The War Of The End Of The World (47 page)

The patrol reaches the first shack. Two soldiers knock the door down and go inside as the other men cover them. The guide crouches down behind the soldiers and Rufino notes that he is beginning to move back. After a moment, the two soldiers reappear and motion with their hands and heads to indicate to the sergeant that there is no one inside. The patrol advances to the next shack and goes through the same procedure, with the same result. But suddenly, in the door of a shack that is larger than the others, a woman with tousled hair appears, and then another, peering out in terror. When the soldiers spy them and point their rifles at them, the women make peaceable gestures, accompanied by shrill little cries. Rufino feels as dazed as when he heard the Bearded Lady mention the name Galileo Gall. Taking advantage of the sudden confusion, the guide disappears in the underbrush.

The soldiers surround the shack and Rufino sees that they are talking with the women. Finally, two men from the patrol follow them into the shack, while the rest of the men wait outside, rifles at the ready. A few moments later, the two who have gone inside come out again, making obscene gestures and egging the others to go in and do as they have done. Rufino hears laughter, shouts, and sees all the soldiers head into the house with gleeful, excited looks on their faces. But the sergeant orders two of them to stay outside to guard the door.

The
caatinga
round about him begins to stir. The men in hiding crawl out on all fours and stand up. He realizes that there are at least thirty of them. He follows them, breaking into a run, and overtakes the leader. “Is the woman who used to be my wife there?” he hears himself saying. “There’s a dwarf with her, isn’t that right?” Yes. “It must be her, then,” the
jagunço
says. At that moment a hail of bullets mows down the two soldiers guarding the door, immediately followed by shouts, screams, the sound of feet running, a shot from inside the shack. As he runs forward with the
jagunços
, Rufino draws his knife, the only weapon he has left, and sees soldiers at the doors and windows firing at them or trying to make their escape. They manage to take no more than a few steps before they are hit by arrows or bullets or thrown to the ground by the
jagunços
, who finish them off with their knives and machetes. Just then, Rufino slips and falls. As he gets to his feet again, he hears the piercing wail of the whistles and sees the
jagunços
tossing out one of the windows the bloody corpse of a soldier whose uniform they have ripped off. The naked body hits the ground with a dull thud.

When Rufino enters the shack, he is stunned by the violent spectacle that meets his eye. On the floor are dying soldiers, on whom knots of men and women are venting their fury with knives, clubs, stones, striking and pounding them without mercy, aided by
jagunços
who continue to pour into the shack. It is the women, four or five of them, who are screaming at the top of their lungs, and they who are ripping the uniforms off their dead or dying victims so as to insult them by baring their privates. There is blood, a terrible stench, and gaping holes between the floorboards where the
jagunços
must have been lying in wait for the patrol. Underneath a table is a woman with a head wound, writhing in pain and moaning.

As the
jagunços
strip the soldiers naked and grab their rifles and knapsacks, Rufino, certain now that what he is looking for is not in that room, makes his way toward the bedrooms. There are three of them, in a row. The door of the first one is open, but he sees no one inside. Through the cracks in the door of the second he spies a plank bed and a woman’s legs lying on the floor. He pushes the door open and sees Jurema. She is alive, and on catching sight of him, her face contorts in a deep frown and her entire body hunches over in shocked surprise. Huddled next to Jurema is the grotesquely terror-stricken, minuscule figure of the Dwarf, whom Rufino seems to have known as long as he can remember, and on the bed, the fair-haired sergeant. Despite the fact that he is lying there limp and lifeless, two
jagunços
are still plunging their knives into him, roaring with each blow and spattering Rufino with blood. Jurema, motionless, stares at him, her mouth gaping, her face fallen, the ridge of her nose standing out sharply, and her eyes full of panic and resignation. Rufino realizes that the barefoot
jagunço
with Indian features has entered the room and is helping the others hoist the sergeant off the bed and throw him out the window into the street. They leave the room, taking with them the dead man’s uniform, rifle, and knapsack. As he walks past Rufino, the leader mutters, pointing to Jurema: “You see? It was her.” The Dwarf begins to utter disjointed phrases that Rufino hears but fails to understand. He stands calmly in the doorway, his face once again expressionless. His heart quiets down, and the vertigo he has felt at first is succeeded by a feeling of complete serenity. Jurema is still lying on the floor, too drained of strength to get to her feet. Through the window the
jagunços
, both the men and the women, can be seen moving off into the
caatinga
.

“They’re leaving,” the Dwarf stammers, his eyes leaping from one to the other. “We should leave, too, Jurema.”

Rufino shakes his head. “She’s staying,” he says softly. “You go.”

But the Dwarf doesn’t leave. Confused, afraid, not knowing what to do, he wanders about the empty house, amid the blood and the stench, cursing his lot, calling out to the Bearded Lady, crossing himself, vaguely praying to God. Meanwhile, Rufino searches the bedrooms, finds two straw mattresses, and drags them to the room in the front of the shack, from which he can see the one street and the dwellings of Caracatá. He has brought out the mattresses mechanically, not knowing what he intends to do with them, but now that they are there, he knows: sleep. His body is like a soft sponge sopping up water. He grabs some ropes dangling from a hook, goes to Jurema, and orders: “Come.” She follows him, without curiosity or fear. He sits her down next to the mattresses and ties her hand and foot. The Dwarf is there, his eyes bulging in terror. “Don’t kill her, don’t kill her!” he screams.

Rufino lies down on his back and without looking at him orders: “Go stand over there, and if you see anybody coming, wake me up.”

The Dwarf blinks, disconcerted, but a second later he nods and hops to the door. Rufino closes his eyes. Before dropping off to sleep, he asks himself whether he hasn’t killed Jurema yet because he wants to see her suffer or because now that he’s finally caught up with her his hatred has subsided. He hears her lie down on the other mattress, a few feet away from him. He peers stealthily at her from beneath his lowered eyelashes: she is much thinner, her sunken eyes are dull and resigned, her clothes torn, her hair disheveled. There is a deep scratch on her arm.

When Rufino wakes up, he leaps from the mattress as though he were fleeing from a nightmare. But he does not remember having had a dream. Without so much as a glance at Jurema, he goes over to the Dwarf, who is still guarding the door and looking at him with mingled fear and hope in his eyes. Can he go with him? Rufino nods. They do not say a word to each other as the guide searches about outside for something to assuage his hunger and thirst. “Are you going to kill her?” the Dwarf asks him as they are returning to the shack. He does not answer. He takes grass, roots, leaves, stems out of his knapsack and lays them down on the mattress. He does not look at Jurema as he unties her, or looks at her as though she weren’t there. The Dwarf raises a handful of grass to his mouth and doggedly chews. Jurema also begins to chew and swallow, mechanically; every so often she rubs her wrists and ankles. They eat in silence, as outside the dusk turns to darkness and the buzz of insects grows louder. Rufino thinks to himself that the stench is like the one he smelled the night he once spent in a trap, alongside the dead body of a jaguar.

Suddenly he hears Jurema say: “Why don’t you kill me and get it over with?”

Rufino continues to stare into space, as though he has not heard her. But he is listening intently to that voice that is growing more and more exasperated, more and more broken: “Do you think I’m afraid of dying? I’m not. On the contrary, I’ve been waiting for you to end my life. Don’t you think I’m sick and tired of all this? I would have killed myself before this if God didn’t forbid it, if it wasn’t a sin. When are you going to kill me? Why don’t you do it now?”

“No, no,” the Dwarf stammers, his voice choking.

The tracker sits there, without moving, without answering. The room is now nearly pitch-dark. A moment later, Rufino hears her crawling over to touch him. His entire body tenses, a prey to a feeling that is at once one of disgust, desire, contempt, rage, nostalgia. But he allows his face to betray none of this.

“Forget, I beg you, forget what’s happened, in the name of the Virgin, of the Blessed Jesus,” he hears her implore, feeling her body tremble. “He took me by force, it wasn’t my fault, I tried to fight him off. Don’t suffer any more, Rufino.”

She clings to him and immediately the guide pushes her away, though not violently. He rises to his feet, feels about for the ropes, and ties her up again without a word. He sits down again in the same place as before.

“I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m tired, I don’t want to live any longer,” he hears her sob. “Kill me and get it over with.”

“I’m going to,” he says. “But not here. In Calumbi. So people will see you die.”

A long time goes by, as Jurema’s sobs grow quieter and finally die away altogether.

“You’re not the Rufino you were,” he hears her murmur.

“You’re not the woman you were either,” he says. “You have a milk inside you now that isn’t mine. I know now why God punished you for so long, not letting you get pregnant.”

The light of the moon suddenly filters obliquely into the room through the doors and windows, revealing the motes of dust suspended in the air. The Dwarf curls up at Jurema’s feet and Rufino stretches out on his mattress. How long does he lie there with clenched teeth, thinking, remembering? When he hears the two of them talking, it’s as though he were waking up, but he hasn’t closed his eyes.

“Why are you staying here if nobody’s forcing you to?” Jurema is asking the Dwarf. “How can you bear this stench, the thought of what’s going to happen? Go off to Canudos instead.”

“I’m afraid to go and I’m afraid to stay,” the Dwarf whimpers. “I don’t know how to be by myself, I’ve never been alone since the Gypsy bought me. I’m afraid of dying, like everybody else.”

“The women who were waiting for the soldiers weren’t afraid,” Jurema says.

“Because they were sure they’d rise from the dead,” the Dwarf squeals. “If I were that sure, I wouldn’t be afraid either.”

“I’m not afraid of dying and I don’t know if I’m going to rise from the dead,” Jurema declares, and Rufino understands that she is not speaking to the Dwarf now but to him.

Something awakens him when the dawn is scarcely more than a faint blue-green glow. The whipping of the wind? No, something else. Jurema and the Dwarf both open their eyes at the same moment, and the latter begins to stretch and yawn, but Rufino shuts him up: “Shhh, shhh.” Crouching behind the door, he peeks out. The elongated silhouette of a man, without a shotgun, is coming down Caracatá’s one street, poking his head in each of the shacks. As the man is almost upon them, Rufino recognizes him: Ulpino, the guide from Calumbi. He sees him cup both hands about his mouth and call: “Rufino! Rufino!” He steps out from behind the door and shows himself. When he recognizes him, Ulpino’s eyes open wide with relief and he calls to him. Rufino goes out to meet him, gripping the handle of his knife. He doesn’t utter a single word of greeting. He can see, from the looks of him, that he has come a long way on foot.

“I’ve been searching for you since early last evening,” Ulpino exclaims in a friendly tone of voice. “I was told you were on your way to Canudos. But then I met up with the
jagunços
who killed the soldiers. I’ve been walking all night long.”

Rufino listens to him without opening his mouth, his face grave. Ulpino looks at him sympathetically, as though reminding him that they have been friends. “I’ve brought him to you,” he murmurs slowly. “The baron ordered me to guide him to Canudos. But I talked things over with Aristarco and we decided that if I could find you, he was for you.”

Rufino’s face betrays his utter astonishment, his disbelief. “You’ve brought him to me? The stranger?”

“He’s a bastard without honor.” To emphasize his disgust, Ulpino spits on the ground. “He doesn’t care if you kill his woman, the one he took away from you. He didn’t want to talk about it. He lied and said she wasn’t his.”

“Where is he?” Rufino blinks and passes his tongue over his lips. “It’s not true,” he thinks, “he hasn’t brought him.”

But Ulpino explains in great detail where he can be found. “Though it’s none of my business, there’s something I’d like to know,” he adds. “Have you killed Jurema?”

He makes no comment when Rufino shakes his head in reply. For a moment he appears to be ashamed of his curiosity. He points to the
caatinga
stretching out in the distance behind him.

“A nightmare,” he says. “They hung the ones they killed here in the trees. The
urubus
are pecking them to pieces. It makes your hair stand on end.”

“When did you leave him?” Rufino cuts him off abruptly.

“Yesterday evening,” Ulpino says. “He probably hasn’t budged. He was dead tired. And what’s more, he had no place to go. He not only lacks honor but endurance as well, and doesn’t have any idea how to find his bearings…”

Rufino grabs him by the arm and squeezes it. “Thanks,” he says, looking him straight in the eye.

Ulpino nods and frees his arm from Rufino’s grasp. The tracker runs back into the shack, his eyes gleaming. The Dwarf and Jurema rise to their feet in bewilderment as he rushes into the room. He unties Jurema’s feet but not her hands, and with swift, dexterous movements passes the same rope around her neck. The Dwarf screams and covers his face with his hands. But he is not hanging her, only making a loop in the rope so as to drag her along behind him. He forces her to follow him outside. Ulpino has gone. The Dwarf hops along behind. Rufino turns around to him. “Don’t make any noise,” he orders. Jurema stumbles on the stones, gets tangled in the brush, but doesn’t open her mouth and matches Rufino’s pace. Behind them, the Dwarf rambles on deliriously about the soldiers strung up on the trees who are being devoured by vultures.