The War Of The End Of The World (26 page)

The Little Blessed One had started to speak again, about the Triduum of the Precious Blood that was to begin that afternoon, when they heard a gentle knock on the door amid all the uproar outside. Maria Quadrado went to open it. With the sun shining brightly behind him and a multitude of heads trying to peek over his shoulders, the parish priest of Cumbe appeared in the doorway.

“Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Counselor said, rising to his feet so quickly that the Lion of Natuba was obliged to step aside. “We were just speaking of you, and suddenly you appear.”

He walked to the door to meet Father Joaquim, whose cassock was covered with dust, as was his face. The saint bent down, took his hand, and kissed it. The humility and respect with which the Counselor always received him made the priest feel ill at ease, but today he was so perturbed that he did not appear to have even noticed.

“A telegram arrived,” he said, as the Little Blessed One, Abbot João, the Mother of Men, and the women of the Sacred Choir kissed his hand. “A regiment of the Federal Army is on its way here, from Rio. Its commanding officer is a famous figure, a hero who has won every war he’s ever led his troops in.”

“Thus far, nobody has ever won a war against the Father,” the Counselor said joyfully.

Crouching over his bench, the Lion of Natuba was writing swiftly.

Having finished the job in Itiúba that he had hired on for with the people from the railroad company in Jacobina, Rufino is now guiding a group of cowhands along the rugged back trails of the Serra de Bendengó, that mountain fastness where a stone from heaven once fell to earth. They are tracking cattle rustlers who have stolen half a hundred head from the Pedra Vermelha hacienda belonging to a “colonel” named José Bernardo Murau, but before they locate the cattle they learn of the defeat of Major Febrônio de Brito’s expedition at Monte Cambaio and decide to stop searching so as not to run into
jagunços
or retreating soldiers. Just after parting company with the cowhands, Rufino falls into the hands of a band of deserters, led by a sergeant from Pernambuco, in the spurs of the Serra Grande. They relieve him of his shotgun, his machete, his provisions, and the sack containing the reis that he has earned as a guide for the railway people. But they do not otherwise harm him and even warn him not to go by way of Monte Santo, since Major Brito’s defeated troops are regrouping there and might well enlist his services.

The region is in a state of profound unrest because of the war. The following night, near the Rio Cariacá, the guide hears the sound of gunfire and early the next morning discovers that men who have come from Canudos have sacked and razed the Santa Rosa hacienda, which he knows very well. The house, vast and cool, with a wooden balustrade and surrounded by palm trees, has been reduced to a pile of smoking ashes. He catches sight of the empty stables, the former slave quarters, and the peasants’ huts, which have also been set on fire, and an old man living nearby tells him that everyone has gone off to Belo Monte, taking with them the animals and everything else that did not go up in flames.

Rufino takes a roundabout way so as to skirt Monte Santo, and the following day a family of pilgrims headed for Canudos warns him to be on his guard, for there are patrols from the Rural Guard scouring the countryside in search of young men to press into army service. At midday he arrives at a chapel half hidden amid the yellowish slopes of the Serra da Engorda, where, by long-standing tradition, men with blood on their hands come to repent of their crimes, and others come to make offerings. It is a very small building, standing all by itself, with no doors and with white walls teeming with lizards slithering up and down. The inside walls are completely covered with ex-votos: bowls containing petrified food, little wooden figurines, arms, legs, heads made of wax, weapons, articles of clothing, all manner of miniature objects. Rufino carefully examines knives, machetes, shotguns, and chooses a long, curved, sharp-honed knife recently left there. Then he goes to kneel before the altar, on which there is nothing but a cross, and explains to the Blessed Jesus that he is merely borrowing this knife. He tells Him how he has been robbed of everything he had on him, so that he needs the knife in order to get back home. He assures Him that it is not at all his intention to take something that belongs to Him, and promises to return it to Him, along with a brand-new knife that will be his offering to Him. He reminds Him that he is not a thief, that he has always kept his promises. He crosses himself and says: “I thank you, Blessed Jesus.”

He then goes on his way at a steady pace that does not tire him, climbing up slopes or down ravines, traversing scrubland
caatinga
or stony ground. That afternoon he catches an armadillo that he roasts over a fire. The meat from it lasts him two days. The third day finds him not far from Nordestina. He heads for the hut of a farmer he knows, where he has often spent the night. The family receives him even more cordially than in the past, and the wife prepares a meal for him. He tells them how the deserters robbed him, and they talk about what is going to happen after the battle on O Cambaio, in which, so people are saying, a great many men lost their lives. As they talk, Rufino notes that the man and his wife exchange glances, as though there is something they want to tell him though they don’t dare come out with it. Then the farmer, coughing nervously, asks him how long it has been since he has had news of his family. Nearly a month. Has his mother died? No. Jurema, then? The couple sit there looking at him. Finally the man speaks up: the news is going round that there has been a shootout and men killed at his house and that his wife has taken off with a redheaded stranger. Rufino thanks them for their hospitality and leaves immediately.

At dawn the following morning the silhouette of the guide stands out against the light on a hill from which his cabin can be seen. He walks through the little copse dotted with boulders and bushes where he first met Galileo Gall and makes his way toward the rise on which his dwelling stands, at his usual pace, a quick trot halfway between walking and running. His face bears the traces of his long journey, of the troubles he has come up against, of the bad news he has had the night before: tense and rigid, the features stand out more sharply, the lines and hollows more deeply etched. The only thing he has with him is the knife that he has borrowed from the Blessed Jesus. Approaching within a few yards of his cabin, he gazes warily about. The gate of the animal pen is open, and it is empty. But what Rufino stands staring at with eyes at once grave, curious, and dumfounded is not the animal pen but the open space in front of the house, where there are now two crosses that were not there before, propped up by two piles of little stones. On entering the cabin, he spies the oil lamp, the casks and jars, the pallet, the hammock, the trunk, the print of the Virgin of Lapa, the cooking pots and the bowls, and the pile of firewood. There doesn’t seem to be anything missing, and what is more, the cabin appears to have been carefully tidied up, each thing in its proper place. Rufino looks around again, slowly, as though trying to wrench from these objects the secret of what has happened in his absence. He can hear the silence: no dog barking, no cackling hens, no sheep bells tinkling, no voice of his wife. He finally begins walking about the room, closely examining everything. By the time he finishes, his eyes are red. He leaves the cabin, closing the door gently behind him.

He heads toward Queimadas, gleaming brightly in the distance beneath a sun that is now directly overhead. Rufino’s silhouette disappears around a bend of the promontory, then reappears, trotting amid the lead-colored stones, cacti, yellowish brush, the sharp-pointed palisade fence round a corral. Half an hour later he enters the town by way of Avenida Itapicuru and walks up along it to the main square. The sun reflects like quicksilver off the little whitewashed houses with blue or green doors. The soldiers who have beaten a retreat after the defeat at O Cambaio have begun to straggle into town, ragged strangers who can be seen standing about on the street corners, sleeping underneath the trees, or bathing in the river. The guide walks past them without looking at them, perhaps without even seeing them, thinking only of the townspeople: cowhands with tanned, weather-beaten faces, women nursing their babies, horsemen riding off, oldsters sunning themselves, children running about. They bid him good day or call out to him by name, and he knows that after he has passed by, they turn round and stare at him, point a finger at him, and begin to whisper among themselves. He returns their greetings with a nod of his head, looking straight ahead without smiling so as to discourage anyone from trying to have a word with him. He crosses the main square—a dense mass of sunlight, dogs, hustle and bustle—bowing to left and right, aware of the murmurs, the stares, the gestures, the thoughts he arouses. He does not stop till he reaches a little shop with candles and religious images hanging outside, opposite the little Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary. He removes his sombrero, takes a deep breath as though he were about to dive into water, and goes inside. On catching sight of him, the tiny old woman who is handing a package to a customer opens her eyes wide and her face lights up. But she waits until the buyer has left before she says a word to him.

The shop is a cube with holes through which tongues of sunlight enter. Candles and tapers hang from nails and lie lined up on the counter. The walls are covered with ex-votos and with saints, Christs, Virgins, and devotional prints. Rufino kneels to kiss the old woman’s hand: “Good day, Mother.” She traces the sign of the cross on his forehead with her gnarled fingers with dirty nails. She is a gaunt, grim-faced old woman with hard eyes, all bundled up in a shawl despite the stifling heat. She is holding a rosary with large beads in one hand.

“Caifás wants to see you, to explain to you,” she says. She has difficulty getting the words out, either because she finds the subject painful or because she has no teeth. “He’ll be coming to the Saturday market. He’s come every Saturday to see if you’re back yet. It’s a long journey, but he’s come anyway. He’s your friend—he wants to explain to you.”

“Meanwhile, Mother, tell me what you know,” the guide mutters.

“They didn’t come to kill
you
,” the little old woman answers straightaway. “Or her either. They were only out to kill the stranger. But he put up a fight and killed two of them. Did you see the crosses there in front of your house?” Rufino nods. “Nobody claimed the bodies and they buried them there.” She crosses herself. “May they be received in Thy holy glory, Lord. Did you find your house in order? I’ve been going out there every so often. So you wouldn’t find it all dirty.”

“You shouldn’t have gone,” Rufino says. He stands there with his head bowed dejectedly, his sombrero in his hand. “You can hardly walk. And besides, that house is dirty forever now.”

“So you already know,” the old woman murmurs, her gaze seeking his, but he avoids her eyes and continues to stare down at the floor. The woman sighs. After a moment’s silence, she adds: “I’ve sold your sheep so they wouldn’t be stolen, the way the chickens were. Your money’s in that drawer.” She pauses once more, trying to postpone the inevitable, to avoid talking about the only subject that interests her, the only one that interests Rufino. “People are malicious. They said you weren’t going to come back. That they’d conscripted you in the army perhaps, that you’d died in the battle perhaps. Have you seen how many soldiers there are in Queimadas? There were lots of them that died back there, it seems. Major Febrônio de Brito’s here, too.”

But Rufino interrupts her. “The ones who came to kill him—do you know who their leader was?”

“Caifás,” the old woman answers. “He brought them there. He’ll explain to you. He explained to me. He’s your friend. They weren’t out to kill you. Or her. Just the redhead, the stranger.”

She falls silent, as does Rufino, and in the burning-hot, dark redoubt the buzzing of bluebottles, of the swarms of flies circling about among the images, can be heard.

Finally the old woman makes up her mind to speak again. “Lots of people saw them,” she exclaims in a trembling voice, her eyes suddenly blazing. “Caifás saw them. When he told me, I thought: I’ve sinned, and God is punishing me. I brought my son misfortune. Yes, Rufino: Jurema, Jurema. She saved his life, she grabbed Caifás’s hands. She went off with him, with her arm around him, leaning on him.” She stretches out a hand and points in the direction of the street. “Everybody knows. We can’t live here any longer, son.”

There is not a twitch of a muscle, the blink of an eye in the angular, beardless face darkened by the deep shadow in the room.

The little old woman shakes her tiny gnarled fist and spits scornfully in the direction of the street. “They came to commiserate with me, to talk to me about you. Their every word was a knife in my heart. They’re vipers, my son!” She passes the black shawl across her eyes, as though she were wiping away tears, but her eyes are dry. “You’ll clear your name of the filth they’ve heaped upon it, won’t you? It’s worse than if they’d plucked out your eyes, worse than if they’d killed me. Talk with Caifás. He knows the insult to your name, he knows what honor is. He’ll explain to you.”