Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [20]
“He wants to be a biologist,” Rita said.
The man laughed as he wrapped the fish. “Your friend is a good person,” he said to me. I nodded. “Does she understand?” he asked Rita.
“Yes, she can understand most things now.”
The man nodded. “Maybe your brother can figure out why all the fish are disappearing,” he said. “We only see a few varieties of tuna these days.”
Rita laughed. “You ask him that,” she said.
“How will these people make a living if they close the market?” I asked Rita as we walked away.
“They won’t,” she said. “It’s up this way.” We turned up a steep hill on a very narrow lane. “It’s even worse than that. The market is open to everyone. People who have more money come first thing in the morning and buy the produce when it’s very fresh. Then about noon, as it gets hot, the farmers begin to lower their prices—they have to sell everything before it spoils. So people who have less money, but can still afford to buy, come then. Then mid-afternoon, when things are beginning to spoil, the farmers lower their prices again and people with even less money can buy. Finally, in the evening, after the farmers have left, the people who have nothing, who live in the streets, come out and eat the fruit and vegetables left in the streets to rot. The food isn’t such good quality then, but it is food and it doesn’t make them sick. In that way everyone gets to eat. But grocery stores have just one price, and poor people can’t even go in there, let alone buy anything.”
The hill continued upwards. It was very hot. Rita was sweating, but she did not seem short of breath. She walked this hill every day to her home.
“Oh, well, it’s life in Salvador.” She laughed again. “See this ladeira?”
I nodded. Ladeira described a lane that goes up a hill. I had learned that from walking the many ladeiras in Penambuas.
“We have a saying here, ‘a green ladeira.’ It means hope or a dream of a better life. A green ladeira is beautiful, going upward to a sunny hill, like this one used to be. But ladeiras in Salvador aren’t like that. Instead, garbage is everywhere, rats, sewage, shacks, people sitting on the side starving. It’s the opposite of a green ladeira. So, people live beside ladeiras like this one and dream of the other one they have never seen.” We had reached the top of the hill. “Until,” Rita said, “they cease to dream.” She smiled ironically, but I saw no bitterness in that smile. I wondered why.
We headed down the other side of the hill, turning into tangled streets and continuing until we stopped in front of a house with a single door and window. The upper story of the house seemed to be under construction. Beside the house was a high sheet metal gate.
“This is mine,” Rita said as she unlocked the gate. We walked along a path perhaps three feet wide. “Be careful on the stairs,” she said. “I’m constructing this as I get the money, and I haven’t been able to fix the stairs yet.” We ascended a set of narrow concrete stairs that had no wall or railing on either side. At the top was a door, which Rita also unlocked. We walked into a single room containing a kitchen, living room and eating area. Beyond this room were open doors to a bedroom and bathroom. Rita placed her groceries on the kitchen counter. “This is in progress. I’m building it on the top of my father’s house.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father built the place below, so I’m building my house on top. I was able to save the money to build this part last year and will begin to tile the floor next year. I should have asked you, do you like fish?”
“I love fish.” I stared out the window, which opened onto a spectacular vista of the valley beyond, one vast series of shantytowns. “Great view,” I said.
“Yeah. That all used to be forest down there.”
“So people just came and built over it?”
“In the seventies—and from then until now. People keep losing their land, starving in the countryside, so they come here. Then they can starve here.”
I watched Rita rub the fish with lemon and salt. “What do you do for a job, Rita?”
“I’m