The Shape of Bones by Daniel Galera

Author:Daniel Galera
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241964873
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Isabela’s Fifteenth Birthday Party

A few minutes to four that Saturday morning, Hermano and Bonobo were walking quickly down the pavement of Shade Street towards Serraria Road, side by side. Hermano, dressed in baggy dark-blue jeans, his dad’s brown leather shoes and a salmon-coloured polo shirt, had four fingers of each hand wedged in his pockets with his thumbs hanging out. Bonobo was wearing a tragicomic combination of M2000 Propulsion trainers with pyramidal shock absorption, black Tactel trousers, a beaten-up tweed sports jacket over a white Suicidal Tendencies T-shirt, and a grubby orange cap on his shaved head. They made no noise except for the soles of their shoes on the wet, sandy pavement. A light rain had been falling until about half an hour earlier. Block after block, the street transformed, with gentle curves this way and that and a slope that grew progressively steeper. An abundance of weeds pushed up through cracks in the cobblestones. The street seemed to be slowly winding its way into the depths of a forest perfumed by imposing cedars, which stood, some sixty feet tall, on both sides. Water slid down their viscous black trunks, which were covered in parasitic tufts of mistletoe, and the treetops grew higher and denser, knitting together until they formed a dome of branches and leaves overhead.

Bonobo took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, pulled one out and accidentally dropped it. Hermano stopped as Bonobo stooped to pick it up. It was a little wet, but he put it in his mouth and lit it anyway. For an instant they looked at each other as if trying to remember something they wanted to say, but said nothing. Bonobo held out the packet to Hermano.

‘No, thanks.’

At each new intersection there was at least one Umbanda offering. There were dead black chickens, bottles of cachaça, bowls of popcorn, snuffed-out candles, flowers and red ribbons, all strewn about and made soggy by the rain. At the last intersection before Serraria Road, Bonobo went over to an offering, took a bottle of 7 Campos de Piracicaba cachaça, and checked to see if the lid was still sealed. He returned to the pavement with the bottle and kept walking beside Hermano. Bonobo’s lips were split and swollen, the top one resembling a disgusting chunk of roast sausage. The filter of the cigarette dangling from his mouth became tinged with red. He opened the bottle, took the cigarette out of his mouth and had a swig. He pointed the bottle at Hermano, who refused again, not only because he was tenaciously abstinent, but also because he felt that drinking stolen booze from a black-magic offering wasn’t something you should do without batting an eyelid, no matter how much of an unbeliever you were. He waited for Bonobo to call him a faggot or the like, but the silence continued. They kept walking with their heads down and eyes glued to the pavement, Hermano with his enormous hands in his pockets, Bonobo puffing on his cigarette between swigs of the cachaça he’d stolen from the orixás.

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