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oil, a few opaque plastic tubs and a pot of cutlery on it. Maína arranges the soft drinks on the table, puts the plastic bags away in one of the wooden crates. She takes Paulo by the hand, leads him to the little wicker bench at the entrance to the tent, asks him to sit down for a moment, then she takes two aluminium mugs, opens one of the soft drinks, pours it, passes him the drink. She purses her lips tight showing her interest in knowing what has brought him here. He takes a sip of the drink. ‘I quit my job today. It’s a good place, I stayed to help and to learn. The bosses are good to me. They do me good. You understand? It’s just I’m not doing what I want to be doing. When I’m there I have to help people, people I don’t want to help. The bosses are going to give me some money, money that’s mine, and I was thinking of taking some of it and helping you. Except I don’t know how to help you. It’s not much,’ he says. Maína gets up, takes the mug from his hands, puts it down beside the wicker bench, calls her sisters over, tells them to give him a big hug. When it’s her turn to hug him, she lets slip, ‘We are together, and happy.’ (Paulo has had an argument in the office because, after some days, the lawyers told him that they were indeed going to halve the amount he received from the estate agency’s legal activities. This decision, which he felt was unfair, made him stand up and say he wasn’t going to work with them any longer, and demand that, within the new rules with the decreased percentage, they deposit an amount approximating what he would be receiving from the suits that are filed.) The smallest child sat on his lap without his noticing. He had headed over here out of sheer rage (in order to lessen his rage); gradually he realises what caused it. And – out of context – he replies to Maína: ‘Junk is a word for stuff that isn’t healthy, that has no value.’ Maína puts her arms around him, saying he can come back as often as he likes. ‘Things that have no value,’ she repeats, talking to herself this time.
    In Porto Alegre there’s a traffic jam on Lucas de Oliveira. He’s nearly fifty minutes late. He goes into the hall, where there must be about a hundred people. A fellow party member from São Paulo who has come especially to contribute to the discussions around public policy in the multi-year plan (the city’s main piece of budgetary planning, which is due to be passed through to the Council Chamber shortly) gestures for him to come sit next to her, as she’s alone on a cushion for two. ‘Did I miss much?’ Paulo asks. ‘They’ve been rehashing that crazy argument about which journalist will take over the communications office … and’ – she whispers even more quietly – ‘they talked about the net that’s starting to close around the mayor.’ He settles as best he can, listens to the introductory remarks and, as soon as the opportunity arises, he asks to speak. The chair of the meeting replies that as soon as comrade Zezinho has finished reading the new framework for assigning senior roles between the different movements and the group of independents, he will have three minutes to do so. It’s the independents who are the real headache in this process of forming a government: they are militants who aren’t part of any party movement and as a result, when they get together, it takes them longer than any of the other groups to deliberate (on top of this, there’s the fact that the candidates they name are not accountable to anyone, since they don’t really have anyone above them). Twenty minutes go by, Paulo’s turn comes. He gets up, walks over to the table, hands the chair of the meeting a three-page document. He runs his hand over his head. ‘Comrades, the document I have just handed to comrade Alfredo is my statement of separation from the movement. Out of respect for some of you, I would like to take two minutes here to present its contents and the