The Violent Land (22 page)

BIG DRAMATIC EVENT!

There was politics, there was his family, there was his medical practice, there were his groves and his houses to rent, there was the school—there were all of these things with which to occupy his mind, but Dr. Jessé Freitas's one real and grand passion was the Tabocas Amateur Group. It was something that he had dreamed of for years, but difficulties had always arisen. First of all, he had had to engage in a stubborn struggle to overcome the refusal of the young ladies of the town to take part in a theatrical performance. If he finally had succeeded, it had been owing to the word put in for him by the daughter of a rich merchant of Tabocas who had just come back from Rio, where she had been in school. She had urged the others to “stop being so silly” and to go ahead and join the Amateur Group. Even so, Dr. Jessé had had to obtain the consent of the fathers, and this had not been easy: “I only permit it because it is you who ask it, doctor.” Others had refused outright: “This business of the theatre is not for any self-respecting young girl.”

The group, none the less, had been formed at last and had given its first performance, a drama written by Professor Estanislau entitled
The Fall of the Bastille
. It had been an enormous success. The mothers of the actors had hardly been able to contain themselves with pride, and there were even a few quarrels started as to whose daughter had played her part the best. Dr. Jessé had promptly begun directing another play, this time one of his own, based upon a theme from national history having to do with Pedro II. It had been given for the benefit of the church building fund, for the church was then in the process of construction. In spite of a regrettable incident that had occurred upon the stage between two of the performers, this piece likewise had been a success and had definitely established the prestige of the Tabocas Amateur Group. That organization had now become the pride of the town, and each time that a resident of Tabocas went into Ilhéos, he did not fail to speak of the “Amateurs,” if only to annoy the city folk, who, while they had a very good theatre, did not have a company of their own. Dr. Jessé was counting upon the success of the
Social Vampires
—a work that was also from his pen—in his effort to persuade the mothers to allow their daughters to go to the city and give a performance there.

He spent long hours directing them. He would make the young women and the young men repeat their lines over and over again, with prolonged gestures, tremulous voice, and an affected style of delivery. He would applaud one, correct another, mop the perspiration from his brow, and beam with happiness.

It was only as he left the rehearsal that he once more remembered the forest of Sequeiro Grande, Teodoro, Ester, and Lawyer Virgilio. Taking up his medicine-case, where the original manuscript pages of the play were mingled with phials and dressings, he hastened to the attorney's home. Not finding him there, he set out for the house where Margot lived. The church bell had just sounded the hour of nine and the streets were deserted. The Amateurs were on their way home, the young ladies being accompanied by their mothers. A drunkard on the corner was muttering to himself. In a wineshop men were discussing politics. The kerosene street-lamps were pale in the light of the moon.

Lawyer Virgilio was in his pyjamas and Margot's voice could be heard from the bedroom, inquiring who was there.

“Did you know that Colonel Teodoro has been in town?” asked Dr. Jessé as he deposited his case on a chair in the parlour. “You had better get word to our friend Horacio. Nobody seems to know what he's up to.”

“He's looking for trouble, that's certain.”

“And there's something still more serious.”

“Go ahead. What is it?”

“They are saying the Juca Badaró has sent for an engineer to survey the forest of Sequeiro Grande so that he can take out a title to the property.”

Virgilio gave a self-satisfied laugh. “What do you think my business is as a lawyer? Doctor, that forest has already been entered, with a survey and everything, in the office of Venancio, the registrar, as the property of Colonel Horacio, Braz, Maneca Dantas, the Widow Merenda, Firmo, Jarde, and—” here he raised his voice slightly—“Dr. Jessé Freitas. You will have to go down and sign the papers tomorrow.”

As the attorney went on to explain the “ouster” that had been effected, the physician's face expanded in a grin.

“Congratulations, doctor. That's a master stroke.”

Virgilio smiled modestly. “It cost a couple of
contos de reis
to convince the registrar. The rest was easy. We'll see what they do now. We've stolen a march on them.”

Dr. Jessé was silent for a moment. It was a master stroke, no doubt of that. Horacio had got there ahead of the Badarós, and he was the owner of the forest—he and his friends, among whom was Dr. Jessé. He rubbed his fat hands together, one inside the other.

“It's a good piece of work. There's not another lawyer around here like you, sir. Well, I'll have to be going; I'll leave you two”—and he pointed to the bedroom where Margot was waiting—“alone. This is no time to talk. Good night, doctor.”

At first Dr. Jessé had thought of sounding Virgilio out on the subject of the gossip that was going around about him and Ester. He had even thought of advising the lawyer, while in Ilhéos, not to be seen too often at Horacio's place. Tongues in the city were quite as malicious as they were here in town. But now he decided to say nothing; he was afraid of offending the attorney, of hurting him, and not for anything in the world would he have done that today to one who had given the Badarós so serious a set-back.

Virgilio accompanied his guest to the door. As he went down the street, Dr. Jessé encountered no one whom he felt to be deserving of such a piece of news. Legally the Badarós were done for. What could they do now, anyway? Upon reaching the wine-shop, he glanced inside the door.

“Will you have something, doctor?” asked one of the pair who stood there drinking. Here, too, there was no worthy audience. The doctor accordingly countered with a question: “Do you know where Tonico Borges went?”

“He's gone to bed,” said one of the men. “I met him a short while ago; he was headed for the whorehouse.”

Dr. Jessé made a face to show his annoyance. He would have to keep the big news until the next day. He walked on, with the short, light step of the heavy man. But before coming to his own house he paused for a moment to make out whose cacao it was that was being brought into town by a troop of fifteen burros, to the jingling of bells and the shouts of a pack-driver that woke the neighbourhood:

“Whoa, there, you damned burro, you! Get up, there, Jack-knife!”

The man was out of breath as he burst into the hardware store.

“Friend Azevedo! Friend Azevedo!”

The clerk came up to him. “Azevedo's in the back, friend Ignacio.”

The man went on to the rear of the shop, where Azevedo, engaged in balancing his books, was leafing through a big ledger. He turned as the other came in. “What is it, Ignacio?”

“Then you haven't heard, sir?”

“Speak up, man. What is it? Something serious?”

Ignacio paused for breath; he had been running, almost.

“I just heard it, this very minute. You can't imagine—it will bowl you over.”

Azevedo put aside pencil, paper, and his ledger and waited impatiently.

“It's the biggest ‘ouster' that you ever heard tell of. Lawyer Virgilio has greased Venancio's palm and has entered title to the forest of Sequeiro Grande in the name of Colonel Horacio and five or six others—Braz, Dr. Jessé, Colonel Maneca, I don't know who all.”

Azevedo rose from his chair: “And the survey? What about that? Their title is no good.”

“Oh, it's all legal, right enough, friend Azevedo. It's all as legal as can be, down to the last comma. That young fellow is a crackerjack of a lawyer. He's looked after everything. There has already been a survey made, an old one, for Mundinho de Almeida while he was still alive, the time he was starting to open up a grove in that region. It was never registered because Colonel Mundinho cashed in his checks. But Venancio has the documents.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Don't you remember Colonel Mundinho's sending for a surveyor from Bahia, an old fellow with a beard who could outdrink the colonel himself?”

“Ah, yes, I remember now.”

“Well, Lawyer Virgilio dug up that old survey, and the rest was easy; all he had to do was to change the names and enter it at the registry office. They say that Venancio got ten contos for his trouble.”

Azevedo realized what all this meant.

“Ignacio,” he said, “I'm much obliged to you. This is a favour I won't forget. You're the kind of a friend to have. And now I must get word right away to Sinhô Badaró. He will be grateful to you, you know that.”

Ignacio smiled. “Tell Colonel Sinhô that I'm at his service. So far as I'm concerned, he's the only leader in these parts. So the minute I heard of it, I came straight here.”

As Ignacio went out, Azevedo stood for a moment deep in thought. Then, taking up his pen, he bent over the table and in a laboured hand wrote a letter to Sinhô Badaró; after which he sent the clerk for a man to take it to its destination. The messenger came a few minutes later. He was a dark-skinned mulatto, barefoot but wearing spurs, and with a revolver sticking out from under his ragged coat.

“You sent for me, Mr. Azevedo?”

“Militão, I want you to get on my horse, ride as fast as you can to the Badaró plantation, and give this letter to Sinhô. Tell him it's from me and that it's urgent.”

“Shall I go by way of Ferradas, Mr. Azevedo?”

“It's a lot shorter that way.”

“They say Colonel Horacio has ordered them not to let any Badaró people through there.”

“That's all talk. You're not afraid, are you?”

“Did you ever know me to be afraid? I just wanted to make sure.”

“All right, then. Sinhô will pay you well, for it's an important piece of news.”

The man took the letter. “Any answer?” he asked before leaving to go for the horse.

“No.”

“Well, then, see you later, Mr. Azevedo.”

“Good luck, Militão.”

At the door the man turned his head: “Mr. Azevedo.”

“What is it?”

“If I should be left in the street in Ferradas, you'll look after my wife and kids, won't you?”

Don' Ana Badaró stood on the veranda of the Big House conversing with a man who had just dismounted.

“He's gone to Ilhéos, Militão.”

“And Mr. Juca?”

“He's not here, either. Is it something urgent?”

“I think it is, miss. Mr. Azevedo told me to lose no time in getting here and to come by way of Ferradas because it's a shorter road—and they're ready for war there.”

“How did you make it?”

“I cut in behind the pesthouse—no one saw me.”

Don' Ana turned over the letter in her hand.

“So you think it might be urgent?” she asked again.

“I think so, Don' Ana. Mr. Azevedo told me it was very important and couldn't wait. He even sent me on his own horse.”

Don' Ana came to a decision, opened the letter, and proceeded to decipher Azevedo's scrawl. Her face grew hard. “Bandits!” She started into the house, the letter in her hand, then remembered the bearer. “Raimunda! Raimunda!” she called.

“What is it, godmother?”

“Serve Militão some rum, here on the veranda.”

Entering the parlour, she began pacing up and down from one side of the room to the other. She had the appearance of one of the Badaró brothers when they were thinking things out or engaged in a discussion. She ended by seating herself in Sinhô's high-backed chair, her face still set in hard lines, her mind wholly taken up with the news she had received. Her father and uncle were in Ilhéos, and this was a matter that could not wait. What ought she to do? Send the letter on to her father? It would not get to Ilhéos until the next day, and that would mean too great a delay. Then, suddenly, she remembered; and rising, she returned to the veranda. Militão was sipping his rum.

“Are you very tired, Militão?”

“No, miss. It was a short twenty miles or so.”

“Very well, then, I want you to ride on over to the Baraúnas. I want you to take a message to Colonel Teodoro. Tell him he should come here and talk to me at once. And you come back with him.”

“At your service, Don' Ana.”

“Tell him to come as quickly as he can. Tell him it's serious.”

Militão mounted his horse once more. “Good afternoon, miss,” he said, as he patted the animal's neck. She remained on the veranda gazing after him as he rode off. She surely was taking responsibilities upon herself. What would Sinhô say when he knew? Once more she read over Azevedo's letter and then decided that she had done the right thing in sending for Teodoro.”

“Bandits!” she muttered. “And that little wretch of a lawyer—he deserves a bullet.”

The cat came up and rubbed against her legs, and Don' Ana put her hand down and stroked it gently. Her face, with its deep, dark eyes and sensual lips, was no longer hard; there was a tinge of melancholy to it, that was all. Glimpsed thus on the veranda, Don' Ana Badaró might have been a timid little country girl.

At the school things were going very well. Dr. Jessé had succeeded in persuading a number of merchants to close their shops and stores in honour of Arbour Day. Outside of teachers and pupils, the audience at the school building, where Professor Estanislau read his speech and some of the children gave recitations, was a small one; but Church Square was filled. The doctor presided at the indoor session and was presented with a flowering tree bough. Then they all marched to the square, where the pupils from the town's two private schools were lined up and waiting for them. These other institutions were conducted, respectively, by Estanislau and by Dona Guilhermina, a teacher noted for the stern discipline that she enforced. Dr. Jessé walked at the head of the children from the public school, holding the bough in his hand.

The square, as had been said, was full of people. Women in holiday garb, young girls glancing about for their sweethearts, and merchants and clerks from those business houses which had closed for the day—all were there to avail themselves of this unlooked-for diversion, this variation in the dull rhythm of small-town life. The public school children drew up in front of those from the private institutions; and Professor Estanislau, who had a long-standing difference with Dona Guilhermina, now came forward to impose silence on his young wards—he wanted them to behave at least as well as those of his rival, standing there quiet and sober-faced beneath the school-mistress's shrewish eye. Beside a hole that had recently been dug in the middle of the square they had placed a young cacao tree, a little more than a year old. This was the tree that was to be planted as the climax of today's ceremony. The Badarós had been called away to Ilhéos, and the police deputy with them, and for that reason the police force—consisting of eight troopers—did not put in an appearance; but the Euterpe Third of May Band, which was outfitted with Horacio's money, was there with its musical instruments. It was the band that inaugurated the ceremonies, by playing the national anthem, and the men removed their hats and silence fell as the children sang the verses. The sun was burning hot and a number of parasols had been opened as a protection against its rays.

As the band ceased playing, Dr. Jessé stepped well into the centre of the square and began his speech. On all sides there were calls for silence as the teachers went among the pupils in an effort to quiet them. With no great results, however; the only ones who were quiet were those from Dona Guilhermina's school, as that lady herself, in a white stiffly starched dress, stood there grimly with her hands folded over her bosom. Almost no one was able to hear what the speaker was saying, and very few had even a glimpse of him, since there was no raised platform and he had to speak from the ground level. Nevertheless, when he had finished there was much applause, and a number of men who had ridden up on horseback came over to compliment him. He modestly grasped their out-stretched hands with a show of deep emotion. And then, in turn, he was the first to call for silence so that they might be able to hear Professora Irene's poem. In a thin, piping voice, the teacher began reading:

“Blessed be the seed that renders fertile the earth—”

The children were calling, all but shouting, to the sweetmeat-vendors, as they laughed, chatted, quarrelled, and exchanged kicks, the teachers meanwhile threatening dire punishments for the next day. Professora Irene raised an arm, lowered it, raised the other arm:

“O blessed tree that gives us shade and fruit—”

The number of horsemen in the vicinity had been increasing, and they now came bursting into Church Square. It was Colonel Teodoro das Baraúnas at the head of a band of armed men. They came in firing shots in the air as their horses trampled down the grass. Riding into the midst of the scampering children and the fleeing men and women, Teodoro reined up in front of the group that was clustered about the tree. With arm still upraised, Professora Irene gulped back the verse that she was about to recite next.

“What nonsense is this?” said Teodoro, revolver in hand. “Are you planting a tree here in the square?”

Jessé, his voice trembling, explained the nature of the ceremony. Teodoro laughed; he appeared to fall in with it.

“Go ahead and plant it,” he said. “I want to watch you.” Saying this, he aimed his revolver and the lads who were with him levelled their rifles. Assisted by a couple of men, Dr. Jessé did as he was told. The ceremony, surely, was turning out quite differently from the way he had planned it. There was no dignity to it at all; they merely stuck the cacao tree in the ground as quickly as they could and covered the roots over with the earth heaped at the side of the hole. There were very few people left in the square; most of them had run away.

“Are you through now?” asked Teodoro.

“Yes, we have now—”

“All right,” laughed Teodoro, “I'll give it a little dew.” And, seated in the saddle, he opened the flap of his trousers and proceeded to urinate on the tree. His aim was not very good, however, and he bespattered everybody. Professora Irene covered her eyes with her hand. Before Teodoro had finished, he turned around and splashed Dr. Jessé. Then, calling to his men, he set off at a swift gallop down the main street. Those who had not been able to flee stood motionless, gazing at one another. One of the teachers wiped a drop or two from her face. “Did you ever see anything like it?” said another in amazement.

Still firing in the air, Teodoro rode down the street. Finally he and his men drew up at the corner of an alleyway, in front of Venancio's registry office, where they all dismounted. Venancio and his clerks barely had time to scamper out through the rear. Calling to one of his followers, Teodoro had him bring a bottle, and he then began sprinkling kerosene on the floor and on the files crammed with papers, after which he tossed the bottle away.

“Set fire to it,” he ordered.

The man struck a match, and flame ran over the floor and up one of the filing-cases, until it encountered a sheaf of papers, whereupon it began to fatten on the documents and archives that the place contained. Teodoro and the man then ran out to where the others were standing guard on the corner, waiting for the fire to take hold. The colonel wore a white coat over khaki trousers, and on his little finger he sported a diamond solitaire. Red tongues of flame were now running over the building, as the street rapidly filled with people. Teodoro ordered his men to mount, and with their horses' hoofs the plantation lads now dispersed those who in their curiosity had drawn too near.

At this moment a band of Horacio's armed men made their appearance, and Teodoro, rounding the corner with his
capangas,
made for the Mutuns road. The crowd began surging into the street and Venancio appeared, tearing his hair, as Horacio's retainers came riding up. From the corner the latter opened fire on the fleeing band and Teodoro's men fired back, galloping headlong all the while through the throng that had come running down the alley to see the blaze. Before the master of Baraúnas was lost from sight at the end of the street, one of his
jagunços
had fallen, his riderless horse still galloping along with the others. Horacio's bucks then went up to the fellow and finished him off with a knife.