Quincas Borba (Library of Latin America) (15 page)

The next day he received a newspaper he’d never seen before,
Atalaia
, the Lookout. Its editorial thrashed the government. The conclusion, however, was extended to all parties and the entire nation:
Let us plunge into the constitutional Jordan
. Rubião found it excellent. He tried to find out where the newspaper was published so he could subscribe. It was on the Rua da Ajuda. He headed right there as soon as he left the house. There he discovered that the editor was Dr. Camacho. He ran to his office.

But along the way, on the same street:

“Deolindo! Deolindo!” a woman’s anguished voice screamed at the door of a mattress shop.

Rubião heard the cry, turned, and saw what it was all about. There was a cart coming down the street and a child of three or four crossing. The horses were almost on top of him, hard as the driver tried to rein them in. Rubião threw himself at the
horses and pulled the boy to safety. The mother, as she took him from the hands of Rubião, was speechless. She was pale, trembling. Some people began to berate the driver, but a bald man came out and ordered him to be on his way. The driver obeyed. So when the father, who’d been inside the mattress shop, came out the cart had already turned the corner onto Sao Jose.

“He would have been killed,” the mother said, “If it hadn’t been for this gentleman, I don’t know what would have become of my poor son.”

It was an event on the block. Neighbors came out to see what had happened to the child. On the street small children and urchins were peering in awe. The child only had a scratch on his left shoulder from where he’d fallen.

“It was nothing,” Rubião said. “In any case, you shouldn’t let the boy out on the street. He’s too young.”

“Thank you so much,” the father put in. “But where’s your hat?”

Rubião then noticed that he’d lost his hat. A ragged boy who’d picked it up was waiting by the door of the mattress shop for a chance to return it. Rubião gave him a few coins as a reward, something the boy hadn’t thought of when he went to retrieve the hat. He’d only picked it up in order to be a part of and to do something in that glorious moment. He accepted the coins gladly, however. It was, perhaps, his awakening to the mercenary side of human actions.

“But hold on,” the mattress maker said, “are you hurt?” Indeed, our friend’s hand was bleeding, a cut on the palm, nothing serious. Only then was he starting to feel it. The child’s mother ran to get a basin and a towel in spite of Rubião’s saying it was nothing, it wasn’t worth the bother. The water arrived. While she was washing his hand, the mattress maker ran to a nearby pharmacy and brought back some arnica. Rubião was healed. He tied the cloth around his hand. The mattress maker’s wife brushed off his hat and, when he left, both parents thanked him effusively for having saved their son. The rest of the people in the doorway and on the sidewalk lined up to let him pass.

“W
hat’s that on your hand?” Camacho inquired as soon VV as Rubião entered the office.

Rubião told him about the incident on the Rua da Ajuda. The lawyer asked him a lot of questions about the child, the parents, the number of the house. But Rubião ran out of answers.

“Don’t you even know the little one’s name?”

“I heard him called Deolindo. Let’s get down to important matters. I’ve come to subscribe to your newspaper. I received a copy, and I want to contribute to …”

Camacho replied that he didn’t need subscriptions. As far as subscriptions were concerned, the paper was doing well. What he needed was material to print and develop in the text, to expand it, put in more news, articles, the translation of a novel for the supplement, activity at the port, the marketplace, etc. He had advertisements, as you could see!

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve got almost all the backing I need. Ten people are enough, and we’re already eight, myself and seven others. We need two more. With two more people the backing will be complete.”

Camacho tapped the edge of the desk with a pocket knife, silent, watching the other man out of the corner of his eye. Rubião cast his eyes about the room. Not too much furniture, a few briefs on a stool beside the lawyer, shelves with books, Lobão, Pereira e Sousa, Dalloz,
National Ordinances
, a portrait on the wall facing the desk.

“Do you know him?” Camacho asked, pointing to the portrait.

“No, sir.”

“You must know him.”

“I have no way of knowing who it is. Nunes Machado?”

“No,” the ex–deputy replied, putting on a sad look. “I couldn’t get a good picture of him. They sell some prints that don’t seem too good to me. No, that’s the marquis.”

“Of Barbacena?”

“No, of Parana. It’s the great marquis, a personal friend of mine. He tried to bring the factions together, and that’s how I got to be associated with him. He died too soon. The work
couldn’t go forward. Today, even if he wanted me, he’d find me on the other side. No! No conciliation. War to the death. We’ve got to destroy them. Read
Atalaia
, my good comrade–in–arms. You’ll receive it at home . ..”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

Rubião lowered his eyes before Camacho’s inquiring nose. “No, sir. I stand firm. I want to help my friends. Getting the paper free …”

“But I just told you that we’re doing fine as far as subscriptions are concerned,” Camacho replied.

“Yes, sir, but didn’t you also say that you still needed two backers?”

“Two, yes. We’ve got eight.”

“How much is the backing?”

“It comes to fifty
cantos
, five per person.”

“Then I’ll come in with five.”

Camacho thanked him in the name of ideas. He’d had the intention of asking him to join. It was a right earned through the convictions, the fidelity, the love for public affairs of his new friend. Since he’d joined spontaneously, he begged his forgiveness. He showed him the list of the others. Camacho was the first. He went on about the paper, the material at hand, the subscriptions, and the labors of Hercules … He was about to correct himself, but he boldly repeated: the labors of Hercules. He could say that it was just that without faking or lying. Strangling snakes while they’re still young. It was becoming an addiction. He enjoyed a good fight, he would die in it, wrapped in the flag …

R
ubiao left. In the hallway he passed a tall lady dressed in black with a rustle of silks and beads. Going down the stairs he heard Camacho’s voice, higher pitched than before: “Oh, baroness!̶

He halted on the first step. The lady’s silvery voice began to speak her first words; it was a lawsuit. Baroness! And our Rubião went down carefully, softly, so as not to let it seem he’d been eavesdropping. The breeze was putting a delicate, fine aroma into his nostrils, a dizzying sort of thing, the aroma left by her. Baroness! He reached the street door. Parked there he saw a coupé, the footman standing on the sidewalk, the coachman on his perch watching, both in livery… What news could there be in all that? None. A titled lady, perfumed and wealthy, bringing suit perhaps to relieve her boredom. But the fact of the matter was that he, Rubião, without knowing why, in spite of his own wealth, felt like the same old teacher from Barbacena …

O
n the street he ran into Sofia and an older lady and another young woman. His eyes weren’t up to taking a good look at their features. Everything he had was barely enough for Sofia. They chatted awkwardly for scarcely two minutes and went their ways. Rubião stopped and turned around, but the three ladies were going along without looking back. After dinner, to himself:

“Shall I go there tonight?”

He thought about it a lot without getting anywhere. Now yes, now no. He’d found her in a strange mood, but he remembered that she’d smiled—only a little, but she’d smiled. He put the matter up to chance. If the first carriage that passed came from the right, he’d go, if from the left, he wouldn’t. And he sat there
on the couch in the parlor watching. Right away a tilbury came from the left. It was settled. He wouldn’t go to Santa Teresa. But here his conscience reacted. He wanted to follow the strict terms of the proposition: a carriage. A tilbury isn’t a carriage. It has to be what’s commonly called a carriage, a whole or half calèche, or even a victoria. In a short while, coming from the right, several calŌches came along, returning from a funeral. He went.

S
ofia shook his hand politely with no trace of rancor. The two ladies from her stroll were with her, in indoor clothing. She introduced them: the young one was her cousin, the old one her aunt—that aunt from the country who’d sent the letter Sofia got in the garden from the hands of the postman who’d taken a tumble immediately after. The aunt’s name was Dona Maria Augusta. She had a small estate, a few slaves, and some debts that her husband had left her along with nostalgia. The daughter was Maria Benedita—a name that bothered her because it was an old woman’s name, she said. But her mother replied that old women had been young ladies and girls once and that names that fit people were the invention of poets and storytellers. Maria Benedita was the name of her grandmother, the goddaughter of Luís de Vasconcelos, the viceroy. What more could she ask?

They told all that to Rubião, and she didn’t get annoyed. Sofia, either to settle the matter or for other reasons, added that the ugliest names can become beautiful, it’s all according to the person. Maria Benedita was a beautiful name.

“Don’t you think so?” she concluded, turning to Rubião.

“Stop teasing, cousin!” Maria Benedita put in, laughing.

We can believe that neither the old lady nor Rubião understood what was being said—the old lady because she was beginning
to nod off—Rubião because he was petting a little dog Sofia had been given, small, thin, nimble, rowdy, with dark eyes and a bell on its neck. But since his hostess insisted, he answered yes, not knowing what it was all about. Maria Benedita went tsk–tsk. If the truth be known, she was no beauty. She didn’t have fascinating eyes or one of those mouths that whisper something even when silent. She was natural, but without the awkwardness of a country girl. And she had a charm of her own that offset her incongruous attire.

She’d been born in the country, and she liked it there. Their place wasn’t too far away, Iguaçú. From time to time she would come to town to spend a few days, but after the first two or so she was already anxious to return home. Her education had been brief: reading, writing, religion, and a little needlework. In more recent times (she was going on nineteen), Sofia had been pushing her to take piano lessons. Her aunt consented and Maria Benedita came to her cousin’s and was there for around eighteen days. She couldn’t take any more. She missed her mother and returned to the country, to the consternation of her teacher, who’d declared from the very first day that she had great musical talent.

“Oh, no doubt about it! A great talent!”

Maria Benedita laughed when her cousin told her that, and she could never take the man seriously afterward. Sometimes she would break out in laughter in the middle of a lesson. Sofia would frown, as if scolding her, and the poor man wondered what was going on and would explain to himself that it must have been some girlish memory and would go on with the lesson. Neither piano nor French—another gap that Sofia could scarcely excuse. Dona Maria Augusta couldn’t understand her niece’s consternation. Why French? Her niece told her that it was indispensable for conversation, for shopping, for reading a novel…

“I’ve always been content without any French,” the old lady would answer. “And country bumpkins are too. They don’t need it any more than blacks do.”

One day she added:

“There’ll be no lack of prospective husbands because of it. She can get married. I’ve told her already that she can get married
whenever she wants to, that I got married, too. And she can even leave me in the country all alone to die like an old animal…”

“Mama!”

“Don’t feel sorry. All you need is for a fiancé to appear. When he does, go off with him and leave me behind. Did you see what Maria José did to me? She’s living up there in Ceará.”

“But her husband’s a judge,” Sofia argued.

“He could be a crook! As far as I’m concerned it’s the same thing. The old lady’s left like a rag. Get married, Maria Benedita, get married as soon as you can. I’ll die in God’s hands. I won’t have any children, but I’ll have Our Lady, who’s everybody’s mother. Get married, go on, get married!”

All that bad temper was calculated. What she had in mind was to draw her daughter away from marriage, arouse fright and pity in her, slow her down at least. I don’t believe that she revealed that sin to her confessor, or that she came to realize it herself. It was the product of the resentful selfishness of old age. Dona Maria Augusta had been loved deeply. Her mother was crazy about her, her husband loved her with the same intensity until his last day. With both of them dead, all of her filial and matrimonial longings were placed on the heads of her two daughters. One had abandoned her by getting married. Threatened with solitude if the other one also got married, Dona Maria Augusta was doing everything she could to avoid the disaster.

R
ubiao’s visit was a short one. At nine o’clock he got up discreetly, awaiting some word from Sofia, a request to stay a little longer, a request to wait for her husband, who was on his way, any kind of surprise:
Wait!
But not even that. Sofia held out her hand, which he was barely able to touch. In spite of it all, the young woman had appeared quite natural during the visit, showing no bitterness … Of course, she didn’t have those long,
loquacious looks of before. It even seemed that nothing had happened, neither good nor bad, neither strawberries nor moonlight. Rubião trembled, he couldn’t find the words. She’d found all she wanted, and if she had to look at him, she did it directly and calmly.