A Greater Love (4 page)

Paulo retreated a few feet as if preparing to run, but when he saw Miguel’s success, he circled the bag around his head. Bits of gooey fruit shot out in all directions, splattering everyone in reach. With a chorus of horrified shrieks, the bullies vanished.

Miguel and Paulo fell to the cobblestone walk, laughing so hard they almost couldn’t breathe. “We was too much for them brats,” Miguel bragged. “Did ya see their faces? Imagine being so upset ’cause of a little dirt.” He threw back his head and howled with amusement.

“They won’t be buggin’ us no more,” Paulo said. “That’s for sure.” He brushed fruit gook from his coat and pulled his knees to his chest. “We’re heroes.”

 Heroes! Miguel like the sound of that. Just wait until he told Sara. The thought sobered him instantly. Many nights Octávia went to the pub, and he had to get there before she left to give her the money he had earned, and to watch Sara.

“I gotta get home,” he said, flicking several beads of rancid slop from his pants.

“Yeah, me too. Mamãe said she was making soup. I even got her the eggs and bread this mornin’.”

Miguel knew that meant the sour-tasting poor man’s stew made of water, olive oil, bread, and a few broken eggs. He didn’t like the taste, but had learned that the stew filled his stomach well. Maybe there was time to scrounge a bowl from Paulo’s mother.

As quickly as it came, he shrugged the temptation aside. If he was any later, Octávia would become angry. Besides, he had yet to buy Sara her daily milk that Sister Perrault had insisted they both needed for strong bones.

“I gotta go to the store first,” Miguel said, coming to his feet. He pulled his sweater down over the back of his pants, hoping to warm his bottom which was cold from the cobblestones.

“You forgot to give me the fifty escudos.”

Miguel was tempted to renege, but he might need Paulo’s help again. While he considered Paulo his friend, he had no doubts about where his loyalty lie: money. It was something you could depend on. Miguel understood because he felt exactly the same way.

The boys scuffed through the streets in silence until they reached the small store on the corner. Inside, Miguel bought a carton of milk and a half-dozen eggs. He would have tried to steal something as a matter of principle, but the matronly woman behind the counter recognized him and knew his circumstances well enough to keep a sharp eye on his movements. Paulo bought candy with the escudos Miguel had given him, but he didn’t offer to share. Together they trudged home.

Weariness ached in Miguel’s bones as he caught sight of the sad array of wooden and cement houses, haphazardly dotting the gentle slope. Some were truly shacks like his, made of wood scraps nailed together, but some were better inside, belonging to those who had jobs. A few, like Paulo’s, actually had electricity and indoor plumbing.

They paused at the water spigot in the dirt clearing, shared by all the inhabitants of the poor settlement. Lowering his face close to the nozzle, Miguel sucked at the water, shuddering as it spattered over him, the cold drops penetrating his sweater. He found himself craving the heat of summer, the easy picking of food from the fields and gardens, and the long lazy nights. Even Octávia was more generous in those days. He could almost believe she cared.

Miguel stopped at the turn that would lead to his home. “Tchau, Paulo.” The other boy nodded and continued up the slope to his family’s shack.

Shadows loomed in the increasing darkness, and Miguel scanned the area before approaching his door. There was a group of older teens who sometimes lurked in the area at night. Unlike the spoiled rich boys, they’d always ignored Miguel, but he was wary of them. Rumors of robberies, assaults, and drugs followed them like stinkweed. Occasionally, they boasted of their escapades in loud voices, but for the most part, they left the shack residents alone. Most of them also called this wretched community home.

Tonight the teens were nowhere to be seen. Miguel stopped at the thin plywood plank that served as the door to his shack and listened. Someone inside was singing softly. Sara. She was constantly singing a snatch of some song or other that she’d heard, like a parrot mimicking its master—except Sara only needed to hear something one time before she made it her own.

Sara’s singing meant that Octávia had left the shack or was already drunk. Even so, Miguel cautiously let his bag of food slip to the hard-packed dirt next to the shack and removed his right shoe where he kept the money he had begged and stolen that day. It was wise to have the cash ready to give to Octávia, just in case.

His bare foot felt good at the release. When had these shoes begun to pinch his toes? They’d been practically new when he’d found them at a church’s charity open house last year. He’d felt almost proud to own them. But oh, how he now yearned for summer when he wouldn’t have to wear any shoes at all!

Maybe he could begin to store his money in the stolen wallet that fit snug in his back pocket, with no danger of sliding out. That would give his pinched toes more room.

He picked up his sack and tried the door. It shook with his effort but didn’t open. Sara must have closed the padlock they usually used on the outside of the door to protect their belongings while they were out.

“Who’s there?” Sara called. “Miguel?” He could hear the nervousness in her high voice.

“It’s me.”

He waited for her to open the lock. When she did, he peered inside, searching for Octávia. The shack had one room, half carpeted with remnants, and plain except for the array of different boards making up the walls, which fashioned an uneven but almost cheerful pattern. There was a shelf too, badly bowed in the middle, which held Octávia’s treasures–a heavy clay figurine of Our Lady Fátima, a worn Bible, a cross, and a basket of miscellaneous items. He didn’t know what any of the religious objects meant, or even why Octávia kept them. Not once had he seen her touch them. A thick layer of dust covered everything on the shelf, except for the Bible which Miguel occasionally fingered longingly. The words meant something, if only he could figure out the pattern. It wasn’t as easy as the traffic in Lisbon, but someday he’d have a hundred books or more and read them all at least ten times.

In the close right corner, the uncarpeted part, lay an odd assortment of pans, a few chipped plates, a pile of deadwood from the forest, and a large metal container in which he often built a fire. Shabby blankets fell in an untidy heap across from the dishes where he and Sara slept on a double layer of carpet. In the depths of the small shack near the left wall, he saw Octávia’s old mattress in the corner, covered by several more ragged blankets.

Sara saw his glance. “She’s out,” she confirmed, adjusting a blanket over her shoulders. Despite the covering, her thin face looked pinched and cold. “She went to get the vinho de pipa.”

Vinho de pipa
was the cheap barrel-wine Octávia mostly drank, as it cost less than ninety escudos to refill a bottle. But without fail she also would buy at least one bottle of the more expensive
vinho verdes—
green wines—that came from Braga in the northern reaches of Portugal to begin her drunken stupors.

“Good day?” Miguel asked, keeping his hands behind his back so that she couldn’t see them.

In the dim light, Sara nodded. “Someone gave me a whole loaf of bread,” she said. “And Octávia got a bunch of coins, and some bills, too. I tried to save a piece of bread, but Octávia ate it.” She stomped her small bare foot. “Sometimes she makes me so mad. At least there’s still a lot of fruit from Senhor Fitas.” She gazed hopefully at him. “You did get somethin’, didn’t ya?”

“Course I got somethin’,” he said. Sara lit the old kerosene lamp they kept on a rusty nail in the corner. It cast a bleak light, devoid of warmth. When Sara finished with the lamp, he put the cartons of milk and eggs in her hands. Then he showed her the cookies, slightly broken, but looking every bit as tasty as when he had eaten the four that the morning and two others for lunch.

Her eyes widened. “Cookies!” she exclaimed with a delighted squeal. “Wow, four of them!”

For a minute Miguel felt as though all the happiness in the world were in his little sister’s face. He wished he could always make her feel this way. Her long hair fell over her shoulder as she bent to smell the cookies. Narrow strands of blonde striped the brown tresses around her face, as if permanently highlighted by kisses from the sun. Miguel knew his hair had the same bands of blond. The curious feature and his faint memories of Sara’s birth were the only proof of their familial relationship.

“Eat,” he urged.

Sara giggled and took a bite. Miguel opened the carton of milk and motioned for her to drink from the spout. She gulped down several swallows. “Mmm, it tastes so good. Drink some.”

Miguel drank, careful not to take too much. He gave the carton back to Sara and scooped up an apple from Senhor Fitas’s box. “I’ll build a fire and we’ll be warm in no time. Senhor Alferes sent ya some chestnuts too. I peeled ’em for ya while they were hot. Here.” He fished in one of the front pockets of his pants. Money and smaller items would always fall out the small holes, but a newspaper cup of chestnuts was too large to slip through.

While she ate, he arranged the old coals and odd pieces of wood and paper in the metal container. He used only one match to light it, and in a short time the flames leapt joyfully in the bleak room. Miguel took the iron grate he had found two winters past and placed it over part of the fire where the flames didn’t dance so high, and on this he placed his apple and another for Sara. Roasted apples were one of their favorite treats. Miguel no longer shivered.

The gold flecks in Sara’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. “Thank you, Miguel,” she whispered, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Suddenly the door jerked and Miguel and Sara jumped to their feet.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Me. Open up.”

Miguel rushed to open the door with the key Sara usually wore on a string around her neck. “Octávia,” he said when he saw his aunt’s face, “look what I got!” He held out the ten contos from the wallet mixed with the rest of the change he had earned on the ferry. “I bought some milk and eggs too. Want some? We waited for ya.”

Octávia’s eyes glittered at the sight of the money. “Good boy, Miguel! Now that’s what I call a take.” She stumbled into the shack, carrying a heavily-laden cloth bag. Inside it, Miguel could hear the bottles of wine clinking together, and a nearly empty bottle cradled in her hand.

Sara stared doubtfully at the money. “You didn’t steal it, did ya, Miguel?”

Shame washed over him, and he couldn’t answer. The man’s wallet was an uncomfortable, accusing bulge in his back pocket.

“Of course he did, girl,” Octávia growled. “Think some-one’d give him a bill like that? You maybe, with them eyes, but not him, not anymore. He’s gettin’ too old.”

“But stealin’ is wr—” Sara broke off when Octávia lifted a thick-veined hand to her wrinkled face and tugged on her hooked nose. The old woman’s tiny eyes were narrow and her mouth pursed in disgust.

Miguel’s stomach twisted, the ever-present fear jumping to the forefront of his emotions. He pushed Sara toward the fire, hoping he wasn’t too late to protect her from his aunt’s volatile temper. “Go make the eggs.”

“Yes, go make the eggs,” Octávia mimicked. “Just get outta my way.”

Miguel wished he could run from the shack and into the forest on the far side of the settlement. Anything to get away from his aunt. But Sara was trembling all over and he couldn’t abandon her. He made himself stay between his sister and Octávia.

“Don’t need no ungrateful children passin’ judgements on how I make a livin’,” Octávia muttered, meeting his gaze. “Heaven knows I shoulda given ya both up. It’s not like you’re any use to me.”

A single tear slid down Sara’s cheek, but she didn’t speak or look at their aunt.
It’s the drink talkin’,
Miguel reminded himself.
Not Octávia at all.
If only he could change his aunt’s mood before she lashed out at them physically.

“I taught them mean boys a lesson,” he blurted desperately.

Octávia’s rampage stopped in mid-sentence. “You did?” Her yellow-toothed grin wasn’t comforting, but it made Miguel feel better than her scowl.

He told his story, taking his time and even exaggerating parts. It sounded better that way. “They was completely covered with the stuff by then, ya see,” he said near the end. “And the leader boy tripped, and I ran and picked up the box and put it on his head. The bottom broke and his head popped through. Then he ran away squawking like one of Paulo’s chickens! You shoulda seen him—squawking with the box around his neck. What a sight!”

By the time he was finished, both Sara and Octávia were laughing. “I bet you learned them a thing or two,” his aunt said, wiping a tear from her eye.

Miguel basked in her pride. “I doubt they got the guts to mess with me again.”

“So that’s why ya kinda smell bad.” Sara’s comment sent them into fits of laughter again. The little girl smiled tentatively at Octávia, then went to retrieve the three remaining cookies she’d left next to the fire. She gave one to Miguel and the other two to Octávia. “Miguel got ’em.”

Octávia bit into the first. “Hmmm. That’s good. Almost as good as Miguel here doin’ them bratty kids the way he done.” She chortled again, her rounded chest bouncing. Miguel watched it jiggle up and down. He had never understood how she could have such a round chest and stomach when the rest of her was so skinny.

“Want some eggs?” Sara asked timidly.

Octávia shook her hand and reached for a bottle of wine. “Not hungry. These cookies are enough.” She made her way over to her mattress where she sat with an exaggerated sigh. She glanced down at the money Miguel had given her. “Keep it up, boy, and we just might get ’lectricity soon. I’ve been wantin’ a TV.”

“That’d be great!” Miguel grinned at Sara, relieved to see the fear had left her face. This time at least he had averted Octávia’s wrath. He didn’t mind it as much when the old lady hit or yelled at him, figuring he mostly deserved it, but he hated it when she hurt Sara.