One

At first he thought it was a scarecrow. Coming outside in the tired morning light to relieve his bladder, blessing as always the old Judas tree, João turned his head an

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One At first he thought it was a scarecrow. Coming outside in the tired morning light to relieve his bladder, blessing as always the old Judas tree, Joao turned his head and saw the dark shape in the woods. It took some time to zip his trousers. His fingers were like enemy agents. They pretended to be his instruments but secretly worked against him. Joao walked out beneath the moss-skinned branches thinking only this: Eighty-four years upon the earth is an eternity. He touched Rui's boots. They almost reached the ground. "My friend," he said, "let me help you." He waited for the courage to look up and see his face. When it came, he whispered in his lacerated old man's voice. "Querido," he said. "Ruizinho." Standing on the log that Rui had kicked away, Joao took his penknife and began to cut the rope. He put his free arm across Rui's chest and up beneath his armpit, felt the weight begin to shift as the fibers sprang apart beneath the blade. The almond blossom was early this year. The tomatoes too would come early and turn a quick, deceiving red. They would not taste of anything. Joao took Rui's crooked hand in his own and thought: These are the things that I know. It was time to put the broad beans in. The soil that had grown the corn needed to rest. The olives this year would be hard and small. He sat in the long grass with his back against the log and Rui resting against him. He moved Rui's head so it lay more comfortably on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around Rui's body. For the second time he held him. They were seventeen and hungry when they first met, in the back of a cattle wagon heading east to the wheat fields. Rui pulled him up without a word, but later he said, "There's work enough for all. That's what I hear." Joao nodded, and when the hills had subsided and the great plains stretched out like a golden promise, he leaned across and said, "Anyone who wants work can find it." They moved their arses on the wooden slats and pretended they weren't sore and looked out farther than they had ever seen before, white villages stamped like foam on the blue, the land breaking against the sky. On the third day they put down at the edge of a small town and the children who ran up to meet the wagon were bitten hard, no different from Joao's brothers and sisters. Joao looked at Rui but Rui set his mouth and swung his legs over the side the same as the other men. The older ones got called and went to cut cork or plow the fields while Joao and Rui stood up tall with their hands in their pockets. Joao was so hungry he felt it in his legs and his hands and his scalp. They walked through the hovels, the women lining the doorways, the dogs nosing the gutters, and came to the center. "We'll stick together," said Rui. He had green eyes and a fine nose and white skin, as though he had never been out in the sun. "If someone wants us, he'll have to take us both," said Joao, as if he were master of his destiny. They scrounged half a loaf at the cafe by scrubbing the floor and humping the rubbish to the tip, and slept on the cobbled street with their mouths open. When he woke, the first thing Joao saw was Rui's face. He thought the pain in his stomach was pure hunger. Side by side they scavenged and slept. They milled about with the other men waiting for work and learned a lot: how to eke out a few words to last a conversation, how to lean against a wall, how to spit, and how to fill up on indifference.