Nowhere People by Paulo Scott

highway policeman who fired the gun, actually the son of a great friend of his from when he was in middle school at Ignácio Montanha at the end of the fifties and long before he ever imagined he’d end up a police chief, as he made a point of confiding to Paulo, had for weeks been using a gun of his own, a nickel-plated Colt thirty-eight in much better condition than those issued by the National Department of Roads and Highways – a twenty-two with a hammer spring and a cylinder breech in a dreadful state. Which was why he would not have to account for the projectile fired, there would be no mention of his outburst on the official record. In the public hospital it was no different: Paulo, the victim who might have been taken for the aggressor, was seen to as a matter of priority and with no record kept. It’s alarming how some things get resolved. What could not be remedied, however, was the discord created by his having given in so easily and gone into shock while he sought out the pain that didn’t appear even though the seconds were ticking past. As he struggled to stay on his feet, because this would allow him to react (and he was not reacting). And then came the shivering, the fearfulness. And other people talking and shouting instead of him. The dashing around, and the adjustment of tempers. And the pain. Passo Fundo says it was a mistake calling his father and, again and again, how fucked up it all is (his cousin had little paper sachets of cocaine in his trouser pocket). Paulo thought about the Indian girl, and especially about his parents (that his parents should not find out), since he’d left work and college, sold the car, and then there were all those days when he hadn’t shown up at home. He would hear his mother, in one of those conversations that were becoming more and more frequent, warning him that she was not prepared to support a son who was a dilettante, a poet, a grown man who didn’t work, didn’t study. He accepted the ex-police chief’s suggestion, feeling a bit turned-inside-out; he also really did want to avoid any mention of the incident (Maína was a subject belonging to him alone), though it is hard to hide a bullet wound, impossible not to limp, impossible not to show his grim mood in front of his parents who are living in the same house and lavishing all their attention on him, just as it was impossible to prevent Leonardo, who was in Porto Alegre taking his exams for a place in the Public Ministry, from showing up to visit and, finding he didn’t receive the welcome he had expected from Paulo, talking to his father about that difficult moment that he, the Paulo he so admired, was going through, and about the risk of a brilliant future going down the drain thanks to a delusional compulsion for anarchism, which doesn’t sit too well with a move towards maturity. Leonardo’s visit had its intended effect. Paulo’s mother went so far as to threaten her son with an injunction and called him a ‘two-bit little nihilist’ and said that he had disappointed her. Paulo simply took the opportunity to inform them that he was going to be spending a few months in Europe, washing dishes in restaurant kitchens, delivering food to offices, cleaning, delivering newspapers or whatever he had to do to save money and make his way around the world. On hearing his son’s announcement, his father didn’t say anything further (Paulo could see that to his father the idea was far from ridiculous, at least it was some kind of direction, a bit of direction for a while), he simply got up and left, his mother did the same. This was a few months ago. He left politics behind, the fatuousness of politics , left it to those who like playing at politics. And it almost didn’t matter that he was changing cities, going to live in London, to share a two-room flat with five people he didn’t know, friends of friends, but who gave him the warmest possible welcome nevertheless, turning over the living-room sofa to