Captains of the Sands (6 page)

“I can, sure. The one I’m waiting for isn’t coming now.”

“Then what I want, boy, is for you to go to the Rua Rui Barbosa. Number thirty-five. Look for Gastão. He’s on the second floor. Tell him I’m waiting.”

Cat left in humiliation. First he thought about not going and never coming back to see Dalva. But then he decided to go so he could get a close look at the flute player, who’d had the nerve to abandon such a pretty woman. He reached the building (a dark tenement with many floors), he went up the stairs, on the second floor he asked a boy sleeping in the hallway which was Mr. Gastão’s room. The boy pointed to the last apartment. Cat knocked on the door. The flutist came to open it, he was in his shorts and Cat saw a woman in the bed. They were both drunk:

“Dalva sent me.”

“Tell that bag to stop bothering me. I’ve had it up to here with her…” and he put his open hand onto his throat.

From inside the room the woman spoke:

“Who’s that little pimp?”

“Keep out of this,” the flutist said, but then he added, “It’s a message from that bag Dalva. She’s in a tizzy because I haven’t come back.”

The woman gave off a sottish drunken laugh:

“But you only love your little Bebé now, don’t you? Come give me a kiss, you angel without wings.”

The flutist also laughed:

“See, squirt? Tell that to Dalva.”

“I see an old whore stretched out there, yes, sir. What undertaker fixed you up with her, eh, buddy?”

The flutist looked at him very seriously:

“Don’t talk about my girlfriend,” and then, “Do you want a drink? It’s first-class stuff.”

Cat went in. The woman on the bed covered herself. The flutist laughed:

“It’s just a kid. Don’t be afraid.”

“That old whore doesn’t tempt me,” Cat said. “Not even to jerk me off.”

He drank the cane liquor. The flutist had already gone back
to the bed and was kissing the woman. They didn’t see that Cat was leaving and was taking the prostitute’s purse, which had been left on the chair on top of her clothes. On the street Cat counted sixty-eight
milreis
. He threw the purse under the stairs and put the money into his pocket. And he whistled on his way to Dalva’s street.

Dalva was waiting for him by the window. Cat looked straight at her:

“I’m coming in…” and he went in without waiting for an answer.

Dalva, still in the hallway, asked him:

“What did he say?”

Cat replied:

“Sit here,” and he pointed to the bed.

“This kid…” she murmured.

“Look, sweety, he’s tied up with another woman, see? I told them both off too. Then I skinned the old whore,” he put his hand into his pocket, took out the money. “Let’s split it.”

“So he’s with someone else, eh? But my Lord of Bonfim will cripple them both. The Lord of Bonfim is my patron saint.”

She went over to where she had the religious picture. She made her vow and came back.

“Keep your money. You earned it fair and square.”

Cat repeated:

“Sit down, here.”

This time she sat down, he grabbed her and put her down on the bed. Then she moaned with love and from the little slaps he gave her, and murmured:

“This kid is like a man…” He got up, smoothed his pants, went over to where the picture of Gastão the flutist was, and tore it up.

“I’m going to get a picture taken for you to put up there.”

The woman laughed and said:

“Come here, my little devil. What a hoodlum you’re going to be. I’ll teach you lots of things, my little puppy.”

She closed the door of the room. Cat took his clothes off.

That’s why Cat leaves every midnight and doesn’t sleep in
the warehouse. He only returns in the morning to go out with the others for the day’s adventures.

Legless went over and teased him:

“Now you’ll show me the ring, eh?”

“What do you care about that?” Cat was smoking a cigarette. “You just wanted to come to see if you could run across a woman who’d love you, crippled the way you are, right?”

“I don’t go to whorehouses. I know where things worth the trouble are.”

But Cat wasn’t in a mood for chatting and Legless continued his wandering about the warehouse.

Legless leaned up against a wall and let time pass. He watched Cat leave around eleven-thirty. He smiled because he’d washed his face, put grease on his hair, and was walking with that sway that hoodlums and sailors have. Then Legless spent a long time looking at the sleeping children. There were fifty of them, more or less, with no father, no mother, no master. All they had for themselves was the freedom to run in the streets. They didn’t always lead an easy life, getting what they needed to eat and wear by carrying baggage, stealing wallets and hats, holding up people, sometimes begging. And the gang was made up of more than a hundred children, because a lot of others didn’t sleep in the warehouse. They spread out in the doorways of the tall buildings, on the docks, in overturned boats on the sands of the Pôrto da Lenha, where the firewood came in. None of them complained. Sometimes one of them would die from an illness they couldn’t treat. When Father José Pedro dropped by at the right time, or the
mãe-de-santo
priestess Don’Aninha, or God’s-Love too, the patient had some relief. Never what a child would have at home, however, Legless was thinking. And he found that the joy of that freedom was slight when compared to the misfortune of that life.

He turned around because he heard some movement. Someone was getting up in the middle of the building. Legless recognized the little black boy Outrigger, who was stealthily going to the sands outside the warehouse. Legless thought he was going to hide something he’d stolen and didn’t want to show
his comrades. And that was a crime against the laws of the gang. Legless followed Outrigger, crossing over the sleepers. The black boy had already gone through the warehouse door and was turning around the left side of the building. The starry sky was above. Outrigger was walking fast now. Legless noticed that he was going to the other end of the warehouse, where the sand was even finer. He went around the other side then and got there in time to see Outrigger meeting a shape. Then he recognized him: it was Almiro, a gang member, twelve years old, fat, and lazy. They lay down together, the black boy caressing Almiro. Legless managed to hear some words: “my little boy, my little boy.” Legless drew back and his anguish grew. All of them were looking for affection, anything out of that life: the Professor in those books he read all night long, Cat in the bed of a prostitute who gave him money, Lollipop in the prayers that transfigured him, Outrigger and Almiro with love on the sands of the waterfront. Legless felt the anguish coming over him and it was impossible to sleep. If he slept he would see those bad dreams of jail. He wanted someone to appear whom he could torture with wisecracks. He was looking for a fight. He thought of scratching a match on the leg of someone sleeping. But when he looked at the warehouse door he only felt sorrow and a crazy urge to flee. And he ran along the sand, running aimlessly, fleeing from his anguish.

Pedro Bala awoke because of a noise nearby. He was sleeping on his stomach and he peeked under his arms. He saw a boy getting up and cautiously approaching Lollipop’s corner. Pedro Bala, half asleep as he was, thought it was a matter of pederasty at first. And he remained alert so as to expel the passive member from the gang, because one of the rules of the gang was that they would not admit passive pederasts. But he woke up completely and then he remembered that Lollipop wasn’t anything like that. It must have been a case of theft. In fact, the boy was already opening Lollipop’s trunk. Pedro Bala leaped on top of him. The struggle was quick. Lollipop woke up but the others kept on sleeping.

“Were you stealing from a comrade?”

The other boy remained silent, rubbing his wounded jaw. Pedro Bala went on:

“You leave tomorrow…I don’t want you with our people anymore. You can go with Ezequiel’s people, who live by stealing from one another.”

“I only wanted to see…”

“What did you come to see with your hands?”

“I swear, it was only to take a look at the medal he has.”

“Let’s have the straight story or I’ll give you a licking.”

Lollipop intervened:

“Leave him alone, Pedro. He just may have come to take a look at the medal. It’s a medal Father José gave me.”

“That’s the one,” the boy said, “I just wanted to take a look. I swear,” but he was trembling with fear. He knew that life for someone expelled from the Captains of the Sands was hard. Either he joined Ezequiel’s gang, who spend all day in jail, or he ended up in the Reformatory.

Lollipop intervened again and Pedro Bala went back beside the Professor. Then the boy said with a still trembling voice:

“I’m going to tell it so you’ll know. It was a girl I saw today. She was in the Cidade de Palha. I’d gone into a store with the idea of lifting a jacket, when she came over and asked me what I wanted. Then we started to talk. I told her I’d bring her a present tomorrow. Because she was good, real good to me, see?” and now he was shouting and seemed enraged.

Lollipop took the medal the priest had given him, looking at it. Suddenly he held it out to the boy:

“Take it. Give it to her. But don’t tell Pedro Bala.”

Dry Gulch came into the warehouse during the wee small hours. The backlands mulatto’s hair was disheveled. He was wearing canvas shoes, the same as when he’d come out of the underbrush. His gloomy face came into the building. He passed over the body of Big João. He spat in front of himself, rubbed his foot over it. He was carrying a newspaper under his arm. He looked all over, searching for someone. He grasped the newspaper with his large callused hands, then he saw where the Professor was. And without any thought about the lateness of the hour he went over to him and started calling him:

“Professor…Professor…”

“What is it?” the Professor was half asleep.

“I want something.”

The Professor sat up. Dry Gulch’s gloomy face was half invisible in the darkness.

“Oh, it’s you, Dry Gulch. What do you want?”

“I want you to read this so I can hear the news about Lampião that’s in the
Diário
. They’ve got his picture.”

“Let me read it to you tomorrow.”

“Read it today or tomorrow I’ll teach you the best way to imitate a canary.”

The Professor looked for a candle, lighted it, began to read the news in the paper. Lampião had gone into a village in the State of Bahia, had killed eight soldiers, deflowered virgins, sacked the coffers of the Town Hall. Dry Gulch’s gloomy face lighted up. His tight mouth relaxed into a smile. And, happy now, he left the Professor, who put out the candle, and went back to his corner. He was carrying the newspaper so he could cut out the picture of Lampião’s gang. Inside he had the joy of springtime.

They waited for the policeman to leave. He took his time, looking at the sky, observing the deserted street. The streetcar disappeared around the bend. It was the last streetcar on the Brotas line that night. The policeman lighted a cigarette. With the wind that was blowing it took three matches. Then he raised the collar of his coat because it was a damp chill that the wind was bringing in from the farmlands where mango trees and sapodillas swayed. The three boys were waiting for the policeman to go away so they could cross the street and enter the unpaved alley. God’s-Love had been unable to come. He’d spent the whole afternoon at the Gate of the Sea waiting for the man who didn’t come. If he’d come it would have been easier because he wouldn’t argue with God’s-Love because he owed the
capoeira
fighter a lot. But he hadn’t come, the information was wrong, and God’s-Love already had a trip set up for that night. He was going to Itaparica. During the afternoon they’d practiced
capoeira
. Cat showed the promise of being a fighter in time, capable of mixing with God’s-Love himself. Pedro Bala had a lot of skill too. The least agile of the three was black Big João, very good in a fight where he could use his enormous physical strength. Even so, he learned enough to free himself from someone stronger than he. When they got tired they went into the main room. They ordered four drinks
and Cat took a deck of cards out of his pants pocket. An old greasy deck with thick cards. God’s-Love was sure the man would come, the fellow who’d given him the information was a guy to be trusted. It was a deal that would bring in a lot and God’s-Love preferred calling on the Captains of the Sands, his friends, rather than on some waterfront lowlife. He knew that the Captains of the Sands were worth more than a lot of men and they kept their mouths shut. The Gate of the Sea was almost deserted at that hour. Only two sailors from a bay ship were drinking beer in the rear and talking. Cat put the deck on the table and proposed:

“Who’s ready for a round?”

God’s-Love looked at the cards:

“They’re more than just marked, Mr. Cat. A pretty old deck…”

“If you’ve got another one it’s all the same to me.”

“No. Let’s go along with these here.”

They began the game. Cat laid two cards down face up on the table, the others bet on one, the dealer stayed with the other. At first Pedro Bala and God’s-Love won. Big João wasn’t playing (he was only too familiar with Cat’s deck), he only looked on, laughing with his white teeth when God’s-Love said he was lucky that day because it was the feast of Xangô, his saint. He knew that luck would only last for the start and that when Cat began to win he’d never stop. At a certain moment Cat began to win. When he won the first time he said with a half-sad voice: