The War of the End of the World

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  The first to embrace him was Governor Luiz Viana. “It wasn’t my idea not to appear at the port,” he said. “In any event, you see here before you the governor and each and every member of the Municipal Council, your obedient servants.”

  He was a forceful man, with a prominent bald head and an aggressive paunch, who did not trouble to conceal his concern. As the baron greeted those present, Gumúcio closed the door. There was more cigar smoke than air in the room. Pitchers of fruit punch had been set out on a table, and as there were not enough chairs to seat everyone, some of the men were perched on chair arms and others were standing leaning against the bookshelves. The baron slowly made his way around the room, greeting each man. When he finally sat down, there was a glacial silence. The men looked at him and their eyes betrayed not only concern but also a mute plea, an anxious trustfulness. The expression on the baron’s face, until that moment a jovial one, grew graver as he looked about at the others’ funereal countenances.

  “I can see that the situation is such that it wouldn’t be apropos to inform you whether or not the carnival in Nice is the equal of ours,” he said, very seriously, his gaze seeking Luiz Viana’s. “Let’s begin with the worst that’s happened. What is it?”

  “A telegram that arrived at the same time you did,” the governor murmured from an armchair he appeared to be buried in. “Rio has decided to intervene militarily in Bahia, after a unanimous vote in Congress. A regiment of the Federal Army has been sent to attack Canudos.”

  “In other words, the federal government and the Congress are officially accepting the view that a conspiracy is afoot,” Adalberto de Gumúcio interrupted him. “In other words, the Sebastianist fanatics are seeking to restore the Empire, with the aid of the Count of Eu, the monarchists, England, and, naturally, the Bahia Autonomist Party. All the humbug churned out by the Jacobin breed suddenly turned into the official truth of the Republic.”

  The baron showed no sign of alarm. “Intervention by the Federal Army comes as no surprise to me,” he said. “At this juncture it was inevitable. What does surprise me is this business of Canudos. Two expeditions roundly defeated!” He gestured in amazement, his eyes seeking Viana’s. “I don’t understand, Luiz. Those madmen should have been either left in peace or wiped out the first time round. I can’t fathom why the government botched so badly, let those people become a national problem, freely handed our enemies a gift like that…”

  “Five hundred troops, two cannons, two machine guns—does that strike you as a paltry force to send against a band of scalawags and religious fanatics?” Luiz Viana answered heatedly. “Who could have imagined that with strength like that Febrônio de Brito could be hacked to pieces by a few poor devils?”

  “It’s true that a conspiracy exists, but it’s not our doing,” Adalberto de Gumúcio interrupted him once more, with a worried frown and nervously clenched hands, and the thought crossed the baron’s mind that he had never seen him this deeply upset by a political crisis. “Major Febrônio is not as inept as he would have us believe. His defeat was a deliberate one, bargained for and decided in advance with the Jacobins in Rio de Janeiro, with Epaminondas Gonçalves as intermediary. So as to bring about the national scandal that they’ve been looking for ever since Floriano Peixoto left power. Haven’t they been continually inventing monarchist conspiracies since then so that the army will adjourn the Congress and set up a Dictatorial Republic?”

  “Save your conjectures for later, Adalberto,” the baron interjected. “First I want to know exactly what’s been happening: the facts.”

  “There aren’t any facts, only wild imaginings and the most incredible intrigues,” Deputy Rocha Seabra broke in. “They’re accusing us of stirring up the Sebastianists, of sending them arms, of plotting with England to restore the Empire.”

  “The Jornal de Notícias has been accusing us of that and even worse things ever since the fall of Dom Pedro II,” the baron said with a smile, accompanied by a scornful wave of his hand.

  “The difference is that now it’s not only the Jornal de Notícias but half of Brazil,” Luiz Viana put in. The baron saw him squirm nervously in his chair and wipe his bald head with his hand. “All of a sudden, in Rio, in São Paulo, in Belo Horizonte, all over the country, people are beginning to mouth the egregious nonsense and the calumnies invented by the Progressivist Republican Party.”

  Several men spoke up at once and the baron motioned to them with upraised hands not to ride roughshod over each other. From between his friends’ heads he could see the garden, and though what he was hearing interested him and alarmed him, from the moment that he entered his study he had been wondering whether or not the chameleon was hiding among the trees—an animal that he had grown fond of as others conceive an affection for dogs or cats.

  “We now know why Epaminondas organized the Rural Police,” Deputy Eduardo Glicério was saying. “So that it would furnish proof at the right moment. Of contraband rifles for the jagunços, and even of foreign spies.”

  “Ah, you haven’t heard the latest news,” Adalberto de Gumúcio said on noting the intrigued expression on the baron’s face. “The height of the grotesque. An English secret agent in the backlands. His body was burned to a cinder when they found it, but he was English. How did they know? Because of his red hair! They exhibited it in the Rio parliament, along with rifles supposedly found alongside his corpse, in Ipupiará. Nobody will listen to us; in Rio, even our best friends are swallowing all this nonsense. The entire country is convinced that the Republic is endangered by Canudos.”

  “I presume that I’m the dark genius behind this conspiracy,” the baron muttered.

  “You’ve had more mud slung at you than anyone else,” the owner-publisher of the Diário da Bahia said. “You handed Canudos over to the rebels and took a trip to Europe to meet with the émigrés of the Empire and plan the rebellion. It’s even been said that there was a ‘fund for subversion,’ that you put up half the money and England the other half.”

  “A fifty-fifty partner of the British Crown,” the baron murmured. “Good heavens, they overestimate me.”

  “Do you know who they’re sending to put down the restorationist rebellion?” asked Deputy Lélis Piedades, who was sitting on the arm of the governor’s chair. “Colonel Moreira César and the Seventh Regiment.”

  The Baron de Canabrava thrust his head forward slightly and blinked.

  “Colonel Moreira César?” He sat lost in thought for some time, moving his lips from time to time as though speaking under his breath. Then he turned to Gumúcio and said: “Perhaps you’re right, Adalberto. This might well be a bold maneuver on the part of the Jacobins. Ever since the death of Marshal Floriano, Colonel Moreira César has been their top card, the hero they’re counting on to regain power.”

  Again he heard all of them trying to talk at once, but this time he did not stop them. As his friends offered their opinions and argued, he sat there pretending to be listening but with his mind elsewhere, a habit he readily fell into when a discussion bored him or his own thoughts seemed to him to be more important than what he was hearing. Colonel Moreira César! It did not augur well that he was being sent to Bahia. He was a fanatic and, like all fanatics, dangerous. The baron remembered the cold-blooded way in which he had put down the federalist revolution in Santa Catarina four years before, and how, when the Federal Congress asked him to appear before that body and give an account of the executions by firing squad that he had ordered, he had answered with a telegram that was a model of terseness and arrogance: “No.” He recalled that among those sent to their deaths by the colonel there in the South there had been a marshal, a baron, and an admiral that he knew, and that on the advent of the Republic, Marshal Floriano Peixoto had ordered him to purge the army of all officers known to have had ties with the monarchy. The Seventh Infantry Regiment against Canudos! “Adalberto is right,” he thought. “It’s the height of the grotesque.” He forced himself to listen once more.

  “It’s no
t the Sebastianists in the interior he’s come to liquidate—it’s us,” Adalberto was saying. “He’s coming to liquidate you, Luiz Viana, the Autonomist Party, and hand Bahia over to Epaminondas Gonçalves, who is the Jacobins’ man here.”

  “There’s no reason to kill yourselves, gentlemen,” the baron interrupted him, raising his voice slightly. He was serious now, no longer smiling, and spoke in a firm voice. “There’s no reason to kill yourselves,” he repeated. He looked slowly about the room, certain that his friends would find his serenity contagious. “Nobody’s going to take what’s ours away from us. Haven’t we present, right here in this room, the political power of Bahia, the municipal government of Bahia, the judiciary of Bahia, the journalism of Bahia? Aren’t the majority of the landed property, the possessions, the herds of Bahia right here? Even Colonel Moreira César can’t change that. Finishing us off would be to finish off Bahia, gentlemen. Epaminondas Gonçalves and his followers are an outlandish curiosity in these parts. They have neither the means nor the men nor the experience to take over the reins of Bahia even if they were placed square in their hands. The horse would throw them immediately.”

  He paused and someone solicitously handed him a glass of fruit punch. He savored each sip, recognizing the pleasantly sweet taste of guava.

  “We’re overjoyed, naturally, at your optimism,” he heard Luiz Viana say. “You’ll grant, however, that we’ve suffered reverses and that we must act as quickly as possible.”

  “There is no doubt of that,” the baron agreed. “We shall do so. For the moment, what we’re going to do is send Colonel Moreira César a telegram immediately, welcoming his arrival and offering him the support of the Bahia authorities and of the Autonomist Party. Is it not in fact in our interest to have him come to rid us of the thieves who steal our land, of the fanatics who sack haciendas and won’t allow our peasants to work the fields in peace? And this very day we’re also going to begin taking up a collection that will be handed over to the Federal Army to be used in the fight against the bandits.”

  He waited until the murmur of voices died down, taking another sip of punch. It was hot and his forehead was wet with sweat.

  “I remind you that, for years now, our entire policy has been to prevent the central government from interfering too zealously in Bahia affairs,” Luiz Viana finally said.

  “That’s all well and good, but the only policy left us now, unless we choose to kill ourselves, is to demonstrate to the entire country that we are not the enemies of the Republic or of the sovereignty of Brazil,” the baron said dryly. “We must put a stop to this intrigue at once and there is no other way to do so. We’ll give Moreira César and the Seventh Regiment a splendid reception. It’ll be our welcome ceremony—not the Republican Party’s.”

  He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief and waited once again for the murmur of voices, even louder than before, to die down.

  “It’s too abrupt a change,” Adalberto de Gumúcio said, and the baron saw several heads behind him nod in agreement.

  “In the Assembly, in the press, our entire strategy has been aimed at avoiding federal intervention,” Deputy Rocha Seabra chimed in.

  “In order to defend Bahia’s interests we must remain in power and in order to remain in power we must change our policy, at least for the moment,” the baron replied softly. And as if the objections that were raised were of no importance, he went on laying down guidelines. “We landowners must collaborate with the colonel. Quarter his regiment, provide it with guides, furnish it supplies. Along with Moreira César, we’ll be the ones who do away with the monarchist conspirators financed by Queen Victoria.” He simulated a smile as he again mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “It’s a ridiculous farce, but we have no other choice. And when the colonel has liquidated the poor cangaceiros and plaster saints of Canudos we’ll stage all sorts of grand celebrations to commemorate the defeat of the British Empire and the Bragança dynasty.”

  No one applauded him; no one smiled. They were all silent and ill at ease. But as he observed them the baron saw that already there were some who were admitting to themselves, however reluctantly, that there was nothing else they could do.

  “I’ll go to Calumbi,” the baron said. “I hadn’t planned on doing so just yet. But it’s necessary. I myself will place everything that the Seventh Regiment needs at its disposal. All the landowners in the region should do likewise. Let Moreira César see whom that part of the country belongs to, who is in command there.”

  The atmosphere was very tense and everyone wanted to ask questions, to reply to these remarks. But the baron deemed that this was not the proper time to discuss the matter further. After they had eaten and drunk throughout the afternoon and into the night, it would be easier to make them forget their doubts, their scruples.

  “Let us join the ladies and have lunch,” he proposed, rising to his feet. We’ll talk afterward. Politics shouldn’t be everything in life. Pleasant things ought to have their place too.”

  [II]

  Transformed into a camp, Queimadas is a beehive of activity in the strong wind that covers it with dust: orders are barked out and troops hurriedly fall into formation amid cavalrymen with drawn sabers who are shouting and gesticulating. Suddenly bugle calls cleave the dawn and the curious bystanders run along the bank of the Itapicuru to watch the stretch of bone-dry caatinga that disappears on the horizon in the direction of Monte Santo: the first corps of the Seventh Regiment are setting out and the wind carries away the marching song that the soldiers are singing at the tops of their lungs.

  Inside the railroad station, since first light, Colonel Moreira César has been studying topographical maps, giving instructions, signing dispatches, and receiving the duty reports of the various battalions. The drowsy correspondents are harnessing their mules and horses and loading the baggage cart outside the door of the station—all of them except the scrawny reporter from the Jornal de Notícias, who, with his portable desk beneath his arm and his inkwell fastened to his sleeve, is prowling about the place trying to make his way to the colonel’s side. Despite the early hour, the six members of the Municipal Council are on hand to bid the commander of the Seventh Regiment farewell. They are sitting waiting on a bench, and the swarm of officers and aides coming and going around them is paying no more attention to them than to the huge posters of the Progressivist Republican Party and the Bahia Autonomist Party that are still hanging from the ceiling. But they are amused as they watch the scarecrow-thin journalist, who, taking advantage of a moment of calm, has finally managed to approach Moreira César.

  “May I ask you a question, Colonel?” he says in his thin, nasal voice.

  “The press conference was yesterday,” the officer answers, examining him from head to foot as though he were a being from another planet. But the creature’s outlandish appearance or his audacity causes the colonel to relent: “All right, then. What’s your question?”

  “It’s about the prisoners,” the reporter murmurs, both his squint eyes fixed on him. “It has come to my attention that you are taking thieves and murderers into the regiment. I went down to the jail last night with the two lieutenants, and saw them enlist seven of the inmates.”

  “That’s correct,” Moreira César says, looking him up and down inquisitively. “But what’s your question?”

  “The question is: Why? What’s the reason for promising those criminals their freedom?”

  “They know how to fight,” Colonel Moreira César says. And then, after a pause: “A criminal is a case of excessive human energy that flows in the wrong direction. War can channel it in the right one. They know why they’re fighting, and that makes them brave, even heroic at times. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And you’ll see it, too, if you get to Canudos. Because”—he inspects him from head to foot once again—“from the looks of you, you’re likely not to last one day in the backlands.”

  “I’ll try my best to hold up, Colonel.” The nearsighted journalist withdraws an
d Colonel Tamarindo and Major Cunha Matos, who were standing waiting behind him, step forward.

  “The vanguard has just moved out,” Colonel Tamarindo says.

  The major explains that Captain Ferreira Rocha’s patrols have reconnoitered the route to Tanquinho and that there is no trace of jagunços, but that the road is full of sudden drops and rough stretches that are going to make it difficult to get the artillery through. Ferreira Rocha’s scouts are looking to see if there is some way around these obstacles, and in any case a team of sappers has also gone on ahead to level the road.