LUMPS IN THE FLOUR

The basin was still on the table when Ilva came back with Tiago along the crushing plant road. The violet beam had already passed over the door twice. On the third, it lingered on the hinge, went down the jamb and settled on the kitchen floor, where there were traces of mud, a drop of dried broth and the shadow of the basin covering the cold mirror. Tiago stopped on the porch. The protected palm was held against his chest, but it was the other hand he pressed against his stomach. There's maize, he said. There are people looking for empty houses, she replied. He looked inside. The upturned gourd, the cold pan, the empty glass by the wall. The house had the look of someone who had left in a hurry and left everything behind. Nael appeared from the back, putting less weight on the bad leg. He carried a round stone under his arm, grey at the edges, with a black streak running across the middle. It was the millstone from a mill that had worked before the conveyor belts and the tanks, when maize arrived in cloth sacks and the meal fell into a low wooden trough. He had kept it for years under a tarpaulin, behind Antônio's room. It still works, he said. Ilva pointed to the light at the door. That doesn't respond to stone. It responds to smell, said Nael. He came in, pushed the basin near the stove and set the millstone on the table. The stone left a circle of dust. Tiago brought the smaller container, opened the lid and poured the dried maize into the centre. Nael turned the piece with both hands. Slowly at first. Then with his whole body leaning over the table. The grains broke in three beats, crack, powder, coarse flour. Outside, a service cabinet fixed to the façade let out a low alert. The mining operation had received the copper coils it had been waiting for to expand the datacenter's connection. The buyer far away turned over the energy costs, held back contracts, sent loads back to the yard and made of delay an available part. The coils stayed wound under plastic sheeting, larger than a seated man, while the village measured its own lunch. Nael stopped to breathe. In the old days we used to grind it finer, said Tiago. Who taught you. My mother. He said nothing more. The flour began to cover the dark streak of the millstone. Ilva brought the pan close to the maintenance flame, released on the household branch during the cooking window. The pan received enough water to loosen the dough. No container was filled. The water went in there because the hard maize had to give and because the smoke had to rise through the high opening of the kitchen before the beam's next pass. Nael stirred the dough with a wooden spoon. The spoon had belonged to Antônio's mother, who had served food at the bar when the first refrigerator was still hidden under a table. The wood had a crack in the handle, filled with dark resin. Nael used it as if he were holding a mining tool, too firm for a pan. The smell of cooked maize went out over the porch and reached the street. The violet light returned. It traced the door frame, touched the steam, lingered on the heat of the pan. The house no longer looked empty. It looked poor, occupied, late for some meal. The review asked for confirmation of residents. The voice came from the terminal, smooth, trained to give eviction a domestic diction. Ilva looked at the cold mirror under the basin. If she offered her face, the house would exist again on the same network that had just turned the crushing plant diversion into a contingency line. The new map already carried the stolen water as if it had always been its own. She knew that the parallel ledger kept another curve, another time, another pipe. Tiago leaned his shoulder against the wall. I'll stay, he said. His treatment at the clinic required a qualified companion. Mariana was tied to her shifts. The review was still waiting for Ilva's bodily confirmation, and the residential window remained open on the terminal. It would be enough to include him as a temporary resident and the house would gain one more body for the reading. It would be enough to say that he would stay. Nael tapped the spoon on the rim of the pan once. The dough's catching at the bottom, boy, he said. Tiago raised his eyes. The word boy made him smaller than it should have. He had crossed road, hiding place and kitchen with his hand covered, but faced with that question he stood still like someone waiting to be put in a queue. Ilva opened the voice interface. The occupant is a short-stay visitor, she said. It was the sentence that kept the record off the network. A visitor did not increase the household number, did not create a residential bond, did not require her to hand over the off-network spreadsheet to reconcile the address. Nor could he accompany anyone to the clinic. The voice accepted the classification. The light at the door dimmed. Tiago looked at his own hand, then at the dough thickening on the fire. And the clinic. Ilva took the spoon from Nael and scraped the bottom of the pan. The flour still had lumps. We'll see later. He did not answer. He picked up the lid of the smaller container and closed what was left of the maize. The lid made a small sound. It would last longer than the answer. Nael divided the dough into three portions. The first went to Tiago, the second to Ilva, the third stayed in the pan. He did not ask about Mariana. The wooden spoon went round the bottom again, removing the crust before it turned to waste. When the light at the door went out, the house remained standing. The address had gained an extension with no promise of duration. Tiago gained the status of visitor, and with it lost the place as companion he would have had on the third shift. Later, the parallel ledger would receive the hour at which the flour fell from the millstone and the sentence that expelled her from a queue.