Raised from the Ground (29 page)

After a while, Father Agamedes got to his feet, made a gesture calling for silence, just a gesture, nothing more, he was a tall, extremely thin man, indeed it was a matter of great perplexity among his parishioners as to just where Father Agamedes put the considerable quantity of food that he ate, as was evident at the weddings and christenings he presided over, he got to his feet, looked at the people seated around him, wrinkled his sensitive nose at the sight of the dirty, disorderly table, oh, they’re so ill bred, Senhora Dona Clemência, but then felt himself filled with charity, doubtless Christian charity, and said, My dear children, I address myself to you and especially to the newlyweds on this happy day on which I have had the great good fortune to unite in holy matrimony Gracinda Mau-Tempo and Manuel Espada, she, the daughter of João Mau-Tempo and Faustina Gonçalves and he, the son of Tomás Espada and the late Flor Martinha. You have made the vows of faithfulness and mutual support that the holy mother church requires of all those who come to her in order to sanctify the joining together of man and wife until death do them part. Father Agamedes was wrong to mention death at this point, because Tomás Espada closed his eyes to hold back his tears but failed, tears are like water oozing out from a painful crack in a wall, everyone, very wisely, pretended not to notice, and Father Agamedes proceeded regardless, This land of ours may be small, but fortunately we share a great friendship, there are no dissensions or disputes such as I have seen in other places, and although it’s true that the people here are not great frequenters of our beloved mother church, who is always waiting patiently for her children to come to her, it is also true that almost no one omits to attend the sacraments, and those who don’t attend are lost sheep whom I, alas, have long given up all hope of saving, may God forgive me, for a minister should never lose hope of leading his entire flock into the arms of God. One of those stray sheep was present, as was his wife, who compared very favorably with her husband in the stray-sheep stakes, namely Sigismundo Canastro and Joana Canastra, both of whom were beaming as if Father Agamedes’s words were bouquets of roses, far be it from me to boast, but I have proven to be a constant and caring shepherd, for example, three years ago, at the time of the strike, as I hope you will all remember, some of you here today were among those I freed from prison, as you yourselves can attest, and were it not for Monte Lavre’s good standing with the Lord, all twenty-two of you could have been taken to the bullring, as happened to other men in lands less blessed by Our Lord and the Virgin Mother, although I know, of course, that I, poor repentant sinner than I am, cannot take the credit for such things.

At this point, João Mau-Tempo turned red and, needing to look at someone, he looked at Sigismundo Canastro, whose grave and now unsmiling eyes were fixed on the priest, and then António Mau-Tempo spoke up, This is my sister’s wedding, Father Agamedes, it’s no time to speak of strikes or who should take credit for what, and his voice was so serene that he didn’t seem the least angry, although he was, and everyone else kept silent, waiting to see what might happen next, but the priest merely proposed a toast to the health of the newlyweds and sat down. That was not a good idea, Father Agamedes, Norberto said afterward, what possessed you to say such things, it’s like mentioning rope in the house of a hanged man, You’re quite right, said Father Agamedes, I don’t know what came over me, I just wanted to show them that if it weren’t for us, the church and the latifundio, the two persons of the Holy Trinity, of which the third is the State, that purest of doves, if it were not for us, how would they keep body and soul together, and, come election time, who would they give their votes to, but I confess I was wrong, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, that’s why I didn’t stay there much longer, I gave my pastoral duties as an excuse and left, I was, admittedly, slightly tipsy, though I didn’t drink much of that rough fortified wine of theirs, far too acidic for my stomach, not like the excellent wine from your cellar, Senhor Lamberto.

Then António Mau-Tempo, as spokesman, said, Right, now that Father Agamedes has gone and we’re among family, we can say what we like, according to our inclinations and our hearts’ choosing, so Manuel Espada will talk to Gracinda, his wife and my sister, while my other sister, Amélia, doubtless has her eye on someone too, though she might not be free to speak to him, and if he’s not here, then she can think about him, and we will all understand, because sometimes that’s the most we can do, and my parents will think back over their lives and over ours and what they were like when they were young, and they will forgive us our mistakes, and the rest of you will think about yourselves and your nearest and dearest, some of whom are already dead, I know, but if you call them, they will come back, that’s all the dead are waiting for, indeed, I can already feel the presence of Flor Martinha, someone must have summoned her here, but since I’m the one speaking, I will keep the floor, and don’t be surprised at my fine way of speaking, you don’t only learn about fighting in the army, if you really want to, you can learn how to read and write and do arithmetic, and that way you can begin to understand the world and a little about life, which isn’t simply a matter of being born, working and dying, sometimes we have to rebel, and that’s what I want to talk to you about.

Any conversations going on around him stopped, Gracinda Mau-Tempo and Manuel Espada ceased gazing at each other, although they continued to hold hands, Flor Martinha said her farewells, Goodbye, Tomás, the guests put their elbows on the table, they have no manners these people, and if someone sticks a finger in his mouth to extract from some cavity in his teeth a bit of gristle from the lamb, don’t be angry, we live in a land where food cannot be wasted, and António Mau-Tempo, in his cotton uniform, is talking about just that, about food. It’s true that there’s a lot of hunger hereabouts, sometimes we’re obliged to eat weeds, and our stomachs are as swollen and tight as drums, and perhaps that’s why the commander of the regiment believes that if a donkey is hungry enough it will eat thistles, and since we are donkeys, because we hear nothing else on the parade ground, well, actually we hear far worse than that, we do eat thistles, but I can tell you that I would rather eat thistles than the food they serve at the barracks, which is fit only for pigs, although even they might turn up their snouts at it.

António Mau-Tempo paused, took a sip of wine to clear his throat, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, after all, what more natural napkin is there, and resumed his speech, They believe that because we are starving at home, we should accept anything, but that’s where they’re wrong, because our hunger is a clean hunger, and the thistles we have to strip, we strip with our own hands, which even when they’re dirty are still clean, no one has cleaner hands than us, that’s the first thing we learn when we enter the barracks, it’s not part of the weapons drill, but you sense it, and a man can choose between outright hunger and the shame of eating what they give us, they came to Monte Lavre to summon me to serve the nation, or so they said, but I don’t know what that means, the nation is my mother and my father, they said, well, I, like everyone else, know my real mother and father, who took the food from their own mouths so that we could eat, in that case, the nation should also take the food from its own mouth so that I can eat, and if I have to eat thistles, then the nation should eat them too, if not, that means that some are the sons of the nation and others are the sons of whores.

Some of the women were shocked, some of the men frowned, but António Mau-Tempo, who has something of the vagabond about him despite his uniform, will be forgiven anything for having put Father Agamedes firmly in his place, and besides, he says these other words that taste to his listeners like the excellent wine from Senhor Lamberto’s cellar, although that’s purely a hypothesis, because our lips have never actually touched the stuff, Anyway, in the barracks we decided to hold a hunger strike, we wouldn’t eat a single crumb of what they put before us, just like pigs who refuse to eat from the trough in which there’s more rubbish in the swill than even a pig will eat, we don’t mind eating two quarts of earth a year, the earth is as clean as us, but not that food, and I, António Mau-Tempo, speaking to you now, was the one who had the idea, and I’m proud of that, you don’t know how different you feel until you’ve done these things, I talked to my comrades and they agreed that the situation could only be worse if they were actually spitting on us, and when the day came, the cookhouse bell rang and we went and sat down as if we were going to eat, but the food arrived and it stayed there on the plates uneaten, the sergeants bawled and yelled, but no one picked up his spoon, it was the revolution of the pigs, and then the officer on duty turned up, made a speech like the one Father Agamedes made, but we pretended we didn’t understand a word of it, as if he were talking Latin, first he tried to win us over with sweet words, but then he lost his rag and started screaming at us, ordering us to form up on the parade ground, an order we did understand, because what we wanted more than anything was to get out of that cookhouse, so out we went, whispering words of encouragement to each other, Don’t give up, courage, my friend, stick to your guns, we’re all in this together, and there we stood for half an hour, and that, we assumed, was the punishment until we saw them setting up three machine guns trained on us, all in accordance with the regulations, with gunners and their assistants, and boxes of ammunition, and then the officer said that if we didn’t go and eat, he would give the order to fire, that was the voice of the nation speaking, it was as if my mother had said to me, either eat your food or I’ll slit your throat, none of us believed he would do it, but then they started loading the machine guns, and from that point on we had no idea what was going to happen, I can tell you I felt a shiver go down my spine, what if they really did shoot and there was a bloodbath over a bowl of soup, was it worth it, not that we were weakening, but in situations like that, you can’t help such thoughts running through your mind, and then, from within the ranks, we never did find out who it was, even the comrades standing nearest never said, we heard a very calm voice say, as if it were someone politely inquiring after our health, Comrades, stand your ground, and then another voice at the other end of the line said, Go on, shoot us, and then, even now it brings a lump to my throat, every single soldier in the ranks repeated those defiant words, Go on, shoot us, I don’t think they would have fired on us, but if they had, I know that we would all have stood our ground, and that was our real victory, rather than getting them to improve the food, it’s odd how sometimes you start out fighting for one thing and end by winning something else, and that second thing was the best of the two. António Mau-Tempo paused again, and then, much wiser than his years, he added, But to win that second thing, you have to start fighting for the first.

The women are weeping and the men’s eyes are filling with tears, this is the best wedding you could possibly imagine, Monte Lavre has never seen the like, and then Manuel Espada stood up and went to embrace António Mau-Tempo, thinking how different this army is from the one he served in, and he remembers his national service in the Azores and hearing his fellow soldier issuing that vague threat, When I get out of here, I’m going to join the police for the vigilance and defense of the state, it’s great, say there’s someone you don’t like, well, you simply arrest him, haul him off to the civil authorities, and if you like, shoot him in the head before you get there and say he tried to resist.

Now Sigismundo Canastro, tall and thin, has got to his feet, he toasts the newlyweds, and when everyone has downed some of the fortified wine, he announces he’s going to tell a story which, while not quite the same as António Mau-Tempo’s, is nevertheless similar, because with stories and anecdotes you can always find some similarity, however unlikely, Many years ago, and at this point he pauses, just to make sure everyone is listening, and they are, their eyes fixed on him, some are rather sleepy, it’s true, but can still manage to keep awake, and then he goes on, Many years ago, I was out hunting, oh, no, not another hunting story, all lies and exaggeration, but Sigismundo Canastro isn’t joking and doesn’t respond to this interruption, he merely looks around him as if pitying such a lack of seriousness, and whether it was that look or mere curiosity to find out how big a lie this will be, silence falls, and João Mau-Tempo, who knows Sigismundo Canastro very well, is sure there will be more to this story than meets the eye, the problem will be understanding it, At the time, I didn’t have a rifle of my own, I used to borrow one from whoever I could, and I was a pretty good hunter too, just ask the people who knew me then, and I had a little dog I was training up, a real gem with a really keen nose, and one day I went out with some friends, there were quite a few of us, each of us with our dog, and we had already walked a long way and were somewhere over near Guarita do Godeal when a partridge suddenly flew up, as fast as you like, I put my rifle to my eye, and the bird fell just as I was about to pull the trigger, I certainly didn’t hit it, fortunately, though, for my good name as a hunter, there was no one else around, but Constante, my dog, ran to where the partridge had fallen, thinking perhaps that the bird was wounded, lost amid the gorse, because the undergrowth was really thick, and there were some large rocks blocking your view, but anyway, the dog disappeared, and I called and called, Constante, Constante, and I whistled and whistled, but no response, it would be even more embarrassing having to return home without the dog, besides, I was really fond of him, he was one of those dogs who could almost speak. His audience was hanging on his every word now, listening and digesting, it doesn’t take much to make a man happy and a woman content, and even if the story turned out to be pure hokum, it was a good story well told, as Sigismundo Canastro went on to show, Two years later, I happened to be in those parts again, and I came across a vast area of land which they had begun to clear but then, for some reason, abandoned, and I remembered what had happened with Constante, and I plunged in among the rocks and the undergrowth, it was the devil of a job, but something was leading me on, as if someone were saying, don’t give up, Sigismundo Canastro, and suddenly what did I see but the skeleton of my dog standing there, guarding the skeleton of the partridge, and they had been like that for two years, both equally determined. I can see it now, my dog Constante, his nose pointing forward, his front leg poised and lifted, and no wind could knock him over and no rain dissolve his bones.