THE AUDIO CAPSULE

Mariana's bowl rested in the yard, with a crust of dough stuck to the bottom and five finger marks on the rim. The furnace had consumed its seven minutes. What remained in the air was a smell of burnt corn, short, that the night did not carry off. Antônio came out of the bar without the blue shirt. He carried an empty pot under his arm. He stopped beside the bowl and scraped the crust with the hardened nail of his burnt fingers. He managed to free a piece the size of a pequi seed. He put it in his mouth. Mariana stayed near the door, listening to the rotor behind the wall. The kitchen lost power, said Antônio. I heard. And the machine kept going. I heard that too. Luzia slept on the mat by the entrance, her head resting against an upturned bowl. The man kept his heel raised on the grey box and breathed through his mouth. The old refrigerator had stopped snoring. Inside it, the leftover dough was beginning to lose its shape. Antônio set the pot on the ground. The Company had left the charge for the following cycles open at the top of the panel, but he did not go near it. Mariana saw the projected light cross the doorway and reach his ankle. You paid seven minutes, he said. I paid one unit of my renewal. To sing. To have somewhere to keep the choir. Antônio nodded. He had known that answer since before the pumps. When they were young, he and Nael used to bring benches to the yard of the woman who raised Mariana. She sang by the washtub, while the two of them pretended to fix something so they could listen without asking. The voice went on existing in the subscription Mariana renewed every year, reduced to a fee and a body password. He pulled the bowl closer to the threshold. Tomorrow you need your unit. Tomorrow I need to hear whether the pump holds the curve. It's not the same thing. Mariana lowered her eyes to the crust of dough. She took from her pocket a small audio capsule, used to carry recordings between authorised accesses. Its surface reflected the light of the panel in faint patches. My mother sang a song when food was short, she said. Not to forget. To know how many people were left. Antônio waited. She would begin with the names of those at the table. Then she said who was still coming. If someone did not arrive, the song kept a space in the middle. The man opened his eyes. Luzia stirred on the mat, without waking. Mariana touched the capsule with her thumb. A low passage came out of it, three women's voices sustaining the same note. There was a breath of wind between one word and the next. Antônio recognised her voice, younger, before the operation of the pumps took her afternoons. Who is missing, he asked. You know. He looked at the room in the inn. The door had stayed closed since he left the blue shirt inside. Then he looked at Nael's bowl, kept at low volume, where nobody touched it. I'm not going to pay your cycles, said Mariana. He raised his head. Nor you mine. Then why did you stay. Because you weren't going to let the dough spoil on your own. The answer stayed between the two of them, small and difficult. The house had been called a business because a man had received care on the low bench. Now the food was dying inside the stopped refrigerator, while the rotor received cold behind the wall. Antônio took the empty pot and went into the kitchen. He came back with the five smaller portions, already too warm to keep. He handed one to the man, another to Mariana. The third he placed beside Luzia. The fourth stayed in front of him. The last remained in the pot. Whose is that one, asked Mariana. The next cycle's. She let out a laugh without joy. Cycles don't eat corn. The ones who get through them do. Mariana held the portion without bringing it to her mouth. The capsule was still open in her hand. The choir started again, now with one voice failing at the end of each phrase. Antônio sat on the ground, near the clay bowl, and struck his palm twice against his knee, searching for an old rhythm. You still know it, she said. I know the beginning. The beginning is enough to call the others. He came into the song low, unsteady. Mariana waited for the second round and joined him. Her note crossed the dry yard, reached the dusty murici and came back broken by the panels on the cupboard. Luzia opened her eyes. Count again, she asked. Mariana sang a third time. Antônio held the word that was missing, but did not say Nael's name. He left the whole space. The girl counted four people at the table and miscounted to five. When the capsule fell silent, Antônio carried the last portion over to the panel. The projection was still waiting for someone responsible for the technical cycles. He brought his face close, accepted the debt on his own bond and did not ask for a reduction. Mariana saw the confirmation erase the name of the house and leave only his. Tomorrow, she said, I'll come back after the manoeuvre. What for. To sing the part you forgot.