“So it’s good, eh?” he said, seating himself once more. “I dashed it off last night. I wasn’t able to work on it these past few days, for my friend and his wife were at our house and I had to do the honours.”
“If what I hear is true,” said one of the teachers, “that shouldn’t have been necessary in Dona Ester’s case. They say Dr. Virgilio does them all day long.”
“Oh, they talk about everybody,” the thin-looking one protested. “That always happens in a backward place like this.” She came from Bahia and could not get used to the ways of Tabocas.
Another teacher, who was a grapiúna—that is to say, a native—took offence at this. “I don’t know what you call backward,” she said, “unless you think that certain shameless carryings-on that I could mention are a sign of progress. Maybe it’s progress to stand in the doorway until ten o’clock at night hanging on to young men. If so, then thank God Tabocas is backward.”
This was an allusion to a love-affair that the skinny teacher was having with a lad who also came from Bahia and who was employed by an export house. The entire town was scandalized by it. But the object of their gossip stood her ground.
“Is it me you’re talking about? Very well, then, I’ll have you know that I will do what I please. I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. My life’s my own; why should others meddle with it? I’ll stand there talking until any hour I see fit. I prefer that to being an old maid like you. I wasn’t born to be a dried-up heifer.”
Dr. Jessé took a hand at this point.
“Be calm now,” he said, “be calm. There are things that are talked about for good reason, and there are other things that are exaggerated for no reason at all. Just because a young man calls upon a married lady and lends her a few books to read, is that any cause for making a scandal? That really is backward.”
They all agreed that it was. Moreover, according to the assistant superintendent, that was as far as the talk went. People merely had noticed that the young attorney was in the habit of spending practically the entire day at the doctor’s house, talking to Dona Ester in the parlour. The teacher who had protested when the skinny one spoke of Tabocas being a backward place now added a further comment:
“That Dr. Virgilio doesn’t even respect the family life of the town. Why, he keeps a fast woman in a respectable street, and it’s a scandal every time they say good-bye to each other. They stand there hugging and kissing so that everybody can see.”
The other teachers gave an excited little laugh at this, and Dr. Jessé himself was anxious for more details. The moralistic one, who lived near Margot, thereupon grew expansive.
“It’s immoral, that’s what it is. As I was saying to Father Tomé, one can sin without meaning to; one can sin with one’s eyes and with one’s ears. With a woman like that coming to the door in a dressing-gown that’s open half-way down the front—almost naked—and hanging on to Dr. Virgilio’s neck as they stand there kissing and slobbering over each other, worse than a couple of dogs, and saying all kinds of things.”
“What do they say?” the teacher from Bahia wanted to know. Her body was twitching nervously and there was a convulsive look in her eyes as she listened to the description of the scene.
The other teacher now had her revenge. “Wouldn’t it be backward for me to tell you?”
“Don’t be a fool. Tell us.”
“It’s ‘my little puppy-dog’ here and ‘my little kitty-cat’ there, ‘my pretty little poodle,’ and—” here she dropped her voice and covered her face with her hands, at the thought of the doctor’s presence—“and ‘my bounding little filly.’”
“What was that?” said the assistant superintendent, blushing furiously.
“Just what I told you. It’s immoral.”
“And in a family street,” put in another.
“Yes, in broad daylight the people come from other streets to look on. It’s a free show, like being in a theatre,” she added by way of summing it all up.
Dr. Jessé clapped a hand to his head; he had remembered something.
“Theatre—there’s a rehearsal today; I had forgotten all about it. I shall have to snatch a bite and run or I’ll hold up everything.”
Almost on the run now, he made his way out of the empty building, through the deserted classrooms and silent courtyards. The voice of the teachers, still discussing Lawyer Virgilio, followed him all the way to the street entrance; it was the only sound to be heard.
“It’s indecent. . . .”
Dr. Jessé had a hasty meal, and then, after answering his wife’s questions about the health of one Ribeirinho, a patient who was a friend of theirs, and pulling one of his children’s ears, he set out for the Lauro home, where he was to direct the Tabocas Amateur Group, which was giving a performance soon. Already there was being circulated through the town all the way to Ferradas a hand-bill announcing:
SATURDAY, JUNE 10
ST. JOSEPH’S THEATRE
WILL PRESENT AN OUTSTANDING DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS
SOCIAL VAMPIRES
Watch for Announcement
TABOCAS AMATEUR GROUP
BIG DRAMATIC EVENT!
There was politics, there was his family, there was his medical practice, there were his groves and his houses to rent, there was the school—there were all of these things with which to occupy his mind, but Dr. Jessé Freitas’s one real and grand passion was the Tabocas Amateur Group. It was something that he had dreamed of for years, but difficulties had always arisen. First of all, he had had to engage in a stubborn struggle to overcome the refusal of the young ladies of the town to take part in a theatrical performance. If he finally had succeeded, it had been owing to the word put in for him by the daughter of a rich merchant of Tabocas who had just come back from Rio, where she had been in school. She had urged the others to “stop being so silly” and to go ahead and join the Amateur Group. Even so, Dr. Jessé had had to obtain the consent of the fathers, and this had not been easy: “I only permit it because it is you who ask it, doctor.” Others had refused outright: “This business of the theatre is not for any self-respecting young girl.”
The group, none the less, had been formed at last and had given its first performance, a drama written by Professor Estanislau entitled The Fall of the Bastille. It had been an enormous success. The mothers of the actors had hardly been able to contain themselves with pride, and there were even a few quarrels started as to whose daughter had played her part the best. Dr. Jessé had promptly begun directing another play, this time one of his own, based upon a theme from national history having to do with Pedro II. It had been given for the benefit of the church building fund, for the church was then in the process of construction. In spite of a regrettable incident that had occurred upon the stage between two of the performers, this piece likewise had been a success and had definitely established the prestige of the Tabocas Amateur Group. That organization had now become the pride of the town, and each time that a resident of Tabocas went into Ilhéos, he did not fail to speak of the “Amateurs,” if only to annoy the city folk, who, while they had a very good theatre, did not have a company of their own. Dr. Jessé was counting upon the success of the Social Vampires—a work that was also from his pen—in his effort to persuade the mothers to allow their daughters to go to the city and give a performance there.
He spent long hours directing them. He would make the young women and the young men repeat their lines over and over again, with prolonged gestures, tremulous voice, and an affected style of delivery. He would applaud one, correct another, mop the perspiration from his brow, and beam with happiness.
It was only as he left the rehearsal that he once more remembered the forest of Sequeiro Grande, Teodoro, Ester, and Lawyer Virgilio. Taking up his medicine-case, where the original manuscript pages of the play were mingled with phials and dressings, he hastened to the attorney’s home. Not finding him
there, he set out for the house where Margot lived. The church bell had just sounded the hour of nine and the streets were deserted. The Amateurs were on their way home, the young ladies being accompanied by their mothers. A drunkard on the corner was muttering to himself. In a wineshop men were discussing politics. The kerosene street-lamps were pale in the light of the moon.
Lawyer Virgilio was in his pyjamas and Margot’s voice could be heard from the bedroom, inquiring who was there.
“Did you know that Colonel Teodoro has been in town?” asked Dr. Jessé as he deposited his case on a chair in the parlour. “You had better get word to our friend Horacio. Nobody seems to know what he’s up to.”
“He’s looking for trouble, that’s certain.”
“And there’s something still more serious.”
“Go ahead. What is it?”
“They are saying the Juca Badaró has sent for an engineer to survey the forest of Sequeiro Grande so that he can take out a title to the property.”
Virgilio gave a self-satisfied laugh. “What do you think my business is as a lawyer? Doctor, that forest has already been entered, with a survey and everything, in the office of Venancio, the registrar, as the property of Colonel Horacio, Braz, Maneca Dantas, the Widow Merenda, Firmo, Jarde, and—” here he raised his voice slightly—“Dr. Jessé Freitas. You will have to go down and sign the papers tomorrow.”
As the attorney went on to explain the “ouster” that had been effected, the physician’s face expanded in a grin.
“Congratulations, doctor. That’s a master stroke.”
Virgilio smiled modestly. “It cost a couple of contos de reis to convince the registrar. The rest was easy. We’ll see what they do now. We’ve stolen a march on them.”
Dr. Jessé was silent for a moment. It was a master stroke, no doubt of that. Horacio had got there ahead of the Badarós, and he was the owner of the forest—he and his friends, among whom was Dr. Jessé. He rubbed his fat hands together, one inside the other.
“It’s a good piece of work. There’s not another lawyer around here like you, sir. Well, I’ll have to be going; I’ll leave you two”—and he pointed to the bedroom where Margot was waiting—“alone. This is no time to talk. Good night, doctor.”
At first Dr. Jessé had thought of sounding Virgilio out on the subject of the gossip that was going around about him and Ester. He had even thought of advising the lawyer, while in Ilhéos, not to be seen too often at Horacio’s place. Tongues in the city were quite as malicious as they were here in town. But now he decided to say nothing; he was afraid of offending the attorney, of hurting him, and not for anything in the world would he have done that today to one who had given the Badarós so serious a set-back.
Virgilio accompanied his guest to the door. As he went down the street, Dr. Jessé encountered no one whom he felt to be deserving of such a piece of news. Legally the Badarós were done for. What could they do now, anyway? Upon reaching the wine-shop, he glanced inside the door.
“Will you have something, doctor?” asked one of the pair who stood there drinking. Here, too, there was no worthy audience. The doctor accordingly countered with a question: “Do you know where Tonico Borges went?”
“He’s gone to bed,” said one of the men. “I met him a short while ago; he was headed for the whorehouse.”
Dr. Jessé made a face to show his annoyance. He would have to keep the big news until the next day. He walked on, with the short, light step of the heavy man. But before coming to his own house he paused for a moment to make out whose cacao it was that was being brought into town by a troop of fifteen burros, to the jingling of bells and the shouts of a pack-driver that woke the neighbourhood:
“Whoa, there, you damned burro, you! Get up, there, Jack-knife!”
8
The man was out of breath as he burst into the hardware store.
“Friend Azevedo! Friend Azevedo!”
The clerk came up to him. “Azevedo’s in the back, friend Ignacio.”
The man went on to the rear of the shop, where Azevedo, engaged in balancing his books, was leafing through a big ledger. He turned as the other came in. “What is it, Ignacio?”
“Then you haven’t heard, sir?”
“Speak up, man. What is it? Something serious?”
Ignacio paused for breath; he had been running, almost.
“I just heard it, this very minute. You can’t imagine—it will bowl you over.”
Azevedo put aside pencil, paper, and his ledger and waited impatiently.
“It’s the biggest ‘ouster’ that you ever heard tell of. Lawyer Virgilio has greased Venancio’s palm and has entered title to the forest of Sequeiro Grande in the name of Colonel Horacio and five or six others—Braz, Dr. Jessé, Colonel Maneca, I don’t know who all.”
Azevedo rose from his chair: “And the survey? What about that? Their title is no good.”
“Oh, it’s all legal, right enough, friend Azevedo. It’s all as legal as can be, down to the last comma. That young fellow is a crackerjack of a lawyer. He’s looked after everything. There has already been a survey made, an old one, for Mundinho de Almeida while he was still alive, the time he was starting to open up a grove in that region. It was never registered because Colonel Mundinho cashed in his checks. But Venancio has the documents.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Don’t you remember Colonel Mundinho’s sending for a surveyor from Bahia, an old fellow with a beard who could outdrink the colonel himself?”
“Ah, yes, I remember now.”
“Well, Lawyer Virgilio dug up that old survey, and the rest was easy; all he had to do was to change the names and enter it at the registry office. They say that Venancio got ten contos for his trouble.”
Azevedo realized what all this meant.
“Ignacio,” he said, “I’m much obliged to you. This is a favour I won’t forget. You’re the kind of a friend to have. And now I must get word right away to Sinhô Badaró. He will be grateful to you, you know that.”
Ignacio smiled. “Tell Colonel Sinhô that I’m at his service. So far as I’m concerned, he’s the only leader in these parts. So the minute I heard of it, I came straight here.”
As Ignacio went out, Azevedo stood for a moment deep in thought. Then, taking up his pen, he bent over the table and in a laboured hand wrote a letter to Sinhô Badaró; after which he sent the clerk for a man to take it to its destination. The messenger came a few minutes later. He was a dark-skinned mulatto, barefoot but wearing spurs, and with a revolver sticking out from under his ragged coat.
“You sent for me, Mr. Azevedo?”
“Militão, I want you to get on my horse, ride as fast as you can to the Badaró plantation, and give this letter to Sinhô. Tell him it’s from me and that it’s urgent.”
“Shall I go by way of Ferradas, Mr. Azevedo?”
“It’s a lot shorter that way.”
“They say Colonel Horacio has ordered them not to let any Badaró people through there.”
“That’s all talk. You’re not afraid, are you?”
“Did you ever know me to be afraid? I just wanted to make sure.”
“All right, then. Sinhô will pay you well, for it’s an important piece of news.”
The man took the letter. “Any answer?” he asked before leaving to go for the horse.
“No.”
“Well, then, see you later, Mr. Azevedo.”
“Good luck, Militão.”
At the door the man turned his head: “Mr. Azevedo.”
“What is it?”
“If I should be left in the street in Ferradas, you’ll look after my wife and kids, won’t you?”
9
Don’ Ana Badaró stood on the veranda of the Big House conversing with a man who had just dismounted.
“He’s gone to Ilhéos, Militão.
”
“And Mr. Juca?”
“He’s not here, either. Is it something urgent?”
“I think it is, miss. Mr. Azevedo told me to lose no time in getting here and to come by way of Ferradas because it’s a shorter road—and they’re ready for war there.”
“How did you make it?”
“I cut in behind the pesthouse—no one saw me.”
Don’ Ana turned over the letter in her hand.
“So you think it might be urgent?” she asked again.
“I think so, Don’ Ana. Mr. Azevedo told me it was very important and couldn’t wait. He even sent me on his own horse.”
Don’ Ana came to a decision, opened the letter, and proceeded to decipher Azevedo’s scrawl. Her face grew hard. “Bandits!” She started into the house, the letter in her hand, then remembered the bearer. “Raimunda! Raimunda!” she called.
“What is it, godmother?”
“Serve Militão some rum, here on the veranda.”
Entering the parlour, she began pacing up and down from one side of the room to the other. She had the appearance of one of the Badaró brothers when they were thinking things out or engaged in a discussion. She ended by seating herself in Sinhô’s high-backed chair, her face still set in hard lines, her mind wholly taken up with the news she had received. Her father and uncle were in Ilhéos, and this was a matter that could not wait. What ought she to do? Send the letter on to her father? It would not get to Ilhéos until the next day, and that would mean too great a delay. Then, suddenly, she remembered; and rising, she returned to the veranda. Militão was sipping his rum.
“Are you very tired, Militão?”
“No, miss. It was a short twenty miles or so.”
“Very well, then, I want you to ride on over to the Baraúnas. I want you to take a message to Colonel Teodoro. Tell him he should come here and talk to me at once. And you come back with him.”
“At your service, Don’ Ana.”
“Tell him to come as quickly as he can. Tell him it’s serious.”