THE TRAVELLING SHIRT

Antônio had already divided the corn when Edna came in through the kitchen with the copper bend clutched in the cloth. He put two bowls on the table and left the third by the stove, covered with a plate. The covered portion belonged to whoever was absent. Since Mariana had left, no one asked when she would come back. Twenty-two minutes remained. The kitchen lay behind the bar, separated from the counter by a fibre curtain that held back the smell of grease and let the voices through. In there, the door camera reached only a strip of the floor. Antônio pushed the chair out of that strip into the corner and pointed Edna to the seat. Eat, he said. She put the cloth on the table. The bend knocked against the wood. I'll take it first. You took it once already and hid it. Edna stayed on her feet. Antônio sat down before the smaller bowl, the one with less corn and no piece of pequi. In his house, whoever served ate last and got the bottom of the pot. The custom came from the time when the hostel occupied two rooms, and travellers arrived after dark asking for a bed, a bath and food. Now the rooms held dismantled ducts, thermal containers and a bed no one had rented for seven months. Edna pulled out the chair. She ate a spoonful. A price band lit up on the kitchen glass, fed by the reclamation cooperative that bought household metal. Clean copper had fallen almost a third. The coil still attached to the refrigerator was worth, that morning, less than half of the ticket to the capital. Antônio read the figure without getting up. From the top of the cupboard he took a container of sealed rice and set it beside the third bowl. He was keeping that portion for the journey. The seal stated six months' shelf life. He broke it with his teeth. Edna stopped chewing. You were going to take that, she said. I was. He poured half of the rice into the covered bowl and the other half into hers. A few grains stayed stuck to the container by static electricity. Antônio knocked the bottom against the table until they came loose. The bend could have paid part of it, said Edna. It paid yesterday. The sentence stayed between them with the roughness of cut copper. Outside, someone opened the bar's tap. The piping worked under the floor for twenty-nine seconds, keeping the same delay as the previous measurement. The mug filled. No voice celebrated. Edna pushed the bowl towards Antônio. He gave back only the piece of pequi. She split it with the spoon and left one half on the rim of his plate. The house governed hunger by positions. The absent one was served first, the visitor received what still had substance, the owner scraped the bottom. Edna occupied two incompatible positions. She had been received to eat and had to leave carrying a part of the house as evidence against the bar. Antônio resolved the contradiction by covering the bend with the same cloth he used to strain the corn. The fabric kept an old oil stain and the round mark of a pot. Don't hand over the cloth, he said. They'll want the part as it was found. They found it in Ilva's bag. Then take it without. Antônio pulled the copper. Edna held the other end. For an instant each of them held half of the bend, and the fold made years before appeared between their hands. Nael had recognised it by the burn it had left him. Antônio remembered something else. On the night of the installation, the two of them had slept on the kitchen floor to hear whether the refrigerator would draw water from the sink. Each time the motor started, Nael woke up and counted to eight. Antônio pretended to stay asleep so that his friend would repeat the count. He let go of the part. Edna set it directly on the table. Eleven minutes remained. Antônio opened the lower compartment of the stove and took out a small thermal bag. Inside were two wrinkled fruits, a container of salt and a folded shirt. The shirt was for the capital. He shook it once, smoothed the fabric over the chair and folded it again, smaller. The price band stayed lit on the glass. Edna finished the corn. She got up with the bowl in her hands, but Antônio pointed to the basin beside the sink. The little water used for washing the dishes stayed there until night, when it served the pots in the yard. She scraped the grains into her mouth, ran two wet fingers over the bottom and poured that water into the basin. Six minutes. Antônio wrapped the bend in the travelling shirt. This time Edna did not argue. She took the bundle and held it tight against her chest. The third bowl stayed covered for Mariana. The rice for the journey swelled under the plate, soaking up the broth of the corn. Edna crossed the curtain, passed the counter without looking at the tap and ran out with Antônio's shirt around the copper.