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The Violent Land

Page 37

by Jorge Amado


  It was the day for the new municipal government to take over, and a triumphal arch of flowering cacao boughs had been erected in Church Square. Within record time they had thrown up a modern building to house the prefect, and a special train from Ilhéos now brought Horacio, the Bishop, Maneca Dantas, the judge, the prosecutor, planters and merchants, married women and young ladies. At the station the residents of Itabuna crowded forward to grasp Horacio’s hand.

  The inaugural ceremony was an impressive one. Azevedo, having taken the oath of office, delivered a speech in which he further swore undying loyalty to the Governor of the state and to Colonel Horacio da Silveira, “that benefactor of the cacao region.” Horacio looked on, his eyes very small, as someone at his side, alluding to Azevedo’s turncoat propensities, remarked: “Anyone who didn’t know you, colonel, would say that you’d bought an old nag.”

  “He’ll go all right, with a tight rein,” was Horacio’s reply.

  In the afternoon there was a fair with an auction of gifts in the public square, and that evening a grand ball was staged in the main room of the prefecture. The Bishop did not deem it fitting to be present in the ballroom, but he was ensconced in another room, where a buffet supper was being served, consisting of sweets of various kinds, under the auspices of the Pereira sisters—“real artists,” according to Maneca Dantas, who was a connoisseur in such matters. There were all kinds of drinks as well, everything from champagne to rum.

  Round the Bishop a circle had been formed—Horacio, Maneca, Azevedo, the judge, Braz, and various others—and the finest of fine goblets were now filled with the finest of wine. Someone proposed a toast to the Bishop; and then the prosecutor of Ilhéos suggested that, by way of showing their gratitude to the colonel, they drink a toast to Horacio. In the course of his remarks he took occasion, innocently enough, to express a regret that “in this hour of the city’s great triumph Colonel Horacio da Silveira could not have at his side his devoted wife of ever living memory, Dona Ester, that self-sacrificing martyr to a true wife’s love for her husband—or that other townsman of theirs, whose memory likewise was with them always and who had contributed so much to the progress of the new municipality of Itabuna—Dr. Virgilio Cabral, who had died at the hands of his cowardly political enemies.” But those days, the speaker went on to assert, while still quite recent, were a thing of the past now; they belonged to a time when civilization had not yet reached this region, a time when Itabuna was still Tabocas.

  “Today,” he concluded, “all this is no more than a painful memory.”

  The prosecutor then raised his glass in a toast. Horacio clinked glasses with him, and together they drank to the memory of Ester and Virgilio. As the rims of their goblets met, little clear-ringing sounds were heard.

  “Baccarat crystal,” Horacio observed to the Bishop, who was seated at his side.

  And he gave a calm and satisfied laugh.

  5

  It ordinarily takes five years for cacao trees to bear their first fruit, but those that were planted on the Sequeiro Grande tract began budding at the end of the third year and were yielding fruit the year following. Even those agricultural experts who had studied in the schools, even the old planters who knew cacao as no one else did, were astonished at the size of the nuts that these groves so precociously produced. Those nuts were enormous ones, and the trees were laden with them to their topmost boughs. Nothing of the kind had ever been seen before; for this was the best land in the world for the planting of cacao, a land fertilized with human blood.

  Glossary of Brazilian Terms

  Boi tátá (bôh-e tah´tah´). Mythical fire-breathing ox.

  Caapora (kah-poh´rah). A goblin.

  Caboclo (kah-boh´kloo). A Brazilian Indian (literally, “copper-coloured”).

  Cabra (kah´brah). Term applied to the offspring of a mulatto and a Negro; comes to mean, in general, a backwoods assassin. Cf. capanga, jagunço.

  Capanga (kah-pahn´gah). Hired assassin; backwoods Negro. Cf. cabra, jagunço.

  Carioca (kah-ree-oh´kah). Resident of Rio de Janeiro.

  Cigarro (see-gahr´roo). A cigarette made with millet straw, with the aid of a penknife; or, simply, cigarette.

  Conquistador (kohn-kees´tah-dohr). Literally, a “conqueror”; one who opens up a new country.

  Conto (kohn´too). Brazilian coin worth 1,000,000 reis (q.v.), or, at the time of this story, a little more than $500 (about $546).

  Fazenda (fah-zen´dah). A plantation; in this book, a cacao plantation.

  Fazendeiro (fah-zen-day-ee´roo). A plantation-owner, a planter.

  Grapiúna (grah-pee-oo´nah). Resident of the Ilhéos cacao region.

  Jagunço (zhah-goon´soo). This term was originally applied to ruffians at a fair; from this it derived the meaning of back-country ruffian, which is the sense that it has in this book (cf. cabra, capanga); is sometimes used as practically synonymous with sertanejo, or inhabitant of the backlands.

  Milrei (meel´ray-ee). Brazilian coin worth 1,000 reis, or about 54 cents in United States currency.

  Mingau (meen´gow). A dish (paste) made of manihot flour, sugar, and eggs.

  Rei (ray´ee). Brazilian monetary unit, worth one twentieth of a cent.

  Tirana (tee-rah´nah). A melancholy love-song, slow in movement, on the theme of love’s “tyranny.”

  * For Brazilian terms see the Glossary at the end of the book.

 

 

 


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