Raised from the Ground (35 page)

So off João Mau-Tempo went to Elvas, taking with him his daughter Amélia, the one with the bad teeth, although if she had good teeth, she would easily be a match for her sister. Let it be said now that hell is not far away. There are one hundred and fifty men and women, divided into five groups, and this torment will last sixteen weeks, it’s a veritable harvest of scabies and fevers, a labor not of love but of pain, weeding and planting from before the sun rises until after it has set, and when night falls, one hundred and fifty ghosts trudge up to the place where they have their lodgings, the men to one side, the women to the other, all of them scratching at the scabies caught in the flooded fields, all suffering from the fevers picked up from the rice paddies. You need sugar, milk, rice and a few eggs to make that delicacy rice pudding, how often do I have to tell you, Maria, it should be fluffy, not this stodgy pap, you should be able to taste every grain. All through the night in the dormitories, you can hear these poor people sighing and moaning, the anxious scratching of hard, black nails on skin that is already bleeding, while others lie, teeth chattering and staring up at the roof with eyes glassy with fever. There is little difference between this and the death camps, except that fewer people actually die, doubtless due to the Christian charity and concomitant self-interest with which the bosses, almost every day, load up the trucks with all that mangy, feverish misery and transport it to the hospital in Elvas, some today, others tomorrow, an endless coming and going, the poor things set off close to death, but are saved by the miraculous medicine, which, in a matter of days, has them as good as new, with very weak, tremulous legs, it’s true, but who cares about such trivia, you can go back to work, the doctors say, addressing us contemptuously as
tu,
and the truck disgorges its load of broken-backed laborers, there’s work to be done, there’s no time to waste, Are you better, father, asked Amélia, and he answered, Yes, daughter, what could be simpler.

There haven’t been that many changes. Weeding and planting the ricefields is done exactly as it was in my grandfather’s day, the creepy-crawlies in the water haven’t changed their stings or their slime since the Lord God made them, and if a hidden sliver of glass cuts a finger, the blood that flows is still the same color. You would need a lot of imagination to invent any extraordinary incidents. This way of life is made up of repeated words and repeated gestures, the arc made by the sickle is precisely adjusted to the length of the arm, and the sawing of the blade through the dry stems of wheat produces the same sound, always the same sound, how is it that the ears of these men and women do not grow weary, it’s the same with that hoarse-voiced bird that some say lives in the cork oak, between the bark and the trunk, and that screams whenever they tear off its skin or perhaps pluck out its feathers, and what is left is painful, goosepimpled flesh, but this idea that trees cry out and feel pain comes purely from the narrator’s private imaginings. We would do far better to notice Manuel Espada perched, barefoot, at the top of this cork oak, for he is a serious, barefoot bird, hopping from branch to branch, not that he sings, he doesn’t feel like singing, the real boss here is the cork ax, chop, chop, chop, making circular incisions around the larger boughs and vertical ones on the trunk, then the handle of the ax serves as a lever, go on, push, there, can’t you hear the hoarse-voiced bird that lives in the cork oak, it’s screaming, not that anyone feels any pity. The cylinders of bark rain down, falling on the cork already cut from the trunks, there is no poetry in this, we’d like to see someone make a sonnet out of one man losing his grip on his ax and watching it skitter down the branch, catching the bark as it falls, and impaling itself in a bare foot, coarse and grubby but so fragile, because when it comes to skin and the blade of an ax, there is little difference between the delicate, rosy foot of some cultivated maiden and the calloused hoof of a cork cutter, it takes the same time for the blood to spurt out.

But here we are talking about work and the working day, and we nearly forgot to describe the night when João Mau-Tempo arrived back in Monte Lavre, when his house was filled almost to bursting with his closest friends and their wives, those who had them, as well as a cacophony of young lads, some of them intruders, unrelated to any of those present, not that anyone cared, and António Mau-Tempo, who had finished his national service and was now working on the cork plantations, and his sisters Gracinda and Amélia, and his brother-in-law Manuel Espada, a whole crowd of people. Faustina cried all the time, out of joy and grief, she had only to recall the day on which her husband was arrested, who knows why, and taken to Vendas Novas and to Lisbon, with no idea when, if ever, he would come back. She didn’t talk about the sad case of her stockings ruined by the tarmac, not a word, that would remain forever a secret between the couple, both of whom felt slightly ashamed, knowing that, even in Monte Lavre, someone might make fun of them, the poor woman with her stockings stuck fast to the tarmac road, dreadful, who wouldn’t do their best to avoid such mockery. João Mau-Tempo described his misfortunes and spared no detail, so that they would know just what he had suffered at the hands of the dragons of the PIDE and the national guard. All of this would be confirmed and repeated later by Sigismundo Canastro, but although he wasn’t so insensitive as to treat the matter lightly, he did tell the most alarming stories as if they were perfectly natural, and recounted everything with such an air of simplicity that not even the women wept for pity, and the young boys moved away, disappointed, he might as well have been talking about the state of the wheatfields, and perhaps, who knows, they were, indeed, one and the same thing. Maybe that is why, one day, Manuel Espada approached Sigismundo Canastro, with all the respect that their difference in age required, and said, Senhor Sigismundo, if I’m needed, I can help. We would be much deceived if we were to think that this impulse came from Sigismundo Canastro’s quiet way of describing his experiences, which, in temperaments like Manuel Espada’s, might well have provoked such an important decision, the proof of this is that Manuel Espada went on to say, No one should treat a man the way they treated my father-in-law, and Sigismundo Canastro answered, No one should treat men the way we were treated, but let’s talk later, these arrests and imprisonments have muddied the waters, best to let a little time pass to allow the mud to settle, because these things, like fishing nets, take longer to mend than to break, and Manuel Espada responded, I’ll wait as long as is necessary.

Sometimes, when you sit down to read the history of this Portuguese land, you come across such silly things they make you smile, although in this case, outright laughter seems to be called for, and I mean no offense, each person does what he can or as the hierarchy orders him to do, and if it was a fine and praiseworthy thing for Dona Filipa de Vilhena
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to arm her sons so that they could go and fight for the restoration of the fatherland, what can one make of Manuel Espada, who, with no cavalry to back him up, says simply, Here I am, he has no mother to urge him on, she, of course, is dead, only his own will. Dona Filipa did not lack for people to sing her praises and describe her heroism, there was João Pinto Ribeiro, the Count of Ericeira, Vicente Gusmão Soares, Almeida Garrett, and Vieira Portuense painted her portrait, but Manuel Espada and Sigismundo Canastro have no one to take their part, it’s simply a conversation between two men, they have said what they have to say and now each goes his own way, there is no call for oratory or paintbrushes, this narrator is all they need.

Indeed, as an aid to our understanding of these events, let us take another slow walk about the latifundio, with no particular goal in mind apart from picking up a stone or a branch and giving it a proper name, seeing what animals live there and why, and since we can hear guns firing over there, although what that’s about we have no idea, let us begin right here, well, what a coincidence, this is the same road that José Calmedo took when he went to arrest João Mau-Tempo, indeed, given how easy it is to find oneself back where one was before, the latifundio seems more like a minifundio, not a large estate but a very small one. True, the last time we came this way it wasn’t quite as noisy, but there’s the ruined water wheel and, beyond, invisible, the brick kiln, don’t worry about the shooting, it’s probably just target practice or something, with proper bullets, mind, none of those lead pellets fit only for a little light hunting, quite a different kettle of fish.

The firing has stopped and we can walk on quite happily now, but look, there’s a man coming from the same direction as the shooting, by his looks we would say he’s one of us, and he crosses the valley, that smooth expanse of dark earth, goes over a small bridge with a low handrail, it’s only a tiny stream, and starts to climb up this side of the valley, through thick, thorny undergrowth marked by the faintest of trails, Why is he going over there, with no hoe and no mattock, with no ax and no pruning hook, let’s sit here and rest awhile, he’ll have to go back down again and then we’ll know, you were saying that this is a wilderness, Well, it is, and don’t go thinking that the track through the brambles will be much use to the lackey who just passed, You mean he’s a lackey, He certainly is, But he’s not wearing livery, No, livery’s a thing of the past, from the days when the countess armed her own sons, if you know who I mean, no, nowadays lackeys dress like you and me, well, not like you, you’re from the city, even we can tell them apart by the way they behave, But why do you say that the track through the brambles won’t be much use to him, Because what he’s looking for lies off the beaten track, and he can’t turn around, he has to go straight ahead, those are his orders, using his crook to beat a path through the undergrowth, that’s worse than useless, But why is he doing it, Because he’s a lackey, and the more scratches he has on him when he goes back, the better, So that old rule applies here as well, does it, It does, but to go back to our conversation, I was saying what a wilderness it is here, but it wasn’t always like this, believe you me, there was a time when this whole area was cultivated right down to the bottom of the valley, it’s good soil, and there are springs aplenty, not to mention the stream, So how did it become like this, Let’s see now, the father of the present owners, the ones who were doing the shooting, eventually took over this whole area, it was the usual thing, a few small farmers got into financial difficulties, and he, I can’t remember what his name was now, Gilberto or Adalberto or Norberto, something like that, lent them money, which they couldn’t pay back, well, times were hard, and he ended up owning the lot, That doesn’t seem possible, It’s perfectly possible, it’s what’s happened all the time on the latifundio, the latifundio is like one of those mules that’s always biting the mule next to it, You amaze me, Oh, if I told you everything I know, we’d be here for the rest of our days, and the story would have to be passed on to our grandchildren, if you have any, but here’s the lackey, let’s follow him.

The sound was that of slithering feet and of some heavy object being dragged along. Once, he fell and went rolling back down to the bottom, he could have been killed, What’s that he’s carrying on his back, It’s a barrel, the owners of both barrel and lackey use the barrel as their target, But I thought slavery had been abolished, That’s what you think, How can a man submit to such a thing, Ask him, Oh, I will, excuse me, friend, what is that you’re carrying on your back, It’s a barrel, But it’s full of holes, you couldn’t use it to store water or other liquids, or are you going to fill it up with stones, It serves as a target for my masters Alberto and Angilberto, they shoot at the barrel and I go and find it to check the number of hits, and then I put it back in the same place until it’s so full of holes, it’s like a sieve, at which point I fetch a new one, And you submit to their orders. The world suddenly becomes unfit for conversation, with Alberto and Angilberto on the far side of the valley shouting, impatient at the lackey’s delay, it’s getting late, they’re saying, and we’ve still got two boxes of bullets left, and the poor slave trots across the valley and over the bridge, the barrel is like a huge rust-red hump, and now, as he climbs the hill on the far side, he looks more like a beetle than a man, So, do you still believe slavery was abolished, It seems impossible, And what do you know about impossibilities, Oh, I’m beginning to learn, Let me tell you about another impossibility, over there, on the right bank of the stream, beyond the viaduct, are some fields that extend as far as the foot of the hills, do you see, fine, well, those same marksmen sold that land to some small farmers, and if they had been decent, honorable men, as they should have been, they would have included the stream in the sale, but no, they kept back the ten or twenty meters of land that bordered the stream, so if the farmers wanted water, they had to dig wells, what do you say to that, Again, it seems impossible, Yes, it does, doesn’t it, it would be like me refusing you a drink of water when you were thirsty, and telling you, if you want water, then dig a well with your bare hands, while I empty my glass and amuse myself watching the water flow, So a dog could go and drink from the stream, but not the farmers, Ah, now you’re beginning to understand, look, there’s another lackey bringing a new barrel, Your masters are obviously good shots, Yes, sir, but they wanted to know who you are, and when I said I didn’t know, they said that if you don’t leave right now, they’ll call the guards. The two walkers withdrew, the threat had its effect and the argument a certain authority, trespassing on private property, even when it isn’t fenced off, would be taken very seriously indeed, especially if the guards happened to be in a bad mood, there would be no point explaining to them that they didn’t know the boundaries, in fact, given that there’s no right of way here, they were very lucky not to get shot, Just pretend it was a stray bullet, Alberto, those two were asking for it anyway.

But there are times when one would be perfectly justified in roaring with laughter at what happens on the latifundio, if, that is, we were in the mood for some fun, but I’m not sure it would be worthwhile, we’re so used to laughter turning into tears or a howl of rage so loud it could be heard in heaven, not that there is any bloody heaven, Father Agamedes is more easily accessible, and he never hears or else pretends that he doesn’t, yes, a howl that would be heard throughout the earth, although I wonder if it would be heard and if anyone would come to our aid, unless, of course, the reason they couldn’t hear us was because they were shouting so loudly themselves. Let’s tell one such story, and laugh if you can, especially since that is what the guards are for, not to be laughed at, heaven forfend, but to be summoned and dispatched, and although it’s usually the governor or some other official who does the summoning and dispatching, the latifundio has a great deal of power and authority over them as well, as you will see in this excellent tale involving Adalberto, a shepherd, his two assistants, three dogs, six hundred sheep, a jeep and a patrol of republican guards, rather than a whole squadron, that would be excessive, shoulder arms, quick march.