Two Sailors

© Copyright 2004 Jill Vedebrand. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

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ISBN 978-1-4120-2092-3 (sc)

ISBN 978-1-4122-2095-8 (e)

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

To Tomas

and all the Vedebrand family

CHAPTER 1

In February 1955, in the height of the Brazilian summer, Georgio Silva ran away to sea. He was fourteen years old. It would have been easier for him to try to go to sea from Sao Paulo, where he lived. It was close to the sea, but his dream was to travel north to Fortaleza, to find the jangadeiros, the fishermen who brave the strong Atlantic winds off the far northern coast. His imagined journey would take him from the Tropic of Capricorn, almost to the Equator, but it was still the same country. It was still Brazil, and that was how he saw it.

Before he set off, Georgio had no idea how vast his country was, or how long it would take to get from one place to another. He studied the maps on the classroom wall, but he hadn’t begun to think of the distances in terms of time. He knew that the bus took several hours to get to Rio de Janeiro, and that was the extent of his experience. His family were too busy working and too poor to make many trips to the ocean on the slow overcrowded bus. If they did, it took so long that they were exhausted when they arrived and in no time at all would have to make the journey back. There was no question of staying overnight or the thought of a holiday. A holiday meant a religious festival or a carnival, when his parents might take the day off, if it was a local event.

Georgio’s memory of his last visit to the beach was a smoggy sky and dozens of jostling people, all trying to find a place to sit. He had also been disappointed not to see any real boats. The water’s edge was so full of people, it was worse than the public swimming pool. This was why the poster had captured his attention. It was how he had expected the beach and sailing to be. There was no television to show him the world and his family had two books at home, the bible and a medical dictionary, and the books at school were few and far between. The teacher would hold up the one copy to show the class the picture from the lesson she was reading. He had been to the cinema three times in his life but all the films were in black and white and about cowboys.

He was captivated by the photograph of the deserted sand dunes and the beautiful traditional jangadas out on the sea. He yearned to skim around on the surface of the ocean in the simple balsa boat with its single sail, like the one in the picture. In his mind he cast his line and caught a giant fish with every sweep of his arm. Souza had said that the seas off the coast of Ceará were brimming with fish. What a life it would be! He could be independent! He could almost smell the sweet clean air each time he looked. It showed an impossibly blue green sea and several boats, each with just two men, a sail and little else. One or two of the boats had a box where one of the fishermen could be seen sitting. In another boat, one man was lifting his line to tumble a huge glittering fish, into the boat to join the other catch at his feet, while the other held the rope from the sail twined around his waist, the other rope held firmly under a foot with the line extending between the toes. Foamy seas churned around them but they were masters of their world, dancers on the waves.

Real sailors, Georgio had told his younger brother Chico who had complained that Georgio was taking up too much space on the bedroom wall. Georgio had pushed several pins around the edge, all the more to give it permanence. His corner was already full of overlapping pictures of caravels and square riggers. He took down the copy of an old Catalan map of Europe and North Africa and the faded torn print of Pedro Alvares Cabral as a concession but Chico had continued to whine at him and he had had to give him the piece of caja he was saving for himself.

Chico was seven but still slept in the bottom of the closet. As Chico had no official wall space above the tumble of clothes that was his bed, he had demanded part of Georgio’s side of the narrow room for Captain Marvel. At least he is a Captain. Georgio had allowed and pinned the front page of the comic between the Victoria and the Santa Maria. Now with the introduction of the poster of the jangadeiros, Captain Marvel had had to be moved. At least his pictures didn’t make his mother angry like Paulo’s.

On the other side, where Paulo, his elder brother slept, the blonde woman with glossy lips and legs spread above the bed was by far the largest picture in the room. Her whiter than white dress flew up in the air from an unseen blast of air that seemed to come from a grill in the street. At night, in the semi darkness, the light from the street would shine in through the thin curtains and her luminous presence would dominate the room. Georgio resented it. He didn’t like the way his brother stared up at her every night and moved his hand. Georgio tried to ignore the squeaking of the metal springs and the rapid breathing. It stirred him in ways he preferred to ignore. Georgio would put the pillow over his head until it was over but when he fell asleep himself, she would come floating down from the wall and breathe softly into Georgio’s ear, placing his hand on her thighs. He wanted to dream of the sea and not of the women who lolled in the doorways of the Rua dos Andradas who teased him as he walked by, or of the woman in the poster. They were like sirens trying to drag him down. They would keep him forever in the hot and stuffy room that smelt from the car repair shop across the street.

He knew his brother would hit him if he so much as touched the woman in the poster but he almost hated her. She made him ashamed of the sticky patch that would be on his mattress when he awoke and at such moments he longed to tear her down from the wall.

Throughout the night the street outside was always filled with the sounds of people shouting, Vespa bikes roaring by, a fight breaking out. Sometimes the police would arrive and there would be gunfire.

The yearning to escape, for a something else that Georgio could not define had suddenly become clear the day he had gone to the market and Souza had given him the picture. ‘Fortaleza’ it said in large curving letters across the deep blue sky at the top of the photograph. Georgio had no idea at that moment that it was far far away from Sao Paulo and almost impossible for him to even think to go there.

You like boats, eh? Souza had said as Georgio had stared at the picture pinned up behind the fishmonger’s stall. As Souza wrapped the fish he told Georgio all about the jangadeiros, their skill as sailors and fishermen. Then he took down the picture, rolled it up and handed it over along with the package of fish and it all started from that day. His mother had sent him to the open market to buy piranha so that she could make Piraruca ao Forno for Georgio’s father Roberto who was recovering from typhoid and that morning had miraculously asked for something to eat.

For weeks the three brothers had crept about, thinking the unthinkable, that their father would probably die. They had stopped going to school to go to their father’s workplace, a group of shanty buildings where the hides would come to be treated and where Roberto made handbags, belts and shoes. The brothers worked at scraping off the fat and cleaning the hides. It paid very little, but it was better than nothing as Roberto’s boss would not think to pay a worker who was ill and could not produce anything. His name was Senior Fuenco and he considered himself a generous man to allow Roberto’s sons to come and work there at all, in the fetid stinking place he called his factory. Maggots massed on the residual fat in the corners and on the backs of the untreated hides that had been left too long in the sun. Greasy water blocked the gutter that ran through the buildings, mingling with sewage that overflowed across the yard when it rained.

The brothers were to go there each day to help their father keep his job, at least that was the impression that Senior Fuenco gave their mother. Roberto was an artisan and his poorly paid work was of such a high quality that it was unlikely Senior Fuenco would have wanted to lose him. His motives were to have power over the family but his opinion of himself was that he was a benefactor.

Georgio’s mother Maria, who had some training in her younger days as a nurse, was sure her husband had contracted the disease at work and that now her sons would be exposed. She instructed and nagged them morning and night not to drink anything at the factory, or to eat without first scrubbing their hands. They had thought about running home to carry out her instructions but in the heat of the day and tired from the work they would only tell her they had done so.

Maria was not at home to check on them, she was working in a novelty factory across town where she produced glitter and made masks for carnival. The glue she used made her cough and tired from her day, she would quickly become too exhausted to argue with the three of them. But by design or miracle, no one else in the family caught typhoid.

Paulo joked with Georgio that their father had caught the typhoid in a hospedagem when he was with a woman and drunk on pinga and Georgio fought with him in the street calling him a bicho de pe and a liar. Paulo wrenched his arms behind him but Georgio would not give in although the pain was terrible. He let the pain melt into his heart where all the dark thoughts lay. How he would look at the hair on the nape of Senior Fuenco’s neck and the knives on the bench, especially when Fuenco was insulting Georgio’s father about the quality of his work.

It made Georgio ashamed and disappointed with his father that he would just continue with his work at the bench, ignoring what was being said. Why don’t you kill him? Georgio burst out one day as they walked home but his father laughed.

He’s a coward, he said to his mother when she came home and she slapped him.

Later in the evening she looked for Georgio around the streets to persuade him to go home with her. He watched her walking away and followed at a distance. When she passed a small bar she surprised him by ducking inside and when he reached her she was sitting at one of the tables outside waiting for him.

She had ordered two caldo de cana and he slid onto the rickety chair across from her. It was something they had never done before and every detail of the scene was to come back to Georgio in the future. When he thought of her, he would lean on the ship’s rail and see her sitting there in her dark green work dress, the street light catching the small specks of glitter that always attached itself to her sleeves and hair from her day at work, looking round at the people who were sitting at the bar through the glass doors behind her, then turning back to smile at him.

Maria was wise enough not to talk but to allow the sweet drink and the atmosphere of the two of them sitting there to heal the rift between them. They sucked on their straws, watched the people go by, and made comments to each other with their eyes.

A young man, not much older than his brother Paulo came from the street and accidentally bumped into Maria’s arm. He apologised and started to flirt with her, offering to buy her another drink and telling her she was beautiful. Georgio was astonished. His mother handled it well but she blushed and when the man had gone into the bar Georgio could see that she had enjoyed the encounter.

It prompted him to ask her how old she was which made her laugh and look back over her shoulder at the young man who was still admiring her from inside the bar.

Thirty seven, she told him, smiling. Very old.

Georgio worried that his mother was so old now she might die. He knew his father was a lot older. As if reading his thoughts his mother started to talk about Roberto and how they had met each other.

You know we are so lucky to have our little house. Your father promised me.. she broke off, noticing that Georgio was looking sleepy. Come Georgio. Let’s go now.

He let her hold his hand as they walked home.

As they turned into the narrow street she stopped and looked into his face. Your father makes sacrifices to keep us together and to give us this home. If you want to be able to say and do what you want, you have to be rich. She glanced at the Mercedes parked across the street. Georgio recognised that car.

When they entered the house Senior Fuenco was sitting at the table across from Georgio’s father and there was a bottle of beer on the table between them.

Georgio slipped his hand from his mother and went into the bedroom. Chico was curled up in the closet asleep. Georgio opened the window wide but there was no breeze. The sickly sweet smells from the food processing factory on the corner mingled with the fumes from a car being tested at the garage across the street. Someone was revving the engine and smoke poured out from the exhaust. Georgio slammed the window shut. Chico jumped in his sleep and started to cry. Georgio ignored him, stripped off his clothes and lay face down on the bed. Rivulets of perspiration ran down his back. He placed his hands over his ears but he could still hear the conversation and even laughter coming from the other room. Chico continued to cry but they were both asleep when their father came into the room.

Paulo was out playing football at the park. Georgio was glad he was not there, especially when his father gave him the news.

Georgio, said his father softly, waking him with a hand on his arm. Georgio could smell the beer on his father’s breath. It reminded him that Senior Fuenco had been sitting in their house.

I have good news for you, his father continued. Senior Fuenco has given permission for you to become an apprentice at the factory. Tomorrow you will start and we will go to work together every day from now on. What do you think of that? Georgio stared at his father’s face, shadowy in the dark. Over his father’s head the blonde on the wall scooped up her skirts and laughed.

Georgio moved so his father would not see the shock on his face but Roberto already knew how Georgio would react to the news. He stood up quickly to avoid a discussion, weaving a little on his feet from the effects of the beer and still weak from his illness. You will take a note to school in the morning, Roberto continued And come to the factory in the afternoon. He went to the door and opened it. The light from the oil lamp on the table in the next room fell across his face. He looked tired, and to Georgio, suddenly very old. His mother was sitting close to the lamp, bent over a piece of paper, pencil in hand.

Georgio lay listening to the mechanic’s radio from across the street, wrestling with his conscience, one moment defiant, the next, willing. He wanted to help his father but why this? If only he could do something, be something else. There was an American singer on the radio and someone turned up the sound and was singing along with the song, something about making dreams come true.

CHAPTER 2

When the three quarter moon broke through the clouds above the fir trees, it illuminated the vast frozen lake and the isolated buildings on the shore; a small red timber house with shutters tightly closed, a long red timber barn, a cellar house, a wood store, a tool shed and the ‘ute dass’, the outside toilet, all surrounded by snow. This is Hemviken.

The chosen place for the farm was a small curved inlet, called Skeppstadviken or Ship’s Bay as in the summer when the ice was gone, ships would pass once more on the horizon and smaller vessels would come into the bay to load timber. Built on ages old granite rocks that jut up from the soft meadowy shore, facing out across Lake Vanern, a lake as big as an inland sea, and backed by thick forests, Hemviken was in a world of its own, especially in winter. In these buildings, ten people, five cows, eight pigs, two dogs and two horses, slept, ate, worked and played. Most of the time they worked.

Five thirty in the morning and already Niels Hansson, the father, was in the barn starting to hand milk the cows, talking away to them as he carefully washed their udders with the warm water he had carried from the house. He kept one eye on their long horns as he worked, gauging their moods. They were individual characters and a little wild. They could become restless at the smell of the blood from the kill the dogs had just made. Had it been spring, had they been loose in the paddock, their tails would have gone straight out behind them and they would have been off on a stampede. He would have had to use the dogs to bring them back.

Outside, the dark night returned as the moon went behind the clouds. Then just as swiftly, the moon reappeared as the wind drew the clouds aside and this time it shone brighter still. The shadows from the buildings and the trees moved and grew sharp against the snow, illuminating Niels’ footprints where he had crossed from the house to the ute dass, then the tool shed and the barn. Dog prints followed the marks made by his heavy boots. The two sets of prints then took off as the dogs had suddenly headed away towards the trees, scuttled about and then returned, leaving behind them only a smear of blood and ruff of white fur. They were lying under the cellar house now, digesting the hare that had perhaps been too dazzled by the moon or unable to hear their swift approach in the snow.

In that February, 1955, at the same time that Georgio was trying to sleep in the suffocating heat of his bedroom in far away Brazil, sixteen year old Leif Hansson had leapt out of bed and was now blowing on his hands to take away the chill of the night as tried to pull on his thickest woollen stockings. His hands had been lying outside the tacke, the warm, feather stuffed bed cover, and his fingers were stiff with the cold. He thrust his arms into his heavy coat, jammed on his boots and clipped on the steel spiked sparksko so that he could walk on the ice. His younger brothers and sister were still sleeping, but Ernst was already up, slooping down a bowl of warm sour milk and the last of the jars of preserved blueberries. Leif eyed him through the half open door and decided he would risk loosing his share of the blueberries. He wanted to spend all the time he could at the fish traps before he had to leave for school. This would be a morning when he would skip breakfast.

Now that Ernst was twenty, he worked independently away from the farm as a forester, but he still lived at home. Leif had heard Ernst tell his father that morning that he would help him with the milking before he went to work. As this was usually Leif’s job, his imagination had rushed to fill the time that would normally be spent helping his father. In busier times, Leif would often milk the cows alone now that his eldest sisters were both married and living some miles away and eighteen year old Lars had gone to sea. This meant that of all the eight children, at this time in 1955, the responsibility of being the main helping hand before and after school had fallen to Leif, out of necessity.

Greta, their mother, caught Leif looking in at the door as she turned from the stove. Leif held up the isbill, the special ice pick, and the sátekrok and line to her in a conspiratorial way and she gave him a small smile and a nod as she threw more logs in at the stove door. He rushed off in a state of excitement. His mother was always supportive of his dangerous escapades. As he went out into the bitter cold air, he thought of her trust in him and his self confidence soared. He was sure he could bring back the biggest burbot that anyone had ever seen. Work in the forest and the recent blizzards had prevented the last weekly visit to the traps and he was thinking how full of fish they must be by now. The morning was clear and dry and the moon was bright enough to lead the way.

Before high winter came and Lake Vanern was completely frozen over, Leif’s father would set out net fish traps and stake them on the lake bottom. When the lake froze, the surface ice was at least one foot thick, and the traps lying some twelve feet below in the freezing but still running water.

Burbot was a welcome addition to the family table and when the nets were full, a source of extra income but it was not so easy to obtain for a sixteen year old on his own. To break through the ice when it was many degrees below zero was very hard work. It could also be dangerous out on the lake if the temperature was only close to freezing point. Parts of the lake would thaw, then freeze lightly over, making the ice thin in places. It could be difficult to see where to tread when all the ice was hidden under a layer of snow. You could crash through and float along under the ice, freezing and suffocating in minutes.

All of this Leif had known since he was small, but he was not afraid. Foolhardy perhaps, but he was too focused on the end result to think of the danger. One of his uncles, had given him the sátekrok, a special kind of fishing hook, and he was eager to test it. As he crossed the yard he decided to forgo the morning visit to the ute dass. He never liked it in there and least of all by moonlight. He felt trapped, expecting a headless horseman to come riding up and crash in at the door as he sat helplessly and comically with his trousers around his ankles. He would use a bush on the way.

The dogs stirred as he passed by on the way to the tool shed and he gave them a kind of growl to put them off following him. He wanted to get into the tool shed without his father hearing him. He needed the big hammer to use with the isbill and he knew his father would be concerned he might drop it through the ice and it would be lost on the bottom in the mud. When they went to the traps each week, the ice that they had broken before would be piled around and a large area of ice free water exposed. If it froze over again, it would not be very thick and would require little work to break, but recent days had seen the temperature fall to twenty degrees below. Leif knew the weather. He knew by the air on his face that the ice on the lake that morning would be thick and strong.

He passed the barn where the light shone out from under the door. He could hear the murmur of his father’s voice as he talked to the cows. As Leif continued on his way to the tool shed the house door opened and slammed and he heard Ernst’s boots crunching across the snow. Leif hid behind the wood store but Ernst went straight into the barn. Now Leif felt free to continue on his self appointed task. He found the iron hammer and was glad of his thick gloves. The metal was so cold it could have taken the skin off of his bare hands.

The area where the traps had been made was not so far from the shore, just beyond the sea meadow where the cows loved to graze on the tall reeds in the summer. They loved the reeds so much that sometimes they could be seen quite far out, swimming and grazing at the same time. Then the dogs would be sent swimming after them to make them come back closer to the shore. Now there was nothing to tell where shore and lake began, as all was white with snow. There were a few dried reeds that the cows had missed and these provided a clue.

They made a rustling sound like tissue paper in the wind.

Beyond the reeds Leif could see lumps of ice in a circle, softened by a covering of snow. It was very bright with the moonlight reflecting on the endlessly white landscape, and a little spooky. The sparksko on his boots squeaked on the ice, each sensitive step testing the strength of what lay immediately below his feet. His breath blew out in clouds like smoke before him.

He was actually sweating, not only with the heavy clothes, but with excitement. His blood was definitely up. He had never done this alone before.

When he made the first strike with the hammer on the isbill he discovered the ice was so thick that it jarred his hand badly and a searing pain shot up his arm and into his shoulder. The sound of metal on metal had echoed across the lake, but all concern at keeping his activity secret had no bearing anymore. The pain had made Leif angry and anger now fuelled his muscles. He was determined he would break through. He swung the hammer with all his might, careless of where he was standing or the blood that was trickling into his fingers from the palms of his hands. Suddenly there was an almighty gush of freezing water and he was soaked from head to toe. The isbill had gone down into the hole but the hammer was miraculously still in his hand. He threw it clear onto a pile of snow for safety and quickly lay down on the ice, grappling with the line and hook in his pocket. Just as he let the sátekrok down into the water the light went from the sky as dark clouds covered the moon. Javlar! Leif swore in fury. He was rapidly becoming cold under the wet clothes. He screwed up his eyes, willing the moon with all the furious words he could find to make her come out from behind the clouds. He opened his eyes. Darkness. Then he felt a heavy tug on the hook and again all discomfort and pain was forgotten. This time he held his breath and kept very still. Again a sharp tug, so strong he had to hang onto the line with all his might. Where was the moon? He tested the line for weight. It was heavy. A big one! But he needed light to land it, and the small torch in his pocket was impossible to reach. He daren’t let go of the line.

Now! A strong light beamed across the ice towards him, but it wasn’t the moon. It was his father, holding a hurricane lamp high in the area and shouting in his direction. Leif ignored the angry words.

With a tremendous pull, sliding and slippering as he got to his feet, Leif wrenched a great fish from the water. It flew from his grasp and slithered across the ice, writhing and jumping, making great slapping sounds as it spun around, trying to return to the water.

Leif slid across on his stomach and grabbed it by the head. He felt for the knife on his belt. Into the spine! Into the spine! shouted his father, getting involved in spite of his anger. He was not wearing any spikes on his boots and was wise enough not to venture across the ice if he didn’t have to.

Leif didn’t need the instruction but welcomed the sudden sharing of the drama. It indicated a softening of his father’s emotions now he had made such a good catch.

Leif plunged the knife into the spine at the base of the fish’s head. Instant death.

He held it up, his face a smile from ear to ear.

Get ashore! Get ashore! said his father angrily and as Leif squelched across, And where is my good hammer!? he added in a mighty voice. Leif’s arms were all fish, a good sized burbot. The tools had been forgotten. Leif’s smile vanished. He dropped the fish and swept around in the snow with feet and hands, then fell to his knees. For a moment he thought all was lost. The isbill was bad enough, but to lose the hammer!

Now the moon was kind and appeared in enough time to reflect on a minute piece of the hammer that was still showing above the snow. Leif grabbed it up and then turned around to pick up the fish, but his father was already carrying it up to the house.

He felt a rush of disappointment. He wanted to say, Hey, that’s my fish! but instead he ran to catch up with him and showed him that he had found the hammer. His father grunted. He was not to be so easily appeased, but it was not a total disaster.

In the kitchen his mother poured hot water from the stove into the tub by the fire and he stripped off his clothes and stepped into complete bliss. As he sat there in the gloriously warm water, he hugged his knees and reflected on his adventure. He could see the head of the fish hanging over the edge of the sink and judged its weight to be about six kilos.

Don’t sit there too long, said his mother, It’s time you left for school and the wind’s getting up.

She had persuaded Leif to take a ‘fortsattningsskolan’, a three month continuation class in English and Maths to prepare him for further studies, should there be an opportunity, although she knew her husband’s concern was to keep Leif’s mind on the farm. Niels had received the news in silence, not wanting to admit that he could see a time in the not too distant future when he would need his son’s strength to keep the farm going.

Leif looked up at the cuckoo clock on the wall. The cuckoo no longer came out to let you know when it struck the hour, but the hands still worked. It was seven twenty. He had three miles to walk to school each morning and it was always miserable in the winter, in the dark, but this morning he would be light in his step, in spite of his father’s anger.

It would be years before he would look back and reflect on how much of his father’s anger was caused by fear. Fear of injury, of loss of life, and the constant nag of too little money to replace anything. For the moment Leif was only dreaming of dinner.

No one in the whole of Sao Paulo could have had a heavier heart than Georgio as he walked into the factory yard that afternoon, his shirt wet from his walk in the burning sun. He felt tired already.

To his surprise, the old man in the greasy apron, in the place where he had worked when his father was ill, gave him another address and told him to report to an office. The address was just around the corner. He passed his father’s workshop but the other men told him he had gone out and so Georgio continued on his way.

The next street was wider and housed a bewildering complex of shacks with corrugated tin roofs. There were open areas behind wire fencing where giant vats and barrels were stored. There were tanks full of what looked like brown water and others full of different coloured dyes. Men came and went, plunging hides into tanks to soak or lifting them out to dry. There was a wooden building with peeling white paint and dirty windows further down the street. Georgio wondered if that was the office. He peered through the glass and immediately saw his father talking with Senior Fuenco.

Georgio! said Senior Fuenco enthusiastically. You found us! Welcome to your new career in the leather business!

Roberto smiled at his son and indicated that he should sit down next to him at the desk.

Georgio looked everywhere but at Senior Fuenco. He took in the overflowing ashtrays, the rickety filing cabinets, the walls covered with advertisements, the cracked coffee mugs, the broken down furniture. Everything was dirty and yellow with nicotine. There were swabs of coloured samples of different kinds of leather on the desk and piled high in the corner. The tiny room had a strange chemical smell mixed with stale cigarettes and meat. Georgio saw Fuenco’s hand grope across the desk, pick up a piece of greasy chicken and stuff it into his mouth.

No time for lunch, I am always busy, Fuenco explained. Georgio fixed his eyes on the whirring blades of the small fan on top of one of the cabinets.

The telephone rang. Fuenco answered it and in seconds the smile was gone and he was shouting into the receiver. He picked up a paper that was on the desk, handed it to Roberto and dismissed them both with an impatient wave of the hand as he continued to shout at the person on the other end of the phone.

Outside, Roberto explained. The paper was to show that Georgio was signed on with Fuenco’s company for the next five years. For this he would receive training in all aspects of the business, starting with the tanning and dyeing process and in two years he would also receive instruction in manufacturing.

Five years? Georgio stopped in the street and looked at his Senior Fuenco thought it would be good for you to learn the trade from the beginning. All of it. It was how I started. Senior Fuenco is also willing to pay you a little. It’s not a lot, but it will increase each year.

Georgio looked down at his father’s threadbare cloth shoes. Roberto couldn’t even afford to have more than two pairs of leather shoes and these he kept in a cupboard at home, polished and waiting, one pair for church, the other for holidays that rarely came. This was his father’s reward for all the years he worked, making shoes for everyone else.

I didn’t know about this place. Why am I not going to work at the other place, near to your workshop like I did before with Chico and Paulo?

That was terrible. You don’t want to be there! These are just hides that come in from the country. Sometimes Senior Fuenco is kind to these cowboys, but this is not how you do it. Roberto stopped at one of the fences and pointed in at a rack of supple red leather hanging to dry. Look at those. These have been treated from the moment the animal is skinned. All the hair and flesh is first removed with lime and water. After, chemical salts are used. You will find all of this out. Look at the beautiful quality.

Why did he make us do that horrible job then?

Perhaps he didn’t know what work to give you. A trade has to be learnt. You cannot just take three boys and put them to work on expensive materials

We could have swept up. His office needs cleaning. It’s filthy dirty.

The Silva home was tiny and primitive. It was sandwiched between small industries in a poor part of the city but Georgio’s mother kept it spotlessly clean.

Roberto took Georgio’s arm and swung him around. Now look here my son! I don’t wish to hear you being disrespectful to Senior Fuenco. He is now your employer. You are very lucky to start as an apprentice. By the time you are a man you will have a trade! Do you realise that! Look!

He showed him the signatures on the bottom of the printed sheet of paper. Georgio was numb. It was worse than he thought. He felt as if he had just received a prison sentence and his father and Senior Fuenco were judge and jury.

At least he didn’t have to start until Monday. He had the weekend.

He