The War of the End of the World

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “This is an eventful day,” he murmured, puffing on his cigar.

  Aristarco’s face had the same inscrutable expression as always, but the baron could nonetheless tell how alarmed he was.

  “Pajeú,” he said laconically. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Instead of answering, the baron turned to Gall. “I would like you to leave me now, if you will. I’ll see you at dinnertime. We eat early here in the country. At six.”

  When Gall had left the room, the baron asked the overseer if only those four men had come. No, there were at least fifty jagunços round about outside the house. Was he certain that the caboclo was Pajeú? Yes.

  “What will happen if they attack Calumbi?” the baron asked. “Can we hold out?”

  “We may get ourselves killed,” the capanga replied, as though he had asked himself the same question and arrived at that answer. “There are lots of the men I don’t trust any more. They, too, may go off to Canudos at any moment.”

  The baron sighed. “Bring him inside,” he said. “And I’d like you to be present at this meeting.”

  Aristarco went outside and came back a moment later with the newcomer. The caboclo from Canudos halted a yard away from the master of the house, removing his hat as he did so. The baron tried to see some hint in those stubborn little eyes, in those weather-beaten features, of the crimes and terrible misdeeds he was said to have committed. The cruel scar, which might have been left by a bullet, a knife, or the claw of a great wild feline, was a reminder of the violent life he had led. Apart from that, he might easily be taken for a peon on his land. But when his peons raised their eyes to his, they always blinked and lowered them. Pajeú’s eyes stared straight into his, without humility.

  “You’re Pajeú?” he finally asked.

  “I am,” the man said.

  Aristarco was standing behind him, as motionless as a statue.

  “You’ve wreaked as much havoc in these parts as the drought,” the baron said, “with your robbing and killing and marauding.”

  “Those days are past now,” Pajeú answered, without resentment, with heartfelt contrition. “There are sins I’ve committed in my life that I will one day be held accountable for. It’s not the Can I serve now but the Father.”

  The baron recognized that tone of voice; it was that of the Capuchin Fathers of the Sacred Missions, that of the sanctimonious wandering sects who made pilgrimages to Monte Santo, that of Moreira César, that of Galileo Gall. The tone of absolute certainty, he thought, the tone of those who are never assailed by doubts. And suddenly, for the first time, he was curious to hear the Counselor, that individual capable of turning a ruffian into a fanatic.

  “Why have you come here?”

  “To burn Calumbi down,” the even voice replied.

  “To burn Calumbi down?” Stupefaction changed the baron’s expression, voice, posture.

  “To purify it. After so much hard labor, this earth deserves a rest,” the caboclo explained, speaking very slowly.

  Aristarco hadn’t moved and the baron, who had recovered his self-possession, looked closely at the former cangaceiro in the same way that, in quieter days, he had so often examined the butterflies and plants in his herbarium with the aid of a magnifying glass. He was suddenly moved by the desire to penetrate to the innermost depths of this man, to know the secret roots of what he was saying. And at the same time there came to his mind’s eye the image of Sebastiana brushing Estela’s fair hair amid a circle of flames. The color drained from his face.

  “Doesn’t that wretch of a Counselor realize what he’s doing?” He did his best to contain his indignation. “Doesn’t he see that haciendas burned down mean hunger and death for hundreds of families? Doesn’t he realize that such madness has brought war to the state of Bahia?”

  “It’s in the Bible,” Pajeú explained imperturbably. “The Republic will come, and the Throat-Slitter: there will be a cataclysm. But the poor will be saved, thanks to Belo Monte.”

  “Have you even read the Bible?” the baron murmured.

  “The Counselor has read it,” the caboclo answered. “You and your family can leave. The Throat-Slitter has been here and taken guides and livestock off with him. Calumbi is accursed; it has gone over to the Can’s side.”

  “I will not allow you to raze the hacienda,” the baron said. “Not only on my account, but on account of the hundreds of people whose survival depends on this land.”

  “The Blessed Jesus will take better care of them than you,” Pajeú answered. It was evident that he meant no offense; he was making every effort to speak in a respectful tone of voice; he appeared to be disconcerted by the baron’s inability to accept the obvious truth. “When you leave, everyone will go off to Belo Monte.”

  “And in the meanwhile Moreira César will have it wiped off the face of the earth,” the baron said. “Can’t you understand that shotguns and knives are no defense against an army?”

  No, he would never understand. It was as useless to try to reason with him as it was to argue with Moreira César or Gall. The baron felt a shiver down his spine; it was as if the world had taken leave of its reason and blind, irrational beliefs had taken over.

  “Is that what happens when you people are sent food, livestock, loads of grain?” he asked. “The agreement with Antônio Vilanova was that you wouldn’t touch Calumbi or harm my people. Is that the way the Counselor keeps his word?”

  “He is obliged to obey the Father,” Pajeú explained.

  “In other words, it’s God who ordered you to burn down my house?” the baron murmured.

  “No, the Father,” the caboclo corrected him vehemently, as if to avoid a very serious misunderstanding. “The Counselor doesn’t want to cause you or your family any harm. All those who wish to do so may leave.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” the baron answered sarcastically. “I won’t let you burn down this house. I won’t leave.”

  A shadow veiled the half-breed’s eyes and the scar across his face contracted. “If you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to attack and kill people whose lives could be spared,” he explained regretfully. “I’ll have to kill you and your family. I don’t want all those deaths hanging over my soul. What’s more, there’d be hardly anybody left to put up a fight.” His hand pointed behind him. “Ask Aristarco.”

  He waited, his eyes pleading for a reassuring answer.

  “Can you give me a week?” the baron finally murmured. “I can’t leave…”

  “A day,” Pajeú interrupted him. “You may take whatever you like with you. I can’t wait any longer than that. The Dog is on his way to Belo Monte, and I must be there, too.” He put his sombrero back on, turned around, and, with his back to him, added as his parting words as he went out the door, followed by Aristarco: “Praised be the Blessed Jesus.”

  The baron noted that his cigar had gone out. He brushed off the ash, relighted it, and calculated as he puffed on it that there was no possibility of his asking Moreira César to come to his aid within the time limit given him by Pajeú. Then, fatalistically—he too, when all was said and done, was a sertanejo—he asked himself how Estela would take the destruction of this house and this land to which their lives were so closely tied.

  Half an hour later he was in the dining room, with Estela at his right and Galileo at his left, the three of them seated in the high-backed “Austrian” chairs. Though darkness had not yet fallen, the servants had lighted the lamps. He watched Gall: he was spooning food into his mouth with no sign of enjoyment and had the usual tormented expression on his face. The baron had told him that if he so desired he could go outside to stretch his legs, but except for the moments he spent conversing with him, Gall had stayed in his room—the same one that Moreira César had occupied—busy writing. The baron had asked him for a written statement of everything that had happened to him since his meeting with Epaminondas Gonçalves. “If I do what you ask, will I be free again?” Gall had asked him. The baron shook his head. “You’re the
best weapon I have against my enemies.” The revolutionary hadn’t said another word and the baron doubted that he was writing the confession he had asked him for. What could he be scribbling, then, night and day? In the midst of his depression, he was curious.

  “An idealist?” Gall’s voice took him by surprise. “A man reputed to have committed so many atrocities?”

  The baron realized that without warning the Scotsman was resuming the conversation they had been having in his study.

  “Does it strike you as odd that Colonel Moreira César is an idealist?” he replied, in English. “He is one, there’s no doubt of that. He’s not interested in money or honors, and perhaps not even in power for himself. It’s abstract things that motivate him to act: an unhealthy nationalism, the worship of technical progress, the belief that only the army can impose order and save this country from chaos and corruption. An idealist of the same stamp as Robespierre…”

  He fell silent as a servant cleared the table. He toyed with his napkin, thinking that the next night would find everything that surrounded him reduced to rubble and ashes. For the space of an instant, he wished that a miracle would occur, that the army of his enemy Moreira César would suddenly appear at Calumbi and prevent that crime from happening.

  “As is the case with many idealists, he is implacable when it comes to realizing his dreams,” he added without his expression betraying what his real feelings were. His wife and Gall looked at him. “Do you know what he did at the Fortress of Anhato Mirim, at the time of the federalist revolt against Marshal Floriano? He executed one hundred eighty-five people. They had surrendered, but that made no difference to him. He wanted the mass execution to serve as an example.”

  “He slit their throats,” the baroness said. She spoke English without the baron’s easy command of the language, slowly, pronouncing each syllable cautiously. “Do you know what the peasants call him? Throat-Slitter.”

  The baron gave a little laugh; he was looking down at the plate that had just been served him without seeing it. “Just think what’s going to happen when that idealist has the monarchist, Anglophile insurgents of Canudos at his mercy,” he said in a gloomy voice. “He knows that they’re really neither one, but it’s useful to the Jacobin cause if that’s what they are, which amounts to the same thing. And why is he doing what he’s doing? For the good of Brazil, naturally. And he believes with all his heart and soul that that’s so.”

  He swallowed with difficulty and thought of the flames that would destroy Calumbi. He could see them devouring everything, could hear them crackling.

  “I know those poor devils in Canudos very well,” he said, feeling his palms grow moist. “They’re ignorant and superstitious, and a charlatan can convince them that the end of the world has come. But they’re also courageous, long-suffering people, with an unfailing, instinctive dignity. Isn’t it an absurd situation? They’re going to be put to death for being monarchists and Anglophiles, when the truth of the matter is that they confuse the Emperor Pedro II with one of the apostles, have no idea where England is, and are waiting for King Dom Sebastião to emerge from the bottom of the sea to defend them.”

  He raised the fork to his lips again and swallowed a mouthful of food that seemed to him to taste of soot. “Moreira César said that one must be mistrustful of intellectuals,” he added. “Even more than of idealists, Mr. Gall.”

  The latter’s voice reached his ears as though it were coming from very far away. “Let me leave for Canudos.” A rapt expression had come over his face, his eyes were gleaming, and he appeared to be deeply moved. “I want to die for what is best in me, for what I believe in, for what I’ve fought for. I don’t want to end my days a stupid idiot. Those poor devils represent the most worthy thing there is on this earth, suffering that rises up in rebellion. Despite the abyss that separates us, you can understand me.”

  The baroness gestured to the servant to clear the table and leave the room.

  “I’m of no use to you at all,” Gall added. “I’m naïve perhaps, but I’m not a braggart. What I’m saying isn’t blackmail but a fact. It won’t get you anywhere to hand me over to the authorities, to the army. I won’t say one word. And I’ll lie if I have to; I’ll swear that I’ve been paid by you to accuse Epaminondas Gonçalves of something he didn’t do. Because, even though he’s a rat and you’re a gentleman, I’ll always prefer a Jacobin to a monarchist. We’re enemies, Baron, and you’d best not forget it.”

  The baroness made a move to leave the table.

  “You needn’t go.” The baron stopped her. He was listening to Gall, but all he could think about was the fire that would burn down Calumbi. How was he going to tell Estela?

  “Let me leave for Canudos,” Gall repeated.

  “But whatever for?” the baroness exclaimed. “The jagunços will take you for an enemy and kill you. Haven’t you said that you’re an atheist, an anarchist? What does all that have to do with Canudos?”

  “The jagunços and I have many things in common, Baroness, even though they don’t know it,” Gall answered. He fell silent for a moment and then asked: “May I leave?”

  Without realizing it, the baron switched to Portuguese as he addressed his wife. “We must leave here, Estela. They’re going to burn Calumbi down. There’s nothing else we can do. I don’t have the men to put up a fight and it’s not worth committing suicide over losing it.” He saw his wife sitting there stock-still, becoming paler and paler, biting her lips. He thought that she was about to faint. He turned to Gall. “As you can see, Estela and I have a very serious matter that we must discuss. I’ll come up to your room later.”

  Gall went upstairs immediately. The master and mistress of Calumbi remained in the dining room, in silence. The baroness waited, not opening her mouth. The baron told her of his conversation with Pajeú. He noted that she was trying her best to appear calm, but was not succeeding very well: she was deathly pale, and trembling. He had always loved her very deeply, and what was more, in moments of crisis he had admired her. He had never seen her lose her courage; behind that delicate appearance of a porcelain doll was a strong woman. The thought came to him that this time, too, she would be his best defense against adversity. He explained to her that they could take almost nothing with them, that they must put all their most precious things in trunks and bury them, that it was best to divide everything else among the house servants and the peons.

  “Is there nothing that can be done, then?” the baroness said very softly, as though some enemy might overhear.

  The baron shook his head: nothing. “In reality they’re not out to do us harm but to kill the Devil and give the land a rest. There’s no reasoning with them.” He shrugged, and as he felt that he was about to be overcome with emotion, he put an end to the conversation. “We’ll leave tomorrow, at noon. That’s the time limit they’ve given me.”

  The baroness nodded. Her face was drawn now, her forehead furrowed in a worried frown, her teeth chattering. “Well then, we shall have to work all night long,” she said, rising to her feet.

  The baron saw her leave the room and knew that before doing anything else she had gone off to tell Sebastiana everything. He sent for Aristarco and discussed the preparations for the journey with him. Then he shut himself up in his study and spent a long time destroying notebooks, papers, letters. The things that he would take with him filled no more than two small valises. As he went up to Gall’s room, he saw that Sebastiana and Estela had already gone to work. The house was caught up in feverish activity, with maids and menservants rushing all about, carrying things here and there, taking things down from walls, filling baskets, boxes, trunks, and whispering together with panicked expressions on their faces. He entered Gall’s room without bothering to knock, and found him sitting writing at the bedside table; on hearing him come into the room, Gall looked up, pen still in hand, and gazed at him with questioning eyes.

  “I know it’s madness to allow you to leave,” the baron said with a half smile that was
really a grimace. “What I should do is parade you through the streets of Salvador, of Rio, the way they paraded your hair, your fake corpse, the fake English rifles…” Too dispirited to go on, he did not finish the sentence.

  “Make no mistake about it,” Galileo said. He and the baron were so close now their knees were touching. “I’m not going to help you solve your problems; I’ll never collaborate with you. We’re at war, and every weapon counts.”

  There was no hostility in his voice, and the baron looked at him as though he were already far away: a tiny figure, picturesque, harmless, absurd.

  “Every weapon counts,” he repeated softly. “That is a precise definition of the times we’re living in, of the twentieth century that will soon be upon us, Mr. Gall. I’m not surprised that those madmen think that the end of the world has come.”

  He saw so much anguish in the Scotsman’s face that he suddenly felt pity for him. He thought: “The one thing he really wants to do is go die like a dog among people who don’t understand him and whom he doesn’t understand. He thinks that he’s going to die like a hero, and the truth is that he’s going to die exactly as he fears he will: like an idiot.” The whole world suddenly seemed to him to be the victim of an irremediable misunderstanding.

  “You may leave,” he said to him. “I’ll provide you with a guide to take you there. Though I doubt that you’ll get as far as Canudos.”

  He saw Gall’s face light up and heard him stammer his thanks.

  “I don’t know why I’m letting you go,” he added. “I’m fascinated by idealists, even though I don’t share their feelings in the slightest. But, even so, perhaps I do feel a certain sympathy for you, inasmuch as you’re a man who is irredeemably lost, and your end will be the result of an error.”

  But he realized that Gall was not listening to him. He was gathering together the pages filled with his handwriting that lay on the bedside table, and held them out to him. “They’re a summary of what I am, of what I think.” The look in his eyes, his hands, his very skin seemed to quiver with excitement. “You may not be the best person to leave it with, but there’s nobody else around. Read it, and when you’ve finished, I’d be grateful to you if you’d send it on to this address in Lyons. It’s a review, published by friends of mine. I don’t know if it’s going to continue to come out…” He fell silent, as though overcome with shame for some reason or other. “When may I leave?” he asked.