Pedro Bala’s voice backed him up:
“You’re going to change our lives too…”
“How?” Big João asked.
Professor didn’t understand either. And Pedro Bala didn’t know how to explain it. But confidence in the Professor, in the pictures he would paint, in the stamp of hate he carried in his heart, in the stamp of love for justice and freedom he carried inside himself. A childhood lived among the Captains of the Sands isn’t anything useless. Even when later on you’re going to be an artist and not a thief, murderer, or drifter. But Pedro Bala didn’t know how to explain all that. He only said:
“We’ll never forget you, buddy…You read us stories, you were the sharpest of the group…The sharpest…”
Professor lowered his head. Big João got up, his voice was a call, it was a farewell shout too:
“People, people!”
They all came, stood around. Big João held out his arms:
“People, Professor’s going away. He’s going to be a painter in Rio de Janeiro. People, let’s give a cheer for the Professor.”
The cheer tightened the boy’s heart. He looked around the warehouse. It wasn’t like a picture without a frame. It was like the frame of any number of pictures. Like the pictures on a reel of movie film. Lives of struggle and courage. Misery too. An urge to stay. But what use was there in staying. If he left, he could be of more help. He’d exhibit those lives…They shake his hand, embrace him. Dry Gulch is sad, as sad as if a cangaceiro from Lampião’s gang had died.
That night on the dock the man with the cigarette holder, who was a poet, gives the Professor a letter and some money:
“He’ll meet you at the pier. I sent a telegram. I hope you won’t betray the trust I’ve put in your talents.”
Never had a third-class passenger had so many people seeing him off. Dry Gulch gives him a dagger as a present. Pedro Bala does everything he can to laugh, say pleasant things. But Big João can’t hide the sadness inside himself.
From far off, Professor can still see Pedro Bala’s cap waving on the dock. And in the midst of those strangers, officers in uniform, businessmen, and young ladies, he’s timid, doesn’t know what to do, feels that all his courage has stayed behind with the Captains of the Sands. But inside his chest there’s the stamp of a love for freedom. A stamp that will lead him to leave the old painter who teaches him academic things and go paint pictures on his own, ones which, more than causing admiration, frighten the whole nation.
Winter passed, summer passed, another winter came and this one was full of long rains, the wind didn’t stop blowing on the sands a single night. Now Lollipop was selling newspapers, working as a bootblack, carrying passengers’ luggage. He’d managed to give up stealing to make a living. Pedro Bala let him stay on at the warehouse in spite of his not leading the same life as the others. Pedro Bala doesn’t understand what’s going on inside Lollipop. He knows that he wants to be a priest, that he wants to get away from that life. But he doesn’t think that will solve anything, won’t straighten out their lives at all. Father José Pedro did everything to change their lives. But only one of them, the others didn’t think he’d done too well. What had it got him? Only if all of them were united, as João de Adão would say.
But God was calling Lollipop. In the night, in the warehouse, the boy heard the call of God. It was a powerful voice inside him. A voice as powerful as the voice of the sea, as the voice of the wind that blows around the big old house. A voice that doesn’t speak to his ears, that speaks to his heart. A voice that calls him, that makes him happy and frightened at the same time. A voice that demands everything of him in order to give him the happiness of serving. God is calling him. And God’s call inside Lollipop is as powerful as the voice of the wind, as the powerful voice of the sea. Lollipop wants to live for God, entirely for God, a life of withdrawal and penance, a life that will cleanse him of his sins, will make him worthy of the contemplation of God. God calls him and Lollipop thinks about his salvation. He’ll be a penitent, he won’t look at the spectacle of the world anymore. He doesn’t want to see anything that’s going on in the world in order to have his eyes sufficiently clean to see the face of God. Because for those who don’t have their eyes completely clean of all sin, the face of God is as terrible as the infuriated sea. But for those who have their eye and heart clean of all sin, the face of God is calm, like the waves of the sea on a morning of sunlight and tranquility.
Lollipop is stamped by God. But he’s also stamped by the life of the Captains of the Sands. He withdraws from their freedom, from seeing and hearing the spectacle of the world, the stamp of adventure on the Captains of the Sands in order to hear the call of God. Because the voice of God that speaks in his heart is powerful beyond comparison. He’ll pray for the Captains of the Sands in his penitent’s cell. Because he has to hear and follow the voice that’s calling him. It’s a voice that transfigures his face on the winter night in the warehouse. As if it were springtime there.
Father José Pedro was called to the Archdiocese again. This time the canon is accompanied by the superior of the Capuchins. Father José Pedro is trembling, thinking that they’re going to scold him again, are going to talk about his sins. He’s done many things against the law in order to help the Captains of the Sands. He fears he failed, because in almost no way has he bettered their life. But at certain cruel moments he derived a bit of comfort from those small hearts. And he had Lollipop…He was a conquest for God. Although he hadn’t done everything, although he hadn’t transformed those lives as he wanted, he hadn’t lost completely either. He’d managed something for God. He was happy in spite of his sadness over how little he’d accomplished for the Captains of the Sands. Even so, at certain moments he’d been like the family they didn’t have. At certain moments he’d been father and mother. Now the leaders were big boys, almost men. Professor had already gone off, others wouldn’t be long in leaving. Even if they went off to be thieves, to live a life of sin, at certain moments the priest had succeeded in lessening the spectacle of misery in their lives with a little comfort and love. And solidarity.
But this time the canon doesn’t scold. He announces that the Archbishop has decided to give him a parish. He concluded:
“You’ve given us a lot of trouble, Father, with your mistaken ideas on upbringing. I hope that the Archbishop’s goodness in giving you this parish will make you think about your obligations and give up those Bolshevik innovations.”
The parish had never had a priest because the Archbishop had never found one prepared to go among cangaceiros in a village lost far in the backlands. But the name of the hamlet gladdens Father José Pedro’s heart. He was going among bandits. And cangaceiros are like big children. He thanked him, was going to speak, but the superior of the Capuchins interrupted him:
“The canon tells me that among those boys there’s one who has a priestly vocation…”
“I was going to mention that very same thing,” the priest said. “I’ve never seen such a firm vocation.”
The missionary smiled:
“Because we’re in need of a brother. It isn’t the same as being a priest, I know that full well. But it’s quite close to it. And if his vocation is real, the order might have him study and even have him ordained.”
“He’ll be wild with happiness.”
“Will you answer for him?”
Lollipop was going to be a monk. Someday he might be ordained. The priest leaves, thanking God.
They take the priest to the station. The train whistle is like a lament. Several of the Captains of the Sands are there. Father José Pedro looks at them with love. Pedro Bala says:
“You were good to us, Father. A good man. We’re not going to forget you…”
They don’t recognize Lollipop when he arrives dressed in a monk’s robe, a long cord hanging down the side. Father José Pedro says:
“Do you know Brother Francisco of the Holy Family?”
They look at Lollipop with a certain
shame. He’s thinner, has an ascetic look. He looks very tall in the Capuchin habit.
“He’ll pray for you…” Father José Pedro says.
He says goodby. Gets into the coach. The train whistles, it’s like a farewell. From the window the priest sees the boys waving their hands and their caps, old hats, rags that serve as handkerchiefs. An old woman across from him, dying to start a conversation, is startled to see the priest weeping.
Good-Life doesn’t come to the warehouse very much. He has a guitar, composes sambas, he’s great, he’s one more drifter on the streets of Bahia. No one leads a life like that of the drifters. He spends the day chatting on the docks, at the market, goes to parties on the hilltops and at the Cidade da Palha at night or to macumbas. He plays his guitar, eats and drinks the very best, rouses up halfbreed girls with his voice and his music. He raises rows at parties, and when the police chase him he takes refuge in the warehouse among the Captains of the Sands.
Then he plays for them, laughs with them in great guffaws, as if he were still one of them. Good-Life slowly moves away as he grows. When he’s nineteen, he won’t be coming back anymore. He’ll be a thoroughgoing drifter, one of those mulattoes who love Bahia above all, who live a perfect life on the streets of the city. The enemy of wealth and work, the friend of parties, music, the bodies of halfbreed girls. A drifter. A rowdy. A capoeira fighter, switchblade artist, thief when necessary. Good-hearted, the way Good-Life sings in an ABC ballad that he put together about another drifter. Promising the girls to reform and go to work, always staying a drifter. One of the rowdies of the city. A figure that future Captains of the Sands will love and admire, just as Good-Life loved and admired God’s-Love.
One day, after a long time had passed, Pedro Bala was going along the streets with Legless. They went into a church in Piedade, they liked to look at gold objects, it was even easy to snatch the purse of a lady at prayer. But there was no lady in the church at that time. Only a group of poor boys and a Capuchin who was teaching them catechism.
“It’s Lollipop…” Legless said.
Pedro Bala stood looking. Shrugged his shoulders:
“What’s it got him?”
Legless looked:
“Barely enough to eat…”
“Someday he’ll be a priest too. He has to go all the way.”
Legless said:
“Goodness isn’t enough.”
He finished the thought:
“Only hate…”
Lollipop didn’t see them. With extreme patience and goodness, he was teaching the unruly children their catechism lessons. The two Captains of the Sands went out shaking their heads. Pedro Bala put his hand on Legless’s shoulder:
“Not hate, not goodness. Only the struggle.”
Lollipop’s kind voice crossed through the church. Legless’s voice of hate was next to Pedro Bala. But he didn’t hear either one. What he heard was the voice of João de Adão, the dockworker, the voice of his father, dying in the struggle.
THE SPINSTER’S LOVE SONG
Cat said that the old maid was loaded with money. She was the last of a rich family, going on forty-five, ugly and nervous. The word went around that she had a parlor full of gold objects, diamonds and jewels accumulated by the family over generations. Pedro Bala thought it might render up a little taste of money. González, the pawnbroker at the “14,” would pay for those items. He asked Legless:
“Think you can get in?”
“I can…”
“Then we’ll raid.”
They laughed in the warehouse. Cat left to see Dalva. Legless told him:
“I’ll go over tomorrow.”
The old maid opened the door. She had only one servant, an old black woman who seemed to be part of the inheritance, for she’d been with the family for fifty years. The old maid looked very haughtily at Legless:
“Do you want something?”
“I’m a poor crippled orphan.” He showed her his game leg. “I don’t want to live by stealing or begging. Have you got any work for me to do? I could do your shopping.”
The old maid didn’t take her eyes off him. A boy…It wasn’t kindness speaking inside her. It was the voice of a sex that was giving its last beats. In a short time her sex would become useless, the doctors had said that her nervousness would stop then. Much earlier, when she was still a young lady, there’d been a boy in the house to do the shopping. It had been good…But her brother had found out, sent the boy away. Now the brother was dead, another boy had come to ask if he could do her shopping:
“All right.”
She told him to take a bath. In the afternoon she gave him money for the shopping and also for some clothes for himself. Legless managed to add a thousand two hundred to the bills. He thought:
“I’m going to make some money while I’m here…”
In the kitchen the black woman told ancient stories in her mixed-up language. Legless listened, showing excessive interest in order to win the woman’s confidence. But when he asked her about the gold objects, the woman didn’t answer. Legless didn’t insist. He knew how to be patient, he was used to that kind of work. In the parlor the old maid was embroidering a shawl, watching Legless through the door with interest. She had an ugly face, but her oldish body still had something attractive about it. She called Legless over to look at the work she was doing. When Legless took a look, she bent over, he saw her large breasts. But he didn’t think she was showing them to him. He found the work very nice, he said:
“You’re a very smart lady…”
He even seemed to be a well-brought-up boy. In spite of his game leg and ugly face, the old maid found him handsome. It would have been better if he hadn’t been quite so grown. But even so…She bent over again, showed her breasts to Legless. Legless averted his eyes, didn’t think that she did it on purpose. When he praised the work again, she passed her hand over his face:
“Thank you, son.” Her voice was languid.
The black woman laid out a mattress in the dining room for Legless to sleep on. She covered it with a sheet, got a pillow. The old maid was visiting the house of a friend on the same street, and when she returned, Legless was already lying down. He heard her taking leave of someone:
“Forgive me for making you take a spinster home.”
“Dona Joana, don’t say that…”
She came in, locked the street door, removed the key. The black woman had already gone to bed in her room off the kitchen. The old maid came into the dining room, took a peek at Legless, who pretended to be asleep. She sighed. Went into her room.
The lights were all out in the house. In spite of its being very early in comparison with the time they went to bed in the warehouse, Legless fell asleep.
That’s why he didn’t know what time it was when the spinster came. What he felt was a hand running through his hair. He thought it was a nice dream. The hand slid down, passed over his chest, onto his stomach, now it was softly gripping his sex. Legless woke up completely, but he kept his eyes shut. The old maid was squeezing his sex, lying next to him. She had a nightgown on. She put Legless’s hand on her body. Legless got close to her. He tried to speak, she put her hand on his mouth, pointed to the kitchen:
“She might hear…”
Then she said in a softer voice:
“You’re going to be nice to me, aren’t you?”
She squeezed against him. She pulled Legless’s pants down. Then she covered them both with the sheet. But when Legless wanted to go all the way, she said:
“No. Only on the outside.”
It was an incomplete affair that enraged Legless.
The old maid was softly moaning with love. She was squeezing Legless’s head against her enormous breasts, his sex against her thighs, the boy’s hand on her sex.
Legless gets up bewildered. A great weariness in his limbs. Those nights are like a battle. It’s never a complete pleasure, a full satisfaction. The old maid wants a crumb of love. She’s afraid of complete love, the scandal of
a child. But she’s hungry and thirsty for love, she doesn’t care if it’s only the crumbs. But Legless wants full love, it bothers him, makes his hate grow. At the same time, he feels drawn to the body of the old maid, the half-caresses, exchanged in the night. One thing keeps him in that house. Even though he feels hatred for Joana when he wakes up, an impotent rage, an urge to strangle her since he can’t possess her fully, even though he finds her ugly and old, when night approaches he gets eager for the spinster’s caresses, for the hand that manipulates his boyish sex, for her breasts, where he rests his head, for her thick thighs. He thinks up plans to possess her, but the old maid frustrates them, fleeing at the last moment and scolding him in a low voice. A dull rage comes over Legless. But her hand goes back to his sex and he can’t fight against desire. And there’s a return to that tremendous struggle from which he emerges nervous and exhausted.
During the day he scarcely answers the old maid, says brutal things, the old maid weeps. He calls her spinster, says he’s going away. She gives him money, asks him to stay. But he doesn’t stay because of the money. He stays because desire holds him back. He already knows which key opens the room where Joana keeps her gold objects. He knows how to lift the key to bring to the Captains of the Sands. But desire holds him there, along with the spinster’s breasts and thighs. Along with the spinster’s hand.
He’d always been unfortunate on the woman side. When he managed to get a little black girl on the sand, it was with the help of the others, by force. No one looked at him, inviting him with her eyes. Others were ugly, but he was repulsive, with his game leg, walking like a crab. Besides, he’d ended up being nasty and was in the habit of possessing the black girls by force. Now along comes a white woman, with money, too, old and ugly, it’s true, but quite screwable still, and she was going to bed with him. He stroked her sex with his hand, lay thigh to thigh, rested his head on her big breasts. Legless couldn’t leave there, even if he was getting more brutish and more restless every day. His desire demanded a complete possession. But the spinster was content to gather up the crumbs of love.