A BAR DIRTY WITH ASH

Nael pulled from under the stove a short bar, dark with old grease and dry earth. It had one flattened end, the other twisted in a spiral. Valdo recognised the iron before he knew why the other man had brought it. This went into the ground, said Nael. The bar had been part of a hand probe, used when he guided the machines through the far reaches of the valley and was still paid by the metre of path opened. Then came the thermal readers, the depth images, the clear parts that promised to show the subsoil without wounding it. That week, the depot workshop was waiting for silica blades that did not arrive. Without them, the reading boxes refused recalibration and the drivers went back to searching the ground with their eyes, with their feet, with error. Valdo looked at the thermal box by the door. The lid had a split near the handle. He had left it there to take the delivery in case the rain came, but the insulation had been failing since the afternoon. At the depot, a box like that cost two trips' worth of deductions. The company's going to ask me for an answer before I load, he said. Nael ran his hand over the bar and crouched, leaning on his other leg. In the yard, the pequi seedling stayed inside the mesh, bare to the tip. The saúvas had opened another passage under the metal and were carrying fragments of bark along the buried cable. Ilva was sitting at the table, with the scraped pot between her arms. She did not touch the cold mirror. From the house next door came the steam of a covered pot, a smell of toasted flour and old fat. She heard Valdo repeat the sentence, as if the answer might change size the second time. If you say altered soil, they ask why, he said. If I say layer of ash, they ask how much. Nael drove the bar in a hand's breadth from the stake imagined by the bent lid. The earth resisted. He pushed with both hands, stopped before he hurt his knee and handed the iron to Valdo. You push too straight. Valdo held the spiral. His forefinger burned under the film, but the bar demanded the whole palm. He sank it two fingers, then one more. The tip met a hard layer. He tried to shift it to the right. The iron scraped something dry, with a short sound, different from gravel. Again, said Nael. This time Valdo leaned his body's weight into it, as if steering the truck round the lower bend. The metal went in up to the rust mark and stopped. He pulled the bar out. On the tip came a black dust, fine, stuck to the iron by a moisture the yard no longer had. Ilva got up. She took a burnt kernel of corn from the lid and pressed it against the dust. The kernel turned grey on the surface. When was there fire here, asked Valdo. When the straw closed off the yard, answered Nael. The sentence struck the split in the thermal box. Valdo lowered his eyes. Behind the house, where his beds used to give parsley and chives, there were now the high duct and a strip of gravel. The pump had not come back. He knew the price of a dead root, he knew too the value of an area declared unfit for passage. He just did not know enough to say where the ash ended and the house began. Nael pulled the bar back and marked three points on the ground. One near the stake, another four paces on, the last beyond the shadow of the buriti. At each point, the tip gave back the same dark dust. Twelve paces, said Valdo. Up to there, confirmed Nael. And after. Nael pointed to the line going back. The light from the datacenter towers rose into the low clouds. From afar, it looked as though the sky had received a coat of white powder, applied with care to hide the cracks. Valdo carried the bar to the thermal box. He pushed the twisted end into the split in the lid and turned it slowly. The heated plastic gave a little. He pulled out a narrow strip from the inner handle, material old enough to pass through the hinge. Nael watched without helping. The strip served to fasten the lid from the outside, ugly and firm, stopping it from opening on the way. You're going to ruin the box, said Ilva. It came ruined. Valdo tightened the knot of the strip. The box ended up crooked, but shut. Inside would fit the depot's portions, if he managed to fetch them. The bar dirty with ash stayed on the ground, by the saúvas' mesh. Nael went into the house without picking it up. Valdo stood a moment before the three holes, measuring them with his eyes. Then he dragged the thermal box close to the door and placed on it his own shirt, folded in four.