The War Of The End Of The World (12 page)

Epaminondas Gonçalves slowly puffs on his cigar. “Two dozen French rifles, good ones,” he murmurs, looking at Gall through the cigar smoke. “And ten thousand cartridges. Caifás will take you to the outskirts of Queimadas in the wagon. If you’re not too tired, it would be best to come back here with the arms tonight and then go straight on to Canudos tomorrow.”

Galileo Gall nods in agreement. He is tired, but all he needs is a few hours’ sleep to recuperate. There are so many flies on the terrace that he keeps one hand in front of his face to chase them away. Despite his fatigue, he is overjoyed; the wait was beginning to get on his nerves and he was afraid that Gonçalves might have changed his plans. This morning, when the horseman dressed all in leather came without warning to get him at the Our Lady of Grace boarding house and gave the proper password, he was so excited he even forgot to eat breakfast. He has made the journey here without having had a thing to eat or drink, with a scorching sun beating down all day.

“I’m sorry to have made you wait for so many days, but collecting the arms and getting them this far turned out to be a fairly complicated business,” Epaminondas Gonçalves says. “Did you see the campaigning going on for the municipal elections in any of the towns you passed through?”

“I saw that the Bahia Autonomist Party is spending more money on propaganda than you people are,” Gall says with a yawn.

“It has all it needs. Not only Viana’s money, but the government’s and the Bahia parliament’s as well. And above all, the baron’s.”

“The baron’s as rich as Croesus, isn’t that so?” Gall says, suddenly pricking up his ears. “An antediluvian character, an archaeological curiosity, there’s no doubt about it. I learned a number of things about him in Queimadas. From Rufino, the guide you recommended to me. His wife belonged to the baron. Yes, that’s the right word, she belonged to him, like a goat or a calf. He gave her to Rufino as a wife. Rufino himself speaks of the baron as though he, too, had always been property of his. Without resentment, with the gratitude of a faithful dog. Interesting, Senhor Gonçalves. It’s still the Middle Ages here.”

“That’s what we’re fighting against; that’s why we want to modernize this country,” Epaminondas says, blowing on the ash of his cigar. “That’s why the Empire fell, and that’s what the Republic is for.”

“It’s the
jagunços
, rather, who are fighting against the situation,” Galileo Gall mentally corrects him, feeling as though he is about to fall asleep from one moment to the next. Epaminondas Gonçalves rises to his feet. “What did you tell the guide?” he asks as he paces up and down the terrace. The crickets have started chirping and it is no longer stifling hot.

“The truth,” Gall says, and the owner and editor-in-chief of the
Jornal de Notícias
halts dead in his tracks. “I was careful not even to mention your name. I spoke only of myself. I told him I want to go to Canudos as a matter of principle. Out of ideological and moral solidarity.”

Epaminondas Gonçalves looks at him in silence and Galileo knows that the man is wondering whether he’s saying these things in all seriousness, whether he is really crazy enough or stupid enough to believe them. He thinks: “I
am
that crazy or that stupid,” as he waves his arms about to chase the flies away.

“Did you also tell him that you’ll be bringing them arms?”

“Of course not. He’ll find that out once we’re on the way there.”

Epaminondas goes back to pacing up and down the terrace again, with his hands behind his back, leaving a wake of smoke behind him. He is wearing a peasant shirt open at the neck, a vest without buttons, riding pants and boots, and looks as though he hasn’t shaved. His appearance is not at all the same as in the newspaper office or in the inn at Barra, but Gall nonetheless recognizes the stored-up energy in his movements, the determination and ambition in his expression, and thinks to himself that he doesn’t even need to palpate his bones to know what they are like: “A man hungry for power.” Does this hacienda belong to him? Is this manor house one lent to him for hatching his conspiracies?

“Once you’ve handed over the arms, don’t come by this way to get back to Salvador,” Epaminondas says, leaning on the balustrade with his back turned to him. “Have the guide take you to Juazeiro. It’s the prudent thing to do. There’s a train that comes through Juazeiro every other day, and it will get you back in Bahia in twelve hours. I’ll see to it that you leave for Europe inconspicuously and with a generous fee for your services.”

“A generous fee…” Gall repeats after him, with a huge yawn that comically distorts his face and his words. “You’ve always believed that I’m doing this for money.”

Epaminondas exhales a mouthful of smoke that drifts in arabesques across the terrace. In the distance, the sun is beginning to hide itself beneath the horizon and there are patches of shade in the surrounding countryside.

“No, I know quite well that you’re doing it as a matter of principle. In any event, I realize that you’re not doing it out of love for the Progressivist Republican Party. But we consider that you’re doing us a service, and we’re in the habit of paying for services rendered, as I’ve already told you.”

“I can’t promise you that I’ll go back to Bahia,” Gall interrupts him, stretching. “Our deal doesn’t include that clause.”

The owner and editor-in-chief of the
Jornal de Notícias
looks at him once more. “We won’t discuss it again.” He smiles. “You may do as you like. In a word, you now know what the best way is to get back to Bahia, and you also know that I can make it easy for you to get out of the country without the authorities stepping in and putting you on a boat. So if you prefer to stay with the insurgents, go ahead. Though I’m certain you’ll change your mind when you meet them.”

“I’ve already met one of them,” Gall murmurs in a slightly mocking tone of voice. “And by the way, would you mind sending this letter to France off for me from Bahia? It’s unsealed, and if you read French, you’ll see that there is nothing in it that might compromise you.”

He was born, like his parents, his grandparents, and his brother Honório, in the town of Assaré, in the state of Ceará, where the herds of cattle that were being driven to Jaguaribe and those headed for the Vale do Cariri parted company. The townspeople were all either fanners or cowhands, but from a very early age Antônio gave proof of a calling as a merchant. He began to make business deals in the catechism classes held by Father Matias (who also taught him his letters and numbers). Antônio and Honório Vilanova were very close, and addressed each other, very seriously, as
compadre
, like adults who have been lifelong cronies.

One morning Adelinha Alencar, the daughter of the carpenter of Assaré, woke up with a high fever. The herbs burned by Dona Camuncha to exorcise the evil had no effect, and a few days later Adeinha’s body broke out in pustules so ugly they turned the prettiest girl in town into its most repugnant creature. A week later half a dozen townspeople were delirious with fever and covered with pustules. Father Tobias managed to say a Mass asking God to put an end to the dread disease, before he, too, came down with it. Those who were ill began to die almost at once, as the epidemic spread uncontrollably. As the terrified inhabitants prepared to flee the town, they came up against Colonel Miguel Fernandes Vieira, the political boss of the town and the owner of the lands they cultivated and the cattle they took out to graze, who forbade them to leave, so that they would not spread the smallpox throughout the countryside. Colonel Vieira posted
capangas
at the exits of the town with orders to shoot anyone who disobeyed his edict.

Among the few who managed to flee the town were the two Vilanova brothers. Their parents, their sister Luz Maria, a brother-in-law, and three nephews in the family were carried off by the epidemic.

After burying all these kinfolk, Antônio and Honório, strong youngsters, both of them fifteen, with curly hair and blue eyes, made up their minds to escape from the town. But instead of confronting the
capangas
with knives and bullets, as others had, Antônio, faithful to his vocation, persuaded them to look the other way—in exchange for a young bull, a twenty-five-pound sack of refined sugar, and another of raw brown sugar. They left by night, taking with them two girl cousins of theirs—Antônio and Assunção Sardelinha—and the family’s worldly goods: two cows, a pack mule, a valise full of clothes, and a little purse containing ten milreis. Antônio and Assunção were double first cousins of the Vilanova boys, and Antônio and Honório took them along out of pity for their helplessness, for the smallpox epidemic had left them orphans. The girls were scarcely more than children and their presence made their escape across country difficult; they did not know how to make their way through scrub forest and found thirst hard to bear. The little expeditionary force nonetheless managed to cross the Serra do Araripe, left Santo Antônio, Ouricuri, Petrolina behind them, and crossed the Rio São Francisco. When they entered Juazeiro and Antônio decided that they would try their luck in that town in the state of Bahia, the two sisters were pregnant: Antônio by Antônio, and Assunção by Honório.

The very next day Antônio began working for money, while Honório, with the help of the Sardelinha girls, built a hut. They had sold on the way the cows they had taken with them from Assaré, but they still had the pack mule left, and Antônio loaded a containerful of brandy on its back and went about the city selling it by the drink. He was to load on the back of that mule, and then on another, and later on others still, the goods that, in the months and years that followed, he peddled, at first from house to house and after that in the outlying settlements, and finally throughout the length and breadth of the backhands, which he came to know like the palm of his hand. He dealt in salted codfish, rice, beans, sugar, pepper, brown sugar, lengths of doth, alcohol, and whatever else people asked him to supply them with. He became the purveyor to vast haciendas and to poor sharecroppers, and his mule trains became as familiar a sight as the Gypsy’s Circus in the villages, the missions, and the camps of the backhands. The general store in Juazeiro, in the Praça da Misericôrdia, was run by Honôrio and the Sardelinha sisters. Before ten years had gone by, people were saying that the Vilanovas were well on their way to becoming rich.

At this point the disaster that was to ruin the family for the second time overtook them. In good years, the rains began in December; in bad ones, in February or March. That year, by the time May came round, not a single drop of rain had fallen. The volume of water in the São Francisco diminished by two-thirds and barely sufficed to meet the needs of Juazeiro, whose population quadrupled with the influx of migrants from the interior.

That year Antônio Vilanova did not collect a single debt owed him, and all his customers, both the owners of large haciendas and poor people of the region, canceled their orders for goods. Even Calumbi, the Baron de Canabrava’s choicest estate, informed him that it would not buy so much as a handful of salt from him. Thinking to profit from bad times, Antônio had buried seed grain in wooden boxes wrapped in canvas in order to sell it when scarcity drove the price sky-high. But the disaster took on proportions that exceeded even his calculations. He soon realized that if he didn’t sell the seed he had hoarded immediately, there wouldn’t be a single customer for it, for people were spending what little money they had left on Masses, processions, and offerings (and everyone was eager to join the Brotherhood of Penitents, who wore hoods and flagellated themselves) so that God would send rain. He unearthed his boxes then: despite the canvas wrapping, the seeds had rotted. But Antônio never admitted defeat. He, Honório, the Sardelinha sisters, and even the children—one of his own and three of his brother’s—cleaned the seed as best they could and the following morning the town crier announced in the main square that through
force majeure
the Vilanova general store was selling its seed on hand at bargain prices. Antônio and Honôrio armed themselves and posted four servants with clubs in plain sight outside the store to keep buyers from getting out of hand. For the first hour, everything went well. The Sardelinha sisters handed out the seed at the counter while the six men held people back at the door, allowing only ten people at a time to enter the store. But soon it was impossible to control the mob, for people finally climbed over the barrier, tore down the doors and windows, and invaded the place. In a few minutes’ time, they had made off with everything inside, including the money in the cashbox. What they were unable to carry off with them they reduced to dust.

The devastation had lasted no more than half an hour, and although their losses were great, nobody in the family was injured. Honorio, Antônio, the Sardelinha sisters, and the children sat in the street watching as the looters withdrew from what had been the best-stocked store in the city. The women had tears in their eyes and the children, sitting scattered about on the ground, looked numbly at the remains of the beds they had slept in, the clothes they had worn, the toys they had played with. Antônio’s face was pale. “We have to start all over again,” Honório murmured. “Not in this city, though,” his brother answered.