THE NARROW CRACK

Antônio lowered his head to pass through the gap beneath the storeroom. The corridor took one body at a time, between the optical cable fixed to the wall and the earth the mine had left compacted above them. He carried the travel container in one hand, the shallow pan in the other. The corn mash trembled inside it, already without the preservation band that had given it heat. Nael went in after. He touched the side of the tunnel with two fingers and took away a dark crust. He had known that stone when he was still paid by the metre opened. He had taught younger men to hear the difference between ground that held up a machine and ground that swallowed tools. Now the blue line ran close to his fingernail, seeking the continuity he had helped to sell. Célia stayed at the entrance, breathing through her mouth. Ilva passed her and pressed her palm against the clay wall, where a bundle of wires came down from a bolted duct. The heat of the cable rose through the surface. Further on, the light showed a low recess, dry, with room for four people sitting. Antônio set the pan on the ground. We eat before going on, he said. Célia looked at the opening through which the brightness of the storeroom still came. The visit had already begun. Nael crouched near the pan, without touching it. Ilva took from the travel container a measure of water smaller than the width of three fingers and poured it over the mash. The corn absorbed it all in silence. Antônio divided four portions with the spoon. His came last, small, almost an edge. Nael pulled the pan to the centre and moved two parts around. The largest went to Célia. You'll be walking more, he said. She refused with her head. You've got an open foot, he answered. Antônio saw the division and kept his hand still on his own thigh. For years, at the bar counter, he had decided who got ice first when the power still allowed anything to freeze. Antônio wiped his damp thumb on his trousers and looked at the portion left to him. Ilva pushed Antônio's portion toward him. You went in first. He took the spoon. He chewed slowly, as if he still had to choose a message for his son before swallowing. The mash cooled fast. Nael ate standing, leaning against the wall, and left half in the pan. Keep it, he said. For whom, asked Célia. He pointed with his chin at the dark opening ahead. No one answered. The corridor went on into the ground the operation called the route, and that Nael had known as a survey path. Up ahead, the earth kept boot marks, sealed boreholes, names the maps had lost. Ilva covered the remaining mash with the lid of the pan. The metal would not hold the food for long, but it hid the smell. Antônio pressed the empty container to his chest. The technical tariff went on running somewhere above ground, fed by the steady light of the cable. The corn had a deadline too, though no panel needed to announce it. Célia took the visor from against her body and kept it dark, without consulting a route. Nael pointed to a narrow crack behind the recess. The water used to pass through there, he said. Antônio took the covered pan, handed it to Ilva and crouched to enter the crack first.