The Violent Land (36 page)

In spite of the exaggeration in this statement—the eyes of the world turned upon that Ilhéos courtroom—or possibly for that reason, it drew a burst of applause from the spectators, and the judge had to have his bailiff ring for order.

The jury then retired to consider its verdict of guilt or innocence. Horacio also retired and stood in the corridor talking to his lawyers. Fifteen minutes later the jurors filed back, and Braz returned with the colonel. The latter had just had the word from Virgilio: “Unanimous!”

The judge read the verdict unanimously acquitting Colonel Horacio da Silveira. With this, some began leaving the courtroom, while others came up to embrace Horacio and his attorneys. Braz issued the order freeing the colonel from custody, and the erstwhile defendant departed with his friends, who accompanied him to his home.

The father of the young lad, seeing that his son was very tired, lifted him to his shoulder. The boy's eyes were still following Horacio as the colonel left the court.

“What did you like best about it?” his father asked.

The lad smiled a little, then confessed: “What I liked best, yes, the very best of all, was that man with the false ring who knew stories.”

Lawyer Ruy in passing overheard this and stroked the lad's blond head, then dashed down the stairs to overtake Horacio, who was just going out the main entrance of the prefecture into the bright morning that was rising out of the sea, above the city of Ilhéos.

PROGRESS

Some months afterwards, early one afternoon, Colonel Horacio da Silveira unexpectedly dismounted from his horse in front of Maneca Dantas's house. Dona Auricidia appeared, dragging her mountainous flesh, and extremely solicitous, wishing to know if the colonel had had lunch. He informed her that he had eaten. His face had a tightly compressed look, his eyes were small, and his mouth was drawn out of shape in a hard line. One of the workmen was sent to call Maneca, who was out in the groves, and Dona Auricidia meanwhile strove to entertain the guest. She did almost all the talking. Horacio barely replying with a “Yes” or a “No” when she paused for breath. She was relating anecdotes about her children, praising the intelligence of the oldest boy, who was named Ruy. Maneca finally came in, embraced the colonel, and they began conversing. Whereupon Dona Auricidia retired to see about “a little bite of something to eat.”

Horacio then rose and stood gazing out the window at the cacao groves. Maneca waited for him to say something. The minutes went by in silence, with Horacio still staring out at the highway that ran near the Big House. Suddenly he turned.

“I was going through some of the things in the house in Ilhéos,” he said, “some things of Ester's.”

Maneca Dantas felt his heart beating more quickly. Horacio stood gazing at him with his swarthy, all but expressionless eyes, but there was a hard look about his mouth.

“I came upon some letters.” And he added in a dull voice: “She was Virgilio's mistress.”

Saying this, he turned once more to stare out the window. Maneca Dantas now rose and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.

“I've known it for some time,” he said, “but I didn't like to meddle. And the poor girl paid for it, dying the way she did.”

Horacio left the window and, seating himself on a stool, gazed down at the floor. He appeared to be remembering things that had happened long ago, good times, happy memories.

“It's a pity. At first I thought she didn't care for me. All she did was go off in the corner and cry. She said she was afraid of snakes. Even in bed she used to huddle up when I touched her. It made me angry, but I didn't say anything, for it was my fault, marrying a young and educated girl like her.”

He shook his head and looked at Maneca Dantas. The latter listened in silence, his face resting in his hands; he did not make a gesture.

“Then suddenly she changed, she became affectionate, and I came to believe that she was fond of me. Before that, when I went into the forest or when I got into shooting scrapes, it had been only for money—partly for the little fellow. But after that everything I did was for her, for I was certain that she cared for me.

“You cannot imagine, my friend,” and he pointed a finger at Maneca, “how I felt when she died. I went on giving orders to my men, but all the while I was thinking of killing myself. And if I didn't put a bullet through my brain, it was on account of the little fellow, her son and mine. It was true, she hadn't loved me then, when he was born, but all that was past; she was kind and loving now. Otherwise I
would
have killed myself.”

He laughed, a terrifying laugh.

“And to think that all that was for another, for that little shyster. If she was kind and loving, it was for his sake. I had the left-overs.”

Dona Auricidia now came in and summoned them to the dining-room. The table was laden with sweets, cheeses, and fruits. As they ate, the mistress of the house kept up an incessant chatter; bragging about her oldest boy, she compelled the child to answer historical questions, to read from a book so that his godfather could hear him, and to recite a few stanzas of poetry.

After they went back to the parlour Horacio had no more to say, but seated himself in a chair and listened to the conversation without paying attention. Maneca Dantas tried to fill up the gaps by talking about the crops, the price of cacao, and the saplings that had been set out on the Sequeiro Grande tract. Dona Auricidia was so sorry that their good friend could not stay for dinner, for she had had them kill some young roosters to make a brown sauce that was “something special.”

“I am sorry, my dear lady, but I can't.”

And so the afternoon went by, with Horacio chewing on the end of an unlighted cigarette blackened with saliva. Maneca did the talking. He realized that what he had to say was of no interest, but he could think of nothing else; his mind was a blank. All he knew was that Horacio did not want to be alone. On another day, now distant, it had been Virgilio who had wanted company. Maneca paused as he thought of this.

Twilight was falling and the workers were coming back from the groves. Horacio rose and once more gazed out on the highway, now veiled with the melancholy of dusk. Then he went into the other part of the house to take leave of Dona Auricidia, and gave his godson a small coin. Maneca accompanied him outside to where his horse was waiting. As he placed his foot in the stirrup, Horacio turned and said:

“I'm going to have him put out of the way.”

Maneca Dantas felt like tearing his hair. “That headstrong little lawyer!” He had already exhausted all his arguments in an effort to convince him that he should not go to Ferradas that night, and here Virgilio was, bent upon going in spite of everything. He was more stubborn than a mule, which is the most stubborn animal there is. And yet everybody in Ilhéos was agreed that Lawyer Virgilio was an intelligent man.

Maneca could not have told you why he had taken such a liking to the young attorney. Even after he was certain that Virgilio was engaged in planting horns on Horacio's brow, even then he had not ceased to hold him in high regard, despite the fact that Maneca all but idolized the colonel, to whom he owed the greater portion of his worldly possessions. It was Horacio who had lent him a hand when he was in a bad way and had helped him come up in the world. Yet even after he had discovered that Virgilio was sleeping with Ester, Maneca Dantas had not found it in his heart to be angry with the lawyer. When Ester had died, his sorrow had been mixed with a certain feeling of relief. It was sad, no doubt of that; but it would have been worse, far worse, if Horacio had discovered everything and she had died a still more tragic death. What kind of death that might have been he could not have told you; but while he was endowed with no great powers of imagination, he could picture horrible things—such, for example, as Ester shut up in a room with snakes, like that story he had read in a newspaper once upon a time.

Accordingly, when the fever had carried her off, Maneca had felt badly about it, but at the same time he had breathed a sigh of relief: the problem was solved. And now why did Horacio, after all these months, have to discover those love letters, which, understandably enough, made him want to kill Virgilio? The thing he could not understand was why those who played the dangerous game of deceiving husbands should permit themselves the luxury of writing letters of that sort. It was an utterly stupid thing to do. He himself, once in a while, had had a mistress—not a married woman, to be sure, but some pretty little prostitute who had caught his fancy and for whom he had set up housekeeping. He would go to her place, sleep there, eat and drink—but write a letter? Never. Now and then he would receive a note from one of them, but these were almost always more or less urgent requests for money. Requests for money, mingled with kisses and terms of endearment. But Colonel Maneca Dantas always tore these letters up before Dona Auricidia's keen scent should have detected the unpleasant odour of cheap perfume of which they always reeked. Requests for money, that was all.

Maneca was thinking of these letters while Virgilio was out in the dining-room preparing the drinks. Had he destroyed them all? The truth of the matter was, there was one letter that he had not destroyed and that he still carried to this day hidden away among the papers in his bill-fold. This was a daily risk that he ran—just imagine if Dona Auricidia should come upon it! She would certainly bring the roof down. Although he was alone in the room, Maneca glanced about him to make sure no one was looking, then opened his wallet and, from among the bills of sale for cacao, took out a letter written in a scrawling hand with numerous blots and mistakes in spelling. It was from Doralice, a little girl whom he had had in Bahia once when he had spent two months in the capital having his eyes treated. He had met her in a café and they had lived together during those months; and of all the women he had known, she was the only one who had ever written him a letter without once asking for money. For this reason he had kept her note; and despite the fact that Doralice was by now a dim memory, far in the past, it was a pleasing memory just the same. Hearing Virgilio's steps, he replaced the letter in his purse as the lawyer came in with a bottle and glasses on a tray.

Maneca drank his rum and then fell back once more on the story, which represented for him the furthest stretch of his imagination, to the effect that he “had heard a rumour that Sinhô Badaró was going to lay an ambush for Virgilio that night, along the road to Ferradas, to avenge himself for Juca's death.” Virgilio laughed.

“But, Maneca,” he said, “that's idiotic, absolutely idiotic. The Ferradas highway is in Colonel Horacio's territory. If there's one safe road, it is that one. And I'm not going to leave my client cooling his heels. What's more, he's an elector of mine.”

What appeared to amuse him was the idea of an ambush by the Badarós under such conditions as that: “On the road to Ferradas, under Horacio's very nose?”

Maneca rose from his chair.

“And so, my dear sir, you're determined to go in spite of everything?”

“Yes, I'm going, that's certain.”

“And supposing,” said Maneca, “that it was our friend himself who wanted—”

“Colonel Horacio?”

“He knows everything.” Maneca glanced away; he could not look the lawyer in the face.

“Knows what?”

“That business of you and his wife. That crazy habit of writing love letters—he was rummaging through her things—” Again he averted his gaze, lowered his head as if he were to blame for everything; he could not meet Virgilio's eyes.

Virgilio, however, was not in the least embarrassed. He had Maneca Dantas sit down beside him and tell him everything. Letters? Yes, he had written letters; he had had letters from her, too; it was their way of keeping close to each other, those days when they could not be together with their love. He went to tell the whole story: how happy they had been; their plans for flight; their nights of love. His words were passionate ones as he recalled her death. He had understood and sympathized with Horacio's despair the day she had died, and for that reason he had not gone away but had remained to keep the colonel company.

“It was a way of being near to Ester. Do you understand that?”

Maneca was not sure that he did, but that was the way it was with these lovers. Virgilio went on talking, without a pause. Why had he not gone away? Why had he wanted to stay with Horacio and go on helping him with his business? Because everything there reminded him of Ester, whom death had taken from him forever. With others it was the cacao that snared them, the ambition to make money. He, too, was trapped by cacao, but not for the money that was in it. It was the memory of her that held him, her body there in the cemetery, her presence, which was everywhere, in the house at Ilhéos, in Dr. Jessé's home, down there at Tabocas, at the plantation, and in the person of Horacio—above all, in Horacio. Virgilio had no ambitions; he spent money like a fool, all that he earned; he had no desire to buy a cacao grove; all that he wanted was to remain close to her—and she was in those towns and plantations. Each time that a frog cried out in a snake's mouth, he held her in his arms afresh, as that first time in the plantation Big House.

“Do you understand, Maneca?”

He gave a melancholy laugh. No, Maneca could not understand him, he was sure of that. Only when one had had a mad love, once in one's life, only then would he be able to understand. At this point Maneca could think of nothing better than to show Virgilio the letter from Doralice. It was the one way of expressing the bond between them.

Virgilio took the letter and read it, as Maneca's eyes grew dim.

My dear Maneca I hope these poorly written lines will find you enjoying the best of health. Maneca you are a very bad boy not to write to your Doralice who you have forgot but who is waiting for you. Maneca I write to ask when you are coming so that I can wate for you on the keys. Maneca every night when I go to slepe I dream of you. Of the walks we used to take you and me and Editi and Danda singing that song called I Gave My Heart. Maneca when you come to Ilhéos I don't want you to go down to the strete where the hores are bekause I don't want you to get sick. When you come here I want us to have a good time. My handsome little sonny boy when are we going to be together again???!!! I think of you all the time. Maneca write to me even if its only a few lines. Excuse the mistakes in this letter Maneca with many kisses from your black girl
DORALICE
.
Thats all. Notise the adress 98 2nd of July Strete. Goodby from your
FORGOTTEN
Doralice
.

“Was she pretty?” Virgilio asked when he had finished reading the letter.

“She was a little doll.” Maneca's voice was tremulous. They could find nothing more to say to each other, as Virgilio watched his friend put the letter back among the papers in his bill-fold. So even an Ilhéos colonel had a love-story to tell. Virgilio served another drink of rum.

Maneca Dantas then stubbornly came back to the subject they had been discussing.

“I like you, doctor,” he said, “and I am asking you not to go. Take a boat, go to Bahia. You are young and intelligent; you can make a career for yourself anywhere.”

But Virgilio refused. He would not give up the idea of going to Ferradas that night. Death meant nothing to him; the terrible thing was to go on living without Ester. Did the colonel understand that? What was life to him, anyway? He felt unclean, up to his neck in that filthy cacao slime. So long as Ester was alive there had been the hope of going away with her. But now nothing mattered.

It was then that Maneca Dantas made his supreme offer, all that he had to give.

“If it's a question of a woman, doctor,” he said, “I can give you Doralice's new address if you like. She's a beauty, and you'll forget.”

Virgilio thanked him: “You're a good friend, Maneca Dantas. The curious thing is how you people can do such things and still be so good.” Then he concluded abruptly: “I'm going to Ferradas tonight. And if there's time, I'll die as the law here commands, the law of cacao—by taking someone with me. Isn't that the way?”

And so it was that Maneca Dantas that night saw the young attorney ride off alone, in the direction of Ferradas, smiling sadly.

“And he's so young, poor fellow,” said Maneca to himself.

Along the highway Virgilio heard a voice singing a song that had to do with the affrays of Sequeiro Grande:

I am going to tell you a tale

Will make your blood run cold.

A tale to make your blood run cold, a tale of this land, a tale of love. A frog screams in the mouth of a snake. Virgilio had dreamed a dream once, a romantic dream: he had appeared at night, mounted on a black horse, on the veranda of the Big House; in the heavens an enormous yellow moon, above the cacao trees and above the forest. Ester had been waiting for him, timid and afraid. He had calmed her fears, however, had clasped her around the waist and lifted her to the crupper of his horse; and then, on his night-black steed, they had set out through the cacao groves and down the highways; through the towns and the cities and over the sea, among the freighters and the ocean liners, they had gone galloping to other, far-distant lands. The snake hisses, the frog screams. But Ester, her arms about him, is safe. A tale to make your blood run cold. They will go to the end of the world, their feet free of the cacao slime that holds them there. That steed has wings, and they go far from the snakes, far from the assassinated frogs, far, very far, from the groves of cacao, the dead men along the highway, the crosses lit up by candles on nights of longing. The black steed soars through the air, over the groves, over the forests, over the burnings and the clearings. Ester goes with Virgilio and they will moan with love this moon-drenched night. Through the air they go at an unbridled gallop. The moon envelops the night, and from afar there comes a song. A man is singing:

And now I have truly told you a tale

To make your blood run cold.

It is like a wedding march. None would ever have thought that the last verse of the song was to be written this very night, along the road to Ferradas. What does it matter—what does death matter—a bullet in the chest, a cross by the roadside, a candle lighted by Maneca Dantas—so long as Ester goes with him on that galloping black steed, to other lands than this, the land of cacao? The song accompanies him like a wedding march. A tale to make your blood run cold.