The clock on the tower of Fátima Church, located in the heart of Erbedelo, where the district of Couto renders tribute every year to the sightings of May, is without numbering. The original digits were replaced by the greeting ‘Ave Virgo Alba’, but few parishioners have noticed the change. Inside the church, a blonde girl prepares to receive First Communion. The body of Christ, in the thick fingers of a somewhat obese priest, leaves the chalice and dissolves slowly on her tongue. The little girl, putting her palms together, gives an emotional smile, aware that she is living the long-awaited moment of the last few months. The body of Christ: Amen. The blonde girl goes back to her pew, consuming the final remains of the wafer, and considers she has taken one of the first steps that lead to adulthood. Her parents smile proudly.

The main altar is decorated in gold with the corresponding ‘Aeterno Deo vivo et vero’. On one side of the church, a man follows the young girl’s heartfelt prayer, a man with a deep scar on his neck. He hasn’t been invited to take part in the service, but belongs to the confraternity of those who have noticed the greeting of the clock to the white virgin. The blonde girl is still overwhelmed by the excitement of the moment and the man thinks she looks beautiful, as if she’s just come back to the world after a long period of introspection. The priest’s movements are slow and ceremonious:

‘Go in peace.’

The church is filled with murmuring. The man puts his hands in his pockets and walks calmly towards the exit. Photographs, frames, congratulations. As he passes by a cameraman standing in the central aisle, the man thinks the montage demands a blurring together of the little girl with a close-up of the stained-glass window showing the apparition at the Cova da Iria. Her parents would be overjoyed: two white virgins. But he readily admits it’s just a personal opinion and everybody is free to carry out their work as they see fit.