The Violent Land (24 page)

“He's going to get himself killed one of these days,” remarked Ferreirinha, “acting like that. Somebody will put a bullet in him before he knows what's happened to him.”

Juca was for excusing him. “He has his faults, but he's a good fellow.”

The dance hall of the café was animated. An aged Negro was pounding on a piano that was older than himself, while a blond-haired individual was doing his best with a violin.

“Lousy orchestra,” said Ferreirinha.

“Terrible,” Manuel de Oliveira agreed.

The couples on the floor, tightly clasped, were dancing a waltz, and women of varying ages were scattered about at the tables. Most of the customers were drinking beer, but here and there was a party with whisky and gin glasses. Nhôzinho came up to serve them, for Juca had a dislike for the two waiters because they were pederasts, and so the proprietor himself always waited on him. And inasmuch as Juca Badaró was in the habit of spending large sums, Nhôzinho was extremely respectful, putting himself out to be of service. Ferreirinha had left the table to dance with a very young girl—she did not look a day over fifteen. She could not have been a prostitute for long, and Ferreirinha was crazy over young ones like her, “so green and tender,” as he put it to João Magalhães. A woman who was getting along in years came over to sit down beside Manuel de Oliveira.

“Will you buy me one, Manú?” she asked, pointing to the whisky. Manuel glanced at Juca and, when the latter nodded approval, called Nhôzinho over.

“Bring a whisky for the lady and be quick about it,” he said in an authoritative tone of voice.

The orchestra had stopped playing, and Ferreirinha, who was back at the table again, had begun telling of something that had happened to him a long time ago.

“Down here, captain, you have to be a little of everything. You, sir, are a military engineer, and here you are, going to do a surveyor's job. And I, who am only an ignorant farmer, have already had to play the part of a surgeon.”

“A surgeon?”

“Yes, a surgeon. One of the labourers on my plantation swallowed a rabbit bone, and it got lodged in the poor fellow's stomach and was killing him—he couldn't even do his duties. There wasn't time to send to the city for a doctor, and so there was nothing for it but for me to operate myself.”

“But how did you manage it?”

“I rigged up a long, heavy piece of wire and made a hook on the end of it. I washed it in alcohol first, of course. Then I turned the poor wretch on his face and dug the wire into him. It worked. A lot of blood came out and the bone with it, and he's alive and well to this day.”

“Remarkable, eh!”

“Oh, I tell you, that fellow Ferreirinha—”

“The worst of it was, captain, the reputation that it got me. People came from miles around wanting me to treat them. If I had cared to open an office, I'd have been the ruin of many a good doctor.” He laughed and the others joined in.

“That's right,” said Juca Badaró, “you do have to be a jack of all trades in these parts. You'll find a backwoodsman here, captain, who can give lessons to a lawyer.”

“It's the coming country, no doubt of that,” said João, with befitting admiration.

Manuel de Oliveira was making a date with the aged prostitute, but Juca had eyes only for Margot, who was seated at a table with Virgilio. Astrogildo followed his friend's gaze; he thought that Juca was looking at the lawyer.

“There's that so-and-so of a Dr. Virgilio who entered that survey for the ouster.”

“Yes, I know. I'm acquainted with him.”

João Magalhães also glanced in Margot's direction and gave her a nod.

“Do you know her, sir?”

“Do I know her? Why, she used to be around all the time with a little thing that I had in Bahia, by the name of Violeta. She's been with Dr. Virgilio for two years now.”

“She's pretty,” said Juca, and João knew that he was interested in the woman; he could tell that by the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice. The captain was wondering what he could get out of it for himself.

“She's a nice little piece—great friend of mine.” Juca turned to look at him as João went on, very casually: “She's stopping at Machadão's place. Tomorrow, when she's alone, I shall drop around and see her. I don't like to go when the doctor's there, for he's very jealous. She's a good sort, very affectionate.”

“But you can't go tomorrow, captain. Early tomorrow morning we're leaving for the plantation, on the eight o'clock train.”

“That's right. Well, then, when I come back.”

“She's some woman!” was Astrogildo's comment.

At the next table Margot and Virgilio were engaged in an animated conversation. She was greatly agitated and kept moving her arms and head.

“They're quarrelling,” said Juca.

“That's all they do,” said the old woman who was with Manuel de Oliveira.

“How do you happen to know?”

“Machadão told me. It's a scandal.”

They ordered another round of whisky. The orchestra struck up, and Margot and Virgilio went out on the floor; but they did not talk as they danced. In the middle of the piece she dropped his arm and went over and sat down. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do, then called the waiter, paid his bill, took up his hat from a chair, and left.

“They're quarrelling all right,” said Juca.

“This time it appears to be serious,” the woman said.

Margot was now looking around the room, endeavouring to appear indifferent. Juca leaned forward in his chair and whispered to João Magalhães: “Do you want to do me a favour, captain?”

“At your service.”

“Introduce me to her.”

João Magalhães gave the planter a deeply interested look. He was laying his plans. He would leave this land of cacao a rich man.

In the lyric, moon-drenched night Virgilio was walking along the railroad track. His heart was pounding but not at the memory of the violent scene with Margot in the café. When he thought of the incident for a moment, it was to shrug his shoulders with indifference. It was better that it should end this way, once and for all. He had wanted to take her home, had told her that he had a business engagement that would keep him out until very late and accordingly would be unable to spend the night with her. Margot, who was already distrustful, with a flea in her ear, would not accept his excuses: either he would accompany her home, or she would remain in the café and all would be over between them. Without knowing just why he did so, he had sought to convince her that he really had an engagement and that she ought to go home to bed. She had refused, it had ended in a quarrel, and he had left without even saying good night. Even now, perhaps, she was seated at Juca Badaró's table, in the company of the man with whose rivalry she had threatened him.

“What difference does it make to me? I'm not hard up for a man. Just look at the eyes Juca Badaró is making at me.”

This did not trouble him. It was better that she should be with another; indeed, it was the best possible solution. When he thought of it, he smiled. How times had changed! A year ago, at the thought of Margot with another man, he would have been altogether likely to lose his head and do something foolish. Once at the American House in Bahia he had created a scandal, had got into a fight, and had ended up at the police station, all because some young fellow had made a slighting remark to Margot. Now he actually felt relieved at knowing that Juca Badaró was interested in her, that he coveted her flesh. Virgilio smiled at the memory. Juca had good reasons for hating him, Horacio's lawyer, and yet, without knowing it, was doing him a big favour.

But as he walked along the railroad track, endeavouring to adapt his stride to the space between the sleepers, Virgilio was not thinking of Margot. Tonight his eyes were drinking in the beauty of the world: the full moon bending over the earth; the star-filled sky above the city; the crickets chirping in the underbrush nearby. A freight train whistled in the distance and he stepped off the track. He was going along the back of a row of houses with their big silent gardens. In a gateway a couple were making love. He hurried on so that they might not recognize him. At another gate, farther on, Ester would be waiting.

The house that Horacio had recently built in Ilhéos, the “mansion,” as everybody called it, was in the new town that had sprung up in the fields where cocoa trees not so long ago had stood. The rear of all of these dwellings looked out on the tracks. A company had been organized to buy up the land, which, after the trees had been felled, had been subdivided and sold as building-lots. It was here, after his marriage, that Horacio had erected his town house, one of the best in Ilhéos, being constructed of specially made brick from his own kiln at the plantation, with furniture and hangings from Rio. At the back of the house Ester would be waiting, tremulous with fear, anxious with love.

Virgilio quickened his step. He was already late, the quarrel with Margot having detained him. The freight train passed by, its powerful headlights illuminating the scene. He stopped to let it pass and then once more began walking along the ties. He had had difficulty in convincing Ester that she should wait for him at the gate, so that they might be able to have a quiet talk. She had been afraid of the servants, of the gossiping tongues in Ilhéos; she was afraid that one day Horacio would come to know of it. As yet the affair between them had not progressed beyond a distant infatuation, consisting as it did of hastily whispered words, a long and ardent letter that he had written, and a note from her in reply—two or three words only: “I love you, but it is impossible”—a clasp of hands at the door, glances filled with desire. All this to them seemed so little; it did not occur to them that, little as it was, the whole town was talking about them and, looking upon them as lovers, was laughing at Horacio. After the exchange of letters, when Horacio had gone back to the plantation, he had called upon Ester. This had truly been an act of madness, thus to defy the power of gossip. Ester had told him so, begging him to go away; and in order to persuade him to go, she had promised to meet him here, the next night, at the garden gate. He had tried to kiss her, but she had fled.

Virgilio's pounding heart was that of a lovesick youth, as he drank in the loveliness of the night with all the intensity of youth. Here was the gate at the back of Horacio's house. Virgilio was trembling, deeply moved, as he approached it. The gate was ajar, and laying a hand on it he pushed it open. Under a tree, wrapped in a cape, bathed in moonlight, Ester was waiting. He ran to her, took her hands in his. “My darling!” Her body was quivering as they embraced; the words of love are useless in the light of the moon.

“I want to take you with me, away from here, far away, away from everybody, to build a new life.”

She was weeping gently, her head on his bosom. From her hair came a fragrance that completed the beauty and the mystery of the night. The wind brought the murmur of the sea to mingle with her weeping.

“My darling!”

“It is impossible, Virgilio. I have my child to think of. We can't do that.”

“We will take him with us. We will go far away, to another country, where no one knows us.”

“Horacio would come after us; he would follow us to the end of the world.”

But more than words, love's maddening kisses proved convincing as a lovers' moon bent over them. Stars were born in the heavens above Ilhéos, and Ester could not help thinking of Sister Angelica: the time when it still was possible to dream had come again. Dreams did come true. She closed her eyes as she felt Virgilio's hands upon her nude body, beneath her cape. A bed of moonlight, the stars for coverlet, and the moans and sighs of love's extremity.

“I'll go with you, my darling, wherever you wish—” And as she felt herself dying in his arms—“even to death.”

Captain João Magalhães was smiling from the other table, and Margot smiled back. The captain rose, went over, and shook hands with her.

“Lonesome?”

“Well—”

“Have a quarrel?”

“It's all over.”

“Really? Or is it like the other times?”

“I'm through this time. I'm not the woman to put up with such treatment.”

João Magalhães assumed a conspiratorial air: “Well, then, as a friend, Margot, let me tell you something. I've got something good for you. There's someone here, with more money than he knows what to do with, who's crazy over you. Right now—”

“Juca Badaró,” she interrupted him.

The captain nodded. “You've got him hooked.”

Margot was tired of hearing him run on. “I knew that. On the boat coming down he was all over me. The only thing was I was tagging after Virgilio then.”

“And now?”

Margot laughed. “Now it's another story. Who knows?”

The captain then proceeded to give her some fatherly advice: “Stop being a fool, my dear; put away all the money you can in your stocking while you're young. This business of having a poor man for a lover is all right for a woman with a rich husband.”

She was permitting herself to be persuaded. “I
was
a fool. In Bahia I had—I can't tell you how many rich men running after me,” and she made a gesture with her fingers. “You know how it is.” The captain nodded. “And there I was, like an old hag, hanging on to Virgilio. And what did he do but stick me off down here in the woods, to spend my life mending socks in Tabocas. But it's over now, I'm through.”

“Do you want me to introduce you to Juca Badaró?”

“Did he ask you to?”

“He's dying to meet you.” Turning in his chair, the captain beckoned, and, buttoning his coat, Juca rose and came over, a smile on his face. As he left the table where he had been sitting, Astrogildo made a comment to Manuel de Oliveira and Ferreirinha: “This is going to end in a row.”

“Everything in Ilhéos ends in a row,” was the journalist's reply.

João was about to introduce the pair, but Margot did not give him time: “We know each other already. The colonel once gave me a pinch that left me with a black-and-blue mark.”

Juca laughed with the others: “And then you ran away and I never laid eyes on you again. I heard that you had gone to Tabocas; I was down there, but I didn't see anything of you. They told me you were married, and so I respected—”

“They're divorced,” João Magalhães announced.

“Have a quarrel?”

Margot did not care to go into explanations. “He left me to keep a business engagement,” she said, “and I'm not the woman to be brushed aside for a matter of business.”

Juca Badaró laughed once more. “All Ilhéos knows what his business is.”

“What do you mean?” asked Margot, puckering up her face. Juca Badaró had no reins on his tongue. “It's Horacio's wife, Dona Ester. The little lawyer chappie is getting mixed up with her.”

Margot bit her lip. There was a silence, of which the captain took advantage to retire to the other table.

“Is that the truth?”

“I'm not the man to lie.”

She gave a prolonged laugh. “Aren't you offering me anything to drink?” she asked in an affected voice. Juca called Nhózinho over. “Bring some champagne.”

“Do you remember,” he said to Margot as their glasses were being filled, “I once made you a proposition—on the boat, coming down here?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, I'm making it once more. I'll set you up in a house and give you everything you want. But you've got to remember that a woman of mine is mine and nobody else's.”

She looked at the ring on his finger, took his hand. “It's pretty.”

Juca Badaró took off the ring and placed it on Margot's finger. “It's yours.”

More than a little tipsy, the two of them left at dawn. With them went Manuel de Oliveira, who, the moment he had spied the champagne glasses, had come over to their table, where he had drunk more than both of them together. It was cold in the early morning along the wharves of Ilhéos, but Margot was singing and the journalist was joining in the chorus. As for Juca Badaró, he was in something of a hurry, for he had to catch the eight o'clock train. The fishermen were already returning with their deep-sea haul.