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Little Star of Bela Lua

Delphinium Books

Chapter One

A Fish in the Desert
(Saturnino Sertanejo)

No one remembers exactly when or how the fish, that bizarre and calamitous creature, with its strange smile and fins of foreign colors, arrived in Jatobá. No one except Otália Ermerentino, whose life it changed forever. It came unannounced, like a gust of rain or an apparition of the Virgin Mary. But unlike the Virgin, whose manifestations, according to local lore, occurred exclusively under lambent midday skies, the fish appeared in the cool hours of dawn, at the small adobe hut Otália shared with her husband, Justino, on the outskirts of town. Why it chose the old couple as opposed to, say, Padre Miguel Inácio, or Don Armando, or even the pious widow Gertrudes, remained as much of a mystery to the people of Jatobá as its origins. Otália knew, however, that the fish had been an answer to her endless pleas, a gift from the Virgin or God himself, who, instead of quickening an old, infertile womb—imagine the scandal among the neighbors (not that God was incapable of such marvels, but she was no Sarah, and Justino certainly no Abraham)&8212offered her something that, in a region where oceans and rivers exist only in the fevered imaginations and dreams of its citizens, was nothing short of a miracle. Saturnino, the name Otália tenderly gave the creature, became known throughout the backlands of Pernambuco as the fish of cursed blessings.

She discovered him one Wednesday in January, the hottest and driest month of the year. On the previous evening, after the customary dinner of fried eggs and yucca, Otália and her husband sat outside, on chairs Justino had crafted from straw and wood, and drank their coffee while the night cast its slow net of shadows over the parched land. The chapel bells pealed six times, prompting Otália and Justino to cross themselves. A few neighbors wandered by: Eusébio with his stench of cana liquor; Manuel and his two skinny cows, which he swore were inherited from a distant relative; Abigália and her eighth belly, no doubt another boy, for her husband only made males; Gertrudes wearing the black veils of her widowhood. "Boa noite, Dona Talinha, boa noite, Seu Justino," they called out upon passing, and the couple raised their aluminum cups in response, "Boa noite." The man and woman exchanged no words. Forty years of marriage had taught them an unspoken language.

When the diamond of the first star shone that night, Otália repeated her wish of forty years: "Mary Virgin, mother of God, grant me a child so that I may give him the sweetest love of all, the love only a mother can give. In return I will teach him your rosary as soon as he learns his first words; will send him to church every Sunday; will baptize, commune, and confirm him; will teach him all the prayers for all the saints, yours above all, that he may adore you and praise you, amen." She said it now more out of habit than hope, with eyes shut, fists tight, brows creased, lips moving soundlessly. Justino too had a wish, but he kept it a secret even from his wife, for such are the wishes of men; sometimes they remain locked inside until the moment of death, when delirium tricks the brain and the mouth utters: "I wish I had seen the ocean."

Otália opened her eyes.

"Justino, look at that." She pointed toward the horizon, where a dim yellow moon slowly waxed.

"Yes, the moon."

"No, above it. Don't you see? There, next to the star&8212"

Justino stood, shading his eyes as if protecting them from the sun. He saw the incredible but unmistakable sight before him and said, "Vixe Maria, a cloud, a dark cloud, filled with rain!"

"May God hear you, homi. Quick, I'll get the pots, you feed the donkey, and let's pray that after nine months without a drop, Santo Antonio has taken pity on us!"

She ran inside, cursing the two chickens for being perpetually underfoot, and rushed out with a pile of pots, pans, and bowls that she distributed around the small yard to collect the water from heaven. Before joining her, Justino, with his old limp, relieved himself in the roofless outhouse, a hole he had dug and surrounded with a lattice of wood, zinc, and clay. The money Justino earned from working in the fields barely bought the daily bread; years ago, when Don Armando's sons were still children, Otália had brought home a small salary from tending the boys. But boys soon become men, and such are the contradictions of life that the rich are never as fertile as common folk, so the extra income was short-lived. How they had managed to survive all these years, only God knew. They witnessed the miracle of the multiplying loaves each night at the dinner table.

Lulled by the sound of his own urine, Justino heard the shouts of Pascoal, a self-proclaimed philosopher and messenger of truth who predicted the death of the sun, cosmic collisions, knights on dark horses, worms that never die, the advent of the angel, beasts from the sea. "Seven beasts, and so near I can smell them," he would proclaim, his eyes alight with apocalyptic fervor. Justino thought it unlikely that Pascoal could smell anything over the stench of liquor that exuded from his skin.

That evening, the rain cloud near, the last sound Justino heard before entering the house were the echoes of Pascoal's sermon, "Jatobá is found, he's coming, my friends, be ready, he's coming, he's found us. . . ."

Idiot, Justino thought. Not even the end of the world would find this place.

Otália swept the living room and kitchen. She blew the dust from the picture on the wall, the only one of the couple together, taken on the day of their wedding after hours of travel to the sole photographer in the region. In it the handsome . . .

Excerpted from Little Star of Bela Luaby Luana Monteiro Copyright © 2005 by Luana Monteiro. Excerpted by permission.
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