A Nest

The veranda stretched between the house and the back house like an open corridor out to the yard, where nothing grew. The floor tiles were non-slip, the expensive kind you buy only to be sure an old person won't slip. Four plastic legs held a white table up off the ground, the cheapest kind, the kind you find in any corner bar. A red Christmas tablecloth decorated with worn-out printing that imitated gold. It wasn't Christmas, but it was the best one we had. Plates, glasses and silverware set out like a nativity scene, around a dented pot. Its uneven iron surface made it move with a jolt whenever the wind blew.

We had lunch there every day, the old woman and I. Hours before I got home from school, she would set the table. She went in and out of the tiny back house carrying one item at a time. She had learned at church how an altar is composed, slowly, with the gravity of someone carrying something sacred in their hands. When I arrived I would cross the house fast, throwing my backpack into some corner so I could get to the veranda sooner. I had haste and hunger.

And even starving, we talked about everything and almost without stopping, getting in the way of chewing. I would tell her about the things I was learning at school. Napoleon's conquests, the fjords of Norway, and the tiny cells that made us up. Grandma, did you know that one day the sun is going to explode? She would widen her eyes and lean her head forward. Don't worry, that's only millions of years from now. By then we'll all be dead. Relieved, she would lean back again.

She, of the monotonous old age, to save us, liked to invent small surprises for us. The most canonical was the sweet potato one. Once a week she would hide sweet potatoes underneath the rice without telling me. She would wait seated and completely silent while I inspected the pot carefully, trying to guess but putting off the reveal for a few seconds because I knew it amused her.

That day the teacher had told us about the theory of relativity. In class I had already decided this would be the subject to bring to the table. I arrived almost jumping from running so hard and started before I even reached the table. Grandma, did you know that time passes differently for... She, seated, was staring at me, anxious too. She raised her eyebrows and looked at the pot and at me. I fell silent and sat down. I looked at her and at the pot and raised my eyebrows too. The pot shuddered on its own. It must have been the wind.

My solution for stretching the time we're given seemed secondary to hers. But she didn't give in, she asked me to tell her about time before we ate. I told her everything I knew without taking my eyes off the pot and she listened without taking her eyes off me. She smiled. Well, I'm glad time can stretch out, I myself hate doing things in a hurry. The pot rocked once more, this time more abruptly. But there wasn't even any wind...

She stopped staring at me and moved toward the pot. I repeated the gesture. Another tremor. We backed away a little. I laid my hand on the lid of the pot and looked at her, and she was already nodding. I lifted the lid fast: Rice, white. We breathed deep and laughed while I picked up the slotted spoon.

The struck grains began to rise, cracking from the inside out. The laughter gave way once more. In the middle of the warm rice there was a little bird. I didn't know much about birds, but this one was brown and small, probably a fledgling. I don't know how much time passed there while we watched the little bird stretch and yawn in the middle of the food.

There was nothing to say, so we said nothing. When she noticed the sun was starting to go down, she took the slotted spoon from my hand and lifted the bird out carefully. She carried him to the sink and gave him a bath. She wrapped him in a dish towel and sat down again, now holding the fledgling in her arms.

We decided to keep the bird a secret. He was too much ours to share with the inhabitants of the house. At nightfall I'd take him to bed with me and sleep holding him under the sheets. I told him about worlds that didn't exist yet. Distant worlds, free, insane. Did you know that one day I'm going to be a soap opera actor and live in São Paulo? We dreamed together.

During the day, while I was at school, she took care of him and fed him. Carrying him on her shoulder, she told him secrets of abandoned pasts. She spoke to him of skies that never dawned, almost forgotten. Well, I never should have married again, it would have been better to have stayed in Minas Gerais. They dreamed together.

In time his feathers fell out and grew back, yellow now. He didn't change much in size, he didn't need to. I, on the other hand, stretched too much and the old woman shrank too much. And the days grew shorter, the years wilted. The old woman died. The boy died. The table was taken off the veranda and the floors were replaced by the new owners.

Today, however hard I try to remember what became of the bird, I can't. I forgot.