Barren Lives Page 7

  Gazing at the clouds which were dissolving in the sky, he took a sudden dislike to them. The flight of the vultures, however, caught his attention. Fabiano, when he walked along swaying under the weight of his leather outfit, looked just like a vulture.

  The boy sat up and felt his sore joints. He had been violently shaken and felt as if his bones had been pulled all apart.

  He looked angrily at his brother and the dog. They should have warned him. They didn’t show the slightest sign of sympathy. His brother was laughing like a fool. The dog, with a serious air, seemed to disapprove of the whole business. He felt puny and abandoned, the victim of falls, kicks, and butts.

  He got up and dragged himself dispiritedly to the fence around the water hole, against which he leaned, his face toward the muddy water, his heart despondent. Running his fingers through the rip in his shirt he scratched his thin chest. The flock of goats disappeared up the slope; the dog barked in the distance. What would the clouds be like? Probably some were taking on the shape of lambs, others those of unknown animals.

  The thought of Fabiano came to his mind and he sought to banish it. Fabiano and Vitória were certainly going to punish him for the accident. He raised his eyes timidly. The moon had appeared and loomed up large, accompanied by an all-but-invisible star. By this time the parakeets must be resting in the dry clumps of corn in the river flat. If he only had one of those parakeets, he would be happy.

  He lowered his head and looked again at the dark water hole that the livestock had emptied. A few thin streams of water oozed out of the sand, like blood from the veins of animals. He remembered the goats he had seen slaughtered with a mallet and hung bleeding, head down, from a beam of the shed.

  He withdrew. His feeling of humiliation gradually disappeared and died. He had to go into the house, eat, and sleep. And he had to grow up, to become as tall as Fabiano, to kill goats with a mallet, to wear a pointed knife in his belt. He was going to grow, stretch out on a bed of tree branches, smoke cornhusk cigarettes, and wear shoes of untanned leather.

  He climbed the slope and slowly approached the house, giving a twist to his legs and swaying as he walked. When he was grown to be a man he would walk like that, heavily, swaying, with an air of importance, the rowels of his spurs jingling. He would leap on the back of an untamed horse and go flying across the brushland like a gust of wind, raising a cloud of dust. Coming back he would jump to the ground and walk across the ranch yard like this, bowlegged, with his leather chaps, jacket, chest protector, and hat with a chin strap. The older boy and the dog would be filled with admiration.

  The Older Boy

  It all happened because Vitória wouldn’t take a minute to talk to the older boy. Nobody had ever mentioned Hell in his hearing before, and, surprised at old Miss Terta’s language, he asked for an explanation. Vitória, whose attention was on other matters, said vaguely that Hell was a very bad place, and when the boy asked her to describe it she merely shrugged her shoulders.

  The boy went into the sitting room to ask his father. He found him sitting on the floor with his legs spread apart, unrolling a piece of shoe leather.

  “Put your foot there,” he ordered.

  The boy did as directed and Fabiano took the measure for a sandal, making a knife mark behind the heel and another in front of the big toe. After outlining the sole of the foot, he gave a clap of his hands and said,

  “Take your foot away.”

  The boy stepped back, but remained circling around, and at last timidly risked his question. Getting no reply, he went back to the kitchen and tugged at his mother’s skirt.

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  Vitória said it was full of red-hot spits and bonfires.

  “Did you see them?”

  Irritated by what she considered insolence, Vitória gave him a crack on the skull.

  Indignant at the injustice, the boy left the house, crossed the yard, and took refuge under the dry catingueira trees beside the empty pond.

  The dog was his companion in that hour of trial. She had been stretched out beside the stones on which Vitória did the cooking, drowsing in the heat, waiting for a bone. In all probability she wouldn’t get one, but she believed in bones and she found the state of torpor enjoyable. She stirred a bit from time to time, raising to her mistress black eyes shining with confidence. Having accepted the idea that there might be a bone in the kettle, she was not going to let anybody or anything disturb her modest hopes. She got an occasional kick for no reason at all. The kicks were to be expected and did nothing to dispel the vision of the bone.

  Vitória’s strident voice and the crack on the older boy’s skull roused the dog from her torpor, however, and made her suspect that things were not going well. She went and hid in a corner behind the mortar, making herself small among the baskets. After a minute or so she raised her muzzle, trying to decide where to go. The warm wind blowing from the direction of the pond tipped the balance for her. She slipped along the wall, jumped out the low kitchen window, crossed the yard, passed under the Jerusalem thorn, and came upon her companion weeping unhappily in the shade of the catingueiras. She tried to comfort him by leaping and bounding about him and wagging her tail. She wasn’t particularly happy, but on the other hand she couldn’t abide excessive grief. Since she was not one to lose patience easily, she kept up her leaping and panting, trying to attract her friend’s attention. Finally she convinced him that his weeping was useless.

  He sat up, cuddled the dog’s head in his lap, and started in a low voice to tell her a story. His vocabulary was almost as limited as that of the parrot that had died during the drought. As a result, he had recourse to exclamations and gestures, and the dog replied by wagging her tail and licking at him with her tongue, and making other movements that were easily understood.

  Everyone else had abandoned him; the dog was the only living being that felt any sympathy for him. He stroked her with his thin, grubby fingers and the animal curled up the better to enjoy the pleasant contact, which gave her a feeling not unlike that which she received from the warm ashes of the fire.

  The boy went on petting her and lowering his dirty face to her muzzle he stared deep into her calm eyes.

  He had been playing in the clay pit with his brother, making toy oxen, and was smeared all over with mud. Abandoning his pastime, he had gone to question Vitória. What a mistake! The fault was all old Miss Terta’s. The evening before, after saying a prayer to cure the pain in Fabiano’s chest, she had come out with a strange word. She hissed when she talked, with her pipestem firmly clamped between her toothless gums. The boy wanted a clear idea of what the word meant, and he was disappointed when his mother talked about a bad place with spits and bonfires. Hence he had protested, hoping she would change Hell into something else.

  All the places he knew were good: the goat pen, the corral, the clay pit, the yard, the water hole. This was a world peopled by real beings—the herdsman’s family and the ranch animals. Beyond this world there were the blue hills that rose in the distance, the ridge where the dog went to hunt cavies, the brushland with its all but imperceptible trails, its isolated clumps of trees, and its impenetrable thickets of macambira. This was another world, populated by stones and plants, each with a life of its own, just like people. These two worlds lived in peace with one another. At times the frontier between them was broken down. The inhabitants on either side understood each other and lent each other a helping hand. There were undoubtedly evil forces at work everywhere, but they were always overcome. When Fabiano was breaking an untamed horse there was obviously a guardian spirit that kept him in the saddle, that showed him the least dangerous trails, that delivered him from thorns and sharp branches.

  The relations between the two worlds had not always been friendly. A long time back his people had had to flee, without knowing where, weary and hungry. Vitória, with the younger boy astride her hip, balanced the tin trunk on her head, Fabiano carried the flintlock on his shoulder, the dog trotted al
ong with her ribs plainly visible through the thin hair of her flanks. He, the older boy, had fallen on the ground, which was burning his feet. Everything had gone dark all of a sudden, the cactus had disappeared, he had scarcely felt the whacks Fabiano gave him with his knife sheath.

  In those days the world was a bad place. But then it had grown better. You might say the bad things had never existed. On the hanging shelf in the kitchen slabs of sun-dried beef were lined up beside pieces of pork fat. His people were no longer tormented by thirst, and in the afternoon when the gate was opened the goats and other small stock ran down to the water hole. Bones and stones were occasionally transformed into beings that peopled the tree clumps, the ridge, the distant hills, and the macambira thickets.

  As he didn’t know how to talk properly, the boy babbled complicated expressions, repeated syllables, imitated the cries of the animals, the noise of the wind, the sound of the branches creaking together out in the brush. Just now the boy had thought he was going to learn a word that must be important, since it figured in old Miss Terta’s conversation. He was going to memorize it and pass it on to his brother and the dog. The dog wouldn’t be impressed, but his brother would admire and envy him.

  “Hell, Hell—”

  He couldn’t believe that a word with so musical a ring could be the name of something bad. He had decided to argue with Vitória. If she had said that she had been there, all well and good. Vitória’s authority was visible and powerful, and made itself felt. It would have been all right too if she had referred to some higher, invisible power. But she had tried to convince him by giving him a crack on the head, and this struck him as absurd. Knocks were natural when grownups were angry; he even thought their ill-humor was the sole cause of all the raps and ear-pullings he received. This belief made him distrustful and caused him to observe his parents carefully before speaking to them. He had gathered up courage to address Vitória because she was in a good mood. He explained this to the dog with an abundance of cries and gestures.

  The dog detested violent displays of emotion. She stretched her legs, closed her eyes, and yawned. As far as she was concerned, kicks were a disagreeable and necessary fact of existence. There was only one means of avoiding them: flight. At times, however, she was taken by surprise and the toe of a sandal found its way to her rump. Then she would go yelping to hide in the woods, filled with a desire to bite at ankles. Since she could not attain her wish, she would calm down. The fuss her friend was making was unreasonable. She again stretched out her legs and gaped. It would be nice to have a nap.

  The boy kissed her damp muzzle and rocked her. His thoughts turned to the blue hills and the macambira thickets. Fabiano said there were cougars’ dens in the hills and that the flat heads of vipers rose up amid the macambira thorns.

  He rubbed his thin hands and scratched at his dirty nails. He thought of the little figures of oxen he had left by the clay pit, but this brought the unfortunate word back to his mind. He tried to get his fatal curiosity out of his head, pretending he hadn’t asked the question and hence had not received the rap.

  He got up. He saw the kitchen window and through it the bun of Vitória’s hair. This brought evil thoughts to his mind. He went and sat down behind another tree from which he could see the line of hills, covered with clouds. At dusk the hills melted into the sky and the stars moved across them. How could there be stars on the earth?

  The dog came bounding up to him, sniffing at him and licking his hands, then settled down beside him.

  How could there be stars on the earth?

  He felt sad. Perhaps Vitória had told the truth. Hell must be full of vipers and cougars, and the people who lived there must always be getting raps on the head, tugs at their ears, and whacks with knife sheaths.

  Despite having changed his position, he couldn’t get the thought of Vitória out of his mind. He told himself again that nothing had happened and tried to think of the stars whose lights appeared on the line of hills. It was no use. At that hour the stars were not yet out.

  He felt weak and helpless. He looked at his thin arms and bony fingers and began to make mysterious drawings on the ground. Why had Vitória said that?

  He hugged the dog so hard it hurt. She didn’t like to be hugged. She preferred to leap and to roll on the ground. Smelling the kettle, she dilated her nostrils and reproved her friend for his strange ways. A big bone was bobbing up and down in the soup. This consoling thought would not leave her.

  The boy continued to embrace her. The dog, so as not to hurt his feelings, curled up and submitted to his excess of affection. He smelled good, but his smell was mixed with that of the kitchen. There was a big bone there, full of marrow, and with a little meat on it.

  Winter

  The family was gathered around the fire. Fabiano sat on the overturned mortar; Vitória was on the ground, with her legs crossed and the boys’ heads on her knees. The dog had lifted her head to look at the coals, which were gradually graying with ash.

  It was bitterly cold. Outside the gutters dripped, the wind shook the branches of the catingueira trees, and the roar of the river was like distant thunder.

  Fabiano rubbed his hands in satisfaction and pushed at the burning wood with the toes of his sandal. The coals flared up, the ash fell away, and a circle of light spread about the stones that served as a trivet, casting a vague glow on the herdsman’s feet, his wife’s knees, and the stretched-out children. From time to time the latter stirred, for the fire was a small one and warmed only parts of their bodies. Other parts felt the chill air that came in through the chinks in the walls and cracks in the window. This kept them from going to sleep. Just as they were about to drowse off, a shiver would make them turn over. They would pull nearer the fire and give ear to what their parents were saying. It wasn’t really a conversation, just a series of isolated phrases, marked by repetitions and incongruities. Sometimes a guttural interjection lent force to a sentence of ambiguous meaning. The fact was that neither of the parents was paying any attention to the words of the other. They were merely giving vent to the thoughts that passed through their minds, thoughts which followed one another in confusion, thoughts which they could not master. As their means of dealing with them were limited, they sought to make up for the deficiency by talking aloud.

  Fabiano rubbed his hands again and began a rather unintelligible story, but as only his sandals were in the circle of light, the gesture went unnoticed. The older boy pricked up his ears attentively. If he could see his father’s face, perhaps he would understand part of the story; it was hard for him to do so in the dark. He got up and fetched an armload of wood from a corner of the kitchen. Vitória gave a grunt of approval at the action, but Fabiano, who didn’t like to be interrupted, saw in it a lack of respect and stretched out his arm to cuff the boy. The lad slipped out of reach and rolled his mother’s skirt about him. Vitória frankly took his side.

  “Humph! What a temper!”

  That was the way her man was—constantly ready to fly off the handle.

  “Always exploding over something.”

  She stirred the ashes with the handle of her coconut-shell ladle and pushed damp pieces of mimosa wood in between the stones, trying to get them to catch. Fabiano came to her aid. Ceasing his talk, he got down on all fours and blew on the coals, puffing out his cheeks mightily. Smoke filled the kitchen and they all coughed and rubbed their eyes. Vitória fanned, and in a few minutes flames were sputtering between the stones.

  The circle of light grew. Now the faces loomed redly out of the shadows. Fabiano, visible from the belt down, faded into an indistinct black mass above, lit only by occasional flickers. From this dark mass came once more the mumble of his words.

  Fabiano was in a good mood. Some days earlier the rising waters of the river had covered the posts set at the end of the river flats and reached the catingueira trees, which now must be submerged. Surely only the topmost leaves could be showing and the rising foam would be eating away the banks.

&n
bsp; It wouldn’t be long before that deluge was gone, but Fabiano wasn’t thinking of the future. Right now the flood was rising, drowning animals, filling the hollows, and overflowing the meadowlands. Good! Fabiano rubbed his hands. No longer was there the fear of an immediate drought which had terrified the family for months. The brush had turned yellow and then rusty brown, the cattle had begun to grow thin, and horrible nightmares had filled the family’s dreams. Then suddenly a thin line of lightning had broken the sky toward the headwaters of the river. Other, brighter flashes had followed; thunder had rumbled near at hand; in the midnight darkness blood-colored clouds scudded across the sky. Gale winds tore up sucupira and imburana trees, and lightning came so thick and fast that Vitória and the children sought refuge under the covers in the bedroom, stopping up their ears. The wild gale suddenly ceased, however; rain began to fall; and the head of the flood appeared, dragging with it tree trunks and the bodies of animals. The water rose, it covered the path that led up the bank, it seemed as if it would reach the jujubes at the back of the yard. Vitória was frightened. Was it possible that it would get up to the jujubes? If that happened, the house would be flooded too, and the family would have to climb the hill and camp out a few days there, living like cavies.

  She sighed and stirred the fire with the handle of the coconutshell ladle. Surely God would not permit such a misfortune. The house was strong. She sighed again. The posts were of pepper wood, firmly set in the hard ground. If the river reached the house it would only wash away the mud that filled in the cracks in the wattles. God would protect the family. Again she sighed.

  The wattle walls were firmly anchored; the frame of the house would resist the fury of the waters. And when they went down, the family would return. Yes, they would all live in the woods like cavies, but they would come back when the waters went down, and they would take mud from the clay pit to cover the skeleton of the house. She sighed.