Raised from the Ground (10 page)

More than that. The workers boast of the beatings they get when working the land. Each beating is a medal to be bragged about at the inn, between drinks, I got beaten
x
number of times when I was working for Berto and Humberto. That’s a good worker for you, one who, when he gets whipped, will show off his raw welts, and if they’re bleeding, all the better, these are the same sort of boasts that the urban rabble make, taking as proof of their virility the number of cankers and sores acquired from their labors in a hired bed. Ah, you people preserved in the grease or honey of ignorance, you have never lacked for exploiters. So, work, work yourself to death, yes, die if necessary, that way you’ll be remembered by the foreman and the boss, but woe betide you if you get a reputation for being an idler, no one will ever love you then. You can go and stand at the doors of inns with your companions in misfortune, and they, too, will despise you, and the foreman, or the boss, if he deigns to notice, will eye you with disgust and you’ll be given no work, just to teach you a lesson. The others have already learned their lesson, they go off every day to slave away on the latifundio, and when you get home, if the hovel you live in can be called a home, how are you going to explain that you have no work, that the other men have but you haven’t. Mend your ways while there’s still time, and swear that you’ve taken twenty beatings, crucify yourself, hold out your arm to be bled, open your veins and say, This is my blood, drink it, this is my body, eat it, this is my life, take it, along with the church’s blessing, the salute to the flag, the march past, the handing over of credentials, the awarding of a university diploma, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Ah, but life is a game too, a playful exercise, playing is a very serious, grave, even philosophical act, for children it’s part of growing up, for adults it’s a link with their childhood, advantageous for some. Whole libraries of books have been written on the subject, all of them solid, weighty tomes, only a fool could fail to be convinced. The mistake lies in thinking that such profundity can be found only in books, when in fact a quick glance, a moment’s attention, is all it takes to see how the cat plays with the mouse, and how the latter is eaten by the former. The question, the only one that matters, is knowing who exploits the initial innocence of the game, this game that was never innocent, for example, when the foreman says to the workers, Let’s run, and see who gets there last, And the innocents, blind to the obvious deceit, run, trot, gallop, stagger from Monte Lavre to Vale de Cães, merely for the glory of arriving first or for the smug satisfaction of not being last. Because the last man, well, someone always has to be last, will have to put up with the jeers and mockery of the winners, who are already panting and breathless, they haven’t even started work yet but the poor fools waste their breath on this explosion of scorn. Poor João Mau-Tempo won the booby prize, not that anyone knows what that is, a prize that marks you out as idle or not being fast enough on your feet, that says you’re not a man but a mere nothing. Portugal is a country of men, there’s certainly no lack of them, only the one who comes last in the race is not a man, get away, you lazy brute, you don’t even deserve the bread you eat.

But the games have not ended. The last to arrive, if he has any self-respect, will offer to carry the first load, well, it’s some compensation. The pile of wood that will eventually become charcoal is being prepared, and having placed a sack on your back to dull the pain to come, you say, Give me that big trunk, I’ll carry that. The foreman is watching, you have to prove to your colleagues that you’re as good a man as they, and besides, you can’t afford to be without work next week, you have children to think of, and then, groaning with effort, two men lift the trunk, they’re not your children but it’s as if they were, and they place the trunk on your shoulders, you kneel down like a camel, if you’ve ever seen one, and when you feel the weight, your knees sag, but you grit your teeth, brace your back and gradually draw yourself up, it’s a huge trunk, like the leg of a giant, it feels like a hundred-year-old cork oak on your shoulders, you take the first step, and how far away that pile of wood is, your colleagues are watching, and the foreman says, Let’s see if you can do it, if you can you’re a brave man. That’s what it’s about, being brave, bearing the weight of that trunk and the pain in your creaking spine and in your heart, just so as to look good in the foreman’s eyes, who will say to Adalberto, He’s a brave fellow that Mau-Tempo, although it could be any other name, you should have seen the piece of wood they gave him to carry, sir, it really was a sight to see, oh yes, he’s a real man all right. Possibly, but so far you’ve taken only three steps. What you really want to do now is put the load down on the ground, at least that’s what your tormented body is asking. Your soul, your spirit, if you have the right to one, tells you that you can’t, that you would rather die than be humiliated in your own village and dubbed a weakling, anything but that. People have been going on for two thousand years or more about how Christ carried the cross to Golgotha with help from the Cyrenian, but no one has a word to say about this crucified man who dined last night on very little and has had almost nothing to eat today, and he’s still only halfway there, his vision grows blurred, it’s a real torment, ladies and gentlemen, with everyone watching and shouting, He can’t do it, he can’t do it, and although you have ceased to be yourself, at least you haven’t yet been reduced to being an animal, a great advantage, because an animal would have fallen to its knees, crushed by the load, but you haven’t, you’re a man, the dupe at the universal gaming table, why not place a bet, your wage may not pay you enough to feed you, but life is this merry game, He’s nearly there, you hear someone say, and you feel as if you were not of this world, carrying a load like that, have pity on me, help me, comrades, if we all carried it together it would be so much easier, but that’s not possible, it’s a matter of honor, you would never again speak to the man who helped you, that is how deceived you are. You deposit the trunk in precisely the right place, a huge achievement, and your comrades all cheer, you’re no longer the last in the race, and the foreman says gravely, Well done, man. Your legs are shaking, you’re as exhausted as an overladen mule, you have difficulty breathing, you have a stitch, dear God, it’s not a stitch, you fool, what you have is a strain, a pulled muscle, you don’t even know the words, you poor creature.

Work and more work. Now they travel far from Monte Lavre, some take their families with them, to work as charcoal burners in the area around Infantado, those men without wives bed down in this big hut, and those who brought their wives set up house in another, using mats or cotton curtains or improvised panels to separate the couples, with the children, if they have them, sleeping with their parents. The midges bite furiously, but it’s worse during the day, when the mosquitoes come in clouds, so many you can barely see, and they fall upon us, whining, like a rain of ground glass, our grandmothers, who knew so much about life, were quite right when they said, I’ll never see my grandchildren again, they’ll die far from home. They know, these are not things one forgets, that the children’s little bodies will become a running sore, a torment to them, little lepers who will lie down among rags at night, their stomachs crying out for food, it’s never enough, they’re growing up without any consolation from their parents, who very slowly touch each other, move and sigh, as if this were something they had to do in order to keep their senses more or less placated, while beside them another couple echoes that touching, moving and sighing, either because they want to or by suggestion, and all the children in the great hut lie listening, eyes open, experiencing their own gestures and disappointments.

From the tops of these hills, on a clear day, you can see Lisbon, who would have thought it was so close, we imagined that we lived at the end of the world, the mistaken ideas of those who know nothing and have had no one to teach them. The serpent of temptation slithered up the branch from which João Mau-Tempo can see Lisbon and promised him all the marvels and riches of the capital in exchange for the very modest price of a ferry ticket, well, not that modest for someone with nothing, but, in for a penny, in for a pound, he’d be a fool to refuse. We will disembark in Cais do Sodré and declare, wide-eyed, So this is Lisbon, the big city, and the sea, look at the sea, all that water, and then we walk through an archway into Rua Augusta, so many people, so much traffic, and we’re not used to walking on pavements, we keep slipping and sliding in our hobnail boots, and we cling to each other in our fear of the trams, and you two fall over, which makes the Lisbonites laugh, What bumpkins, they cry, And look, there’s Avenida da Liberdade, and what’s that thing sticking up in the middle, that’s Restauradores, oh, really, and I think to myself, Well, frankly, I’m none the wiser, but ignorance is always the hardest and most embarrassing thing to own up to, anyway, let’s walk up Avenida da Liberdade and find our sister, who’s working as a maid, this is the street, she’s at number ninety-six, isn’t that what you said, after all, you’re the one who can read, No, there must be some mistake, it goes from ninety-five to ninety-seven, there is no ninety-six, but he who seeks always finds, here it is, they laughed at us because we didn’t know that ninety-six was on the other side, the people in Lisbon laugh a lot. Here’s the building where our sister works, it’s really tall, the owner and resident of the first-floor apartment is Senhor Alberto, our sometime boss, everything belongs to the same family, Well, look who’s here, Maria da Conceição will say, what a surprise, and how plump she’s got, there’s nothing like being a maid. We’ll all go out together afterward, because the lady of the house is very generous and gives her time off, although it will be discounted from her next bit of leave, because normally she gets an afternoon off once a fortnight, between lunch and supper. We’ll visit some cousins who live in the area, in streets and back streets, and there’ll be the same joyful greeting, Well, look who’s here, and we’ll arrange to go to the show tonight, but first, you mustn’t miss the zoo, the monkeys are so funny, and that’s a lion over there, and look at the elephant, if you came across a monster like that in the countryside, you’d die of fright, and the show is called
The Clam,
starring Beatriz Costa and Vasco Santana, the man almost had me crying with laughter. We’ll sleep here in the kitchen and in the corridor, don’t worry, we’re used to all sorts, the nights are different in Lisbon, it’s the silence, the silence isn’t the same, So, did you sleep well, and no one dares to say No, we spent all night tossing and turning, but now let’s have a cup of coffee and then go for a stroll around the city, but this isn’t a city, it’s the size of a county, and in Alcântara we’ll meet a group of men working on the railway line, and they say, Morning, bumpkins, and that’s it, our brother-in-law takes umbrage and goes over to them, What did you say, a few blows are exchanged, then we flee in shame, and the men shout, Look at the one in the jacket, Look at that bumpkin run, but we’re not bumpkins, and even if we were, that would still be no reason to scorn us. We will cross the river again, Look at the sea, and a gentleman traveling with us in the boat says very politely, Actually, this is the river, the sea starts over there, and he points, and then we realize that you can’t see land in that direction, how is that possible. When we disembark in Montijo, we’ll still have a few kilometers to walk, eight to be precise, until we reach our work camp, we spent an awful lot of money but it was worth it, and when we get back to Monte Lavre, we’ll have a lot to tell, because life has its good points too.

Sometimes when people get married, there’s already a baby on the way. The priest blesses the couple and the blessing falls on three, not two, as you can see by the sometimes quite prominent bump beneath the woman’s skirt. But even when that isn’t the case, whether the bride is a virgin or not, it would be very unusual for a year to pass without a child being born. And if God so wills it, it’ll be one child out, another one in, for as soon as the woman gives birth, she falls pregnant again. They’re real brutes these people, ignorant, worse than animals, because animals aren’t in heat all the time, they follow the laws of nature. But these men arrive home from work or from the inn, get into bed, their blood inflamed by the smell of their wife or by the wine they’ve drunk or by the sexual appetite that comes with tiredness, and they get on top of her, they don’t know any other way, they huff and puff, they’re not exactly subtle, and leave their sap to soak in the mucous membrane inside the woman’s incomprehensibly intricate innards. This is a good thing, better than going with other women, but the family is growing, more and more children are born, because they don’t take precautions, Mama, I’m hungry, the proof that God does not exist lies in the fact that he did not make men sheep so that they could eat the grass in the fields, or pigs so that they could eat acorns. But even if they did eat acorns and grass, they couldn’t do so in peace, because there’s always a warden or the guards around, with eye and rifle cocked, and if the warden, in the name of Norberto’s lands, doesn’t shoot you in the leg or kill you right off, the guards, who will do the same if they’re ordered to, or even if they’re not, can choose the more benign options of prison, a fine and a beating. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is a bowl of cherries, you pull out one and three or four come out together, there are even estates that have their own private prison and their own penal code. Justice is done every day on the latifundio, what would become of us if the authorities weren’t here.

The family grows, though many children die of diarrhea, dissolving in their own shit, poor little angels, snuffed out like candles, with arms and legs more like twigs than anything else, their bellies distended, until the moment comes and they open their eyes for the last time to see the light of day, unless they die in the dark, in the silence of the hovel, and when the mother wakes and finds her child dead, she starts to scream, always the same scream, these women whose children have died aren’t capable of inventing anything, they’re speechless. As for the fathers, they say nothing and, the following night, go to the taberna looking as if they’re ready to kill someone or something. They come back drunk, having killed nothing and no one.