cw: sexual assault
From the floorboards of the car, I saw the colors of the day changing. Yellow, then grey, then yellow again. The windows of the car showed me branches and electrical wires with sneakers hanging on them. I had always wondered how the owners of those sneakers got home, barefoot. What had caused the shoes to be tossed up there in the first place? Maybe they belonged to children who had been taken away from their families like I was being taken away from mine?
On that Tuesday morning during Carnaval, the ghettos of Sao Paulo rested in a layer of emptiness. Pai left home before dawn. Factory workers were not given any holiday. For my family the day started like any other, with the difference that there was no school and I was at home doing the dishes.
Mãe’s voice echoed from the open door of the fridge, “Oh no, there’s no more milk. Andréia, go to the bakery.”
Joy dressed me in its clothes. I had started going out on my own and I loved it. That meant I was not a little girl anymore. I was 9 years old and soon I’d be wearing a bra and would be allowed to watch movies like Lambada and Blue Lagoon.
The bakery was less than a 10-minute walk. Ten merry minutes of being lost in my thoughts, my hair fluttering by the breeze of the early morning.
The baker was a bird-voiced man from whom I could order with just my presence.
“Hi, kid how’ you?”
“I’m good, and you?”
“Good, good. Milk type C for you?” Type C was the cheapest and lowest quality milk.
“Precisely.” I liked to use words I had learned at school.
“You’re a smart girl, aren’t you?” He winked and bent down behind the counter. The heat on my cheeks revealed my appreciation for the compliment.
I waited for the milk to be packed and forced my gaze away from the pastry and sweets display. The smell stubbornly wove its way through to me and brought a wave of saliva to my mouth.
“Thank you, sir.” I paid with precise coins.
“Thank you, kid. Have a good day.”
I took the milk outside, where the smell of smoky vehicles took over the smell of temptation and sauntered straight back towards my home. The sunshine and the uncommon quietness of the roads nested in my palms and a calm euphoria surrounded the contours of my body.
On the corner of my street, there was always a parked line of cars. I never would have noticed a middle-aged man sitting inside one of them, if the man’s voice hadn’t broken the silence. “Hey, kid.” I stopped because I was polite and respected the adults. “You know where São Francisco street is?”
Just the car window was open. The man had a soft voice and tired eyes, and I wanted to help him. I was a big girl now, so much so that an adult was asking me for directions. I must have looked like a smart kid indeed.
“Wait a minute sir, the name is familiar. If you just give me a sec to think−”
I did not finish my sentence. The nice lost gentleman metamorphosed into a beast. His tentacles grabbed my T-shirt and pulled me inside the car with the force of a moving train. When had he opened the door? I was thrown onto the floor, in front, below the passenger’s seat. There was no passenger; a gun was sitting there instead. The beast pointed the gun at my face. He had fire in his eyes and his teeth were pressed together. “If you cry, if you scream, I’ll kill you and you’ll never see your family again. You understand?”
Invisible ropes strangled my throat, blocking the air to my lungs. My soul left my body and my senses ceased to function.
He threw a towel at my face, “Cover your eyes!” The car moved. Away.
That was it. The moment of my death had arrived. I accepted, and even welcomed, death. From then on, I knew worse things than death were coming.
What did he want from me? I carried no money, just a bag of low-quality milk. Did he want my organs to sell? Where in my body were my kidneys?
The car moved round and round, in a timeless swirl. The movements of the road were hypnagogic. At some point, the car stopped. “Get out.” The beast picked me up by the neck. I choked. Huge arms threw my carcass onto the floor by the back seats. “Stay there, quiet! Cover your eyes with the towel. Fast!”
When I was pulled from the front of the car to the back, I could see a gas station. Lying on the floorboards, I smelt gasoline. Should I try to open the door and run away? Could I run away? My muscles were paralyzed, and the possibility of running was very remote. I couldn’t hear any voices. If I couldn’t run fast enough, he would kill me, that was what the gun was for. And if I ran fast enough? Would I even find someone to help me? Probably not. I would be lost forever.
There was the sound of the door closing and the car moved again. The monster shouted I should cover my fucking eyes.
Behind the rough fabric of the towel, I saw my baby sister’s knee dimples. Oh, the milky smell from between the layers of her baby neck, which I would never smell again.
A few other moments passed and the car stopped.
“Get out.”
Tall trees looked down at me. I was in front of a forest. The trees ignored my inner cry.
“Wear your slippers.” I hadn’t noticed I was touching the mud barefoot. I had my slippers on, and he took my hand. We trudged to a barbed wire fence in front of the forest. He held the wire down so I could cross first. Once inside the forest, he held my hand again. Then his jaw relaxed and the red veins in his eyes were gone. We walked hand in hand for a few meters. Trees and mud. Mud and trees.
He stopped. It was there that it happened.
“See this here? Pretend it’s a lollipop.”
I did not. I could not. He became evil again. He grabbed my throat and squeezed. Air stopped coming. My eyes bulged. I did as he said. I coughed, I choked.
I thought of my alphabetization book. B is for bicycle. Laila riding her bicycle. C is for car, Laila riding in her father’s car.
Bitter and sour. I choked, I coughed.
D is for Daisy. Laila’s mother has daisies in her garden.
“Lay down. Here, cover your eyes,” he threw my short pants in my face.
E is for elephant. Laila goes to the zoo and gives the elephant a peanut.
I had no flesh, void took in its place. I became one with the mud. I became a dead leaf decomposing in the swamp.
“You can dress now.”
Cloying hands lifted me from the mud.
“Come on, let’s go.”
I was back on the floorboard and the car was moving again. I could not swallow my saliva. I spat into the towel.
A voice broke my torpor.
“Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
Tell anyone what? Which part? With what words?
“I promise.”
“You’ll tell. I know you will.”
“I will not.”
Silence. Then I broke it.
“I wanna die.”
“I won’t kill you.”
Why had it changed its mind?
I heard myself saying, “I’m hungry.” I was not. I don’t think I could eat. But maybe food would fill the infinite emptiness.
“I’ll give you food.”
When the car stopped again, we were in front of the big brown gates of a garage.
“Get out.”
My legs were delayed in their response.
“Get your slippers. And if you tell anyone, I’m going back to kill you and your family. I know where you live.”
Then the devil said the most beautiful words I had ever heard in my life.
“Go home.”
“What?”
“Go home.”
I looked around. A big avenue, a two-way road with cars buzzing and speeding by in a dream-like fog.
“Where’s my home?”
“Just go straight ahead, you’ll know the way.”I turned my back on the devil. Slowly, and with enormous effort, my legs started moving on the sidewalk. The moment had arrived. He was going to shoot me. At any moment, right in my back. My spine grew warm. One, two, three, four, five steps. No bullet yet. Maybe he was waiting until no cars were passing to make sure nobody would see it?
Mãe, I love you. I’m sorry I never came back with the milk.
Six, seven, eight, nine.
Mãe, forgive me for leaving you alone with all the work at home.
Ten, eleven, twelve.
Please do it quickly, Satan, once and for all.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
I touched my back with my right arm, without turning. Whole! My heavy, jelly-like legs started to run.
Mãe, I’m coming to you. I’m alive!
Life sprung back into me, in a blast.
Wait Mãe, just a little more, I’m coming.
I ran as fast as my trembling legs allowed. I ran against the wind, against the pain, through bliss. I ran through rebirth.
On the other side of the road, there was a bus stop. Our bus stop. It’s here! I knew my way home.
Heads at the bus stop turned to me. My appearance raised people’s eyebrows and moved their mouths into an “O” shape. I looked down at my body. Bruises, milk, mud, grass. Blood. I was someone jumping across the screen in a war movie. Whatever. A rainbow was streaming out of me.
Look people, I’m alive! I’m running back to my mãe. Stop crying, Mãe, I’ll be there in a minute.
Two women were standing at the corner of my street, in the same place where my Calvary had begun. How long ago? Minutes? Hours? Days?
“Oh! It’s Andréia, it’s Andréia!” They ran to me, wearing the same shocked face as the people at the bus stop. Why did they hold my arms, one woman on each side, as if I was about to faint?
“What happened to you, you okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m running to my mãe.”
I kept walking, as fast as I could, grimacing at those unwelcome elbows on me.
“I’m okay, you can let me go.”
I had not foreseen what came next. A crowd, on the top of the street, formed a human curtain right in front of my house. Neighbors, relatives, friends, police, police cars.
Startled by my footsteps, the crowd turned and exhaled, “Oh!”
A voice yelled, “João! João, Andréia’s here, Andréia’s here!”
There came Pai, running, arms open and lifted to the sky. Jubilant eyes received me like a wilting plant encountering sunlight. Complete euphoria – an image I have printed in my heart. Forever.
When that tall mass of joy reached me, his arms became the swings of a carousel. He raised me so high, elevating me to the clouds. We turned around, his arms glued to my waist. Amidst the crowd, we saw no one. Just the two of us, together again. Me in the air, held by the powerful force that was my pai.
Pai nested me against his chest, still turning. Ah, the carnival of his heartbeats. A kiss landed on my hair, then on my forehead and all over my cheeks. He did not feel the dirt crawling all over my skin.
He put me back on the ground and bent down on his knees. Right there, surrounded by the crowd, he lifted his Herculean arms to the sky again, closed his eyes and prayed. He whispered and he wept. Tears shone across his cheeks like tiny pieces of diamond.
***
The ManifestStation publishes content on various social media platforms many have sworn off. We do so for one reason: our understanding of the power of words. Our content is about what it means to be human, to be flawed, to be empathetic. In refusing to silence our writers on any platform, we also refuse to give in to those who would create an echo chamber of division, derision, and hate. Continue to follow us where you feel most comfortable, and we will continue to put the writing we believe in into the world.
***
Our friends at Corporeal Writing are reinventing the writing workshop one body at a time.
Check out their current online labs, and tell them we sent you!
***
We are looking for readers who can dedicate an hour or so a week to reading non-fiction submissions.
Interested? Let us know!
***
Inaction is not an option,
be ready to stand up for those who need you