The War Of The End Of The World (27 page)

She sighs once again, then kisses the beads of her rosary with fervent devotion. She looks at Rufino, who hasn’t moved or raised his head. “Many people have gone off to Canudos,” she says in a gentler tone of voice. “Apostles have come. I would have gone, too. But I stayed because I knew you’d come back. The world’s going to end, my son. That’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. That’s why what’s happened has happened. Now I can leave. Will my legs hold up for such a long journey? The Father will decide. It is He who decides everything.”

She falls silent, and after a moment Rufino leans over and kisses her hand again. “It’s a very long journey and I advise you not to make it, Mother,” he says. “There’s fighting, fires, nothing to eat on the way. But if that’s your wish, go ahead. Whatever you do will always be the right thing to do. And forget what Caifás told you. Don’t grieve or feel ashamed on that account.”

When the Baron de Canabrava and his wife disembarked at the Navy Yard of Salvador, after an absence of several months, they could judge from the reception they received how greatly the strength of the once-all-powerful Bahia Autonomist Party and of its leader and founder had declined. In bygone days, when he was a minister of the Empire or the plenipotentiary in London, and even in the early years of the Republic, the baron’s returns to Bahia were always the occasion for great celebrations. All the notables of the city and any number of landowners hastened to the port, accompanied by servants and relatives carrying welcome banners. The city officials always came, and there was a band and children from parochial schools with bouquets of flowers for Baroness Estela. The banquet was held in the Palace of Victory, with the governor as master of ceremonies, and dozens of guests applauded the toasts, the speeches, and the inevitable sonnet that a local bard recited in honor of the returning couple.

But this time there were no more than two hundred people at the Navy Yard to applaud the baron and baroness when they landed, and there was not a single municipal or military or ecclesiastical dignitary among them. As Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio and the deputies Eduardo Glicério, Rocha Seabra, Lélis Piedades, and João Seixas de Pondé—the committee appointed by the Autonomist Party to receive their leader—stepped up to shake the baron’s hand and kiss the baroness’s, from the expressions on their faces one would have thought they were attending a funeral.

The baron and baroness, however, gave no sign that they noticed what a different reception they were receiving this time. They behaved exactly as always. As the baroness smilingly showed the bouquets to her inseparable personal maid Sebastiana, as though she were amazed at having been given them, the baron bestowed backslaps and embraces on his fellow party members, relatives, and friends who filed past to welcome him. He greeted them by name, inquired after their wives, thanked them for having taken the trouble to come meet him. And every so often, as though impelled by some intimate necessity, he repeated that it was always a joy to return to Bahia, to be back with this sun, this clean air, these people. Before climbing into the carriage that awaited them at the pier, driven by a coachman in livery who bowed repeatedly on catching sight of them, the baron bade everyone farewell with both arms upraised. Then he seated himself opposite the baroness and Sebastiana, whose skirts were full of flowers. Adalberto de Gumúcio sat down next to him and the carriage started up the Ladeira da Conceição da Praia, blanketed in luxuriant greenery. Soon the travelers could see the sailboats in the bay, the Fort of São Marcelo, the market, and any number of blacks and mulattoes in the water catching crabs.

“Europe is always an elixir of youth,” Gumúcio congratulated them. “You look ten years younger than when you left.”

“I owe that more to the ship crossing than to Europe,” the baroness said. “The three most restful weeks of my life!”

“You, on the other hand, look ten years older.” The baron looked out the little window at the majestic panorama of the sea and the island spread out wider and wider as the carriage climbed higher, ascending the Ladeira de São Bento now, heading for the upper town. “Are things as bad as all that?”

“Worse than you can possibly imagine.” He pointed to the port. “We wanted to have a big turnout, to stage a great public demonstration. Everybody promised to bring people, even from the interior. We were counting on thousands. And you saw how many there were.”

The baron waved to some fish peddlers who had removed their straw hats on seeing the carriage pass by the seminary.

“It’s not polite to talk politics in the presence of ladies. Or don’t you consider Estela a lady?” the baron chided his friend in a mock-serious tone of voice.

The baroness laughed, a tinkling, carefree laugh that made her seem younger. She had chestnut hair and very white skin, and hands with slender fingers that fluttered like birds. She and her maidservant, an amply curved brunette, gazed in rapture at the dark blue sea, the phosphorescent green of the shoreline, the blood-red rooftops.

“The only person whose absence is justified is the governor,” Gumúcio said, as though he hadn’t heard. “We were the ones responsible for that. He wanted to come, along with the Municipal Council. But the situation being what it is, it’s better that he remain
au-dessus de la mêlée
. Luiz Viana is still a loyal supporter.”

“I brought you an album of horse engravings,” the baron said, to raise his friend’s spirits. “I presume that political troubles haven’t caused you to lose your passion for equines, Adalberto.”

On entering the upper town, on their way to the Nazareth district, the recently arrived couple put on their best smiles and devoted their attention to returning the greetings of people passing by. Several carriages and a fair number of horsemen, some of them having come up from the port and others who had been waiting at the top of the cliff, escorted the baron through the narrow cobblestone streets, amid curious onlookers standing crowded together on the sidewalks or coming out onto the balconies or poking their heads out of the donkey-drawn streetcars to watch them pass. The Canabravas lived in a town house faced with tiles imported from Portugal, a roof of round red Spanish-style tiles, wrought-iron balconies supported by strong-breasted caryatids, and a façade topped by four ornaments in gleaming yellow porcelain: two bushy-maned lions and two pineapples. The lions appeared to be keeping an eye on the boats arriving in the bay and the pineapples to be proclaiming the splendor of the city to seafarers. The luxuriant garden surrounding the mansion was full of coral trees, mangoes, crotons, and ficus sighing in the breeze. The house had been disinfected with vinegar, perfumed with aromatic herbs, and decorated with large vases of flowers to receive its owners. In the doorway, servants in white balloon pants and little black girls in red aprons and kerchiefs stood clapping their hands to greet them. The baroness began to say a few words to them as the baron, taking his place in the entryway, bade those escorting him goodbye. Only Gumúcio and the deputies Eduardo Glicério, Rocha Seabra, Lélis Piedades, and João Seixas de Pondé came inside the house with him. As the baroness went upstairs, followed by her personal maid, the men crossed the foyer, an anteroom with pieces of furniture in wood, and the baron opened the doors of a room lined with shelves full of books, overlooking the garden. Some twenty men fell silent as they saw him enter the room. Those who were seated rose to their feet and all of them applauded.

The first to embrace him was Governor Luiz Viana. “It wasn’t my idea not to appear at the port,” he said. “In any event, you see here before you the governor and each and every member of the Municipal Council, your obedient servants.”

He was a forceful man, with a prominent bald head and an aggressive paunch, who did not trouble to conceal his concern. As the baron greeted those present, Gumúcio closed the door. There was more cigar smoke than air in the room. Pitchers of fruit punch had been set out on a table, and as there were not enough chairs to seat everyone, some of the men were perched on chair arms and others were standing leaning against the bookshelves. The baron slowly made his way around the room, greeting each man. When he finally sat down, there was a glacial silence. The men looked at him and their eyes betrayed not only concern but also a mute plea, an anxious trustfulness. The expression on the baron’s face, until that moment a jovial one, grew graver as he looked about at the others’ funereal countenances.

“I can see that the situation is such that it wouldn’t be apropos to inform you whether or not the carnival in Nice is the equal of ours,” he said, very seriously, his gaze seeking Luiz Viana’s. “Let’s begin with the worst that’s happened. What is it?”

“A telegram that arrived at the same time you did,” the governor murmured from an armchair he appeared to be buried in. “Rio has decided to intervene militarily in Bahia, after a unanimous vote in Congress. A regiment of the Federal Army has been sent to attack Canudos.”

“In other words, the federal government and the Congress are officially accepting the view that a conspiracy is afoot,” Adalberto de Gumúcio interrupted him. “In other words, the Sebastianist fanatics are seeking to restore the Empire, with the aid of the Count of Eu, the monarchists, England, and, naturally, the Bahia Autonomist Party. All the humbug churned out by the Jacobin breed suddenly turned into the official truth of the Republic.”

The baron showed no sign of alarm. “Intervention by the Federal Army comes as no surprise to me,” he said. “At this juncture it was inevitable. What does surprise me is this business of Canudos. Two expeditions roundly defeated!” He gestured in amazement, his eyes seeking Viana’s. “I don’t understand, Luiz. Those madmen should have been either left in peace or wiped out the first time round. I can’t fathom why the government botched so badly, let those people become a national problem, freely handed our enemies a gift like that…”

“Five hundred troops, two cannons, two machine guns—does that strike you as a paltry force to send against a band of scalawags and religious fanatics?” Luiz Viana answered heatedly. “Who could have imagined that with strength like that Febrônio de Brito could be hacked to pieces by a few poor devils?”

“It’s true that a conspiracy exists, but it’s not our doing,” Adalberto de Gumúcio interrupted him once more, with a worried frown and nervously clenched hands, and the thought crossed the baron’s mind that he had never seen him this deeply upset by a political crisis. “Major Febrônio is not as inept as he would have us believe. His defeat was a deliberate one, bargained for and decided in advance with the Jacobins in Rio de Janeiro, with Epaminondas Gonçalves as intermediary. So as to bring about the national scandal that they’ve been looking for ever since Floriano Peixoto left power. Haven’t they been continually inventing monarchist conspiracies since then so that the army will adjourn the Congress and set up a Dictatorial Republic?”

“Save your conjectures for later, Adalberto,” the baron interjected. “First I want to know exactly what’s been happening: the facts.”

“There aren’t any facts, only wild imaginings and the most incredible intrigues,” Deputy Rocha Seabra broke in. “They’re accusing us of stirring up the Sebastianists, of sending them arms, of plotting with England to restore the Empire.”

“The
Jornal de Notícias
has been accusing us of that and even worse things ever since the fall of Dom Pedro II,” the baron said with a smile, accompanied by a scornful wave of his hand.

“The difference is that now it’s not only the
Jornal de Notícias
but half of Brazil,” Luiz Viana put in. The baron saw him squirm nervously in his chair and wipe his bald head with his hand. “All of a sudden, in Rio, in São Paulo, in Belo Horizonte, all over the country, people are beginning to mouth the egregious nonsense and the calumnies invented by the Progressivist Republican Party.”

Several men spoke up at once and the baron motioned to them with upraised hands not to ride roughshod over each other. From between his friends’ heads he could see the garden, and though what he was hearing interested him and alarmed him, from the moment that he entered his study he had been wondering whether or not the chameleon was hiding among the trees—an animal that he had grown fond of as others conceive an affection for dogs or cats.

“We now know why Epaminondas organized the Rural Police,” Deputy Eduardo Glicério was saying. “So that it would furnish proof at the right moment. Of contraband rifles for the
jagunços
, and even of foreign spies.”

“Ah, you haven’t heard the latest news,” Adalberto de Gumúcio said on noting the intrigued expression on the baron’s face. “The height of the grotesque. An English secret agent in the backlands. His body was burned to a cinder when they found it, but he was English. How did they know? Because of his red hair! They exhibited it in the Rio parliament, along with rifles supposedly found alongside his corpse, in Ipupiará. Nobody will listen to us; in Rio, even our best friends are swallowing all this nonsense. The entire country is convinced that the Republic is endangered by Canudos.”