Crossing the River (28 page)

36
36

Put to the Test
Put to the Test

I
WAS HAPPY
to go home to Penedo. We'd been gone for most of five weeks. Molly was eager to start up at Imaculada, where her class would now be the
segundo ano
, the second-to-oldest class in the school. At the recommendation of Iracema, one of the
coordenador
s, we'd decided that Skyler would go back and complete the first semester of his seventh-grade year (when we'd arrived, he'd entered into the second). This meant he'd be switching to a younger class. He wasn't thrilled, but he seemed to accept it as yet another part of his bad-school-year package. Despite the return of his perpetual postural slump, things actually seemed to be improving.

“Well, this is a reversal of fortune,” Peter whispered one day wandering into the garden room. “Check out Skyler.” I got up from my desk and looked down the hall.

“Do you think we can trust it?” I whispered back.

We'd come to the end of the first week of classes, and Skyler had miraculously settled onto the red couch to do his homework with no resistance. Sitting down beside him, I paged through his multi-subject notebook and was quite astonished. Last semester, it seemed he'd never gotten a grip on which classes he had what days, who the teachers were, or whether he had any homework. We'd engaged Vanessa, Skyler's English teacher, largely to find out what his homework was.

“Skyler, I'm so impressed. Your
caderno
is so much more organized than it was.”

He leafed through the notebook to show me his history notes.

“And I actually understand it, too.” He recounted how the barbarians had attacked European cities and how the inhabitants had gone to feudal lords for protection.

“And here in math, I've already done all of this. My teacher, Valmir,
he told how good I am to everyone in math. He told them in math how good I am . . . How do you say it?”

He'd been repeating phrases in English recently, with wonderment and some pride, I thought, that he was getting so much better at Portuguese that it was interfering with his English.

“He told them I wasn't held back because I couldn't do it, that I'm one of the best in math, but because I need to complete the other half of the year for my school in the States and because of the language.” Skyler seemed relieved.

I was grateful for Valmir's tact. Along with Mario, the kids' PE teacher, he'd been exceptionally kind and empathetic, much as the
capoeiristas
had been.

At the capoeira salon that Monday, I mentioned to Bentinho that Skyler's birthday, his thirteenth, was coming up.

“
Podemos celebrar .
. .
?
”—Could we celebrate on Wednesday, with cake?

“
Certo
.” Bentinho seemed pleased.

When Wednesday came, I was on alert. I'd been anticipating this evening for four months, since we'd witnessed the other boy's thirteenth birthday, and I'd begun to hope that Skyler might be put to a similar challenge, have the fortune to be part of a male rite of passage, so rare now in the United States, and pass the test. I knew I was hoping that somehow this rite would ease his fraught journey through adolescence, instilling him with the deep confidence that I hoped would eventually ground him as a man. I knew it was a lot to ask, more than this one event could really deliver, but still . . . Now I was nervous.

I'd been vigilantly guarding the remains of the last of three cakes from a surprise birthday party that Skyler's friends had thrown him the night before. Victor and Ricardo had been eager to mount a surprise party at our house, not easy to do when punctuality is about as foreign to Brazilians as patience is to Americans. But they'd pulled it off, enlisting neighborhood friends to blow up balloons and string crepe paper above our dining table in a delicious frenzy of secret plotting.

Considering the number of times we'd trudged up and down the
ridge carrying cakes and platters of
brigadeiro
, cloyingly rich balls of condensed milk and cocoa powder, made by Karol and other friends, everyone in the neighborhood must have known by then that it was Skyler's birthday. This time, on my way down to the capoeira salon, I was carrying a heavy platter of watermelon, so I was walking fast.

“
Cadê Eskyloh?
” The standard greeting rang out every few meters.

“
Lá
.” I jerked my head back to where Skyler was slowly making his way down the hill, surrounded by his friends.

“
Salve
,” I shouted as I entered the salon and shook off my flip-flops.

“
Salve
,” they shouted back.

I put the watermelon and pop on one of the tables that had been pushed to the side, and I headed into the back courtyard to change. I'd recently managed to overcome my self-consciousness enough to start wearing the capoeira white. By the time I reentered the salon, Skyler and his entourage were coming through the door.

Bentinho smiled and nodded his head as if to say,
Ah, here he is, the sacrificial lamb.

More and more people kept arriving throughout the warm-up, which was unusually strenuous. Recently, Bentinho had lectured the advanced students, telling them they couldn't just show up to “play”; they also had to continue to train. I hoped Skyler had caught that life message.

By the time we broke for the
roda
, there were nineteen people besides Skyler. Nineteen people he'd have to spar against, nineteen people who were going to try to trip him up. Peter had arrived with the camera.

Skyler didn't look the least bit uneasy. Maybe he didn't realize what was coming. Or maybe he did and was eager to see if he could meet the challenge. I'd begun to notice in him an almost-reckless desire to prove himself, as though testosterone had taken the helm.

The drumming was starting, and the circle was beginning to form. When everyone had gathered, they all fell silent. Bentinho was smiling. “It's Skyler's birthday,” he began in Portuguese. “He's twenty-three.” Everyone laughed. Skyler nodded, going along with the joke. “No, he's thirteen,” Bentinho continued. “We're going to play with him. Right?” An image of panthers batting around a mouse flashed into my head. “Okay. Let's go.”

The
berimbau
player began to sing. “
Parabéns para você
. . .”

I laughed. It was “Happy Birthday,” but stretched out and syncopated to fit the capoeira rhythm. Then, suddenly, they shifted into our birthday song in English fit into the capoeira call-and-response mode. Everyone joined in, “'Appy birtday, 'appy birtday . . .” grinning at their own attempts at the language.

I think then it began to dawn on Skyler what was going on. Bentinho invited Skyler into the circle. As usual, the tempo was slow, at first. They circled each other, crouching and rocking, almost in slow-motion, both pairs of eyes fixed on the other—the tall, powerful black man, the small, slight blond boy. Then Bentinho's foot swept out, almost hooking Skyler's, but Skyler dodged and spun. Bentinho regrouped. Skyler tilted and kicked toward Bentinho's head. Bentinho's arm darted into the space under his leg, but he didn't grab the leg and flip Skyler to the ground, not this time. Instead he flipped over onto his head and waited, legs bent, ready to shoot forward should Skyler advance. Skyler lunged sideways, switched his legs, killed time. Then Bentinho was up, sweeping one leg behind Skyler's knees, the other leg in front, and Skyler was down, his legs locked in a scissor grip. Skyler laughed, surprised, and squiggled out of Bentinho's hold, rising and darting away. Bentinho smiled.

Ningo cut in. He and Skyler touched hands, and the bout started anew, over and over, eighteen more times. Fabio was the last. By this time, the tempo had picked up and the “game” had moved into the realm of fast-spinning high kicks, and Skyler was doing well, holding his own, but Fabio could see he was exhausted. After a few slicing fan kicks, Fabio held out his palms and put an arm around Skyler's shoulders to lead him out of the ring. Skyler bent over, hands on his knees, and filled his lungs with air. There were quiet nods as the players looked his way. He'd done it.

Bentinho started speaking, and, as usual, I could only catch a few words: “
rapaz de treze
”—boy of thirteen; “
agradecido para seu participação em capoeira
”—grateful for his participation in capoeira. He looked my way. “Do you want to speak?”

I nodded and started haltingly, “
Estou orgulhosa dele
”—I'm proud of him—“
porque eu sei
. . . ”—because I know it's not easy to come to
another country where you don't speak the language, where you know no one. It takes courage. But he has this courage. We are—“
agradavel?
”

“
Agradecido
.”

“
Agradecido
,”—grateful—I continued, “for all of you because you help us a lot.” I was starting to tear up.

They clapped. Bentinho nodded to Skyler. “
Fala?
”—Speak?

Skyler looked uncertain then came out with a simple “
Obrigado
”—Thank you.

Yes, thank you
, I thought,
for taking my small, uncertain, stumbling boy and helping him to find his strength in this time of insecurity. Thank you for your generosity, your willingness to take in this boy who is richer and more privileged than any of you and offer him something that is more valuable than anything he could buy—the knowledge that he can walk into the unknown and come out the other side, stronger for it.

They all smiled and burst into applause.

37
37

Gratitude
Gratitude

I
N NINE MONTHS
, I have found:

          
   
friends I would never have in the United States.

          
   
patience with myself and others.

          
   
a new language that I can now converse in with people of my own age.

          
   
a feeling of belonging in a culture very different from my own.

          
   
immense gratitude for the generosity of the people in this town.