Those Two

I announce adhesiveness—I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d; I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

—Walt Whitman, “So Long!”

1 The truth is, there was no one else around. Months later, not at first, one of them would say that the office was a “desert of souls.” The other one agreed, smiling, proud that he wasn’t included in that description. And little by little, between beers, they came to share sour stories about unloved and hungry women, then soccer banter, secret Santa, wish lists, fortunetellers’ addresses, a bookie, Jogo do bicho, cards for the punch clock, the occasional pastry after work, cheap champagne in plastic cups. In a desert of souls that were also deserts, one special soul immediately recognizes another—maybe for that reason, who knows? But neither of them wondered.

They never used words like special, different, nothing like that. Even though, without effort, they’d recognized each other the moment they met. It’s just that neither of them was prepared to give a name to their emotions, much less to understand them. Not that they were too young, or uneducated, or a bit stupid. Raul was a year older than 30; Saul, a year younger. But the differences between them were not limited to these years, to these words. Raul was coming from a failed marriage, three years and no children. Saul, from an engagement so endless that one day it ended, and a frustrated architecture degree. Maybe for that reason, he drew. Just faces, with huge eyes, no irises or pupils. Raul listened to music, and sometimes, when drunk, he’d pick up the guitar and sing his favorite old boleros in Spanish. And movies, they both liked them.

They’d taken the same entrance exams for the same government office, but that wasn’t when they met. They were introduced on their first day at work. They