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* * *
—
The lieutenant waved goodbye with a smirk on his face. These people didn’t even deserve to be free, traveling from one side of the world to the other, spreading the seed of rebellion. It was enough that the events of May 1968 had happened in France—that had to be contained at all costs.
Sure, May 1968 had nothing to do with the hippies and those like them, but people were capable of confusing things and then trying to put an end to it all no matter where.
Would he like to join them? Absolutely not. He had a family, a house, kids, food, friends on the police force. As if it weren’t enough to be so close to the border of a Communist country—someone had written once in the newspaper that the Soviets had changed tactics and were now using people to corrupt traditional values and turn them against their own governments. He thought that was a bit crazy, it made no sense, but he preferred not to run risks.
Everyone was talking about the insanity they’d just been through, except for Paulo, who seemed to have lost his ability to speak and had changed color. Karla asked whether he was all right—there was no way she was going to travel with someone who cowered at the first sign of the police—and he responded he was perfectly fine, he’d just had too much to drink and was feeling sick. When the bus stopped at the field the guard had mentioned, Paulo was the first to get off and vomit on the side of the road, hidden from sight, without anyone noticing. Only he knew about the things he had been through, his past in Ponta Grossa, the terror that seized him each time he reached a border crossing. And what was worse, the terror of knowing that his fate, his body, his soul, would forever be tied to the word “police.” He would never feel safe. He’d been innocent when they locked him up and tortured him. He had never committed any crime except, perhaps, engaging in the sporadic use of drugs, which, by the way, he never carried on his person, even in Amsterdam, where there would be absolutely no consequences for doing so.
In the end, his imprisonment and torture were behind him in the physical sense but continued as present as ever in some parallel reality, in one of the many lives he lived all at once.
* * *
—
He sat far away from everyone and wanted nothing more than silence and solitude, but Rahul walked up to him with what looked like some sort of cold white tea. Paulo drank it—it tasted like expired yogurt.
“It won’t be long before you feel better. Just don’t lie down or try to sleep right now. And don’t worry about explanations—some bodies are more sensitive than others.”
They sat there for a while without moving. The substance began to take effect after fifteen minutes. Paulo stood up to join the group, which had lit a bonfire and was dancing around to the sound of the bus radio. They danced to exorcise their demons, they danced to show that, whether they wanted to be or not, they were stronger now.
“Stay a little longer,” Rahul said. “Perhaps we ought to pray together.”
“I must have got food poisoning,” Paulo ventured.
But he could tell by the look on Rahul’s face that he wasn’t buying it. Paulo sat down again, and the man sat down in front of him.
“Let’s say you’re a warrior on the front line and suddenly the Enlightened Lord comes to observe the battle. Let’s say your name is Arjuna, and he asks you not to back down, to soldier on and fulfill your destiny, because no one can kill or die, time is eternal. It just so happens that you, who are human, already went through a similar situation in one of your previous trips through the wheel of time and see the situation repeating itself—even though it’s different, the emotions are the same. Remind me your name again?”
“Paulo.”
“Okay, Paulo, you’re not Arjuna, the all-powerful general who feared wounding his enemies because he was a good man, and Krishna didn’t like what he was hearing because Arjuna was granting himself power that wasn’t his to take. You are Paulo, you come from a distant country, you have moments of bravery and moments of cowardice, as we all do. In moments of cowardice you’re gripped by fear.
“And fear, contrary to what most people say, has its roots in the past. There are gurus in my country who claim: ‘Each time you take a step forward, you will feel fear at what you’ll find.’ But how can I fear what I’ll find if I haven’t already experienced pain, separation, internal and external torture?
“Do you remember your first love? It came in through a door full of light and you let it take over everything, to bring light to your life, fill your dreams, until, as always happens with our first love, one day it went away. You must have been seven or eight, she was a pretty girl your age, she found herself an older boyfriend, and there you were, suffering, telling yourself you would never love again—because loving is losing.
“But you loved again—it’s impossible to conceive of a life without this feeling. And you continued to love and lose until you found someone…”
Paulo couldn’t help but think that the next day they would enter the country of one of the many people to whom he had opened his heart, with whom he had fallen in love, and—once again—whom he had lost. She who had taught him so many things, including how to put on a brave face in moments of desperation. It truly was the wheel of fortune spinning in circular space, taking away good things and doling out pain, taking away pain and bringing other good things.
* * *
—
Karla kept one eye on the two men talking and another on Mirthe so that she wouldn’t come close. The men were taking quite some time. Why hadn’t Paulo come back and danced a bit around the bonfire, leaving behind the awful vibe that had taken root in the restaurant and followed them to the tiny city where they’d parked the bus?
She decided to dance a little more, while the sparks from the fire filled the starless sky with light.
&n
bsp; * * *
—
The music was the domain of the bus driver, who was also recovering from that night’s events—though this wasn’t the first time he’d been through something like that. The louder the music and the more it was suited to dancing, the better. He considered the possibility that the police might show up again and ask him to leave, but he decided to relax. He wasn’t about to live in fear because a group of people who considered themselves the ultimate authority, and, as a result, authorities over others, had tried to ruin a day in his life. It was all right, it was just one day, but one day was the most precious good he had on this earth. Just one day—his mother had begged on her deathbed. Just one day was worth more than all the kingdoms in the world.
