The War Of The End Of The World (34 page)

“It’s not a dream I’ve just had recently,” the brigand added. “I used to have it as a child back in Cariri, long before I came to Bahia. And also when I was with Pajeú. Sometimes years go by and I don’t have that dream. And then, all of a sudden, I start having it again, every night.”

“Pajeú?” Gall said, looking at Toughbeard with a gleam in his eye. “The one with the scar? The one who…?”

“That’s right. Pajeú.” The
cangaceiro
nodded. “I was with him for five years, without our ever having words. He was the best when it came to fighting. The angel’s wing brushed him and he got converted. He’s now one of the elect of God, up there in Canudos.”

He shrugged, as though he found this difficult to understand, or as though it were a matter of complete indifference to him.

“Have you been to Canudos?” Gall asked. “Tell me about it. What’s happening up there? What’s it like?”

“You hear lots of things,” Toughbeard said, spitting. “That they killed a whole bunch of soldiers who’d come with some man named Febrônio. They strung them up on the trees. If a corpse isn’t buried, the Can takes off with it, people say.”

“Are they well armed?” Gall went on insistently. “Will they be able to hold out against another attack?”

“Yes, they will,” Toughbeard growled. “Pajeú’s not the only one up there. There’s also Abbot João, Taramela, Joaquim Macambira and his sons, Pedrão. The most fearful outlaws in these parts. They used to hate each other and kill each other. But now they’re brothers and fight for the Counselor. They’re going to go to heaven, despite their evil deeds. The Counselor pardoned them.”

The Bearded Lady, the Idiot, the Dwarf, and Jurema had sat down on the ground and were listening spellbound.

“The Counselor gives the pilgrims a kiss on the forehead,” Toughbeard added. “The Little Blessed One has them kneel and the Counselor lifts them to their feet and kisses them. That’s called the kiss of the elect. People weep for joy. Because once you’re an elect, you know that you’re going to go to heaven. What does death matter after that?”

“You should be in Canudos too,” Gall said. “They’re your brothers too. They’re fighting so that heaven will descend on earth. So that the hell that you’re so afraid of will disappear.”

“I’m not afraid of hell but of death,” Toughbeard corrected him, with no sign of anger in his voice. “Or to put it a better way, I’m afraid of the nightmare, the dream of death. That’s something different, don’t you see what I mean?”

He spat again, with a tortured look on his face. Suddenly he said to Jurema, pointing at Gall: “Doesn’t your husband ever dream of his skeleton?”

“He’s not my husband,” Jurema answered.

Big João entered Canudos at a run, his head in a whirl at the responsibility that had just been conferred upon him and that with each passing second seemed to him to be an honor not deserved by a poor sinner such as he, a person who sometimes believed himself to be possessed by the Dog (it was a fear that kept returning, like the seasons). But he had accepted, and he couldn’t back down now. He stopped as he reached the first houses, not knowing what to do. He had intended to go to Antônio Vilanova’s, to find out from him how to organize the Catholic Guard. But now his bewildered heart told him that what he needed most at this moment was not practical help but spiritual aid. It was dusk; the Counselor would soon be mounting to the tower; if he hurried, perhaps he could still find him in the Sanctuary. He began running again, through narrow winding streets crowded with men, women, and children who were leaving their houses, shanties, caves, holes, and flocking, as they did every evening, to the Temple of the Blessed Jesus to listen to the counsels. As he went by the Vilanovas’ store, he saw that Pajeú and some twenty men, equipped for a long journey, were bidding groups of their relatives goodbye. He had great difficulty making his way through the great throng overflowing the open ground adjoining the churches. Darkness was falling and here and there little lamps were already twinkling.

The Counselor was not in the Sanctuary. He had accompanied Father Joaquim as far as the exit on the road to Cumbe so as to say goodbye to the priest as he left town, and then, cradling the little white lamb with one hand and holding his shepherd’s crook in the other, he had stopped by the Health Houses to comfort the sick and the aged. Because of the great crowds that dogged his every footstep, these tours of Belo Monte were becoming more and more difficult for the Counselor with each passing day. This time the Lion of Natuba and the women of the Sacred Choir had gone with him to escort him, but the Little Blessed One and Maria Quadrado were there in the Sanctuary.

“I’m not worthy, Little Blessed One,” the former slave said from the doorway, his voice choking. “Praised be the Blessed Jesus.”

“I’ve prepared an oath for the Catholic Guard,” the Little Blessed One answered softly. “More solemn than the one taken by those who come to be saved. The Lion has written it out.” He handed Big João a piece of paper, which disappeared in his huge dark hands. “You are to learn it by heart and have each man you choose swear to obey it. Then, when the Catholic Guard is formed, they will all take it publicly in the Temple and we’ll have a procession.”

Maria Quadrado, who had been standing in one corner of the room, came over to them with a cloth and a vessel full of water. “Sit down, João,” she said tenderly. “Have a drink first, and then let me wash you.”

The black obeyed her. He was so tall that even sitting down he was the same height as the Mother Superior of the Sacred Choir. He drank thirstily. He was perturbed and drenched with sweat, and he closed his eyes as Maria Quadrado passed the cool damp cloth over his face, his neck, his kinky locks sprinkled with gray.

Suddenly he reached out an arm and clung to her. “Help me, Mother Maria Quadrado,” he implored, transfixed with fear. “I’m not worthy of this honor.”

“You’ve been the slave of one man,” she said, caressing him as though he were a child. “Will you not accept being the slave of the Blessed Jesus? He will help you, Big João.”

“I swear that I have not been a republican, that I do not accept the expulsion of the Emperor or his replacement by the Antichrist,” the Little Blessed One recited with intense devotion. “That I do not accept civil marriage or the separation of Church and State or the metric system. That I will not answer the census questions. That I will never again steal or smoke or drink or make wagers or fornicate out of vice. And that I will give my life for my religion and the Blessed Jesus.”

“I’ll learn it, Little Blessed One,” Big João stammered.

At that moment the Counselor arrived, preceded by a great din. Once the tall, dark, gaunt figure entered the Sanctuary, followed by the little lamb, the Lion of Natuba—a vague four-footed shape that seemed to be leaping about—and the Sacred Choir, the impatient clamor of voices continued on the other side of the door. The little lamb came over and licked Maria Quadrado’s ankles. The women of the Choir squatted down, their backs against the wall. The Counselor walked over to Big João, who was on his knees with his eyes fixed on the floor. He appeared to be trembling from head to foot; he had been with the Counselor for fifteen years now, and yet each time he was in his presence he still suddenly felt like a worthless creature, a worthless thing almost.

The Counselor took Big João’s two hands and obliged him to lift his head. The saint’s incandescent pupils stared into the depths of the ex-slave’s tear-filled eyes. “You are still suffering, Big João,” he said softly.

“I’m not worthy to watch over you,” the black sobbed. “Order me to do anything else you like. Kill me, if need be. I don’t want anything to happen to you through any fault of mine. Remember, Father, I’ve had the Dog in my flesh.”

“You will form the Catholic Guard,” the Counselor answered. “You will be in command of it. You have suffered a great deal, and you are suffering now. That is why you are worthy. The Father has said that the just man will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. You are a just man now, Big João.”

He allowed him to kiss his hand and with an absent look in his eyes waited till the black had left off weeping. A moment later, followed by all of them, he left the Sanctuary to mount to the tower once more to counsel the people of Belo Monte. Joining the multitude, Big João heard him offer a prayer and then tell of the miracle of the bronze serpent that, by order of the Father, Moses built in order that anyone who looked upon it might be cured should he be bitten by the snakes that were attacking the Jews, and then prophesy a new invasion of vipers that would come to Belo Monte to exterminate those who believed in God. But, he heard him say, those who kept the faith would survive the serpents’ bite. As people began to wend their way home, Big João’s heart was at peace. He remembered that years before, during the drought, the Counselor had told of this miracle for the first time, thereby bringing about another miracle in the
sertão
overrun by snakes. The memory reassured him.

He was another person when he knocked on Antônio Vilanova’s door. Assunção Sardelinha, Honôrio’s wife, let him in, and João found the storekeeper, his wife, and various children and helpers of the two brothers sitting at the counter eating. They made room for him, and handed him a steaming plateful of food that he downed without even noticing what it was that he was eating, with the feeling that he was wasting precious time. He barely listened as Antônio told him that, rather than taking gunpowder with him, Pajeú had chosen to go off with cane whistles and crossbows and poisoned arrows, his idea being that that would be a better way of harassing the soldiers who were coming. The black chewed and swallowed, paying no attention, his mind entirely occupied by his mission.

Once the meal was over, the others went off to bed in the adjoining rooms or trundled off to their hammocks, pallets, or blankets laid down amid the crates and shelves around them. Then, by the light of an oil lamp, João and Antônio talked. They talked for a long time, in low voices at times and much louder ones at others, in perfect accord at times and at others furious with each other. Meanwhile, little by little, fireflies invaded the store, glowing in all the corners. From time to time Antônio opened one of the large ledgers in which he was in the habit of recording the arrivals of pilgrims, births, and deaths, and mentioned certain names. But still João did not allow the storekeeper to go off for his night’s rest. After carefully smoothing out a crumpled bit of paper that he had been clutching in his hand, he held it out to him and had him read it over several times until he had memorized the words written on it. As sleep overcame the ex-slave, who had bedded down in a vacant space underneath the counter, so tired he hadn’t even taken off his boots, Antônio Vilanova heard him repeating the oath composed by the Little Blessed One for the Catholic Guard.

The next morning, the Vilanova brothers’ children and helpers went all about Belo Monte, announcing, whenever they came upon a group of people, that any person not afraid to give his or her life for the Counselor might aspire to become a member of the Catholic Guard. Soon so many candidates gathered in front of the former steward’s house of the hacienda that they blocked Campo Grande, the only straight street in Canudos. Sitting on a crate of merchandise, Big João and Antônio received them one by one. The storekeeper checked the name and date of arrival of each one against his ledger, and João asked them one by one if they were willing to give away everything they possessed and abandon their families as Christ’s apostles had done for His sake, and subject themselves to a baptism by resistance. All of them fervently consented.

Those who had fought at Uauá and O Cambaio were given preference, and those incapable of reaming out a rifle, loading a blunderbuss, or cooling an overheated musket were eliminated. The very old and very young were also eliminated, as were those unfit for combat; lunatics and pregnant women, for instance. No one who had ever been a guide for the police flying brigades or a tax collector or a census taker was accepted. Every so often, Big João would take those who had passed all these tests to a vacant lot and order them to attack him as though he were an enemy. Those who hesitated were turned down. He had the rest fight hand to hand with each other to test their bravery. By nightfall, the Catholic Guard had eighteen members, one of whom was a woman who had belonged to Pedrão’s band. Big João administered the oath to them in the store, then told them to return to their homes to bid their families farewell, for from the following day on they had only one obligation: to protect the Counselor.

The second day the selection was more rapid, for those already chosen helped Big João test those who presented themselves as candidates and kept order amid all the chaos that ensued. The Sardelinha sisters had meanwhile hunted about and found enough blue cloth to make armbands or kerchiefs for all those chosen. João swore in thirty more on the second day, fifty on the third day, and at the end of the week he had nearly four hundred guards to rely on.

The following Sunday, the Catholic Guard marched through the streets of Canudos, lined on either side by people who applauded them and envied them. The procession began at midday, and as in all the great celebrations, statues from the Church of Santo Antônio and the Temple under construction were carried through the streets, the townspeople brought out those in their houses, skyrockets were shot off, and the air was filled with incense and prayers. As night was falling, in the Temple of the Blessed Jesus, still without a roof, beneath a sky thick with stars that seemed to have come out early so as to witness the joyous ceremony, the members of the Catholic Guard repeated in chorus the oath composed by the Little Blessed One.