Luna: New Moon

‘She gets access to Lucasinho.’

‘I offered it as a sweetener. It always was and always will be Lucasinho’s choice whether to make contact.’

‘Twenty million.’

‘Twenty million.’

With a thought Lucas signs the divorce contract. With another he instructs Toquinho to transfer twenty million bitsies from his account to Taiyang’s financial AIs at the Palace of Eternal Light. He has always admired the ponderous dignity of the name though he has only visited once, after the wedding when Amanda toured him through the convoluted layers of her family. The capital of the Suns was the oldest on the moon, carved out of the rim wall of Shackleton crater, a few kilometres from the moon’s southern pole, clinging to the almost perpetual light above the eternal darkness of the crater’s heart. Down there lay the permanently frozen gases and organics that seeded human presence on the moon. Lucas hated it. The contrasts were too stark, too unsubtle. High and low. Dark and light. Cold and heat. Amanda had taken him on the mandatory excursion to the Pavilion of Eternal Light, the tower built on the peak of Malapert Mountain. Eternal light blazed through the lantern at the top of the kilometre-high tower. Riding the elevator car with Amanda, Lucas had gritted his teeth, imagining radiation sleeting through the metal walls, sleeting through him, unsealing the chemical bonds of ceramics and plastics and human DNA. Bask in it, Amanda had invited as he stepped from the elevator car into the perpetual light that flooded the glass lantern. The only place in the two worlds where the sun never sets. Every surface, every sign or object was bleached by the light. Lucas felt shone through, rendered transparent, his skin turned pale and sick. He could smell the way it had scorched the air, lune after lune, year after year. Relentless light. Come and see, Amanda said but he would not follow her to the glass and the panorama of the whole south pole of the moon. He thought of the bleaching light, the cruel ultraviolet, picking at the molecules of the glass, one photon at a time. He imagined it bursting like a dropped cocktail. Come and look at the light. Humans are not made for endless light. Humans need their darknesses.

‘Done,’ Lucas says as Toquinho transfers a copy of the contract to Beijaflor. ‘Free but broke.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Ariel says. ‘None of us will ever be broke.’

Jorge ends Manhã de Carnaval with a G Major Ninth, looks over to the drummer. The lightest susurrus of brushes. Set closer.

From his booth at the back of the club, in the blue bio light glow, Lucas applauds. G major Ninth is one of the classic chords of bossa, the very spirit of saudade, melancholy under the Rio sun. Incompletely resolved and therefore satisfying. Lucas’s applause rings out. It’s the only applause in the house. The club was never full, but Lucas’s escoltas have been quietly emptying the bar during the set, a tap on the shoulder here, a whisper and a suggestion there. Jorge peers into the lights.

Lucas walks up to the stage.

‘Might we?’

His band look at him; Jorge nods. Okay.

There’s a mojito waiting in the booth, made to Jorge’s taste.

‘A good set. You’re better solo. The band constrain you. Without them you’d fly. Is that why you’re going to Queen of the South?’

‘I’ve been wanting to go solo for lunes now. There’s a market. Not a big one, but enough of one. Bespoke bossa.’

‘You should.’

‘You kind of inspired me.’

‘I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to think that you were running away from me.’ Lucas touches Jorge’s hand on the glass; delicate, almost fearful. ‘It’s all right, I’d guessed your answer when you didn’t call.’

‘I’m sorry. That was wrong. You caught me unawares – you scared me. I didn’t know what to do. I had to get clear space, room to think.’

‘I’m a single man again, Jorge. I’m free of that evil nikah. Cost me twenty million and the Suns are looking for another twenty for injury to their good name.’

‘Don’t say it, Lucas, please.’

‘That I did it for you? No. Who do you think you are? No, I did it for me. But I love you. I think about you and I burn inside. I want you in every part of my life. I want to be in every part of your life.’

Jorge leans against Lucas. Their heads touch, their hands meet.

‘I can’t. Your life’s too much. Your family – you’re the Cortas. I can’t be part of you. I can’t be the one up at the top table, like your mother’s birthday, siting next to you. I can’t have them all looking and gossipping. I don’t want their attention. I don’t want to play and have people saying that’s Lucas Corta’s oko. Oh, so that’s how got the gig. Marrying you, it would be the end of me, Lucas.’

Lucas forms a dozen replies but they’re all barbed and cruel.

‘I do love you. I loved you from the moment I saw you in Boa Vista.’