Raised from the Ground (27 page)

The meeting is in Terra Fria. Places are given names doubtless for some comprehensible reason, but to find out why this place was called Terra Fria, Cold Land, on a latifundio that is as hot in summer as it is cold in winter, you would have to go right back to the origins, and those, as lazy people say, are lost in the mists of time. Before they get to Terra Fria, Sigismundo Canastro and João Mau-Tempo will meet at Atalaia hill, not on the very top, of course, they wouldn’t want to make themselves too visible, although in this particular area and on this occasion, the latifundio is not exactly as busy as the main square in Évora. They will meet in the dense woods at the foot of the hill. Sigismundo Canastro knows the place well, João Mau-Tempo less well, but all roads lead to Rome. And they will travel on to Terra Fria together, along paths that God never walked and along which the devil would walk only if forced to.

There is no one on the circular balcony of the sky, which is the angels’ usual viewing platform above the horizon whenever there is any significant activity on the latifundio. This is the great and fatal mistake made by the heavenly hosts, they measure everything against the crusade. They ignore small patrols, bold sorties, like these tiny dots, the volunteers for this mission, two men here, another farther off, another up ahead and another as yet far away and lagging behind, but all converging, even when they seem not to be, on a place that has no name in heaven, but which down here on earth is called Terra Fria. Perhaps above, in the peaceful empyrean, they think these humans are merely going to work, though there’s none to be had, as even heaven must know thanks to the occasional messages sent by Father Agamedes, and it’s true that the meeting is work-related. This is a different kind of work, however, and such a great responsibility that João Mau-Tempo will ask Sigismundo Canastro when he meets him and they have taken their first few steps together, or when he has finally managed to overcome his shyness, Do you think they’ll accept me, and Sigismundo Canastro will answer, with the confidence of someone older and more experienced, You’ve been accepted already, you wouldn’t be coming with me today if there was any doubt.

One man has come on his bike. He will hide it in the bushes, in some easily identifiable place, just in case he gets disoriented afterward and can’t find it. No need, of course, to worry about number plates, if he was in a car, the guards might stop him out of sheer pigheadedness or because they felt a sudden twinge of suspicion, Where are you going, where have you come from, show me your license, and that wouldn’t be good, this man happens to be called Silva, but he’s also Manuel Dias da Costa, Silva to those he’s going to meet in Terra Fria, Manuel Dias da Costa to the guards, with a different name in the registry office and known by a different name again to Father Agamedes, who baptized him far from here. There are those who say that without a name we wouldn’t know who we are, which seems a perceptive and philosophical view to take, but this man Silva or Manuel Dias da Costa pedaling along a muddy cart track, for he’s now left the road where the guards occasionally appear or else don’t appear for days on end, but you never know, your guess is as good as ours, this cyclist is utterly at peace with his soul, quite untouched by these subtle questions of identity. Although that’s not quite true, he is actually far more certain of who he is than of the documents that name him. And since he is a thoughtful fellow, he thinks how odd it is that the guards put more faith in a piece of stamped paper, worn thin from being unfolded and refolded, than in what they can actually see, a man and his bicycle, All right, on your way, but as the man puts his foot on the pedal and presses down, he thinks that it would be best not to come this way again in the near future, this is his first time here, and he’s been lucky, no one has ordered him to stop.

Some come by train, getting off at São Torcato, on the Setil line, or at Vendas Novas, or even Montemor, if the meeting is being held in Terra da Torre, and at the nearer stations if they’re meeting in Terra Fria. It’s just a hop and a jump for anyone coming from São Geraldo, but anyone leaving São Geraldo on similar business today will have gone farther afield, and this is not just chance, but doubtless in accordance with very sensible rules. It’s midmorning now and there’s no bicycle to be seen, the trains are far away somewhere, you can hear them whistling, and a red kite is hovering over Terra Fria, a lovely sight to see, but even lovelier is first seeing it and then hearing its cry, the thin, piping call that no one can quite put into words, but when we hear it, we immediately want to say what it sounded like and can’t, there’s no shortage of singing birds, but that cry of the red kite is different, so wild it almost sends a shiver down your spine, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that if you heard it often enough, you would sprout wings yourself, well, stranger things have happened. Hovering high up, the red kite drops its head a little, the smallest of movements, because it doesn’t need to be that tiny bit closer to see, we’re the ones troubled by myopia and astigmatism, a word that should be used with caution on the latifundio, in case the angels mistake it for stigmatism and rush to the balcony expecting to see Francis of Assisi and finding instead a red kite calling and five men approaching Terra Fria, some nearer, some farther off. Only the red kite sees them from on high, but it’s never been a telltale.

The first to arrive were Sigismundo Canastro and João Mau-Tempo, who have made a special effort to be early because one of them is new. While they waited, sitting in the sun so as not to get too cold, Sigismundo Canastro said, If you take off your hat, always place it on the ground crown uppermost, Why, asked João Mau-Tempo, and Sigismundo Canastro replied, So as not to reveal your name, we shouldn’t know each other’s names, But I know yours, Yes, but don’t say it, the other comrades will do the same, it’s just in case anyone should be arrested, if we don’t know each other’s names, we’re safe. They talked of other things too, just for talking’s sake, but João Mau-Tempo was still thinking about how careful they had to be, and when the man with the bicycle arrived, he realized at once that here was someone whose real name he would never know, perhaps because of the great respect with which he was treated by Sigismundo Canastro, who nevertheless addressed him as
tu,
but then perhaps that was the most respectful thing he could do. This is our new comrade, said Sigismundo Canastro, and the man with the bicycle held out his hand, it wasn’t the large, coarse hand of an agricultural worker, but strong and with a firm grip, Comrade, the word is not a new one, that’s what one’s work colleagues are, but it’s like saying
tu,
it’s the same and, at the same time, so utterly different that João Mau-Tempo’s knees buckle and his throat tightens, which is odd in a man past forty who has seen a great deal of life. The three men chat together while they wait for the others to arrive, We’ll wait half an hour, and if they don’t come, we’ll start anyway, and at some point João Mau-Tempo takes off his hat and, before putting it down on the ground, crown uppermost as Sigismundo Canastro had recommended, he quickly looked inside it and saw his name written on the band, in the hatter’s fine lettering, as was the custom in the provinces at the time, whereas city folk were already favoring anonymity. The man with the bicycle, as we know him, although João Mau-Tempo assumes that he has come all the way on foot, the man with the bicycle is wearing a beret, which might or might not have his name in it, and if it did, what would it be, after all, you can buy berets at markets and from cheap tailors who don’t take such pride in their craft and have no tools for doing poker work or gilding, and who don’t care whether their client loses a beret or finds it.

The other two men arrived within a few minutes of each other. They had all met on other occasions, apart from João Mau-Tempo, who was there as the prime exhibit, if you like, and at whom the others stared long and hard in order to memorize his face, which was easy enough, you certainly wouldn’t forget those blue eyes. The man with the bicycle asked gravely and simply for better punctuality in future, although he recognized that it was hard to calculate precisely how long it would take to cover such long distances. I myself arrived after these two comrades, and I should have been here first. Then money was handed over, only a few coins, and each man received small bundles of pamphlets, and if names had been permitted, or if the red kite had overheard and repeated them, or if the hats had sneaked a furtive look at the names on each other’s respective hatbands, we would have heard, These are for you, Sigismundo Canastro, these are for you, Francisco Petinga, these are for you, João dos Santos, none for you this time, João Mau-Tempo, you just help Sigismundo Canastro, and now tell me what’s been happening. The person he addressed was Francisco Petinga, who said, The bosses have found a new way of paying us less, when they have to take us on by order of the workers’ association,
^*
they dismiss us all on the Saturday, every single one of us, and say, On Monday, go to the workers’ association and tell them I said I want the same workers back, that’s the boss speaking, and the result is that we waste all of Monday going to the workers’ association, and the boss only has to start paying us on Tuesday, what are we supposed to do about that. Then João dos Santos said, Where I live, the workers’ associations are in cahoots with the bosses, if they weren’t, they wouldn’t act the way they do, they send us off to work, we go where we’re sent, but the bosses won’t accept us, and so back we go to the workers’ association, but they won’t accept us either and tell us to leave, and that’s the way things stand now, the bosses won’t accept our labor, and the workers’ association either has no power to force them to or is simply having fun at our expense, what are we supposed to do about that. Sigismundo Canastro said, The workers who do get jobs are earning sixteen escudos for working from dawn to dusk, while many can’t get any work at all, but we’re all of us starving, because sixteen escudos doesn’t buy you anything, the bosses are just playing with us, they have work for us to do, but they’re allowing the estates to go to rack and ruin and doing nothing about it, we should occupy the land, and if we die, we die, I know you say that would be suicide, but what’s happening now is suicide too, I bet there’s not a man here can boast of having eaten anything you might call supper, it’s not just a matter of feeling downhearted, we must do something. The other men nodded their agreement, they could feel their stomachs gnawing, it was past midday, and it occurred to them that perhaps they could eat the bit of bread and scrape they had brought with them, but at the same time they felt ashamed to have so little, though they were all equally familiar with such dearth. The man with the bicycle is wearing clothes so threadbare that it’s as plain as day he has no lunch concealed in his pockets, and what we know and the others don’t is that the ants could walk up and down his bicycle all they liked, but they wouldn’t find a single crumb, anyway, the man with the bicycle turned to João Mau-Tempo and asked, And what about you, do you have anything to add, this unexpected question startled the novice, I don’t know, I have nothing to say, and he said no more, but the other men sat silently looking at him, and he couldn’t let the situation continue like that, five grave-faced men sitting under an oak tree, and so, for lack of anything else to say, he added, When there is work, we wear ourselves out working day and night, and still we starve, I keep a few bits of land they give us to cultivate, and I work until late into the night, but now there’s no paid work to be had, and what I want to know is why are things like this and will it be like this until we die, there can be no justice as long as some have everything and others nothing, and all I want to say really is that you can count on me, comrades, that’s all.

Each man gave his arguments, they are sitting so still that from a distance they look like statues, and now they are waiting to hear what the man with the bicycle will say and what he’s already saying. As before, he speaks first to the men as a group, then to Francisco Petinga, then to João dos Santos, more briefly to Sigismundo Canastro and then at length to João Mau-Tempo, as if he were putting together stones to make a pavement or a bridge, a bridge more like, because over it will pass years, footsteps, heavy loads, and below it lies an abyss. From here, it’s like watching a dumb show, we see only gestures, and there are few enough of those, everything depends on the word and the stress laid upon it, and on the gaze too, but from here, we cannot even make out João Mau-Tempo’s intensely blue eyes. We don’t have the keen vision of the red kite, which is still circling around, hovering over the oak tree, sometimes dropping down whenever the air current slackens, and then with a slow, languid beat of its wings rising up again in order to take in the near and the far, this and that, the excesses of the latifundio and just the right measure of patience.

The meeting has ended. The first to leave is the man with the bicycle, and then, in a single expansive movement, like a sun exploding, the other men head off to their respective destinations, at first keeping within sight of each other, as they would know if they were to turn around and look, which they don’t, that’s another of the rules, and then they are hidden, they don’t hide, but are hidden by a dip or vanish into the distance behind a hill, or simply into the distance and the intense cold, which they are aware of now, and which makes them screw up their eyes, you have to look where you’re putting your feet too, you can’t just amble along willy-nilly. The red kite utters a loud cry, which echoes throughout the celestial vault, then it moves northward, while the startled angels rush to the window, bumping into each other, only to find no one there.