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"Hope," said Miro contemptuously.
"Along with faith and pure love, it's one of the great virtues. You should try it."
"I saw Ouanda."
"She's been trying to speak to you since you arrived."
"She's old and fat. She's had a bunch of babies and lived thirty years and some guy she married has plowed her up one side and down the other all that time. I'd rather have visited her grave!"
"How generous of you."
"You know what I mean! Leaving Lusitania was a good idea, but thirty years wasn't long enough."
"You'd rather come back to a world where no one knows you."
"No one knows me here, either."
"Maybe not. But we love you, Miro."
"You love what I used to be."
"You're the same man, Miro. You just have a different body."
Miro struggled to his feet, leaning against Rooter for support as he got up. "Talk to your tree friend, Quim. You've got nothing to say that I want to hear."
"So you think," said Quim.
"You know what's worse than an asshole, Quim?"
"Sure," said Quim. "A hostile, bitter, self-pitying, abusive, miserable, useless asshole who has far too high an opinion of the importance of his own suffering."
It was more than Miro could bear. He screamed in fury and threw himself at Quim, knocking him to the ground. Of course Miro lost his own balance and fell on top of his brother, then got tangled in Quim's robes. But that was all right; Miro wasn't trying to get up, he was trying to beat some pain into Quim, as if by doing that he would remove some from himself.
After only a few blows, though, Miro stopped hitting Quim and collapsed in tears, weeping on his brother's chest. After a moment he felt Quim's arms around him. Heard Quim's soft voice, intoning a prayer.
"Pai Nosso, que estas no ceu." From there, however, the incantation stopped and the words turned new and therefore real. "O teu filho esta com dor, o meu irmao precisa a resurreicao da alma, ele merece o refresco da esperanca."
Hearing Quim give voice to Miro's pain, to his outrageous demands, made Miro ashamed again. Why should Miro imagine that he deserved new hope? How could he dare to demand that Quim pray for a miracle for him, for his body to be made whole? It was unfair, Miro knew, to put Quim's faith on the line for a self-pitying unbeliever like him.
But the prayer went on. "Ele deu tudo aos pequeninos, e tu nos disseste, Salvador, que qualquer coisa que fazemos a estes pequeninos, fazemos a ti."
Miro wanted to interrupt. If I gave all to the pequeninos, I did it for them, not for myself. But Quim's words held him silent: You told us, Savior, that whatever we do to these little ones, we do to you. It was as if Quim were demanding that God hold up his end of a bargain. It was a strange sort of relationship that Quim must have with God, as if he had a right to call God to account.
"Ele nao e como Jo, perfeito na coracao."
No, I'm not as perfect as Job. But I've lost everything, just as Job did. Another man fathered my children on the woman who should have been my wife. Others have accomplished my accomplishments. And where Job had boils, I have this lurching half-paralysis--would Job trade with me?
"Restabelece ele como restabeleceste Jo. Em nome do Pai, e do Filho, e do Espirito Santo. Amem." Restore him as you restored Job.
Miro felt his brother's arms release him, and as if it were those arms, not gravity, that held him on his brother's chest, Miro rose up at once and stood looking down on his brother. A bruise was growing on Quim's cheek. His lip was bleeding.
"I hurt you," said Miro. "I'm sorry."
"Yes," said Quim. "You did hurt me. And I hurt you. It's a popular pastime here. Help me up."
For a moment, just one fleeting moment, Miro forgot that he was crippled, that he could barely maintain his balance himself. For just that moment he began to reach out a hand to his brother. But then he staggered as his balance slipped, and he remembered. "I can't," he said.
"Oh, shut up about being crippled and give me a hand."
