The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray (8 page)

It was strange: There wasn’t the usual bustle in the bars and bawdy houses of São Miguel. Everything was different that night. Could there have been an unexpected police raid, shutting down the houses, locking up the bars? Had detectives taken Quitéria, Carmela, Doralice, Ernestina, and fat Margarida away? Might they be ending up in a trap too? Corporal Martim assumed command of the operation. Sparrow went ahead on a spying mission.

“You scout it out,” the corporal explained.

They sat down to wait on the steps of a church on the square. There was still a bottle to finish. Quincas was lying down, looking at the sky, smiling in the moonlight.

Sparrow returned, accompanied by a noisy crowd that was cheering and shouting. Easily recognized at the head of the group was the majestic figure of Quitéria Goggle-Eye, all dressed in black with a mantilla over her head, an inconsolable widow, supported by two women.

“Where is he? Where is he?” she was shouting, all excited.

Sparrow ran ahead and clambered up the steps. In his ragged coat he looked like a speaker at a street rally as he explained, “The news has got around about Water-Bray kicking the bucket. Everything’s all in mourning.”

Quincas and his friends laughed.

“He’s here, people. It’s his birthday, and we’re celebrating it. We’re on our way to a fish dinner on Master Manuel’s skiff.”

Quitéria Goggle-Eye freed herself from the comforting
arms of Doralice and fat Margô and tried to drop down to where Quincas was sitting on a church step next to Bangs Blackie. But—due to the emotion of that supreme moment, no doubt—Quitéria lost her balance and fell backward on her ass on the stone steps. They immediately lifted her up and helped her get closer.

“You bandit! You dog! Damn you! What’s the big idea, spreading the news that you’ve died, getting everybody all worked up?”

She sat down beside Quincas, smiling. She took his hand and placed it over her ample breast so he could feel the beating of her afflicted heart.

“I almost died from the news, and here you are, off on a binge, you devil you. Who can keep up with you, Brayzie, you devil, so full of tricks? You hurt me, Brayzie, you were killing me.”

The group was laughing at it all. In bars the tumult picked up again. Life returned to the Ladeira de São Miguel. They continued on their way to Quitéria’s house. Quitéria was beautiful, all dressed in black like that. She’d never looked so desirable to them.

As they went along the Ladeira de São Miguel on their way to the brothel, they bathed in all manner of demonstrations of thanks. At the Flower of São Miguel, Hansen the German offered them a round of drinks. Farther along the Frenchman Verger passed out African amulets for the women. He was unable to go along with them because he still had an obligation to a saint to fulfill that night. The doors of the brothels opened up again, and women reappeared at the windows and on the sidewalk. Wherever they went, they heard shouts for Quincas, people cheering his name. He was nodding his thanks like a king returning to his realm. At Quitéria’s house everything was in mourning and sadness. On the bureau in her bedroom, alongside a
print of Our Lord of Bonfim and the clay statue of the Indian Aroeira, her guide, a picture of Quincas clipped out of the newspaper—from a series of articles by Giovanni Guimarães on the “underground life of Bahia”—was in a prominent position between two lighted candles, with a red rose beneath it. Doralice, Quitéria’s housemate, had already opened a bottle and was serving drinks in blue wineglasses. Quitéria blew out the candles. Quincas was lying on the bed while the others went out into the dining room. Quitéria wasn’t long before joining them.

“The bastard fell asleep on me.”

“He’s on a mother of a bender,” Swifty explained.

“Let him get some sleep,” Bangs Blackie advised. “He’s had a rough day. He’s a right to…”

But they were already late for Master Manuel’s fish dinner, and after a while the feeling was to wake Quincas up. Quitéria, black Carmela, and fat Margarida would go with them. Doralice couldn’t accept the invitation. She’d just gotten word from Dr. Carmino. He was coming by that night. And Dr. Carmino, as they were all aware, paid by the month. It was guaranteed. She couldn’t disappoint him.

They went down the hill, hurrying now. Quincas was almost running, stumbling over the cobblestones, dragging along Quitéria and Bangs Blackie as he clutched them. They hoped they could get there in time to find the skiff still at the dock.

They made one stop, however, at Cazuza’s bar. Cazuza was an old friend. There were never many people in that bar, and a night didn’t go by when there wasn’t some fracas or other. A gang of pot smokers hung out there every day. But Cazuza was a nice man, and he’d serve drinks on the cuff, even a whole bottle. And since they couldn’t arrive at the skiff empty-handed, they decided to have a little chat with Cazuza and get three quarts of cane liquor. While
Corporal Martim, an irresistible diplomat, was whispering over the bar to the owner, who was stupefied to see Quincas Water-Bray in the best of shape, the others sat down with something to whet their appetites, on the house in honor of the birthday boy. The bar was full with a bunch of morose young men, some jolly sailors, women down to their last penny, and intercity bus drivers who were leaving for Feira de Santana that night.

The fight was unexpected, and it was a beauty. Truth be told, Quincas was the cause of it. He was sitting with his head resting on Quitéria’s breast and his legs stretched out. The story goes that one of the young squirts tripped over Quincas’s legs as he passed by and almost took a tumble. He made a nasty remark. Bangs Blackie didn’t like the pothead’s attitude. Quincas had every right to be exactly where he was that night, even stretching his legs out any way he felt like. And he told him so. If the young fellow hadn’t reacted, nothing would have happened. But moments later another from the same group of pot smokers tried to get by too. He asked Quincas to move his legs. Quincas pretended not to hear him. Then the skinny guy gave him a hard shove and cursed him. Quincas bumped him with his head, and the fun began. Bangs Blackie grabbed the kid, as was his custom, and tossed him onto another table. The pot smokers got fighting mad and advanced. What happened then is impossible to describe. All anyone could see was Quitéria up on a chair, beautiful, with a bottle in her hand, swinging her arm. Corporal Martim assumed command.

At the end of the fight—a total victory for Quincas’s friends and the bus drivers who took their side—Swifty had a black eye; a tail of Sparrow’s frock coat had been ripped, quite a serious piece of damage; and Quincas was stretched out on the ground. He’d taken some hard punches and had hit his head on the floor tiles. The potheads had fled. Quitéria
was bending over Quincas, trying to bring him around. Cazuza was looking on philosophically from behind the bar at chair legs sticking up in the air, overturned tables, and broken glasses. He was used to that, and the news would increase his fame and the number of customers in the place. He himself was not beyond appreciating a good fight.

Even Quincas came to after a good swig. He continued drinking in that strange way of his, spitting out part of the cachaça wastefully. If it hadn’t been Quincas’s birthday, Corporal Martim would have gracefully brought it to his attention. They headed for the docks.

By then Master Manuel was no longer waiting for them. He’d finished the fish dinner, which they’d eaten right there by the dock, and he didn’t want to go out beyond the breakwater with just a bunch of sailors crowded around the clay pot. Deep down he’d never believed the news of Quincas’s death, and so he wasn’t surprised to see Quincas arm in arm with Quitéria. The Old Sailor couldn’t die on land in just any old bed.

“There’s still enough ray fish for everybody.”

They unfurled the sails of the skiff and hauled up the big stone they used as an anchor. The moon had turned the sea into a silver pathway, at the end of which the darkened city of Bahia stood outlined against the mountain. The skiff was slowly moving off. Maria Clara’s voice rose up in a sea chanty:

They clustered around the steaming kettle. The clay dishes were filling up with the sweetest-smelling ray you ever tasted. A
moqueca
with
dendê
oil and pepper. The bottle of cachaça was making its rounds. Corporal Martim was never one to
lose sight of the important things. Even during his command of the combat, he had managed to sneak a few bottles under the women’s skirts. Quitéria and Quincas were the only ones not eating, as they lay at the stern of the skiff listening to Maria Clara’s song. The goggle-eyed beauty was whispering words of love into the Old Sailor’s ear.

“Why did you give us such a fright, you devil of a Brayboy you? You know very well that I’ve got a weak heart. The doctor warned me against getting too upset. What gave you the idea I could go on living without you, you sharpie, you lowlife? I’m used to you, to your crazy antics, to your wise old age, to your way of not having any way, to how you like to be such a nice fellow. Why did you do this to me today?” And she took the head that had been hurt in the fight and kissed his wicked eyes.

Quincas didn’t reply. He was breathing in the sea air as one of his hands touched the water and raised a small wake in the waves. Everything was so peaceful as the party began: Maria Clara’s voice, the beauty of the fish stew, the breeze that had become a wind, the moon up in the sky, Quitéria’s whispering. But then some unexpected clouds came from the south and swallowed up the full moon. The stars began to be snuffed out, and the wind grew cold and dangerous.

Master Manuel advised, “It’s going to be a stormy night. We’d better get back.”

He intended to get the skiff back to port before the storm broke. But the cachaça was pleasant and the talk agreeable, there was still a lot of ray fish in the kettle floating in the yellow of the
dendê
oil, and Maria Clara’s voice was filling the air with sadness and a desire to linger on the water some more. Besides, how could they break up the idyll of Quincas and Quitéria on that night of celebration?

So it was that the storm, its whistling winds and curling waves, caught them still out. The lights of Bahia were shining
in the distance. A bolt of lightning flashed in the darkness. The rain began to fall. Sucking on his pipe, Master Manuel went back to the tiller.

No one knows how it was that Quincas stood up and leaned against the smaller mast. Quitéria didn’t take her eyes off the figure of the Old Sailor as he smiled at the waves washing over the skiff, at the flashes lighting up the darkness. Men and women tied themselves to the hawsers, clutched the gunwales of the skiff, as the wind whistled and the small vessel threatened to founder at any moment. Maria Clara’s voice had fallen silent. She was beside her man at the tiller.

The sea was sloshing the boat. The wind was trying hard to tear the sails. Only the glow of Master Manuel’s pipe stood out, along with the figure of Quincas as he stood surrounded by the storm, impassive and majestic, the Old Sailor. The skiff was nearing the calm waters of the breakwater slowly and with difficulty. Just a little more and the festivities could begin again.

It was then that five flashes of lightning came, one after the other. The thunderclap echoed as if it were the end of the world. A huge wave picked up the skiff. The men and women cried out, and fat Margô wailed, “Oh, save me, Holy Mother!”

Amidst the roaring of the enraged sea, as the skiff stood in great peril, they saw, in the light of the flashes, Quincas jump, and they heard his last words.

The skiff was finally cutting through the calm waters by the breakwater, but Quincas stayed behind in the storm, wrapped in a sheet of waves and foam, by his own free will.

There was no way the undertaking establishment would take back the coffin, not even at half price. They had to pay, but Vanda did get the leftover candles. The coffin sits today in Eduardo’s storeroom, with hopes of being sold secondhand to some corpse. As for Quincas’s last words, there are differing versions. But who could have heard them clearly in the midst of that storm? A marketplace minstrel’s version goes like this: