Coivara

Author's note: This story is a tribute to Sixcilla and is deeply inspired by her world and themes. If you liked it, go read her work here on Literotica, under the name sixcilla.

* * *

September 1857, São Paulo province

Nathanaël

It was a crooked bargain, and Nathanaël saw no way out but to hold on.

In Hamburg, the agent had told his family two years, three at most. With an eldest son who was already a grown man, they had believed him. But that was before they understood how the account worked: the passage, the transport, the tools, the house, the flour, the salt and, every year, six per cent interest. Half of every harvest went to the senhor, the owner of the fazenda. Their half went to the debt. The debt grew a little more slowly than the coffee trees, but it grew.

Bent under the sun, feet planted wide, Nathanaël dragged the hoe through soil that had turned hard and dusty. The harvest had ended two weeks earlier, and the weeding had to be done before the light rains came. It was not work many farmers enjoyed. Fortunately, one of the best moments came right after: when the coffee trees bloomed, filling the fields with petals and the air with the scent of jasmine. Like his father, and his father's father before him, he loved the work in the fields, and the sky that came with it. But loving the land did not make it his, and the debt saw to that.

That was why, two nights earlier, when the youngest of the Bundis had knocked at the back door with a certain letter folded under his arm, he had let him in. They had talked for a long time, in low voices. Nathanaël had finally signed. As he wrote his name, which was also his father's, he could hear him coughing in the next room. Before dawn, the letter was gone.

A letter for the consul in Rio, who would pass it on to the Swiss envoy. Not a letter to condemn anyone, but one that might, just might, win them a fairer bargain.

His mother had watched him sign and said nothing. In the morning, he had seen the pride in her eyes, and she had kissed him on the forehead the way she used to when he was small.

Foreign voices drifted up from the path. Nathanaël straightened and took off his hat.

The senhor was coming down the path between the trees, talking fast in Portuguese, gesturing at his land, laughing at his own words. Beside him walked a man Nathanaël had never seen. A grey coat, no hat despite the sun. He was tall and slender as a sapling. His hair, short and curly, was so pale it looked white, and the light seemed to slide off it. Even at that distance, Nathanaël recognized the features of the northern sailors he had seen in Hamburg: the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the clean line of the jaw. But no sailor had ever worn a coat like that.

The stranger wasn't listening. He was looking beyond the coffee trees, at the smoke from the clearing fires rising above the forest, as if reading the weather in the sky. Then his gaze travelled down the row, passing over the trees and the settlers alike, and over Nathanaël.

Nathanaël should have lowered his eyes, but they were fixed on the stranger and his singular silhouette. The hoe slipped from his hands and fell to the ground. His face burning, probably as red as the back of his neck, Nathanaël bent to pick it up. When he straightened, the senhor and the visitor were already moving away, absorbed in their conversation.

Later that day, Nathanaël caught himself thinking back to the important visitor's bearing. Wondering what kind of life he must lead. He even pictured himself not as a farmer, but up on the box of a carriage, the reins in his hands, and that man sitting behind him in the dark. Driving him anywhere.

For one afternoon, he forgot the debt and the fields.

* * *

Algot

Soot kept reappearing on the windowsill. It vaguely reminded him of the constant accumulation of fine snow back home, where they called him Algautr. It had been a very long time since anyone had called him that. A woman would come by several times a day to wipe the soot away with a cloth. But, like the snow, the soot would return. Far beyond the window and the rows of dark-green coffee trees, beyond the treeline, the forest was burning. Day after day, distant trees were cut down to their stumps so that crops could be planted in the ashes. The planters called this the coivara season: the slash-and-burn season. There was little wind that morning and the smoke rose in swirling plumes of grey and black, filling the sky. The sun behind it appeared tarnished, like an old coin.

It was the sixth fazenda he had visited, all of them controlled by the group he represented, a group he belonged to.

Each visit had followed the same pattern: a tour of the land, a pointless spiel extolling the exceptional quality of the coffee, then an invitation to the owner's house. And once the doors were closed, the same unease. Last December, in Ibicaba, a Swiss schoolteacher had gotten the settlers to sign a petition. Since then, Switzerland had been preparing to send someone to investigate, and on every fazenda, the settlers wanted to follow his example. The owners were keen for the envoy to find satisfied settlers. Algot's presence was helping them to take the necessary measures.

That, in fact, was what he was witnessing that morning. Behind Algot, Senhor Teixeira was counting. With the end of the dry season, the coffee beans had been harvested, dried and would soon be sold. It was also a good pretext for summoning the family representatives and questioning them without arousing suspicion. Teixeira already knew from his overseer that a petition was doing the rounds; he even knew who had written it. However, he did not know which household it was in, and he could not arrest anyone without evidence; he wanted the names added in secret, by candlelight.

Four registers lay open before Teixeira. Three of them contained the details and accounts of three settlers who had already been questioned that morning. The settlers spoke German, and Algot had offered to translate in place of the usual interpreter.

The first person questioned was an old man. He had listened to the questions like a man out of his depth. He simply knew nothing. Teixeira had then wasted his time again with a second man who had responded with great indignation. Algot sensed it was genuine and kept the senhor from having him dragged back after he cut the interview short and walked out. The third man was of Graubünden origin, and it was on him that they spent the most time. He had hinted that he knew something. Teixeira had tried to negotiate the write-off of one year, perhaps two, of interest from the settler's record in exchange for relevant information. Within the hour, it was clear the man from Graubünden had nothing useful to say. This time, it was Teixeira who eventually cut the conversation short. The settler left his hat behind as he went out. There was one more to go, and it would soon be midday.

"The Frenchman," said Teixeira, searching for the information on the page of the fourth register. "But he's ill; recently, his eldest son has taken over the contract. Na... tanael."

He stumbled over the name with a pronounced Portuguese accent and didn't bother to try again. Algot looked at the register from the window and read the name backwards: Nathanaël. A man from Valais, according to the register, and not a Frenchman. As far as Teixeira was concerned, anyone who spoke French was probably French.

Teixeira read the overseer's note: "good worker, two thousand trees, no complaints." Then he turned to Algot: "Do you speak French?"

"I speak French," Algot assured him.

The woman came to retrieve the hat that had been left on the chair. No one paid any attention to it. The overseer ushered in the fourth settler.

He appeared to be in his early twenties. Of average height, he was built less like a farm labourer than like a schoolteacher or a young priest. However, his calloused hands and the sunburnt skin on the back of his neck left no doubt as to his years of labour in the fields.

He stopped a couple of paces from the door, at the exact spot the overseer had indicated. His eyes swept around the room, his gaze lowered to avoid meeting theirs, a reserved yet apprehensive expression on his face. They lingered on Algot for a brief moment before moving on. Algot did not recognize this face. He had the sensation of being recognized without recognizing the other person in return. No doubt one of the workers present in the fields during the visit a few days earlier.

Most of the settlers Algot had seen being summoned that season usually displayed a defiant air upon their arrival. That had been the case with the second person questioned that morning; his back was straight, his chin slightly raised. Yet, at the same time, fear gripped them, and their clenched jaws and the subtle swaying of their bodies gave them away. In other circumstances, Algot knew, they were the first to crack.

This man, too, stood upright, but with his head bowed, his arms and legs motionless. His gaze was attentive.

He was afraid too. Algot could smell it: cold sweat, under the more familiar odours of earth and smoke.

Teixeira gestured towards the chair. The young man named Nathanaël sat down, still upright, his head slightly bowed. He placed his hands on his thighs, clearly visible. They were a labourer's hands, the palms thick with yellow calluses.

Teixeira turned his head slightly towards Algot before speaking. Algot responded with a slight nod, indicating that they could begin.

"We'll start with his accounts," said Teixeira.

"I shall translate for the senhor today," announced Algot. "He is going to speak to you about your accounts."

He said this in the French of tea rooms and treaties that Nathanaël had surely not heard often, and certainly not for a long time. Surprised, he looked up briefly, glanced at Teixeira, and then lowered his eyes, deliberately avoiding Algot's gaze.

Teixeira began with the family debt. That was his method, and it was not a bad one.

He listed the lines one by one in a clear, resonant voice: the passage, the transport, the tools, the house, the flour, the salt. Two thousand coffee trees. Six per cent a year. He summed it all up in a total, like a judge delivering a verdict.

Algot repeated it all in French in an even voice. He had no need to mimic the senhor's intonation. He looked out of the window again, at the soot, the rows of trees, the smoke on the horizon.

His attention, however, remained fixed on the young man behind him, who did not move.

"Two thousand three hundred trees," he corrected. "Not two thousand. The bottom row was planted in May."

He said this without reproach, in a perfectly calm tone. Algot translated and Senhor Teixeira corrected the figure in his ledger.

Then Teixeira read out the harvest: one hundred and forty arrobas, half for the family, less costs.

"Three years' harvest," remarked Senhor Teixeira, "and your debt has barely changed since your arrival."

Nathanaël remained silent. It was certainly his father, not he, who'd accepted the contract, but the fact remained that the debt was just as much his own.

It was at this point that Teixeira pounced on the petition:

"And now," he said, raising his voice, "it seems that a petition is doing the rounds from house to house, and your family's name is on it."

"That means nothing to me."

That was the first move, and he played it badly. He said it too quickly, in a voice that was too even and with a feigned surprise. Algot translated it verbatim while waiting for what came next. He'd already seen what came next so many times this season: the affected indignation, the chin raised; "by what right," "we are people of our word and honourable." Just like the German a few hours earlier.

But what followed did not come. Nathanaël fell silent, listening intently to Teixeira.

So Algot listened to him in a different way. Beneath the ticking of the clock, Teixeira's heavy breathing, beneath the woman's footsteps in the corridor, there was the settler's heart beating slowly. Too slowly for the fear that Algot knew he carried within him. Algot understood: it was a discipline, an old one, deeply ingrained in him: not to move, not to breathe too heavily, to fade into the background until the danger had passed. He must have learned it early on. He was doing it well.

Algot stopped looking out of the window. The moment he set his eyes on him, Nathanaël's heart began to race.

It was so sudden that Algot almost smiled. The man had withstood every accusation the senhor threw at him, and a single glance had sent his pulse racing.

Nathanaël, however, remained impassive. He couldn't have known just how closely he was being scrutinized.

Such spontaneity was rare. Algot had almost forgotten the taste of it.

He turned back towards the window. The sun, still subdued, was at its highest point above the rows of coffee trees; the cicadas were singing at the top of their voices outside.

Teixeira picked up where he'd left off: "Who's on it today? The Castys? The Durischs? The Lötschers?" He read out each name, letting them fall into the room, onto Nathanaël. Algot didn't need to translate that sequence.

"The Bundis? The Simonets?"

At the mention of the Bundis, Algot--his eyes still fixed on the outside--heard Nathanaël's breath catch. Without turning around, Algot saw the room, reflected backwards in the window, against the smoke in the distance. Teixeira, leaning over his column, had seen nothing.

Then Teixeira slammed the ledger shut. He didn't shout--not quite. But his voice echoed forcefully off the walls and his hand struck the table flat. If the Valais family had been involved in this affair, the contract would be terminated. A family without a contract had no further business on the fazenda's land. But they could not leave either: as long as they owed, they stayed. Whoever left without paying owed double. And whoever could not pay double went to prison. Nor should they count on hiding in Europe: business connections knew no borders and had a long memory.

Algot translated without changing a single word, his voice remaining steady throughout. As before, Teixeira's anger spoke for itself. When he mentioned prison, the young man closed his eyes for a second. He said nothing.

So Teixeira, for want of a reply, began to fabricate accusations. He accused him of having been seen at the meetings. He accused him of having personally carried the petition from one house to another. He accused him of lying about his accounts, of embezzling coffee. He had reopened the ledger and, with each accusation, he wrote it down opposite the debt, in the same brown ink.

Algot was translating everything. To others, the situation might have seemed comical. But he did not laugh and turned around to watch the scene unfold.

Nathanaël stood up, as if the injustice of it had lifted him from the chair. But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

His hands clenched, the calluses on his knuckles turning white. Then, after a few seconds, they opened again. He sat back down on the chair, his hands once more visible on his legs. As if there were no other possible response but to take it on the chin and wait for what came next.

"Your father is ill," said Teixeira, his voice now low. "If he dies, the debt will pass to you, and so will the cell."

Algot translated the barely veiled double threat.

"I'm the one here now, not my father."

It was his first defence of the entire exchange, and it wasn't even for himself.

Teixeira looked at him for a long time. No doubt the senhor had taken his reply and the rest of his silence as brazen defiance. Algot read it differently. His experience of human nature was not that of a man hurling accusations from a ledger. His was long, and vast.

Teixeira finally signalled to the overseer.

"Since he refuses to say anything, a night in the tulha will make him find the words. Tomorrow, if he is still silent, it will be up to the justice of the peace to interpret his silence."

Algot translated the words into French.

The settler went rigid. His head snapped up toward Teixeira. Then, for the first time, his eyes turned to meet Algot's gaze. His discipline still held: he neither spoke nor moved. But his eyes clung to him, and he was pleading with him.

For a moment, he heard nothing but the young man's heartbeat. He felt his tongue brush the edge of his teeth in a hidden reflex. It was sweeter than fear, sweeter than blood.

Then his gaze fell to the floor and the moment evaporated. He seemed resigned, abandoned, distant.

The senhor wrote another line in his register. He set down the quill to pick up the pounce pot and seal the fresh ink with fine sand. His arm caught the quill as he set it down, and it rolled across the table, then fell to the floor.

Without thinking, Nathanaël bent and picked up the quill. The collar of his shirt gaped at the nape of his neck, revealing skin untouched by the sun. He handed the quill back to the senhor in a mechanical motion.

Teixeira took the quill, his expression still stern, without thanking him. As if it were Nathanaël who had dropped the quill. Under that gaze, the young man apologized.

Teixeira turned to Algot: "What did he say?"

"Nothing," he replied.

The overseer stepped away from the door. Nathanaël stood up before he was asked to and went out. The overseer closed the door behind them.

The woman came over to wipe the soot off the window sill again. Teixeira poured himself some cold coffee and drank it in one go.

"No leads, no answers, nothing," he said discontentedly. "Four men and nothing."

Algot was looking out of the window again; the sound of cicadas carried unhindered through the glass.

"Send for the Bundis," he said.

Teixeira looked up:

"The Bundis? Why the Bundis?"

Algot didn't reply. Silence hung in the air for a moment. Then Teixeira asked:

"The whole family?"

Algot nodded, stifled a sigh and looked the senhor squarely in the eye.

"And get your men ready to search their house once they've gone."

Teixeira opened his mouth, closed it again and rang the bell.

* * *

When Algot found himself alone that evening, he waited for night to fall. Then he waited for the fazenda bell to ring. Next, he waited for the twilight birds--the sabiá-laranjeira and the nightjar--to stop singing. Finally, the intensity of the crickets' chirping subsided.

Outside, it was chilly; the fazenda was silent.

The fire could no longer be seen in the distance, but the smoke had darkened the starry sky and the moon had taken on a reddish hue.

Algot easily found his way to the tulha. There, he heard the timber of the roof structure creaking in the cool of the night, the rats scurrying through the sacks of coffee, and the young man's steady breathing.

The walls of the building were made of brick and had no windows. He lifted the tranca -- the wooden bar placed across the door -- and set it down on the floor without making a sound. He then took from his pocket the key to the padlock securing the iron latch, which he'd obtained from the senhor earlier that day. At last, the door swung open and the faint red glow of the moon spread across the wooden floor.

In the darkness, he could hardly smell anything but coffee. Sacks were piled up as high as the beams. Nevertheless, he found the spot where Nathanaël lay. Near the entrance, a candle was placed in a shallow dish on the floor. Algot picked up the dish, lit the candle with the crackle of a match, then crouched down over the sleeping settler.

In the flickering light, Nathanaël's eyelids fluttered. He turned his head away and his heartbeat shifted from its sleep-induced rhythm before his eyes opened. Realizing he was not alone, he made a sudden movement to sit up.

Algot halted his movement by placing his hand flat on Nathanaël's chest. His breath escaped between his teeth, a long, soft sound.

The reflex to remain motionless--which Algot had observed in him in abundance that very morning--returned and gripped him. He did not push Algot's hand away. Beneath the palm, his compliant body encased a heart that was pounding wildly.

Algot did not hold back his smile this time.

He slowly withdrew his hand, making sure Nathanaël remained motionless, and sat down on a sack at his height. The grains made a muffled sound as they were compressed. He was looking at him; he had recognized him.

"The senhor found the petition at the Bundis'," Algot murmured.

It wasn't the voice from that morning, the translator's voice that had delivered the threats in an even tone. It was his own.

At his words, Nathanaël turned pale. In the candlelight, Algot saw the colour drain from his lips.

"They were summoned after you. The father held out for an hour. The son, less. It was found at their house, under the floorboards, in a tin box."

Nathanaël closed his eyes.

"You didn't say a word. You held on. I was there."

His eyes opened again. Something rose in them, almost like hope.

"Then how...?"

"When the senhor read out the names, at the name Bundi, your body betrayed you. The senhor saw it. So did I."

Nathanaël looked away. His hands slowly closed into fists.

"The others know the Bundis were summoned right after you. Tomorrow, they'll believe you were the one who talked."

He let the silence stretch. In the silence, a dog barked, outside and far away.

"And tomorrow, you'll be taken to Limeira, before the judge. Your family will lose their contract. The debt will double, and your father will end up in prison with you."

Nathanaël's breath caught.

"No one will know you kept quiet, except me."

Algot placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I've come to offer you a bargain."

Nathanaël's gaze returned to him, fearful and guarded.

"Tomorrow, I'll take you to Limeira myself, but you won't get there. Teixeira can't demand anything of me. I can demand what I like of him. Your people will be sent away from the fazenda, and not quietly, so the others know the price that's been paid. But they'll end up somewhere else, on another fazenda, safe. Their debt will stay here. They'll start over with a clean slate."

His eyes searched Algot's face for a hidden meaning, some missing piece. For the first time, Algot read a trace of mistrust in them, and he didn't like it.

"And I could go to them... right away?"

"No. For anyone to believe you're in prison, you can never come back. They'll be safe because of you."

"I don't understand," Nathanaël whispered. "What will the price be?"

"The price?" Algot seemed genuinely puzzled. "What price? Without me, tomorrow, it all ends for you in Limeira, and your people drag the debt all the way back to Europe. With me, they're free of it. That's not a price, Nathanaël. It's a gift."

It was the first time he had said his name, and he didn't mangle it the way Teixeira did. He said it clearly, gently, with a melodious accent. The mistrust left Nathanaël's eyes.

"But it's true that you'll have to hold up your end of the bargain, and it remains to be seen whether you're capable of it."

Nathanaël was silent for a long time. He swallowed. His Adam's apple rose and fell beneath the skin.

"What must I do?"

Algot simply smiled at him.

"It starts with following me, and doing exactly as I say. Here and now."

Despite the fear that gripped the young man, he bowed his head slightly, his gaze resolute and determined.

He noticed that Nathanaël's heartbeat was slowing. That was the answer; he asked for no other. He stood up, took the dish and turned towards the door. Behind him, Nathanaël stood up too.

On the threshold, Algot took the candle and held it out to him. He placed the empty dish on a sack of coffee.

"You must hold it; it mustn't fall to the ground or go out. Understood?"

Nathanaël took it.

They made their way down between the rows of coffee bushes. The bushes towered above their heads, concealing their movements and the bare candle, shielding them from view from the master's house. Above, the moon had the colour of ashen embers. It was cold; dew was beginning to settle on the leaves.

They passed close to a few houses inhabited by other settlers. One had dogs. Algot heard them whimper softly as they walked past.

Nathanaël walked a step behind him. He held the candle with both hands, shielding it from the wind. He remained silent. At one point, Nathanaël drew a breath as if to speak. Algot heard him hold back the question. He did not ask where they were going.

They rounded the bend in the hill. The buildings of the fazenda disappeared behind them. At the end of the last row of coffee trees, just before the edge of the trees, a low stone wall marked the boundary of the land. Algot stopped to listen.

He listened to the fazenda sleeping. A man's snoring, a child's moans in his sleep. A woman whispering something to him. All that remained was the faint chirping of crickets. They were far away; they were alone.

Beyond the low wall, the song of an ibijau rang out. Five descending notes in the night.

Algot gestured towards the low wall to Nathanaël. He approached it.

"Kneel down."

He did so, his trousers on the wet grass.

"Hold the candle in front of you, on the low wall, so that I can see it clearly."

He rested his wrists on the stone wall, holding the candle with both hands. The flame flickered with the movement, then steadied itself.

"Higher."

He raised it high, so it was clearly visible, above his head.

"Remember, don't drop it, don't let it go out."

Algot took out the riding crop with which he'd travelled half the country. He'd concealed it beneath his clothes, taking care that Nathanaël didn't notice it. He waited. Ahead of him, the flame was still trembling. He waited for it to settle, then to go perfectly still. With the leather tip, he lifted the hem of the shirt and slowly pulled it up along his back, until it was just above his shoulder blades.

A sturdy back, shaped by physical labour. Much paler than the sunburnt nape of his neck.

"I'm going to bite you now," Algot announced.

He didn't soften it. There was no point in lying now.

There were no questions. There was only Nathanaël's head, which bent towards the low wall, and in the movement, he exposed the nape of his neck. He didn't know what he was doing. Algot did. But it wasn't the nape of his neck he wanted that night.

He knelt behind him, placing his hand firmly on his side. The skin there was warm; the ribs above rose and fell in a jerky rhythm. He leaned in, breathing in the sweat, the coffee dust, and beneath it all, the scent of Nathanaël himself--a scent of bread and salt.

Then he bit the hollow of his hip. The body tensed suddenly, arching against his mouth. Frozen, docile.

The taste came.

Metallic at first, as it always was. The prelude to a symphony. The young settler's fear entered him, a deafening clamour. It stemmed partly from the moment itself. But Algot detected a resonance in it. A constant fear that accompanied him day after day, as constant as the sun.

And beneath the fear, something else. A warmth he'd glimpsed that morning, which he'd felt beneath his palm in the tulha. It was clenched within that fear and shame as if in a fist. He hadn't expected it to be so strong. A burning desire. At its zenith: Algot's mouth upon him.

He drank for longer than he'd intended.

When he withdrew, a bright red drop escaped from the crown-shaped mark. Before him, the flickering flame; both hands held it firmly.

Algot stood up and took a step back.

The riding crop whistled through the air. Taken by surprise, his muscles tensed. The first blow landed across his back, below his shoulder blades. His breath caught in his throat; his spine arched inwards. The flame dipped with the movement, but rose again. Still aligned with his body and above his head.

Algot took his time. He savoured every slow embrace of the leather against the increasingly swollen skin. Every contraction of the muscles as the blow came down. He watched the flame as it danced.

Soon the skin gave way and the smell of blood filled the air.

While at first Nathanaël had held back every sound with remarkable discipline, the silence cracked, little by little, into air hissing through his teeth, then into brief, choked moans of pain. When blood first beaded, he stifled a cry. Algot decided to stop just as the young man was absent-mindedly murmuring a prayer to himself in the local dialect.

Algot lowered the riding crop, satisfied.

He leaned his body against the other's, the riding crop in his left hand. With his right, he gently cupped the back of his skull in his palm.

"There," he said into the crook of his ear, feeling the tremors beneath him.

"It's over."

It wasn't over. It was only just beginning. The smell of Nathanaël's blood in the air made him feel euphoric.

The flame had remained just as it was. Now it flickered only slightly beneath the faint tremors. Nathanaël had behaved splendidly.

His body pressed against Nathanaël's, his hand stroking his head, his fingers tangled in his sweat-soaked hair. He whispered in his ear: "You're brave, Nathanaël, you held on. You were magnificent for me..."

He dropped the riding crop into the grass and placed his left hand on Nathanaël's shoulder. His thumb traced circular movements across the trapezius muscle, slowly moving down towards the rhomboids.

After a while, Nathanaël's breathing slowed and deepened. His eyelids drooped, half-closed. Tears, without any sobs, trickled down his cheeks. The muscles in his body relaxed. His head, lolling to one side, once again exposed the pale nape of his neck, just as it had been revealed that morning when he'd picked up the quill.

Algot slid his hands slowly down his spine, along his side.

In the small of his back, he slipped a finger beneath his belt. His other hand found the buckle at the front and, with a deft movement, undid it. The now-loose trousers were drawn down by his finger, exposing the curve of his buttocks to the cool air.

The movement roused Nathanaël from his daze; his heart and breathing quickened. Above his head, the flame wavered, almost lay down, then rose again. Algot responded with soft murmurs, planting fangless kisses on the side of his head and on the nape of his neck.

At the front of his body, Algot's left hand traced the outline of his pelvis, slid inside his thigh and came around from the side to cup his testicles.

Nathanaël jerked upright, stiff as a board. His breath caught in his throat. Overcome by fear, his body tensed, and Algot felt the mass press against the lower part of his stomach. His hand remained there, motionless and gentle, shielding the fragile sac of flesh from the cold.

"Breathe," Algot whispered in his ear.

He forced himself to inhale. With difficulty, the air entered in a jerky rhythm. His heart began to race even more. Then, his breathing evened out again. The flame stopped trembling. His body relaxed further as Algot's hand released its grip. Just above it, he formed a ring with his fingers at the base of his penis.

Still using slow movements, he began to pump the length, establishing a steady rhythm. Nathanaël's body was quick to respond, and Algot responded by firming his grip, squeezing against the swelling member.

A long, hoarse sigh escaped from Nathanaël's lips. Algot brushed the hollow of his buttocks with his other hand. Further down, he lightly touched the fleshy rosebud with his fingertips. Then he pushed the tip of his index finger inside. The muscles at the entrance to the rosebud immediately clamped down on the first joint.

Nathanaël's body was once again seized by surprise. But the surprise quickly gave way to the now firm and rapid movements of the left hand. The muscles blocking penetration gave way and Algot continued his intrusion deeper still. When he found the small, firm, rounded area against the inner wall, he hooked his finger against it.

The moans became distinct, rising unrestrainedly above the song of the crickets. The candle swayed with the rhythm of his body. It did not fall. Nathanaël was about to give in. He bit him a second time, this time on the shoulder blade.

Blood surged into his mouth, pulsing against his tongue in time with the powerful beats. The overwhelming resonance of desire and shame was now amplified into a burning, raw pleasure. The blood told him where that pleasure came from: from his body pressed against Nathanaël's, from his hands all over him, seizing him, claiming him. And at its crescendo, from his teeth piercing him, pinning him in place, binding them together.

Like the clapper striking the bronze of a bell, the resonance swept over them both in a powerful surge. The beats echoed one another, growing increasingly spaced out. Algot drank until the last vibration faded away.

They remained in each other's embrace for a moment. Algot let his lips rest against his skin. Emerging slowly, he raised his right hand towards the candle. It was still there. He could feel the faint warmth of the flame on his hand.

"Oh, Nathanaël," he breathed in his clear accent.

Algot picked up the riding crop from the grass and straightened up. He stood tall, directly behind Nathanaël, gazing at his back, at the marks left by his handiwork.

* * *

Nathanaël

A hand reached out to take the candle again. He saw that the wax had dripped onto his fingers. He tried to open them, but they no longer obeyed him. The stranger unfolded them one by one and his hands returned to him. He wanted to stand up, but his legs would not respond either. He could sense the presence behind him, watching him, letting him try. Then a hand took him by the elbow and pulled him to his feet. Behind him, distantly, hands pulled his shirt down. He scarcely felt the fabric against his raw wounds.

The sensation of floating gradually gave way to an incredible heaviness, similar to the one he'd felt at the end of the harvest, the year his father had fallen ill. For seven days, fourteen hours a day, he'd scraped his hands raw on the coffee trees and carried sacks of cherries weighing nearly a hundred pounds. Similar, but not quite the same.

Nathanaël found himself following the stranger along the path and through the rows. The smell of dry coffee beans once again filled the air around him, and he lay down on his side, relieved that he no longer had to move or hold on. The padlock clicked shut with a metallic clang.

The bell or the rooster woke him; he couldn't tell which. He was cold, cold to the bone. He clutched the jacket covering him -- it wasn't his own. It had no smell -- not of horse, nor of tobacco, nor of sweat.

Memories of the previous day came flooding back, followed by those of the night -- even more terrifying. The only sense he could make of it came from the tales of his childhood -- those in which the deceitful devil offered men cursed pacts. In some stories, the devil was defeated. But Nathanaël was no Saint Theodule. There was no white rooster, and the only bell was that of the fazenda.

Nothing made sense, and he was alone with it. He thought back to the past few weeks; how distant they seemed. Tending the fields, looking after his brothers and sisters, and his ailing father. Daydreaming, making plans, imagining how, in a few years' time, he might acquire his own plots of land and have children of his own.

He realized he was crying. It wasn't out of grief. The tears flowed of their own accord, without sobs. He let them come. He was ashamed to feel so small, so helpless in the dark, like a child.

He found himself searching for the voice without meaning to. The one that said it was all over. When he realized what he was hoping for, the shame tore at him.

He thought of the doe he'd seen earlier in the season. The forest on the mountainside was being set alight. The animal was trapped: on one side, the flames; on the other, the men and their dogs; behind her, the cliff. Her hooves had finally slipped and she'd fallen into the void.

He, too, had stumbled; his body had betrayed him. Twice over. At the name Bundi and in the face of the devil who had recognized the impurity within him.

This vile temptation was nothing new; he had spent a lifetime learning to ignore it, to conceal it, to give himself the hope that if he worked hard enough, if he found a valiant and gentle wife, the temptation would cease to torment him. The stranger had seen the embers smouldering beneath the ashes and had blown on them. And he had done so after beating him with a riding crop, like a beast.

He thought of the devil's tail, sometimes depicted as a serpent's tongue, sometimes ending in an arrowhead, ready to pierce the flesh. The parish priest had warned him, however: Satan himself could disguise himself as an angel of light. He thought back to the stranger among the rows, to the light sliding off his hair. He had not been able to guess his true nature. He had even dreamed of driving him anywhere. He felt the welts on his back burning.

After what seemed like a long time, he heard a key in the lock of a padlock and was blinded by the white light.

The overseer entered carrying a rope. He tied Nathanaël's wrists together in front of him and said something in Portuguese in which the word "juiz" recurred. Before leaving, Nathanaël folded the jacket as best he could with his hands bound.

The stranger was waiting by the door, on horseback, clean-shaven, like a man setting off on a journey. He took the jacket without a word and did not look at him. The overseer handed him the end of the rope.

Nathanaël did not know what to call this devil who was the source of his misfortunes. The stranger, however, knew his own name, and pronounced it better than anyone.

They passed the settlers' houses at the hour when people were setting off for the fields. The men stopped in their doorways, hoes slung over their shoulders. He saw in their eyes that they pitied him. They believed he was being punished. He did not correct their assumption. He knew where his family's house was, and he did not look at it.

The sun was rising behind the smoke, still tarnished.

At the end of the path, where the road to Limeira bends behind the last coffee trees, the stranger let go of the end of the rope. He did not turn around.

Nathanaël continued walking behind the horse.