Saviors

By Silvia Lima

              The wet cobblestone street echoes with the hurried footsteps of the people, breathing in the hot steam of everyday life in the world’s 20th-largest city by population. Wearing the company’s shirt, she begins her day by taking the bus to Santa Luiza Emporium, a fine goods store nestled in a lush arboreal region of the city. 6:45 am is too late. The commute takes about two hours by bus, plus an additional thirty minutes on foot. The store is open at 9:00 am.
              Bus 870 stops at the station. She is almost there. Run, run, run. The sweat contours her face beautifully. The blue transit vehicle calmly shifts into first gear to begin its arduous day of work. She raises her arms, waving her hands to signal to the driver that there is still one more passenger left to board. The driver abruptly stops after seeing a desperate young lady in the rearview mirror. Dirty slippery stairs. As she clumsily boards the bus and cleans the sweat on her shirt, she smiles and nods as if to say, “Thank you, you saved me today.” The driver is a hero. A forty-year-old hero who wears his blue uniform every day to save miserable lives from unemployment. She is safe for now, for one more day. Day by day in this life that bows to the will of God and others.
              Anew, no vacant seat. As she stands up, she absentmindedly plays with her box braids. They are sun-kissed blonde, and they look pristine on her. Her thoughts begin to wander while the landscape changes. From bricks stacked upon bricks climbing up the hills, creating houses, creating homes, forming a favela; to lavish dwellings where people are overjoyed because they can. She thinks about her lover and what they will do for the weekend. Maybe the beach, although it is too far away and hence expensive. Maybe they will stay at home. She could make some brigadeiros and popcorn. After all, everyone needs a bit of rest; it is how life carries on.
              Everything is a blur. A blur of beautiful buildings and children with nannies. A blur of men in suits and women with styled hair. A blur of the upper-middle class. And the silence? The silence is deafening. She does not know how, but she arrives on time, breathless. She has been breathless for a long, long time. She also does not know it. How could she know? Only those who breathe freely know the feeling. She is in the bloom of youth, and yet, suffocating. Day by day, year by year, a bit of oxygen escapes. And that is seen in the elderly, with their invisible oxygen devices.
              These devices come to life in the form of smiles and hugs from their grandchildren. The pride they feel knowing that their grandchild will be the first person in the family to graduate from college. That is why she is breathless; she carries the future, the hope. In the life of the rejected, two paths can be followed: being the executioner or being the savior. She decided to succeed in life to help her family and do things the right way, the way the church and the television order. A new little church was built atop a neighborhood barbershop where she lives. She and her mother go together every Sunday. The neighborhood is filled with these small, poorly finished neo-Pentecostal churches, left in plaster. A sign is seen “Live in Jesus”. On the compact TV of the barbershop, the news talk show features live reporting of urban violence and crime, and they say, “Stay away from the rejected because they’ll execute you.”
              After work, she spends another hour on the bus to get to ETEC (State Technical School). ETEC is a type of educational institution in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, offering technical and vocational education at high school and post-secondary levels. She studies Marketing and hopes to work with Digital Marketing in the future. Like most of the rejected youth without leisure, she spends hours on her phone browsing social media networks that delight her for the potential she sees in them. Her dreams are her oxygen inhaler. No matter what the cost, she chooses to be a savior.

II

              In a quaint town in the northeast of Brazil, a child’s cry echoes. In a small, rustic house made from adobe with a clay-tiled roof and a blue-painted wooden door and window frame, a girl’s body burns in fever-induced delirium. In front of the humble residence, on a wooden bench made from logs, a mother waits. The mother awaits Her. Her legs, worn by the passage of time, move Her slowly toward Her destination.

              The child has had an excruciating fever for three long days, therefore the mother needed to summon a healer. Clutching rue sprigs, She approaches bearing the sweet and earthy aroma of herbs and incense. She raises Her hand to the mother’s forehead as if to bless the mother. The only choice was to turn to traditional, old knowledge because in a small, forgotten town out in the middle of nowhere, no doctors from the city would attend there.

              The atmosphere of the living room is one of simplicity. The walls are made of rough, unfinished material, and several framed images hang on them. There is a tiny, orange-painted altar against the wall. It contains religious figurines, displaying saints. The centerpiece is the majestic Virgin Mary. Beside an old, cracked clay pot, a guitar rests peacefully. She enters the bedroom only to see a seven-year-old girl cocooned in blankets, with a head poking out, like an ill turtle. She meticulously arranges her tools on a fragile table: sprigs of rue, herbs (quinera bark, white willow and ash leaves), holy water, a crucifix, and a well-worn prayer book. She is an experienced folk healer or as preferred, benzedeira. Benzedeiras are distinguished for their spiritual healing proceedings, which frequently combine elements of Catholicism with Indigenous and African traditions. The term “benzedeira” derives from the Portuguese verb “benzer”, meaning “to bless”.
              The proceeding begins. With rue sprigs in hand, She dips them into a bowl of holy water, allowing the droplets to cascade gently over the girl. Thereafter, She repeatedly makes the sign of the cross over both the girl and the bedroom, aiming to ward off negative energies and invite divine protection. She recites a sequence of prayers, her voice controlled and filled with conviction. These prayers were passed down through Her Mother, long-kept secrets. Invoking divine assistance, calling upon saints and spiritual guides to aid in the healing process, Her words are a blend of supplication and command. With a final benediction, She ends the cure session, and gives a sprig of rue, a symbol of ongoing protection, to the girl.
              Huge dark brown eyes open. The girl emerges from her cocoon, transforming into a butterfly. Now, the girl is covered in herbs and smells of rue. In those dark brown eyes, a reflection can be seen. A black elderly woman, with Her grey hair covered by a white turban. Her wrinkles are like the bark of the trees She utilizes to produce her miraculous teas. These wrinkles, like streams, flow into the sea of life and death. The cure is imprinted in the wrinkles

of an old black woman. As though she could be the Virgin Mary, She heals everyone with her toothless smile, forgiving and saving the world from its sins.

III

              The sun, the same one that warms the tan skin of people on the beach, enters through the stunning panoramic view window of an apartment in Leblon neighbourhood, Rio de Janeiro. The living room boasts expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, providing an unobstructed, breathtaking view of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue atop lush green Mount Corcovado, with the vibrant urban skyline stretching out below. An infusion of smells comes from the kitchen: freshly squeezed orange juice and just-brewed coffee. It is an elaborate table setting that embodies the household’s authority.

              Dr. Ana Claudia enters the dining room, still dressed in her silk robe. She smiles at the woman arranging the table.
              “She got up early today, didn’t she?” Dr. Ana Claudia tries to engage in a conversation with her husband. In vain. He is mesmerized by his tablet, engrossed in soccer news.

              “What? What did you say, Claudia?” As if all the information directed at her husband always reaches his brain a few minutes delayed.

              “I said that she got up early today. The table is already set!”

              “Oh, yeah, yeah. And I can smell cheese bread!”

              Dr. Ana Claudia just had her hair done. She hates being a brunette. Thanks to her hairdresser, she can now be blonde. To be honest, she often claims to be a natural blonde. Her family is famously one of the richest of the region, and due to their German ancestry, they have, in general, blonde offspring. As a kid, Dr. Ana Claudia was bullied by her cousins because of her brown hair. Her mother always spoiled her and even claimed that one of their distant relatives was a brunette and a baroness from their Italian side of the family. Among her siblings, she was her mother’s favorite. Therefore, upon her marriage, her parents chose to gift her an old family friend.
              Dr. Ana Claudia is not sure how old the friend is. The woman has been there for so, so long, such as an old piece of furniture utilized by everyone. Before Dr. Ana Claudia was a medical doctor, when she was just Ana Claudia, the woman was there. Before Ana Claudia was born, the woman was there. “She is part of the family!” they always introduce the woman with this phrase. What Dr. Ana Claudia knows is that her parents got the woman when she was a girl. A suffering mother could not feed all her children, and, with a heavy heart, she offered her daughter to this benevolent and wealthy family. They said she would be part of the family and would get an education. In exchange for a small-scale room to sleep in and a plate of food, the girl had her life chained.

The woman does not eat with her so-called family. She always eats in her room. She has never seen the Christ the Redeemer nor the beach. The woman does not know how to write or read. Everything she knows is serving. Her real family tried to look for her, because her mother believed she would be able to see her daughter as the benevolent family had promised. The suffering mother wept until her final day, lying on an old mattress in her small, sewage-scented thatched house, hoping and wondering if her daughter ever became a doctor or a lawyer. And if questioned, the benevolent family would respond in astonishment, almost as if in shock: “She is part of the family! We saved her from her misery!”