THE GREY CRUST

The noise of the ducts arrived before the men. A low, continuous note that made the water in Antônio's glass tremble at the rim. Ilva moved the glass away from the table and divided the reserved portion into three parts. The smallest stayed covered. The second went near the door. The third stayed in front of Nael's empty chair. When he came in, he had mud up to his shins and his shirt pocket open. The corn dough was gone. Valdo came behind, holding his injured index finger away from his body. Neither of them spoke while Ilva shut the door. She looked first at their feet, then at their hands. On the sole of Nael's sandal there was a grey crust cut by a blue line. The licensed polygon had marked the path with an optical compound that the tracking cameras recognised for up to two days. In the house, the mark looked like wet dust. Get that off before you go through the kitchen, she said. Nael rested his foot on the door frame. Ilva brought an almost dry cloth and left it on the floor. He rubbed the sole once. The blue opened into three streaks. On the second time, it passed onto the cloth. On the third, it grew paler, but did not disappear. Valdo closed the door with his heel. The team arrived when we were already at the stake, he said. They made Nael walk first. As far as where, asked Ilva. Until he stopped. Nael pulled out the chair, but did not sit down. The mark on the sandal would touch the lower rung. He stayed standing, in front of the portion she had set aside. At the stake, the collection man had not asked for names. He had put two poles in the ground and followed Nael's walk through a lens fixed to his chest. Each time the old man slowed his pace, Valdo went on ahead, pretending to know the direction. At the third pause, he found a recent ditch. At the fourth, a hollow stone. At the fifth, the lens turned south, where the buried house began to fit under the dry layer. You stopped five times, said Valdo. Four. Five. The last was when he talked about the drilling. Nael ran his tongue over his lips and looked at the food. Ilva pushed the portion from the empty chair to the centre. In Antônio's house, whoever came in from outside ate after saying how many would come back. It was a reckoning older than the bar, kept up even when there was only food enough to share out the absence. How many are coming, she asked. Two from the collection, said Valdo. Three, corrected Nael. The one with the lens stayed there. Ilva divided the larger part again. Four pieces filled the plate, one for each person inside the house and another for Antônio. No portion was set aside for those who were coming. Valdo noticed and pulled the chair away from the table, opening space by the door. I heard something at the stake, he said. The lens man said that in a county in Florida they banned intelligence datacenters for a year. People went and spoke and held up the works. They banned all of them, asked Ilva. He said the intelligence ones. Then he said data warehouse. He might have got it mixed up. Nael picked up a piece of corn. He did not bring it to his mouth. The datacenter steam covered the light from the window for a few moments. In the places that had learned to suspend a construction, the pause got a photograph and a deadline. Ducts before the building, drilling before the licence, water intake before the name. When the consultation came, the infrastructure would already be thirsty. Valdo sat down. With his good hand, he broke his portion and returned half to Antônio's plate. If they stopped there after listening to people, someone here is going to want to do the same. Who told the man that, asked Ilva. The buyer of the route. He said that now every contract had to prove the community had been heard. Nael finally ate. He chewed without taking his eyes off the stained sole. The company had used his walk to draw the approach to the house, and now it needed voices to declare that the path had been known collectively. He pulled the cloth from the floor and covered the blue streaks. Ilva picked up Antônio's glass. She shared half the water between Valdo and Nael, leaving the rest at the bottom. Valdo drank first, just one sip, and passed the glass. Nael put his mouth to it, but stopped. I spoke there, he said. I said the curve ended at the stake. Ended, repeated Valdo. The man asked who lived beyond it. Ilva kept the glass raised. What did you answer, she asked. Nael set the water on the table. He lowered his eyes to the cloth over the blue streaks. Outside, footsteps began to measure the street. Ilva took Antônio's part off the plate, carried it to the bedroom and came back with an empty basin. She put the basin over the blue mark, pressed it down with her foot and dragged chair and table over against the door.