The War Of The End Of The World (11 page)

Three days after having sent off the letter describing his visit to Brother João Evangelista de Monte Marciano to
L’Etincelle de la révolte
, Galileo Gall heard a knock on the door of the garret above the Livraria Catilina. The moment he set eyes on them, he knew the individuals were police underlings. They asked to see his papers, looked through his belongings, questioned him about his activities in Salvador. The following day the order expelling him from the country as an undesirable alien arrived. Old Jan van Rijsted pulled strings and Dr. José Batista de Sá Oliveira wrote to Governor Luiz Viana offering to be responsible for him, but the authorities obdurately notified Gall that he was to leave Brazil on the
Marseillaise
when it sailed for Europe a week later. He would be given, free of charge, a one-way ticket in third class. Gall told his friends that being driven out of a country—or thrown in jail or killed—is one of the vicissitudes endured by every revolutionary and that he had been living the life of one almost since the day he’d been born. He was certain that the British consul, or the French or the Spanish one, was behind the expulsion order, but, he assured them, none of the police of these three countries would get their hands on him, since he would make himself scarce if the
Marseillaise
made calls in African ports or in Lisbon. He did not appear to be alarmed.

Both Jan van Rijsted and Dr. Oliveira had heard him speak with enthusiasm of his visit to the Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy, but both of them were thunderstruck when he announced to them that since he was being thrown out of Brazil, he intended to make “a gesture on behalf of the brothers of Canudos” before departing, inviting people to attend a public demonstration of solidarity with them. He would call upon all freedom lovers in Bahia to gather together and explain to them why he had done so: “In Canudos a revolution is coming into being, by spontaneous germination, and it is the duty of progressive-minded men to support it.” Jan van Rijsted and Dr. Oliveira did their best to dissuade him, telling him again and again that such a step was utter folly, but Gall nonetheless tried to get notice of the meeting published in the one opposition paper. His failure at the office of the
Jornal de Notícias
did not dishearten him. He was pondering the possibility of having leaflets printed that he himself would hand out in the streets, when something happened that made him write: “At last! I was living too peaceful a life and beginning to become dull-spirited.”

It happened two days before he was due to sail, as dusk was falling. Jan van Rijsted came into the garret, with his late-afternoon pipe in his hand, to tell him that two persons were downstairs asking for him. “They’re
capangas
,” he warned him. Galileo knew that that was what men whom the powerful and the authorities used for underhanded business were called, and as a matter of fact the two of them did have a sinister look about them. But they were not armed and their manner toward him was respectful: there was someone who wanted to see him. Might he ask who? No. He was intrigued, and went along with them. They took him to the Praça da Basílica Cathedral first, through the upper town and after that through the lower one, and then through the outskirts. As they left paved streets behind in the darkness—the Rua Conselheiro Dantas, the Rua Portugal, the Rua das Princesas—and the markets of Santa Barbara and São João and turned into the carriageway that ran along the seafront to Barra, Galileo Gall wondered if the authorities hadn’t decided to murder him instead of expelling him from the country. But it was not a trap. At an inn lighted by a little kerosene lamp, the owner and editor-in-chief of the
Jornal de Notícias
was waiting for him.

Epaminondas Gonçalves held out his hand to him and asked him to sit down. He came straight to the point. “Do you want to stay in Brazil despite the order of expulsion?”

Galileo merely looked at him, without answering.

“Are you genuinely enthusiastic about what’s going on up there in Canudos?” Epaminondas Gonçalves asked. They were alone in the room, and outside, the
capangas
could be heard talking together and waves steadily rolling in. The leader of the Progressivist Republican Party was watching him intently, with a very serious expression on his face, and nervously tapping his heels. He was dressed in the gray suit that Galileo had seen him wearing in his office at the
Jornal de Notícias
, but his face did not have the same nonchalant, slyly mocking look on it that it had had that day. He was tense, with a furrowed brow that made his youthful face look older.

“I don’t like mysteries,” Gall said. “You’d best explain to me what this is all about.”

“I’m trying to find out whether you want to go to Canudos to take arms to the rebels.”

Galileo waited for a moment, not saying a word, looking the other man straight in the eye.

“Two days ago you had no sympathy for the rebels,” he slowly commented. “Occupying other people’s land and living in promiscuity struck you as animal behavior.”

“That is the opinion of the Progressivist Republican Party,” Epaminondas Gonçalves agreed. “And my own as well, naturally.”

“But…” Gall said, helping him along, thrusting his head slightly forward.

“But the enemies of our enemies are our friends,” Epaminondas Gonçalves declared, ceasing to tap his heels. “Bahia is a bulwark of retrograde landowners, whose hearts still lie with the monarchy, despite the fact that we’ve been a republic for eight years. If it is necessary to aid the bandits and the Sebastianists in the interior in order to put an end to the Baron de Canabrava’s dictatorial rule over Bahia, I shall do so. We’re falling farther and farther behind and becoming poorer and poorer. These people must be removed from power, at whatever cost, before it’s too late. If that business in Canudos continues, Luiz Viana’s government will be plunged into crisis and sooner or later the federal forces will step in. And the moment that Rio de Janeiro intervenes, Bahia will cease to be the fief of the Autonomists.”

“And the reign of the Progressivist Republicans will begin,” Gall murmured.

“We don’t believe in kings. We’re republicans to the very marrow of our bones,” Epaminondas Gonçalves corrected him. “Well, well, I see you understand me.”

“I understand that part all right,” Galileo said. “But not the rest of it. If the Progressivist Republican Party wants to arm the
jagunços
, why through me?”

“The Progressivist Republican Party does not wish to aid or to have the slightest contact with people who rebel against the law,” Epaminondas Gonçalves said, pronouncing each syllable slowly and distinctly.

“The Honorable Deputy Epaminondas Gonçalves cannot aid rebels,” the owner and editor-in-chief of the
Jornal de Notícias
said, again lingering over every syllable. “Nor can anyone connected with him, either closely or remotely. The Honorable Deputy is fighting an uphill battle for republican and democratic ideals in this autocratic enclave of powerful enemies, and cannot take such a risk.” He smiled, and Gall saw that he had a gleaming white, voracious set of teeth. “Then you entered the picture. The plan I’m proposing would never have occurred to me if it hadn’t been for that strange visit of yours day before yesterday. That was what gave me the idea, what made me think: ‘If he’s mad enough to call a public meeting in support of the rebels, he’ll be mad enough to take them rifles.’” He stopped smiling and spoke sternly. “In cases such as this, frankness is the best policy. You’re the only person who, if you’re discovered or captured, could in no way compromise me and my political friends.”

“Are you warning me that if I were captured I wouldn’t be able to count on you for help?”

“This time you’ve understood my meaning exactly,” Epaminondas Gonçalves said slowly and distinctly. “If your answer is no, I bid you good night, and forget that you’ve seen me. If it’s yes, let us discuss the fee.”

The Scotsman shifted position on his seat, a little wooden bench that creaked. “The fee?” he murmured, blinking.

“As I see it, you’re performing a service,” Epaminondas Gonçalves said. “I’ll pay you well for it, and promptly, I promise you, the moment you’re about to leave the country. But if you prefer to render this service
ad honorem
, out of idealism, that’s your business.”

“I’m going to take a stroll outside,” Galileo Gall said, rising to his feet. “I think better when I’m by myself. I won’t be long.”

On stepping outside the inn, he thought at first that it was raining, but it was merely spray from the waves. The
capangas
stepped aside to let him pass, and he smelled the strong, acrid odor of their pipes. There was a moon, and the sea, looking as though it were effervescent, was giving off a pleasant, salty smell that penetrated to his very vitals. Galileo Gall walked, amid the sand and the lonely boulders, to a little fort with a cannon aimed at the horizon. He thought to himself: “The Republic has as little strength in Bahia as the King of England beyond the Aberfoyle Pass in the days of Rob Roy Macgregor.” Faithful to his habit despite the chaotic pounding of his blood, he tried to view the situation objectively. Was it ethical for a revolutionary to conspire with a petty-bourgeois politician? Yes, if the conspiracy aided the
jagunços
. Could he be of help to the people in Canudos? Without false modesty, one who was a battle-hardened veteran of political struggles and had dedicated his life to revolution could help them when certain decisions had to be made and once the time came when they would be forced to fight. And, finally, the experience would be valuable if he passed it on to the world’s revolutionaries. It might well be that he would leave his bones to molder there in Canudos, but wasn’t such an end preferable to dying of illness or of old age? He walked back to the inn and, standing on the threshold of the room, said to Epaminondas Gonçalves: “I’m mad enough to do it.”

“Wonderful!” the politician answered Galileo Gall in English, caught up by his fervor, his eyes gleaming.

In his sermons, the Counselor had so often foretold how the forces of the Dog would come to seize him and put the city to the sword that no one in Canudos was surprised when it was learned, from pilgrims come on horseback from Juazeiro, that a company of the Ninth Infantry Battalion from Bahia had arrived in the vicinity, charged with the mission of capturing the saint.

Prophecies were beginning to come true, words becoming facts. The news had a tonic effect, mobilizing old people, young people, men, women. Shotguns and carbines, flintlocks that had to be muzzle-loaded were immediately taken up and bandoleers threaded with the proper ammunition, as at the same time knives and daggers appeared, tucked into waistbands as if by magic, and in people’s hands sickles, machetes, pikes, awls, slings and hunting crossbows, clubs, stones.

That night, the night of the beginning of the end of the world, all Canudos gathered round about the Temple of the Good Lord Jesus—a two-story skeleton, with towers that were growing taller and walls that were being filled in—to listen to the Counselor’s words. The fervor of the elect filled the air. The Counselor, on the other hand, appeared to be more withdrawn than ever. Once the pilgrims from Juazeiro told him the news, he did not make the slightest comment and went on supervising the gathering of building stones, the tamping of the ground, and the mixing of sand and pebbles for the Temple with such total concentration that no one dared ask him any questions. Nonetheless, as they prepared for battle, they all felt that that ascetic figure approved of what they were doing. And all of them knew, as they oiled their crossbows, cleaned the bore of their muskets and blunderbusses, and dried their gunpowder, that this night the Father, through the mouth of the Counselor, would tell them what to do.

The saint’s voice resounded beneath the stars, in the air without a breath of wind in which his words seemed to linger, an atmosphere so serene that it banished all fear. Before speaking of the war, he spoke of peace, of the life to come, in which sin and pain would disappear. Once the Devil was overthrown, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit would be established, the last era of the world before Judgment Day. Would Canudos be the capital of this Kingdom? If the Blessed Jesus so willed it. Then the wicked laws of the Republic would be repealed and the priests would return, as in the very earliest days, to be selfless shepherds of their flocks. The backlands would grow verdant from the rain, there would be an abundance of maize and cattle, everyone would have enough to eat, and each family would be able to bury its dead in coffins padded with velvet. But, before that, the Antichrist had to be overthrown. It was necessary to make a cross and a banner with the image of the Divine on it so that the enemy would know what side true religion was on. And it was necessary to go into battle as the Crusaders had when they set out to deliver Jerusalem: singing, praying, acclaiming the Virgin and Our Lord. And as the Crusaders had vanquished their enemy, so too would the crusaders of the Blessed Jesus vanquish the Republic.

No one in Canudos slept that night. Everyone stayed up, some of them praying, others preparing for battle, as diligent hands nailed the cross together and sewed the banner. They were ready before dawn. The cross was three yards tall and two yards wide, and the banner was four bedsheets sewn together, on which the Little Blessed One painted a white dove with outspread wings, and the Lion of Natuba wrote, in his calligraphic hand, an ejaculatory prayer. Save for a handful of people designated by Antônio Vilanova to remain in Canudos so that the building of the Temple would not be interrupted (work on it went on day and night, except for Sundays), everyone else in the settlement left at first light, heading in the direction of Bendengó and Juazeiro, to prove to the chieftains of evil that good still had its defenders on this earth. The Counselor did not see them leave, for he was in the little Church of Santo Antônio praying for them.

They were obliged to march ten leagues to meet the soldiers. They made the march singing, praying, and acclaiming God and the Counselor. They halted to rest only once, after passing Monte Cambaio. Those who felt a call of nature left the crooked lines of marchers, slipped behind a boulder, and then caught up with the rest farther down the road. Traversing the flat, dry stretch of terrain took them a day and a night, without a single soul asking for another halt to rest. They had no battle plan. The rare travelers who met them on the road were amazed to learn that they were marching to war. They looked like a crowd heading for a fiesta; a number of them were dressed in their fanciest clothes. They were carrying weapons and shouted, “Death to the Devil and to the Republic,” but even at such moments the joyous expression on their faces softened the effect of the hatred in their voices. The cross and the banner headed the procession, carried respectively by the ex-bandit Pedrão and the ex-slave Big João, and behind them came Maria Quadrado and Alexandrinha Correa carrying the glass case with the image of the Good Lord Jesus painted on cloth by the Little Blessed One, and behind that, ghostly apparitions enveloped in a cloud of dust, came the elect. Many accompanied the litanies by blowing on lengths of sugarcane that in bygone days had served as pipes for smoking tobacco; with holes pierced in them, they could also be made into shepherd’s pipes.

In the course of the march, imperceptibly, obeying a call of the blood, the column gradually regrouped, so that those who had belonged to the same band of brigands, people from the same hamlet, the same slave quarters, the same district of a town, members of the same family were now grouped together, as if, as the crucial hour drew near, each person felt the need to be as close as possible to what had been the tried and true in other decisive hours. Those who had killed gradually worked their way to the front of the line and now, as they approached the town of Uauá, named that because of the many fireflies that set it aglow at night, Abbot João, Pajeú, Taramela, José Venâncio, the Macambiras, and other rebels and outlaws surrounded the cross and the banner at the head of the procession or army, knowing without having to be told that because of their experience and their sins they were called to set the example when the hour came to attack.

Past midnight, a sharecropper came to meet them to warn them that a hundred and four soldiers were camped in Uauá, having arrived from Juazeiro the evening before. A strange war cry—“Long live the Counselor! Long live the Blessed Jesus!”—stirred the hearts of the elect; excited and jubilant, they picked up the pace. As dawn broke, they sighted Uauá, a handful of little huts that was the obligatory stopping-off place for the night for cattle drivers going from Monte Santo to Curaçá. The marchers began to recite litanies to St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the town. The column was soon spotted by the drowsy soldiers posted as sentinels on the banks of a lagoon on the outskirts. After staring for a few seconds, not believing their eyes, they headed for the town on the run. Praying, singing, blowing on their
canudos
, the elect entered Uauá, arousing from their sleep and plunging into a nightmarish reality the hundred-odd soldiers whom it had taken twelve days to get there and who hadn’t the least idea where the prayers that had suddenly awakened them were coming from. They were the only living souls in Uauá, since all the inhabitants had fled during the night. But there they all were now, along with the crusaders, circling round the tamarinds in the public square, watching the soldiers’ faces as they peered out the doors and windows, registering their surprise, their hesitation as to whether to shoot or run or tumble back into their hammocks and rickety beds to sleep.

A bellowed command, which caused a rooster to break off his cock-a-doodle-doo right in the middle, set off the shooting. The soldiers fired, supporting their muskets on the low partition walls of the huts, and the elect began to fall to the ground, drenched in blood. The column gradually broke up; intrepid groups following after Abbot João, José Venâncio, Pajeú launched an attack on the dwellings, and others ran to shield themselves in dead angles or curl up in a ball among the tamarinds as the rest advanced. The elect also did some shooting: those, that is to say, who had carbines and blunderbusses and those who managed to load their long-barreled muskets and make out a target amid the clouds of black powder. Throughout the hours of struggle and confusion, the cross never tottered, the banner never ceased to wave, in the middle of an island of crusaders which, though riddled with bullets, continued to exist, compact, faithful, rallied round those emblems in which everyone would later see the secret of their victory. For neither Pedrão, nor Big Joáo, nor the Mother of Men, who was carrying the glass case with the face of the Son, died in the fray.

The victory was not soon won. There were many martyrs in these hours of deafening noise. The sound of running feet and shots would be followed by intervals of immobility and silence which, a moment later, would again be shattered. But before mid-morning the Counselor’s men knew that they had won when they saw some half-dressed figures, who, by order of their leaders or because fear had overcome them before the
jagunços
did, were running off pell-mell across country, abandoning firearms, tunics, leggings, boots, knapsacks. The men from Canudos shot at them knowing that they were out of range, but it did not occur to anyone to pursue them. Shortly thereafter the other soldiers fled, and as they ran for their lives some of them fell amid the nests of
jagunços
that had formed in this corner or that, where they were beaten to death with spades and shovels and done in with knives in less time than it takes to tell. They died heating themselves called dogs and devils, amid prognostications that their souls would be condemned as their corpses rotted.

The crusaders remained in Uauá for several hours after their victory. Most of them spent these hours sleeping, propped up one against the other, recovering from the exhaustion of the march and the tension of the battle. Some of them, however, urged on by Abbot Joáo, searched the huts for rifles, ammunition, bayonets, and cartridge belts left behind by the soldiers as they fled. Maria Quadrado, Alexandrinha Correa, and Gertrudes, a street vendor from Teresina who had a bullet wound in her arm but continued to bustle about nonetheless, went around placing the dead bodies of
jagunços
in hammock litters so that they could be carried back to Canudos to be buried. The women who were healers, the herb doctors, the midwives, the bonesetters, any number of helpful souls gathered round the wounded, wiping away the blood, bandaging them, or simply offering prayers and incantations to ward off their pain.

Carrying their dead and wounded and following the riverbed of the Vaza-Barris, at a slower pace this time, the elect walked the ten leagues back. They entered Canudos a day and a half later, acclaiming the Counselor, applauded, embraced, and greeted with smiles by those who had stayed behind to work on the Temple. The Counselor, who had neither eaten nor drunk a single thing since they had left, gave his counsel that evening from a scaffolding of the towers of the Temple. He prayed for the dead, offered thanks to the Blessed Jesus and to John the Baptist for the victory that had been won, and spoke of how evil had put down roots here on this earth. Before time began, God filled everything and space did not exist. In order to create the world, the Father had had to withdraw within Himself so as to create a vacuum, and this absence of God gave rise to space, in which there sprang up, in seven days, the stars, light, the waters, plants, animals, and man. But once the earth had been created through the withdrawal of the divine substance, there had also been created the conditions favorable for what was most opposed to the Father, namely sin, to establish its kingdom. Hence the world was born beneath the sway of a divine curse, as the Devil’s realm. But the Father took pity on men and sent His Son to reconquer for God this earthly space ruled by the Demon.

The Counselor said that one of the streets of Canudos would be named São Joáo Batista after the patron saint of Uauá.

“Governor Viana is sending another expedition to Canudos,” Epaminondas Gonçalves says. “Under the command of an officer I know personally, Major Febrônio de Brito. This time It’s not just a handful of soldiers, such as the little band that was attacked in Uauá, who are being sent out, but an entire battalion. They will be leaving Bahia at any moment now, and perhaps they have already done so. There isn’t much time left.”

“I can leave tomorrow morning,” Galileo Gall answers. “The guide is waiting. Have you brought the arms?”

Epaminondas offers Gall a cigar, which he refuses, shaking his head. They are sitting in wicker chairs on the ramshackle terrace of the manor of a hacienda somewhere between Queimadas and Jacobina, to which a horseman dressed all in leather, with a biblical name—Caifás—has guided him, taking him round and round the scrubland, as though trying to disorient him. It is dusk; beyond the wooden balustrade are a row of royal palms, a dovecote, several animal pens. The sun, a reddish ball, is setting the horizon on fire.