A MEETING, AT LEAST, STRANGE…

Lucy Salete Bortolini Nazaro[1]
I looked to the fire that burned on the fireplace, while outside the snow fell smoothly. Wrapped on a blanket, just the tip of my white socks could be seen and hinted on an old and red blanket. I thought… remembered lived hours, while the firewood burned and become coal.
The homemade were on vacation, with snow the work were bigger to the foreman who lived thousand meters of the main house, he doesn´t have a purpose to come here, I was alone, like I always liked to stay and everybody knew that, and so no one bother me on the fifteen days that I hibernate on that magic place in the middle of the nature. The snowy fields, the silence of day and night, the noise of the animals that prowl around the house, were everything I could listen. I, the books, the fire and wine made our own company.
The fire was putting out, smoothly too, slowly. I didn´t want to stand up to put more firewood, I leaned even more on the old couch, it was one more of that lonely nights that just miss howls of wolfs to complete the gloomy and mysterious landscape.
The door sat ajar, with a blast of wind, maybe a cat came in disguised and laid down with me. Curiously, he was white like a beauty snow ball, rolled up itself on my blanket like we were friends for a long time. I rose myself, closed the door, now with the key and I put pine´s knot on the fire (it heat and lat more than guamirim) I came back and laid down… the cat was there, with me. Now he was heating my legs, my feet, purring under the red light that the fire produced, I had turned off the lights, because the night was high. I fall asleep.
Other blast of wind, it seems a beat on the door, I didn´t give attention, but…other beat, light now, I until went there to open the door. That time? So far? Who will dare? Maybe the foreman, it happen something special. The livestock, the snow, who knows? I opened the door.
A guy with a black cloak, like this one to use on rainy and cold days, long, closed until the neck asked me shelter. He lost himself on the way, and the snow impeded that his car could continue. He saw some smoke and then follows until here. I didn´t know him. But I left that he entered, something didn´t allow me felt any fear, he was alone, like me. He broke my loneliness routine, but at last, I must sheltered him. It will just be a night. “Please, come in.”
He took off the cloak, he was just wearing white. With the lights, I could see it was a young Apolo visiting me. It seems a bride who lost himself on the trip until the church, certainly he left a fiancée waiting in the altar. His black hair hung a little on his eyes, stubborn, given him a naughty and insinuating appearance. He was frozen, arrived very fast near the fire, rubbed his hands very anxious, I offered him a cup of wine that he drunk slowly, like on a ritual, without words, just an excuse on the snow and cold. We stayed there for a long time. I lent him a blanket and a pillow, and he fit himself there, on the room´s sofa. I don´t know when we felt asleep, I know I started to like that complicity of silence. It doesn´t need presentations, after all soon he will go away, one ghost more in my life. I looked at length to him, talked about my poetries, the scripture´s anxious that insist to hide in the hidden of an anxious soul. He liked poetries too. He was a poet! The day dawned, the clouds were gray and hide the sun and it seems the snow choose that special day to leave the sky and visit the poor humans. I turned on the fire again. He was still sleeping, or he was faking and was watching me. I heat the water, made a coffee, and arranged the table. I prepared a chimarrão and started to drink my first gourds, when he stretched and gave me a large smile followed by a “Good morning” He stood up, wet to the bathroom, came back and sat beside me. He didn´t have the custom, but he wanted to drink chimarrão with me. It wasn´t a good day to travel, he´ll have to stay here.
He, wearing those white clothes, those green eyes and the disheveled black hair didn´t need word to show the danger that surrounded my pleasant loneliness. But there wasn´t other way. I agreed that he stayed here. I lent him clothes that were in the house, and old big sweater made with sheep wood, maybe it was from my father, my brother, I don´t know. Some pant like pajamas, old slippers, but they heat very well. I discomposed him. But Apolo was still in front of me. The beauty wasn´t from the clothes, it was from the face, the eyes, the soul, the mystery of the meeting. The snow was still kissing and painting of white the soil that has already been green.
We drunk coffee, washed the dishes, our hands touched for the first time and our eyes crossed. I disguised very fast and ran to put firewood in the fire. I looked for the white cat, but it wasn´t there anymore. “When stay cooler at night, I´m sure it´ll come back!” “Who?” asked Apolo, this was his name. “The cat”, I answered. And he said “Há!” I got out and run to the shed to pick up more firewood, fill the box for the cold day that was swearing and he went to help me.
Our hands crossed, new touches, our eyes and a firewood fell down and we ran together to take it, approached us from the ground, from ourselves, a look more lengthy and a furtive kiss. I ran from there, I didn´t bring anything on hands, but on heart a sudden throb, a strange fear from what I was feeling my soul was exploding and wanted to get out of my body and tell to the world what it was feeling.
“Where do I out the firewood?” He asked me with the firewood on his arms, “Over there”, I answered. He returned to pick up more and more firewood until he filled the box. His hair was white and wet, his hands were red, hardened. I called him near the fire, “you must heat yourself, or you´ll freeze, come here”. He answered “near you, impossible” “Don´t fool me, come here”. He came, but instead of arrives near the fire he held me very strong on his arms and kissed me. I didn´t remember how long was that kiss, one day, maybe two, I don´t know. I felt asleep on his arms with his hugs.
The snow was the accomplice of this strange meeting. It was still blocking the exit of someone who didn´t want to go away anymore. The days and nights already didn´t count, man and woman were confused in one just body, they heat themselves and changed words that just after a long time we dare to say. The hours became happy for me, the loneliness so necessary before it didn´t seem very important now, I pulsated, discovered life, I wanted that the snow that pushed him to me didn´t stop never more.
We rode together on the snowy field, we went out with hands given, and changed kisses while from our mouths got out sweet words and smoke because of the cold. Just one horse was enough for us. Our meal were served and eaten like Olimpu´s delicacy. Our nights became days for we could love like it was the last time. No promises. No future worried us. Just the moment. It seemed that tomorrow won´t exist anymore, therefore, today was very important for us. We stayed looking each other, wanting to last forever that moment. Nothing mattered more. Just he and I.
I became a child again, sat on his lap, received pampers, cares, we rolled together on the mattress that separated us from the cold ground. Intense moments full of passion that satisfied our life´s hungry. Were four, six, seven days? I don´t know how to count. I know they were until I wake up with the sunshine shinning me while a stubborn itch showed me I was hugged on the white cat that returned and slept with me and rubbed itself on me with its soft fur.
“Apolo, look who came back!” no answer. I looked for all house, on shed. I waited, maybe he had gone out alone. The horses were there, he went on foot, certainly. The time lingered to pass. Apolo didn´t come back that day. Have I dreamed all that? Didn´t Apolo exist? But everything seemed so real! I suffered. I cried, closed myself on my world of nothing. I wrapped me on the mattress, if everything were a dream, I wanted to sleep again and dream once more. We stayed alone, I and the cat snow´s ball, all white. The sun insisted to drill the clouds, it had stopped to snow. There were rumors of work long away, the foreman started his routine, soon he´ll visit me.
Passed a night, other day, now the shiny sun woke me up to the reality. The cat was still with me, it didn´t went away anymore. Where was it all those days? It didn´t matter because now he was there. It became my friend. I hugged it and we stayed together, I drunk chimarrão, it meowed and looked me while jumped from my lap and twined on my legs.
I decided to go out. It was cold yet, but the snow was melting. I walked a little and soon I realized a movement on that other side of the farm. A car was approaching. “Good morning”. “Good morning, are you looking for anything?” “Yes, I am.” I decided didn´t talk about the company I had. “Didn´t you listen anything strange? A car´s horn, maybe?” “No, here everything was on silence, snowed too much, there wasn´t how to arrive here but… horn? Why?” “Please, come with us.” “Where?” “Near here, we´ll already bring you back again.” I entered in the car, quiet like I am always. I didn´t ask where he´ll go, he said it was near and we´ll come back soon. We went out of a land´s little road, arrived in the asphalt, a car was stopped, beside the road. We came down. “We want you see if it´s someone known, maybe it has come here.” Said the highway police. I came down, we arrived in the car, looked and fainted. The man was frozen, dead. A terrible scene, in spite of been a little shrunk, someone have already moved on him and he was with his face turned down. I recovered the consciousness. The police asked me if I recognized him. There was six, seven days he was dead, frozen, who knows, or a heart attack, maybe. I answered on a drought way, “No, I never saw him.” I was on a shock shape. He took me back home and left e there. The white cat ran to my lap, I dried my tears, caressed the cat. I´m crazy, wit was him! That man was with me on the last seven days.

A MEETING, AT LEAST, STRANGE… de Lucy Salete Bortolini Nazaro é licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons Atribuição-Uso não-comercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Brasil.