The War Of The End Of The World Part 1

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Mario Vargas Llosa is the author of sixteen novels, most recently The Bad Girl The Bad Girl. He received the PEN/Nabokov Award in 2002 and lives in London.

The War Of The End Of The World.

by Mario Vargas Llosa.

To EUCLIDES DA CUNHA in the other world; and, in this world, to NELIDA PINON

The Antichrist was born To govern Brazil But the Counselor is come To deliver us from him.

I.

[I].

The man was tall and so thin he seemed to be always in profile. He was dark-skinned and rawboned, and his eyes burned with perpetual fire. He wore shepherd's sandals and the dark purple tunic draped over his body called to mind the ca.s.socks of those missionaries who every so often visited the villages of the backlands, baptizing hordes of children and marrying men and women who were cohabiting. It was impossible to learn what his age, his background, his life story were, but there was something about his quiet manner, his frugal habits, his imperturbable gravity that attracted people even before he offered counsel.

He would appear all of a sudden, alone in the beginning, invariably on foot, covered with the dust of the road, every so many weeks, every so many months. His tall figure was silhouetted against the light of dusk or dawn as he walked down the one street of the town, in great strides, with a sort of urgency. He would make his way along determinedly, amid nanny goats with tinkling bells, amid dogs and children who stepped aside and stared at him inquisitively, not returning the greetings of the women who already knew him and were nodding to him and hastening to bring him jugs of goat's milk and dishes of manioc and black beans. But he neither ate nor drank until he had gone as far as the church of the town and seen, once more, a hundred times over, that it was dilapidated, its paint faded, its towers unfinished and its walls full of holes and its floors buckling and its altars worm-eaten. A sad look would come over his face, with all the grief of a migrant from the Northeast whose children and animals have been killed by the drought, who has nothing left and must abandon his house, the bones of his dead, and flee, flee somewhere, not knowing where. Sometimes he would weep, and as he did so the black fire in his eyes would flare up in awesome flashes. He would immediately begin to pray. But not the way other men or women pray: he would stretch out face downward on the ground or the stones or the chipped tiles, in front of where the altar was or had been or would be, and would lie there praying, at times in silence, at times aloud, for an hour, two hours, observed with respect and admiration by the townspeople. He recited the Credo, the Our Father, and the Hail Marys that everyone was familiar with, and also other prayers that n.o.body had heard before but that, as the days, the months, the years went by, people gradually learned by heart. Where is the parish priest? they would hear him ask. Why isn't there a pastor for the flock here? And each time he discovered that there was no priest in the village it made him as sad at heart as the ruin of the Lord's dwelling places.

Only after having asked the Blessed Jesus' pardon for the state in which they had allowed His house to fall did he agree to eat and drink something, barely a sample of what the villagers hastened to offer him even in years of scarcity. He was willing to sleep indoors with a roof over his head, in one or another of the dwellings where the people of the backlands offered him hospitality, but those who gave him lodging rarely saw him take his rest in the hammock or makes.h.i.+ft bed or on the mattress placed at his disposal. He would lie down on the floor, without even a blanket, and, leaning his head with its wild mane of jet-black hair on one arm, would sleep for a few hours. Always so few that he was the last one to retire at night and yet when the cowherds and shepherds who were up earliest left for the fields they would catch sight of him, already at work mending the walls and roof of the church.

He gave his counsel when dusk was falling, when the men had come back from the fields and the women had finished their household tasks and the children were already asleep. He gave it in those stony, treeless, open spots to be found in all the villages of the backlands at the main crossroads, which might have been called public squares if they had had benches, tree-lined walks, gardens, or had kept those that they had once had and that little by little had been destroyed by drought, pestilence, indolence. He gave it at that hour when the sky of the North of Brazil, before becoming completely dark and studded with stars, blazes amid tufted white, gray, or bluish clouds and there is a sort of vast fireworks display overhead, above the vastness of the world. He gave it at that hour when fires are lighted to chase away the insects and prepare the evening meal, when the steamy air grows less stifling and a breeze rises that puts people in better spirits to endure the sickness, the hunger, and the sufferings of life.

He spoke of simple and important things, not looking at any person in particular among those who surrounded him, or rather looking with his incandescent eyes beyond the circle of oldsters, men and women, children, at something or someone only he could see. Things that were understandable because they had been vaguely known since time immemorial, things taken in along with the milk of one's mother's breast. Present, tangible, everyday, inevitable things, such as the end of the world and the Last Judgment, which might well occur before the time it would take for the town to set the chapel with drooping wings upright again. What would happen when the Blessed Jesus looked down upon the sorry state in which they had left His house? What would He say of the behavior of pastors who, instead of helping the poor, emptied their pockets by charging them money for the succor of religion? Could the words of G.o.d be sold? Shouldn't they be given freely, with no price tag attached? What excuse would be offered to the Father by priests who fornicated, despite their vows of chast.i.ty? Could they invent lies that would be believed by a G.o.d who can read a person's thoughts as easily as the tracker on earth reads the trail left by a jaguar? Practical, everyday, familiar things, such as death, which leads to happiness if one comes to it with a pure and joyous soul, as to a fiesta. Were men animals? If they were not, they should pa.s.s through that door dressed in their very best, as a sign of reverence for Him whom they were about to meet. He spoke to them of heaven, and of h.e.l.l as well, the domain of the Dog, paved with burning-hot coals and infested with rattlesnakes, and of how Satan could manifest himself by way of seemingly harmless innovations.

The cowherds and peons of the backlands listened to him in silence, intrigued, terrified, moved, and he was listened to in the same way by the slaves and the freedmen of the sugarcane plantations on the seacoast and the wives and the mothers and fathers and the children of one and all. Occasionally someone interrupted him-though this occurred rarely, since his gravity, his cavernous voice, or his wisdom intimidated them-in order to dispel a doubt. Was the world about to end? Would it last till 1900? He would answer immediately, with no need to reflect, with quiet a.s.surance, and very often with enigmatic prophecies. In 1900 the sources of light would be extinguished and stars would rain down. But, before that, extraordinary things would happen. A silence ensued after he had spoken, in which the crackling of open fires could be heard, and the buzzing of insects that the flames devoured, as the villagers, holding their breath, strained their memories before the fact in order to be certain to remember the future. In 1896 countless flocks would flee inland from the seacoast and the sea would turn into the backlands and the backlands turn into the sea. In 1897 the desert would be covered with gra.s.s, shepherds and flocks would intermingle, and from that date on there would be but a single flock and a single shepherd. In 1898 hats would increase in size and heads grow smaller, and in 1899 the rivers would turn red and a new planet would circle through s.p.a.ce.

It was necessary, therefore, to be prepared. The church must be restored, and the cemetery as well, the most important construction after the House of the Lord since it was the antechamber of heaven or h.e.l.l, and the time that remained must be devoted to what was most essential: the soul. Would men or women leave for the next world in skirts, dresses, felt hats, rope sandals, and all that luxurious attire of wool and silk that the Good Lord Jesus had never known?

His counsel was practical, simple. When the man left, there was a great deal of talk about him: that he was a saint, that he had worked miracles, that he had seen the burning bush in the desert, like Moses, that a voice had revealed to him the unutterable name of G.o.d. And his counsel was widely discussed. Thus, before the Empire had come to an end and after the Republic had begun, the inhabitants of Tucano, Soure, Amparo, and Pombal had heard his words; and from one month to another, from one year to another, the churches of Bom Conselho, of Jeremoabo, of Ma.s.sacara, and of Inhambupe were gradually springing up from their ruins; and in accordance with his teachings, adobe walls and vaulted niches were constructed in the cemeteries of Monte Santo, Entre Rios, Abadia, and Barracao, and death was celebrated with respectful funeral ceremonies in Itapicuru, c.u.mbe, Natuba, Mocambo. Month by month, year by year, the nights of Alagoinhas, Uaua, Jacobina, Itabaiana, Campos, Itabaianinha, Geru, Riachao, Lagarto, Simao Dias were peopled with his counsel. In the eyes of everyone, his teachings appeared to be good ones and therefore, first in one and then in another and finally in all the towns of the North, the man who gave such counsel began to be known as the Counselor, despite the fact that his Christian name was Antonio Vicente and his last name Mendes Maciel.

A wooden grille separates the copywriters and the other employees of the Jornal de Noticias- Jornal de Noticias-whose name is written large, in Gothic characters, above the entrance-from the people who come to its offices to place an advertis.e.m.e.nt in its pages or bring in a news item. There are no more than four or five reporters on its staff. One of them is checking out information in a filing cabinet built into the wall; two of them are engaged in an animated conversation, having divested themselves of their suit jackets but not their stiff s.h.i.+rt collars and string ties, alongside a calendar that shows the date-Friday, October 2, 1896-and another one, young and gangling, with the thick gla.s.ses of someone suffering from acute nearsightedness, is sitting at a desk writing with a quill pen, paying no attention to what is going on about him. At the far end of the room, behind a gla.s.s door, is the office of the editor-in-chief. A man wearing a visor and celluloid cuffs is waiting on a line of customers at the Cla.s.sified Advertis.e.m.e.nts counter. A woman has just handed him an ad. The cas.h.i.+er wets his index finger and counts the words-Giffoni Clysters Cure Gonorrhea, Hemorrhoids, White Flowers and all ailments of the Urinary Tract Prepared by Madame A. de Carvalho Number 8, Rua Primero de Marco-and tells her the price. The lady pays, pockets the change, and as she leaves the counter, the person waiting behind her moves forward and hands the cas.h.i.+er a piece of paper. He is dressed in a black frock coat and bowler that show signs of wear. Curly red locks cover his ears. He is a full-grown man, on the tall side, solidly built, with broad shoulders. The cas.h.i.+er counts the number of words in the ad, running his finger across the paper. Suddenly he frowns, raises his finger, and brings the text up close to his eyes, as though fearing that he has misread it. Finally he looks in bewilderment at the customer, who stands there as motionless as a statue. The cas.h.i.+er blinks uneasily and then motions to the man to wait. He shuffles across the room with the paper dangling from his hand, taps with his knuckles on the gla.s.s door of the office of the editor-in-chief, and goes inside. He reappears a few seconds later, motions to the customer to go inside, and goes back to work.

The man dressed in black crosses the front office of the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias, his heels resounding as though he were shod in horseshoes. As he enters the small office in the rear, full of papers, periodicals, and propaganda of the Progressivist Republican Party-a United Brazil, a Strong Nation-he finds waiting for him a man who looks at him with friendly curiosity, as though he were some sort of rare animal. Dressed in a gray suit and wearing boots, the man is sitting behind the only desk in the room; he is young, dark-haired, with a dynamic air about him.

"I am Epaminondas Goncalves, the editor and publisher of this paper," he says. "Come in."

The man dressed in black bows slightly and raises his hand to his hat, but he does not take it off or say a word.

"You want us to print this, is that right?" the editor asks, waving the little piece of paper.

The man in black nods. He has a little beard as red as his hair, and piercing bright blue eyes; his broad mouth is firmly set, and his flaring nostrils seem to be breathing in more air than his body requires. "Provided it doesn't cost more than two milreis," he murmurs in broken Portuguese. "That's my entire capital."

Epaminondas Goncalves sits there as though not quite certain whether to laugh or fall into a rage. The man simply stands there, looking very serious, observing him. The editor resolves his dilemma by raising the piece of paper to his eyes.

"All lovers of justice are invited to attend a public demonstration of solidarity with the idealists of Canudos and with all rebels the world over, to be held in the Praca da Liberdade on the fourth of October at 6 p.m.," he reads aloud slowly. "May I ask who is calling this meeting?"

"For the moment, I am," the man answers forthwith. "If the Jornal de Noticias Jornal de Noticias wants to lend its support, wants to lend its support, wonderful wonderful." (The last word is spoken in English.) "Do you know what those people up there in Canudos have done?" Epaminondas Goncalves murmurs, banging on the desk. "They're occupying land that doesn't belong to them and living promiscuously, like animals."

"Two things worthy of admiration," the man in black a.s.serts, nodding his head in approval. "That's the reason why I've decided to spend my money on this public announcement."

The editor sits there in silence for a moment. Before speaking again, he clears his throat. "May I ask who you are, sir?"

Without braggadocio, without arrogance, with the merest trace of solemnity, the man introduces himself in these words: "A freedom fighter, sir. Will you publish the announcement?"

"Impossible, sir," Epaminondas Goncalves, master of the situation now, replies. "The authorities in Bahia are merely waiting for an excuse to close down my paper. Though they've paid lip service to the Republic, they're still monarchists. I take it you've realized that we're the only true republican daily in this entire state."

The man in black gestures disdainfully and mutters between his teeth: "So I thought."

"I advise you not to take this announcement to the Diario da Bahia Diario da Bahia," the editor adds, handing him back the piece of paper. "It belongs to the Baron de Canabrava, the rightful owner of Canudos. You'll end up in jail."

Without one word of farewell, the man in black turns round and leaves the office, pocketing the announcement. He crosses the outer office of the paper without looking at anyone, without so much as a nod as he takes his leave, his footfalls resounding, merely casting a glance out of the corner of his eye-a funereal silhouette, fiery-red wavy hair-at the journalists and the customers placing paid advertis.e.m.e.nts. The young journalist with the thick eyegla.s.ses of someone who is very nearsighted gets up from his desk after he has walked past, and with a sheet of yellow paper in his hand walks over to the office of the editor-in-chief, where Epaminondas Goncalves is sitting, still watching the stranger's every move as he departs.

"By order of the Governor of the State of Bahia, His Excellency Senhor Luiz Viana, a company of the Ninth Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Pires Ferreira, left Salvador today, charged with the mission of wresting control of Canudos from the bandits who have occupied the estate and of capturing their leader, the Sebastianist Antonio Conselheiro," he reads aloud as he stands in the doorway. "Page one or inside, sir?"

"Have it set out below the announcements of funerals and Ma.s.ses," the editor-in-chief says. He points toward the street, down which the man dressed in black has disappeared. "Do you know who that fellow is?"

"Galileo Gall," the nearsighted journalist answers. "A Scotsman who's been going around asking people in Bahia if he could feel their heads."

He was born in Pombal, the son of a shoemaker and his mistress, the latter a cripple who, despite her handicap, had brought three boys into the world before him and gave birth after him to a little girl who survived the drought. They named him Antonio, and if there had been such a thing as logic in this world, he should never have gone on living, for when he was still a baby crawling on all fours the catastrophe occurred that devastated the region, killing crops, men, and animals. Because of the drought, almost everyone in Pombal emigrated to the coast, but Tiburcio da Mota, who in his half century of life had never journeyed more than a league away from that village in which there was not one pair of feet that did not wear shoes made by his hands, announced that he would not leave his house. And he remained faithful to his resolve, staying there in Pombal with no more than a couple dozen other people at most, for even the Lazarist Fathers' mission cleared out entirely.

When, a year later, the emigres from Pombal began to return, encouraged by the news that the low-lying ground had been flooded once more and cereal crops could again be planted, Tiburcio da Mota was dead and buried, along with his crippled concubine and their three oldest children. They had eaten everything that was edible, and when all that was gone, everything that was green, and at the end, everything that teeth could chew. The parish priest, Dom Casimiro, who buried them one after the other, a.s.serted that they had not died of hunger but of stupidity, by eating the leather in the cobbler's shop and drinking the waters of the Lagoa do Boi, a breeding ground for mosquitoes and pestilence that even young goats shunned. Dom Casimiro took Antonio and his little sister in, kept them alive on a diet of air and prayers, and, when the houses of the village were full of people once again, sought a home for them.

The little girl was taken in by her G.o.dmother, who brought her along with her when she went to work at one of the estates belonging to the Baron de Canabrava. Antonio, then five years old, was adopted by the other shoemaker in Pombal, known as One-Eye-he had lost the other in a street fight-who had learned his trade in Tiburcio da Mota's cobbler shop and on returning to Pombal had inherited his clientele. He was a bad-tempered man who often drank too much, so that dawn found him lying in a stupor in the street, reeking of raw sugarcane brandy. He did not have a wife, and made Antonio work like a beast of burden, sweeping, cleaning, handing him nails, shears, saddles, boots, and bringing him hides from the tannery. He made him sleep on animal skins, next to the worktable where One-Eye spent all his time when he was not drinking with his pals.

The orphan was emaciated, docile, mere skin and bones, with shy eyes that aroused the compa.s.sion of the women of Pombal, who, whenever they could, gave him something to eat or the clothes that their sons had outgrown. One day a group of them-half a dozen women who had known his crippled mother and had stood at her side gossiping at innumerable baptisms, confirmations, wakes, weddings-went to One-Eye's cobbler shop to force him to send Antonio to catechism cla.s.ses so as to ready him for his First Communion. They threw such a scare into him by telling him that G.o.d would hold him responsible if the boy died without having made it that the shoemaker grudgingly agreed to allow him to attend the lessons at the mission, every afternoon, before vespers.

Something out of the ordinary occurred then in the boy's life; shortly thereafter, as a result of the changes that took place in him because of the sermons of the Lazarists, people began to call him the Little Blessed One. He would come out of the sessions where they preached with his eyes no longer fixed on his surroundings and as though purified of dross. One-Eye spread the word about that he often found him kneeling in the darkness at night, weeping for Christ's sufferings, so caught up in them that he was able to bring him back to this world only by cradling him in his arms and rocking him. On other nights he heard him talking in his sleep, in agitation, of Judas's betrayal, of Mary Magdalene's repentance, of the crown of thorns, and one night he heard him make a vow of perpetual chast.i.ty, like St. Francis de Sales at the age of eight.

Antonio had found a vocation to which to devote his entire life. He continued to fulfill, most obediently, all the orders given him by One-Eye, but he did so with his eyes half closed and moving his lips in such a way that everyone knew that, even though he was sweeping or hurrying about the shoemaker's shop or holding the shoe sole that One-Eye was nailing, he was really praying. The boy's conduct disturbed and terrified his foster father. In the corner where he slept, the Little Blessed One gradually built an altar, with printed images they gave him at the mission and a cross of xiquexique xiquexique wood that he himself carved and painted. He would light a candle before it to pray on arising in the morning and on going to bed at night, and all his free time was spent before it, on his knees, with his hands joined and a contrite expression, rather than hanging around the ranches, riding unbroken horses bareback, hunting doves, or going to see bulls castrated, the way the other youngsters of Pombal did. wood that he himself carved and painted. He would light a candle before it to pray on arising in the morning and on going to bed at night, and all his free time was spent before it, on his knees, with his hands joined and a contrite expression, rather than hanging around the ranches, riding unbroken horses bareback, hunting doves, or going to see bulls castrated, the way the other youngsters of Pombal did.

After making his First Communion, he was an altar boy for Dom Casimiro, and when the latter died he continued to serve Ma.s.s for the Lazarist Fathers of the mission, even though in order to do so he was obliged to walk a league a day to get there and back. He swung the censer in processions and helped decorate the portable platforms and the altars on the street corners where the Virgin and the Blessed Jesus halted to rest. His religious devotion was as great as his goodness. It was a familiar sight to the inhabitants of Pombal to see him serving as a guide for blind Adolfo, whom he sometimes took out to the pasture grounds for Colonel Ferreira's colts, where he had worked till he got cataracts and which he now sorely missed every day of his life. The Little Blessed One would take him by the arm and lead him across the fields, with a stick in his hand to poke about in the dirt on the lookout for snakes, patiently listening to his stories. And Antonio also collected food and clothing for Simeao the leper, who had been living like a wild animal ever since the villagers had forbidden him to come anywhere near Pombal. Once a week the Little Blessed One took him a bundleful of bits of bread and jerky and different sorts of grain that he had begged for him, and the villagers would spy him in the distance, guiding the old man with long locks and bare feet and covered with nothing but a yellow animal pelt as he made his way along amid the rocky stretches on the hill where his cave was.

The first time he saw the Counselor, the Little Blessed One was fourteen years old and had had a terrible disappointment just a few weeks before. Father Moraes of the Lazarist mission had thrown cold water on his fondest dreams by informing him that he couldn't be a priest because he had been born out of wedlock. He consoled him by explaining to him that a person could still serve G.o.d even without receiving Holy Orders, and promised him to take whatever steps he could on his behalf at a Capuchin monastery that might be willing to take him in as a lay brother. The Little Blessed One wept that night with such heartfelt sobs that One-Eye flew into a rage and for the first time in many years beat him badly. Twenty days later, beneath the glaring midday sun, there appeared on the main street of Pombal a lanky, dark-skinned figure, with black hair and gleaming eyes, enveloped in a dark purple tunic; followed by half a dozen people who looked like beggars and yet had happy faces, he strode through the town and headed straight for the old adobe chapel with curved roof tiles which had fallen into such a sorry state of disrepair following Dom Casimiro's death that birds had made their nests amid the statues. The Little Blessed One, like many of the villagers, saw the pilgrim stretch out face down on the ground to pray, and his followers do likewise, and that afternoon he heard him give counsel as to the salvation of the soul, condemn the unG.o.dly, and predict the future.

That night the Little Blessed One did not sleep in the shoemaker's shop but in the public square of Pombal, along with the pilgrims, who had lain on the bare ground around the saint. And the following morning and afternoon, and every day that the saint remained in Pombal, the Little Blessed One worked alongside him and his followers, repairing the legs and backs of the broken-down benches in the chapel, leveling its floor, and erecting a stone wall to enclose the cemetery, which up until then had been a tongue of land creeping out into the town itself. And every night he squatted on his heels before him, listening in rapt absorption to the truths that fell from his lips.

But when, on the Counselor's next-to-last night in Pombal, Antonio the Little Blessed One asked his permission to accompany him wherever his pilgrimage might take him, the saint's eyes first of all-at once intense and icy-and then his mouth said no. Kneeling before the Counselor, the Little Blessed One wept bitterly. It was very late at night, Pombal was fast asleep, as were the pilgrims in rags and tatters, all huddled up next to each other. The bonfires had gone out but the stars were gleaming brightly overhead and the chirring of cicadas could be heard. The Counselor let him weep, allowed him to kiss the hem of his tunic, and did not change expression when the Little Blessed One begged him again to let him follow him, since his heart told him that by doing so he would be serving the Good Lord Jesus better. The youngster clung to the Counselor's ankles and kissed his callused feet again and again. When he saw that the boy was exhausted, the Counselor took his head in his two hands and forced him to look at him. Bringing his face down close to his, he asked him in a solemn voice if he loved G.o.d so much that he would suffer pain so as to offer it to Him in sacrifice. The Little Blessed One nodded yes, several times. The Counselor raised his tunic, and the boy could see, in the first faint light of dawn, that he was removing from around his waist a wire that was lacerating his flesh. "You wear it now," he heard him say. The Counselor himself helped the Little Blessed One unfasten his clothes, cinch the wire tightly around his waist, and knot it.

When, seven months later, the Counselor and his followers-a few of the faces had changed, their numbers had grown, among them there was now an enormous, half-naked black, but their poverty and the happiness in their eyes were those of the pilgrims of the past-appeared again in Pombal, enveloped in a cloud of dust, the wire was still around the Little Blessed One's waist, the flesh of which had turned black and blue and then been sawed raw and later on became covered with dark crusts. He had not taken it off even for one day, and since it would gradually become looser and looser just from the movement of his body, every so often he would cinch it up very tightly again. Father Moraes had tried to dissuade him from continuing to wear it, explaining to him that a certain amount of voluntarily endured pain was pleasing in G.o.d's sight, but that, past a certain limit, that particular sacrifice could become a morbid pleasure encouraged by the Devil and that he was in danger of going beyond that limit at any moment now.

But Antonio did not obey him. On the day that the Counselor and his followers returned to Pombal, the Little Blessed One was in caboclo caboclo Umberto Sal.u.s.tiano's general store, and his heart stopped dead in his chest, as did the breath just entering his nostrils, when he saw the Counselor pa.s.s by not three feet away from him, surrounded by his apostles and by dozens of townspeople, men and women alike, and head directly to the chapel as he had done the time before. He followed him, joined the noisy, tumultuous throng, and, hidden among the crowd, listened from a discreet distance, feeling his heart racing. And that night he listened to him preach in the firelight in the crowded public square, still not daring to draw closer. All Pombal was there this time to hear him. Umberto Sal.u.s.tiano's general store, and his heart stopped dead in his chest, as did the breath just entering his nostrils, when he saw the Counselor pa.s.s by not three feet away from him, surrounded by his apostles and by dozens of townspeople, men and women alike, and head directly to the chapel as he had done the time before. He followed him, joined the noisy, tumultuous throng, and, hidden among the crowd, listened from a discreet distance, feeling his heart racing. And that night he listened to him preach in the firelight in the crowded public square, still not daring to draw closer. All Pombal was there this time to hear him.

It was nearly dawn, after the villagers, who had prayed and sung and brought their sick children to him for him to ask G.o.d to cure them and told him of their trials and tribulations and asked what the future held for them, had finally all gone home, and the disciples had stretched out on the ground to sleep, as always, using each other as pillows and covers, when, stepping over the bodies in rags and tatters, the Little Blessed One, in the att.i.tude of utter reverence with which he approached the Communion table, reached the dark silhouette, clad in deep purple, lying with his head with its long thick locks cradled in one arm. The last embers of the bonfires were dying out. The Counselor's eyes opened as he drew close, and the Little Blessed One would always repeat to those listening to his story that he saw immediately in those eyes that the man had been waiting for him. Without uttering a word-he would not have been able to do so-he opened his coa.r.s.e woolen s.h.i.+rt and showed him the wire knotted tightly around his waist.

After looking at him for a few seconds, without blinking, the Counselor nodded and a fleeting smile crossed his face. That, as the Little Blessed One was to say hundreds of times in the years to come, was his consecration. The Counselor pointed to a little empty s.p.a.ce on the ground at his side that seemed to be reserved for him amid all those bodies huddled up all around him. The boy curled up there, understanding, with no need for words, that the Counselor considered him worthy of leaving with him to travel the paths of this earth and fight against the Devil. The dogs that had stayed out all night, the early risers of Pombal heard the sound of the Little Blessed One weeping for a long time still, without suspecting that it was sobs of happiness they were hearing.

His real name was not Galileo Gall, but he really was a freedom fighter, or, as he put it, a revolutionary and a phrenologist. Two death sentences followed him about the world and he had spent five of his forty-six years in jail. He had been born in mid-century, in a town in the south of Scotland where his father practiced medicine and had tried to no avail to found a libertarian club to spread the ideas of Proudhon and Bakunin. As other children grow up listening to fairy stories, he had grown up hearing that property is the origin of all social evils and that the poor will succeed in shattering the chains of exploitation and obscurantism only through the use of violence.

His father was the disciple of a man whom he regarded as one of the most venerable savants of his time: Franz Joseph Gall, anatomist, physicist, and founder of the science of phrenology. Whereas for other followers of Gall's, this science was scarcely more than the belief that intellect, instinct, and feelings are organs located in the cerebral cortex and can be palpated and measured, for Galileo's father this discipline meant the death of religion, the empirical foundation of materialism, the proof that the mind was not what philosophical mumbo jumbo made it out to be, something imponderable and impalpable, but on the contrary a dimension of the body, like the senses, and hence equally capable of being studied and treated clinically. From the moment his son reached the age of reason, the Scotsman impressed upon his mind the following simple precept: revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his. Galileo had resolved to devote his life to fighting for both these goals.

Since his radical ideas had made life difficult for his father in Scotland, he had settled in the South of France, where he was placed under arrest in 1868 for having helped the workers in the spinning mills of Bordeaux during a strike, and sent to Cayenne. He died there. The following year Galileo went to prison, charged with having helped set fire to a church-priests were the people he hated most, after soldiers and bankers-but in a few months he escaped and began working with a doctor in Paris who had been a friend of his father's. It was at this time that he changed his name to Galileo Gall, since his own name was too well known by the police, and started publis.h.i.+ng little political notes and popular-science pieces in a Lyons paper: L'Etincelle de la revolte L'Etincelle de la revolte.

One of the things he prided himself on was the fact that he had fought, from March to May of 1871, with the Communards of Paris for the freedom of humanity and had personally witnessed the genocide of thirty thousand men, women, and children at the hands of Thiers's forces. He, too, was condemned to death, but before the execution he managed to escape from the military barracks where he had been imprisoned, dressed in the uniform of a sergeant-jailer whom he had killed. He went to Barcelona and stayed there for several years studying medicine and practicing phrenology with Mariano Cubi, a savant who boasted of being able to detect the most secret traits and inclinations of any man by running his fingertips just once across his head. Galileo Gall had apparently pa.s.sed his examinations and was about to receive his medical degree when his love of freedom and progress, or his vocation as an adventurer, again impelled him to action and a life on the move. He and a handful of comrades equally addicted to the Idea attacked the Montjuich barracks one night, to unleash the storm that, they thought, would shake the foundations of Spain. But someone had informed on them and the soldiers greeted them with a hail of bullets. He saw his comrades fall fighting, one by one; when he was finally captured, he had several wounds. He was condemned to death, but since Spanish law provides that a wounded man may not be put to death by the garrote, they decided to cure him before they executed him. Friendly and influential persons helped him escape from the hospital, provided him with false papers, and put him aboard a freighter.

He had traveled through many countries, whole continents, ever faithful to the ideas of his childhood. He had palpated yellow, black, red, and white craniums and alternately engaged in political action and scientific pursuits, depending on the circ.u.mstances of the moment; throughout this life of adventures, jails, fistfights, clandestine meetings, escapes, setbacks, he scribbled notebooks that corroborated, and enriched with examples, the teachings of his masters: his father, Proudhon, Gall, Bakunin, Spurzheim, Cubi. He had been clapped in prison in Turkey, in Egypt, in the United States for attacking the social order and religion, but thanks to his lucky star and his scorn for danger he never remained behind bars for long.

In 1894 he was the medical officer on a German boat that was s.h.i.+pwrecked off Bahia; what was left of it remained beached forever opposite the Forte de Sao Pedro. It had been a mere six years since Brazil had abolished slavery and five since it had ceased to be an empire and become a republic. He was fascinated by its mixtures of races and cultures, by its social and political effervescence, by the fact that it was a society in which Europe and Africa and something else he had never encountered before were intimately commingled. He decided to stay. He could not set up in practice as a doctor since he had no medical degree, and therefore he earned his living, as he had before in other places, by giving lessons in various languages and doing odd jobs. Though he wandered all over the country, he always came back to Salvador, where he could be found at the Livraria Catilina, in the shade of the palm trees of the Mirador of the Sorrowful, or in the sailors' taverns in the lower town, explaining to anyone with whom he struck up a conversation that all virtues are compatible if reason rather than faith is the axis of life, that not G.o.d but Satan-the first rebel-is the true prince of freedom, and that once the old order was destroyed through revolutionary action, the new society, free and just, would flower spontaneously. Although there were some who listened to him, in general people did not appear to pay much attention to him.

[II].

At the time of the great drought of 1877, during the months of famine and epidemics that killed half the men and animals in the region, the Counselor was no longer journeying alone; he was accompanied, or, rather, followed (he scarcely appeared to be aware of the human trail tagging along after him) by men and women who had abandoned everything they had to go off with him, some of them because their souls had been touched by his counsel and others out of curiosity or mere inertia. Some of them remained in his company part of the way, and a very few seemed determined to remain at his side forever. Despite the drought, he journeyed on, even though the fields were now strewn with the carca.s.ses of cattle that the vultures pecked at and half-empty towns greeted him.

The fact that it did not rain once all during the year 1877, that the rivers dried up and countless caravans of migrants appeared in the scrublands, carrying their few miserable belongings in canvas-covered carts or on their backs as they wandered about in search of water and food, was perhaps not the most terrible thing about that terrible year. If not, it was perhaps the brigands and the snakes that suddenly appeared everywhere in the backlands of the North. There had always been men who came onto the haciendas to steal cattle, had shootouts with the capangas- capangas-the hired thugs-of the landowners, and sacked remote villages, outlaws whom flying brigades of police periodically came to the backlands to hunt down. But with the famine the gangs of outlaws multiplied like the biblical loaves and fishes. Voracious and murderous, they fell on towns already decimated by the catastrophe to seize the inhabitants' last remaining food, their household goods and clothing, drilling anyone full of holes who dared to cross them.

But never did they offend the Counselor, by word or by deed. They would meet up with him on the desert trails, amid the cactuses and the stones, beneath a leaden sky, or in the tangled scrub where the underbrush had withered and the tree trunks were beginning to split. The outlaws, ten, twenty cangaceiros cangaceiros armed with every sort of weapon capable of cutting, piercing, perforating, tearing out, would catch sight of the gaunt man in the purple tunic whose icy, obsessive eyes swept over them with their usual indifference for the s.p.a.ce of a second before he went on doing exactly the same things as always: praying, meditating, walking, giving counsel. The pilgrims would pale on seeing the armed with every sort of weapon capable of cutting, piercing, perforating, tearing out, would catch sight of the gaunt man in the purple tunic whose icy, obsessive eyes swept over them with their usual indifference for the s.p.a.ce of a second before he went on doing exactly the same things as always: praying, meditating, walking, giving counsel. The pilgrims would pale on seeing the cangaco- cangaco-the band of outlaws-and huddle together around the Counselor like chicks around the mother hen. The brigands, noting their extreme poverty, would go on their way, but sometimes they would halt on recognizing the saint, whose prophecies had reached their ears. They did not interrupt him if he was praying; they waited till he deigned to note their presence. He would finally speak to them, in that cavernous voice that unfailingly found the shortest path to their hearts. He told them things that they could understand, truths that they could believe in. That this calamity was no doubt the first forewarning of the arrival of the Antichrist and the devastation that would precede the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. That if they wanted to save their souls they should ready themselves for the battles that would be waged when the demons who obeyed the Antichrist-who would be the Dog himself appearing on earth to recruit proselytes-spread out across the backlands like wildfire. Like the cowhands, the peons, the freedmen, and the slaves, the cangaceiros cangaceiros pondered his words. And a number of them-Pajeu with the slashed face, the enormous brute Pedrao, and even the most bloodthirsty one of all, Satan Joao-repented of their evil deeds, were converted to good, and followed him. pondered his words. And a number of them-Pajeu with the slashed face, the enormous brute Pedrao, and even the most bloodthirsty one of all, Satan Joao-repented of their evil deeds, were converted to good, and followed him.

And as had happened with the brigands, he gained the respect of the rattlesnakes that as though by a miracle suddenly appeared by the thousands in the fields because of the drought. Long, slithering, writhing, their heads triangular, they abandoned their lairs and they, too, migrated, like the human folk; and in their flight they killed children, calves, goats, and had no fear of entering settlements in broad daylight in search of food. There were so many of them that there were not enough acauas acauas to finish them off, and in those topsy-turvy days it was not a rare sight to see serpents devouring that predatory bird rather than, as in days gone by, the to finish them off, and in those topsy-turvy days it was not a rare sight to see serpents devouring that predatory bird rather than, as in days gone by, the acaua acaua taking wing with its snake prey in its mouth. The people of the backlands were obliged to go about night and day armed with clubs and machetes and there were migrants who managed to kill a hundred rattlesnakes in a single day. But the Counselor nonetheless continued to sleep on the ground, wherever night overtook him. One evening, on hearing those accompanying him talking of serpents, he explained to them that this was not the first time that such a thing had happened. When the children of Israel were returning from Egypt to their homeland and were complaining of the hards.h.i.+ps of the desert, the Father visited a plague of snakes upon them as punishment. Moses interceded on behalf of the children of Israel, and the Father ordered him to make a bronze serpent, which the children had only to gaze upon to be cured of its bite. Ought they to do the same? No, for miracles are never repeated. But surely the Father would look upon them with favor if they carried about the face of His Son as an amulet. From then on, a woman from Monte Santo, Maria Quadrado, bore in a gla.s.s case a piece of cloth with the image of the Good Lord Jesus painted by a boy from Pombal whose piety had earned him the name of the Little Blessed One. This act must have pleased the Father, since none of the pilgrims was bitten by a snake. taking wing with its snake prey in its mouth. The people of the backlands were obliged to go about night and day armed with clubs and machetes and there were migrants who managed to kill a hundred rattlesnakes in a single day. But the Counselor nonetheless continued to sleep on the ground, wherever night overtook him. One evening, on hearing those accompanying him talking of serpents, he explained to them that this was not the first time that such a thing had happened. When the children of Israel were returning from Egypt to their homeland and were complaining of the hards.h.i.+ps of the desert, the Father visited a plague of snakes upon them as punishment. Moses interceded on behalf of the children of Israel, and the Father ordered him to make a bronze serpent, which the children had only to gaze upon to be cured of its bite. Ought they to do the same? No, for miracles are never repeated. But surely the Father would look upon them with favor if they carried about the face of His Son as an amulet. From then on, a woman from Monte Santo, Maria Quadrado, bore in a gla.s.s case a piece of cloth with the image of the Good Lord Jesus painted by a boy from Pombal whose piety had earned him the name of the Little Blessed One. This act must have pleased the Father, since none of the pilgrims was bitten by a snake.

The Counselor was spared as well from epidemics which, as a consequence of drought and famine, fed, in the months and years that followed, on the flesh of those who had managed to survive. Women miscarried shortly after becoming pregnant, children's teeth and hair fell out, and adults suddenly began spitting up and defecating blood, swelled up with tumors, or suffered from rashes that made them roll in the gravel like mangy dogs. The gaunt man, thin as a rail, went on his pilgrim's way amid the pestilence and wholesale death, imperturbable, invulnerable, like a veteran s.h.i.+p's pilot, skillfully skirting storms as he makes for a safe port.

What port was the Counselor heading for with this endless journeying? No one asked him, nor did he say, and probably he didn't know. He was accompanied now by dozens of followers who had abandoned everything to devote themselves to the life of the spirit. During the many months of drought the Counselor and his disciples worked unceasingly, burying those dead of starvation, disease, or anguish whom they came across along the sides of the roads, rotting corpses that were food for wild beasts and even humans. They made coffins and dug graves for these brothers and sisters. They were a motley group, a chaotic mixture of races, backgrounds, and occupations. Among them were whites dressed all in leather who had made their living driving the herds of the "colonels," the owners of great cattle ranches; full-blooded Indians with reddish skins whose great-great-grandfathers had gone about half naked and eaten the hearts of their enemies; mestizos who had been farm overseers, tinsmiths, blacksmiths, cobblers, or carpenters; and mulattoes and blacks who had been runaways from the sugarcane plantations on the coast and from the rack, the stocks, the floggings with bull pizzles and the brine thrown on the raw lash marks, and other punishments invented for slaves in the sugar factories. And there were the women, both old and young, sound in body or crippled, who were always the first whose hearts were moved during the nightly halt when the Counselor spoke to them of sin, of the wicked deeds of the Dog or of the goodness of the Virgin. They were the ones who mended the dark purple habit, using the thorns of thistles for needles and palm fibers for thread, and the ones who thought up a way to make him a new one when the old one got ripped on the bushes, and the ones who made him new sandals and fought for possession of the old ones, objects that had touched his body to be cherished as precious relics. And each evening after the men had lighted the bonfires, they were the ones who prepared the angu angu of rice or maize flour or sweet manioc boiled in broth and the few mouthfuls of squash that sustained the pilgrims. The Counselor's followers never had to worry about food, for they were frugal and received gifts wherever they went: from the humble, who hastened to bring the Counselor a hen or a sack of maize or cheese freshly made, and also from landowners, who-after the ragged entourage had spent the night in the outbuildings and next morning, on their own initiative and without charging a cent, cleaned and swept the chapel of the hacienda-would send servants to bring them fresh milk, food, and sometimes a young she-goat or a kid. of rice or maize flour or sweet manioc boiled in broth and the few mouthfuls of squash that sustained the pilgrims. The Counselor's followers never had to worry about food, for they were frugal and received gifts wherever they went: from the humble, who hastened to bring the Counselor a hen or a sack of maize or cheese freshly made, and also from landowners, who-after the ragged entourage had spent the night in the outbuildings and next morning, on their own initiative and without charging a cent, cleaned and swept the chapel of the hacienda-would send servants to bring them fresh milk, food, and sometimes a young she-goat or a kid.

He had gone all around the backlands so many times, back and forth so many times, up and down so many mountainsides, that everyone knew him. The village priests, too. There weren't many of them, and what few there were seemed lost in the vastness of the backlands, and in any event there were not enough of them to keep the countless churches going, so that they were visited by pastors only on the feast day of the patron saint of the town. The vicars of certain places, such as Tucano and c.u.mbe, allowed him to address the faithful from the pulpit and got along well with him; others, such as the ones in Entre Rios and in Itapicuru, would not permit him to do so and fought him. In other towns, in order to repay him for what he did for the churches and cemeteries, or because his spiritual influence on the people of the backlands was so great that they did not want to be on bad terms with their paris.h.i.+oners, the vicars grudgingly granted him permission to recite litanies and preach in the church courtyard after Ma.s.s.

When did the Counselor and his entourage of penitents learn that in 1888, far off in those cities whose very names had a foreign sound to them-Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, even Salvador, the state capital-the monarchy had abolished slavery and that the measure had wreaked havoc on the sugar plantations of Bahia, which all of a sudden were left with no labor force? It was months before the news of the decree reached the backlands, the way news always reached these remote parts of the Empire-delayed, distorted, and sometimes no longer true-and the authorities ordered that it be publicly proclaimed in the town squares and nailed to the doors of town halls.

And it is probable that, the year after, the Counselor and his followers again learned, long after the fact, that the nation to which they unwittingly belonged had ceased to be an empire and was now a republic. It never came to their attention that this event did not awaken the slightest enthusiasm among the old authorities or among the former slaveowners (who continued to be owners of sugarcane plantations and herds of cattle or sheep) or among the professional cla.s.s and the petty government officials, who regarded this change as something like the coup de grace coup de grace for the already dying hegemony of the ex-capital, the center of Brazil's political and economic life for two hundred years and now the nostalgic poor relation, watching everything that was once theirs-prosperity, power, money, manpower, history-move southward. And even if they had learned of this, they would not have understood, nor would they have cared, for the concerns of the Counselor and his followers were altogether different. Besides, what had changed for them apart from a few names? Wasn't this landscape of parched earth and leaden skies the same one as always? And, despite having suffered several years of drought, wasn't the region continuing to bind up its wounds, to mourn its dead, to try to bring what had been ruined back to life? What had changed in the calamity-ridden North now that there was a president instead of an emperor? Wasn't the tiller of the land still fighting against the barrenness of the soil and the scarcity of water so that his maize, beans, potatoes, and manioc would sprout and his pigs, chickens, and goats stay alive? Weren't the villages still full of idlers, and weren't the roads still dangerous on account of the many bandits? Weren't there armies of beggars everywhere as a reminder of the disasters of 1877? Weren't the itinerant storytellers the same? Despite the Counselor's efforts, weren't the houses of the Blessed Jesus continuing to fall to pieces? for the already dying hegemony of the ex-capital, the center of Brazil's political and economic life for two hundred years and now the nostalgic poor relation, watching everything that was once theirs-prosperity, power, money, manpower, history-move southward. And even if they had learned of this, they would not have understood, nor would they have cared, for the concerns of the Counselor and his followers were altogether different. Besides, what had changed for them apart from a few names? Wasn't this landscape of parched earth and leaden skies the same one as always? And, despite having suffered several years of drought, wasn't the region continuing to bind up its wounds, to mourn its dead, to try to bring what had been ruined back to life? What had changed in the calamity-ridden North now that there was a president instead of an emperor? Wasn't the tiller of the land still fighting against the barrenness of the soil and the scarcity of water so that his maize, beans, potatoes, and manioc would sprout and his pigs, chickens, and goats stay alive? Weren't the villages still full of idlers, and weren't the roads still dangerous on account of the many bandits? Weren't there armies of beggars everywhere as a reminder of the disasters of 1877? Weren't the itinerant storytellers the same? Despite the Counselor's efforts, weren't the houses of the Blessed Jesus continuing to fall to pieces?

But in fact something had had changed with the advent of the Republic. To people's misfortune and confusion: Church and State were separated, freedom of wors.h.i.+p was established, and cemeteries were secularized, so that it was no longer parishes but towns that would be responsible for them. Whereas the vicars in their bewilderment did not know what to say in the face of these new developments that the Church hierarchy had resigned itself to accepting, the Counselor for his part knew immediately what to say: they were impious acts that to the believer were inadmissible. And when he learned that civil marriage had been inst.i.tuted-as though a sacrament created by G.o.d were not enough-he for his part had the forthrightness to say aloud, at the counsel hour, what the paris.h.i.+oners were whispering: that this scandal was the handiwork of Protestants and Freemasons. As were, no doubt, the other strange, suspect new provisions that the towns of the changed with the advent of the Republic. To people's misfortune and confusion: Church and State were separated, freedom of wors.h.i.+p was established, and cemeteries were secularized, so that it was no longer parishes but towns that would be responsible for them. Whereas the vicars in their bewilderment did not know what to say in the face of these new developments that the Church hierarchy had resigned itself to accepting, the Counselor for his part knew immediately what to say: they were impious acts that to the believer were inadmissible. And when he learned that civil marriage had been inst.i.tuted-as though a sacrament created by G.o.d were not enough-he for his part had the forthrightness to say aloud, at the counsel hour, what the paris.h.i.+oners were whispering: that this scandal was the handiwork of Protestants and Freemasons. As were, no doubt, the other strange, suspect new provisions that the towns of the sertao- sertao-the backlands-learned of little by little: the statistical map, the census, the metric system. To the bewildered people of the hinterland, the sertanejos sertanejos, who hastened to ask him what all that meant, the Counselor slowly explained: they wanted to know what color people were so as to reestablish slavery and return dark-skinned people to their masters, and their religion so as to be able to identify the Catholics when the persecution began. Without raising his voice, he exhorted them not to answer such questionnaires, and not to allow the meter and the centimeter to replace the yard and the foot.

One morning in 1893, as they entered Natuba, the Counselor and the pilgrims heard a sound like angry wasps buzzing: it was coming from the main square, where the men and women of the town had congregated to read, or to hear the town crier read, the decrees that had just been posted. They were going to collect taxes from them, the Republic wanted to collect taxes from them. And what were taxes? many townspeople asked. They're like t.i.thes, others explained to them. Just as, before, if an inhabitant's hens had fifty chicks he was obliged to give five to the mission and one bushel of grain out of each ten that he harvested, the edicts decreed that a person was to give to the Republic part of everything inherited or produced. People had to go to the town hall of their community-all munic.i.p.alities were now autonomous-and declare what they owned and what they earned in order to find out how much they would have to pay. The tax collectors would seize and turn over to the Republic everything that had been hidden or declared at less than its real value.

Animal instinct, common sense, and centuries of experience made the townspeople realize immediately that this would perhaps be worse than the drought, that the tax collectors would be greedier than the vultures and the bandits. Perplexed, frightened, enraged, they nudged each other and communicated to each other their feelings of apprehension and wrath, in voices that mingled and blended into one, producing that belligerent music that was rising heavenward from Natuba as the Counselor and his shabby followers entered the town by way of the road from Cipo. People surrounded the man in the dark purple habit, blocking his way to the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceicao (repaired and painted by him several times in the last few decades), toward which he had been heading with his usual great long strides, in order to tell him the news. Looking past them with a grave expression on his face, he scarcely seemed to have heard them.

And yet, only seconds later, just time enough for a sort of inner explosion to set his eyes afire, he began to walk, to run through the crowd that stepped aside to let him through, toward the billboards where the decrees had been posted. He reached them and without even bothering to read them tore them down, his face distorted by an indignation that seemed to sum up that of all of them. Then he asked, in a vibrant voice, that these iniquities in writing be burned. And when, before the eyes of the dumfounded munic.i.p.al councillors, the people did so, and moreover began to celebrate, setting off fireworks as on a feast day, and the fire reduced to smoke the decrees and the fear that they had aroused, the Counselor, before going to pray at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceicao, announced to the people of that remote corner of the world the grave tidings: the Antichrist was abroad in the world; his name was Republic.

"Whistles, that's right, Senhor Commissioner," Lieutenant Pires Ferreira repeats, surprised once again at what he has experienced and, no doubt, remembered and recounted many times. "They sounded very loud in the night-or rather, in the early dawn."

The field hospital is a wooden shack with a palm-frond roof, hastily thrown together to house the wounded soldiers. It is on the outskirts of Juazeiro, whose streets parallel to the broad Sao Francisco River lined with houses that are either whitewashed or painted in various colors can be seen between the part.i.tions, beneath the dusty tops of the trees that have given the city its name.

"It took us only twelve days from here to Uaua, which is practically at the gates of Canudos-quite a feat," Lieutenant Pires Ferreira says. "My men were dead-tired, so I decided to camp there. And in just a few hours the whistles woke us up."

There are sixteen wounded, lying in hammocks lined up in two rows facing each other: crude bandages, bloodstained heads, arms, and legs, naked and half-naked bodies, trousers and high-b.u.t.toned tunics in tatters. A recently arrived doctor in a white smock is inspecting the wounded, followed by a male nurse carrying a medical kit. There is a sharp contrast between the doctor's healthy, urbane appearance and the soldiers' dejected faces and hair matted down with sweat. At the far end of the shack, an anguished voice is asking about confession.

"Didn't you post sentinels? Didn't it occur to you that they might surprise you, Lieutenant?"

"There were four sentinels, Senhor Commissioner," Pires Ferreira answers, holding up four emphatic fingers. "They didn't surprise us. When we heard the whistles, every man in the entire company rose to his feet and prepared for combat." He lowers his voice. "But what we saw coming toward us was not the enemy but a procession."

From one corner of the hospital shack the little camp on the sh.o.r.e of the river, where boats loaded with watermelon ply back and forth, can be seen: the rest of the company, lying in the shade of some trees, rifles stacked up in groups of four, field tents. A flock of screeching parrots flies by.

"A religious religious procession, Lieutenant?" an intrusive, high-pitched, nasal voice asks in surprise. procession, Lieutenant?" an intrusive, high-pitched, nasal voice asks in surprise.

The officer casts a quick glance at the person who has spoken and nods. "They came from the direction of Canudos," he explains, still addressing the commissioner. "There were five hundred, six hundred, perhaps a thousand of them."

The commissioner throws up his hands and his equally incredulous aide shakes his head. It is quite obvious that they are people from the city. They have arrived in Juazeiro that morning on the train from Salvador and are still dazed and battered from the jolting and jerking, uncomfortable in their jackets with wide sleeves, their baggy trousers and boots that have already gotten dirty, stifling from the heat, of a certainty annoyed at being there, surrounded by wounded flesh, by disease, and at having to investigate a defeat. As they talk with Lieutenant Pires Ferreira they proceed from hammock to hammock and the commissioner, a stern-faced man, leans over every so often to give one of the wounded a clap on the back. He is the only one who is listening to what the lieutenant is saying, but his aide takes notes, as does the other man who has just arrived, the one with the nasal voice who seems to have a head cold, the one who keeps constantly sneezing.

"Five hundred, a thousand?" the commissioner says sarcastically. "The Baron de Canabrava's deposition came to my office and I am acquainted with it, Lieutenant. Those who invaded Canudos numbered two hundred, including the women and children. The baron ought to know-h