Professora Margarida is depressed – she walks into the classroom at the end of my class, white and silent as a ghost, scary for someone as loud and vital as her. The children gather around her until she starts to look like a tall grey shepherdess in a field of lambs.
Then, just as silently, she starts kissing them one by one, with tears in her eyes and a kind word to each. 'How could I ever leave you?' she says and maybe this is a continuation of another scene I've missed. I am spellbound. The kids flock even closer, to be kissed, they lift their little faces towards her, this woman who knows them better than their parents, and who – maybe they even sense it – needs them now.
Once she's kissed them all, she turns, looks at me. 'Any of those for me?' I can't think of anything else to say. And then she comes and gives me a big kiss and hug, and suddenly I know what it is. 'Maria dos Anjos, right?' I ask and her eyes brim over in response. It's exactly a year today since her friend, also a primary school teacher, died of pancreatic cancer. A wonderful, joyful woman, a great teacher and a loyal friend.
I remember Margarida sobbing: 'Get up Maria, please Maria get up now!' after the moving hearse, a year ago. She tells me in a strangled whisper how she took flowers to the cemetery yesterday. 'Maria was calling me' she says. 'She missed you', I reply as if we're talking of an elderly aunt.
Then she and I, laden with the children's pencil cases and notebooks, take the little flock upstairs, to their next class.
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