Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [48]
But when I walked through the tunnel to the hillside near Agnaldo’s home, nothing had changed, except, I thought, it looked a bit shabbier with some particularly ratty looking new shacks near the entrance of the tunnel. The other shacks and trees still stood as they had when I first arrived. People stared at me as I walked down the path alone. The wind blew warm, and I could hear birds in the trees.
As I neared Agnaldo’s home, a sense of disorientation crept over me. The small front porch area—dirt shaded by a tin roof—was filthy. Rubbish and debris were everywhere. Chickens ate the refuse, and I could smell excrement nearby. The single door and window both stood open.
Suddenly, a woman burst from the door.
“Get to work, you fucking bitch!” a man shouted from inside. It did not sound like Agnaldo. The woman started as she saw me, but quickly reverted to disinterest, her skin and eyes slack. She wore too much makeup and high heels. The makeup did not hide the bruises that covered her face and shoulders.
“Are you all right?” I asked. She didn’t even bother to answer. She trudged up the hill toward the street, toward tourists, and, presumably, paying clients.
I paused before the house, then decided to leave before anyone else emerged. But I hesitated too long. A skinny, short man with a tattered shirt came out. He stared at me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was supposed to meet Agnaldo,” I said.
“Oh. Yeah. Well.” And he stepped inside to the dark. A few seconds later Agnaldo emerged. He seemed completely drunk, hardly able to stand; his eyes seemed sunken into his face too far. He stared at me for a moment, almost without recognition.
“I’ll come back another time,” I said.
“Oh. Danger. Were you coming today? I wasn’t thinking you were coming.”
“That’s OK. I’ll come back another day. We can talk later.” Agnaldo took me by the arm. “No, no. You should come in. We can talk. I didn’t remember the day.”
“No,” I said, trying to disentangle my arm. “Really, I can come back.”
“No, no,” said Agnaldo. “Come in. You have to meet my girlfriend. She’s sleeping in the back. She’s pregnant, you know.” He dragged me inside.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness after the bright of the sun outside. When they did, I saw people everywhere. Bits and pieces of rubbish littered the dirt floor. The stove and radio were gone and only a few scattered boxes remained as furniture. Two women lay sprawled against one wall. Another woman sat on the floor holding a pot full of beans. A small boy, about two, stood in front of her. The woman slapped the beans ineffectively with a spoon, her arm seeming to have no strength or coordination. The boy leaned over and picked out single beans, eating them. Then he stumbled and fell, face first, into the beans. He tried to pull himself out and began to scream. The woman hit him with the spoon, with no power behind the hit, and told him to shut up. He wandered away, wiping beans from his face with his hand and eating them.
Agnaldo pulled me into the windowless back room. I could hardly see. I discerned a mat on the floor covered with some material, perhaps sheets, perhaps clothes. A woman lay there and a man sat against the wall. Agnaldo sat next to the woman on the mat. “Get up! Get up! We have a friend here. I want you to meet her. It’s my capoeira friend.”
The woman opened her eyes languidly and Agnaldo propped her to a sitting position. She was perhaps six months pregnant. She held out her hand in greeting. I took it and, unsure what to do, sat on the mat beside her.
“Do you want some coffee?” Agnaldo asked.
“No, thank you,” I said. There was clearly no coffee nor any way to make coffee in the house.
“Well, we can share this then,” and Agnaldo took from his shorts a packet that he unrolled to reveal white powder. He laid out