Captains of the Sands (4 page)

Everybody recognized Pedro Bala’s right to the leadership and it was during that time that the city began to hear about the Captains of the Sands, abandoned children who lived by stealing. No one ever knew the exact number of children who
lived that way. There were at least a hundred, and more than forty of them slept in the ruins of the old warehouse.

Dressed in rags, dirty, half-starved, aggressive, cursing, and smoking cigarette butts, they were, in truth, the masters of the city, the ones who knew it completely, the ones who loved it completely, its posts.

The great night of peace in Bahia comes from the waterfront, envelops the sloops, the fort, the breakwater, extends out over the hillsides and the towers of the churches. The bells no longer toll Hail Marys because six o’clock has come and gone a long time ago. And if the moon hasn’t come up the sky is full of stars on this clear night. The warehouse stands out against the sands that preserve the footprints of the Captains of the Sands who have already retired for the night. In the distance the weak light from the lamp at the Gate of the Sea, a sailors’ bar, seems to be dying. A cold wind that raises the sands is blowing and it makes walking difficult for black Big João, who is going in for the night. He walks along curved by the wind like the sail of a ship. He’s tall, the tallest of the gang and the strongest too, a black boy with short kinky hair and taut muscles, even though he’s only thirteen years old, four of which have been spent in the most absolute freedom, running through the streets of Bahia with the Captains of the Sands. Ever since that afternoon when his father, a gigantic carter, was hit by a truck as he tried to pull his horse to the side of the street. Big João didn’t go back to the little house on the hill. Before him was the mysterious city, and he went out to conquer it. The city of Bahia, black and religious, is almost as mysterious as the green sea. That’s why Big João never went
back. At the age of nine he joined up with the Captains of the Sands, when the Halfbreed was still leader and the gang wasn’t too well known because the Halfbreed didn’t like taking chances. Big João soon became one of the leaders and he was always invited to the meetings of the older ones to plan their robberies. Not that he was a good organizer of attacks or had a lively intelligence. On the contrary, he got headaches if he had to think. He would stand with his eyes burning, as he also did when he saw someone mistreating small children. Then his muscles would tense and he was ready for any fight. But his enormous physical strength made him feared. Legless would say of him:

“This black boy here is dumb, but he’s a bone-crusher…”

And the little ones, those small boys who came to the gang all full of fear, had a most determined protector in him. Pedro, the leader, liked to listen to him too. And Big João knew quite well that it wasn’t because of his strength that he had the Bullet’s friendship. Pedro found the black boy good and never tired of saying:

“You’re a good man, Big Boy. You’re better than just people. I like you,” and he would pat the leg of the black boy, who became flustered.

Big João is coming to the warehouse. The wind is trying to hold back his steps and he’s bent way over, resisting the wind that’s raising the sand. He went to the Gate of the Sea to have a drink of cane liquor with God’s-Love, who’d arrived today from a fishing trip in the southern seas. God’s-Love is the most famous
capoeira
foot fighter in the city. Who is there who doesn’t respect him in Bahia? In the play of Angolan
capoeira
no one can stand up to God’s-Love, not even Zé Moleque, who was famous in Rio de Janeiro. God’s-Love gave him the latest news and told him that the next day he would come to the warehouse to continue the
capoeira
lessons that Pedro Bala, Big João, and Cat are taking. Big João smokes a cigarette and heads for the warehouse. The prints of his big feet are left on the sands but the wind soon erases them. The black man is thinking that the seaways are dangerous on a windy night like this.

Big João goes under the dock—his feet sink into the sand—trying not to touch the bodies of his comrades who are already asleep. He goes into the warehouse. He peeps in for a moment, undecided until he spots the light of the Professor’s candle. There he is, at the far corner of the big shed, reading by candlelight. Big João thinks that the light there is even smaller and flickers more than the lamp at the Gate of the Sea and that the Professor is eating his eyes out with so much reading of those books with small print. Big João goes over to where the Professor is, although he always sleeps by the warehouse door, like a mastiff, his knife near his hand to avoid any surprise.

He walks among the groups chatting, among the children sleeping, and comes over by the Professor. He squats down beside him and stays there watching the other’s attentive reading.

João José, the Professor ever since the day he’d stolen a story book from a bookcase in a house in Barra, had become an expert in such thefts. He never sold the books, however, piling them up in a corner of the warehouse, covered with bricks so the rats wouldn’t chew them. He read them all with an anxiety that was almost a fever. He liked to know things and he was the one who on many nights told the others stories about adventurers, men of the sea, historical and legendary figures, stories that made those lively eyes extend out to sea or up to the mysterious hillsides of the city in an urge for adventure and heroism. João José was the only one among them who did any reading and yet he’d only spent a year and a half in school. But his daily practice in reading had awakened his imagination completely and he may have been the only one who had a certain awareness of the heroic side of their lives. That knowledge, that vocation for telling stories, made him respected among the Captains of the Sands, even though he was frail, thin, and sad, his dark hair hanging over squinting myopic eyes. They’d nicknamed him Professor because in one stolen book he’d learned to do magic tricks with handkerchiefs and coins and also because when he told the stories he’d read and many he’d invented, he would weave a great and mysterious magic spell that transported them to many different worlds and he made the eyes of the Captains of the Sands shine as only the
stars in the Bahia night could shine. Pedro Bala never made a decision without consulting him and several times it was the Professor’s imagination that created the best plans for a robbery. No one knew, however, that one day, years later, he would be the one to tell with descriptions that would amaze the nation the story of these lives and many other stories of men who struggled and suffered. Perhaps the only one who knew it was Don’Aninha, priestess of the temple of the Cross of Oxó of Afoxê, because Don’Aninha knows everything that Iá tells her by means of a game with seeds on a stormy night.

Big João spent a long time watching the reading. Those letters didn’t say anything to the black boy. His look went from the book to the flickering light of the candle and from that to the Professor’s uncombed hair. He finally got tired and asked in a full, warm voice:

“Nice, Professor?”

The Professor took his eyes off the book, laid his slim hand on the shoulder of the black boy, his most ardent admirer:

“A crazy story, Big Boy.” His eyes were shining.

“About sailors?”

“It’s about a black man like you. A real he-man black.”

“Will you tell it to me?”

“I’ll tell it to you as soon as I finish reading it. You’ll see that only a black man…”

And he turned his eyes back to the pages of the book. Big João lighted a cheap cigarette, silently offered another to the Professor, and squatted smoking as if standing guard over the other’s reading. Throughout the warehouse there was a sound of laughter, conversation, shouts. Big João could easily make out Legless’s voice, shrill and nasal. Legless talked loud, laughed a lot. He was the spy of the group, the one who knew how to worm his way into the house of a family for a week, passing himself off as a good boy who’d lost his parents to the aggressive immensity of the city. Lame, his physical defect had given him the nickname. But it also gave him the sympathy of any mother who saw him at her door, humble and woe-begotten, asking for a little something to eat and a place to spend the night. Now, in the middle of the warehouse, Legless was making fun of Cat, who’d wasted a
whole day stealing a wine-colored ring of no real value, a fake stone, with fake beauty too.

It had been a week before that Cat had told half the world:

“I’ve seen a ring, you guys, that even a bishop doesn’t wear. A nice big ring, fine for my finger. Real fine. You’ll see when I bring it back…”

“Where’s the showcase?”

“On a sucker’s finger. A fat guy who gets on the Brotas streetcar at the Baixa dos Sapateiros every day.”

And Cat didn’t rest until he got it in the crush of a streetcar at seven o’clock in the evening, pulling the ring off the man’s finger, sneaking away in the confusion because the owner had noticed it right away. He proudly displayed the ring on his middle finger. Legless laughed:

“Risking jail for a piece of junk! An ugly thing…”

“What’s it to you? I like it and that’s that.”

“You’re a real jackass. The pawnbroker won’t give you a penny for it.”

“But it looks nice on my finger. I’m fixing to gobble up something nice with it.”

They were naturally talking about women in spite of the fact that the oldest was only sixteen. They’d learned the mysteries of sex at an early age.

Pedro Bala, who was coming in, broke up the start of a fight. Big João left the Professor reading to go over to the leader. Legless was laughing to himself, muttering about the ring. Pedro called him and went with him and Big João to the corner where the Professor was.

“Come here, Professor.”

The four sat down. Legless lighted the butt of an expensive cigar, savoring it. Big João was peering at the piece of sea that could be seen through the door, beyond the sand. Pedro spoke:

“González at the ‘14’ spoke to me today…”

“Does he want more gold chains? The last time…” Legless cut in.

“No. He wants hats. But only felt. Straw’s no good, he says there’s no market for it. And also…”

“What else?” Legless interrupted again.

“If it’s been worn a lot it’s no good.”

“He wants a lot. If he paid something it would be worth it…”

“You know, Legless, he keeps his mouth shut. Maybe he doesn’t pay good, but he’s tight-lipped. You can’t get anything out of him, not even with a hook.”

“He pays rotten too. And it’s in his own interest not to say anything. If he was to open his mouth to everybody there’s no kind of influence would keep him out of the pokey…”

“O.K., Legless, if you don’t want a piece of the action, beat it, but let us get our things straight.”

“I’m not saying I’m not in. I’m just saying that working for a thieving foreigner is a bad deal. But if you want to…”

“He says he’ll pay better this time. Something to make it worthwhile. But only felt hats, in good shape and new. You, Legless, can take some guys and get it done. Tomorrow night González is sending over a clerk from the ‘14’ to bring the dough and take the bonnets.”

“The movies are a good place,” the Professor said, turning to Legless.

“The Vitória’s a good spot…” and Legless made a disdainful gesture. “Just go into the lobby and a hat is guaranteed…All fat cats there.”

“They’ve also got guards all over the place.”

“Are you worried about guards? Now if it was a cop…Guards are only for playing hide-and-seek. Will you come with me, Professor?”

“I’ll come. I even need a hat myself.”

Pedro Bala spoke:

“Pick whoever you want, Legless. This is your show. Except for João and the Cat. I’ve got something for them to do tomorrow…” He turned to Big João. “Something with God’s-Love.”

“He already told me. And he say’s he’s coming over at night for some
capoeira
.”

Pedro turned to Legless, who was already leaving to go arrange with Lollipop for the formation of the group going after hats the following day:

“Hey, Legless, tell them that if anyone is spotted to run off somewhere else. Not to come back here.”

He asked for a cigarette. Big João gave him one. Legless was already off looking for Lollipop. Pedro went in search of the Cat, he had something to talk to him about. He came back later, stretched out near the Professor. The latter returned to his book, over which he hunched until the candle burned out and the darkness of the warehouse enveloped him. Big João walked slowly to the door, where he lay down, the knife in his belt.

Lollipop was thin and very tall, a tight face, half-yellowish, eyes sunken and deep, his mouth twisted and not given to smiles. Legless teased him first, asking if he was “saying his prayers,” then he got onto the subject of the hat-stealing and they decided they’d take a certain number of boys whom they chose carefully, marked out the zones of operation, and separated. Lollipop then went to his usual corner. He slept there invariably, where the warehouse walls form an angle. He’d arranged his things with loving care: an old blanket, a pillow he’d taken from a hotel once when he’d gone in carrying a traveler’s bag, a pair of pants he wore on Sundays along with a shirt of indefinite color but more or less clean. And fastened to the wall with small tacks two pictures of saints: a Saint Anthony carrying a Christ Child (Lollipop’s name was Antônio and he’d heard that Saint Anthony was Brazilian), and an Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, who had her breast run through with arrows and who had a withered flower beneath her picture. Lollipop picked up the flower, smelled it, saw it had lost its scent. Then he fastened it alongside the scapular he carried on his chest and from the pocket of the old jacket he wore he took a red carnation that he’d picked in a park, right under the nose of the guard, at that imprecise hour of dusk. And he put the carnation under the picture while he gazed at the saint with a fervent look. Then he knelt. The others had started up with a lot of raillery at first when they saw him on his knees praying. They got used to it, however, and nobody paid any more attention. He began to pray and his ascetic look became even more pronounced, his child’s face became paler and more
somber, he lifted his long, thin hands to the picture. His whole face had a kind of glow and his voice took on tonalities and vibrations that his companions didn’t recognize. It was as if he were out of the world, not in the old, rundown warehouse, but in some other land along with Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. His prayer, however, was simple and hadn’t even been learned from a catechism. He asked Our Lady to help him someday so he could enter that school in Sodré out of which men came transformed into priests.