The Violent Land (32 page)

There was, however, no foundation in fact for Virgilio's anguish, any more than there was for those high spirits which Dr. Jessé thought he could discern in Horacio's face when the colonel came to spend the night at the physician's home in Tabocas that Thursday. Ever since the start of the struggle for Sequeiro Grande, Horacio had left off travelling along the highways after dark, in spite of the guard that accompanied him. Since it was too late to set out for the plantation that afternoon, business having detained him in the town, he had put off his departure until the following morning, and meanwhile amused himself, toward the close of the day, by sitting in Dr. Jessé's consulting-room as the doctor interviewed his patients. Inasmuch as nearly all of them were acquaintances and political followers of his, he was not wasting his time. He had something to say to each of them and asked after their business, their private affairs, and their families. He could be amiable when he chose to be, and today he was in a particularly pleasant mood, and his feeling of goodwill increased as the day wore on.

From the window of the doctor's office he caught sight of Juca Badaró, booted and spurred, coming out of Azevedo's hardware shop and going down the street. There was a satisfied smile on Colonel Horacio's face as he surveyed his enemy walking along with a nervous gait. By this time the
cabra
whom he had sent out would be on his way to his hiding-place on the Ferradas road. It had cost Lawyer Virgilio something to make up his mind to that. Horacio liked the young attorney and was certain that he was doing him a real favour by thus giving him the credit, without any of the risks, for Juca Badaró's “liquidation.” He turned from the window to speak to a woman who had come in, the wife of Silvio Mãosinha, who owned a little piece of land near Palestina and was one of Horacio's right-hand men in that region. Her husband was burning up with fever and she had brought him in from the grove that day and had come in search of Dr. Jessé. They were stopping in the little house that they owned on the other side of the river. The woman was alarmed over Silvio's condition. It had been necessary to carry him in a hammock, she said, for he had not been able to mount.

Horacio accompanied Dr. Jessé to the patient's house and helped lift the sick man onto the bed so that the doctor could examine him. He asked the woman if she needed any money and proffered his assistance. Dr. Jessé knew that the colonel was friendly toward his political henchmen and his friends, but today it struck him that there was something exaggerated in his manner, for he would not even leave the room while the physician was making his examination, but insisted on helping the wife adjust the urinal, change Silvio's clothes, which were sticky with sweat, and administer the medicine that had been sent over from the pharmacy.

As Dr. Jessé was leaving, he took the colonel to one side.

“It's a hopeless case.”

“You don't say—?”

“This fever takes them off. He won't live the day out. You had better come with me, sir, take a bath, and wash your hands with alcohol. It's nothing to fool with.”

But Horacio only laughed. He remained at Silvio's house until dinner time, promising to come back later. It was not until just before he sat down at the table that he did wash his hands, laughing still at Dr. Jessé's fears. The fever, he remarked, would keep its distance from him. Dr. Jessé thereupon went into scientific explanations; for this unclassifiable fever was one of his major preoccupations. It killed in a few days' time and there was nothing that could be done for it. Nothing, however, could dampen Horacio's spirits tonight. He was feeling so good that he went back to Silvio's to play the nurse again, and he was the one who came running for Dr. Jessé as the patient lay dying, stopping on his way to notify the priest. By the time they arrived Silvio was already dead and his wife was weeping in a corner of the room. Horacio then remembered that by this time Juca Badaró also would be lying dead, stretched out along the highway, his eyes wide-staring and glassy like Silvio's. He informed the widow that he would be glad to pay the funeral expenses, and again assisted her in changing her husband's garments.

The truth was, nevertheless, that Horacio had no real cause for his high spirits nor Virgilio for his mood of depression; for the object of their thoughts, Juca Badaró, was at this moment riding toward his plantation, leaving behind him in the road the body of the man who had been sent to ambush him. Bent over a burro, which Viriato led by the rein, was Antonio Victor, who a second time had saved his boss's life and who had been wounded. It has happened quite by accident. Just as the man in hiding was getting his rifle ready, listening attentively to the approaching hoof-beats, his eyes fixed on the horseman up ahead, whom he recognized as Juca—just at that moment Antonio Victor had heard a slight rustling sound at the side of the road and, thinking it must be a cavy or an armadillo, he had ridden his burro over to the underbrush with the idea in mind of taking some game home as a little present for Don' Ana. Catching sight of the
cabra
with his upraised weapon, he had fired at once, but had missed his aim. The man had then whirled on him and fired, wounding Antonio Victor in the leg. If the latter did not receive the bullet in his chest, it was because he was in the act of dismounting. Hearing the shots, Juca and Viriato came running up and the
cabra
did not have time to flee. Before killing him, before they attended to Antonio Victor's wound, even, Juca had questioned the fellow.

“Tell us who sent you and I will let you go in peace.”

“It was Lawyer Virgilio,” said the man, “but Colonel Horacio—”

As the
cabra
walked away, Viriato raised his rifle, there was a flash in the night, and the man fell face downward. Juca, who was engaged in bandaging Antonio Victor's leg with a piece torn from his own silk shirt, upon hearing the shot rose to his feet.

“Didn't I say that he could go in peace?” he shouted angrily.

Viriato sought to excuse himself. “It's one the less, boss.”

“I'm going to have to teach you to obey me. When I say a thing, I mean it. Juca Badaró doesn't go back on his word.”

Viriato hung his head and made no reply. They then went over to the man, who was dead by now. Juca made a face.

“Come give me a hand,” he said to Viriato. They placed Antonio Victor on the burro, Viriato took the reins, and they were on their way. By the time they reached the plantation, the kerosene lamps had been lighted, which showed that Sinhô was worried, for he had expected his brother much earlier than this. They all came out on the lawn, and a number of
jagunços
and workers came up to help get Antonio Victor off the burro. There was a babble of questions as the plantation folk crowded around in their anxiety to help the wounded man; and it was Sinhô Badaró himself who took the lad by the shoulders and helped carry him inside. They put him down on a bench and Don' Ana shouted for Raimunda to fetch the alcohol and cotton. At the sound of the mulatto girl's name, Antonio Victor turned his head; and only he and Don' Ana noticed that Raimunda's hands were trembling as she handed her mistress the bottle and the package of cotton. She remained close by to help Don' Ana treat the wound (the bullet had torn the flesh but had not reached the bone), and her rude, heavy hands now became tender and delicate ones, as soft as the hands of a woman should be; and to Antonio Victor they seemed gentler by far, softer and more tender, than Don' Ana's light and finely shaped ones.

On a bright, mild, sunny morning the mulatto girl, Raimunda, entered the workers' bunkhouse, bringing with her some bread and milk that Don' Ana had sent out to Antonio Victor. The place was empty, the workers having gone to the groves to gather cacao, and the wounded man was tossing fitfully in a feverish slumber. The girl paused beside his bunk and looked down upon him. His bandaged leg was sticking out from beneath an old counterpane and she had a glimpse of his enormous foot covered with dried cacao slime. This evening he would not be waiting at the river bank to help her lift the pail of water.

Suddenly Raimunda was afraid. Could it be that he was going to die? Sinhô Badaró had said that his wound was nothing at all, that in three or four days Antonio Victor would be up and around again, ready for another one. But even so she was afraid. Had black Jeremias been alive still, she would have taken her courage in hand and would have made her way through the forest in search of a remedy from the witch-doctor. She had no confidence in this medicine from the pharmacy, which stood beside the bunk and which she had to give him now. She knew a prayer against fever and snake-bite that her mother had taught her in the kitchen of the Big House; and so, before giving Antonio Victor his medicine, she knelt on the floor and prayed:

“Cursed fever, I bury you three times in the bowels of the earth. The first in the name of the Father, the second in the name of the Son, and the third in the name of the Holy Ghost, with the grace of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. I conjure you, cursed fever, and order you to return to the bowels of the earth, leaving my—”

According to old black Risoleta, upon reaching this point it was necessary to specify the relationship of the patient to the one who was praying—“my brother,” “my husband,” “my father,” “my boss,” and so on. Raimunda was undecided for a moment. Perhaps if it had not been so serious a matter, and if he had not been asleep, she would not have concluded the prayer:

“—leaving my man cured of all evils. Amen.”

Antonio Victor awoke, and Raimunda's face grew hard again, her manner brusque. “It's time for your medicine.” She raised his head with her big round arm and he swallowed the teaspoonful of liquid, then gazed at her with feverish eyes. She went over to what was called a hearth: three stones with a few spent coals and bits of half-burned wood and a kettle of water resting on the stones. Throwing out the water, Raimunda filled the kettle with milk from the bottle she had brought and lighted the fire. Antonio Victor followed her movements with his eyes. He did not know how to begin. The girl was squatting beside the hearth, waiting for the milk to boil.

“Raimunda,” he called to her. She turned her head and looked at him. “Come here.” She came over with ill grace, taking short, slow steps. “Sit down,” he said, making room for her on the bunk.

“No,” was her only reply.

Antonio Victor looked hard at her; then plucking up his courage, he asked: “Will you marry me?”

She appeared to be half vexed still; her face was expressionless and her hands played with the hem of her petticoat as she gazed down at the earthen floor. She did not answer, but ran over to the milk, which was beginning to boil.

“It almost boiled over.”

Antonio Victor sank back, exhausted with the effort he had made. She was now heating water for coffee, serving him in a tin cup and moistening the bread to save him the trouble. Then she washed the cup and put out the fire.

“I'll be back at lunch time.”

Antonio Victor said nothing, merely looked at her. Before leaving she paused beside his bunk again, her eyes once more on the floor and her hands busy with her petticoat, a look of vexation on her face and a trace of annoyance in her voice as well.

“If godfather will let me, I will.”

With this she went out the door, and Antonio Victor felt his fever mounting.

Juca Badaró had just done arranging with Sinhô, down to the last detail, for the felling of the forest. They were to begin on Monday. The men for the job had already been picked: those who were to do the actual work of cutting down the trees and burning over the land, and those who were to stand guard over them with their rifles.

“It's understood, then: I'm starting Monday.” Seated in his high-backed Austrian chair, Sinhô waited, for he knew that Juca had more to say. “He's a good
cabaclo,
that Antonio Victor.”

“Yes, he's all right,” Sinhô assented.

“He's funny, though,” Juca went on with a laugh. “I went down to the bunkhouse to have a talk with him. This is the second time, you know, that he's got me out of a tight place. The first was that time in Tabocas, remember?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“And then again last night. So I went down there to find out if there was anything I could do for him. I told him I was thinking of giving him that piece of burnt-over land which was left from last year and which has not been planted yet. Down by the Border Line Grove. It's good land and you could raise a fine grove there. But do you know what he said to me?”

“No. What?”

“He said,” and Juca laughed again, “that there was only one thing he wanted, and that was for you to let him marry Raimunda. Well, there you are. Everyone has his—here I was, wanting to give the poor wretch a piece of land, and all he could think of was that horrible-looking hag. I promised him you would give your consent.”

Sinhô had no objections. “He can marry her,” he said, “and have the land besides. The next time I go into Ilhéos, I will have Genaro enter title for him at the registry office. He's a good mulatto. And Raimunda, she's all right, too. I promised her father that I would take care of her when the time came for her to marry. I give my consent.”

He was about to raise his voice and summon Raimunda and Don' Ana to tell them the news, when at a motion from Juca, he paused.

“I have another marriage offer to lay before you.”

“Another one? Are you becoming the St. Anthony of the plantation hands?”

“This is not one of the hands.”

“Who is it, then?”

Juca was trying to find a way of broaching the subject. “You know,” he said, “Raimunda and Don' Ana are both the same age; they were both suckled at black Risoleta's breast; they grew up together; it would be nice if they could be married together.”

“Don' Ana?” Sinhô Badaró narrowed his eyes and ran a hand down his beard.

“It's Captain João Magalhães. He spoke to me about it in Ilhéos. He seems to be a right kind of fellow.”

Sinhô shut his eyes, then opened them.

“I saw how things were in that quarter,” he said. “I could see how flustered Don' Ana was in the captain's presence—both here and at the procession.”

“Well, what do you think about it?”

“No one really knows him,” said Sinhô reflectively. “He says he's this, that, and the other thing. Lord knows what, down in Rio. But no one really knows anything about him. What do you know yourself?”

“I don't know anything more about him than you do, but I don't think it makes any difference. This is a new country, Sinhô; everything is new down here; you know that very well. Everybody starts from nothing, and it is by what he makes of himself afterwards that you judge a man. Who knows what he was before he came here? It's what lies ahead of him that counts. And the captain impresses me as being a man who's capable of taking care of himself; he has nerve.”

“It may be.”

“He went ahead and surveyed that land without any legal right to do so. I know he did that for the money and not out of friendship; but it's not for her money that he wants Don' Ana; he's in love with her. I know people as well as I know land. He'd marry her if she didn't have a penny and he had to start clean as a whistle. He has nerve, that's the main thing; it's better than loafing around and complaining all the time.”

Sinhô was thinking it over, his eyes half-shut, his hands stroking his black beard.

“There's one thing I want to say to you,” Juca went on. “You have only one child, a daughter, and I have none, nor am I likely to have, for the doctor has told me that it is out of the question so far as Olga is concerned. One of these days they are going to bring me down with a bullet, you know that as well as I do. Some enemy of mine will get me—I'll never live to see the end of this business. And then, when you get to be an old man, who is the Badaró who is going to gather cacao and pick the mayor of Ilhéos? Who, I ask you?”

Sinhô did not reply.

“He's a man of our own sort,” continued Juca. “What if he is nothing but a professional gambler, as they tell me? Isn't all this a gamble in the end? We need a man like that in the family, one who can take my place when they put me out of the way.”

Striding across the room, he took up his riding-whip from a bench and began tapping his boots.

“You could marry her to a professional man, a doctor or a lawyer, but what would that get you? The fellow would merely live off the profits of cacao without ever planting a grove or felling a forest; he would simply run around spending it. But the captain's been around; what he wants now is to become a cacao-planter. That is why I think it is a good thing.”

Raimunda came into the room to sweep it, but Sinhô made a gesture for her to leave.

“What I said to him was this: ‘There's only one thing, captain. Whoever marries Don' Ana has to take her name. I know it's contrary to custom; it's the woman who takes the man's name. But in Don' Ana's case her husband has to become a Badaró.'”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He didn't like it at first. The Magalhães family, he said, was all this and all that; but when he saw there was no getting around it, he agreed.”

Sinhô Badaró now called to the other room: “Don' Ana! Raimunda! Come here!”

The two of them came in. Don' Ana appeared to suspect what her father and her uncle had been talking about. Raimunda had a broom in her hand, for she thought that they were calling her to do the sweeping. It was to the mulatto girl that Sinhô spoke first:

“Antonio Victor wants to marry you. I've given my consent. I'm also giving you the land in back of the Border Line Grove as a dowry. Does that suit you?”

Raimunda did not know in which direction to look: “If godfather thinks it is all right—”

“Very well, then, get ready for the wedding. We don't want to lose any time. You may go.”

Raimunda left, and Sinhô then called Don' Ana over to where he sat.

“I have a request for your hand, also, my daughter. Juca thinks it is all right, but I don't know what to say. It is that captain who was down here. How do you feel about it?”

Don' Ana was like Raimunda in Antonio Victor's presence, her eyes on the floor, her hands toying with her skirt; she was at a loss for words.

“It was Captain João Magalhães?”

“That's who it was. Do you like him?”

“Yes, Father, I do.”

Sinhô Badaró slowly stroked his beard. “Get the Bible. We will see what it says.”

Then it was that Don' Ana took her eyes from the floor, her hands from her skirt; her voice was strong and resolute:

“Whatever it says, Father, there's only one man in the world that I would marry, and that's the captain. Even without your blessing.”

Saying this, she dropped at her father's feet and clasped his legs.