Raised from the Ground (20 page)

Everyone jumps out, Quick, quick, says a resuscitated Sergeant Armamento, with no hole through his heart. They’re at the gate of the barracks in Montemor, and there’s no sign of José Gato. The guards line up, they’re not so tense now they’re back on home ground, and there’s no danger of riots or armed attacks, and as you’ll have guessed, well, it wasn’t that hard, José Gato’s bold intervention was all in João Mau-Tempo’s imagination. The rocks are still there at the side of the road, where they’ve been for centuries and centuries, but no one leapt out from behind them, the truck passed by with its usual mechanical calm, dropped the men off at the barracks and left, having done its duty. The twenty-two men are bundled down a corridor and across a courtyard, where two guards are standing by a door, one of them opens the door to reveal a room packed with people, some standing, some sitting on the floor, on the straw from two bales that have been pulled apart and strewn about to serve as bedding. The floor is made of concrete, and the room is strangely cold, considering how many people are crammed inside and that this is the hottest time of the year, perhaps it’s because the back wall is built onto the side of the castle. Including those who were there already, there are nearly sixty men, who would make a good gang of workers. The door clangs shut, deliberately loud, and the sound of the key turning in the lock grates on the nerves like one of those bits of broken glass that the latifundio places on top of the walls surrounding its gardens, when the sun catches them, they look quite pretty, glinting away, and beyond lie trees heavy with oranges, and not just oranges, but pears, another fine fruit, and roses twine about the arches that line the orchard paths, any worker passing through would smell the perfume, but frankly, Father Agamedes, I doubt they have soul enough to appreciate such beauty. The ceiling is very low and is lit by one lightbulb, twenty-five watts at most, we haven’t yet lost our frugal habits, and in the end, there’s no denying it, the heat becomes unbearable. The men recognize each other or introduce themselves, there are people from Escoural and Torre da Gadanha, they say that the men from Cabrela were taken to Vendas Novas, but that’s not certain, and so what are they going to do with us now. Whatever it is, says one of the men from Escoural, they can’t take those thirty-three escudos away from us, now we just have to wait.

They wait. The hours pass. Now and then the door opens, more men are bundled in, the dungeon is beginning to be too small for so many people. Most have had nothing to eat since morning, and there’s no sign that the guards have any intention of feeding their prisoners. Some lie down on the straw, the more trusting or those with the strongest nerves fall asleep. They hear the town hall clock strike midnight, nothing more will happen today, it’s too late, they’d better get some sleep, their empty stomachs are protesting but not too much, and as the men are about to abandon themselves to slumber, made drowsy by the smell and the heat from all those bodies, the door is flung open and Corporal Tacabo and six guards appear, the corporal is clutching a piece of paper and the guards their rifles as if they had emerged fully armed from their mothers’ wombs, and the corporal bawls, João Mau-Tempo from Monte Lavre, Agostinho Direito from Safira, Carolino Dias from Torre da Gadanha, João Catarino from Santiago do Escoural. The four men, four shadows, stand up and go out through the door. Their companions feel as if their hearts were in their mouths, what will happen to the poor things. Then comes the voice of a man who can no longer keep the secret, Apparently they killed a man here yesterday.

This time, they do not cross the courtyard. They continue along by the wall, between the guards, before being pushed toward a door. The light from the lamp there is much brighter, the prisoners screw up their eyes against the aggressive brightness, the first aggression of the night. The guards left, leaving only the corporal, who went over and put the piece of paper down on a desk behind which were seated two men, one in uniform, Lieutenant Contente, and the other in plain clothes. João Mau-Tempo, Agostinho Direito, Carolino Dias and João Catarino were ordered to stand next to each other in a line. Lift your snouts up high so we can see if you resemble your whores of mothers, said the man wearing civilian clothes. João Mau-Tempo couldn’t resist retorting, My mother is dead, to which the man responded, Do you want your face smashed in, you may speak only when I tell you to, it won’t be long before you lose your taste for talking, but that’s precisely when you’ll have to talk. Then Lieutenant Contente began to give orders, Stand up straight, you’re not at home in your nice soft bed now, the usual military talk, and pay attention to the policeman here. The other man stood up, reviewed the ragged troop, staring at them hard, damn the man, it’s as if he were trying to look right inside me, fixing me with a lingering, intimidating look, What’s your name, and the man questioned answered, João Catarino, and you, Carolino Dias, and you, Agostinho Direito, and you, the one with the dead mother, what’s your name, João Mau-Tempo. The PIDE agent smiled broadly, That’s a fine name and very appropriate for the situation. Then he strode over to the desk, took his pistol out of its holster, slammed it down and turned angrily on the poor men, I want you to know that you won’t get out of here alive unless you vomit up everything you know about this strike, about the organization, the people who gave you orders, the propaganda they’ve fed you, everything, I want it all out in the open, and woe betide you if you don’t talk. Lieutenant Contente picked up four school exercise books that were in a pile at one end of the desk, You are each going to be locked in a room with one of these exercise books and a pencil, and you’re to write down everything you know, names, dates, meeting places and houses, how and when any leaflets and so on were delivered, do you understand, and you won’t be let out until it’s all there in black and white. The PIDE agent returned to the desk, put his pistol back in the holster, having completed his show of force, and said, It’s enough to drive a man crazy, you see before you an exhausted man, unable to sleep because of this wretched strike, so be sensible and write down everything you know and hide nothing, because if I find out later that you have left anything out, all the worse for you. João Catarino says, I can barely write, Agostinho Direito says, I can only write my name, João Mau-Tempo says, I can hardly write at all, Carolino Dias says, Nor can I. You know enough for our purposes, says the agent, we chose you because you know how to read and write, if you don’t like it, tough, you shouldn’t have learned, now you’re going to regret not having stayed as stupid as you were born. The agent laughed at his own joke, the corporal laughed as did the private, and Lieutenant Contente, of course, laughed contentedly. The lieutenant gives an order to the corporal, the corporal tells the private, the private opens the door, and the four rascals leave, outside are the other troops, it’s a public event, and like someone putting pigs in a pigsty, they march the four men down the corridor, opening doors and shoving them in, each with his own exercise book, Dias, Direito, Catarino and Mau-Tempo, they’re just scum, Father Agamedes, if you’ll forgive the expression.

In the barracks a great silence falls, full of noises as silences always are. The men locked up in the dungeon moan and sigh, unable to sleep, as is usual with weary bodies, and even when they do sleep, there’s that ache from the day when they were working at the charcoal pit and tried to carry a great heavy log, if it was now, they’d tell them to piss off, I wonder what’s happening to our comrades, I can’t hear anything, only the footsteps of the sentries outside, and the clock chiming, I wish that bloody owl would shut up, it gives you gloomy thoughts. Locked in their rooms, the four make the same gestures, they look around them, there’s the table and the pencil, it felt like a game, like being back at school and having to do a dictation, except that there was no teacher to read and mark the lesson, their conscience would have to be their teacher, deciding what they would write in their slow, crooked hand, and each of them, at some point, wrote his name on the first line of the first page, right in the margin, as if they wanted to make sure they had enough paper to write down all they were going to write, my name is Agostinho Direito, my name is João Mau-Tempo, my name is João Catarino, my name is Carolino Dias, and then they sat staring at the page, all those lines to fill, and then on and on until the final page, it was like a wheatfield, but for some reason this pencil-cum-sickle won’t cut, won’t move forward, it gets stuck on this root, this stone, what on earth am I supposed to write, they’re waiting for me to tell them all I know, here on these crooked lines, or do they only look crooked because I’m so tired, João Catarino is the first to push the exercise book to one side, he wrote his name, he will write nothing more, his name will stay there so that people will know that the owner of that name wrote nothing more than his name, not a word more, and then, at different times, each of the other men pushed the exercise book to one side with a large, dark hand, some closed the book, others left it open so that the name was the first thing that would be seen when they came for them, and nothing more.

At the first crack, which is a very picturesque and rural way of speaking that came into being perhaps along with the unboarded roof, especially the thatched variety, in which cracks and holes appear with wear and tear and no thanks to the skills of the thatcher, and it is through those cracks and holes that the dawn light enters, although the light could have entered earlier from a star which, on its journey, was caught there by the eyes of some sleepless person. The idea of the exercise books was probably a ruse on the part of the PIDE agent and the lieutenant to be able to get a decent night’s sleep while the criminals made their confessions, or a subtle way of dispensing with a scribe and getting the work done for free. We’ll never know the truth until it is confirmed, or not, in this account of prison and interrogation. At the first crack, we have to go back to that phrase because the sentence was left unfinished and the meaning lost, when the doors opened and the dapper PIDE agent, as dapper and fresh as if he really had slept at home and in a good bed, went from room to room, his anger growing, because each exercise book told him only what he knew already, that this villain is called João Catarino, that this turd is called Agostinho Direito, that this piece of shit is called Carolino Dias, and that this son-of-a-bitch, yes, son-of-a-bitch, is called João Mau-Tempo. They must have planned it together, the bastards, Come here, there’s to be no more joking now, I want to know who organized the strike, who your contacts are, or the same thing will happen to you as happened to that other man. They don’t know who that other man is, they don’t know anything, they shake their heads, determined, weary, brave, hungry heads, oh dear, my eyes are filling with tears. And Lieutenant Contente, who was also there, says, You’ll end up being sent to Lisbon, you’d be better off confessing here on your home territory, among people who know you. But for some reason the agent softened, Send them back inside, we’ll decide what to do with them later. The four were almost dragged down the corridor into the courtyard, look up there, my friend, at the sky, it’s bright even though the sun’s not out, and then were plunged, stumbling over the bodies on the floor, into the darkness of the dungeon where their comrades were still being kept. Those who were asleep had to wake up, or else, grumbling, turn over, but all finally settled down again, because the four men, before they, too, lay down and slept, as was their perfect right, all said, hand on heart, that they had told them nothing, not a single word. That sleep did not last long, for these are people accustomed to sleeping little and rolling up their blanket when the sun is still hidden among the mountains in Spain, and besides, there is the nagging, cruel anxiety that slips in between the folds of the unconscious mind, shakes and distends them, breaking the chrysalis, and on top of that is the hollow ache in the stomach, which has not been fed for who knows how many hours, you wouldn’t even treat an animal like this.

It’s midmorning when the door opens again, and Corporal Tacabo says, João Mau-Tempo, you have a visitor, and João Mau-Tempo, who was talking to Manuel Espada and Sigismundo Canastro about what fate might await them, jumps to his feet in surprise and sees the astonishment on his companions’ faces too, it’s only natural, everyone knows that in situations like this there are no visitors, such kindness is unheard of, and there are even those who wonder if their comrade really did say nothing, which is why João Mau-Tempo leaves, flanked by two silent, serious groups of men, and why he drags his feet as if he were carrying the guilt of the world on his shoulders. He is like a spinning wheel, going round and round, with the sky above full of sunlight, who can possibly have come to visit me, it must be Faustina and the kids, no, it can’t be, the lieutenant wouldn’t give permission, and there’s no way that the PIDE agent, that foul-mouthed dog, would allow it.

The corridor seems far shorter, it was behind that door that he spent the night gazing at a school exercise book, a particularly hard lesson, my name is João Mau-Tempo, and now, while the guard is knocking at the next door and waiting for the order to enter, it must be Faustina, or else they’re just saying that to get my hopes up, when in fact they’re going to question me again, perhaps beat me, what did that policeman mean when he said that if we didn’t talk, the same thing would happen to us as happened to the other man, what other man. Thoughts move quickly, which is why João Mau-Tempo had time to think all this while he was waiting, but when the door opened, his brain emptied of ideas, as if his head were filled with the blackness of night, and then he felt a great sense of relief, because standing between the agent and the lieutenant was Father Agamedes, they wouldn’t beat me up in front of a priest, but what’s he doing here.

This is how it will be in heaven, with me in the middle as befits the spiritual obligation that has been mine ever since I have known myself and you have known me, with you, Lieutenant, at my right hand as protector of the law and those who make the law, and you, Senhor Agent, on my left hand as the man who does the dirty work, about which I would really rather not know. The door to this house of discipline opens, and what do I see, O my poor eyes, better to have been born blind than to see this, tell me you’re deceiving me, can this be João Mau-Tempo from Monte Lavre, the home of my somewhat troublesome flock, you must be mad, according to the lieutenant and the policeman, or the policeman and the lieutenant, you have refused to tell them all that you know, well, it would be best if you did, for your own sake and that of your family, they are not to blame for the mistakes and follies of their father, you should be ashamed of yourself, João Mau-Tempo, a grown man, a respectable man caught up in such foolishness, this so-called insurrection, how often have I told you and the other men at the church, Beloved brethren, the road you are taking will lead you only to perdition and to hell, where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, I have told you that so often, I’ve grown weary of repeating it, but what good did it do, João Mau-Tempo, it’s not that I don’t care about the others, I don’t know them, but the policeman and the lieutenant told me that of the men from Monte Lavre, you were the one they asked to write in that exercise book, but you wrote nothing, you refused to help, as if you were mocking them, mocking these poor, patient gentlemen, who spent a sleepless night, because they have families too, you know, sitting at home waiting for them, and because of you, they had to say to them, I won’t be home until late or I have to work tonight, don’t wait up for me, have your supper and go to bed, I won’t be home until morning, or not even then, because it’s almost lunchtime now, and the lieutenant and the policeman are both still here, I just can’t believe it, João Mau-Tempo, you clearly have no consideration for the authorities at all, if you did, you wouldn’t behave like this, what would it cost you to tell them who organized the strike and who distributed the leaflets, where they come from and how many there are, what would it cost you, you wretched man, what could be simpler than to give them the names, the policeman here and the lieutenant would do the rest, you could then go home to your family, what could be nicer, a man in the bosom of his family, tell me, although, obviously, as a priest, I can’t reveal the secrets of the confessional, but was it So-and-so and Whatsisname, was it, tell me, a nod will do if you prefer not to speak, only we four will ever know, was it them or wasn’t it, that’s what I’ve heard, but I can’t be sure and I’m not saying it was them, I’m simply asking, really, João Mau-Tempo, I find your attitude most disappointing, aren’t you ashamed to make your family suffer like this, speak, man.