Luna: New Moon

The caterers have set up electric barbecues under the overhang beneath Oxum’s bottom lip. Chefs poke and turn skewers. Greasy smoke rises up towards the skyline, set today for a bright blue afternoon with passing clouds. A bright Earth afternoon. Waiters ferry large plates of skewered meat to the guests. Luna places herself between a woman waitress and her destination.

‘Hey that’s a pretty dress,’ the waitress says in very bad Portuguese. She is short, not much taller than Luna, and square. She moves too much for the gravity. A Jo Moonbeam, fresh off the cycler. Her familiar is a cheap skin of unfolding tetrahedrons.

‘Thank you,’ Luna says, switching to Globo, the simplified English that is the common tongue. ‘It is.’

The wait-woman offers Luna her tray.

‘Chicken or beef?’

Luna takes a greasy, juicy beef skewer.

‘Careful not to get that on your lovely dress.’ She has a norte accent.

‘I would never do that,’ Luna says with immense gravity. Then she skips down the stone path beside the stream that runs through the heart of Boa Vista, pulling at chunks of bloody beef with her small white teeth. There is Lucasinho in his party clothes with his Dona Luna pin and a Blue Moon martini in his hand. His moon-run friends surround him. Luna recognises the Asamoah girl, and the Sun. Suns and Asamoahs have always been part of the family. It is easy to recognise the weird, pale Vorontsov boy. Like a vampire, Luna thinks. And that must be the Mackenzie girl. All gold.

‘You have beautiful freckles,’ Luna declares, butting in on Lucasinho’s group. She looks the Mackenzie girl full in the face. They laugh at her boldness, the Mackenzie girl most of all.

‘Luna,’ Lucasinho says. ‘Go and eat that thing someplace else.’ He makes it sound like a joke but Luna hears better. He’s pissed off at her. She is getting between him and Abena Asamoah. He probably wants sex with her. He is such a user. There is a line of upturned cocktail glasses at his feet. A user, and drunk.

‘Just saying.’ Cortas say what they think. Luna wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Meat, and now she hears music. ‘I got freckles too!’ She touches a finger to her Corta-Asamoah cheeks, then runs on again. She darts over the stepping stones in the river in search of the music. She splashes up the river, kicking up slow-falling spray. Party guests coo and shriek and move away from the flying water but their faces are smiling. Luna knows she is irresistible.

‘Tio Lucas!’

Luna runs up to him and throws her arms around his legs. Of course he would be near the music. He is talking with the immigrant woman who served Luna the meat. She now bears a tray of blue cocktails. Luna has interrupted him. He ruffles Luna’s dark curly hair.

‘Luna, coração, you run on now. Yes?’ A little touch on the shoulder, turning her. As she slides away she hears him say to the waiter, ‘My son is not to be served any more alcohol. Understand? I’ll not have him drunk and ridiculous in front of everyone. He can do what he likes in private, but I won’t have him disgrace the family. If a single drop goes near him for the rest of the day, I will have every one of you back in Bairro Alto begging for second-hand oxygen and drinking each other’s piss. Nothing personal. Please convey this to your management.’

Luna loves her Uncle Lucas, the way he gets down to her level, his little games, his tricks and jokes that are just between them, but there are times when he is tall and far away, in another world that’s hard and cold and unkind. Luna sees the look of pale fear on the immigrant woman’s face and feels horrible for her.

Arms sweep her up, lift her high, throw her up into the air.

‘Hey hey anzinho!’

And catch her as she falls soft as a feather, her peony dress up around her face. Rafa. Luna presses close to her father.

‘Hey hey, guess who’s just arrived. Tia Ariel. Shall we go and find her?’ Rafa squeezes Luna’s hand and she nods her head vigorously.