The Violent Land (7 page)

The morning sun gilded the chocolate-nuts still green on the cacao trees as Colonel Horacio strolled slowly along between the evenly planted rows. These trees were five years old, and the plantation was now bearing its first fruits. Here, too, the forest lay beyond, threatening and mysterious as always. He and his men had cleared it, with fire, with sickle, with axes, and with scythes, felling the huge trees and routing the jaguars and the spirits. Then came the laying out of the groves, which was done most carefully in order that the yield might be the greater. And now, after five years, the trees were in bloom, and on this morning little nuts could be seen hanging from the boughs.

The first fruits. The sun touched them with gold as Colonel Horacio strolled on. He was about fifty years of age, with a heavy-featured, saturnine, pock-marked face. Holding a roll of tobacco and a jack-knife, he was engaged in making himself a
cigarro
with his big calloused hands, those hands which, long ago, had wielded the whip over the burros when he was still but a pack-driver employed on a Rio do Braço plantation. Later those same hands had learned to manage a repeating-rifle, when the colonel had become a
conquistador
of the land.

Many legends were current about him; not even the colonel himself was aware of all the tales that were told of him in Ilhéos and Tabocas, in Palestina and Ferradas, in Agua Branca and Agua Preta. The pious old ladies who prayed to St. George in the church at Ilhéos were accustomed to say that Colonel Horacio of Ferradas kept the Devil under his bed, imprisoned in a bottle. How he had come to make the capture was a long story, having to do with the sale of the colonel's soul one stormy day. And the Devil, having become his obedient servant, now waited on all his desires, increasing Horacio's fortune and aiding him against his enemies. But one day—and the old ladies crossed themselves as they said this—Horacio would die without confession, and then the Devil would leap out of the bottle and carry off the colonel's soul to the depths of hell. The colonel knew of this story and was in the habit of laughing over it, one of those short, dry laughs of his which were more frightening even than his shouts of rage on certain mornings.

There were other tales that came nearer to reality. When he was in his cups, Lawyer Ruy liked to recall the manner in which he had defended the colonel in a trial many years ago. Horacio had been accused of three particularly brutal murders. According to the indictment, not content with having slain one of his victims, he had cut off the man's ears, nose, and tongue and had castrated him. Lawyer Ruy had been retained and was out for an acquittal. He put up a brilliant defence, making a plea in which he spoke of the “crying injustice” of the thing and of “slanders fabricated by nameless enemies without honour or self-respect.” The result was a triumph; it was one of those pleas which gave him his reputation as a great trial-lawyer. In eulogizing the colonel, he spoke of him as one of the most successful planters in that region, a man who not only had been responsible for erecting the chapel at Ferradas, but even now was undertaking to build the church at Tabocas; he was a respecter of the laws, twice councilman at Ilhéos, and a Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge. Could a man like that be guilty of so heinous a crime?

Everyone knew, of course, that he
was
guilty.

It happened over a cacao contract. On Horacio's land the black man, Altino, together with his brother-in-law, Orlando, and a friend by the name of Zacarias, had entered into an agreement with the colonel to plant a grove for him. They had cleared the forest, had burned over the land, and then had planted cacao, sowing manihot and millet in between the rows in order that they might have something on which to subsist during the three years that it would take for the cacao trees to grow. When the three years were up, they came to the colonel to turn over the grove to him and to receive payment for it. Five hundred reis per foot of planted and matured cacao. With the money they planned to purchase a plot of ground for themselves, a bit of forest somewhere which they would clear and plant. They were very happy about it and went singing down the highway.

A week before, Zacarias had come to the plantation storehouse, bringing millet and manihot flour to exchange for dried beef, rum, and kidney beans. There he had met the colonel and had had a talk with him. Zacarias gave an account of how the cacao trees were doing, and his employer remarked that the three-year period was nearly ended. Afterwards Horacio had offered his visitor a drink on the veranda of the Big House and had questioned him as to what he and his companions were thinking of doing. Zacarias then told him of their plan to buy a piece of forest land and clear it for a cacao grove. The colonel not only approved of this, amiably enough, but even offered to assist them. Couldn't they see that he had the best forest land there was for cacao-planting? From all the region round about Ferradas, that enormous region which belonged to him, they might select any plot they liked. It would be better for him that way, since he would not have to lay out any money. Zacarias came back radiant to the bunkhouse.

When the time was up, they came to see the colonel, giving him an account of the number of feet of matured cacao and informing him of the plot of forest that they wished to buy. An agreement was reached and the bargain was sealed with several drinks of rum. Then Horacio spoke.

“You may as well go ahead with clearing the woods,” he said. “One of these days, when I'm going into Ilhéos, I'll let you know, you can come along, and we'll put it down in black and white at the registry office.”

Something was said about a deed, but the colonel told them not to worry about that; they would be going into Ilhéos, in a month or so. With bows and polite expressions of regard the three thereupon took their departure; and the next day they set out for the forest and began cutting timber and erecting a bunkhouse. The days went by, the colonel had been to Ilhéos two or three times, they had already begun laying out the grove, and still they had nothing to show for it in writing. One day Altino plucked up courage and spoke to the colonel about it.

“You will pardon me, colonel, but we would like to know when we may have the deed to the land.”

Horacio at first was indignant at this lack of confidence; but as Altino apologized, he went on to explain that he had already instructed Lawyer Ruy, his attorney, to take care of the matter. It would not be long now; one of these days he would send for them and they would hop into Ilhéos and settle the thing. Time went by, however, and the first shoots of cacao, destined to become trees, had already begun sprouting on the newly planted land. Altino, Orlando, and Zacarias gazed at these sprigs lovingly. These were their trees, planted by their own hands, on a plot which they themselves had cleared. The sprigs would grow, bear golden-yellow fruit, fruit that meant money. They had forgotten all about the deed. Altino alone at times appeared to be thinking of it. He had known Colonel Horacio for a long while and did not trust him. Even so, they were all of them dumbfounded to learn one day that the Humming-Bird Plantation, which included their own plot, had been sold to Colonel Ramiro.

They decided to go and speak to Colonel Horacio about it. Altino and Zacarias went up to the Big House, Orlando remaining behind. They did not find the colonel; he was in Tabocas. They came back the next day; the colonel was in Ferradas. Then Orlando resolved to go himself. To him this plot of earth was everything, and he did not propose to lose it. He was told that the colonel was in Ilhéos. He nodded his head, but went on into the Big House, and there in the dining-room he found Horacio eating. The latter glanced up at his former workman.

“Want to eat, Orlando? Sit down, if you like.”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“What brings you here? Anything new?”

“Yes, sir, there is; some very ugly news. Colonel Ramiro was down at our place and he says our grove belongs to him; he says he bought it of you, colonel.”

“If Colonel Ramiro says so, it must be true. He's not the man to lie.”

Orlando stood staring at him, but Colonel Horacio had resumed his meal. The visitor gazed at the colonel's big calloused hands, the face with its heavy features.

“So you sold it?” he said at last.

“That's my business.”

“But don't you remember that you sold
us
that piece of forest? In place of money on the cacao contract?”

“Do you have it in writing?” and Horacio went on eating.

Orlando was twirling the enormous straw hat which he held in his hand. He realized the full extent of the misfortune that had befallen him and his companions. He realized that they no longer had any land, any cacao grove; they no longer had anything. A blood-red haze was dancing in front of his eyes, and he did not measure his words.

“It is no laughing matter, colonel. I am warning you that the day Colonel Ramiro sets foot in our grove, that day you're going to pay for everything. Think it over.”

Saying this, he left the room, pushing aside with his arm the Negro woman, Felicia, who was serving the colonel. Horacio went on eating as if nothing had happened.

That night he and his hoodlums came down to the grove that the three friends had planted. Making for the bunkhouse, the colonel announced that he himself would take care of these fellows. And afterwards, with a paring-knife, he had cut off Orlando's tongue, his ears, his nose, and then, taking down his victim's trousers, had castrated him. He then went back to the plantation with his men; and when later one of them was arrested by the police for drunkenness and accused him of the crime, Horacio gave his usual laugh. He was acquitted.

His
jagunços,
or hired ruffians, were in the habit of saying that Colonel Horacio was a real man and that it was worth while working for a boss like him. He would never let one of his men stay in jail; on a certain occasion he even left the plantation and made a special trip to free one of them who was in prison at Ferradas. Having taken the fellow from behind the bars, he had torn up the charge in the court clerk's face.

Yes, many were the tales that were told of the colonel. It was said that before becoming leader of the opposition political party, and in order to obtain that post, he had sent his thugs to lie in wait for the former party leader, a merchant of Tabocas, and they had done away with his rival for him. Later he had put the blame on his political enemies. Today the colonel was the undisputed lord of the region, the largest plantation-owner in those parts, and he was planning greatly to extend his holdings. What did it matter what stories they told of him? He was respected by landowners and labourers alike, by sharecroppers and those who worked the little groves; he had countless retainers.

And so on this particular morning he strolled along between the rows of young cacao trees bearing their first fruits. He had finished making his
cigarro
with his big calloused hands. He puffed on it slowly, thinking of nothing at all, neither of the stories they told of him nor even of the recent arrival of Lawyer Virgilio, the new attorney whom the party had sent down from Bahia to work at Tabocas. He was not even thinking of Ester, his wife, who was so young and pretty; educated by the sisters in Bahia, she was the daughter of old Salustino, an Ilhéos merchant, who had been only too happy to give her to the colonel as a bride. She was his second wife, the first having died while he was still a donkey-driver. She was slender, pale, and beautiful, with an air of sadness about her; she was, indeed, the one thing in his life that could cause Colonel Horacio to smile in a manner different from his usual one. But at this moment he was not thinking of Ester. He was thinking of nothing; all that he saw was the tiny fruit on the cacao trees, still green as yet, the first which this grove had borne. With his hand he took one of the pods and caressed it gently, voluptuously. Gently and voluptuously as if he had been caressing Ester's young flesh. Lovingly. With a boundless love.

Ester went over to the piano, the grand piano in a corner of the big drawing-room. As she let her hands rest upon the keys, her fingers mechanically began picking out a melody. An old waltz, a scrap of music that brought back her school days and certain festive occasions. It reminded her of Lucia. Where was Lucia now? she wondered. It had been some time since her girlhood friend had written her, since she had had from her one of those extravagant but amusing letters. She had not even thanked Lucia for those French magazines and the fashion-plates. There they were on top of the piano, along with sheets of forgotten music. Ester gave a sad little laugh and struck another chord. Of what use were fashion-plates in this out-of-the-way place, here in this wilderness? At the feast of St. Joseph in Tabocas, at the feast of St. George in Ilhéos, the fashions were years behind the times and she could never wear the clothes that her friend did in Paris. Ah, if Lucia could but imagine what the
fazenda
was like, this house lost amid the cacao groves, the hiss of frog-eating snakes in the pools! And the forest—there behind the Big House it stretched away interminably, with its maze of tree-trunks and its tangle of lianas. Ester feared it as one might fear an enemy. She would never become used to it, she was certain of that. This was a despairing thought, for she well knew that her entire life would be spent here, on this plantation, in this strange world which held so much of terror for her.

She had been born in Bahia, in the house of her grandparents, where her mother had gone to have her child and had died in childbirth. Her father was in business in Ilhéos and at that time was just entering upon his career. Ester accordingly had remained with her grandparents, who had petted and spoiled her, humoured her every whim, and devoted their lives to her. Her father and his warehouse prospered at Ilhéos, and from time to time he would put in an appearance, being accustomed to make two trips a year to the capital on business matters. His daughter attended the best school for young ladies that Bahia afforded, one kept by nuns. She had been a day pupil at first, and then, upon the death of her grandparents, she had become a dormitory resident. The old couple had died one after the other, the same month. Ester put on mourning, but at that moment she could not bring herself to feel that she was alone, for she had her schoolmates, and with them she read French novels and tales of princesses and dreamed of a life that was fair to behold. They had plans for the future, all of them, naïvely ambitious plans: marriages for riches and for love, fashionable clothes, trips to Rio de Janeiro and to Europe. All of them except Geny, who wanted to be a nun and spent the day praying. As for Ester and Lucia, being the best-dressed girls and the belles of the school, they gave free rein to their imaginations. They would hold conversations in the courtyard during recreation period, and in the silence of the dormitory as well.

Ester rose and left the piano, the last chord dying away in the forest. Ah, school days, those happy days! She recalled something that Sister Angelica, the friendliest and most understanding of all the nuns, had said to her when the girls were wishing that time would pass as quickly as possible so that they might begin to live life more intensely. Then it was that Sister Angelica had laid her delicate hands on her pupil's shoulders—and what thin shoulders they were!

“No time is better than this, Ester, when it still is possible to dream.”

She had not understood then. Years had to pass before this remark came back to memory afresh, to be recalled after that almost every day. Ah, those happy school days! Ester went out to the hammock that was awaiting her on the veranda. From there she could see the main highway, where at rare intervals a workman passed, bound for Tabocas or Ferradas. She could also see the cluster of troughs where the cacao lay drying in the sun, trampled by the black feet of plantation labourers.

Upon completing her course at school, she had come to Ilhéos, without even waiting to be present at Lucia's marriage to Dr. Alfredo, the well-known physician. Her friend was now travelling abroad, Rio de Janeiro and then Europe, where her husband was specializing in celebrated hospitals. Lucia had realized her dreams: expensive clothes, perfumes, grand balls. How different was the destiny of each, Ester reflected. She herself had come to Ilhéos, another world. A small city that had barely begun to grow, with a population made up of labourers and adventurers, and where all that was talked of was cacao and deaths.

Her father lived on the second floor, above the warehouse, and from her window Ester could see the monotonous landscape of the city. A hill on every side. She found no beauty, either in the river or in the sea. For her, beauty lay in the life that Lucia was leading: those balls in Paris. Not even on the days when ships came in and all the city took on animation, when there were newspapers from the capital and the shops were filled with men discussing politics—not even on these occasions, which were almost like holidays, did Ester emerge from her sadness. The men admired and courted her from afar; and once during the carnival season a medical student had written her a letter and sent her some verses. But for Ester it was a time for weeping and for lamenting the death of her grandparents, which had obliged her to live in this out-of-the-way hole. The news of feuds and deaths frightened her, left her in an agony of apprehension. Little by little, however, she permitted herself to be overcome by the life of the city and gradually lost her preoccupation with that feminine elegance which had created such a stir (and a certain amount of scandal) upon her arrival there; and when one day her father, who was very happy over the matter, informed her that Colonel Horacio, one of the richest men in that region, had asked for her hand in marriage, all that she did was shed a few tears.

And now it was a festive occasion when she went to Ilhéos, even. The dream of great cities, of Europe, of imperial balls and Parisian gowns—all that was behind her. It all seemed very far away, lost in the mists of time, back in that time “when it still was possible to dream.” Not a great many years had passed, but it seemed as though she had lived an entire lifetime with hallucinatory speed. The height of her dreams these days was a trip to Ilhéos, to take part in the church festival, a procession, or a fair with an auction of gifts.

She swung herself in the hammock slowly. There before her, as far as her eyes could reach, up hill and down, lay the cacao groves, laden with fruit. On the lawn about the house hens and turkeys were scratching. Negroes in the troughs were trampling the cacao. Coming out from behind a cloud, the sun burst forth, flooding the landscape.

Ester remembered her wedding day. The day they were married, that very day, she had come to the plantation with her husband. She shuddered now as she thought of it, swaying in the hammock. It was the most horrible sensation she had ever experienced. She remembered that, upon the announcement of their engagement, the city had been filled with gossip and whisperings. A woman who never called upon her had appeared one day to tell her certain stories. Before that, some of the pious old ladies, well known in church circles, had informed her of the legends that were current regarding the colonel. But this woman brought a piece of news that was more concrete and more terrible still. She told Ester that Horacio had murdered his first wife, had beaten her to death with a whip when he found her in bed with another. That was back in the days when he was still a pack-driver, going up and down the recently opened trails in the mysterious forest. It was not until long afterwards, when he had grown rich, that this story began circulating in the streets of Ilhéos, in the land of cacao. Possibly just because the entire town was speaking of her with lowered voices, Ester, with a certain pride and a vast deal of contempt, went on with preparations for the wedding. Their “courtship,” on those rare Sundays when Horacio came down to the city to dine at her father's house, had been made up of long silences. It was a courtship without kisses or subtle caresses, with no words of romance, so different from the wooing that Ester once upon a time had imagined in the quiet of the convent.

She had wanted a simple wedding, though Horacio had at first insisted on doing things in grand style: a banquet and a ball. Roman candles and a High Mass. She had had her way; it had been an intimate affair, and the two ceremonies, one with the priest and the other with the judge, had been performed at home. The priest had delivered a sermon; the judge, with the tired face of a heavy drinker, had wished them happiness; and Lawyer Ruy had made a pretty speech. They were married in the morning, and by early twilight, travelling on burros through the swamps, they had reached the Big House of the plantation. The labourers who had gathered on the lawn in front of the house shot off their rifles as the burros drew near. This was their way of welcoming the newly wedded pair, but Ester felt her heart contract at the sound of those shots in the night. Horacio had rum distributed to the help; and a few minutes later she found herself already alone as he went out to see how the groves were doing and to look over the cacao drying in the oven, to see how much they had lost on account of the rains. It was only when he returned that the Negro women lighted the kerosene lamps. Ester was frightened by the cries of the frogs. Horacio had almost nothing to say, but waited impatiently for the time to pass.

“What is that?” she asked, as there came the cry of another frog from the pool.

“A frog in a snake's mouth,” he answered her, indifferently.

Dinner was brought in, served by the Negro women, who cast suspicious glances at Ester. And then of a sudden, when dinner was barely over, came the tearing of clothes from her body and the brutal possession of her flesh in a manner that she had not expected.

She had grown accustomed to everything. She got along well enough with the Negro women now, and she had even come to like Felicia, who was a devoted mulatto girl. She had become used to her husband with his heavy silences, his sudden excesses of sensuality, his furious outbursts of rage, which left even the fiercest of the
jagunços
huddled in fright. She had become used to the shots in the night, along the highway, and to the corpses that from time to time went by in hammocks, to the mournful accompaniment of weeping women. The one thing to which she could not become accustomed was the forest at the back of the house, where at night, in the pool formed by the river, frogs cried despairingly in the mouths of assassin snakes.

At the end of ten months a son had been born. He was now a year and a half old, and Ester was horrified to see that Horacio had been born again in the person of his child. He was Horacio to the life; and Ester could not help thinking to herself that the fault was hers for not having collaborated in his conception; for she never gave herself, but was taken always, like an object or an animal. Even so, she loved the child dearly and suffered for him. She had become accustomed to everything; she no longer dreamed. The only thing to which she could not become accustomed was the forest and the forest night.

On stormy nights it was terrible: the lightning illuminated the tallest trunks, the thunder crashed, trees were uprooted. On such nights as these Ester would crouch in terror and weep for the fate that was hers. Nights of horror, nights of irrepressible fear, a fear that was like a concrete, tangible object. It would begin with the agonizing hour of twilight. Ah, those twilights, harbingers of the tempest to come! As the afternoon with its black, lowering clouds drew to a close, the shadows would become an unmistakable doom; there was no kerosene light that could frighten them off, prevent their seeking out the house and making of it, of the cacao groves, and of the wood one single entity bound by the dusk that was equal to night itself. The trees would assume gigantic shapes, growing in stature with the mysterious spreading of the shadows. Dolorous sounds would be heard, the cry of unknown birds and of animals, coming from—where? She did not know. And the hissing of the reptiles, the rustling of dried leaves where they crawled. Ester always had the feeling that one day the snakes would end by coming up on the veranda and making their way into the house, some stormy night, until they reached her own and her child's throat, which they would encircle like a necklace. She herself could never have told the horror of those moments, which lasted from the fall of twilight until the storm broke. And then, when at last it descended in all its fury and Nature appeared bent upon destroying everything, she would seek out those places where the light of the kerosene lamps was brightest. Even then the shadows cast by the light made her afraid and set her imagination to work, leading her to believe the most superstitious of the stories that the Negroes told.

There was one thing that she always remembered on these nights, and that was the cradle lullabies her grandmother had sung to her to calm her fears when she was a child, so many years before. And so now, beside her own child's cradle, she tearfully sang them over again, one after another, in a low voice, once more convinced of their magic efficacy. She sang them to her son as he looked up at her with his hard brown eyes, Horacio's eyes; but she sang them for herself as well, for she, too, was a frightened child. She sang in a low voice, lulling herself with the melody as the tears streamed down her face. She forgot the darkness of the veranda, those terrible shadows outside, the ominous hoot of the owls in the trees, the melancholy of the night, and the forest and its mystery. She sang the songs of long ago, simple melodies, efficacious against spells. It was as though her grandmother's protecting shade were hovering over her, lovingly and understandingly.

And then of a sudden the cry of a frog in the pool, killed by a snake, would come through the forest, through the cacao groves, and would enter the house; it was louder than the owls' hoot or the rustling of the leaves, louder than the whistling wind itself, as it came to die away in the lamp-lit room where Ester sat, her body all a-tremble. She sang no more. Closing her eyes, she could see—in every slightest detail—the slimy, repulsive reptile slithering along over the ground and among the fallen leaves, until it suddenly pounced on the innocent frog, as that despairing death-cry perturbed the calm waters of the little stream, filling with fear, with evil, and with suffering the menacing night-scene.