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Joaquim Baiano’s land is near the source of the river, and the pumpkins he grows there are simply unbelievable When his groaning truck arrives at the market, its noise made even more unbearable by the lack of a damper, it’s the pumpkins the people want to see Not everyone is interested in buying them, they’re too big, but everyone likes looking at them, using the palms of their hands to measure the orange curves, tapping on the shells with their fingers to hear the sounds they make Tock, tock Tock, tock No one understands why Joaquim Baiano’s pumpkins are so big, they assume there must be some secret behind it, though they don’t know what exactly It’s the devil’s work, God doesn’t make pumpkins that size, they whisper at the market stalls, their suspicions given further fuel by the fact that Joaquim Baiano never, ever goes to church He doesn’t live off pumpkins alone, today he’s brought bananas, cassava, greens and pigeon peas The peas are pre-weighed and sold in plastic bottles he gets from the wife of the guy who owns the grocery store With all the fizzy drinks people consume there’s no shortage of plastic bottles in garbage heaps, tossed down alleyways or floating in the river, and so instead of throwing them away the grocery store owner’s wife distributes the empty bottles to the poor She’s a serious woman who wears long trousers and does her hair up in a bun, not one for chatting, she just comes out from the back of the store with bags full of plastic bottles, hands them over and turns around again Joaquim Baiano has no wife and it’s quite possible there’s never been anyone Alone in his wilderness, he looks out for himself Since he was a boy he’s washed and repaired his own clothes, cooked his own food and tended to his cassava without uttering a word He doesn’t even have a dog And it was in silence that he arrived early this morning in his truck He came down from the hills, meandering through the shades of