The Violent Land (6 page)

It was cold in the late hours of night, and the deck-passengers huddled under their blankets. Margot caught the sound of voices at a distance.

“If cacao brings fourteen milreis this year, I'm going to take the family to Rio.”

“I'd like to build a house in Ilhéos.”

The speakers were drawing nearer, talking as they came.

“That was a nasty business, having Zequinha shot in the back.”

“But there will be a trial this time, I'll guarantee you that.”

“Let's hope so.”

They came to a stop in front of Margot and stood looking her over without the least ceremony. The short man smiled beneath an enormous moustache, which he stroked every other minute.

“You'll catch cold like that, young lady.”

Margot made no reply.

“Where are you staying in Ilhéos?” the other asked. “At Machadão's place?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Don't be stuck up, miss. It's off folks like us that you're going to make a living, ain't that right? Look, my friend Moura here can fix you up in fine style.”

The short man tugged at his moustache. “And I'll come around, too, my dear. All you have to do is say the word.”

They saw Juca Badaró approaching.

“Excuse me.”

“Good evening, Juca.” And the two of them slipped away.

Juca nodded, then turned to Margot.

“It's time you were asleep, young lady. It's better to sleep than to stand here gabbling with everyone who comes along.” He gazed resentfully at the backs of the retreating pair, but Margot stared straight at Juca.

“Who gave you the right to meddle in my life?”

“Better look sharp, young lady. I'm going below to see how my wife's getting along in the cabin; but I'll be back, and if I find you here, there's going to be a rumpus. A woman of mine does what I say.” And with this he left.

“A woman of mine—” Margot repeated to herself contemptuously. Then, taking her time about it, she went down to her stateroom. As she passed, she heard the short man with the moustache saying:

“That fellow Juca Badaró has a good lesson coming to him.”

Of a sudden she felt as if she were Juca's woman.

“Then why don't you teach it to him?” she asked.

A deepening silence lay upon the ship as it ploughed through the night sea. The harmonicas and guitars in third-class had stopped playing, and no voice sang the sad, sad songs of love and longing. Margot had gone to her cabin, and no musing passenger leaned on the ship's rail. The words of the poker-players were lost before they reached the sea. Suffused in the red and ominous light of the moon, the boat ploughed on, blanketed now in silence. The night aboard ship was filled with sleep—with sleep and dreams and the hopes of men.

The captain came down from the bridge, accompanied by the first mate. Together they made their way through the cluster of first-class passengers, asleep beneath their blankets. Now and then one of the figures would mutter a word; he was dreaming of cacao plantations laden with fruit. The skipper and the first mate descended the narrow stairs to third-class, where men and women lay huddled against one another for warmth. The skipper was silent. The second officer whistled a popular tune. Antonio Victor had a beatific smile on his lips, as he dreamed of an easy fortune won in the land of Ilhéos and of his return to Estancia in quest of Ivone.

The captain halted and looked at the sleeping mulatto.

“You see?” he said, turning to the mate. “He won't smile so much when he gets down there in the woods.” And with his foot he pushed Antonio Victor's head. “I feel sorry for them.”

They came up to the rail in the stern of the ship. The waves were tossing high and the moon was red. They were silent as the second officer lighted his pipe. It was the skipper who spoke at last.

“You know,” he said, “there are times when I feel like the captain of one of those slavers in the old days.” As the mate did not reply, he went on to explain. “One of those ships that brought blacks over to sell them as slaves.” He pointed to the sleeping figures, to Antonio Victor, who was smiling still. “What difference is there?”

The first mate shrugged his shoulders, gave a puff on his pipe, but said nothing. He was gazing out over the sea, the immensity of the night, and the heaven of stars.

THE FOREST

The forest lay sleeping its never interrupted sleep. Over it passed the days and the nights. The summer sun shone above it, the winter rains fell upon it. Its trees were centuries old, an unending green overrunning the mountain, invading the plain, lost in the infinite. It was like a sea that had never been explored, locked in its own mystery. It was like a virgin whose flesh had never known the call of passion. Like a virgin, it was lovely, radiant, young, despite those century-old trunks. Mysterious as the body of a woman that has not as yet been possessed, it, too, was now ardently desired.

From the forest came the trill of birds on sunny mornings. Summer swallows flew over its tree-tops, and troops of monkeys ran up and down the trees and leaped crazily from bough to bough. Owls hooted by the yellow light of the moon on nights of calm. Their cries were not forebodings of evil, for men had not yet come to the giant wood. Innumerable species of snakes glided noiselessly among the dried leaves, and jaguars yowled frightfully those nights when they were in rut.

The forest with its age-old trees lay sleeping, and its interlacing lianas, its mire, and its prickly thorns stood guard over it as it slumbered.

Out of the forest, out of its mystery, fear came to the hearts of men. As they arrived of an afternoon, after having made their way through mud and stream to open a trail, as they stood there face to face with this virginal growth, they were paralyzed with fright. Night came, bringing with it black clouds, heavy with June rains, and for the first time the owl's hoot was an augury of woe. The weird cry resounded through the forest, awakening the animals; snakes hissed, jaguars howled in their hidden lairs, swallows dropped dead from the bough, and the monkeys took flight. As the tempest fell, ghostly forms awoke. The truth is, they had come with the men, in their wake, along with the axes and the scythes—or can it be that they had dwelt in the forest since the very beginning of time? On this night they awoke: the werewolf and the goblin, the padre's she-mule, and the fire-breathing ox, the
boi tátá
.

The men huddled together in fright, for the forest inspired a religious awe. There was no trail here; here were only animals and ghosts. And so they came to a halt, fear in their hearts.

The tempest broke, lightning rent the skies, thunder crashed as though the deities of the wood were gritting their teeth at the threat that man brought with him. The lightning's rays illumined the forest from moment to moment, but all that the men could see was the dark green of the trunks as they listened intently to the sounds that reached their ears: the hiss of the fleeing snakes, the yowl of the terror-stricken jaguars, the terrifying voices of those shadowy shapes let loose in the wilderness. That fire which ran along the tops of the tallest boughs, that came without a doubt from the nostrils of the
boi tátá
. And that sound of hoofs which they heard, what was it if not the padre's she-mule scurrying through the undergrowth, once a beautiful maiden, who, in an access of love, had given herself to the sacrilegious embraces of a priest? They were no longer conscious of the howling of the jaguar. Now it was the ugly cry of the werewolf, a creature half wolf, half man, with enormous claws, and crazed by a mother's curse. The sinister goblin dance of the
caapora
on its one leg, with its one arm, as it laughed from a face that was cloven in two. There was fear in the hearts of men.

And the rain fell, in torrents, as though it were the beginning of another Deluge. Here everything was reminiscent of the beginning of the world. Impenetrable and mysterious, ancient as time itself and young as spring, the forest appeared to the eyes of men as the most formidable of ghostly habitations, home and refuge of the werewolf and the goblin. For them an unfathomable immensity. How small they were, there at its feet: frightened little animals! From its depths came weird voices. But most terrifying of all was the sight, as the storm broke in all its fury, of the black heavens above, where not a single star shone to greet the newcomers with its light.

They came from other lands beyond the sea, where other forests once had been, felled now and conquered, cleared by fire, with roadways broken through them, forests from which the jaguars had disappeared and where the snakes were becoming rare. And here they stood again before another virgin wood, a trackless growth as yet untrodden by the foot of man, and with no stars in the storm-laden skies overhead. In their own distant land, on moonlit nights, old women had told gloomy tales of ghosts and sprites. In some far corner of the world, none knew where, not even the farthest-faring of travellers, not even those who went up and down the backland trails reciting prophecies—somewhere it was, in that far country, that the ghosts and goblins had their dwelling-place. Thus spoke the old women out of the wisdom of age and experience.

And then, of a sudden, on a stormy night, here on the edge of the forest, men discovered that awesome nook of the universe where the goblins dwelt. Here amid this tangled vegetation, amid the creeping lianas, in company with the venemous cobras, the fierce jaguars, the evil-auguring owls, those who had been transformed by a curse into fantastic animals were paying now for the crimes they had committed. It was from here, on nights without a moon, that they set out for the highways, to lie in wait for homeward-bound travellers and bring terror to men. And so now, amid the tumult of the storm, the men stopped, feeling very small indeed, stopped and listened to the despairing ghostly cries that came from the forest. And when the lightning ceased, they beheld the flame-spitting mouths and caught a glimpse at times of the inconceivable countenance of the
caapora
as it did its horrible goblin dance. The forest! It is not a mystery, it is not a danger, a menace. It is a god!

No cold wind comes up from the sea, far away with its greenish waves. There is no cold wind on this night of rain and lightning gleams. Yet even so, men stand shivering, trembling with the cold as their hearts all but stop beating, the forest-god before them, and fear within.

They let fall their axes, their hand-saws, and their scythes. With lifeless hands they stand and gaze in terror at the sight of the forest. With eyes wide open, immeasurably wide open, they behold the furious deity there before them. Here are those animals which are man's enemies and which forebode him ill; here are those ghostly shades. It is not possible to go on; no human hand may be lifted against the god. They can but fall back slowly, fear in their hearts. The lightning flashes above the forest, the rain falls. Jaguars yowl, snakes hiss, as high above the storm come the lamentations of the werewolves, the goblins, and the padre's she-mules, defending the forest's virginity and its mystery. The giant wood before them is the world's past, the beginning of the world. They throw away their knives, their axes, their scythes, their saws. There is but one path for them, the backward-leading one, the one by which they have come.

The men are falling back. They have spent long hours, days and nights, in coming here. They have crossed rivers, made their way through all but impenetrable thickets, blazing trails, tramping through swamps; and one of them had been bitten by a snake and had been left buried at the side of the newly opened road. A rude cross, a mound of earth, was all that remained of the man from Ceará who had fallen thus. They did not put his name on the marker, for the reason that they had nothing with which to inscribe it. Along this highway in the land of cacao, this was the first of many crosses that later were to line the trails, serving to commemorate those who had perished in the conquest of the country. Another was seized with fever, bitten with that same fever which slew the monkeys. He has dragged himself along, and now he too falls back.

“It is the werewolf!” he cries, deliriously.

They are falling back. Slowly at first. Step by step, until they reach the broader path where the thorns and swamps are less numerous. The June rain falls upon them, drenching their clothes and causing them to shiver. But beyond lies the forest—the tempest, phantoms. They fall back.

They reach the trail now, a single-file passageway leading down to the banks of the river, where a canoe awaits them. They breathe a sigh of relief. The fever victim is no longer conscious of his fever; fear gives a fresh strength to his enfeebled body.

But there ahead of them, pistol in hand, his face contorted with rage, stands Juca Badaró. He, too, was at the edge of the forest, he, too, saw the lightning flashes and heard the thunder roar, he had listened to the yowling of the jaguars, the hissing of the snakes, and his heart also had contracted at the owl's ill-omened hoot. He as well as the others knew that this was the dwelling-place of spirits. But what Juca Badaró beheld was not the forest, not the beginning of the world. His eyes were filled with another vision. All he could see was that black earth, the best in the world for the planting of cacao. Before him he saw no longer a forest shot with lightning gleams, full of weird sounds, tangled with liana stocks and locked in the mystery of its age-old trunks, a habitation for the fiercest of animals and unearthly apparitions. What he saw was a cultivated field of cacao trees, trees in regularly planted rows, laden with their golden fruit, the ripe, yellow chocolate-nuts. He could see plantation after plantation stretching over this land where now the forest stood, and a beautiful sight it was. Nothing in the world more beautiful than a cacao plantation. Confronted with the forest and its mystery, Juca Badaró smiled. Here would be fruit-laden cacao trees, casting a gentle shade upon the ground; that was all there was to it. He did not even see his men as they fell back, terror-stricken.

When he did see them, he barely had time to run up and place himself facing them, at the entrance to the trail, pistol in hand and a look of stern resolve in his eye.

“I'll put a bullet in the first one who stirs a step!”

The men halted and stood like that for a moment, not knowing what to do. Behind them the forest, in front of them Juca Badaró, ready to fire.

“It's the werewolf!” cried the fever victim as he bounded forward.

Juca Badaró fired, a fresh gleam in the night. The forest echoed to the shot. The others stood about the fallen man, with bowed heads. Juca Badaró came slowly up to them, his pistol still in hand. Antonio Victor had stooped to ease the wounded man's head. The bullet had pierced the shoulder.

“I did not shoot to kill, but only to show you that I mean to be obeyed,” said Juca Badaró, in a voice that was deadly calm. And he added: “Go get some water to bathe the wound.”

He helped them care for the man; he himself adjusted a bit of cloth as a bandage and assisted in carrying him to the camp near the forest. The others were trembling as they went—but they went. The man was delirious as they laid him down. In the forest, goblins were loose.

“Come on!” said Juca Badaró.

The men looked at one another. Juca raised his revolver.

“Come on!”

Axes and pruning-knives then began to fall with a monotonous sound, awakening the forest from its sleep. Juca Badaró gazed straight ahead of him. Once again he could see all this black earth planted with cacao, plantation after plantation laden with the yellow fruit. The June rain fell on the men. The wounded man begged for water in a quavering voice. Juca kept his revolver in his hand.