Prologue
The Velhas River isn’t beautiful.
It’s muddy and wide, the color of earth that never disappears, not even under the blazing sun. Grandpa Francisco told me it was because the river had been carrying everything Minas Gerais dumped into it for centuries. I was about nine and thought every river was blue, like on television.
He looked at me with that expression he wore whenever I said something stupid and didn’t say anything else.
The argument had already started in the car.
I was in the back seat, with the fishing rods leaning against the window, trying not to let the hook stab me, when the radio said something about the Middle East. Deaths. Bombings. The announcer had the voice of someone used to calmly saying terrible things.
Grandpa Francisco slapped the dashboard.
— The Americans need to go over there and fix this already — he said. — At least they do something. The rest of the world just sits around watching.
Dad didn’t take his eyes off the road.
— The Americans go over there because there’s oil, Dad. If there wasn’t oil, there wouldn’t be planes, there wouldn’t be bombs, there wouldn’t be anything.
— You think it’s that simple.
— I don’t think it’s simple. I think it’s true.
Grandpa Francisco turned toward the window and fell silent for a while. When he got quiet like that, it meant he hadn’t given up. He was just reloading.
— I prefer the Americans to the others — he said more quietly.
— I do too — Dad replied. — But preferring them isn’t the same as being blind.
I watched the two of them through the space between the seats. I didn’t really understand what they were arguing about, but I understood that it was serious. With adults, you learn to measure the tone before you understand the words.
We reached the riverbank before the sun had really begun to heat things up. Grandpa Francisco set up the beach chairs, those colorful nylon ones, and sat down with the weight of a man setting a burden on the ground. Dad prepared the fishing poles without saying a word. I stayed between them, not knowing which way to look.
The line entered the muddy water and disappeared.
— Grandpa — I called, curious. — Why is there war?
Grandpa Francisco looked at me. There was something on his face I didn’t know how to name back then. Today I know it was guilt. The guilt of someone who had lived long enough to know there was no good answer to that question, especially when the person asking still had baby teeth falling out.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he ran a hand over my head with a gentleness I never saw him use with my father.
— Ask your father — he said. — He’s the smart one in the family.
Dad let out a breath through his nose. It wasn’t a laugh, but almost.
He spent a while looking at the water before speaking.
— Pietro, have you ever seen two boys fighting over a ball in a field?
— Yeah.
— Why do they fight?
I thought for a moment.
— Because they both want the ball.
— That’s right. Now imagine the ball is worth a lot of money. A whole lot. Then they aren’t just two boys anymore. They’re two entire countries. And instead of a ball, there’s oil, land, water. Things everybody needs and not everybody has.
— But then they just have to share — I said.
Grandpa Francisco gave a short, dry laugh. The first one of the day.
— They just have to share — he repeated, as if he were putting that sentence away for later.
Dad didn’t find it funny. He looked at me with a seriousness I almost never saw on our fishing trips, one of the few places where he usually let his guard down.
— The problem, Pietro, is that people don’t learn to share. They always seek to conquer. — He turned his face toward the river. — Back in the Stone Age, a man discovered fire. And he used fire to take what belonged to others. The ones who lost created the spear. The ones who had fire created the bow. The ones who had the spear created the shield. Always like that. From the beginning.
— And it never stops? — I asked.
He took a while to answer.
— In Japan, a long time ago, there were samurai. The best-trained fighters the world had ever seen up to that point. An entire life devoted to the sword. — He looked at his own hands. — Then the rifle came along. And the samurai, with all that dedication, didn’t stand a chance. The bullet didn’t care about his discipline.
Grandpa Francisco listened with his eyes on the line, but I knew he was hearing every word.
— In 1914, they invented the airplane for war. No man on the ground could reach it. In 1944, they dropped the nuclear bomb on Japan. The first one made half of humanity want to stop.
— Only half? — I asked.
— Only half. — Dad’s voice grew quieter. — So they dropped another one.
The river kept flowing. The silence followed the water and the birds.
— But why, Dad? — I insisted, because I was nine and still thought every question had an answer. — Why does humanity keep doing this?
He went silent for a while. Grandpa Francisco tugged on the line, checked the bait with his thick fingers, and cast it again.
— Because people never give up, Pietro — Dad said at last. — For good or for evil, people never give up.
I didn’t really understand back then. I was too much of a boy, the sun was heating the back of my neck, and I really wanted to catch a fish.
At the end of the afternoon, we went home with nothing. Grandpa Francisco carried the beach chair under his arm. Before getting into the car, he stopped at the riverbank for a second and looked at the river with that expression old people have when they’re looking at something that isn’t there anymore.
I climbed into the back seat. Dad put a hand on the back of my neck and didn’t take it away for a long time.
I was too young to understand what that conversation was trying to teach me. Today I understand. It’s just that today, the sky is green.