The next evening, I gather the whole family in my blue-tiled kitchen for supper. I’ve made canja11, which we soak up with French bread. They make loud noises with their spoons and slurp the soup quickly. I taught them no manners! Before they have finished their supper, I tell them that I’ve changed my mind, and that Fernando, Sara, and Sabrina can move into the neighbor’s main house. That we will rent out the smaller units on this lot and the neighbors’ lot, as well as the garages, and make some extra money that way.
“This is so unfair,” Reginaldo barks at me. “They will get the house and rent money, and I am left with nothing?”
“You will get to have this house all for yourself, once I am no longer here,” I tell him.
“Oh yeah, me and all the fans of the Corinthians football club,” he replies, referring to the fact that the value of this house will be split between 8 people once my ex-husband and I pass on.
“It’s just for now. We can think of how to split it more fairly between you two later.”
“I want to keep the rent from Fernando’s old house.”
“No, absolutely not,” I tell him.
I say “no” out of love because I want to see him succeed. He cannot acomodar12 himself here and be happy with this little money. I know we won’t get much more than 600 reais for this tiny thing. If we were in the south of the city, they would call it a studio and charge a lot more. But here, it’s just a kitchenette, very small, very simple.
The next day they start packing, and one week later they are all moved in. They had to throw out a ton of stuff, useless things that we could not understand why anyone would want to keep – boxes and bags full of all sorts of items, from old books to pieces of scrap wood. But now, after throwing away this junk and painting the house inside and out, everything looks neat and nice. They paint my house as well, because it hasn’t been painted in a while and was starting to look shabby.
A few days later we find tenants that seem nice enough to share the courtyard and the common stairs. One family is even from church, and we can walk together every day and talk about the service. Fernando brings over a few items from his house that they thought I would like, some Tupperware, and a nice rug. For a moment I feel happy, because everything seems to be falling in place: my sons will be taken care of, maybe I will be able to rest in peace after all.
I will die like my dad did. My heart will simply stop. He had a heart condition after he was bitten by a Barbeiro. He had mal de Chagas and needed a heart transplant, but waited too long. And I am too old for a heart transplant, 55 is the cut-off age, and I am officially 61.
My dad died when I was 7, and my mom at this point is certainly with God as well. I never went back to Sergipe after I left her on the corner of the street in that tent. I wanted to, but the money was always tight, and my ex-husband had no interest in going back with me to look for her. He said we would never find her because such people moved around a lot, which was true. It would be pointless.
I remember the day I took off. I looked in the face of my mother for the last time. She looked so old, even though she was probably much younger than me now. I took that bus with my new I.D., and this bus driver got me a good job in a casa de familia13 here in São Paulo, in the centro14. I was a babysitter and cleaning lady for that family for a very long time, took care of their baby Natalia, and learned a great deal – how to clean, how to cook, how to speak properly. I even learned a bit of Japanese because they were from Japan. With this family I learned to keep my house always nice and organized, never leave crumbs on the table or the floor, because that attracts cockroaches. Only have one child or two, more is a mess. Fold the laundry, keep the cupboards closed, always. I glance around my house and feel happy. It’s looking especially nice today with the new curtains we got from the neighbor’s house.
Reginaldo wakes me up from my deep thoughts and remembrances: “I will make you a deal. I get a job and in exchange I can keep the money from the rent of one of the kitchenettes.” I agree, that would be wonderful if he finally gets himself a job and sticks with it. Everything is almost too good to be true, I think to myself. He just needed to find a nice girl now, ideally one from church like Sara. Then he could live here with his wife and kids just like I did with his father and my sons. I will tell him not to have too many children, but to have at least two so they have one another.
(…to be continued…)
Footnotes
11. Chicken soup
12. Make himself comfortable
13. House of a family
14. City center
Transadaptation Volume 7 – Via Ellipsis – Continuation of Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: An Unexpected Trip Down Memory Lane – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
February: Blow-up – Veronika Groke (Austria)
March: Futuros Murguistas – Alejandra Baccino Uberti (Uruguay)
April: The Nomenclature Man – Paulius Limantas (Lithuania)
May: Amanecerá y veremos – Adriana Uribe (Colombia)
June: Finding Light in Yerevan – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
July: The Last Judgement – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
August: Puzzled – a collaged nivola by and of perypatetik authors (International)
September: Second Steps – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
October: New Normality – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
November: Beyond Comprehension – Rahaf Konbaz (Syria)
December: Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Worm? (Parts I and II) – Narantsogt (Natso) Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 6: Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2025)
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Top row (left to right): 1. Santa Cruz Cabralia, Brazil – Roofs – Iryna Shpulak (Shutterstock); 2. Atins, Brazil – Village life – Rudi Ernst (Shutterstock); 3. São Miguel do Gostoso, Brazil – The fishing village – Christiano Diehl Neto (Shutterstock)
Bottom row (left to right): 1. Paraty, Brazil – In the village – JKSZ Photography (Shutterstock); 2. Alagoas, Brazil – The village – Joel Brandao (Shutterstock)