The War Of The End Of The World (50 page)

Because of the mad cadence at which the Seventh Regiment stormed up the hillsides, he was unable to remain at the head of the column with the colonel, his staff officers, and his escort. He was prevented from doing so by the fading light, his constant stumbling and falling, his swollen feet, his heart that seemed to be about to burst, his pounding temples. What made him hold out, struggle back to his feet again and again, go on climbing? He thinks: fear of being left all by myself, curiosity as to what is going to happen. In one of his many falls he lost track of his portable writing desk, but a soldier with a bare scalp—they shave all the hair off those infested with lice—hands it to him a few minutes later. He has no use for it any more; his ink is all gone and his last goose-quill got broken the evening before. Now that the rain has stopped, he hears various sounds, a rattling of stones, and wonders if the companies are continuing to deploy in all directions during the night, if the cannons and machine guns are being hauled to a new emplacement, or if the vanguard has dashed down the mountainside without waiting for daybreak.

He has not been left behind all by himself; he has arrived before many of the troops. He feels a childish joy, the elation of having won a wager. The featureless silhouettes are no longer advancing now; they are eagerly opening bundles of supplies, slipping off their knapsacks. Their fatigue, their anxiety disappear. He asks where the command post is, goes from one group of men to another, wanders back and forth till he comes upon a canvas shelter stretched between poles, lighted by a feeble oil lamp. It is now pitch-dark, it is still raining buckets, and the nearsighted journalist remembers the feeling of safety, of relief that came over him as he crawled to the tent and spied Moreira César. The latter is receiving reports, giving orders; an atmosphere of feverish activity reigns around the little table on which the oil lamp sputters. The nearsighted journalist collapses on the ground at the entrance, as he has on previous occasions, thinking that his position, his presence there are akin to a dog’s, and doubtless Colonel Moreira César associates him in his mind, first and foremost, with a dog. He sees mud-spattered officers go in and out, he hears Colonel Tamarindo discussing the situation with Major Cunha Matos, and Colonel Moreira César giving orders. The colonel is enveloped in a black cape and in the smoky light he looks strangely deformed. Has he had another attack of his mysterious malady? For at his side is Dr. Souza Ferreiro.

“Order the artillery to open fire,” he hears him say. “Have the Krupps send them our visiting cards, so as to soften them up before we launch our attack.”

As the officers begin to leave the tent, he is obliged to move aside to keep from being trampled underfoot.

“Have the regimental call sounded,” the colonel says to Captain Olímpio de Castro.

Shortly thereafter, the nearsighted journalist hears the long, lugubrious, macabre bugle call that he heard as the column marched off from Queimadas. Moreira César has risen to his feet and walks toward the door of the tent, half buried in his cape. He shakes hands with the officers who are leaving and wishes them good luck.

“Well, well! So you managed to get to Canudos,” the colonel says as he catches sight of him. “I confess that I’m surprised. I never thought you’d be the only correspondent to accompany us this far.”

And then, immediately losing all interest in him, he turns to Colonel Tamarindo. The call to charge and slit throats echoes back in the rain from different directions. As a silence falls, the nearsighted journalist suddenly hears bells pealing wildly. He remembers thinking what all the others were no doubt thinking: “The
jagunços
’ answer.”

“Tomorrow we will lunch in Canudos,” he hears the colonel say. He feels his heart skip a beat, for tomorrow is already today.

He was awakened by a painful burning sensation: lines of ants were running up both his arms, leaving a trail of red marks on his skin. He slapped them dead with his hand as he shook his drowsy head. Studying the gray sky, the light growing fainter and fainter, Galileo Gall tried to guess what time it was. He had always envied Rufino, Jurema, the Bearded Lady, all the people in these parts for the certainty with which, after a mere glance at the sun or the stars, they could tell precisely what hour of the day or night it was. How long had he slept? Not long, since Ulpino hadn’t come back yet. When he saw the first stars appear he gave a start. Could something have happened? Could Ulpino have lighted out, afraid to take him all the way to Canudos? He suddenly felt cold, a sensation it seemed to him he hadn’t felt for ages.

A few hours later, in the clear night, he was certain that Ulpino was not going to come back. He rose to his feet and, with no idea where he was heading, started off in the direction indicated on a wooden sign that said Caracatá. The little trail disappeared amid a labyrinth of thorny bushes that scratched him. He went back to the clearing. He managed to fall asleep, overcome with anxiety, and had nightmares that he remembered vaguely on awaking the next morning. He was so hungry that he forgot all about the guide for a good while and spent a fair time chewing on grasses till he had calmed the empty feeling in his belly. Then he explored his surroundings, convinced that the only solution was to find his own way. After all, it should not be all that difficult: all he needed to do was find a group of pilgrims and follow them. But where were they to be found? The thought that Ulpino had deliberately gotten him lost upset him so much that the moment this suspicion crossed his mind he instantly rejected it. In order to clear a path through the vegetation he had a stout branch; his double saddlebag was slung over his shoulder. Suddenly it began to rain. Drunk with elation, he was licking the drops falling on his face when he caught sight of figures amid the trees. He shouted to them and ran toward them, splashing through the water, muttering “At last” to himself, when he recognized Jurema. And Rufino. He stopped dead in his tracks. Through a curtain of water, he saw the calm expression on the tracker’s face and noted that he was leading Jurema along by a rope tied around her neck, like an animal. He saw him let go of the rope and spied the terrified face of the Dwarf. The three of them looked at him and he suddenly felt totally disconcerted, unreal. Rufino had a knife in his hand; his eyes were gleaming like burning coals.

“If it had been you, you wouldn’t have come to defend your wife,” he heard him say to him, with more scorn than rage. “You have no honor, Gall.”

His feeling of unreality grew even more intense. He raised his free hand and made a peaceable, friendly gesture. “There’s no time for this, Rufino. I can explain to you what happened. There’s something that’s much more urgent now. There are thousands of men and women who risk being killed because of a handful of ambitious politicians. It’s your duty…”

But he realized he was speaking in English. Rufino was coming toward him and Galileo began to step back. The ground between them was a sea of mud. Behind Rufino, the Dwarf was trying to untie Jurema. “I’m not going to kill you yet,” he thought he heard Rufino say, and apparently he added that he was going to slap him full in the face to dishonor him. Galileo felt like laughing. The distance between the two of them was growing shorter by the moment and he thought: “He’s deaf to reason and he always will be.” Hatred, like desire, canceled out intelligence and reduced man to a creature of sheer instinct. Was he about to die on account of such a stupid thing as a woman’s cunt? He continued to make pacifying gestures and assumed a fearful, pleading expression. At the same time, he calculated the distance, and when Rufino was almost upon him, he suddenly lashed out at him with the stout stick he was clutching in his fist. The guide fell to the ground. He heard Jurema scream, but by the time she reached his side, he had already hit Rufino over the head twice more; the latter, stunned, had let go of his knife, which Gall picked up. He held Jurema off, indicating with a wave of his hand that he was not going to kill Rufino.

In a fury, shaking his fist at the man lying on the ground, he roared: “You blind, selfish, petty traitor to your class—can’t you see beyond your vainglorious little world? Men’s honor doesn’t lie in faces or in women’s cunts, you idiot. There are thousands of innocents in Canudos. The fate of your brothers is at stake: can’t you understand?”

Rufino shook his head as he came to.

“You try to make him understand,” Gall shouted to Jurema before he walked off. She stared at him as though he were mad, or someone she had never seen in her life before. Again he had the feeling that everything was absurd and unreal. Why hadn’t he killed Rufino? The imbecile would pursue him to the end of the earth, he was certain. He ran, panting, through the scrub, raked by the thorns, amid torrents of rain, getting covered with mud, with no idea where he was going. He still had the stick and his double saddlebag, but he had lost his sombrero and could feel the drops bouncing off his skull. A while later—it might have been a few minutes or an hour—he stopped, then went on again, at a slow walk. There was no sort of trail, no reference point amid the brambles and the cacti, and his feet sank into the mud, holding him back. He could feel that he was sweating beneath the pouring rain. He silently cursed his luck. The light was fading and he could scarcely believe that it was already dusk. He finally realized that he was looking all around as though he were about to plead with those gray, barren trees, with barbs instead of leaves, to help him. He gestured, half in pity and half in desperation, and broke into a run again. But after just a few meters he stopped dead in his tracks, utterly unnerved by his helplessness. A sob escaped his lips.

“Rufinoooo, Rufinoooo!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Come on, come on, I’m here, I need you! Help me, take me to Canudos, let’s do something useful, let’s not be stupid. You can take your revenge, kill me, slap my face afterward. Rufinoooo!”

He heard his shouts echoing amid the splash of the raindrops. He was soaked to the skin, dying of cold. He went on walking aimlessly, his mouth working, slapping his legs with the stick. It was dusk, night would soon be falling, all this was perhaps just a nightmare—and suddenly the earth gave way beneath his feet. Before he hit bottom, he realized that he had stepped on a mat of branches concealing a deep pit. The fall did not knock him senseless: the earth at the bottom of the pit was soft from the rain. He stood up, felt his arms, his legs, his aching shoulder. He fumbled about for Rufino’s knife, which had fallen out of his belt, and the thought occurred to him that he had had a chance to plunge it into Rufino. He tried to climb out of the hole, but his feet slipped and he fell back in. He sat down on the wet dirt, leaned back against the wall, and, with a feeling of something like relief, dropped off to sleep. He was awakened by a faint rustling of branches and leaves being trampled underfoot. He was about to give a shout when he felt a puff of air go past his shoulder and in the semidarkness saw a wooden dart bury itself in the dirt.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he yelled. “I’m a friend, a friend.”

There were murmurs, voices, and he went on shouting till a lighted length of wood was thrust into the hole and he dimly made out human heads behind the flame. They were armed men, camouflaged in long cloaks made of woven grass. Several hands reached down and pulled him to the surface. There was a look of rapturous excitement on Galileo Gall’s face as the
jagunços
examined him from head to foot by the light of torches sputtering in the dampness left by the recent rain. With their caparisons of grass, their cane whistles around their necks, their carbines, their machetes, their crossbows, their bandoleers, their rags, their scapulars and medals with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, they looked as though they were in disguise. As they peered at him, sniffed at him, with expressions that betrayed their surprise at coming upon this creature whom they were unable to classify as belonging to any of the varieties of humans known to them, Galileo Gall asked insistently to be taken to Canudos: he could be of service to them, help the Counselor, explain to them the machinations of corrupt bourgeois politicians and military officers of which they were victims. He gesticulated violently so as to lend emphasis and eloquence to his words and fill in the gaps in his faltering Portuguese, looking first at one and then at another, wild-eyed with excitement; he had had long experience as a revolutionary, comrades, he had fought many a time at the side of the people, he wanted to share their destiny.

“Praised be the Blessed Jesus,” he seemed to hear someone say.

Were they making fun of him? He began to stammer, to trip over his words, to struggle against the feeling of helplessness that was coming over him little by little as he realized that the things he was saying were not exactly the ones he wanted to say, the ones that they might have been able to understand. He was demoralized, above all, on seeing by the flickering light of the torches that the
jagunços
were exchanging knowing glances and gestures, and smiling at him pityingly, revealing mouths with either teeth missing or a tooth or two too many. Yes, what he was saying sounded like nonsense, but they had to believe him! He had had incredible difficulties getting to Canudos, but was here now to help them. Thanks to them, a fire that the oppressor believed to have been extinguished in the world had been rekindled. He fell silent again, disconcerted, disheartened by the complacent attitude of the men in the grass cloaks, who showed no signs of anything save curiosity and compassion. He stood there with outstretched hands and felt tears well up in his eyes. What was he doing here? How had he managed to fall into this trap, from which there was no escape, believing the while that he was contributing his mite to the great undertaking of making the world a less barbarous place? Someone said helpfully that he mustn’t be afraid: those people he spoke of were nothing but Freemasons, Protestants, servants of the Antichrist, and the Counselor and the Blessed Jesus had more power than they did. The man who was speaking had a long, narrow face and beady eyes, and pronounced each word slowly and distinctly: when the time came, a king called Sebastião would rise up out of the sea and ascend to Belo Monte. He mustn’t weep, the innocents had been brushed by the wings of the angel and the Father would bring him back to life if the heretics killed him. He would have liked to answer that they were right, that beneath the deceptive verbal formulas they used to express themselves, he was able to hear the overwhelmingly evident truth of a battle under way, between good, represented by the poor, the long-suffering, the despoiled, and evil, championed by the rich and their armies, and that once this battle had ended, an era of universal brotherhood would begin. But he was unable to find the right words and could feel them sympathetically patting him on the back now to console him, for they could see that he was sobbing. He half understood a few words and bits of phrases: the kiss of the elect, someday he’d be rich, he should pray.