Captains of the Sands (37 page)

In the breaking dawn the stars are beginning to disappear from the sky. But Pedro Bala seems to see Dora’s star in a falling star, which gladdens him. Comrade…She would have been a good comrade too. The word leaps into his mouth, it’s the prettiest word he’s ever heard. He’ll ask Good-Life to compose a samba about it, a samba for a black man to sing at night by the sea. They go as if to a festival. Armed with the most diverse weapons: switchblades, daggers, pieces of wood. They’re going to a festival, because the strike is the festival of the poor, Pedro Bala repeats to himself.

At the foot of the Ladeira da Montanha, they divide into three groups. Big João heads one, Outrigger goes with another, the largest goes with Pedro Bala. They’re going to a festival. The first real festival these children have had. Even so, it’s a festival for men. But it’s a festival for the poor, poor people like them.

The early morning is cold. At the corner of the yard, while Pedro Bala is placing the boys, Alberto comes over to him. Pedro turns, his face smiling. The student speaks:

“There they come, Comrade.”

“Wait and see.”

Now it’s the student who’s smiling. He’s obviously enthusiastic over the boys. He’ll ask the organization to work with them. They’re going to do a lot of things together.

The strike-breakers come along in a closed group. An American with a tight face is leading them. They all head for the entrance. Out of the shadows, from alleys, no one knows from where, like demons out of hell, the ragged boys emerge with weapons in their hands. Knives, switchblades, clubs. They take the gate. The strike-breakers stop. Then the demons attack, it’s one single blow. There are more of them than strike-breakers. The latter roll over from
capoeira
kicks, take a drubbing, some run away. Pedro Bala knocks down the American, with the help of another who punches him. The strike-breakers think they’re demons out of hell.

The great, free guffaw of the Captains of the Sands resounds in the dawn. The strike hasn’t been broken.

Big João and Outrigger are victorious too. The student laughs the guffaw of the Captains of the Sands with them.

At the warehouse, to the joy of the boys, he says:

“You’re the greatest bunch I’ve ever seen…”

“Comrades, Comrades,” says João de Adão.

The wind that passes says it, the voice in the heart of Pedro Bala says it. It’s like the music of a song sung by a black man:

“Comrades.”

After the strike is over, the student continues to come to the warehouse. He has long talks with Pedro Bala, transforms the Captains of the Sands into a shock brigade.

One afternoon Pedro Bala is going along the Rua Chile, his cap over his eyes, whistling as he scuffs his feet on the ground. A voice exclaims:

“Bullet!”

He turns. Cat is standing elegantly before him. A pearl stick-pin in his tie, a ring on his little finger, blue suit, a felt hat creased drifter style:

“Is that you, Cat?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

They turn down an uncrowded street. Cat explains that he got in from Ilhéus a couple of days ago. That he’d picked up a chunk of money there. He’s a full-fledged man, all perfumed and elegant:

“I almost didn’t recognize you…” Pedro Bala says. “What about Dalva?”

“She took up with a colonel. But I’d already left her. Now I’ve got a terrific little dark girl…”

“What about the big ring that Legless used to make fun of?”

Cat laughs:

“I pawned it off for five hundred on a colonel who had plenty…The clown swallowed it without a complaint…”

They chat and laugh. Cat asks about the others. He says that he’s sailing for Aracaju the next day with his dark girl because sugar is bringing in money. Pedro Bala watches him go off in all his elegance. He thinks that if he’d stayed on a little longer in the warehouse maybe he wouldn’t have been a thief. He would have learned with Alberto, the student, what nobody knew how to teach them. What the Professor had kind of guessed at.

The revolution calls Pedro Bala the way God called Lollipop at night in the warehouse. It’s a powerful voice inside him, as powerful as the voice of the sea, as the voice of the wind, as powerful as a voice without comparison. With the voice of a black man on a sloop singing the samba that Good-Life had composed:

Comrades, the time has come…

The voice calls him. A voice that makes him happy, that makes his heart beat. Helping change the destiny of all poor people. A voice that goes through the city, that seems to come from the drums that resound in the
macumbas
of the blacks’ illegal religion. A voice that goes with the sound of the streetcars with motormen and conductors. A voice that comes from the waterfront, from the docks, from the chest of stevedores, from João de Adão, from his father, dying in a rally, from sailors on ships, from sloopmen, from canoemen. A voice that comes from a group doing
capoeira
foot-fighting, that comes with the kicks that God’s-Love applies. A voice that even comes from Father José Pedro, a poor priest with fearful eyes as he sees the terrible destiny of the Captains of the Sands. A voice that comes from the
filhas-de-santo
, dancers of Don’Aninha’s
candomblé
on the night the police took Ogun away. A voice that comes from the warehouse of the Captains of the Sands. That comes from the Reformatory and the Orphanage. That comes from Legless’s hatred as he jumps
from the elevator so as not to be taken. That comes on the Leste Brasileira train through the backlands, from Lampião’s gang, seeking justice for backlands people. That comes from Alberto, the student, asking for schools and freedom of culture. That comes from the Professor’s paintings, where ragged boys fight in the exhibition on the Rua Chile. That comes from Good-Life and the drifters of the city, from the belly of their guitars, from the sad sambas they sing. A voice that comes from all the poor, from the chest of all poor people. A voice that speaks a beautiful word of solidarity, of friendship: “Comrades.” A voice that invites everyone to the festival of the struggle. That’s like the happy samba of a black man, like the pounding drums in
macumbas
. A voice that brings memories of Dora, a brave fighter. A voice that calls Pedro Bala. Like the voice of God calling Lollipop, Legless’s voice of hate, like the voice of backlands people calling Dry Gulch to Lampião’s gang. A voice powerful like no other. Because it’s a voice that calls all to the struggle, to the destiny of all, without exception. A voice powerful like no other. A voice that crosses through the city and comes from all sides. A voice that brings a festival with it, that makes winter end out there and turn to spring. The springtime of the struggle. A voice that calls Pedro Bala, that brings him into the struggle. A voice that comes from all hungry chests in the city. A voice that brings the greatest good in the world, a good equal to the sunlight, even greater than the sunlight: freedom. The city on that spring day is dazzlingly beautiful. A woman’s voice sings the song of Bahia. The song of the beauty of Bahia. A city black and old, church bells, streets paved with stones. The song of Bahia that a woman sings. Inside Pedro Bala a voice calls him: a voice that joins the song of freedom to the song of Bahia. A powerful voice that calls him. A voice of the whole poor city of Bahia, a voice of freedom. The revolution calls Pedro Bala.

Pedro Bala was accepted into the organization on the same day that Big João embarked as a sailor on a merchantman of the Lóide Line. On the pier he waves goodby to the black boy who is going off on his first trip. But it’s not a farewell like the ones he’d
given those who left before. It’s no longer a gesture of goodby. It’s a gesture of greeting to the comrade who’s leaving:

“Goodby, Comrade.”

Now he commands a shock brigade made up of the Captains of the Sands. Their destiny has changed, everything is different now. They take part in rallies, in strikes, in workers’ struggles. Their destiny is different. The struggle has changed their destinies.

Orders came to the organization from the highest quarters. Alberto was to stay with the Captains of the Sands and Pedro Bala was to organize the Bandit Indians of Aracaju into a shock brigade too. And after that he was to go on changing the destiny of other abandoned children in the country.