The Violent Land (15 page)

“I can't vouch for Teodoro das Baraúnas. He hangs around the Badarós a lot.”

It did not take Horacio long to reach a decision.

“You, Firmo, will go back this very minute. I'll send a couple of men with you. You talk to the others, to Braz, to José da Ribeira, to the Widow Merenda, to Coló—talk to them all. And don't forget our friend Jarde; he's a fellow with nerve. Tell them all to come over for lunch tomorrow. The lawyer's here and we'll put it all down in black and white. I take the forest all the way down to the river, and the rest of it, what's on the other side, you can divide among you. And that goes for the land we take as well. Is that agreed?”

Firmo assented; he was already on his feet, preparing to leave. Virgilio had a giddy feeling. He glanced at Ester, who was white as could be—pale was not the word for it. She had not spoken a syllable. Horacio was now talking to Maneca Dantas, giving orders; he was the lord and master.

“And you, my friend, you go talk to Teodoro. Explain the matter to him. If he wants to come along tomorrow, let him come. I'll make an agreement with him. But if he's not willing, let him get ready, for it's going to rain lead for fifty miles around.”

He went out on the lawn. Virgilio gazed after him, his eyes big with astonishment. Then, turning timidly to Ester, he found her distant, all but unattainable. Outside, Horacio was shouting orders in the direction of the labourers' huts.

“Algemiro! Joe Littlefinger! Red John!”

In response to his call they all came up to the veranda. Out in front the burros were saddled, the men armed. They set out together, Maneca, Firmo, and the three
capangas,
the hoofs of the cavalcade echoing in the early dawn. Virgilio and Ester went back into the room, and she came up to him. Her face was livid. She spoke rapidly, as though the words were torn from her heart.

“Take me away from here—far, far away.”

Before Virgilio could reply they heard Horacio's footsteps. The colonel came in.

“That forest,” he said, speaking to his wife and the attorney, “is going to be mine, if I have to drench the earth in blood. You may as well get ready, doctor; the row's about to start.” Then, discovering Ester's fear: “You can go to Ilhéos; that'll be better.” But it was the things that were happening that held his interest. “Doctor, you're going to see how we get rid of a bunch of bandits. For that's all the Badarós are, bandits.”

Taking Virgilio by the arm, he led him out to the veranda. In the nearing dawn the earth was suffused in a dim and mournful light.

“Over there, doctor,” said Horacio, pointing to the far-distant horizon, which was barely visible, “over there lies the forest of Sequeiro Grande. One day it's all going to be in cacao. I'm as certain of that as I am that my name is Horacio da Silveira.”

As the dog howled on the lawn, Don' Ana Badaró, who was seated in the hammock, shuddered. It was not fear; in the city and in the neighbouring towns people were in the habit of saying that the Badarós did not know what fear was. But she was worried; for she had felt certain, all afternoon, that they were keeping something from her, that between her father and her uncle there was a secret of which the women of the household were ignorant. Noting the absence of Damião and Viriato, she had asked Juca about it, and he had replied that the men had “gone on an errand.” She could tell by the sound of his voice that he was lying, but she said nothing. There was something serious in the wind, she could feel it, and it made her restless. The dog was howling again, baying the moon with the anguish of the male on a night when he is in rut. Don' Ana glanced at her father's face. With half-closed eyes he was waiting for her to begin reading. Sinhô Badaró was calm; there was a deep serenity in his eyes and in his beard and in his big hands resting on his things; everything about him spoke of peace and assurance. Had it not been for Juca fidgeting in his chair, the howling of the dog would not, perhaps, have had the effect that it did upon Don' Ana.

They were in the parlour, and the hour for Bible-reading had come. This was a custom of many years' standing, dating back to the time of Dona Lidia, Don' Ana's mother. She had been a religious woman and had loved to look in the Bible for some word of advice in connection with her husband's business affairs. After her death, Sinhô had kept up the custom religiously. No matter where he might be, at the plantation, in Ilhéos, or even in Bahia on business—no matter where he was, someone had to read to him every night scattered passages from the Bible, in which he sought for counsel or for words of prophecy that would throw some light on his undertakings. Following Lidia's death Sinhô had grown constantly more religious, now mixing his Catholicism with a little spiritualism and a great deal of superstition. Above all, this habit of Bible-reading had become a deeply rooted one with him. There was much wagging of tongues about it in Ilhéos, and there was a story going the rounds of the cafés to the effect that, one night in Bahia, Sinhô had decided to go to a house of prostitution, but that, before staying with the whore, he had taken the old, well-thumbed Bible out of his pocket and had made her read him a few verses. It was on account of this yarn that Juca Badaró had had a fight in Zeca Tripa's place and had smashed in the face of the apothecary, Carlos da Silva, who had related the anecdote amid loud guffaws.

After Dona Lidia died, Don' Ana became the Bible-reader. Whether at the plantation or in Ilhéos, she had to leaf through the soiled and frequently torn pages of this ancient copy of Holy Writ, a copy that Sinhô Badarô refused to exchange for another, being certain that this one held the magic power to guide him. Nor was he shaken in this resolve when Canon Freitas, who was sleeping at the plantation one night, called his attention to the fact that it was a Protestant Bible, and that it was not becoming in a Catholic to be reading an “anathematized” book. Sinhô Badaró did not know the meaning of the word “anathematized,” and asked for no explanation. He merely replied that it made very little difference, that he had always got along well enough with this one, and that, moreover, “a Bible was not something that you changed every year like an almanac.” At a loss for arguments, Canon Freitas deemed it best to remain silent; after all, he concluded, it was quite a marvellous thing for a “colonel” to be reading the Bible—any Bible—every night.

There was another point on which Sinhô was firm. He would not permit Don' Ana to direct the reading, as she had endeavoured to do when she had first taken Lidia's place as housekeeper. She had suggested starting with the first page and reading through to the end, but Sinhô had protested; he felt that the Bible should be opened at random, since for him it was a magic book and the passage that was thus found was the one that held a message for him. When he was not satisfied, he would ask his daughter to open to another, and another, and another, until he came upon one that appeared to have some bearing on the business in hand. He would listen most attentively to the words—many of which he did not understand—seeking to find a meaning in them and interpreting them after his own fashion, in the light of his own needs and desires. More than once he had carried through a business deal or had failed to carry it through in accordance with the sayings of Moses and of Abraham, and he would declare that never once had they failed to stand him in good stead. Woe to that person, relative or guest, who, coming in at the Bible-reading hour, should venture to discuss the matter or voice a protest. Sinhô Badaró then would lose his calm and there would be an outburst of wrath. Not even Juca dared object to this custom, which to him was extremely annoying. He had to force himself to pay attention, finding amusement in those passages which had to do with sexual matters—he was the only one who understood certain words, whose real meaning escaped Sinhô and Don' Ana alike.

The latter gazed at her father as he sat there so serenely in his high-backed chair. Through half-shut lids he appeared to be studying the picture on the wall, that picture which he had picked up in Bahia when he remembered that the parlour needed something to brighten it up. She, too, looked at the chromo and could feel all the peace that emanated from it. Juca, meanwhile, was becoming more and more fidgety, having lost interest in the newspaper he was reading, a paper from Bahia that was two weeks old. The dog howled again.

“The next time I come back from Ilhéos,” said Juca, “I'm going to bring along a bitch. Pery feels the need of one.”

To Don' Ana these words had a false ring, as if Juca were merely trying to conceal his agitation with the sound of his own voice. They were not deceiving her; there was something up, something serious. Where were Damião and Viriato? Many times before, Don' Ana had been conscious of this air of perturbation in the house, this secretive atmosphere. Sometimes it was not until days afterwards that she would hear that a man had been killed and that the Badaró estate had been increased in size. She was terribly hurt by their hiding things from her as if she were a child.

Taking her eyes from her uncle, whose statement had met with no response, she began envying the calm manner in which Olga, Juca's wife, sat crocheting in a chair at her husband's side. Olga spent very little time at the plantation; and when, upon Juca's compulsion, she took the train from Ilhéos to spend a month with Don' Ana, she would arrive in tears and full of self-pity. Her life was wrapped up in the gossip of Ilhéos, and she loved to play the martyr for the benefit of the pious old ladies of the town and her women friends by complaining day and night of her spouse's amorous escapades. At first she had actively resented his successive infidelities and had sent some rowdies to threaten the women who were involved with him. She once had had these ruffians assault a young mulatto girl whom Juca was keeping; but his reaction to this had been so violent—the neighbours said that he had beaten her—that she afterwards had been compelled to be content with gossiping and with complaining to everyone she met, as she put on the air of a victim resigned to her fate, whose only consolation lay in the feast-days and rites of the Church. This was her very life; she enjoyed nothing so much as bemoaning her lot and listening to the pious dames, with their mutterings and lamentations. It is quite possible that she would have felt that she had been cheated, had Juca of a sudden been converted into a model husband.

Olga loathed the plantation, where Sinhô turned a deaf ear to her wailings, and where Don' Ana, busy all day long, had little time to condole with her. The latter, moreover, had the Badaró view of things and found nothing wrong in Juca's adventures so long as he gave his wife everything she needed. That was the way it had been with her father, that was the way it was with all men, Don' Ana reflected. Then, too, Olga had not the faintest interest in any of the family problems; hating the country, she was wholly ignorant of everything that had to do with cacao-raising. In short, she impressed her sister-in-law as being an utter stranger, a person who was at once distant and dangerous, one who breathed a different atmosphere from that which she, Sinhô, and Juca did. Nevertheless, at this moment she eyed Olga with a certain envy for the calm indifference that Juca's wife was displaying in the presence of this mystery with which the room was laden. Don' Ana felt that something very serious was taking place, and she was both grieved and angry that they should be keeping the secret from her instead of according her the place that was rightfully hers in the Badaró family councils. She delayed the Bible-reading as her eyes wandered from face to face.

Raimunda then came in, her kitchen tasks having been completed. Sitting down on the floor behind the hammock, the mulatto girl with crackling fingers began searching for imaginary lice in her mistress's braids; but not even this playful caress could soothe Don' Ana's restlessness. What secret was it that Sinhô and Juca were keeping? Where were Viriato and Negro Damião? Why was Juca so nervous; why did he keep looking at his watch every other minute? The dog's howl rent the anguished night.

Slowly Sinhô opened his eyes and fixed them on Don' Ana.

“Why don't you begin, daughter?”

She opened the Bible, Olga looking on with no show of interest, as Juca spread the newspaper over his knees. Don' Ana began:

And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many.

It was the story of Joshua and his battles, and Don' Ana wondered that Sinhô did not tell her to turn to another page. On the contrary, her father was paying very close attention, and so she tried to make out the meaning of the verses as she read them, in an effort to find what they had to do with the secret that was bothering her. Sinhô had turned his head and was gazing at her, his beard in his lap as he bent forward to catch every word. She went on, slowly; for she, too, was endeavouring to solve a world of doubts.

There was one verse that Sinhô asked her to read over again:

So Joshua took all that land, the hills and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same.

Don' Ana's voice fell silent as her father made a gesture for her to stop. He was thinking deeply as to whether or not the divine benediction on his family and their plans was clear. A great peace then came over him, a feeling of absolute assurance.

“The Bible,” he said, “does not lie. I never went wrong in following it. We are going to get that forest of Sequeiro Grande, for it is God's will. I had my doubts about it today, but I don't have any longer.”

And then, suddenly, Don' Ana understood, and she was happy; she now knew that the forest of Sequeiro Grande was going to belong to the Badarós, that on that land the cacao saplings would be growing, and that, as Sinhô had promised her, she would have the privilege of naming the new plantation. Her face lighted up with joy.

Sinhô Badaró rose, majestically. He had the appearance of a prophet of old, with his long hair, which was beginning to turn white, and his black beard, which fell down over his bosom. Juca looked at his elder brother.

“I always told you, Sinhô,” he said, “that we had to go into that forest. And once we get our hands on it, there's nobody who's going to be able to cope with the Badarós.”

Don' Ana's smile grew more expansive at her uncle's words.

“So it's going to begin all over again!” said Olga in a frightened voice. “If that's the way things are, I'm going back to Ilhéos. I don't want anything to do with this kind of a life, killing people.”

At that moment Don' Ana hated her. The look that she gave her uncle's wife was filled with contempt, contempt and indignation. This was someone from another world, a futile, apathetic world, Don' Ana thought to herself.

The clock was striking the hour.

“Go on to bed, Don' Ana,” said Sinhô to his daughter. “It is time. And you, too, Olga—I want to talk to Juca.”

All the happiness vanished from Don' Ana's face. Olga and Raimunda had already risen, but she herself was searching for words with which to persuade Sinhô to let her stay. At this point, however, the barking of the dog on the lawn showed that there was someone outside. They all stopped short. A few seconds later Viriato appeared in the doorway of the veranda, followed by the dog, which, having recognized him, was no longer barking.

“Well, how did it go?” said Juca, coming forward.

The mulatto dropped his eyes. He spoke hurriedly:

“He came by the side-road. He didn't come on my side. If he had, I'd have got him.”

“But what is it, anyway?” said Sinhô. “Something happened to Damião? Speak up.”

“He missed his aim.”

“That's not possible!”

“Missed?” echoed Juca, in astonishment.

“Yes, sir, that's what I thought myself. I don't know what got into him. He was acting funny from the time we left here. I don't know what was the matter with him. It wasn't rum; for I know—”

“Just what is it that you know?” asked Sinhô.

The mulatto again stared down at the floor.

“Firmo wasn't even wounded. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows that by now. They're saying that Damião went crazy. Nobody saw which way he ran.”

“And Firmo?” said Juca. “What about him?”

“I met a couple of men carrying a corpse. They told me that Firmo had passed them, on the way to Colonel Horacio's house. He was riding at a gallop and only stopped long enough to tell them that you had sent to have him done away with and that Damião had missed him. That was all they could get out of him, for he was in a terrible hurry—I just happened to run into them. There was a lot of people standing around talking about it.”