Captains of the Sands (31 page)

They told her in another note that the Professor wrote and threw to her for her to arrange some means of going to the infirmary. But it wasn’t necessary, because a Sister noticed that her cheeks were flushed. She put her hand on her face:

“You’re burning with fever.”

It was always sunset in the infirmary. It was like an anteroom to the tomb, with the heavy curtains that stopped the light from entering. The doctor who saw her shook his head sadly.

But the light came in with them. How thin Pedro Bala is, Dora thought when he came up by her side. Big João, Cat, Professor were with him. Professor showed his knife to the Sister, who smothered a cry. The girl who had chickenpox in the other bed was shivering under the sheets. Dora was burning with fever, she could barely stand. The Sister murmured:

“She’s very sick…”

Dora answered:

“I’m coming, Pedro.”

They went out through the door. Dry Gulch was holding the big dog by the collar. They’d brought along a piece of meat too. Cat opened the gate. On the street, he said:

“Duck soup…”

Professor warned:

“Let’s get out of here before they give the alarm.”

They ran down a hillside. Dora didn’t feel the fever because she was going along with Pedro Bala. He was holding her hand.

Dry Gulch brought up the rear, his hand on his knife, a smile on his somber face.

The Captains of the Sands look at little mother Dora, little sister Dora, Dora, sweetheart, Professor sees Dora, his beloved. The Captains of the Sands look in silence. The
mãe-de-santo
Don’Aninha says a strong prayer so that the fever that’s eating Dora will disappear. With a branch of elder she orders the fever to go away. Dora’s feverish eyes are smiling. It seems that the great peace of the Bahia night is in her eyes too.

The Captains of the Sands look in silence at their mother, sister, and sweetheart. No sooner had they got her back than fever laid her low. Where is her joy, because she can’t play hide-and-seek with her younger children, can’t go into the streets with her black, white, and mulatto brothers? Where is the joy in her eyes? Only a great peace, the great peace of the night. Because Pedro Bala squeezes her hand with warmth.

The peace of the Bahia night is in the heart of the Captains of the Sands. They tremble with the fear of losing Dora. But the great peace of the night is in her eyes. Eyes that softly close while the priestess Aninha banishes the fever that’s devouring her.

The peace of the night envelops the warehouse.

The dog barks at the moon on the sand. Legless leaves the warehouse, takes Don’Aninha across the sands. She said the fever wouldn’t be long in leaving. Lollipop goes off too, goes to get Father José Pedro. He has faith in the priest, he might know a cure.

Inside the warehouse, the Captains of the Sands are quiet. Dora asked them to go to bed. They lay down on the ground, but few of them are sleeping. In the immense peace of the night they’re thinking about the fever that’s consuming Dora. She kissed Zé Ferret, told him to go to sleep. He doesn’t understand too well. He knows that she’s ill, but he doesn’t think for a moment that she’ll abandon him. But the Captains of the Sands are afraid of that happening. Then they will be without a mother once again, without a sister, without a sweetheart.

Now only Big João and Pedro Bala are by her side. The black boy smiles, but Dora knows his smile is forced, it’s a smile to cheer her up, a smile forcibly pulled out of the sadness that the black boy feels. Pedro Bala holds her hand. Farther off, the Professor is doubled over, his head buried in his hands.

Dora says:

“Pedro?”

“What is it?”

“Come closer.”

He goes over. His voice is just a thread. Pedro speaks with love:

“Do you want something?”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I do…”

“Lay down here.”

Pedro lies down beside her. Big João goes away, goes over by Professor. But they don’t talk, they stay given over to their sadness. But it’s a night of peace that envelops the warehouse. And the peace of the night is in Dora’s eyes too.

“Closer…”

He moves closer, their bodies are together. She takes his hand, brings it to her breast. It’s burning with fever. Pedro’s hand is on her young girl’s breast. She makes him stroke it, says:

“Do you know that I’m a woman now?”

His hand is resting on her breast, their bodies together. A great peace in her eyes:

“It was at the Orphanage…Now I can be your wife.”

He looks at her, startled:

“No, you’re sick…”

“Before I die. Come…”

“You’re not going to die.”

“Not if you come to me.”

They embrace. The desire is abrupt and terrible. Pedro doesn’t want to hurt her, but she doesn’t show any signs of pain. A great peace in all her being.

“You’re mine now,” he says with an agitated voice.

She doesn’t seem to feel the pain of possession. Her face lighted by the fever swells with joy. Now the peace is only from the night, joy is with Dora. Their bodies come apart. Dora murmurs:

“It’s good…I’m your wife.”

He kisses her. Peace returns to her face. She looks at Pedro Bala with love.

“Now I’m going to sleep,” she says.

He lies down beside her, grasps her burning hand. Wife.

The peace of the night envelops husband and wife. Love is always sweet and good, even when death is near. Their bodies
no longer sway in the rhythm of love. But in the hearts of the two children there’s no more fear. Only peace, the peace of the Bahia night.

In the early morning, Pedro puts his hand on Dora’s forehead. Cold. She hasn’t any pulse, her heart is no longer beating. His cry cuts through the warehouse, awakens the boys. Big João looks at her with wide-open eyes. He says to Pedro Bala:

“You shouldn’t have done it…”

“She was the one who wanted to,” he explains, and goes out so as not to burst into sobs.

Professor comes over, stands looking. He doesn’t have the courage to touch her body. But he feels that for him life in the warehouse is over, there’s nothing left for him to do there. Lollipop comes in with Father José Pedro. The priest takes Dora’s pulse, puts his hand on her head:

“She’s dead.”

He starts a prayer. And almost all of them pray aloud:

“Our Father, who art in heaven…”

Pedro Bala remembers the prayers at night in the Reformatory. He hunches his shoulders, covers his ears. He turns, looks at Dora’s body. Lollipop has put a purple flower between her fingers. Pedro Bala breaks into sobs.

The
mãe-de-santo
Don’Aninha has come, God’s-Love has come too. Pedro Bala doesn’t take part in the conversation. Aninha says:

“She was like a shadow in this life. She became a saint in the other. Zumbi of Palmares is a saint in halfbreed
candomblés
, Rosa Palmeirão too. Brave men and women become saints for blacks…”

“She was like a shadow…” Big João repeats.

She was like a shadow for all of them, a happening that had no explanation. Except for Pedro Bala, who had her. Except for Professor, who loved her.

Father José Pedro speaks:

“She’s gone to heaven, she had no sins. She didn’t know what sin was…”

Lollipop prays. God’s-Love knows what they expect of him. To take the body in his sloop and throw it into the sea, beyond the old fort. How can a funeral leave from the warehouse? It’s hard to explain all that to Father José Pedro. Legless does it in a hurried voice. The priest is horrified at first. It’s a sin, he can’t consent to a sin. But he consents, he won’t tell where the Captains of the Sands live. Pedro Bala doesn’t say anything.

The peace of night is all around. In Dora’s dead eyes, the eyes of a mother, a sister, a sweetheart, and a wife, there is a great peace. Some of the boys are weeping. Dry Gulch and Big João will carry the body. But, facing it, Dry Gulch can’t reach out his hands, Big João is crying like a woman.

Don’Aninha wraps her in a white shawl:

“She’s going to Iemanjá,” she says. “She’s going to become a saint too…”

But no one can carry the body. Because Pedro Bala is hugging it, won’t let go of it. Professor calls to him:

“Let go. I loved her too. Now…”

They carry her into the peace of the night, into the mystery of the sea. The priest prays, it’s a strange procession that goes through the night to God’s-Love’s sloop. From the sands, Pedro Bala watches the sloop as it goes away. He bites his hands, stretches out his arms.

They go back into the warehouse. The white sail of the sloop is lost at sea. The moon lights up the sands, the stars are both in the sky and in the sea. There is peace in the night. A peace that comes from Dora’s eyes.

On the waterfront of Bahia, they say that when a brave man dies, he becomes a star in the sky. That’s how it was with Zumbi, with Lucas da Feira, with Beetle, all brave black men. But there was never a case of a woman, brave as she might be, becoming a star after death. Some, like Rosa Palmeirão, like Maria Cabaçu, became saints in halfbreed
candomblés
. None of them ever became a star.

Pedro Bala jumps into the water. He can’t stay in the warehouse, amidst the sobbing and laments. He wants to go with Dora, join her in Iemanjá’s Lands of the Endless Way. He keeps swimming forward. He’s following the wake of God’s-Love’s sloop. He swims, keeps on swimming. He sees Dora before him, Dora, his wife, her arms out to him. He swims until he has no more strength. He floats then, his eyes turned up to the stars and the great yellow moon in the sky. What does dying matter when we’re going in search of the beloved, when love awaits us?

What does it matter either that astonomers say that it was a comet that passed over Bahia that night? What Pedro Bala saw was Dora, changed into a star, going to heaven. She was braver than all women, braver than Rosa Palmeirão, than Maria Cabaçu. So brave that, before dying, while still a girl, she gave herself to his love. That’s why she became a star in the sky. A
star with long, blond hair, a star like none other ever in the Bahia night of peace.

Happiness lights up Pedro Bala’s face. The peace of the night came for him too. Because now he knows that she will shine for him among a thousand stars in the unmatched sky of the black city.

God’s-Love’s sloop picks him up.

Not much time had passed since Dora’s death, the image of her presence, so swift and yet making such a mark, of her death, too, still filled the warehouse nights with visions. Some, when they came in, would still look toward the corner where she used to sit alongside Professor and Big João. Still with the hope of finding her there. It had been something without explanation. It had been something completely unexpected in their lives, the appearance of a mother, a sister. Reason for them to look for still in spite of having seen God’s-Love take her away in his sloop to the bottom of the sea. Only Pedro Bala didn’t look for her in the warehouse. He looked for her in the sky where there were so many stars, a star with long, blond hair.

One day Professor came into the warehouse and didn’t light his candle, didn’t open a story book, didn’t chat. For him that whole life had ended, ever since Dora had been carried off by fever. When he’d seen the warehouse fill up with her presence. For Professor, everything had a new meaning. The warehouse was like the frame of a picture: now the blond hair falling over Cat, who saw his mother. Now the lips that kissed Zé Ferret to put him to sleep. Or the voice that sang lullabies. Also proud smiles for Dry Gulch’s bravery, as if she were a fearless backlands mulatto woman. Or her entrance into the warehouse,
hair flying, her face all laughter, back from the day’s adventure on the streets of the city. Or eyes full of love, fever burning her face, hands calling her beloved for the first and last possession. Now the Professor looks upon the warehouse as a frame without a picture. Useless. For him it had ceased having meaning or had too terrible a meaning. He’d changed a great deal in those months after Dora’s death, he went about silently, his face serious, and he struck up a relationship with that gentleman who once on the Rua Chile had chatted with him, given him a cigarette holder and his address.