5

“ Ahhh, you've arrived!”

I stopped at the time of unlocking the door of my apartment and turned to the end of the corridor, where a slender and pink-haired figure in a Black Power style was standing, smiling at me. My head was so full of problems and worries, that for a moment I didn't recognize the person who called me, and this left her with a slightly annoyed expression on her delicate face and covered in shiny makeup.

"Good night, Pink," I told her, opening a tired smile while disassembling the bun in my hair. I kept the lace along with the hair clip inside the backpack, and fixed it again on my shoulders. Pink watched me in silence, with arched eyebrows. "Is it my impression or were you waiting for me to arrive for a long time?”

" But of course I was waiting. Did you forget that we were going to have dinner together today?”

Yes, I completely forgot. But I couldn't say. Of all the people in the world, Pink Summer "the stage name she used for her presentations" was the only one who could get the best out of me effortlessly. It was a friend, almost a sister, that life gave me when I moved to that apartment complex. A brilliant woman with a degree in journalism who worked as a Drag Queen in her spare time and who had already gone through many troubles in life. That night he had probably just come out of some artistic presentation, and kept balancing on a 15cm heel. With two jobs on my back and a continuous smile on her face, Pink was my inspiration, although I didn't know.

Her real name was Beatrice Goulart, and she always assumed a completely different personality when she was in her workplace. As a journalist, Beatrice always showed a lot of knowledge in political areas, and easily judged a person by the last vote of the past elections. She went three months without talking to me when she found out that I had voted blank for the election of the president, and said that the fault of the country being decaying in a crisis, was for the vote I gave with a kissed hand to the candidate who was winning, and that now really managed the whole country.

I didn't understand politics and I didn't want to understand, because when I entered any discussion about it, I had the impression that Beatrice materialized out of nowhere to be able to debate in a rhythmic way what the other said. Our common interests were just the love of literature and the dream I had of working at the same publisher as her, although I refused to intern on the spot, because my goal related to publishers was much greater than just a half-time internship.

"What did you do for dinner? "I asked, turning the backpack aside to relieve the weight, as I entered your apartment. "I hope it's not stroganoff, you know I hate that thing.”

Laughing at my disgusting face when remembering all the terrible experiences I had when eating stroganoff "the reason why I hated the dish", Beatrice leaned against the door to let me pass, and I slipped against the wall, dragging the backpack lightly over the numerous paintings and portraits on the walls of the main corridor of her house.

That apartment complex was basically designed in the same way. We would have been to the door, and then there was the corridor, whose first door was going to a room, and the next to a room, and in front of it was the bathroom. Finally, in the back, there was the kitchen and the laundry area. All the windows were directed to the sun, so that some always saw it rise, and they always saw its sunset. But Beatrice found a way to make her home more receptive and differentiated than all of them. I was almost sure that she was the only one in the whole building who lit incense behind the door, because I believe that the strong smell would be felt even from the sidewalk if everyone did the same.

"I made my famous cow jammed! "She said, gesturing with her hands. "Go, leave the backpack in any corner. You're already from home.”

And I really was. He knew perfectly well that his apartment was full of plants and that the delicious and pungent smell of incense impregnated the walls of the familiar shade of ice. He also knew that every little table, every shelf, or any object that could serve as support, there were crystals and energy stones or colored candles in the names of orixás or saints. Beatrice had her religion, and I had mine, but we never let it shake us in any way.

While I said I was putting her in my daily prayers, she said she was asking her exu to protect me, I considered this a fair exchange, so I just thanked her for the protection. Sometimes, when I surprised her with a visit, she was listening to songs linked to Umbanda, and I never bothered to notice the lyrics. There was a day when she was listening to a song about an entity called Maria Mulambo.

Basically, the singer said about a woman who was condemned alive, and that a priest felt sorry for himself and wanted to help, but he was also a sinner and the two were burned together. To the sound of the drum, the singer recited: "He joined the ashes and laughed at the moonlight, the woman became mulambo and the priest his street lock". And I unconsciously swayed to the sound of the drums, feeling that the song somehow touched my most primitive knowledge about religion.

I've always been attracted to Umbanda, but I didn't know how there could be an introduction to this religion, and I didn't used to do much research on the internet about it. I've always been the kind of person who was very easily caught up in things. And, always created by fervent Catholics who were even afraid to talk about death, I still had this limitation of not wanting to seek other ways to revere entities. Although Beatrice was always talking by the elbows about the new energy stone she had received.

Our friendship started in the most unexpected and crazy way possible. I had just made my move. I didn't know much about the region, because I had come from a big city and was too suspicious to know how to deal with the kindness and lack of concern of the people in the countryside. Then Beatrice appeared at my door, overnight, completely characterized by Drag and holding a huge platter of Dutch pie. She did not wait for an invitation to enter, and began to give me a lot of information about the building and its inhabitants. Beatrice didn't notice that I was not initially so excited to know about the neighbor of the fifteen cats or the liquidator with a curved back, so she kept gossiping until she finally caught my attention, and so we embarked on a conversation.

Every day in the late hours of the night, Beatrice appeared at my door with a bowl or plate in hand, and brought me food while gossiping about her day. Little by little, I started to open up. She asked for information about my family, and I counted as much as I could say without feeling my voice embargo and tears begin to rise. "It's a too complicated subject, maybe I'll talk another time." But I never talked about it, and she never asked. She thought my parents and siblings were alive, she just didn't understand very well how I could leave the house and cut ties in the best possible way.