THE BOY WHO WENT INTO THE FIRE TO SAVE THE OVERSEER’S SON — 15 YEARS LATER HE…

THE BOY WHO WENT INTO THE FIRE TO SAVE THE OVERSEER’S SON — 15 YEARS LATER HE…

The smell arrived before the noise. It wasn’t the familiar smell of firewood burning in the slave quarters’ stove. It was different, more bitter, denser. The kind of smell that clings to your throat and makes your chest tighten before you even understand what’s happening.

Tomás woke up without knowing why. He was only 10 years old, but he had already learned to trust his own body more than his own head. His body knew things ahead of time. He could tell when the foreman Jerônimo was in a bad mood by the way his boots hit the ground. He knew when it was going to rain by the pain in old Cipriano’s back.

He knew when danger was near. And now his body was saying, “Get up.” He sat slowly on the hard-packed earthen floor of the slave quarters. Around him, bodies lay piled up, sleeping. Inácio’s heavy snoring, Tia Rosa’s wheezing, the restless silence of the children who never slept soundly. Outside, the sky was the wrong color.

Thomas stood up and went to the door. The old wood creaked, but no one woke up. They were used to noises at night. What he saw made him stop breathing for a moment. On the other side of the sugarcane field, towards where the foremen’s and overseers’ houses were, the sky was orange. It wasn’t the beautiful orange of the sunset; it was a dirty, vibrant orange that pulsed as if it had a heart of its own. Fire.

“Don’t get involved in this, boy,” the voice came out low, hoarse, tired. Tomás turned and saw old Cipriano sitting in the corner, his back against the wattle and daub wall, his eyes shining, reflecting the distant light. “There’s a fire, Cipriano,” said Tomás, using the affectionate term everyone used for the oldest man in the slave quarters.

“I know, and you know, what fire does to those who meddle where they are not wanted?” said Cipriano. Thomas did not answer, only continued staring. The flames were growing; they could be heard now. A constant noise, like running water, but drier, more menacing. From time to time, a loud crack, wood giving way, something exploding.

“It’s far from us,” said Cipriano. “The wind is blowing in the other direction. The slave quarters are not in danger.” “And what about the people who are there?” asked Tomás. Cipriano remained silent for a while. When he spoke, his voice was even lower: “The people who are there have people to help them. Here, we only have each other.”

Tomás knew it was true, but something inside him couldn’t accept it so easily. Then came the thin, sharp cry, cutting through the night like a knife. A child’s cry. Tomás knew that cry; he had heard it before, not many times, but enough to recognize it. It was Joaquim, Jerônimo’s son, the boy with almost yellow hair, who sometimes passed near the slave quarters when his father came to give orders.

The boy who once dropped a piece of bread near Tomás and pretended not to see it when he picked it up. The boy who, three months ago, got stuck in the pigsty, and it was Tomás who opened the gate before his father found out and punished him for his carelessness. They had never really spoken, but there was something there, a look, a silent understanding, loneliness recognizing loneliness.

The cry came again, weaker this time. “No,” said Cipriano, reading the intention even before he moved. “You won’t do it.” “He’ll die,” insisted Tomás. “So what?” the question came out harsh, but not cruel. It was practical, it was survival. “How many of us have already died and no one lifted a finger? How many children from this slave quarters have already gone and no one has cried for them out there?” the old man continued. “But he’s not to blame,” argued the boy.

“No one is to blame, boy, but the world is the way it is,” Cipriano said. Thomas looked at the old man. Cipriano had marks on his face, some from whips, others from time. Eyes that had seen too much, hands that had lost count of what they had carried. “Would you do differently?” Thomas asked. “If you were young again?” Cipriano sighed deeply.

Then, something that almost looked like a sad smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “If I were young again, I would have been dead a long time ago.” Tomás didn’t wait for permission any longer; he ran off. His bare feet pounded on the still-warm earth. His heart pounded in his chest, not from tiredness, but from something he couldn’t name.

Fear, perhaps, or that thing that makes you do what you shouldn’t. He crossed the space between the slave quarters and the sugarcane field. The sugarcane stalks were tall at that time, ready for harvest. They reached above his head, creating shadows that danced with the wind and the reflection of the fire.

The closer he got, the more intense the heat became. It wasn’t the heat of the sun, it was the heat of an oven. The kind that hurts your skin before you even touch it, the kind that makes the air heavy, difficult to breathe. When he emerged from the middle of the sugarcane field, he saw that Jerônimo’s house was completely engulfed in flames.

It was a small, simple house, but better than the slave quarters. It had plastered wattle and daub walls, clay tiles, and two real windows. It was the house of someone who was in charge, but didn’t yet have real power. Now it was just fire. The flames climbed the walls, entered through the windows, and exited through the roof.

The front door was blocked by a fallen beam. There was no way to get in. Thomas ran around. Some people were already arriving, workers who had been sleeping nearby, two foremen. Everyone looked on, unsure what to do. The fire frightens even those in charge. “Is anyone inside?” someone shouted. “The boy? Where is the boy?” Thomas heard Jerome’s voice before he saw the man.

The foreman was on the other side, trying to get closer to the door, but the heat was too intense. He retreated, advanced, retreated again. “Joaquim!”, the desperation in his voice was real. It wasn’t the voice of a man giving orders, it was the voice of a father. Tomás looked around; there was a small side window.

There was no glass, just the wooden grate that was starting to catch fire. He didn’t think. If he had thought, he wouldn’t have done it. He ran to the window, grabbed a piece of wood that was on the ground and broke the grate, which was already weak from the fire. The wood gave way easily, falling inside in an explosion of sparks.

He climbed onto the stone that was under the window. “What are you doing, boy?” It wasn’t Jerome’s voice, it was another foreman’s. But Thomas couldn’t hear anything properly anymore. He grabbed the edge, propelled himself out of the window and leaned upward. The skin of his hands hissed as they touched the hot wood, but he didn’t let go, he swung his leg inside and entered hell.

The world changed in an instant. There was no air, only thick, black smoke that entered his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Thomas immediately began to writhe. His chest ached, his eyes burned so much that he instinctively closed them, but he couldn’t. He had to find Joaquim. He crouched down, remembering something Aunt Rosa had once said: “Fire rises, if there’s fire, stay close to the ground.” He crawled. The ground was hot. It burned his clothes, burned his knees, burned his hands. The noise was worse than outside. It was as if the fire had a voice, a constant roar, a furious crackling, the breaking of wood splintering.

“Joaquim!”, the voice came out weak, swallowed by the smoke. He crawled further, bumped into something. A table that was too hot. He went around it. Joaquim, nothing. Only the sound of the fire remained. Fear began to truly overwhelm him. What if he didn’t find him? What if it was too late? What if he died there too? Then he heard a weak cry, more of a cough than a sob.

He followed the sound, crawling, his eyes burning, his chest aching inside. He found the boy huddled in the corner between the wall and a fallen cupboard. Joaquim’s face was hidden in his arms, his little body trembling. “Joaquim!” The boy lifted his face, his eyes wide, frightened, lost. When he saw Tomás, something changed in his expression.

It wasn’t relief, it was confusion, as if he didn’t understand why he was there. “Come,” Tomás extended his hand. Joaquim didn’t move. “Let’s go,” said Tomás. He didn’t wait any longer. He grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled. Joaquim was light, too thin for his age, all frail. Tomás managed to put him on his back, as he did when carrying firewood.

The way back seemed longer, the smoke thicker. The air was dense, or perhaps his eyes couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t see clearly, only following his memory. The window. He had to find the window. He crawled with Joaquim on his back. The weight wasn’t the problem. The problem was the lack of air.

The problem was the heat that seemed to melt everything. Something fell behind them with a crash, a shower of sparks. Tomás accelerated as much as he could. He hit something. No. He ran over it. A little more. The air changed. Less dense, still horrible, but different. The window. Tomás pushed Joaquim out. First, he heard the thud of the boy falling outside, voices shouting.

Then he threw himself out, landing awkwardly. His shoulder hit the rock. The pain exploded, but he was out, out of the fire, on the hard ground, under the sky, which now seemed the most beautiful place in the world. He lay there, trembling, his whole body aching, but alive, alive. Hands grabbed him, voices shouted things he didn’t quite understand.

Someone threw water in his face. Someone pulled him away from the house. They sat down, holding hands. His skin was red, black in places. Blisters were beginning to form. Strangely, it didn’t hurt that much yet, but he knew it would. He knew it would hurt a lot. He looked to the side.

Joaquim was in Jerônimo’s lap. The foreman held his son tightly, his face buried in the boy’s light hair, his whole body trembling. Tomás had never seen Jerônimo like this. For a moment, their eyes met. Jerônimo looked at Tomás, looked at his son, looked at Tomás again. His mouth opened as if to say something, but he didn’t.

He just squeezed Joaquim tighter and turned away. Tomás sat there alone, while people rushed around trying to put out what remained of the fire. He felt a hand on his head. It was Aunt Rosa. She didn’t say anything. Her heavy, warm hand just remained there, on his head. And Tomás finally let the tears flow, not from pain, but from something he couldn’t explain.

The pain came the next morning, not gradually, as Tomás had imagined. It all came at once, as if his body had waited for the night to pass to demand everything at once. His hands throbbed, each heartbeat sending a wave of pain that surged up his arms. The skin on his palms was raw in places. In others, large blisters had formed, filled with a yellowish liquid that Aunt Rosa told him not to pop.

“Leave it alone,” she repeated every time she saw Thomas looking at his hands. “It will heal, it will take time, but it will.” Thomas wasn’t so sure. He spent three days unable to hold anything properly. Eating was a torment. Aunt Rosa had to cut the food into small pieces, and even then he had to tilt the bowl towards his mouth like a small child.

Inácio, his longtime friend, sat silently beside him during meals. Sometimes he offered help, sometimes he just stood there. Tomás appreciated the silence more than any words. On the fourth day, Aunt Rosa began applying an ointment she made herself. It had a strong herbal scent that Tomás didn’t recognize.

It stung when applied, but then eased the pain somewhat. “Where’s the foreman?” asked Tomás. “Can he see you?” asked Aunt Rosa one morning while changing the cloths in Tomás’s hands. “I think so. His house burned completely, so he’s sleeping in the back of the main house,” he replied. “Did he say anything?” asked his aunt. “Who?” asked Tomás. “The foreman.” “Yes,” he replied. Tomás nodded.

“Nothing, he didn’t even look at me anymore.” Aunt Rosa didn’t answer, she just pressed her lips together in a way Tomás knew well. It was her way when she wanted to say something, but she knew it was no use. The farm returned to normal too quickly. On the second day after the fire, everyone was already back at work, as usual.

Jerônimo’s house was just a pile of burnt wood now, but that wasn’t anyone’s problem. The Baron ordered the rubble removed. In a week, nothing remained, as if it had never existed. Tomás was excused from hard labor for a few days, but he still had something to do. He helped sort the beans, cleaned the yard—things that didn’t require his hands to work properly.

Joaquim, he never saw him again, not even from afar. It was as if the boy had disappeared. Tomás once asked Inácio if he had seen him. “I saw him with his mother going to the big house,” he replied. “It seems they’ll stay there until they build another house for the foreman. He’s fine,” Inácio shrugged. “He’s alive, isn’t he? That’s more than many people can say.”

The phrase hung heavy in the air. One morning, Tomás thought things would be different. He was near the pigpen, throwing corn to the pigs with his left hand, which hurt less, when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Jerônimo. The foreman looked different. He wasn’t wearing his usual hat.

His face was thinner, with deep dark circles under his eyes. His clothes were the same, but they seemed larger on him, as if he had shrunk. The two stood still, looking at each other. Tomás waited. His heart beat faster; he didn’t know if it was fear or anticipation. Jerônimo opened his mouth, closed it, looked at Tomás’s hands, still wrapped in the cloths that Aunt Rosa changed every day.

Something brushed against the man’s face, something that seemed to want to escape but couldn’t. Thomas could almost see the struggle unfolding there. Behind those tired eyes. Then Jerome looked away. “Get back to work,” the hoarse voice said. “And next time, don’t meddle where you’re not wanted.” He turned his back and left.

Tomás stood there with his hand in the air, still holding the handful of corn, feeling something crumble inside him. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t even know if he expected anything different, but it hurt. It hurt more than the burns. That night, old Cipriano sat beside him in the slave quarters. “Are you expecting gratitude?” the old man asked bluntly.

Tomás didn’t answer. “Gratitude doesn’t exist here, boy. Not for people like us. You can save someone’s life, you can give your blood, you can give everything you have. In the end, we are still what we always were. But I saved his son,” Tomás insisted. “I know, and he knows. Everyone knows,” Cipriano spat on the ground. “But knowing and acknowledging are different things.”

“To acknowledge it would be to admit that he owes you something. And people like him don’t like to owe anything to people like us. So that was all.” “For nothing? No,” said Cipriano, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It wasn’t for nothing. You saved a life. That has value. Even if nobody recognizes it, the problem is that you’re looking for value in the wrong place.” Thomas looked at the old man.

“Where is the right place?” he asked. Cipriano pointed to the boy’s chest: “Here. What you did, you did because you wanted to, because it was the right thing to do, not because you expected something in return. If you start measuring things by what you’re going to get back, you’ll die waiting.” The words made sense, but they didn’t ease the pain.

Two weeks passed, and Tomás’s hands began to improve. New skin grew underneath, pink and sensitive. Aunt Rosa said it would leave a mark, a scar that would never go away. “You’ll carry this with you for the rest of your life,” she said, carefully running her finger over the marks. “Every time you look at your hands, you’ll remember.” “I don’t want to remember.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want. The skin remembers even when the head forgets.” It happened at the end of the third week. Tomás was returning from the flour mill, carrying a small bag, when he saw Joaquim. The boy was in the courtyard of the big house playing with a wooden horse. He seemed well, healthy. His light hair shone in the sun.

He was wearing new, clean clothes. Thomas stopped and stared. Joaquim looked up as if he had felt the gaze. When he saw Thomas, he froze. The two stood there, separated by the distance of the courtyard. Thomas waited, waited for some gesture, a nod, a smile, anything. Joaquim looked at him for another second, then lowered his head and went back to playing with the little horse, as if Thomas wasn’t there, as if he had never been there.

Tomás felt a tightening in his chest. It wasn’t anger. He would recognize anger. It was something worse. It was the feeling of not existing, of having risked everything and, in the end, being worth nothing. He kept walking, without looking back. That night, lying on the hard floor of the slave quarters, Tomás stared at his own hands in the darkness.

He couldn’t see the scars, but he knew they were there. They would always be. Aunt Rosa was right. Skin remembers. And maybe it was better that way. Maybe those marks would be useful for something. Maybe one day he would understand why. But that night, all he felt was the weight of having done the right thing in the wrong world.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. On the other side of the yard, in the big house, Joaquim wasn’t sleeping either. He was lying on the soft bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the boy he had seen earlier. The boy with bandaged hands, the boy who went into the fire. “I knew I should have done something, said something,” he thought.

But the father had said the morning after the fire, when Joaquim asked about the boy: “Forget about it. He did what he had to do. He owes nothing to an enslaved person.” And Joaquim, at 7 years old, still learning how the world worked, swallowed the words he wanted to say and nodded. But at night, alone, the words would return and he couldn’t forget them, nor could he forget the face of the boy who had risked everything for him.

This, too, would be kept safe, waiting. Five years had changed a lot. Tomás was no longer a boy. At 15, he was already the height of a man, even though his body was still very thin. His shoulders had broadened from carrying so much weight. His hands, once small, were now large and calloused, bearing scars that never faded.

He worked cutting sugarcane. It was hard work, a man’s job. He would wake up before sunrise, grab his machete, head to the sugarcane field with the others, cut until sunset, return with his body aching, eat whatever was available, sleep, wake up again, every day the same, every day heavy. Inácio worked alongside him; he too had grown up, but in a different way.

He was broader, stronger. He laughed loudly, even when there was no reason. He said it was so he wouldn’t forget how to do it. “If we stop laughing, we die inside before we die outside,” he would say, wiping the sweat from his face. Thomas didn’t laugh as much, but he liked to hear Ignatius’s laughter. It was a sound that reminded them that they were still human.

Old Cipriano had died two years ago; he simply didn’t wake up one morning. Aunt Rosa said it was for the best, sleeping without pain, without having to endure anything more. Tomás missed the old man, his harsh words that contained truth, the way he saw the world without lying to himself. On the farm, other things had changed too.

Jerônimo remained the foreman, but now lived in a new house, larger than the previous one. It even had a veranda. The Baron liked him. He said he was firm, that he knew how to maintain order. Order meant whipping when necessary. Tomás had already been punished once for arriving late to the cutting, receiving three blows on the back. Jerônimo personally administered the whipping.

He didn’t look Tomás in the face. He said nothing more than, “Next time there will be six.” The scars took weeks to heal, but they weren’t the worst scars Tomás carried. He saw Joaquim from time to time, not up close, only from afar. The boy had grown up too. Now, at 12 years old, he was tall for his age, thin, with that light hair that the farm sun was gradually darkening.

He wore fine clothes, real boots, and a hat just like his father’s. He was being prepared for something. Tomás didn’t know exactly what, but he saw Joaquim sometimes accompanying his father, learning, observing. Whenever their paths crossed, Joaquim always looked away, as if Tomás were invisible. One afternoon, Tomás was returning from the well, carrying water, when Joaquim passed by on horseback.

The boy was laughing at something, talking to the son of another overseer. The horse almost bumped into Tomás. He jumped aside, water spilling from the bucket. Joaquim pulled on the reins, the horse neighing. For a second, their eyes met. Tomás saw something pass across the boy’s face.

Recognition, perhaps, or discomfort, something that came quickly and went away just as quickly. “Be careful,” said Joaquim, his voice still thin, but trying to sound firm. “That’s all, be careful,” as if it were Tomás’s fault for being in the way. Then he touched the horse and rode away. His friend laughed at something Tomás didn’t hear.

Inácio, who was following behind carrying another bucket, stopped beside Tomás. “It was him, wasn’t it?” he asked softly. “The boy with the fire.” Tomás didn’t answer, he just picked up the bucket and kept walking. But Inácio wouldn’t let him pass. “Five years,” he said, catching up with Tomás. “Five years and the boy doesn’t even recognize you.”

“Or pretend not to recognize it,” Inácio retorted. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t accept that. You almost died for him.” “So what?” asked Tomás. “It was my choice.” “But he should remember. Anyone with a shred of decency would remember.” Tomás stopped walking and turned to Inácio. “Remember what old Cipriano used to say? We can’t expect decency from those who have never needed it.” Inácio snorted.

“Old Cipriano died tired and bitter. I don’t know if I want to follow his advice.” “He died lucid,” Thomas corrected, “which is different from dying happy.” The conversation ended there, but the wound remained open. It worsened with time. The more Joaquim grew, the more he resembled his father.

Not in appearance—he still had that thin, delicate face—but in his manner, in the tone of voice when giving orders, in the way he looked at the enslaved people as if they were part of the landscape. At 14, Joaquim already carried a whip at his waist. He never used it, but the gesture of carrying it said it all. One day, Tomás overheard a conversation.

He was repairing a fence near the big house when Joaquim and his father passed by talking. “Are you still going to send me to study abroad?” Joaquim asked. “I will,” Jerônimo replied. “Next year, God willing. Recife has good schools. You need to learn more than I know.” “And when I come back?” the boy asked. “When you come back, you will assume greater responsibilities.”

“Perhaps you’ll even become an overseer on another farm. The Baron likes you; he says you have a bright future.” Joaquim remained silent for a moment. “And will you stay here?” he inquired. “I’ll stay. This is my place, but yours can be bigger.” The voices faded as they moved away. Tomás stood there holding the fence wire, feeling something burning in his chest. Joaquim would study, would grow, would have a future, and Tomás would stay there cutting sugarcane, carrying weight, dying slowly every day because of the choices each of them had made. No, because of where each of them was born. And that hurt more than any injustice. Because injustice you can fight, but destiny, destiny you can only endure. That night, Aunt Rosa sat beside him in the slave quarters.

“You look like you swallowed a rock,” she said. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Liar. I’ve known you since you were the height of a stump. Don’t fool me.” Tomás remained silent. “It’s the boy, isn’t it?” Aunt Rosa continued. “What did you save?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “I know, but you’ll have to listen,” she sighed deeply. “You did the right thing that day, and I know it hurts to see that it was all for nothing, but it was worth it.”

“It was worth it for you, because that’s why you are who you are.” “I am nothing,” said Tomás, his voice sounding more bitter than he intended. “I’m just another one cutting sugarcane until my body gives out.” “You are more than that.” Aunt Rosa cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “You are the boy who stepped into the fire when everyone else stood still. That doesn’t disappear, it stays.”

“Not in the world out there, but in here. And one day this will be worth something.” “When?” he asked. “I don’t know, but I know it will happen.” Tomás wanted to believe, he really wanted to, but it was difficult. The following years were worse. Joaquim went to Recife to study. He was away for almost two years. When he returned, he was different, taller, fuller.

He wore city clothes. He spoke differently, using words that Tomás didn’t know. His laugh was different too, a more controlled, more polished laugh. He had become a man far away, and when he returned, he was no longer the boy frightened by the fire; he was a different person. Tomás was 18 years old when Joaquim returned.

He was already a man, too, a tired, scarred man, with no future beyond what he already knew. The first meeting after Joaquim’s return was on a market day in the village. Tomás had gone to get supplies with other enslaved people. Joaquim was in the small square talking to the children of other farmers. They saw each other.

For a moment the world seemed to stop. Tomás saw the recognition in Joaquim’s eyes. He saw that he remembered, that he knew who he was. Joaquim opened his mouth as if to say something, but one of his friends called him and he turned around, turned his back and continued talking as if nothing had happened.

Tomás felt his last hope die there. Any illusion that one day there would be recognition, gratitude, or at least a belated thank you, died there in the small, sunny square of a village in Pernambuco. And something inside Tomás changed that day. He felt no anger.

He had already experienced anger and overcome it. He was empty. An emptiness that hurt in a different way. Empty of understanding that the world was exactly as old Cipriano had said and that it wasn’t going to change. It would never change, unless something bigger than all of them changed first. Fifteen years had changed the world, not the farm. The farm remained the same, the same sugarcane, the same sun, the same sweat.

But outside, the world was in motion. News arrived, fragments of conversations that the enslaved overheard here and there. They spoke of new laws, of free births, of pressure from other countries, of important people saying that slavery had to end. Tomás listened, but didn’t quite believe it. He had heard promises before.

At 25, Tomás was a grown man, tall, strong, weathered by hard work, his face marked by the sun and sleepless nights. His large hands still bore the scars of the fire, white and pink lines that snaked across his palms and up his fingers. He never hid those marks. He left them on display as a reminder, as proof, as something he himself didn’t know exactly what it was, but needed to carry with him.

Inácio remained his friend, now a man himself, but he retained that way of not letting the world completely take away his humanity. He still laughed, still made bad jokes, still believed it was worth waking up the next day. “You should get a woman,” he said one afternoon, as they rested in the shade after the haircut.

“Why?” asked Tomás. “So we don’t turn to stone. We’re almost there.” Tomás smiled slightly. It was rare, but it happened. “Stone doesn’t feel pain, it doesn’t feel anything. And that’s the problem.” Aunt Rosa was still alive, but more frail. All her hair was white now. Her hands trembled occasionally.

She still cared for everyone as best she could. She still had that way of looking that seemed to see more than she should. “Are you waiting for something?” she said, provoking him to get out of his inertia. “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are. I don’t know why, but it’s true. I see it in your eyes. You’re not living, you’re just waiting.” Tomás didn’t answer because she was right. He was waiting without knowing for what. He only knew that it wasn’t that, it couldn’t be just that.

It was on a day in August that everything began to change. Jerônimo was ill. No one knew exactly what it was, but it worsened rapidly in recent weeks. He was coughing a lot and couldn’t stand for very long. The Baron had sent for a doctor from Recife, but it didn’t help much.

“It’s in the lungs,” the doctor said. “Working under the scorching sun, breathing the smoke of burning sugarcane all his life. The body takes its toll.” Jerônimo was dying, and everyone knew it. That’s when Joaquim returned to the farm for good. He had gone back to Recife to work with an uncle who had an export business. But with his father ill, the Baron asked him to return. Someone needed to take Jerônimo’s place.

Thomas saw Joaquim arrive. He stepped down from a carriage dressed in city clothes, a new hat, and a leather briefcase in his hand. He was 22 years old now. His face had completely lost that boyish delicacy. It was the face of a man with a well-groomed beard, clear eyes that looked at the farm as if he were his own property. Thomas was returning from the well when he saw the scene. He stopped for a moment, observing from afar. Joaquim greeted some overseers, waved towards the main house, and didn’t look in the direction of the slave quarters even once, as if that part of the farm didn’t exist.

The following days were strange. Joaquim gradually took over his father’s duties, overseeing the cutting, checking the numbers, and giving orders. He was gentler than Jerônimo. He didn’t shout as much, he didn’t threaten as often, but there was something about him that was worse than shouting. It was indifference. Jerônimo, at least, saw the enslaved people as something that needed to be controlled.

Joaquim saw them as numbers, pieces, things that made the farm function. Tomás realized this in the first week. He was in the group that Joaquim was inspecting. The new overseer walked among them, noting things in a small notebook, checking who produced the most, who was the slowest. When he got close to Tomás, he stopped for a second. Their eyes met.

Thomas saw it, he saw the recognition. He saw that Joaquim knew exactly who he was, and he also saw the conscious decision not to say anything. Joaquim lowered his gaze to the notebook, made a note, and moved on to the next one, as if Thomas were just another case. Inácio, who was standing nearby, whispered as Joaquim walked away:

“He recognized you.” “I know,” Thomas replied. “And he didn’t say anything.” “I know.” “Doesn’t that make you angry?” Thomas remained silent, watching Joachim walk away between the rows of canes. “It’s not anger,” he said finally. “It’s worse than anger.” Ignatius was about to ask what was worse, but Thomas had already returned to his work.

Two weeks later, Jerônimo died. It was early in the morning, peacefully. Aunt Rosa said that the death of bad people was never noisy. It arrived silently, leaving no chance for regret. They held a wake in the main house, with an official period of mourning on the farm. The Baron gave a speech about years of loyal service.

Some women wept, some men became serious and respectful. The enslaved people did not attend the wake, but they stopped working for a few hours, as ordered. Tomás sat in the shade of the slave quarters.