THE CHIPPED GOURD

The spoon struck the rim of the pan three times. Nael waited for the echo to die in the kitchen and struck once more, just to spoil the count. Tiago laughed with his mouth closed. The membrane over his left palm had darkened at the edges, and he held the bowl between his forearm and his chest. Mariana came in from the porch carrying cooked maize in a thermal container. She still had mud in her hair. She had washed her face, but a streak of earth remained by her ear, a reminder of the wrench buried at the junction. She left the container on the table and chose the bench nearest the door. Three shifts began before dawn. In each one, she would take on the lowest-flow manoeuvre, inside the cooled cabin of the pumps, while another operator would receive the outdoor hours. The cold belonged to the equipment. The compensation would charge her forty extra minutes in each working day and hand her body over to the heat when the sun was already high. Ilva set five bowls on the table. Four, said Mariana. Five. I'll eat at home. You brought maize. I brought it for you. Nael took the lid off the pan. The pequi broth had thickened since the previous meal. He added a ladle of the shallow water that had been kept in the metal lid and stirred slowly. The tap had released water for eleven seconds that afternoon, four more than at the inspection. They filled two containers, washed Tiago's membrane and set the rest aside for drinking. Not a drop would go into the pan after that ladle. In the house, whoever brought food received the first bowl. Whoever served kept the last, scraped from the bottom. Nael put the broth in her bowl. Mariana pushed it towards Tiago. His hand needs food, she said. The other one works, Nael replied. Tiago raised his right and wiggled his fingers, displaying the competence. Ilva almost smiled. She took the bowl meant for him, served half into a smaller sixth piece, a chipped ceramic gourd that held salt, and returned the salt to the empty thermal container. Now there are six, said Tiago. Five and a problem, Nael corrected. The laughter came short, then grew when the gourd began to spin on the table because of its crooked base. Tiago tried to stop it with his elbow. He pushed it further. On the third turn, Mariana caught the piece and the broth splashed over her fingers. She licked a drop. She accepted the bowl. They ate without hurry. The maize crackled between their teeth, sweet despite the small grains. Nael told them that Antônio had lost another bet to the predictive machine. He had bet on rain because the sky had dawned with two bands of cloud and afterwards claimed he had bet wrong to please a woman. No one knew which woman. Tiago suggested three names. At the fourth, Nael choked and had to cover his mouth. Mariana let out a low note, almost a reflex. The voice found the pan, the container, the metal of the basin on the table and came back larger. She stopped before the second note. Ilva began to scrape her own bowl. The oldest recording of the choir had already disappeared. After it others vanished, one an hour, until all that remained was the memory of the woman who had raised Mariana singing in the backyard now fenced in by the mine. The cloud had done an impeccable cleaning. It had preserved the metadata and eliminated the voices. Sing the rest, said Nael. The street cameras collected sounds through the cracks. Inside the kitchen, everyone had learned to measure their mouths. Mariana pulled the pan to the centre, dipped the spoon in the broth and began an irregular beat. Metal against metal, wood against ceramic, the thermal container answering low. Ilva joined in with two fingers on the table. Tiago used the nail of his right hand. Nael came in last, out of time. The voice came from beneath the noises. Mariana sang a short line, broke off, repeated it with a different word. By the third time, Ilva already knew the melody. Nael kept the words without a device, as he kept bends and stones, but on purpose changed the name of a tree. It's jatobá, said Mariana. I sang jatobá. You sang baru. Then the song got better. She repeated it until he got it right. The broth went cold. Tiago fell asleep sitting up, his head tilted against the wood of the window, and Ilva covered his injured hand with a clean cloth. Mariana gathered the bowls. She washed each one with a finger of water, starting with Tiago's, then Nael's, Ilva's and her own. When she reached the chipped gourd, the container was empty. She cleaned the inside with the tip of the cloth and left the piece upside down. I'll come back after the first shift, she said. Don't put the pan on the fire before then. Ilva set aside a portion of maize and closed it in the smaller container. Mariana took the food, but left the thermal container on the table, a household guarantee of return. On the threshold, the dry mud fell from her hair in three grains. An ant appeared in the crack, chose the largest and dragged it into the night.