The War Of The End Of The World (42 page)

The door of the manor house opens and someone he knows comes out: Aristarco, the overseer, the one who gives the
capangas
their orders. “If you want to see the baron, he’ll receive you this minute,” he says to him amicably.

Rufino’s chest heaves. “Is he going to hand the stranger over to me?”

Aristarco shakes his head. “He’s going to hand him over to the army. The army will avenge you.”

“That guy’s mine,” Rufino murmurs. “The baron knows that.”

“He’s not yours to kill, and the baron’s not going to hand him over to you,” Aristarco repeats. “Do you want him to explain to you himself?”

His face livid, Rufino answers no. The veins at his temples and neck have swelled, his eyes are bulging, and he is sweating heavily. “Tell the baron he’s not my godfather any more,” he says, his voice breaking. “And tell that other one that I’m going off to kill the woman he stole from me.”

He spits, turns around, and walks off the way he came.

Through the window of the study, the Baron de Canabrava and Galileo Gall saw Rufino leave and the guards and peons return to their places. Galileo had bathed and been given a shirt and a pair of trousers in better condition than the ones he had on. The baron went back over to his desk, beneath a collection of knives and whips hanging on the wall. There was a cup of steaming-hot coffee on it and he took a sip, with a faraway look in his eye. Then he examined Gall once again, like an entomologist fascinated by a rare species. He had been scrutinizing Gall in that way ever since he had seen him being brought into his study, worn out and famished, by Aristarco and his
capangas
, and, more intently still, ever since he had first heard him speak.

“Would you have ordered them to kill Rufino?” Gall asked, in English. “If he had insisted on coming inside, if he had become insolent? Yes, I’m certain of it, you’d have ordered him killed.”

“One can’t kill dead men, Mr. Gall,” the baron answered. “Rufino is already dead. You killed him when you stole Jurema from him. If I had ordered him killed I’d have been doing him a favor. I’d have freed him of the anguish of having been dishonored. There is no worse torment for a
sertanejo
.”

He opened a box of cigars and as he lighted one he imagined a headline in the
Jornal de Notícias
:
ENGLISH AGENT GUIDED BY BARON’S HENCHMAN
. It had been a clever plan to have Rufino serve Gall as a guide: what better proof that he, the baron, was a co-conspirator of the foreigner’s?

“The only thing I didn’t understand was what pretext Epaminondas had used to attract the supposed agent to the backlands,” he said, moving his fingers as though he had cramps in them. “It never entered my head that heaven might favor him by putting an idealist in his hands. A strange breed, idealists. I’ve never met one before, and now, in the space of just a few days, I’ve had dealings with two of them. The other one is Colonel Moreira César. Yes, he too is a dreamer. Though his dreams and yours don’t coincide…”

A great commotion outside interrupted him. He went to the window, and through the little squares of the metal grille he saw that it wasn’t Rufino who’d come back, but four men with carbines who had arrived and been surrounded by Aristarco and the
capangas
. “It’s Pajeú, from Canudos,” he heard Gall say—that man who was either his prisoner or his guest, though even he himself couldn’t say which. He looked closely at the newcomers. Three of them were standing there not saying a word, while the fourth was speaking with Aristarco. He was a
caboclo
, short, heavyset, no longer young, with skin like rawhide. He had a scar all the way across his face: yes, it might be Pajeú. Aristarco nodded several times, and the baron saw him head toward the house.

“This is an eventful day,” he murmured, puffing on his cigar.

Aristarco’s face had the same inscrutable expression as always, but the baron could nonetheless tell how alarmed he was.

“Pajeú,” he said laconically. “He wants to talk to you.”

Instead of answering, the baron turned to Gall. “I would like you to leave me now, if you will. I’ll see you at dinnertime. We eat early here in the country. At six.”

When Gall had left the room, the baron asked the overseer if only those four men had come. No, there were at least fifty
jagunços
round about outside the house. Was he certain that the
caboclo
was Pajeú? Yes.

“What will happen if they attack Calumbi?” the baron asked. “Can we hold out?”

“We may get ourselves killed,” the
capanga
replied, as though he had asked himself the same question and arrived at that answer. “There are lots of the men I don’t trust any more. They, too, may go off to Canudos at any moment.”

The baron sighed. “Bring him inside,” he said. “And I’d like you to be present at this meeting.”

Aristarco went outside and came back a moment later with the newcomer. The
caboclo
from Canudos halted a yard away from the master of the house, removing his hat as he did so. The baron tried to see some hint in those stubborn little eyes, in those weather-beaten features, of the crimes and terrible misdeeds he was said to have committed. The cruel scar, which might have been left by a bullet, a knife, or the claw of a great wild feline, was a reminder of the violent life he had led. Apart from that, he might easily be taken for a peon on his land. But when his peons raised their eyes to his, they always blinked and lowered them. Pajeú’s eyes stared straight into his, without humility.

“You’re Pajeú?” he finally asked.

“I am,” the man said.

Aristarco was standing behind him, as motionless as a statue.

“You’ve wreaked as much havoc in these parts as the drought,” the baron said, “with your robbing and killing and marauding.”

“Those days are past now,” Pajeú answered, without resentment, with heartfelt contrition. “There are sins I’ve committed in my life that I will one day be held accountable for. It’s not the Can I serve now but the Father.”

The baron recognized that tone of voice; it was that of the Capuchin Fathers of the Sacred Missions, that of the sanctimonious wandering sects who made pilgrimages to Monte Santo, that of Moreira César, that of Galileo Gall. The tone of absolute certainty, he thought, the tone of those who are never assailed by doubts. And suddenly, for the first time, he was curious to hear the Counselor, that individual capable of turning a ruffian into a fanatic.

“Why have you come here?”

“To burn Calumbi down,” the even voice replied.

“To burn Calumbi down?” Stupefaction changed the baron’s expression, voice, posture.

“To purify it. After so much hard labor, this earth deserves a rest,” the
caboclo
explained, speaking very slowly.

Aristarco hadn’t moved and the baron, who had recovered his self-possession, looked closely at the former
cangaceiro
in the same way that, in quieter days, he had so often examined the butterflies and plants in his herbarium with the aid of a magnifying glass. He was suddenly moved by the desire to penetrate to the innermost depths of this man, to know the secret roots of what he was saying. And at the same time there came to his mind’s eye the image of Sebastiana brushing Estela’s fair hair amid a circle of flames. The color drained from his face.

“Doesn’t that wretch of a Counselor realize what he’s doing?” He did his best to contain his indignation. “Doesn’t he see that haciendas burned down mean hunger and death for hundreds of families? Doesn’t he realize that such madness has brought war to the state of Bahia?”

“It’s in the Bible,” Pajeú explained imperturbably. “The Republic will come, and the Throat-Slitter: there will be a cataclysm. But the poor will be saved, thanks to Belo Monte.”

“Have you even read the Bible?” the baron murmured.

“The Counselor has read it,” the
caboclo
answered. “You and your family can leave. The Throat-Slitter has been here and taken guides and livestock off with him. Calumbi is accursed; it has gone over to the Can’s side.”

“I will not allow you to raze the hacienda,” the baron said. “Not only on my account, but on account of the hundreds of people whose survival depends on this land.”

“The Blessed Jesus will take better care of them than you,” Pajeú answered. It was evident that he meant no offense; he was making every effort to speak in a respectful tone of voice; he appeared to be disconcerted by the baron’s inability to accept the obvious truth. “When you leave, everyone will go off to Belo Monte.”

“And in the meanwhile Moreira César will have it wiped off the face of the earth,” the baron said. “Can’t you understand that shotguns and knives are no defense against an army?”

No, he would never understand. It was as useless to try to reason with him as it was to argue with Moreira César or Gall. The baron felt a shiver down his spine; it was as if the world had taken leave of its reason and blind, irrational beliefs had taken over.

“Is that what happens when you people are sent food, livestock, loads of grain?” he asked. “The agreement with Antônio Vilanova was that you wouldn’t touch Calumbi or harm my people. Is that the way the Counselor keeps his word?”

“He is obliged to obey the Father,” Pajeú explained.

“In other words, it’s God who ordered you to burn down my house?” the baron murmured.

“No, the Father,” the
caboclo
corrected him vehemently, as if to avoid a very serious misunderstanding. “The Counselor doesn’t want to cause you or your family any harm. All those who wish to do so may leave.”

“That’s very kind of you,” the baron answered sarcastically. “I won’t let you burn down this house. I won’t leave.”

A shadow veiled the half-breed’s eyes and the scar across his face contracted. “If you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to attack and kill people whose lives could be spared,” he explained regretfully. “I’ll have to kill you and your family. I don’t want all those deaths hanging over my soul. What’s more, there’d be hardly anybody left to put up a fight.” His hand pointed behind him. “Ask Aristarco.”

He waited, his eyes pleading for a reassuring answer.

“Can you give me a week?” the baron finally murmured. “I can’t leave…”

“A day,” Pajeú interrupted him. “You may take whatever you like with you. I can’t wait any longer than that. The Dog is on his way to Belo Monte, and I must be there, too.” He put his sombrero back on, turned around, and, with his back to him, added as his parting words as he went out the door, followed by Aristarco: “Praised be the Blessed Jesus.”

The baron noted that his cigar had gone out. He brushed off the ash, relighted it, and calculated as he puffed on it that there was no possibility of his asking Moreira César to come to his aid within the time limit given him by Pajeú. Then, fatalistically—he too, when all was said and done, was a
sertanejo—
he asked himself how Estela would take the destruction of this house and this land to which their lives were so closely tied.

Half an hour later he was in the dining room, with Estela at his right and Galileo at his left, the three of them seated in the high-backed “Austrian” chairs. Though darkness had not yet fallen, the servants had lighted the lamps. He watched Gall: he was spooning food into his mouth with no sign of enjoyment and had the usual tormented expression on his face. The baron had told him that if he so desired he could go outside to stretch his legs, but except for the moments he spent conversing with him, Gall had stayed in his room—the same one that Moreira César had occupied—busy writing. The baron had asked him for a written statement of everything that had happened to him since his meeting with Epaminondas Gonçalves. “If I do what you ask, will I be free again?” Gall had asked him. The baron shook his head. “You’re the best weapon I have against my enemies.” The revolutionary hadn’t said another word and the baron doubted that he was writing the confession he had asked him for. What could he be scribbling, then, night and day? In the midst of his depression, he was curious.

“An idealist?” Gall’s voice took him by surprise. “A man reputed to have committed so many atrocities?”

The baron realized that without warning the Scotsman was resuming the conversation they had been having in his study.

“Does it strike you as odd that Colonel Moreira César is an idealist?” he replied, in English. “He is one, there’s no doubt of that. He’s not interested in money or honors, and perhaps not even in power for himself. It’s abstract things that motivate him to act: an unhealthy nationalism, the worship of technical progress, the belief that only the army can impose order and save this country from chaos and corruption. An idealist of the same stamp as Robespierre…”

He fell silent as a servant cleared the table. He toyed with his napkin, thinking that the next night would find everything that surrounded him reduced to rubble and ashes. For the space of an instant, he wished that a miracle would occur, that the army of his enemy Moreira César would suddenly appear at Calumbi and prevent that crime from happening.

“As is the case with many idealists, he is implacable when it comes to realizing his dreams,” he added without his expression betraying what his real feelings were. His wife and Gall looked at him. “Do you know what he did at the Fortress of Anhato Mirim, at the time of the federalist revolt against Marshal Floriano? He executed one hundred eighty-five people. They had surrendered, but that made no difference to him. He wanted the mass execution to serve as an example.”