If I Close My Eyes Now by Edney Silvestre Read Free Book Online

the shadows under the cinema awning, they saw the man take something out of the inside pocket of his jacket, but couldn’t see what it was. They thought he was writing. He stopped, looked down, and seemed to write a few more words. Then he put it back in his pocket. He crossed his legs and sat there for a while. He stood up, looking around him as if to make sure which direction to go in. Then he left.
    He walked down the slope where signs above unlit shop windows and iron shutters advertised the shops in the city’s main street. At the far end, another incline led up to the highest part of the city, occupied by the cathedral and its twin towers. Far too grandiose for its surroundings, it had been inaugurated in 1835 by a representative of the young emperor Pedro II in recognition of the religious feelings, prestige and economic power of the coffee barons.
    The man passed by the cathedral, walked round it, and then set off along a road that descended sharply to the right. When it levelled off, he was still in the road, and crossed opposite a long red-brick building with slit windows. A concrete white-painted eagle on a globe holding in its mouth a bronze plaque declaring Founded in 1890 and with cotton stems in its claws stood above the words: Union & Progress Textile Factory .Paulo’s mother had once worked there as a weaver. That was where she had met her future husband, a worker in the dyeing section before he became a butcher.
    ‘Where do you think he’s going?’
    ‘I don’t know, Paulo. Home?’
    ‘He’s walking further and further away from the centre.’
    The two boys were not familiar with the part of the city the man was venturing into now. There were fewer houses and more waste lots, some of them surrounded by brick walls or bamboo canes, many covered in tall grass and castor-oil bushes. Beyond one of these ran a long, high, moss-covered stone wall, dotted with clumps of ferns and weeds. Above it, beyond the streetlights, the wall was overhung by the thick branches of one of the trees growing on the other side.
    The man came to a halt beneath the tree. Going as close as he could to the wall, he stretched out his arms, feeling for something. He found it: a rope. As he began laboriously to pull on it, the tips of two wooden posts appeared, joined by parallel bars. The rope was tied to one of them. A painter’s stepladder.
    The man with grey or white hair lowered the ladder to the ground, then stood it against the stones. He carefully climbed each step, and sat on top of the wall. Precariously balanced, he tugged on the rope, pulling up the ladder. He let it down on the other side. Clinging to a branch, he put one foot on one of the steps, then the other. He let go of the branch, put both hands on the ladder support and disappeared among the foliage.
    The boys ran to the wall. The rope was still swinging inbetween the leaves. A glance at each other was enough for them to decide:
    ‘We’re going in there!’
    Paulo cupped his hands and Eduardo stood on them and pulled, expecting to be able to climb the rope. To his surprise, he fell to the ground, with the rope between his legs. It wasn’t tied to the stepladder any more.
    After a moment’s disappointment, they recovered their spirits. Paulo wound the rope round his chest, while Eduardo looked for another way in. He walked along the wall until he came to a big double gate, almost as high as the stone wall. It was locked. There was a plaque nailed to it, which read: St Simon Old People’s Home .
    In the distance, the cathedral clock struck one, two, three times.

3
Cowboys and Indians
    THE OLD MAN lay sprawled in a canvas deck chair, fast asleep, protected from the afternoon sun by the foliage of a tree spreading its branches over the courtyard wall. A thin trail of saliva dribbled down from his open mouth to his chin and the collar of the old people’s home uniform he was wearing. Dark patches were visible on his scalp beneath thin strands of hair.