Raised from the Ground (2 page)

They were halfway down the hill when the rain returned, at first in the form of a few plump drops threatening a downpour, so much for it being a passing shower. Then the wind swept across the plain, pushing everything before it like a broom, scooping up straw and dust, and the rain advanced from the horizon, a grayish curtain that soon obscured the distant landscape. It was a steady rain, of the sort that looks set in for many hours, one that arrives and is reluctant to leave, and when, finally, the earth can’t cope with all that water, it’s hard to know then if it’s the sky or the earth doing the drenching. The man again said, Damn it, the kind of thing people say if they have learned no grander expressions. Shelter is far away, and with no coats to put on, they have no alternative but to receive on their backs whatever rain may fall. From there to the village, given the speed at which this weary and somewhat reluctant donkey is traveling, it will be at least another hour’s journey, and by then it will be dark. The blanket, which barely protects the furniture, is soaked and dripping, the water falling in drops from the white threads, what hope for the clothes in the chests, the few migratory possessions of this family who, for reasons of their own, are making this cross-country trek. The woman looks up at the sky, an ancient, country way of reading the great blank page above our head, this time in order to see if the sky is clearing, which it isn’t, looking, rather, as if it were heavy with dark ink, the weather won’t change this evening. The cart travels onward, it’s a boat plunging into the deluge, it’ll go under at any moment, that seems to be why the man is driving the donkey forward, but it’s only so that they can reach that holm oak, which will shelter them from the worst of the storm. Man, cart and donkey have arrived, and the woman is nearly there, sliding about in the mud, she can’t run, she would wake her child, that’s how the world is, we never notice other people’s problems, not even when the people involved are as close as mother and son.

Underneath the oak tree, the man was gesticulating impatiently, he obviously doesn’t know what it’s like to carry a child in his arms, he’d be better employed checking that the ropes on the cart haven’t slackened, because traveling at that speed, the knots are sure to have slipped or the furniture shifted, and the last thing we need now is for the little furniture we have to fall and break. Under the tree, the rain is lighter, but large drops still fall from the leaves, this is no dense orange tree, standing beneath these enormous, widespread arms is like standing beneath a porch full of holes, indeed, it’s hard to know where to stand, but just then the child began to cry, prompting the mother to perform a more urgent task, unbuttoning her blouse and giving him her breast, almost empty of milk now, barely enough to stave off hunger. His crying stopped at once, and mother and child were at peace, wrapped about by the steady murmur of the rain, while the father walked around the cart, untying and retying knots, bracing his knee on the side of the cart to pull the ropes tight, while the donkey, abstracted, shook his ears hard and gazed out at the puddles and the flooded path. Then the man said, We were so near, and then all this rain, these were words spoken in mild anger, uttered almost unthinkingly and hopelessly, as if to say, the rain won’t stop just because I’m angry, well, that’s the narrator speaking, which we can quite do without. We would be better off watching the father, who asks at last, How’s the child, and goes over and peers under the shawl, he is her husband after all, but so quickly and modestly does his wife cover herself up that he can’t be sure now whether it was his son he wanted to see or her bare breast. He just had time to make out, in the tepid darkness, in the scented warmth of crumpled clothes, his son’s intensely blue eyes watching him from that private interior, with that strange pale light that usually stared out at him from the cradle, transparent and stern, an exile among the dark brown eyes of the family he was born into.

The heavy clouds had thinned a little, the first torrent of rain had slowed. The man stepped out onto the path, looked up questioningly at the sky, turning to the four cardinal points, and said to his wife, We’d better go, we can’t stay here until it’s dark. And his wife said, Let’s go then. She withdrew her nipple from the baby’s mouth, the child sucked air for a moment, seemed about to cry, then stopped, rubbed his face against the now withdrawn breast and, sighing, fell asleep. He’s a quiet child, good-humored, and a friend to his mother.

They were walking along together now, wrapped about by the rain, so wet that not even a cozy barn would tempt them, they’ll stop only when they reach their new home. The night was coming on fast. In the west, there was only a last faint glow that grew gradually red, then was gone, and the earth was a dumb, black well, full of echoes, how large the world seems at nightfall. The squeaking of the wheels seemed louder, the stuttering breath of the donkey as unexpected as a secret suddenly spoken out loud, and the whisper of their wet clothes was like a continuous murmured conversation between friends, with no awkward silences. For leagues around, not a light was to be seen. The woman crossed herself, then made the sign of the cross over her son’s face. At this hour of night, it’s best to defend the body and protect the soul, because ghosts begin to appear on the roads, either passing in a whirlwind or sitting down on a rock to await the traveler, of whom they will ask three questions to which there is no answer, who are you, where do you come from and where are you going. The man walking alongside the cart would like to sing, but he can’t, all his energy is going into pretending that the night doesn’t frighten him. Not much farther, he said when they reached the road, we just keep going straight now and this is a better road too.

Ahead, far away, a flash lit up the clouds, no one could have guessed they were so low. Then a pause and, finally, the low rumble of thunder. That’s all we need. The woman said, Holy Saint Barbara save us, but the thunder, if it wasn’t a remnant of some distant storm, seemed to be taking a different route, either that or Saint Barbara had shooed it away to places of lesser faith. They were on the road now, they could tell because it was wider, although any other differences could only be found with great patience and by the light of day, they had come through mud and potholes, and through mud and potholes they continued, and now it was so dark that they couldn’t see where they were putting their feet. The donkey advanced by instinct, walking alongside the ditch. The man and the woman skidded along behind. Now and then, if the road curved, the man ran blindly ahead to see if he could catch a glimpse of São Cristóvão. And when they saw, amid the darkness, the first white walls, the rain suddenly stopped, so abruptly that they barely noticed. One moment it was raining, the next it wasn’t. It was as if a great roof had stretched out over the road.

It’s hardly surprising that the woman should ask, Where’s our house, a perfectly understandable question in someone who needs to take care of her child and, if possible, put the furniture in its proper place before laying her weary body down in bed. And the man answers, On the other side. All doors are closed, only a few faint chinks of light betray the presence of the other inhabitants. In a yard somewhere, a dog barks. There’s always a dog barking when someone walks past, and the other dogs, caught unawares, pick up the first sentinel’s word and fulfill their canine duty. A gate was opened, then closed. And now that the rain had stopped and the house was near, husband and wife were more aware of the cold wind that came running along the street, before plunging down the narrow alleys, where it shook the branches that reached out over the low roofs. Thanks to the wind, the night grew brighter. The great cloud was moving off, and here and there you could see patches of clear sky. It’s not raining now, said the woman to her child, who was sleeping and, of the four, was the only one not to know the good news.

They came to a square in which a few trees were exchanging brief whispers. The man stopped the cart and said to the woman, Wait here, and walked under the trees toward a brightly lit doorway. It was a bar, a taberna, and inside three men were sitting on a bench while another was standing at the bar, drinking, holding his glass between thumb and forefinger as if posing for a photograph. And behind the bar, a thin, shriveled old man turned his eyes to the door, through which the man with the cart entered, saying, Good evening, gentlemen, the greeting of a new arrival wishing to gain the friendship of everyone in the room, either out of fraternal feeling or for more selfish commercial reasons, I’ve come to live here in São Cristóvão, my name’s Domingos Mau-Tempo
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and I’m a shoemaker. One of the men sitting on the bench joked, Well, you certainly brought the bad weather with you, and the man who was drinking and had just emptied his glass smacked his lips and added, Let’s hope his soles are better than the weather he brings, and the others, of course, laughed. These were not intended as rude or unwelcoming words, but it’s nighttime in São Cristóvão, all the doors are shut, and if a stranger arrives bearing a name like Mau-Tempo, only a fool could resist making a joke of it, especially after that heavy downpour. Domingos Mau-Tempo responded with a reluctant smile, but that’s to be expected. Then the old man opened a drawer and produced a large key, Here’s the key, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming, and everyone stares at Domingos Mau-Tempo, taking the measure of this new neighbor, every village needs a shoemaker and São Cristóvão is no exception. Domingos Mau-Tempo offered an explanation, It’s a long way from Monte Lavre, and it rained while we were on the road, not that there’s any need for him to account for himself, but he wants to be friendly, and then he says, Let me buy you all a drink, which is an excellent way of touching the pockets of men’s hearts. The men who were seated stand up and watch the ceremony of their glasses being refilled, and then, unhurriedly, each man again picks up his glass with a slow, careful gesture, this is wine, after all, not cheap brandy to be drunk down in one gulp. Won’t you have a drink yourself, sir, says Domingos Mau-Tempo, and the old man, who knows the ways of the big city, answers, Here’s wishing good health to my new tenant. And while the men are engaged in these niceties, the woman comes to the door, although she doesn’t actually come in, the taberna is reserved for men only, and she says quietly, as is her wont, Domingos, the child is restless, and what with the furniture and everything being so wet, we need to get unloaded.

She is quite right, but Domingos Mau-Tempo disliked being summoned by his wife like that, what will the other men think, and as they cross the square, he scolds her, If you do that again, I’ll be very angry. The woman did not respond, too busy trying to quiet the baby. The cart went slowly on, jolting over the bumps. The donkey had stiffened up with the cold. They went down a side street where the houses alternated with vegetable gardens, and they stopped outside a low hovel. Is this it, asked the woman, and her husband replied, Yes.

Domingos Mau-Tempo opened the door with the large key. In order to enter, he had to lower his head, for this is no palace with high doors. There were no windows. To the left was the fireplace, with the hearth at floor level. Domingos Mau-Tempo made a small, flickering torch from a sheaf of straw and held it up so that his wife could see their new home. There was a bundle of firewood by the chimney breast. Enough for their immediate needs. In a matter of minutes, the woman had laid the child down in one corner to sleep, gathered together some logs and some kindling, and the fire had sprung into life, like a flower on the whitewashed wall. The house was once again inhabited.

Domingos Mau-Tempo led the donkey and the cart in through the gate to the yard, and started unloading the furniture and carrying it into the house, where he set it down willy-nilly, until his wife could come and help him. The mattress was wet on one side. The water had got into the clothes chest, and one leg of the kitchen table was broken. But on the fire was a saucepan of cabbage leaves and rice, and the baby had suckled again and fallen asleep on the dry side of the mattress. Domingos Mau-Tempo went out into the yard to do his business. And standing in the middle of the room, Sara da Conceição, Domingos’s wife and João’s mother, stood quite still, staring into the flames like someone waiting for a garbled message to be repeated. She felt a slight movement in her belly. And another. But when her husband came back in, she said nothing. They had other things to think about.

D
OMINGOS MAU-TEMPO
will not make old bones. One day, when he has given his wife five children, although not for that most mundane of reasons, he will put a rope around the branch of a tree, in a desolate place almost within sight of Monte Lavre, and hang himself. Before he does this, however, he will carry his house on his back to other places, run away from his family three times, but fail to make his peace with them on that third occasion because his hour will have come. His father-in-law Laureano Carranca had predicted just such an unfortunate end when he was forced to give in to Sara’s stubbornness, for, so besotted was she with Domingos Mau-Tempo that she swore that if she could not marry him, she would marry no one. Laureano Carranca would roar furiously, He’s a ne’er-do-well and a drunkard and will come to no good. And so the family war raged on until Sara da Conceição fell pregnant, a conclusive and usually highly effective argument when persuasion and pleading have failed. One morning, Sara da Conceição left the house, in May it was, and walked across the fields to the place where she had arranged to meet Domingos Mau-Tempo. They were there for half an hour at most, lying amid the tall wheat, and when Domingos returned to his lasts and Sara to her parents’ house, he went off whistling with satisfaction, while she was left shivering despite the hot sun beating down on her. And when she crossed the stream by the ford, she had to crouch down beneath some willows and wash away the blood flowing from between her legs.