THE CROOKED LID

The saúvas were gnawing at the lid of the cool box with a dry noise, too small to wake Nael. Valdo heard it first. He was on the porch, sitting near the open refrigerator, separating the three pieces of mineral cord on a kitchen cloth. When he came back inside, the box had already tipped over by the table. A worker was dragging the largest fragment through the crack in the floor. Ilva saw the black streak advance between its legs, then saw other ants gather behind it, mistaking the hardened fibre for nest material. The line was heading for the kitchen. Beneath that floor, too close to the basin where they washed their few utensils, ran the loop Nael had described. Grab it, said Valdo. She knelt by the box, but the saúvas opened two routes. One went to the yard, carrying fresh mud. The other turned under the cold stove. Valdo raised his foot and stopped before crushing them. If you kill one, they go back to the crack, he said. Nael was asleep in Antônio's room, on his side, with the reinforced sandal by the door. He had spent the night watching the bank, alert to the sound of the mat slapping the earth. Ilva knew the short breathing that came after those vigils. She also knew the way he woke up and offered a whole path so as not to be the man who had lost his way. Valdo looked at the bedroom. Call him. She watched the largest fragment disappear under the stove. The line was thickening. The saúvas came from the hot ducts behind the bar, where the earth held the fever of the equipment connected to the intelligence network. The datacenter drew water from the basin and threw steam above the valley. On Antônio's floor, there was heat to spare for creatures looking for shade where there was none. I know the three points, said Ilva. You know them from the screen. I know them from the parallel ledger. Valdo closed the box with his palm. The lid sat crooked, held by ant teeth and marks of mud. Nael knows where the earth gives way, he answered. He needs to sleep. And I need to get to the bank before it gets light. The sentence stayed low. Valdo did not touch the bedroom door. Ilva pointed out the first point with her finger on the table, beside the wet cloth. Then she indicated another, near the dry buriti. The third would be behind the storehouse, where the slope hid marks of passage. She spoke with precision. That was the mistake. The first piece, carried off by the saúvas, no longer obeyed the drawing. The line went into the kitchen, crossed the shadow under the stove and went on close against the wall. Valdo took the two remaining fragments out of the box. He wrapped one in the strip of plastic left over from the straps and kept the other inside his shirt. I'll put two, he said. The third they can take wherever they like. If they take it to the cable. They already have. In the yard, a cloud of small insects circled the service light. They fell onto the earth, beat their wings once, then were gathered up by the ants. Nael used to say that, before the drilling surveys, that light drew big moths, with powder on their wings. Now the insects came short and colourless, bred in the heat of the cabinets and ducts. Valdo went out through the gate with the pieces hidden on his body. Ilva stayed by the stove, watching the line go into the crack in the kitchen. She could wake Nael. She could tell Valdo to wait. Instead, she pulled the basin over the largest crack, leaving a narrow opening for the saúvas to go on without coming back to the bedroom. The solution kept Nael's sleep and gave away the path of the house. When Valdo came back, the dark had thinned over the bank. He had mud on his shins and his shirt marked by a line of paler earth. He had placed one fragment near the buriti, another behind the storehouse. At the third point, he found an old root crossing the soil and had to dig deeper. The root ran in the direction of the kitchen. He did not speak right away. He sat in the empty chair and kept looking at the basin over the crack. The company will read the two points, he said. But what they took is under the house. Ilva realised then that the parallel ledger held three false positions and a fourth, made by small legs, without voice and without agreement. The root Valdo had touched remained under the earth, seeking the same dark where the saúvas had taken the cord.