Luna: New Moon

‘Yes. But I never did buy you a pet when you were a boy, did I?’ Lucas stands up, brushes imaginary dust from his trousers. A nod, the security suits move to the door. ‘One last thing. The important bit. The reason I came. You love parties. Everyone loves parties. I’ve a party invitation for you. Your grandmother’s birthday. Bring a cake. You’re good at cakes. I don’t care if you keep your clothes on or off when you’re making it, but it’s eighty candles.’

Yemanja wakes Adriana Corta with music: Aguas de Marco: her favourite. Elis and Tom cover.

Thank you, she whispers to her familiar and lies under her light sheet, looking up at the ceiling, listening to the music, wondering why this tune, this morning. She remembers. It is her birthday. She is eighty years old today.

Yemanja has chosen birthday dresses: for itself the triple-crescent of the moon herself and for Adriana: Pierre Balmain, 1953, a wing-collared suit, long-sleeved, a tight pencil skirt and an outsized bow on the left hip. Gloves. Bag. Elegant. Flattering on eighty-year-old flesh. Before she dresses, Adriana swims for twenty minutes in the endless pool. She venerates the orixas outside her window with gin and incense. She takes her medication and gags as little as she does every day. She eats five slices of mango while Yemanja updates her on her family’s business. A thousand concerns flock, but they will not land today. Not on her birthday.

First to greet her is Helen de Braga. A kiss, an embrace. Now Heitor Pereira wishes her congratulations for the day. In her honour he wears a fantastical uniform, braid and buttons and shoulder pads that would be ridiculous did he not bear it with such dignity. An embrace, a kiss.

Are you well? they ask.

I am joyful, she says. Death gnaws at her, a little more gone each day and her succession is uncertain but she woke this morning aflame with joy. Joy in the small things, the particular fall of the sunline across the faces of the orixas, the creep of the water up over her body as she lowered herself into the pool, the sweet-sour musk of the mangoes, the rustle of the fabric of her party clothes. Marvellous banalities. There are still new sensations to appreciate in this small world.

Now the grandchildren come running. Robson has a new card trick to show her: in the shuttle, anzinho. Luna brings flowers, a posy of blue that matches her dress. Adriana accepts them though her skin crawls at the touch of the once-living, now dead. She sniffs deeply – Luna giggles: Violetas have no smell, Vo.

Next the okos. There is only one remaining at Boa Vista. Amanda Sun embraces her mother-in-law and kisses her on each cheek.

The madrinhas now. Amalia and Ivete and Monica, Elis casting an eye over Robson, adjusting the knot of his tie, the set of his collar. Rafa, Lucas, Ariel and Carlinhos have long moved out of Boa Vista but their madrinhas remain. Adriana would never banish them from Boa Vista: Cortas honour their obligations. She would rather have them in one place, under her sky, rather than scattered across the world with their gossip and secrets. Like that other one. The faithless one. One by one the madrinhas embrace and kiss their benefactor.

Last in line are the staff. It’s a long process, shaking the hands, acknowledging the good wishes for this auspicious day but Adriana Corta works assiduously; a word here, a smile there. Security falls in behind her at the entrance to the station. They form a dark-suited barricade between Adriana and her grandchildren, her oldest retainers, her people. Everyone, from her Director of Finance to her gardener, has reskinned their familiars in party shapes and colours.

The station out-door swishes open. Hands reach for knives: Heitor Pereira had balked at holding the party outside Boa Vista but Adriana insisted. Corta Hélio would not cower inside its fortress. The hands fall away. It’s Lucasinho, with a small paper box.

‘Happy birthday, Vo.’ The box holds a cake, a green-frosted dome delicately decorated with a baroque lace of icing. ‘It’s Swedish Princess cake. I don’t know what Swedish means.’ Embrace and kiss. Lucasinho’s pierces dimple his grandmother’s skin.

‘With or without clothes?’ Adriana asks. ‘I do hope without.’ Lucasinho blushes. It’s quite adorable on him. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’

‘I am, Vo.’

‘That colour liner really brings out the gold in your eyes. Maybe highlight the cheekbones a little more. Play to your strengths.’ He is a sweet boy.

The party will travel in two trams. Entourage first; Adriana, immediate family and security in the second shuttle. In the three-minute journey Robson shows his vo his new card trick – it’s themed around people evacuating a leaking habitat: court cards all escaping from the top of the deck – and everyone gets their fingers a little green and sticky with Lucasinho’s cake.