almost virilely. But also the twins Hans and Christian, and Ped-rinho, my nephews. Matilde and Galdério, all those who love or loved me are worthy of me. Alex and Irma, the Tragic Duo; Josué, in the hinterland, taking me to find the Mysterious Peacock; Jean Baptiste in Paris and Corinne, who exorcised Adèle D'Affry, the Pythia in me. However, when I think about the latter, I see that the py-thon is still inside me, and it is she, perhaps, who makes me light pyres in front of my altar.

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Vati, I lay Aline at your feet. Bless her, Vati, wherever you are. I want to be happy, like maybe you never were. I will be happy for you, with my love. For us, for us.

_____________________________________________

Aline revives after our ritual. She already smiles. She is reborn for my hugs, for my kisses. We left the room embracing, we walked hand in hand, now everywhere. I don't want to know anything anymore. Of the conven-iences of the bourgeois family... They will have to swal-low us. Children look at us naturally, for them love is al-ways natural. They are not contaminated, these adorable children. They love Aline naturally, because she's beau-tiful, because she's sweet, and because she loves them. Or even because she is my love. Why can't adults preserve themselves like children, at least in this field? Oh! In fact, only Solange and Geraldo are missing to accept us. Eve-ryone else is happy for me. Even Alberto and Lucia, who unfortunately are not a couple. Maybe if they were, Al-berto wouldn't drink. I don't know. It's foolish to think about it. Lúcia, my sister, now dares to caress me with her hand, hurrying away. I conquered them all, with Aline. To all who are still sensitive to beauty. Only the hag still looks at me with rancor, and that inveterate gam-bler with spite. Well, you can't please everyone, there is no unanimity in this world.

The day arrived to take Aline to the station. Oh bitter day, Oh dark day. I had been crying since dawn that day, crying along the way, without shame, without taking into account the embarrassment of Galdério, who was driving us in the buggy. Aline was also crying, but for me,

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because she (I found out later) knew she would come back, but I... didn’t. I feared she was abandoning me once again. Oh woman of little faith, you wept in vain! But how to know, how to trust? And that Pedro, didn't he have his tricks to keep her, his power of seduction? Oh! At the time, I didn't trust Aline's love, and for that reason I was doomed to the torments of doubt, desperate waiting, pain, anguish. Again.

When she got on the train, I clung to her in such a way that I caused a scandal at the station. People were smiling or shaking their heads grimly. Galdério had to pull me out of his arms when the train was already starting to move. I burst into tears like a child, while the women looked at me strangely.

I returned in tears, prostrated, with my head on Gal-dério's shoulder in the cart.

When we arrived, a strange period began. I felt alone, despite the children's affection. Rôdo wasn't there, Aline was gone. I was desolately alone. I walked like a sleep-walker through the house, through the garden. I didn't sleep well at night, and went out onto the veranda and the garden, walking aimlessly, as far as the edge where the coxilla began. Life seemed desperately sad to me, despite the hope that the ranch would recover, which was almost certain. Rôdo's telegrams were auspicious, and I already had the prototype of the bottles' labels. It was just a matter of waiting for sales to start, which Rôdo would take care of.

Solange was still watching me, with that spiteful look.

It was then that it happened.

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My sister found me in the empty room one afternoon and said to me:

“Alma, I want you to take me to know that winery that you discovered. I want to see what it's like. After all, we depend on it, don't we? In it rests the salvation of our stay. So come on, show me.”

I nodded, of course, to her request, and we equipped ourselves with flashlights, going down the steps of the first cellar. There I put the flashlight down and felt the wall until I found the point, the piece that worked as a trigger button and the wall opened. I went in followed by Solange, who was apparently surprised by the sea of shelves and bottles. She gave a whistle and waved her hand in a common gesture of astonishment. Then, as I rested my hand on a bottle with my back to her, I heard her voice from behind:

“Stay there forever, drink the blood of the grapes. You won't die of thirst, you have five thousand bottles. Enjoy it, you sorceress!”

I quickly turned around, but too late! I saw his figure coming out of the opening as the wall turned. And yet I thought I heard a laugh before the wall slammed shut, and silence and darkness settled around me. My flashlight was outside. I had trusted Solange's flashlight and now I was in the total darkness of my tomb. The anguish was so violent that I fainted.

After many hours I woke up in the middle of darkness and the anguish returned. I screamed, screamed desper-ately, groping at the wall, pounding until my hands bled. I cried like never before. I called Vati, I called Rôdo, I

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shouted for Aline. Finally, I prostrated myself in a state of shock. For how long? I will never know. Then, sud-denly, the wall opened and a figure with a lamp entered there. Confused, I recognized the red nose of Alberto, my dear drunkard. Thirst for him, thank God, had not let up...

and he had saved me. I will always have a fondness for drunks from now on, if that's possible. He lifted me off the ground, and also confused, babbling words of con-cern, he carried me by the waist out of that tomb. I was reborn with each step, and when I reached the stairs of the first cellar, I already supported him, the drunk who staggered, stumbling on the steps. When I remember that today, I feel like laughing in spite of myself. My dear drunk, my favorite brother-in-law! I will never reproach you. Your addiction saved me, everything is relative in this world.

I got to my room, and he fell passed out on my bed. I left him there and went to settle accounts with the bitch. She wanted to kill me! Heinous criminal! What should I do? Things had reached a very serious point. I had never imagined that my own sister would hate me to this extent. Why? Why? I had to do something.

I went through the house looking for Solange. I called her, shouted her name. Anything. Nobody. The children were nowhere to be seen either. I went looking for Gal-dério and learned from Matilde that he hadn't returned from the station, where he had gone to take Solange, Geraldo and the children. Matilde said that Lucia and the twins would be back soon. They had only gone to accom-pany their aunt. I waited for them, trying to calm myself. When they finally pointed out the road, I was already at peace.

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They arrived, got off the wagon, the children behind, and ran towards me saying at the same time:

“Aunt Alma, Aunt Alma! Aunt Solange went out with Pati and Pete. Uncle Alberto didn't go. Where is he? And you, aunt, where were you? Patricia cried a lot, she wanted to say goodbye to you. Pete too.”

I hugged them tightly, then Lucia, who looked at me with teary eyes, a little surprised:

“Where were you, my sister? We looked so hard for you, but Solange was in a hurry, she wanted us to accom-pany her to the train station, we couldn't look for you an-ymore. We were worried. You disappeared for many hours. Where were you? And Alberto, where is he? Why didn't he go with Solange?”

“We'll talk later, Lucia. Now I just want to relax. En-joy that Solange is no longer here and kiss these children a lot.”

I hugged the twins and, thinking of Patrícia and Ped-rinho, my tears flowed. My dear children, daughters of a murderess!

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Days passed and I poured my affection over the re-mains of the house. Solange went out with Geraldo, her brother-in-law, and I imagined a scabrous scenario. So these two! Yes, they deserved it. Lucia hadn't lost any-thing, although I didn't believe there would be a complete exchange between the couples. Alberto now deserved all the bottles he wanted, and I just hoped that Rôdo would come back soon and save enough for us to pay off the

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debts, before it was too late, because the thirst of a drunk who deserves his bottles is the cellar killer of sorts.

After a week, finally, Aline sent news. She was back. She would arrive the next day. I screamed around the house and hugged Lucia, Matilde, the twins, Alberto. I wanted to embrace the world. I didn't hate anyone any-more. I didn't hate Solange. My sister would be punished by her own conscience, for she had murdered me in her mind and heart. There would be no more peace in her life, if she ever had it. The lesson I learned from my love ritual with Aline bore fruit. I would not take revenge. After all, I was alive and thanks to her husband, whom she freed by leaving him. I would give my dear drinker all the bot-tles he wanted to drink, but only one by one. Until they left for the world, saving our ranch. Ah! But I would leave a thousand just for him, my savior...

I patiently waited until the next day, when, very early in the morning, I asked Galdério to prepare the wagon. We were going to get my love, who was coming back to me.

When she got off the train, looking pretty, with a cute little hat on her curly black hair, my heart overflowed with tenderness and my tears flowed. She came to meet me and we embraced, spinning around on the platform, screaming and sighing, so eagerly that people stopped, shaking their heads. Was I getting in famous maybe this Station? We laughed between tears and she soon said:

“I left Pedro, as I promised him. He cried a lot, but I don't regret it. I love you, Alma, more than anything in life, and I want to be completely yours. Take me with you to your ranch and kiss me until I die in your arms.”

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I hugged her even more, while Galdério, worried, looking around, started tugging on my sleeve.

Aline had brought a fair amount of luggage, all of her belongings, which turned out not to be much. Clothes and small objects. But that meant she was here to stay. She would live with me at the estancia forever. I would also close my studio in Jardins. It was decided. This would bring up all my screens. I would turn the big house into a huge studio. I bet Rôdo would love it. Solange and Geraldo who dared to show up here! I would put dogs on top of them. I am convinced that my player brother-in-law was her accomplice, he always was. They must be lovers. They were made for each other. Poor Patricia and Pedrinho! Well... they would be preserved by their own purity, always, I hoped. There are enlightened creatures who are born saved. And the world cannot corrupt them. I believe in it.

We galloped through the fields again, Aline and I, sometimes on two horses, sometimes on one, with her clinging to me on the rump, which is how I prefer, feeling her body, her heat, and being part of the horse with me, like a wonderful double female centaur. Sometimes we go riding naked, like that, holding hands, not caring about being seen by the herdsmen, by anyone... It's true that I prefer the deserted portions of the pampa and the hidden trails of our forest. But I know that it won't take long for rumors to reach Solange, wherever she is, about our na-kedness, which she will say is scandalous. I'm provoca-tive, I know. I'm immature, maybe. I'm a child, the rebel-lious girl that Vati spoiled. But now it's too late. My sen-suality drives me. It has always led me, and I doubt it will destroy me. It emanates from my body and soul, pure, full of legitimate desires, of pleasure, of pure carnal and

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psychic pleasure. I'm a heathen. So my father raised me. Now it's too late. Solange, undermined evil angel who lost your wings, get out of the way of my galloping horse, watch out for the centauresses! Look at my bare breasts, they point out like straight, hard, perky arcs. Look at Aline's, smaller, as beautiful or more than mine. Four lighthouses in the Pampa night, four arrows in the plains day. Haragan wind, hot, that brings rain. See us, Solange, dismount the centaur, crouch sensually looking at each other, and piss on the grass, like a golden shower over our hands, each other. Watch us raise our hands to our nos-trils inhaling the scent of our favorite champagne. Our sparkling wine. You don't know anything, Solange, about the life of the flesh, deeper, cruder than you imagine. And much prettier. You know nothing of “the love that shares crowns of joy”, as Garcia Lorca said. I mourn for you, my bourgeois, conventional, murderous sister. You didn't know how to live, you didn't know how to love, as our mother, whose bitterness you are the heir, never knew.

I, from this balcony, or standing on the infinite plain that stretches out in front of me, find myself with my love hand in hand forever looking at the land that I recon-quered, that I saved. The endless vineyard of my grand-parents, draining the blood of the earth that will nourish my ecstatic flesh, and my enlightened soul that nothing else can hurt.

The Pampa will be mine forever, that I will sing with joy, toasting my love with the blood of this southern land!

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Second part

The Ara of the Pampas

Centaurus Stars, now elected

To govern the peace of this ranch:

Solitary warriors, who remade,

The price is our eternal vigilance!

In the motionless ocean of coxilhas,

In a frozen space or time,

The nave built with pegs

It is the mansion not sunk

Who managed to overcome his hurricane,

Crossing the squall for a year

Beaten by an intern minuano...

Beyond, the hot and sudden haragano

Brings rare rain to the summer crops,

Preserving our vineyard... and the heart!

(Alma Welt)

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Chapter One. The Rape

Around the terraced house, I picked small flowers, moving away, perhaps in a slow, centrifugal spiral, which brought me closer to the limits of the garden where the prairie began, the real Pampa, which I saw as another ter-ritory, contiguous though, to the which our garden was but a mild transition.

Beyond the garden, the little flowers were tougher, drier perhaps, like the evergreens, wild wildflowers, which challenged me, me, a little adventurer in my own territory, where I reigned like a princess, but noticing the watchful gazes of my mother and much older sisters.

Rodo, dear little brother, how you protected me... and I you! We protected each other from the intrusion of those invasive eyes that bothered us, because our rela-tionship with the scenery, with the mansion, with the gar-den and above all with the orchard, was intimate, secret, and of a profound childish sensuality, suspected in fact by adults.

Solange, the eldest, feared my slightest gesture when picking a flower. So, I understood. Seeing me running with Rôdo through the house, the garden, the orchard above all, filled her with suspicion, and she wanted to separate us. But Vati protected us with his benevolence, with his wise love, and neutralized Solange's pettiness, and even those of my mother, Ana Morgado, of Portu-guese ancestry, an Azorean with a beautiful pronuncia-tion, a beautiful accent, which was, in my opinion, per-haps unfair, her only talent.

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We were always, Rôdo and I, whispering, arranging to meet up in a little while, for the pleasure of meeting again a thousand times a day to continue playing, discovering and conspiring in favor of life and joy... in ourselves, and around, in the small animals, in the flowers, in the trees of our orchard. But above all in our beloved apple tree, which we made an altar of our childhood and eternal love, of our innocent complicity that we swore we would never deny.

Now, on this return journey to São Paulo, on the bus, accompanied by Aline, I begin to remember all this, hold-ing the delicate hand of my love, who is snoring in the armchair, and I think of how rich my life is, of his inner simplicity made only of love and chosen memories, of everyday beauties that I knew how to enjoy, discarding the unpleasant details, or incorporating them transfigured by my gift of beauty into small dramas and tragedies that balance my memory like a work of art, my greatest work, painter and poet that I know myself to be romantic, with pride.

Contemplating the beautiful face of my love, this beautiful woman, whose beauty I am not afraid of, with whom I do not compete for knowing and feeling equally beautiful, I give myself the right to all tenderness, all ad-oration, in fact. Oh! The pleasure of adoring her, of pam-pering her, of serving her, of putting myself at her feet! It is unspeakable, unspeakable, and I know that my readers may even find the intensity, the excess even of these feel-ings of mine strange. But what can I do? I'm not secretly proud of this almost subservient passion. I, my father's princess, would like to be the slave of this little beauty, and even to be... flogged from time to time by her to shed and offer my blood in her eyes. Oh! What a scabrous

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fantasy, I know, which betrays my hidden masochism, which I have already acknowledged before you, my con-descending readers!

When she wakes up, I'm going to kiss her right away, here on the bus, surrounded by that petty bourgeoisie who eat sweets and snacks, but whom I won't take into ac-count, as I haven't done for years so as not to contaminate my interior space of everyday poetry.

At a stop for lunch the bus pulls up, huffing, at a big bus station, Aline wakes up, soon smiling at me as she always does, filling my heart. The pleasure of seeing my-self opening my eyes like that, betrayed by that smile, is the best thing in life, the most flattering, and I kiss her lips there, on the bus, not caring about the eyes around me. We go down to lunch, first looking for the toilette for a long pee, taking turns on the same toilet, both together in the same cabin, to enjoy the intimacy of our little sibi-lant noises, which touch us. When leaving the cabin to wash our hands, we are looked at strangely by other women. “Aren't these two unglued even for that? Naughty!” they must think... But it doesn't matter, defy-ing petit-bourgeois society can also be a slight pleasure.

At the table we eat soberly, because we have no short-ages, dissatisfaction in our relationship, and we value our slender silhouettes that the bourgeois envy.

Thus, we traveled with pleasure, enjoying the calm, the landscape and the beautiful sun of our unique country, a privilege that we are aware of, like everything else in our lives.

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We finally arrived in São Paulo to make our perma-nent move to the estancia, to close my studio, empty it of my copious canvases, my drawings, engravings and abundant materials. I want all of this in the mansion, which, anchored in the Pampa, in the great port of the Coxilhas Sea, awaits us for another secret sailing. We will have to set sail, together, towards the unknown fu-ture, but in a sea, in an ocean that I believe I know much more than the jungle of this immense city, of which I can-not, however, complain: Paulicéia was not hostile to me, the Gardens tolerated my perhaps spoiled nature, and even small tributes were paid to me. Here I launched my book “Alma’s Tales”, with some success, honored by my new friends and those of my foreword and illustrator, Guilherme De Faria, who actually discovered me, in my studio, when I was so isolated, in the first times. But I must remember that I was not present at the launch of my book, due to the near tragedy that happened with Rôdo. My brother, in his fever for speed, destroyed his second sports car, his Porsche, on a road in our Pampa, almost dying again. I got on a plane, flew south, dropping eve-rything on the eve of my release, to, heart in hand, find my Rôdo in the hospital, luckily much better than anyone would have expected, with only a headband on, smiling candidly as he sees me go crazy.

I wanted to hit him, I even started to lightly punch his chest, protesting:

“You crazy, irresponsible! Don't you know that I couldn't live without you? You don't have the right, do you hear? You have no right to risk yourself like that! If you die, I will also lose my life, or my happiness. I forbid you! I forbid you!”

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Rôdo laughed a little with difficulty, because his chest hurt, and he hugged me. We stayed like that, holding each other for a long time. And I cried, I cried all that I could and that was dammed up: my love for this “boy”, this eternal “piá” of my heart, so crazy, so intense and ex-treme, which was actually the animistic equivalent, the “animus” of this equally intense or exaggerated Alma who could not, therefore, blame him.

Arriving in São Paulo, we went straight to our apart-ment, my studio, as I prefer to call it, on Rua Oscar Freire, to shower, rest, make love and sleep until the next day, before facing the packing work, boxing, etc, for our final move. Termination of contract, payment of fine, delivery of keys, etc. How many arrangements! I won't dwell on them, but I must report here, something I didn't have the courage to tell Aline herself...

The studio was already pretty much dismantled, the crates piled up in the middle of the studio's big room. Aline had gone out to get more cardboard boxes for the books and stuff. The intercom rang; it was, surprisingly, Pedro. How had he known we were back? Perhaps he had telephoned the estancia... The fact is that here we were, he and I, confronting each other for the second time in our lives. I was tense, if not frightened. He rapped his knuckles on the open door and walked in, his presence strong, imposing, and at first glance attractive. As he closed the door behind him, I backed up a little, maybe that was my mistake. The male smelled the fear, the weakness, and decided to impose himself.

“Alma, I see you're alone. Aline isn't here, is she? It's better this way, I need to talk to you, you owe me an ex-planation. I want Aline back, you took her from me, I

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don't know with what powers, with what weapons. But I cannot accept this as a defeat. I know Aline loves me. You don't know what's between us, you're an upstart in this story, you don't know what we've been through to-gether, everything we've experienced with each other. I cannot accept this. You seduced her, you bewitched her with your unreal beauty, that can only be it!”

He lunged at me as I backed up, bumping into a pile of wooden crates. Big hands of him grabbed me by the arms and he pinned me down, bending me over the boxes. I felt the enormous volume of his penis lean against my pubis and fit between my legs over the dress, so thin, so thin, my dress... (we women are so vulnerable). Feeling my forms, he became more excited, and I saw his mast rise. I was in trouble! I tried to scream, but his huge hand covered my mouth, while, deftly, with the other he opened his fly and lifted my skirt with his own huge member, and invaded my panties by the edge of the crotch, finding my slit without my being able to place any obstacle, since his entire body was opening my legs, al-ready practically lying by force on the crates. I felt his big penis enter me like a red-hot iron and I screamed, I screamed, I called Aline, I struggled helplessly, as he held my neck with his powerful wrist, and I lost my breath, almost fainting.

He stayed a long time going in and out of me, until I felt nothing anymore, with so much pain and fear. Was he going to kill me then? It was my concern… But he pulled his chest away from mine and flipped me over with a single sweep of his hand under my hip and laid me face down on top of the crates. I gave a huge scream, soon muffled by his hand, while he invaded me from behind, lubricated only with my own sauce, or even my blood.

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He sodomized me for a long time, with wheezing, bro-ken, stertorous breathing, which horrified me in the midst of pain. Afterwards... he left in one piece, to observe me and then returned to invade me excited again with the vi-sion he had, which seemed more inviting. I was lost, be-cause all that was left for him to do was kill me, and I waited passively for his coup de grace, between tears and sobs. Then... he pulled out of me, let go of me, shaking too, I realized, in spite of everything. And he walked away, zipping up his stained fly, walking a little briskly, until he turned and left, not before saying, in an emotional and sinister voice: “Goodbye, Alma. Now you really know what man is, and what that Aline likes. Now you can love each other, because I will always be among you!”

With immense effort, in the midst of terrible pain, I turned around, put my feet on the floor and fell to my knees, dragged myself, moaning and crying, to the small stepladder that was used to dismantle the shelves, and knocked it down to simulate an accident. Then I fainted.

I came back to myself with Aline's face, afflicted, on mine, blowing and kissing me, between patting my cheeks:

“Alma, Alma, what happened? Where does that blood on your dress come from? You fell? What happened. You are hurt!”

“Yes, yes, Aline, I fell down the stairs. I must have scratched myself, nothing serious, I think I fainted from the fright, more than from the impact. I'll be fine, don't

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worry, Aline.” (I gave a deep sob, which I then tried to hide).

Aline was not convinced and suddenly lifted my skirt and let out a horrified scream. She wanted to examine it, she ran to the bathroom to get a washcloth, which she wet under the sink faucet, and came to clean me up. She would understand everything! I couldn't let that happen. It would ruin her happiness, it would revolt her one way or another. I would lose her! I would lose her!

With difficulty I dragged myself to my feet, trembling, saying:

“Aline, I hit my pubis against the edge of a box, when the ladder fell. I'm hurt, yes, but it doesn't stay that way, that you scare me. Just call a doctor, Dr. Glauco, that's all. Just help me to lie down, my pretty one, and rest. I need to sleep.”

Aline, in tears, confused, helped me to bed, covered me and immediately called the doctor. I heard nothing more.

I woke up with Doctor Glaucus taking my pulse. The kindness of his wise old face was consoling: a benevolent male face... that was what I needed to see now so I wouldn't hate them all, the bloodthirsty males, our ancestral predators. No, no, Alma, don't think so! You've never thought exactly like that, and yet this isn't the first time you've been attacked. My thoughts were confused, and my tears flowed again as Doctor Glaucus discovered me, lifted my skirt, removed my stained panties, examined me, with a horrified hiss between his teeth. He then asked Aline to leave the room and said:

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“Alma, you were raped, there's no use denying it. Your friend gave me her version of all that blood, and it didn't convince me at all. Fall! Yes! Did you fall over the edge of a crate? It could even be! But all that sperm, where did it come from? And your anus, was it also hit by the corner of the crate? With that sperm, too? No, Alma, don't deny it. Who was responsible for this crime? Don't you want to defend any bandit. Such a man deserves jail. Alma, you have to press charges. I'll bring a sheriff friend of mine here because you have to stay in bed. Come on, tell me everything.”

“Doctor, for the love of God, don't tell Aline anything. I can't, doctor, I can't report the aggressor. Believe me, I have very strong reasons for this. Aline would lose her happiness, and I would then lose her, Aline. Understand me, Doctor. You understand now, don't you? I could always rely on you, you have never failed me before. I can't lose her, doctor, I would die. By mercy!” (I burst into immense tears, while the doctor shook his head and adjusted the pillow, covering me paternally. I remembered Vati, when he put me to sleep, still a young girl, or even later, and the tears flowed more).

He said:

“All right, Alma, if you want it that way, but I'm going to prescribe you some anti-inflammatories and painkillers, and also an HIV test, which you should take in a few months, don't forget!” (He wrote the test prescription on a piece of paper, aside).

I actually wasn't afraid of that aspect of the thing, because Aline had mentioned to me the fact that Pedro had his HIV negative certificate, as a compromise

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between them. However, this comment from the doctor made me burst into more tears, perhaps because of the shame I felt about my situation.

The kind doctor reassured me with a sad smile, put his fingers to my lips, going schhhhh... schhhh... I knew he wouldn't say anything. That man loved me like a daughter and would know how to preserve my stubborn happiness. Before leaving, he opened his briefcase again and placed a “morning-after pill” envelope in my hand, pointed significantly at the envelope with an emphatic gesture, and withdrew.

I knew what I should do.

As a child, I discovered in my little brother Rôdo, the “differences”, but in the sweetest way. I have already re-counted small episodes of this relationship a few times in my short stories and poems. They are the root of my po-etry, as well as my father's sweetness, wisdom and strength. Just like the wonderful flowers in my mother's garden (for that alone I should love her more than I love myself) and the orchard planted by my grandparents, as well as the vineyard, sustenance and foundation of our estancia, of our recovered prosperity.

The fact that my brother knows me so intimately, I mean, my body, since I was a little girl, binds me to him with a special strength and that's why we often undress, one in front of the other, at the slightest opportunity. His desire never bothered me, because it is mutual, recipro-cal. We only control ourselves because a conservation in-stinct protects us from total incest, from our childhood

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experiences. I find it difficult to understand the sense of tragedy that the Greeks, for example, attributed to this fact. So much repression, so much guilt, so much intro-jected moral and social prejudice! I don't identify with that. I believe that men suffer from ignorance, prejudice, superstition, and built-in repression, though I can be moved by your suffering even for these reasons. I can't stop crying at a Greek tragedy. It is for the pain of the world, the pain of man, in his ignorance and weakness, that I shed tears. But I don't consider that I suffer for the same reasons as the majority. Will I be different? Will I be weird? No! I am an artist, and I consider myself free and libertarian. I accept everything, even debauchery, be-cause I love eroticism, a source of inspiration that comes, perhaps, from that winged god with his beautiful androg-ynous body. I just can't accept the meanness... and the vulgarity in men. Everything else I can accept, even out-bursts of anger, especially the legitimate anger of lovers, the sacred anger of the pure and passionate, offended in their naivety. Yes, I can really understand the reasons for the war, although its effects horrify me. The suffering of the innocent... I can understand, and cry. The terrible suf-fering generated in the epicenter of discord: the hell of prejudice.

I spent three days in bed. My whole body ached, and also a part of my soul. But I disguised it as much as I could so as not to frighten Aline, who revealed herself at my bedside and slept beside me, careful not to touch me. My wonderful girl took care of me, she spoiled me and her zeal made me tender. But I could see a hint of suspi-cion in her eyes. She just delayed the confrontation, the moment of truth. She was waiting for my recovery to question me seriously, put me up against the wall. Proof

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of this was her insistence on wanting to look at my private parts so she could take care of them. And she joked: “I need to look after my heritage” she would say, making me laugh a little. My lovely Aline! I disguised it as much as I could, causing more suspicion, as we never had that modesty with each other. But she would figure it all out if she could just look at me these first few days.

I asked her if she had met Pedro at some point since we arrived, on his outings for shopping and errands on the street. She assured me that for nothing in the world would she seek him out again, as she had already made her final choice. But the truth is that I feared for her, who could also be equally attacked.

On the fourth day I got up, hesitating, and gradually resumed my boxing work, taking care now not to forget the open door. In fact, I was now afraid, yes, afraid of a new attack, unlikely though, but which haunted me even in my sleep. I had been hit harder than I thought.

Finally, we barely finished our preparations and called the moving truck. When everything was loaded into the vehicle and it drove off, we suddenly felt lighter and freer. We embraced, celebrating with joyful laughter, and went to have tea on a side street of Augusta. The next day we would deliver the key to the apartment to the real estate office, settle the debts and leave for the south. Tonight, we would sleep on tent mattresses on excursions. We would camp out in the large living room of the empty apartment, which seemed like a light and bizarre adventure. Only there would be no “bivouac fire”. That expression came to me from the depths of my memory, from adventure books, from my childhood.

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We set up the tent on the floor, driving the stakes into the dirt from four heavy pots we pulled out of the hallway. We had fun turning off the light and using only a flashlight and a lighted candle. We'd imagine we'd be out in the bush, camping, and we'd have a night of lovemaking in our tent, crawling into our sleeping bags, naked, quivering with excitement. But before that we would drink mate, with the accessories and ingredients that I had taken care to leave in the kitchen: the kettle, the gourd and the pump, in addition to the packet of special mate, the “bitter”.

During the evening, I told Aline the long story of Cupidus and Psyche, according to Lucius Apuleius' wonderful classic version of his “Metamorphoses or the Golden Ass”. Under the light of the lantern, I could observe Aline's pure, childish eyes following the story of the beautiful lovers, and her naivety made me overflow with love. I wanted to swallow my girl, so enchanted...

by her enchantment. I could see the trip in her eyes, the child she was in her soul. Perhaps she recognized herself in that Psyche, who was truly herself. That, after all, is the purpose and meaning of this wonderful story: to make pure and beautiful souls recognize themselves, divine, as Mother Nature wanted them to be.

Then, bed, before we got too sleepy. Naked and emotional, the two of us got into the only sleeping bag. Aline would finish healing me. Her delicate touches would give me back the pleasure of love, and soon we would sleep happily in each other's arms.

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When I was a child, Vati would put me to sleep, telling stories from history. I owe him my love for the art of sto-rytelling, at which he was, in my eyes, an unsurpassed master. He, with his gift for storytelling, made me travel through time and space through the history of so many peoples. I felt like I was living in those times, not just listening and taking a belated knowledge. No, I lived through all the great phases of history, I was a witness and even a protagonist. But I identified myself above all with the great artists. Their biographies somehow spoke of me. The lives of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were my life. I cannot fully explain this phenomenon of full identification, but it is certainly spiritual, and perhaps even reincarnationist in nature. I may, more modestly, have been women or men linked to these artists: lovers, who somehow embodied their dreams. I have some clues as to who these women were. No! I was most of the time the protagonists of the great art scene. I have no way of proving this, but I have serious evidence. I will speak of this throughout my writings, as I have already done, in terms. That must be the reason why I never forget a single line of everything I read or heard from my father's lips: I lived, in some way, everything I read or learned. It is not, therefore, a matter of memory, but of experience. Identi-fication. But, on the other hand, aren't all artists like that? An artist's soul contains all souls, I am convinced of that.

We are ready to go back to the South. I still feel some pain, but I will hide what happened from Aline as long as possible. I have the impression, sometimes, that she looks at me with distrust and a certain concern. But I'm not sure

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about that. How would she react if she knew the truth of what happened? Would she blame me, in some way, for what happened?

I'm afraid of it, actually. But if, on the contrary, she believes I was an innocent victim, wouldn't that also change her feelings about me? Wouldn't her revolt make her lose her peace? The innocence of her love for me, made of a sweet dream that I insist on nurturing in her, in our beautiful daily life together...

With our backpacks, we took a taxi to Congonhas, to return by plane. We're tired of moving jobs, and we couldn't handle another bus trip. Soon we will be in the South. And in our Pampa. I want to see us right away on that little train, then at the Pampiana station, and then...

in Galdério's cart, my dear Galdério with the big mus-taches and the sweet talk. Embrace Matilde, wait for Rôdo, who should return from somewhere in the world, my adventurous little brother...

The Estancia awaits us. My grandparents' vineyard is still juicy, and the production of our wine persists. But the inherited crop, the wonderful old crop, is already be-ginning to pay off our debts, and we will be able to live later on more modest crops. I will also continue to sell my paintings and my books. The ones I produce, of course, not my father's inheritance, untouchable. My first novel is in the press (and it's all true, what is written there). It's ironic and wonderful to sell the narratives of my own life, just because I know how to perceive the hid-den beauty in the simplest event, in a creaking of a door, in a sidelong glance, in a sigh or a moan loaded with meanings. In the love I carry in me, spilling it along the way, squandering it without any usury. By pouring

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myself into life and onto paper, I will be a river, a water-fall, and never a stagnant puddle. Not even a sad lake. This is why I pay heavy fees for my generosity: the inva-sion, the aggressions even, the rape of my body, if not my soul!

Aline goes back to picking flowers with me. We went riding together again, sometimes naked. I set up my stu-dio in the big house, occupying many rooms, only re-specting Vati's library, and Lucia's rooms and that of my nephews Hans and Christian. Patrícia and Pedrinho's too, for when they get back. But I dismantled Solange's room. I will not let the assassin return to this house, nor her ac-complice, Geraldo. Oh! But how can I reconcile this se-vere attitude with the longing and the need I have to see and hug my dear Patrícia and Pedrinho? I don't really know what to do. Without their mother, my dear nephews will only appear here when they are young. She will hold them back, the villain. It's her revenge! There! I can't think about it, or I'll suffer too much. Aline knows my heart and observes my look that she knows how to probe in depth. Does she know, in her unconscious, of the rape? It's quite possible. Sometimes, she looks like she's going to interrogate me, but she only does it for a split second, with her eyes. Her big blue eyes, which bathe my life with their sweetness...

I am also afraid of my dreams, which may suddenly betray me by turning into the nightmares of the memory of those moments, and making me scream in my troubled sleep. This has already happened. I barely resisted Aline's worried questioning. I almost revealed everything. How long will I resist? How to store such weight without shar-ing it? Oh! No, I cannot give in to the temptation of shar-ing that scabrous confidence. Aline will suffer if I do, or

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she will despise me if she suspects some hidden guilt in my being. Oh! Head! Stop tormenting yourself! Are you not, Alma, strong in your joy? In your chosen “joye de vivre”? So, resist and sing, heart of the Alma!

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Chapter Two. The Cave

Everything is ready, the studio works, and I'm starting to paint again. I feel that I will enter a new phase in my painting. My abstract pampian phase that will give you something to talk about. The first picture, a huge canvas, has the rhythm of the coxilhas and the vague sound of the minuano, believe me. Aline was as emotional as I was with the result, after so long that I had stopped painting. Unfortunately, I have to interrupt work before starting a second canvas. I need to go to Alegrete to buy colours, or even Novo Hamburgo, if I don’t find the material I need. Aline will accompany me, of course, and we'll be back in two days. Galdério will take us to the station.

We are back. The little train stops, and I can already see Galdério. He seems a little gloomy to me. What will it be? My heart squeezes a little. I know this man, trans-parent to me, with those little almond-shaped eyes of re-mote Guarani ancestry.

When getting off the train, Galdério barely looks me in the eye, picking up our backpacks to put in the cart. I put my hand on his arm and question him with my eyes.

“Miss Alma, I may have some bad news. Your sister Solange was here, with your brother-in-law Geraldo. She seemed to guess you were out. She arrived with a truck and five helpers. Two remained, armed with carbines, in charge. She forbade me to go near the big house. I couldn't do anything. For a whole day, it was an in and

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out of crates and more crates. I don't know what. When they left, I ran to check the objects in the house, including your father's library. I feared for those books, which I know you love. But it was all there. Apparently, nothing was touched. I don't understand. If those books were gone, I guarantee I would try, on horseback, at a gallop, to catch up and intercept the truck, with my life, if necessary. But, Dona Alma, I don't understand...”

I had a start, my heart squeezed, I almost fainted. “The bottles! The bottles!”, I screamed. I ran to the big house accompanied by Galdério and Aline, scared. With a bat-tery-operated flashlight, we went down to the first cellar, I felt the wall that had opened and cast the beam of light on the desolation that awaited us: the shelves were empty! Not a single bottle, apart from two or three smashed on the floor amid puddles of wine, surely by ac-cident. I had vertigo. I was supported by Galdério and Aline, who dragged me out while I stretched out my arms into the void. I was in a state of shock. I was stolen. Solange and Geraldo, those bastards robbed me. The re-sort was lost! No, it couldn't be. I would chase them. I would report them. I would put the police after them. An entire vintage was a police case, even Interpol. That! I should turn my gaze south to Uruguay. Solange would not be foolish to go north, it would be easier for me to track her. South to the border!

“Aline, Galdério, Let's go to the border, I know Solange, she knows Montevideo well. Galdério, you're going to drive the car, no buggy. I'll try to find Rôdo on his cell phone. He needs to help me. C'mon C'mon!”

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The gaucho is a fighting man, everyone knows that. His good nature was perhaps contaminated by the prox-imity of the “Castilians” who are fierce, explosive. But the gaucho is more dangerous, unfathomable like an In-dian, and we cannot easily see what goes behind those eyes when they become fixed. In fact, we should pull a knife right away when those eyes get like that. Some na-tive intellectuals even say that it is necessary to make im-mediate use of the knife (which has to have a silver han-dle) before the other person does. But don't hesitate, when you notice that look, because you won't get a sec-ond chance!

On our farm, among the farmhands, there was a story of one named Roderigo, who had killed a partner with whom he had separated so many oxen, which looked like brothers. Interrogated by his former boss, he declared that his partner had looked at him fixedly for the first time, “and since I was engaged, it was him or me!”

Among male pawns, there are many old codes of be-havior that are lost in the night of time. I never got very close to them, always making Galdério “my faithful knight”, my intermediary. I could trust him for the rea-sons I already told in the first volume, but also because when a man like that simply loves you with respect, you can sleep nestled in his arms, if you have to do it in the middle of the pampa, to shelter under his “pala” in the middle of the Minuan.

We arrived at the Uruguayan border, after a few hours of frantic and useless running. We weren't going to inter-cept the truck, that would be impossible as it had already left for more than a day. We would have to follow their

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“trail”, find clues, information. As I began this process, however, I had from the beginning the feeling that I was confronted with a conspiracy. The Uruguayans were playing dumb. Had Solange and Geraldo corrupted eve-ryone, bribed them, from the border agents to the attend-ants and owners of the gas stations where we stopped? It was possible. But I wouldn't be discouraged. I had seen signs that I was right to head south. I had to get to Mon-tevideo and look for the best restaurants in the capital right away. Or the best distributor. But... then I realized that I was unarmed, had no proof of my ownership of those bottles. How could I claim her? Perhaps with my simple identity as Solange's sister, therefore, co-heiress! But for that I needed to call my lawyer. He needed to come here. But what if Solange had gone to Punta de Leste, or even Mar del Plata, Argentina? It was likely, since there are large hotels there for tourists from all over the world. I started to feel bewildered, or rather, “disillu-sioned”. I decided to stop in Montevideo and wait for the lawyer.

Contacted, doctor Loredano arrived after a day. I was with Aline and Galdério at the Paradiso Hotel, a reason-able three-star on Tamayo Street. The lawyer arrived with his briefcase, with the property documents of the es-tancia, the sharing form, etc. Everything we needed to claim ownership of our wine. Even the original of my grandfather's letter, which was reproduced on the back label of the bottles, and even the sketches of my circular design of the labels. Any judge would consider the sales already made invalid and confiscate the crop until the end of the process. I knew this was dangerous. It could para-lyze sales for years, said the lawyer, until the release of the “corpus delicti”, that is, the bottles themselves.

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I finally started to cry, something I hadn't had time to do until that moment. I cried and cried, full of self-pity, until I was called to order by my Aline, who almost had to slap me. Brave girl! I wiped away the tears and pointed my lips for her to kiss them to encourage me. She smiled and did so with warmth. She gave it to me next, with an-other smirk, a slap on the ass that made me feel more feminine than ever, which was funny coming from a girl as delicate as she was. I was now ready to start the fight again.

My readers, my friends, who have been following my adventures since the beginning, cry with me: we discov-ered signs that Solange had changed all the labels, for all the vintage. She had tried to lose her crime easily, since no one knew the “Ara dos Pampas” well yet, and she would sell my wine with the solemn title of “Red Hara-gano”, which I found inspired, surprisingly. I was lost. My sister was killing me. I would go poor, quickly. I spent some time tracking the bottles in the capital, and then I went to Punta de Leste and Mar del Plata. Solange had already sold eight hundred bottles, by my count. I started to give everything up for lost. In a hotel in the lat-ter resort town, I came across an Arab sheik and his en-tourage. He immediately stopped and removed his unfail-ing dark glasses, and with his characteristic goatee and burnishes, he first exclaimed two words in Arabic, which I identified as “Alah-uakbár!” (God is great!) Then he ad-dressed me in Spanish, in a strange French accent:

“Miss, allow me to introduce myself: Sheikh Ali-al-Mouthassin-al-Akbarame, your valet. Will you do me the honor of having him at my breakfast?”

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I was disconcerted for a moment, thinking of a herd of camels heading towards my stay, while I was incorpo-rated, dressed as an odalisque, into a harem of the Ara-bian Nights. Incredible as it may seem, Aline noticed this mirage in my gaze and dug her nails into my waist, in her characteristic way, when jealous. I shuddered and smiled, lowering my eyes without answering anything, making a very Western hand gesture, meaning: “take it easy, my sheik, I'm committed”, and we walked away.

The truth is that, like a little girl, I cherished this fan-tasy for a few days, especially at bedtime, when I always allow myself to daydream and surrender to the wonderful mirages of my imagination. I saw myself, for example, crossing a desert in a canopy on a swaying camel, fully veiled, heading to a wonderful palace in the middle of an oasis. Locked up in seraglio, I would wait for my sheikh, reclining all day on cushions on beautiful Persian rugs, or bathing in tepidariums, or “Turkish baths”, listening to lutes and getting hyper-eroticized by my own skin so white, that the desert sun would never touch. I would never see a grain of sand up close again, except for the hourglass, and my flesh would decay as slowly as the fall-ing grain. I would only have to tell stories and more sto-ries to my sheikh (now a sultan) and my life would de-pend solely on my gift of narrating... and giving myself whole, like a delicious blancmange, to the indefatigable sultan who made me his favorite forever.

Back at the ranch, I spent a few days like a zombie, wandering around the mansion unable to paint. Aline probed my face, waiting for new breath, and tried to get up, without quite knowing how. Sometimes she would take off all her clothes and dance naked for me in the middle of the studio, beautiful and graceful like an

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Athenian or Spartan girl. Like Phryne, rather. I smiled sadly and hugged her, but the sadness didn't go away. Preoccupation with the idea of approaching ruin was in-terfering with the “pleasure principle” that I had as the guiding thread of my life.

Finally, Rôdo arrived like a furious tiger. He entered excitedly, saying:

“Alma, I'm going to kill Solange, I'll kill her. There's nothing else to do but this. If all is lost, only revenge re-mains. I will kill her with our father's dagger. After that, I don't care anymore.”

I grabbed his head and placed it tight between my breasts, which he sucked in for a long time. Aline looked at us, mesmerized. I said:

“Rôdo, don't do it. I know you're really capable of it. And we would all be disgraced forever. Greek tragedy seems to haunt this house, and Aline was already dancing like a hetaira, foreshadowing it. I don't want any of that. I prefer to go further, to the East, I mean, to remember the Tao. Let life flow, destiny. We are powerless before God's designs, and if we recognize this, He will have mercy on us. Otherwise, he will continue to punish us with the sleepless nightmares we are living. Come, my dear ones, let us lie down, the three of us, side by side, on the same bed and surrender ourselves together to a pleas-ant, relaxed sleep, entrusted to the hand of our God who will gently breathe his advice into our sleeping soul.”

We did so, and a solemn and calm hush fell over our ranch at last.

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I decided to find out about the whereabouts of Patrícia and Pedrinho, my beloved nephews. How would they be in the middle of this mess? How did they see their moth-er's relationship with that unnatural uncle? Her suffering, which I imagined, squeezed my heart when I thought about it. After a few phone calls, I finally got through to Patrícia on her cell phone. She continued, thank God, to live in a lover's dream, while Pedrinho seemed much more worried. My dear kid took the device and said:

“Aunt Alma, I'm going to run away from here, I'm go-ing there, with you. I don't stay here anymore. They want to put us in boarding school, I can't stand it. Patricia just sighs and dreams about her boyfriend, but I don't want any of that. I want to be with you forever, Aunt Alma. Come get me, I beg you, aunt. If not, I'll hit the road alone, on foot, and I'll get there anyway.”

“No, no, Pedrinho, wait. I'll get you. I'm going with Aline and Galdério. We're going to be together, you'll see. Stay there. We'll be there soon. Within two days at most. See you soon, my dear. A kiss on your little mouth.”

I consulted Doctor Loredano by phone, and he warned me that if I did that, Solange could even accuse me of kidnapping. I slammed down the phone, I didn’t want to know. If I can't count on him, it's make or break, I have to follow my heart. I'm going to get those kids.

Besides, something told me that I first needed to gather these kids around me before I could come up with a new idea or solution to the ranch's problem. The danger of huge debt, mostly unpaid, still lingered and required

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new superhuman efforts for someone like me. I fell into despair, I weakened in the midst of storms, I had vertigo of dissipation within my soul, against which I had to fight. The “fantasy” of poverty had, within me, a hyp-notic attraction. Perhaps my poet's soul would find fruit-ful, ancient echoes of that propitiatory poverty, in its suf-fering, of that same poetry of all times.

No! I had to react to myself. Fight, be practical. I would lay down the pen, that is, the ballpoint pen, for a while. I would lay down the brush and the palette. It would leave the canvases halfway through in progress, unfinished. I could always go back to them later, paints on paints, what is underneath works as a base, elements under transparencies, textures, plastic experiences that enrich the final result, the painting, the work. This is the glory of painting, as of life: nothing is lost, everything adds up to take with us, laden with riches, to death. Who said that nothing is taken from life?

Instinct told me I should go back to the other's crime scene. At least as an investigator, you always have to go back to the crime scene, to discover new clues, new clues. But I left that, also by instinct, for the return. I would do it together with the children. They have a different look that would see things that I could not distinguish in my personal focus.

So, I asked Galdério to take the car out of the garage and go to Novo Hamburgo, looking for my dear Patrícia and Pedrinho. Aline accompanied me.

I felt the trip like a race, like the gallop of saving cav-alry, without quite knowing why. Would Solange be back too, in the same race? I needed to arrive earlier, to remove my nephews from their home. Then we would see. I

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would accuse Solange of her crimes, to justify my act of...

rescue, shelter, “moral protection” of these children.

Would that catch? It was necessary to try.

We arrived at last in that city, where I myself had spent an important part of my childhood. I rang the bell, Patrícia opened the door and hugged me, and Pedrinho joined us in that long hug. I kissed them on the lips and said:

“Children, come with me, pack a little bag each, and only what is most precious to you, as objects. We must leave soon. Your mother could be on her way and arrive at any moment. C'mon C'mon!”

Alicia, Solange's maid, looked on inertly at all that, and only said, moved:

“Dona Alma, I don't know what I'm going to say to Dona Solange, but I feel like you're doing the right thing. The house is worse than ever with that man here. A big shame, Dona Alma! That man is bad, he sucks. All they talk about is money... and that's not good for the poor children. Good thing you came. I'll hope they stay with you” (she wiped away a tear).

“Alicia, I'll look for you too, one day, so you can con-tinue with the children, if you want. I don't know if I'll be able to keep them, if the law will allow it. It's going to be a long fight…”. (I hugged this good woman tight, and we left)

The children, in the car, with their small luggage in the trunk, greeted Galdério and Aline affectionately. We were finally returning to the ranch.

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When we arrived from the long trip, the children woke up, got out of the car and walked around the flowery gar-den, dazzled, soon starting to run, inspecting the territo-ries that were so dear to them. Afterwards, I took them to bathe. I bathed Pedrinho in the bathtub and wanted to do the same with Patrícia, but that was already a young girl, she preferred her privacy. Then, bathed and dressed, she said to them:

“Let's have supper soon, Matilde made us something light. We're going to bed early, early tomorrow morning, I'll need you ready, my little spies. Let's find something important to save the resort, okay?” (The children hugged me once more, and I was shaking with emotion... and ap-prehension).

In the kitchen, while Matilde was preparing supper, I confided in her that she was also worried. She said:

“But, Alma, girl, how can you stay with the kids? And Solange, what will she do? She will take them from you. You won't be able to keep them, they have a mother!”

“I know, Matilde, I know. But I have to try. They can-not continue as they were. Their mother has committed crimes, and she has been making an unhealthy environ-ment, morally speaking, for the children. You know eve-rything. Are you on my side?”

“Of course, girl, to death. You know you can count on me... only, I don't know...”

“We'll see later, Matilde, let's take care of these chil-dren. I have plans, leave it to me.”

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The prairie sun rose and I with it, very early. The birds were singing again, it seemed to me, after a long time... I was the one who hadn't had an ear for them, for a while. How beautiful is everything here! How I love this house, these gardens, the orchard, the vineyard... the coxilha, the entire Pampa. I love everything and everyone, but I need to neutralize my sister's evil, that even her I love. I wish I could separate her from her own evil. Evil, are the peo-ple themselves bad? Isn't it something that's stuck in them? Is it not an infection? A contamination? At that moment in my thoughts, I remembered the confidence of an alcoholic friend who, dazzled by the discovery of his illness, which, after all, gave meaning to the painful drunkenness of a lifetime spent amid dissipation and per-plexity, after his testimony in a session from AA he had heard from a veteran comrade, during the break, the fol-lowing:

“Comrade, you talk about your illness as if it were one thing, and you, another. Your illness and you are the same thing. If you understand this, you will be saved, not by healing, but by stopping the evil in you, which is all you can do.”

I put the thoughts aside when the children invaded my room, greeting us, and got under our sheets, laughing and tickling me. Oh! Feeling their bodies, warm, next to me, makes me feel like extensions of my own flesh... and my blood, warm, loving, ancestral. I want them with me for-ever. If they separate us, I will bleed.

Then we went to bathe, the three of us together, this time under the shower. We played a lot under the shower, with the soap jumping out of our hands, in a happy clatter.

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The fact that Patrícia was already a young girl and I was a woman didn't scare Pedrinho, who felt fulfilled, as we all do after all. And yet I imagined they were doing it, perhaps, for the first time. Solange would never allow the two of them to bathe together, much less with her, that fat matron! (I chuckled). After being bathed, combed and even perfumed, we went to have breakfast, which Ma-tilde had prepared for us. Rôdo was already at the table, he had returned from Livramento, where he had been looking for clues about our wine, and to file a complaint at the police station, in preparation for the lawsuit we were going to file against Solange. The children rushed to kiss the young uncle whom they loved with admira-tion.

After a pleasant breakfast, I commanded:

“Children, come with me and Uncle Rôdo, grab your battery-operated flashlights, let's go down to the cellar to see if we discover anything. I had a dream I need to check...”

The children, excited, went to get the lanterns, and soon we were descending the steps of the first cellar, and groping that false wall, which opened. Our four lanterns were directed towards the desolate depths of the immense cellar, a veritable underground hall whose iron rings on the walls, only now noticed, denounced its nature as a sinister slave quarter, the scene of the horrors of a bygone era. We head towards the bottom, until we find a barrier of loose stones in the middle of the extensive wall of liv-ing rock. It was built haphazardly, the stones piled up hastily. There was a current of air there. We dropped these stones and entered an extensive hallway, scary, where I saw rats running, spiders and even bats. We

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walked for many minutes in a kind of labyrinth, for there were gloomy niches and side openings that I would not have dared to probe.

We followed the main gallery until we found an un-derground river, which I understood to be the origin of our source in the orchard, with very pure water. I imag-ined trapped slaves, dying of thirst so close to that stream of clear water, and I shuddered. We continued to probe the tunnel with our flashlights. Rôdo was in front, the children in the middle, and I behind, providing the rear, until we found natural, dangerous, slippery steps, which we descended to find an immense vaulted hall, full of stalactites. A cave. Did we find the “Salamanca do Ja-rau”?

Rôdo looked me in the eyes with the same thought, coming simultaneously in us, from the depths of our childhood. Our eyes sparkled under the cross beams of our flashlights. Then we started to inspect the great hall with its luxurious limestone chandeliers and its stalag-mites, true sculptures of the “numes” of our pampa. I thought I could make out Negrinho do Pastoreio, Martim Fierro on horseback, with his boleadera hanging down, and Rodrigo Cambará with his guitar in his hand. Finally we found a new gallery and started walking again, now with even more fear. Something impelled us forward. We shouldn't go back, as Dante and Virgílio would cross the last “bolge”, the “Judeca”, where traitors are chewed. I was only afraid to find Lucifer himself, with three faces, one chewing Judas, and in the other two mouths, Solange and Geraldo. I had goosebumps all over... but I said, “Come on, kids! And I saw light at last. We had arrived where the funnel inverted and we found ourselves under

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the sun of the pampas, the maximum star, shining over our heads.

Rôdo, intrigued, asked me:

“Alma, what were you looking for, what is the mean-ing of our ‘journey’ through an empty cave? I didn't un-derstand. Did you expect to find the bottles, hidden, a part of the vintage? Or a treasure? Come on, enlighten us.”

I looked Aline and my nephews in the eye, and they were equally in the air. They were also waiting for the answer.

“I was looking for myself, my dears. Myself... and I found myself.”

“What? What? - (the four exclaimed). “What do you mean?”

“My friends, now I can face adversity again, continue to pursue our treasure, our heritage. That's what I mean.”

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Chapter Three. Solange’s Judgment

When old Joachim Welt planted his vineyard, the neighbors, other ranchers, came to mock him. He was the subject of laughter and jesting. To them it even seemed like an unmanly plantation in a land of cattle, beef jerky, which drank the blood of the herd, fed on that blood, and not on the delicate blood of the grapes. Mate, ‘bitter’, complemented this virility, and everything that was es-sential was called masculine. As for the grapes and the vine, the word vineyard was an attempt to masculinize that activity. Prejudice was big around here, and “ma-chismo” was a characteristic sung in prose and verse, like a glorious timbre of gaucho qualities.

On the other hand, his women were the prerogative of femininity, and that fabulous Anita was not easily under-stood in her time, but rather treated badly, that's the truth. But history, fortunately, has done her justice. As is now done to that even more fabulous woman, Cleopatra, of antiquity, whose intellectual and even scientific virtues have already been discovered. The most intelligent and wise woman of her time, perhaps the only one in many centuries, with such greatness. We women suffer from an internal contradiction, heirs that we are to a serious por-tion of men's machismo, which we introject and repro-duce. Have you seen how mothers in this country of ours raise their children to perpetuate the stagnant and stereo-typed roles of the war male and the female breeder and housewife. This is all the more contradictory as we now want our competent daughters to compete in a “unisex” job market.

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How will women be able to correspond to the dual role that now falls to them, if these roles remain dissociated in their essence? How to merge them harmoniously? How to reconcile, as Jung's disciples want, Anima and Animus, in the same soul? I say disciples, because, ap-parently, Dr. Jung thought that only men had Anima, in their deep unconscious, while women had a multitude of animus. A legion, as he said. A strange contradiction, since Freud, like the ancient Greeks, believed that the woman, in herself, was already the Anima, alive, in flesh and blood. Theory, after all, is dynamic, and I, Alma Welt, recognize myself as a total woman, as a woman-artist. I am an Anima-possessed, proud of my universal femininity, which makes me love Aline as much as I love Rôdo, Vati and the other men and women who have passed through my life. I know, however, that I need An-imus, in me, inside me, I need to raise the warrior Ani-mus, or I will succumb, I will surrender to my vertigo of loving surrender, to my need to give myself, even to be possessed to the verge of pleasurable annihilation. This tendency in me has already victimized me more than once: I was invaded, injured, humiliated. And the great danger I run is always my own acquiescence, my uncon-scious complicity with these crimes, which only makes me cry and cry, voluptuously.

I try to live the happiness of being here with Aline, Rôdo, Patrícia, Pedrinho, Matilde and Galdério, my little affective universe, in the midst of the concerns that assail me, with renewed pressure from creditors. Judicial col-lections, visits by bailiffs, subpoenas are already starting again. Rôdo gets excited, wants to expel them.

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Sometimes, indeed, he does so with a fury that might incur retaliation from men more dangerous than my little brother. I need new inspiration. I start to pray to God. But I think about conjuring up the numerals again, and the lesser gods, who seem a little more complicit in human passions than the great Father, who hovers higher, more distant. The biggest concern that still haunted me was Solange coming to pick up the kids, which could happen at any moment. I dreaded the confrontation that I knew would be painful, perhaps violent. Oh! How right I was! That day came at last... and it was the Day of Wrath, though not divine.

I had a dream about this confrontation, perhaps the re-sult of my worries. And that made me, happily, wake up on a war footing. I asked Rôdo to open the forgotten room, locked for so long, in our estancia's armory. Full of racks of shotguns, carbines of coarse caliber, a few hunting. Rôdo distributed the weapons among the farm-hands, putting them on alert, instructing them with a de-fense plan.

As I predicted, the day arrived. Sinister cars ap-proached the ranch and entered the gate, without re-sistance, parking in front of the house and unloading a dozen armed men. Solange got out of the first car, and arrogantly, with her hands on her hips, in her suit and high-heeled boots, always a little plump, her hair in a bun, she called out to me as I found myself on the porch in front of the large door to our solar... We exchange insults:

“Alma, you thief, give me my children, you kidnap-per! Hand them over now, you criminal!”

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“Criminal art thou, murderer, thief, destroyer of our forefathers' sacred heritage. You and your accomplice are not worthy of these children. Thou shalt not carry them but over my dead body!”

Matilde kept Patrícia and Pedrinho hugging her in my room. The children were shaking, I learned later, putting their hands over their ears, fearing the explosions they anticipated. Patricia was crying, and Pedrinho was pale and paralyzed. Our pawns surrounded us, rifles pointed at Solange and her men, who in turn pointed theirs at us. Rôdo at my side wielded his clavinote that looked more like a cannon. I already saw the “viola in pieces”, so to speak. A spark would be enough for everything to ex-plode, and I feared for everyone, for myself, for Aline, for Rôdo, for my men, and even for Solange. We were at a very dangerous impasse. When weapons are aimed at each other, the reason hangs by a thread, which wants to break, by the ancestral call of strength. From the primi-tive in us.

So... God intervened. They entered through our gate, five vehicles full of armed police with the Sheriff ahead, accompanied by Dr. Loredano.

Matilde, later I found out, fearful for all of us, had tel-ephoned our lawyer seeking his intercession with the po-lice, even foreseeing what would ultimately happen re-garding the fate of the children.

The police chief made us lay down our arms, he even took them away from everyone at the last moment, be-cause if he took a minute longer to arrive, everything would be lost, and we would all be dead. But what I feared most happened:

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“Sheriff” Solange screamed, “Alma kidnapped my children. I demand that you hand them over and arrest her and her accomplices. This is heinous crime. Arrest the criminal!”

The Sheriff was disturbed, but Doctor Loredano whis-pered in his ear, and he ordered:

“Miss Alma, deliver the children to their mother. Come on, where are they?”

I wanted to die. I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming in pain. But I answered helplessly:

“Chief, she is the criminal, who stole almost five thou-sand bottles from our grandparents' inheritance, and ran away with her brother-in-law, her accomplice. Where is he, that coward, now he's not here, is he? So as not to compromise her with his presence? I am protecting your children from this spurious, criminal alliance of this gang. Chief, don't take them, I beg you!”

And I fell to my knees with my face in my hands, sob-bing.

The Sheriff hesitated for a moment, but Dr. Loredano passed by me, who put his hand on my shoulder, meaningfully, as if to say: ‘Calm down, Alma, it has to be like this... Wait....’

The children were brought in by Matilde and the police chief. Then, suddenly, they broke free and clung to me desperately. And I to them. The children and I were crying and screaming as the sheriff and two policemen tried to separate us. We were struggling to keep hold of each other and... it was a dramatic scene, alas, you can

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imagine. I had to have my arms held from behind to be stopped, I was screaming like crazy, and I thought the pain would kill me. I felt as if the children had been ripped from my womb, as if I had been amputated. I don't know how I could be like that; I didn't know myself, all my philosophy had been emptied and... I was bleeding like a newly born mother whose children have been stolen. When I remember that, I still get upset, and it's hard to believe that I could have been capable of all that. Of almost killing, perhaps, and of dying for the children I didn't have and who, for some mystery, were mine, were mine!

The children were handed over to Solange who put them in the car in the back, with a henchman in the middle of them, holding them. They cried and shouted my name: Aunt Alma, Aunt Alma!

And they left, all of them, the men now unarmed, and I was left there, lying on the floor, with my face in the porch soil, sobbing, devastated. “Patricia... Pedrinho...”

Matilde, kneeling beside me, patted my back and head, motherly, and wept too. Rôdo standing next to me, his eyes filled with tears. Aline held my other hand and sobbed. The sun was setting on the horizon, and with it my soul.

I spent many days in a deep depression while Aline took care of me, feeling sorry for my poor Aline, so young and inexperienced, caught up in the turmoil my life had become, but of which she did not complain. Her dedication, her love, were being tested and proving to be

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sublime. I had to rise up, be worthy of her, and spare her these sufferings for my sake.

Rôdo kept trying to recover our inheritance, the lost crop, but I was no longer interested, as if my mission had already been accomplished in that regard. All I could think of was a way to get my nephews away from their mother and stay with them forever, even though I knew that was practically impossible. Unless I won the case, I brought against her for the theft of the estate and… at-tempted murder. For this last charge I needed the testi-mony of Alberto, my drunken brother-in-law, but one I counted on, as I had earned his loyalty after all. We would all meet in court.

Doctor Loredano began to instruct me on the details of the process, and what I should or should not say in court. He was concerned about the undeniable fact of my kidnapping, even though there were mitigating reasons for my action. But he knew Solange would counterattack and involve Aline and Rôdo in her counterattack. Be-sides, I knew, knowing her, that she would slander us, raising and scandalously exposing the nature of my rela-tionship with Aline... and even with Rôdo. It was going to be the scandal of the century in the private sphere, in Rio Grande do Sul.

Days passed, weeks and months. I had lost my happi-ness. Fate punished me, so I saw it. God punished me, for my stubborn pursuit of happiness, for my attachment to people, to the love of people, and perhaps, of things. Aline was desolate, I tried, with meager resources (only those of her immense tenderness) to get up, to make my

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love come back to her as it was before: full of joy and pleasurable exaltation. A fine rain fell on my soul, and I dreamed of a dark homeland, full of a nostalgia more painful than longing.

But Aline didn't think about leaving me. Even on this somber crossing of the slow, dark, subterranean river of my soul, she would accompany me, beloved Psyche, in the glory of her candor, of her unattainable purity of soul. She was only afraid of my complexity, which devastated her, which she could not fully understand. But she hoped.

One morning I got up, lighter again. I had gone up. I myself don't know how or when, in my sleep, in the mid-dle of the night. Will my soul hit bottom? Had he stamped his foot, had he gone up on the same impulse as his de-scent? Everything is cycles. Praise the God of our souls! Not helpless, not alone, after all.

I was ready for court. For legal and moral confronta-tion. To pour my heart out in public more than I do here, my faceless readers. I would open my heart and soul. The judge would be moved, the jury would be moved. The children would be returned to me. I believed in it.

Alegrete was in an uproar. The protagonists of a drama that bordered on tragedy would play with the weapons of their truths. Me at least. Solange most likely with those of her lies. And so it was.

At the sound of the wooden gavel, the session was opened. The room was crowded. My lawyer, who had in-structed me so much, seemed concerned, knowing my passionate impulsiveness, and tried to guide me until the last minute. I, looking back, saw Matilde and Galdério,

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Lúcia, Rôdo and Alberto looking at me attentively. They feared for me. That I would lose control, as they saw one day. They would be called as witnesses. Alberto was al-most sober, if you can put it that way. Would he handle it? I had to trust, his testimony was essential. But I was not the defendant, Solange was, accused first by me of theft of an inheritance, conspiracy and attempted murder. Expectation was stamped on the faces of the entire audi-ence, and the journalists wielded their notepads, cameras had been banned. On the other hand, there was a designer who observed our faces and posture. I was drawn in an intrusive way, and I was reminded of Guilherme De Faria, my only authorized portrait artist. He would do me justice. Oh! Vanity, how you persist!

After the judge's warning that he would not tolerate demonstrations, Solange was called to the dock. Fat, bit-ter, with her stiff Nazi kapo face, God forgive me!

The prosecutor formally charged her and began ques-tioning her.

“Your name, ma'am, please.”

“Solange Mothersohnn-Welt,” she said.

“Won't that be Welt-Mothersohnn, ma'am?”

“No sir. We Germans put our husband's name before our family of origin.”

“Ah!... And are you the sister of your accuser, Alma Welt, present here? Yes, or no?”

“Yes, she is my sister, to our family's shame.”

“Objection, Your Honor,” interrupted the prosecutor.

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“Protest accepted. The defendant is limited to answer-ing the prosecutor's questions.”

“You know that you are accused of the attempted mur-der of your sister Alma, and of the aggravated theft of four thousand, of the five thousand bottles of wine that correspond to your father's estate, to be divided between four direct heirs, the lady herself and her three siblings, as well as two co-heir spouses: her husband and a brother-in-law?”

“No, I don't recognize that!” - Solange replied. “Alma and Rudolf hid this item from the estate from me and planned to sell it without my consent and that of my hus-band, to buy back the entire estate from our creditors who already practically owned it, despoiling it me from my share of the inheritance. I just defended myself, or I would be left with nothing. And I have children to raise, unlike them, with the exception of Lucia.”

“But isn't it true that she tried to murder her sister, locking her up in that dark cellar, which almost killed her, that morning of February 14th, 199... Are you aware of the unspeakable cruelty of her act?”

“No, I don't recognize that. It's slander. There is no evidence of such an action. I wouldn't do that, and the proof is her presence here. I didn't kill her, see?”

“Your Honor, allow me to dismiss the defendant for the time being and call a witness, Mr. Alberto Mother-sohnn, husband of the accused.”

The judge frowned and said:

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“No, Mr. Prosecutor. Don't you know that a husband cannot testify against his wife, or even for her? How ab-surd! Proceed without this testimony.”

There was an oh! desolate, coming from the audience, and also from my mouth. I covered my face with my hands. The designer quickly sketched my gesture, which would appear on the front page of the Diário de Alegrete, and even in the Porto Alegre newspapers, as if I were the defendant, ashamed and tragic.

From then on, judgment began to be reversed and I began to be accused indirectly. Allusion was made to my kidnapping of the children, which Solange angrily em-phasized, of course, foreshadowing her revenge.

I already saw everything lost. I realized, long before the trial ended, that Solange would be acquitted as a mother who defended her children's rights and her right as a mother, to own her. I would be seen as the villain of the story. I was more afraid of what finally happened, at a certain point: she accused me of “lesbianism”, “idle-ness”, incest and the kidnapping of her children. It was a scandal. The audience was agitated, there was pushing, shouting, catcalls, stamping. Two parties were formed that fought each other, and that extended to the congested street by a heated crowd. The judge asked for recess, left and returned immediately, acquitting the defendant and closing the trial. We were besieged by the journalists, Solange and I, and we were pushed out through the crowd. Women tried to touch me, some perhaps out of curiosity or tenderness, others out of hatred. A woman pulled at my cleavage, which ripped, and my breasts popped out. The crowd screamed. I almost fainted and was put in a car that drove off, forcing its way through

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people who were banging on the windows. And I could still hear Solange screaming with one fist in the air and the other hand pointing at me:

“Wait for me, you thief, kidnapper! Thou shalt see! Now it's your turn!”

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Chapter Four. The Prison

As children, Rôdo and I, we had our pact of sacred enjoyment of our territory, which was everything that the eye could encompass that our gaze did not reject out of instinct for curiosity and beauty. In that essential respect we were equal, and that legitimized our love much more than fraternal.

But our sister Solange was one of those elements that our sight and instinct repudiated. She was not beautiful, neither on the outside nor on the inside. Fat, freckled and teasing. A systematic killjoy, whose detestable perfor-mance we soon learned to neutralize with an intuitive cynicism that arose in us, and which Rôdo would elevate to the rank of art. This served, after all, to at least develop a kind of humor that would serve me for the rest of my life, and that would defend me against my own drama-tism, also instinctive.

So, in moments that were exasperating or painful enough to escape this mood thermometer, I never reacted in a southern way. Never like, for example, the Italians or Spaniards react, with fury and anger. But I would simply get a little dizzy, as if intoxicated by a sudden pain... and I would faint, which caused my mother and Matilde immense concern.

Solange, maliciously, was trying to find that tuning fork that would make me switch off, struck like a bolt of lightning. That wasn't easy, because only what reached the core of my sensitivity was capable of that. And she'd never found the key, which lay at the heart of my sense

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of beauty... and purity. It's like I fainted from embarrass-ment... for another human being. As if this human being were blaspheming a god or goddess of which I was a little vestal. And that, precisely, referred to my cult of beauty that guided everything in my life.

It may seem exaggerated, but I was like that. And the most striking thing about this inner attitude, was that the parameter of beauty, for me, was born from myself, from my own body, from a beauty that touched and moved people. White as a small statue of alabaster or even Car-rara marble, my dreamy green eyes and my lips and hair both crimson and gold, I was seen as a holy child, by eve-ryone... except my sister.

As for my mother, she had a contradictory attitude. It was as if she struggled with her own reverence, as if to bow to this dominant aspect in her daughter would be in-curring heresy on her part, in relation to the Catholic doc-trine she professed in its darkest side: what I would come to call, in the future, of “the valley of tears doctrine”.

It was as if my mother, looking at me, said: “What's the use of so much beauty, my daughter, you're going to suffer like the rest of us.” Or: “you will grow old and die, we are nothing, everything is in vain. Let's just pray so we don't go to Hell.”

Oh, Muti, you weren't innocuous, despite everything, and you managed to contaminate me, at least a little, with the awareness of human suffering... and my own suffer-ing. And that made me a poet. Do I, after all, owe it to you?

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Back at the ranch, with Aline, I tried to assimilate this first legal defeat, and prepared myself to find a defense strategy for Solange's counterattack, which I knew would follow.

Aline looked a little scared at the prospect of seeing me as the defendant in a kidnapping case, and maybe a robbery, at the very least. As for the other threats, I didn't believe they were in the penal code, although they in-curred a disturbing social scandal.

I tried not to worry too much, but I met methodically with Dr. Loredano to discuss aspects of the process and the dangers I was running.

At last, the citation arrived. I was summoned to appear at a police station in Novo Hamburgo, and indicted for kidnapping, incest and lesbianism. I protested immedi-ately, assisted by Doctor Loredano, and by Aline, who was very scared. I wasn't willing to assume that word, due to the pejorative tone they lend to it, but the chief added that this was part of the charge, nominally, although there was no possible penalty for these “crimes”. This seemed arbitrary to me, and I demanded that these last two items be removed from the indictment report, as they were not crimes provided for by law. But the police chief refused, showing no sympathy for my situation. And I soon real-ized that it was, somehow, in his interest to keep me in his police station, as he decided (surprisingly!) to im-prison me immediately until the following day, while Doctor Loredano, shaken, left hurriedly to arrange for the habeas-corpus, so that I could face the process in free-dom. Apparently, Solange had gotten witnesses to my crime, and I didn't believe that was coming from poor

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Alicia... or maybe she had been pushed too hard, or even blackmailed, since she had a young son.

I was terrified to be taken (while Aline screamed, for-cibly separated from me) to a collective cell full of women, as I didn't have the full superior.

The police chief and the jailer put me in a cell where there were about a dozen women, of different appear-ances, most of them prostitutes and thieves, who became excited at my entrance and devoured me with their eyes. One of them, masculinized, very strong, exclaimed: “New meat in place!” I feared for my physical integrity. I turned at once and gripped the bars, my face pressed against them, to look out, shivering, and mumbled a soft supplication, which the jailers sadistically ignored.

Then, a divine force suddenly descended on me. I turned and looked compassionately at the women, one by one, as they approached. They stopped and backed away as I walked into the center of the circle they formed and sat down on the floor in the lotus position. Then, one by one, they crouched down or sat down, around, at the be-ginning of a ceremonial that was imposed by the look, or by the aura that appeared in me, later I found out. We were going to celebrate, together at last, something im-portant for all of us women, something we were sorely in need of, and which we were happy about.

In the morning, around eight o'clock, Dr. Loredano, with Aline, arrived with the habeas corpus that he pre-sented to the chief of police and then they entered the jail. The scene they found would astonish and move them:

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I, Alma Welt, was there, among the stray sheep whose eyes showed a new purity and dazzle, attentive to the story I was telling at that moment, after so many until that early morning, and a few hours of sleep without undoing that circle. If we had One Thousand and One Nights, we would use them to unravel the stories that fascinated us, that redeemed us, that united us in the same enchantment, the narrator and the attentive and amazed listeners. I couldn't remember a more apotheotic moment in my life as a narrator. My life was vindicated... and more: it was celebrated!

At the ranch, I surrendered to Aline's caresses and Ma-tilde's motherliness, which I also needed so much. This one said:

“My girl, what a troublemaker you are, since you were a little girl! How could you, being so sweet, arrange so many fights, so many battles in your life? If your father were here this would not happen. He formed a barrier here, on this ranch, against everything that came from outside. Oh! How I miss Doctor Werner... and his piano! That music drove away all evil. I never heard it again.”

“Matilde, I can still hear it!” - I protested. “How could you not hear it? At dusk, at twilight, I hear it in my ears, or in my heart, I don't know... But I hear it distinctly, note by note of Chopin's sonatas and preludes... and Schubert's lieder, which at times sometimes he sang, with his beau-tiful baritone voice. He's still here, Matilde, and will al-ways be here, even for his grandchildren, who will come back to this house and grow up here, you'll see. I know! I know!”

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Matilde, her eyes full of tears, hugged me and we re-mained silent for a long time. And then it seemed to me that I could hear that music in the background, far away, coming from the piano, there in the library, which was my father's true kingdom.

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Old Werner Fiedrich loved painting as well as music and literature. But he didn't have modern pictures around the house, although he seemed to know very well the schools even after impressionism, the post-impression-ists, symbolists, nabis, fauves, expressionists, cubists, etc... even the early abstractionists. But our house, the huge mansion, had walls lined with paintings that indi-cated a preference for European genre painting, from the 19th century, although there were also some 20th century gaucho painters in this sector, such as Weingartner and Sheffel.

The genre I'm referring to was interiors with domestic or curious scenes, some frankly enigmatic, if I may say so. His collector's jewel was, however, from our century, a wonderful Balthus, bought even before the war, when the painter had not yet become the most expensive in the world in that category. But there were true cycles of paintings by the same author, which narrated scenes, sto-ries that people could follow, like a movie. I say there were, because unfortunately these cycles are now lack-ing, with several canvases taken by Solange and Lúcia to their homes in Alegrete and Novo Hamburgo. And one, very valuable, was sold by Rodo to buy his Ferrari.

Among these sets, there was one that described the saga of a little orphan, poor, dazzled by her own story that

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she saw in paintings on the walls of the house that had welcomed her. Among them was one in which the little orphan girl could be seen climbing up, dressed and wear-ing an apron, to a large, empty canopy bed, under the complacent gaze of a maid, nurse, or something similar (she did not seem to be the mistress of the house). This scene moved me, and something in it identified me (even before my mother's death) with that little orphan girl who had been allowed to climb, for a moment, into a large, empty matron's bed. I will never know what the painter was really describing with that scene, but to me it seemed like a return, a return home, in search of a great womb that would welcome the little being thrown into the ad-venture of the world, finally at home again, finding, how-ever, empty own mother's bed. And I wanted to cry when I thought about it.

The big four-poster bed, there was, in my parents' room. But now without the canopy... and without my par-ents. And I wouldn't put my knees on that bed, because I was still traveling around the world, and I hadn't been able to return home, even as that little orphan welcomed. So, I felt it in my soul in those days of struggle when my life was in danger and the little orphans of living parents were still so far from the true mother's bed.

I dreamed of the final scene of that cycle, where a bunch of children would be seen jumping on the bed, playing, I among them, watched by a large smiling face of a woman, magnanimous and welcoming. Oh! How much should I still fight for this to become real!

Doctor Loredano sat with me in the library to instruct me on what I should or shouldn't say in court. He feared my impulsiveness and warned me with that axiom of

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jurists: “He who defends himself, has a fool for a client.” He said: “Alma, keep your mouth shut as much as you can, only answer strictly and objectively what you are asked, let me lead your defense, because you are in more trouble than you think. Your sister hired a prosecutor who is my biggest rival, and the only reason he doesn't hate me is because that doesn't actually exist among us law-yers. But he will want to destroy me, through you, and for that he will resort to even low blows. Are you ready for lows?”

Oh! My chest tightened at the thought of it, which, in fact, I couldn't. What bad things could they say about me if my life had always been guided by truth and love? But Doctor Loredano seemed really concerned about me and my performance in that process. He said:

“Alma, you don't really know evil. You will be treated badly, I warn you, your sister will give Dr. Maia carte blanche to do as he pleases. He will raise true things but lending them a meaning you cannot even imagine. So don't start defending yourself, he'll crucify you. You can-not imagine the skill of that man.”

I confess I was scared. I feared for me, for Aline... and for the children. I was living the scariest days of my life. And the future looked bleak.

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We were 24 hours away from the day of my trial. I was packing a suitcase for the trip to Novo Hamburgo, where I would stay in a hotel, waiting for the moment to go to court. I had heard news of the formation of the jury, all of them naturally unknown to me. Middle-class people,

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and even a proletarian or two. No one from the so-called ruling class, much less ranchers. Anyway, I was in God's hands, but I still couldn't help but fear for my fate. “Lord, take this cup away from me,” I thought, hoping it wasn't blasphemy.

Matilde looked for me in my room, hugged me, looked me deeply in the eyes holding something in her hands that she joined in mine. Her black eyes, gypsy or Moorish, were sad and compassionate. This woman loved me as her daughter, and kissing my hands she placed a silver crucifix in my palm. She said:

“Alma, my little girl, keep this, put it next to your breast, it will protect you, as it has protected me since I received it from my mother. I was more than once in dan-ger here on the Rio Grande and in Uruguay, and it saved me. Someday I will tell you. Come on, keep it, put it around your neck.”

With the crucifix clenched in my fist, I hugged my sweet Matilde once more, and wept. I cried and cried like never before, while my life and my happiness passed be-fore my eyes like a farewell.

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Chapter Five. The Judgement

In the lobby of the hotel, in Novo Hamburgo, at the counter, we checked in, Aline and I. We took a double suite. We would have comfort, and I, perhaps the last de-cent meal, of convicts. These thoughts came to me, dra-matic that I am. It was inevitable.

That night we would love each other like never before, rolling around in bed, squealing and laughing, sighing and moaning, but with a note of despair. I wanted to de-vour my girl, and she me. I drank her saliva, all her juices, like the elixir that would give me strength, me, the weak woman that I am, unprotected that I felt, in the face of the overwhelming forces that threatened me. But I couldn't frighten Aline with my weakness. This girl needed me, my strength, which she still believed in. I couldn't let her down. Until late at night we fell asleep, naked and sweaty, in the hot summer night, hugging each other per-haps for the last time, I thought so before passing out, in a deep sleep like that which precedes death.

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The street in front of the courthouse was crowded. Our car, driven by Galdério, with Matilde alongside and the two of us behind, was intercepted by the crowd and pho-tographers. My photos had already appeared for days in the newspapers that made the biggest fuss, sensational-ists, predicting my conviction. With large dark glasses, as expected, we pushed ourselves into the regurgitating courtroom, packed with an anxious audience. But I must

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say that, before stepping over the threshold, I turned around, took off my sunglasses and faced the crowd so they could see the steadiness of my gaze. As it was morn-ing, there would be no flashes to dazzle me, nor to make my green eyes red. This photo appeared in the newspa-pers the next day, and I was proud of it.

Having taken my place next to Doctor Loredano, in the midst of the hubbub, where all eyes were on me, sud-denly there was silence, shortly before the judge's en-trance. It was Solange, the sullen one, who commanded that silence followed by whispers. Then the judge in his toga entered solemnly and sitting down, struck his gavel and opened the session:

“SILENCE IN THE COURT!”

Then he solemnly declared:

“We are going to proceed with the judgment of the aforementioned defendant, for the crime of kidnapping. Prosecutor, begin with identifying the accused.”

There was a slight buzz, I'm not sure why, as the pub-lic knew what I was accused of and were divided over the legitimacy of that accusation. I believe that an ignorant part of the public expected those other accusations added to the kidnapping one.

The prosecutor approached me, who, led to the dock, was already very tense waiting for him.

“Is your name Alma Morgado-Welt, yes or no?” “Yes, sir, Alma Welt.”

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“Single or married?”

“Widow, sir,” I said, hesitating a little.

“Oh! Widow... and how long were you married?” “A month, sir, I was very young, and...”

“Oh! It seems that we are facing a black widow!”

There was laughter from the audience, and a roar, as my attorney exclaimed:

“Objection, Your Honor!

The judge, severe, hit the gavel and said:

“Protest accepted. Promoter, please refrain from jok-ing and proceed.”

“Well, Mrs. Welt, or shall I call you Miss? Do you have kids?”

“No, sir,” I replied. “I had one, which I lost...”

“Oh! I'm sorry... did that son belong to your husband, who died?”

“No, sir, it belonged to the violinist Gino Bertellazzi, with whom I lived for a year.”

“Oh! One year! Apparently, you don't stay married long.”

“I protest, Your Honor!”, Doctor Loredano exclaimed once more.

“Protest accepted, proceed, prosecutor.”

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“Miss, since you somehow know what it's like to be a mother and have a child away from you, can you imagine the suffering you inflicted on your sister, removing her children from home, taking them and surrounding them with armed men, to hold them against their own mother? Yes, or no?”

“Y... yes, sir, but...”

“I'm satisfied, Your Honor, I hand over the defendant to your attorney for the time being,” the prosecutor inter-rupted me.

There was a hubbub in the room. I remained, dis-turbed, waiting for Dr. Loredano's questions, giving him a pleading look.

My lawyer looked at me deeply, with a compassion-ate, kind look that relaxed me a little.

“Miss Alma, you are a deeply motherly person, aren't you?”

“Yes, I am, I think I am,” I replied.

“Does anyone else think of you that way, who, for ex-ample?”

“I don't know, my nephews, I think, who are every-thing to me. And Matilde, who knows me well...”

“Miss, do these kids love you? How do they relate to you?”

“Wonderfully,” I said, answering the second part of the question first.

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“And do they love you?”, he insists.

“Yes, of course, and a lot, I'm sure.”

“And why did you have to remove the children from your home and take them with you? Name these children first.”

“Patricia and Pedro... Pete. Yes, I had to remove them from their home, it was necessary. They were suffering, they witnessed violent fights between Solange and her brother-in-law Geraldo, with whom she is now living.”

Another buzz in the room.

“So it was in the interests of the children that you acted, to protect them?”

“Yes, of course, Doctor, I will defend them with my life if I have to.”

“Your Honor, I have no further questions for now. I wanted to call a witness.”

“Yes, go ahead,” said the judge.

“Mrs. Alicia Montez, please.”

Alicia walked out of the audience, where she was practically invisible, and sat on the witness stand. She looked at me with a scared look and then faced my law-yer.

“Mrs. Alicia Montez, that's your name, isn't it?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Are you married, madam?”

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“Yes, sir, but separated, my husband lives with an-other.”

“Oh! I'm sorry, ma'am. And do you have children, madam?”

“Yes, but my son lives with my mother-in-law, my husband's mother, his grandmother.”

“Oh! But your son is fine, isn't he? And you would defend your son from anyone who threatened his happi-ness, wouldn't you?”

“Certainly sir. I got this deal precisely because my husband's new wife doesn't like children.”

“Oh! Very well, and you couldn't keep your son, keep him with you, why? Tell us all, dona Alicia.”

“Because Dona Solange didn't want him in the house. She said it made the house too full and interfered with my work.”

“Objection, Your Honor!”, interrupted the prosecutor. “Protest denied,” said the judge. “Proceed.”

“Dona Alicia,” continued Dr. Loredano, “you love your mistress's children very much, you're very dedicated to them, aren't you?”

“Yes, Doctor, I love them as if they were mine.”

“And you would protect them from all harm, as far as you could, would you not?”

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“I object, Your Honor. The lawyer is inducting the witness.”

“Protest denied. Proceed.”

“Yes, Doctor, I've always protected them. They are wonderful children.”

“So, you had no hesitation, no qualms about handing them over to their aunt, under the circumstances, on that troubled day, did you?”

“No, Doctor, I didn't hesitate for a second. It was for the good of the children. They were suffering. Pedrinho even called Dona Alma, asking her to come get them. He even threatened to run away from home to meet her at the ranch, which would be impossible as it is far away, hundreds of kilometers. I no longer knew what to do. I couldn't cover the children's eyes and ears, as I wanted to, to protect them from the horrors of those fights, what they were already talking about in front of the children.”

“Objection, Your Honor,” the prosecutor exclaimed again. “There is no proof of these discussions!”

“Protest denied. Proceed.”

“Your Honor, I have no further questions at this time.”

The prosecutor, for his part, did not want to question Alicia. I was more relieved, with the testimony of this good woman, who, when leaving the bank, looked at me with sweetness... and gratitude.

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Then, the prosecutor went ahead and called his witness, who surprised me: a former farmhand on our ranch, whom I never liked, just because of his look.

“Your name, sir.”

“Alipio Galdiano, sir.”

“Are you a cowboy, at the Santa Gertrudes ranch, on the defendant? Yes, or no?”

“Yes, Doctor, I am. For more than 50 years, although there aren't many oxen there anymore, since the former owners, even before old Joachim Welt.”

“And you've been witnessing a lot of things, haven't you, all this time? Do you have your eyes wide open?”

“Certainly, Doctor, it is what I have. Eyes wide open, although nothing can do.”

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Galdiano?”

“That I've seen a lot of shame this whole time, sir.”

Buzz in the room.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Galdiano? Explain better, exemplify.”

“Oh, sir! Ever since Miss Alma and her brother were children, this has happened. They were caught by their mother, Ana Morgado, naked, in the orchard, doing naughty things. They were dragged by their hair and wrists, in the middle of the people, who laughed a lot. Dona Ana was outraged. Miss Alma and her brother

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Rodolfo only caused him annoyance, unlike Dona Solange and Dona Lúcia, the eldest daughters.”

“And what else have you seen this whole time? Tell me, Mr. Galdiano.”

“Well, during their adolescence, I also observed the hugs and kisses all the time. The thing went on between them, it didn't stop. And, it seems, until today.”

“Mr. Galdiano, what else did you see at the ranch in that regard?”

“Oh, Doctor, now it's worse. After Alma returned from São Paulo with that girl from São Paulo, the shamelessness is greater.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Doctor! It's a strange thing. They kiss on the mouth, doctor. And they ride naked, as if no one could see them, in the twilight, just because Dona Alma is very white and doesn't want to burn herself. They bathe naked, in the moonlight, in the dam, and they caress and kiss each other. And the worst thing, doctor, is what happened in the woods, I don't know if I can tell you...”

“Tell me everything, Signor Galdiano, this is the moment of truth.”

“I protest, Your Honor,” Dr. Loredano interrupted. “The prosecutor judges the merits of the testimony beforehand.”

“Protest accepted, go on.”

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“My wife, with others from the vineyard, found them naked in the woods, asleep, embracing each other. The women gathered around them. There were also a few girls. But they woke up and didn't shake themselves, they got up slowly and left with their heads held high, in the middle of the wings that opened up, the workers, and they didn't even put a hand in front or behind. They walked proudly, as if they were dressed and as if no one was there. This, it seems, made the women remain silent, so astonished. They are witches, sir, I'm sure!”

A huge buzz, screams, laughter, protests.

“Silence, silence,” shouted the judge, hammering. “Proceed!”

“I have no further questions for now, Your Honor,” concluded the prosecutor.

“I want to question the witness, Your Honor,” said Dr.

Loredano.

“Proceed,” said the judge.

“Mr. Galdiano, you were an employee, a pawn, of the former owner of the ranch, weren't you? Before Joachim Welt, Alma's grandfather?”

“Yes, doctor, I was, since childhood. I grew up on that ranch.”

“And you were very loyal to that rancher. What was his name?”

“Valentim Ferro, sir. A man without equal.”

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“And Mr. Valentim committed suicide, didn't he? How was that?”

“Oh! Sir. It was terrible. He hanged himself in the attic of the mansion, the day after the ranch was sold. He was ruined, he had lost everything. The buyer was already settling into the house, and he hadn't even left with his family yet. It was very humiliating. But he died a man, a ‘macho’, because he drank the ‘chimarrão’ until the last moment, which was found sprawled on the floor, still smoking. I'll never forget that sight, for I entered that place right after the old Welt.”

“And you swore, at that moment, to avenge him, to your master, didn't you?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” intervened the prosecutor.

“Protest denied. Proceed.”

“So you swore revenge on your master, yes or no?”

“Yes, Doctor, I swore. But I can't see how you know that.”

“It does not matter. And what did you do for that revenge?”

“Oh, doctor! Who am I to be able to avenge someone? I'm a poor pawn, I have to earn my living. And it's tough, sir.”

“But you're retiring now, aren't you? You don't need to work anymore, do you?”

“I protest, Your Honor, this is irrelevant.”

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“Protest denied. It is pertinent, proceed.”

“Mr. Galdiano, you have a son, don't you? What is his name?”

“Martim, sir, but he's not with me anymore.”

“Where is he, Mr. Galdiano?”

“He left the estancia years ago and never came back.”

“Why? Mr. Galdiano, do you know why?”

“Yes, doctor. Because Martim fell in love with Alma, and she couldn't even see him. Yet she teased him.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Galdiano? If she didn't see him...”

“Because her beauty is destructive, sir. She always hurt people. More than one pawn fought for her, there were duels, deaths and... even suicides. And she didn't even know.”

“And your son left then, because he suffered, sir?” “Yes, and he broke the hearts all of us.”

“And you swore revenge on Alma, yes or no? Tell me, Mr. Galdiano.”

The audience was stunned. My life on the ranch flashed before my eyes, with details I didn't usually evoke in my memory. I started to shake.

“No, Doctor, I mean, yes, in a way, but just lip service.”

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“From the mouth, isn't it? Tell me Mr. Galdiano, how do you see Miss Alma personally?”

“Doctor, I can't face her. She's too beautiful, and that's the devil's doing. Other people also see it that way. Look at her skin, it's too white. Nobody is like that. And she doesn't have a blemish, not even a mole that anyone knows. With all that Pampa sun! This is impossible! She is of the night! I mean, out of the dark. She's a vampire!”

At that moment, it seemed to me that Doctor Loredano had made a mistake by letting him talk like that, even instigating that man. The people, the jury, would be influenced by those terrible, nocturnal, cursed images. I was more worried. But Doctor Loredano seemed to believe that the man's ignorance, or his primitivism, would be made clear.”

The audience rocked.

“Your Honor, I have no further questions.”

“Let's recess”, said the judge, which I thought was bad, because those last images would resonate. And I, as a poet, had to admit that they were strong, even beautiful, but they harmed me, they put me in danger before public opinion, which is also always somewhat primitive. I was taken out of the room into an adjoining one. I questioned Dr. Loredano, who told me:

“Calm down, Alma, stay calm, I know what I'm doing. The public is mostly sympathetic to you, for that same beauty, which seems to be misunderstood by some. That was to be expected. After all, that is what is being judged here: your beauty, Alma. And so this is the trial of the

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century, in my view. I will play with this until the end! Beauty is positive, it will win!”

“I hope you really know what you're doing...” (I sighed).

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I begin to remember Galdiano's son, the one he says fell in love with me. Really, I realized it back then, as I always do in my life. The victim of passion (if I can put it that way) cannot hide it, even if he tries or fails to ex-press this passion directly due to internal or social barri-ers. But evidently, I pretend to be misunderstood, dis-tracted, of course. I cannot dwell on these passions, at-tend to them in any way, or my life would be in chaos! What can I do? I try to keep myself as distant, as inacces-sible as possible. And yet, some people broke through those barriers... and victimized me with their greed and lust. As it happened when I was a thirteen-year-old girl on that farm in Minas, during a vacation. And now, so recently, that Pedro, who still hurt me, and whose secret I kept from my Aline, so as not to shock her.

Aline, in turn, upon hearing Galdiano's testimony in court, seemed to close a thought inside her mind or her heart. She was looking at me from afar, there in that room where our fate was being decided, with a new question in her eyes, and I knew what she was referring to. It was as if she were saying: “It was Pedro, wasn't it, who hurt you? He couldn't resist either... Why don't you tell me? Are you not loyal to me?”

The bell rang, we returned to the courtroom. I walked in looking for Aline in the audience, but I couldn't find

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her. The judge reopened the session with a hammer. But first he made a little prologue. He called the lawyer and the prosecutor before his bench and said:

“I warn you, lawyers, that what is being judged here is just a crime of kidnapping, in itself serious enough, of which the defendant is being accused. It seems to me that there are deviations. The case is going down paths that are not relevant to the crime in question. Now go on.”

Doctor Loredano said:

“I'm going to call a new witness, Your Honor. Miss De Marco, please!”

Aline entered, coming from an adjoining room rather than the audience. I was quite surprised, as Doctor Loredano had not warned me of this. I couldn't imagine my Aline saying anything about me, or us, in public. She was so demure, so shy indeed...”

“Miss Aline, that's your name, isn't it?” “Yes, Aline De Marco, sir.”

“And you know the accused, Miss Alma, well, don't you? What are you from her, can we know?”

Aline paused, hesitating, then faced the audience and said:

“I AM HER LOVE!”

It was a riot. I looked at Aline, who was defiant, and my eyes also sought Dr. Loredano's. What was this man doing?

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“Silence, silence!” hammered the judge. “I want silence, or I'll order the room to be cleared! I will not tolerate comments, let alone riots. Come on, proceed.”

“Miss Aline, what do you mean by that? You are friends, aren't you?”

“Yes doctor... we are.”

“So tell me, what does the accused look like? What is Alma Welt like?”

“Wonderful, doctor. She is the best, sweetest and most beautiful person inside that can exist in this world. And she is incapable of harming a fly.”

“Yes, of course, Miss Aline, we believe that without a doubt. Why then do you think she is being judged?”

“For her love, Doctor, for her courage to interfere…for the love she bears for her nephews, which is matched only by the love of a devoted mother. She wanted to defend them.”

“I have no further questions, Your Honor,” said my lawyer. “I want to dismiss the witness.”

“One moment,” interrupted the prosecutor. “I want to question the witness!”

“Proceed,” said the judge.

“Miss De Marco, where and how did you meet the accused, Miss Alma?”

Aline hesitated a bit, her eyes got wet, and she replied:

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“In São Paulo, in his painting studio. I'm a model, and she hired me to pose for her pictures.”

“What are these paintings like, Miss Aline? You used to pose naked, didn't you? Was it artistic nude?”

“Y... yes, sir. It was.”

At that moment, prosecutor Maia, theatrically snapped his fingers, and ordered the entrance, which astonished the audience: two men in suits entered carrying a large painting of my authorship: Aline naked. One of the many pictures I painted of my Aline (How did they get it? I asked myself).

The painting was displayed for a few minutes while the buzz built up. The judge hammered, but people stood up, many wanted to see closer. Success seemed absolute. The beauty of the painting, and the model, was evident. The plan had backfired on the prosecutor. But, he said, while the judge asked for the painting to be turned towards him, so that he could admire it:

“Your Honor, that's the lewd nature of these two's relationship. It is evidenced, it is shaped in this canvas...

erotic. Look at the pubic hair, gentlemen, sparse, to further expose the intimate parts of the portrayed. Look at the glow... there, as if... Gentlemen, this is intolerable, what museum would dare to expose such a canvas? We don't see anything like that in any museum. Compare even Titian's Venuses, which look demure next to it. Gentlemen, this woman (he pointed at me) is a lustful, erotic woman. She knows nothing of motherhood. It sets a bad example for children, as you can see. Everyone has already noticed: she is a lesbian, an idler, a frivolous one,

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even a Messalina. I have evidence of this woman's innumerable connections, with both men and women. She is a Casanova in skirts, more destructive than an ancient Taís or Nefertiti. Cleopatra next to her would be a saint. This woman is even incestuous, we have plenty of evidence of that. Can such a woman be a mother? Can she claim another's children? From her sister, a respectable woman, who only wanted to defend her family and always wanted to defend herself from the evil that this woman represents within her own family? Gentlemen, jurors, enough of this farce, I ask you to condemn this ‘hetaira’, this prostitute who pretends to be holy, and who is decidedly on the side of evil, in the bosom of a good family!”

The audience screamed, whistled, stamped their feet. I didn't know what that noise meant. Were they for me, or against me? What did this reaction mean?

The prosecutor then, as a coup de grace, called

Solange, my accuser, to the witness stand:

“Lady Solange, what do you accuse the defendant of? Speak openly, speak all, this is the moment of truth.”

“Of the kidnapping of my little children, who were taken from the house, when I left for a while. When I went to get them, she pointed her henchmen's guns at me. We were almost all killed, if it weren't for the intervention of the police, at the last moment when they were about to shoot. My children were trapped in a room, guarded by a woman, Matilde, our traitorous cook, who is her accomplice, and who never liked me.”

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“And her sisterly relationship, Alma, with her brother Rudolf, whom she suggestively calls Rôdo, like that perfume launcher, a narcotic. How is he like?”

“Yes, doctor, it's pure incest. She has despaired us since her childhood, with that. She was shameless. They were lovers. Maybe they still are today. Yes, I know they are. It's visible. The hugs, the kisses on the mouth... until today! It's intolerable! This woman needs to be stopped. She has no moral sense!”

I was lost. The audience roared, and I didn't know what they meant by those screams. Was he protesting in my favor, or wanting my burning? My stoning? I was almost passing out. Where was Rôdo, why hadn't he been called? But if he were, would it be better? He was so exalted, the scandal would grow to the point of being unbearable!

And then, he was called. Doctor Loredano hadn't realized that he had lost control of everything, that he was powerless. Nothing else could get it right. It was going to be a disaster:

“Young man, what is your name?” “Rudolf, sir, Rôdo... Welt.”

“You're Alma's only brother, aren't you? The only male child. Is it not?”

“Yes.”

“So, young man, what do you say about your sister, the accused? How is your relationship with her? Speak openly.”

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Rôdo, my brother, handsome as a prince with black hair, looked at the audience, faced everyone and said firmly:

“SHE IS MY LOVE TOO.”

Oh! I saw everything lost. I became dizzy in the middle of the noise that seemed like an immense wave, like a tidal wave, whose tsunami hit me... and I fainted.

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I woke up minutes later lying on a hard bench, with a lot of people around me, while Aline hit me in the face, Doctor Loredano held my hand, and a doctor took my pulse in the other.

They sat me down at last, I could see everything cloudy and spinning. But soon I was composing myself while the doctor asked:

“Alma, if you want, I can ask you to interrupt the trial for health reasons. Incidentally, it seems advisable to me, because we need to mitigate the effects of the last testi-monies. The audience is in an uproar, and I don't know...”

“No, no, doctor, I'm fine. Come on, I want to get this over with. Let's go. Just help me to get up.”

“But Alma, you don't look very well, after all you fainted. That's pretty strong. How are you going to take another round? “

“Come on, Doctor Loredano. I'm fine, I say. It's over. It was just a very strong emotion... and beautiful, for my Rôdo. He didn't disappoint me, but I didn't expect...”

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We return to the room. Doctor Loredano conferred with the judge. I was about to call a new witness, or they were going to end the trial with the prosecutor's speech, then ending with his, when I got up and asked for the floor. Doctor Loredano turned white and shuddered. It was what he feared.

Standing before the judge I said:

“Your Honor, I have a right to my say. I want to talk; I want to say everything. I have that right, don't I?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said the judge. “You have the right to speak, but you know the maxim: ‘He who defends him-self...’ But if you want to, speak!”

“Thank you, Mr. Judge. Gentlemen, ladies, jurors, Your Honor, I'm here, more naked than I've ever been. It seems to be my fate...”

The audience laughed.

“Here is my life, gentlemen, ladies. I never spared my-self, I gave my heart and my body to my loves, to those who loved me. But always for love, they will never be able to see in me another interest in my life. Love and poetry. Art, gentlemen, is my religion, and love is my God. I've always been like that, and that's why they've victimized me a few times, without being able to destroy me. My body was hurt, my soul was wounded, but my heart remains intact, faithful to my loves forever, as they to me, I now see. My life is glorious, I know. You can imprison me, God gave me art and beauty, first in myself, then in my eyes on the world! How can the bad ones reach me if I'm in good and beauty? Are these not stronger? I have a clear conscience and I am proud of my

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fidelity to the universal love that I feel in me. Gentlemen, you may imprison me. But you won't be able to take away the love of those children, which is in me and inside them at the same time. I know I tried to defend them. I couldn't, alas, they remain in that house, and that hurts, because I know they suffer from that environment... of lack of love! Oh! I see their outstretched arms calling to me, and I ache, ache for them. My hands are tied, I'm already in jail. But my soul flies, my heart flies towards them, and they feel it, they will be supported by me, even from a dis-tance.

Aline, love of my life, you are sublime, you didn't dis-own me. Rôdo, my brother, my love, you also reaffirmed me in your heart before everyone. I'm on the ground and in the clouds at the same time. Thrown to the ground, I float. In the clouds, I walk with firm feet. No one else can hurt me. Love is with me!”

I fell silent, my eyes filled with tears that ran down my cheeks.

The audience came crashing down. People wanted to touch me, they got up from their seats, they wanted to grab me. What do I know?

I was led out of the room as the judge with his wooden gavel hammered through the tumult. Finally, he managed to put order in the environment, saying: “The trial is closed, the jury will now retire to vote. We will meet in an hour.”

During that time, they let Aline stay by my side, hold-ing my hand as the tears flowed from us, silently, smiling at each other, waiting, waiting, nothing more. Full, if not

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happy. Until they called me, and I was taken to the room, escorted, again.

The judge asked the jury leader, who was returning:

“Have you made your judgment yet, have you reached your verdict?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the jury said, handing an officer a note that was taken to the judge. The latter opened it, looked at it quickly, but made a slight pause before de-claring:

“Arise, Alma Welt. You've just been declared... not guilty. You are free, go in peace!”

Those present rushed at me and carried me on their shoulders, I was carried out like that, and placed on new shoulders. The crowd shouted for me, saluting me and carrying me into the middle of the street, for a block, until the guards intervened and removed me from the shoul-ders of the people, in the middle of banners and posters. I could see that some of these signs said: ‘Alma Welt is our hero.’ Another read: ‘Alma Welt is pure love. Free Alma Welt!’

I cried with happiness and relief. I looked for Aline, she was also carried in the middle of the crowd. We stretched out our hands with effort, to hold each other, and at last we were, there in the middle of the crowd, em-braced in a long kiss, which was greeted, after all. We won. The people consecrated our love. And the voice of the people...

We could go back to the hotel, and then... to the ranch!

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Chapter Six. The Matron’s Bed

Lying down, naked, on the hotel bed, we rested on that hot summer morning, after so many emotions. We were happy, Aline and I, despite the lingering frustration of seeing the children lost to me. I couldn't hold them. I couldn't keep them. It was impossible for me... to take them away from that mother.

It was then that the phone at the bedside rang, and I answered it promptly:

“Hello, yes. Alicia? How are the kids? How do you say? Are Solange and Geraldo fighting? Yes, I'm listen-ing... what a scream! What's going on, where are Patricia and Pedrinho? Crying? Oh my God! Terrified! My God, what screams, I hear... Alicia, what's going on? No! No! A revolver? Oh!” I remained motionless, silent for a few seconds, appalled. Then I continued: “Alícia, Alicia, what was that noise? A shot… Solange is lying there, bloodied… He shot her! Where is he? Alicia, and the children, the children, Alicia?”

I dropped the phone. I shouted: “Aline, let's get dressed quickly, something bad has happened. Come on, let's run! Let's go! Let's go!”

We flew through the lobby, throwing the key on the counter, and soon we were in a taxi, racing to Solange's house. In minutes we arrived. The door was open, the children ran to me, but I didn't have time to hug them. I

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ran in, followed by Aline, and found Solange lying in the living room in a pool of blood. She was alive, dying. I knelt beside her, my knees in her blood. I hugged her and supported her head while she babbled, softly: “Alma, Alma, listen…”

I put my ear close to her lips and heard her say:

“Alma, my sister, my little sister... forgive me. I want you to forgive me, Alma. I'm sorry. The money from the harvest sold... is in my room... save the ranch. You were right. Love was with you. I always knew, actually... but I was scared and jealous. You're as beautiful as I've never been. And loved by Vati, as I wasn't, and neven by Mutti. I could never... Alma, I'm dying. Keep the children...

they're yours, they’ve always been yours, because they love you, much more than me. I didn't know... Oh, Alma, it's getting dark, it's getting cold, close the room, light the fireplace, Alma, Vati brought the firewood. Tell a story of yours... for the children to sleep...”

Her face dropped slightly, though her eyes remained open, and she froze. Alicia was crying, Aline was crying, the children were crying. And I sobbed for my sister, whom I had always loved, without knowing it...

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Epilogue

We are back at the ranch, Rôdo, Aline, Matilde, Gal-dério, the children and me. Lucia will come soon with the twins, Hans and Christian, my dear little twins, whom I want to unite in a single embrace.

Then, having gathered everyone in the room, I said:

“Let's all pay homage to our apple tree, and thank you for saving the estancia thanks to Solange, may God keep her close to you. We should also thank Him for being to-gether again. Let's take the herbs to our Ara, let's go! I want everyone to pick herbs and also some mate and vine leaves. Let's light the pyre and give thanks to God, the gods and the ‘numes’ of the Pampa, who are waiting for our tributes, proof of our gratitude.”

The children, surprisingly happy despite the tragic events so recent, ran around. Rôdo and Aline, too, like children, while I smiled happily.

I took Galdério aside, and in our library, I gave him precise instructions:

“I want you to do something, Galdério, take your tools, and with strong rafters, hardwood, saw and ham-mer, screws, drill, everything, reinforce my parents' bed, underneath. Take the canopy, which is dismantled, from the warehouse, and assemble it again, lengthening the columns, if possible, because I want them higher. You have all afternoon to do that. Come on, I beg you. It's your mission for now.

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Soon we were in front of our apple tree, burning herbs that made a heavy smoke, in a column gently sloping in the summer breeze.

I uttered the words:

“Oh Ara of the Pampas, my apple tree, whose roots are in my heart! Accept the offering of our gratitude! We are together, love has won, we are once again reunited before you, and this is how we will always do, throughout our lives, that you have made so beautiful. Also lead, in the sacred smoke, the soul of my sister and mother of these children, straight to heaven, if possible. She has al-ready suffered and regretted it. God will receive it, I know.”

Patricia had tears in her eyes, Pedrinho was sobbing. We were all moved. I had to stop crying. I turned to eve-ryone and said: “Now, my dears, let's go back to the manor to have a big supper, which Matilde has prepared. I want joy, huh? Happiness!”

At nightfall, Lucia, the twins, and Alberto, my dear drunkard, arrived. We all hugged, I kissed the twins a lot, and Lucia, holding my hands, said:

“My little sister, you have united us again, around you, in this house. Only you could do that. Even Alberto came back, the poor drunk. You'll take him in, won't you?”

“Of course, my sister. This drunk is precious. Some-day I'll tell you why. Now let's just enjoy the joy and not remember the difficult times. I'll get him a bottle from the cellar. Well, he will do it himself”. We laugh together, hugging each other.

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After the wonderful supper, the most joyful of our lives, I gathered the children and said:

“Now everyone go put on your pajamas, because I'm going to tell a story to everyone here in the room. Then you will accompany me, for a surprise before bed.”

The children, curious and excited, ran to their rooms to change into their pajamas. Patricia appeared, looking beautiful, wearing a white embroidered nightgown that I had given her.

All around me, including Matilde, Lúcia, Aline and Rôdo, I narrated the story of Anita and Giuseppe Gari-baldi, but in the form of a summarized and poetic fable, as indeed their lives had been. The children daydreamed, with their love and heroism, and their eyes shone with moisture... and they flew in that saga of our land, whose roots were in an estancia like this one, in families like this one, which gathered in a large room to listen and tell the stories of their real battles... and dreams. And I felt like a gaucho like never before, my heart was full of love for the Pampa, for this house, for the orchard, the garden and the vineyard. That night I felt my father's white beard hover like a comet over us, over the big house.

Then, I turned off all the electric lights, and armed with candlesticks and lamps, we walked along the corri-dors to my parents' room, me in front, guiding them, cu-rious. Arriving there, I opened the door and switched on the light that clearly illuminated the entire large room dominated by my parents' immense bed, whose canopy hung even higher for the one I had prepared. I asked eve-ryone to put out their candles and lamps. So, I climbed onto that big bed, got to my feet, barefoot, and held out

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my hand to everyone. I was also in my nightgown, and I held out my hand for everyone to get on, like me. So they did, including Rôdo and Aline, in pajamas, all barefoot. So, I started jumping, very high, confident in Galdério's reinforcement work. Everyone laughing and laughing ac-companied me, jumping, jumping, and soon the pillow fight began, with the feathers escaping and flying in a white apotheosis, which like snow, slow, festive, fell on us, we jumped and jumped, laughing, screams and laugh-ter.

The joy had returned to us, and I imagined that for-ever...

The large matronly bed welcomed us all, orphans who returned home after so long...

THE END

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What Does Alma Welt Mean?

I assume that Alma Welt's fans, those who actually read and loved her... and were even surprised by her, no-ticed the deeply “feminist” aspect of her work. Yes, fem-inism in the best sense of the term. Alma Welt, as her name suggests (Anina Mundi), is the “Woman of all women” and visibly has an archetypal content in her very rich personality.

Alma combines in herself all the qualities of the hu-man being with those specifically feminine: she is intel-ligent, talented, fluent and pleasant teller of confessional stories; cultured, lucid, sensitive, courageous, tenacious, intense, passionate, obstinate, sensual, loving, gentle, fil-ial, maternal, fervent, vulnerable and... candid... check it out! Yes, she has a surprising and even paradoxical can-dor in such an intelligent woman. Candor? Yes, a certain captivating naivety that occurs in people with a pure soul...

So, is it a perfect being? Yes, it is, in my opinion. And her vulnerability, which you yourself included, would be a quality, not a defect? The answer is simple: It's what makes her human, not a goddess. It is clear throughout her short stories, poems, and memorial novels, how many times she was a victim, harassed, abused, sexually vio-lated for her almost unreal and obsessive beauty like a modern Helen of Troy. But that she also always rises from the ashes of depression, like a Phoenix...

What does this mean, literally speaking? I answer: it means the Universal History of the Oppressed Condition

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of Women throughout the entire Human History on Earth.

I, Guilherme, privileged and humble (yes, humble) spokesperson, or messenger of this “living anima” that through me came to the world of Letters, am open to questions, and criticism, if any. I love challenging the skeptical, the disbelievers and the disenchanted. It's easy... you quickly realize that they haven't even read the works in question...

Guilherme de Faria

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Alma Welt's Ex Libris was designed by Guilherme de Faria, at the author's request when they met. The Latin motto AD AUGUSTA PER ANGUSTA means “Achiev-ing magnificent results through narrow paths.” The curi-ous thing is that it allows a very legitimate translation lit-erally: “to Augusta by anguish”, suggesting the poet's state of mind in her self-exile from São Paulo on a street very close to Augusta Street, shortly after the death of her father, the “Vati” in his ranch in Pampa, from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Friday, July 5, 2024