The War of the End of the World

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “What’s going to happen?” the Dwarf whispered.

  “Be still,” the jagunço said. “Didn’t you hear? the heretics are right above us.”

  Jurema peeked out through the branches. The shots continued, sparse and intermittent now, followed by puffs of smoke and the flames of fires, but from their hiding place she could not see the little uniformed figures she’d spied crossing the river and disappearing into the town. “Don’t move,” the jagunço said, and for the second time that day soldiers appeared out of nowhere. This time they were cavalrymen, two abreast, mounted on whinnying brown, black, bay, speckled horses, who suddenly emerged, incredibly close at hand, below the rock wall on her left and galloped on toward the river. They appeared to be about to roll down the almost vertical slope, but the animals kept their balance, and she saw them pass swiftly by, using their hind legs to brake themselves. She was dizzied by the succession of cavalrymen’s faces flashing by and the sabers that the officers were brandishing to point the way, when suddenly there was a stir in the caatinga. The men in grass mantles emerged from the holes, the branches, and fired their shotguns, or, like the jagunço who had been with them and was now creeping downhill, riddled them with arrows that hissed like snakes. She heard, very distinctly, Pajeú’s voice: “Go after the horses, those of you who have machetes.” She could no longer see the cavalrymen, but she imagined them splashing in the river—amid a fusillade and a distant pealing of bells she could hear whinnying—and being struck in the back, without knowing where they were coming from, by those arrows and bullets that she could see and hear the jagunços scattered about her shooting. Some of them, standing upright, were steadying their carbines or crossbows on branches of the mandacarus. The caboclo with the nose missing was not shooting. He was standing directing his men to the right or to the left. At that moment the Dwarf clutched her belly so tightly that she could barely breathe. She could feel him trembling, put her two arms round him, and rocked him back and forth: “They’ve passed now, they’re gone, look!” But when she looked herself, there was another cavalryman there, on a white horse, its mane ruffled by the wind as it galloped down the slope. The little officer riding it was holding its reins with one hand and brandishing a saber in the other. He was so close that she could see his frowning face, his burning eyes, and a moment later she saw him hunch over, his face suddenly blank. Pajeú had his carbine aimed at him and she thought that he was the one who had shot at him. She saw the white horse caracole, wheel about in one of those pirouettes that cowboys put their mounts through to impress the crowds at fairs, and saw it climb back up the slope with its rider clinging to its neck. As it disappeared from sight, she saw Pajeú aiming once again and doubtless getting off another shot.

  “Let’s get out of here, let’s get out of here. We’re in the midst of the battle,” the Dwarf whimpered, huddling up next to her again.

  “Shut up, you stupid idiot, you coward,” Jurema insulted him. The Dwarf fell silent, drew away, and stared at her in terror, his eyes begging forgiveness. The din of explosions, gunfire, bugle calls, pealing bells continued and the men in grass mantles disappeared, running or crawling down the wooded slope that descended in the distance to the river and Canudos. She looked around for Pajeú and he, too, was no longer there. The two of them were all alone now. What should she do? Stay where she was? Follow the jagunços? Look for a trail that would lead her away from Canudos? She felt dead tired, a stiffness in her every joint and muscle, as though her body were protesting against the mere idea of budging from the spot. She leaned her back against the damp side of the pit and closed her eyes. She felt herself drifting, falling into sleep.

  When awakened by the Dwarf shaking her, murmuring apologies for rousing her, she found herself barely able to move. Her bones ached and she was obliged to massage the nape of her neck. Darkness was already falling, to judge from the slanting shadows and the fading light. The deafening din that assailed her ears was not a dream. “What’s happening?” she asked, her tongue feeling parched and swollen. “They’re coming this way. Can’t you hear them?” the Dwarf murmured, pointing down the slope. “We must go have a look,” Jurema said. The Dwarf clung to her, trying to hold her back, but when she climbed out of the pit, he followed her on all fours. She walked down to the rocks and brambles where Pajeú had disappeared from sight, and squatted on her heels. Despite the cloud of dust, she spied a swarm of dark ants moving about on the foothills below her and thought it was more soldiers descending to the river, but she soon realized that they were not moving downward but upward, that they were fleeing from Canudos. Yes, there was no doubt of it, they were emerging from the river, on the run, making for the heights, and on the far side of it she saw groups of men shooting and chasing after isolated soldiers who ran out from between the huts, trying to reach the riverbank. Yes, the soldiers were fleeing, and it was the jagunços now who were pursuing them. “They’re coming this way,” the Dwarf whined, and her blood froze as she noticed that because she had been watching the hillsides opposite, she had not realized that there was a battle going on at her feet as well, on both banks of the Vaza-Barris. That was where the uproar that she had thought she’d dreamed had been coming from.

  She glimpsed—in a dizzying confusion, half blotted out by the dust and the smoke that deformed bodies, faces—horses that had fallen and been stranded on the riverbanks, some of them dying, for they were moving their long necks as though asking for help to get themselves out of that muddy water in which they were about to drown or bleed to death. A riderless horse with only three legs was wheeling about, maddened with pain, trying to bite its tail, amid soldiers who were fording the river with their rifles over their heads, as others appeared, running and screaming from amid the walls of Canudos. They burst out by twos and threes, some of them running backward like scorpions, and plunged into the water, trying to reach the slope where she and the Dwarf were. They were being shot at from somewhere, because some of them fell, howling, wailing, but others of those in uniform were beginning to clamber up the rocks.

  “They’re going to kill us, Jurema,” the Dwarf whimpered.

  Yes, she thought, they’re going to kill us. She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the Dwarf, and shouted: “Run, run!” She dashed up the slope, toward the densest part of the caatinga. She was soon exhausted but found the strength to go on by remembering the soldier who had flung himself upon her that morning. When she could not run another step, she slowed down to a walk. She thought with pity how worn out the Dwarf must be, with his short little legs, though she had not heard him complain even once and he had kept up with her all the way, holding tightly to her hand. By the time they halted, darkness was falling. They found themselves on the other side of the mountain. The terrain was flat in places here and the vegetation a denser tangle. The din of the war was far in the distance now. She collapsed on the ground and automatically groped about for grasses, raised them to her mouth, and slowly chewed them till she tasted their acid juice on her palate. She spat the wad out, gathered another handful, and gradually assuaged her thirst somewhat. The Dwarf, a motionless lump, did likewise. “We’ve run for hours,” he said to her, but she did not hear him and doubtless thought that he, too, did not have enough strength left to talk. He touched her arm and squeezed her hand in gratitude. They sat there, catching their breath, chewing and spitting out fibers, till the stars came out between the sparse branches of the scrub. Seeing them, Jurema remembered Rufino, Gall. All through the day the urubus, the ants, and the lizards had no doubt been devouring their remains and by now they must be beginning to rot. She would never again see their two dead bodies, perhaps lying only a few yards away, locked in each other’s arms. At that moment she heard voices, very close by, and reached out and found the Dwarf’s little trembling hand. One of the two silhouettes had just stumbled over him, and the Dwarf was screaming as though he’d been stabbed.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t kill us,” a voice from very close by screamed. “I’m Father Joaquim, the
parish priest of Cumbe, we’re peaceable people!”

  “We’re a woman and a dwarf, Father,” Jurema said, not moving. “We’re peaceable people, too.”

  This time, she had the strength to speak the words aloud.

  On hearing the roar of the first cannon shell that night, Antônio Vilanova’s reaction, after an instant of stunned surprise, was to protect the saint with his body. Abbot João and Big João, the Little Blessed One and Joaquim Macambira and his brother Honório all had the same reaction, so that he found himself standing arm in arm with them, surrounding the Counselor, and calculating the trajectory of the shell, which must have fallen somewhere in São Cipriano, the little street where the healers, sorcerers, practitioners of smoke cures, and herb doctors of Belo Monte lived. Which of the shacks of old women who could ward off the evil eye with potions of jurema and manacá, or of bonesetters who put things back in their place by yanking and pulling on people’s bodies, had been sent flying through the air? The Counselor brought them out of their paralysis: “Let us go to the Temple.” As they headed up Campo Grande, arms linked, in the direction of the churches, Abbot João began to call out to people to darken their houses, for oil lamps and open fires helped the enemy locate their targets. His orders were repeated, passed along from house to house, and obeyed: as they left behind them Espírito Santo, Santo Agostinho, Santo Cristo, Os Papas, and Maria Madalena, narrow little streets meandering off from the edges of Campo Grande, the little shacks were gradually swallowed up in darkness. As they came opposite the slope that had been named the Hill of Martyrs, Antônio Vilanova heard Big João say to the Street Commander: “Go lead the battle. We’ll get him to the Temple safe and sound.” But the former cangaceiro was still with them when the second shell exploded, causing them to let go of each other’s arms and see, in the great flash that lighted up all of Canudos, planks and debris, roof tiles, remains of animals or people suspended for an instant in the air. The shells seemed to have landed in Santa Inês, where the peasants who looked after the fruit orchards lived, or in the section of town next to it where so many cafuzos, mulattoes, and blacks had settled that it was called O Mocambo—the Slave Refuge.

  The Counselor separated from the group at the door of the Temple of the Blessed Jesus and went inside, followed by a multitude. In the pitch-dark outside, Antônio Vilanova sensed that the esplanade was crowded with people who had followed the procession, for whom there was no room left in the churches. “Am I afraid?” he thought, surprised at his weakness. No, it was not fear he felt. In his years as a merchant, traveling all through the hinterland transporting goods and carrying money on him, he had run a great many risks and not been afraid. And here in Canudos, as the Counselor reminded him, he had learned to count, to find a meaning in things, an ultimate reason for everything he did, and that had freed him from a fear which, before, on certain sleepless nights, had made icy sweat run down his back. It was not fear but sadness.

  A hand shook him roughly. “Can’t you hear, Antônio Vilanova?” Abbot João’s voice said. “Can’t you see that they’re here? Haven’t we been getting ready to greet them? What are you waiting for?”

  “Excuse me,” he murmured, rubbing his hand over his half-bald head. “I’m in a daze. Yes, yes, I’m going.”

  “These people have to be moved out of here,” the ex-cangaceiro said, shaking him. “Otherwise, they’ll be blown to bits.”

  “I’m going, I’m going, don’t worry, everything will go as we planned,” Antônio replied. “I won’t fall down on the job.”

  He shouted for his brother as he stumbled through the crowd, and in a moment or two heard him call out: “I’m over here, compadre.” But as he and Honório went into action, exhorting people to go to the shelters they had dug inside their houses and calling to the water carriers to come get stretchers, and then headed back down the Campo Grande toward the store, Antônio was still fighting against a sadness that rent his soul. There were already several water carriers at the store waiting for him. He distributed the stretchers that had been made, of cactus fiber and strips of bark, and sent some of them in the direction that the explosions had come from and ordered others to wait. His wife and sister-in-law had left for the Health Houses and Honório’s children were in the trench in As Umburanas. He opened the storehouse that had once been a stable and was now the arsenal of Canudos, and his helpers took the boxes of explosives and projectiles to the back room of the store. He instructed them to hand ammunition over only to Abbot João or men sent by him. He left Honório in charge of the distribution of gunpowder and with three helpers ran through the meanders of Santo Elói and São Pedro to the Menino Jesus forge, where the smiths, following his instructions, had for the past week stopped making horseshoes, hoes, sickles, knives, and worked day and night turning nails, tin cans, hooks, iron tools, and every sort of metal object that could be found into bullets for blunderbusses and muskets. He found the smiths in a state of confusion, not knowing whether the order to put out all lamps and fires also applied to them. He had them relight the smithy furnace and go back to work, after helping them stop up the cracks in the walls on the side facing the hills. When he returned to the store, with a case of ammunition that smelled of sulfur, two shells crossed the sky and landed in the distance, out toward the animal pens. The thought crossed his mind that a number of kids no doubt had their bellies and legs blown off, and perhaps a few shepherds too, and that many she-goats had probably run off in panic and were doubtless breaking their legs and getting badly scratched in the brambles and cacti. At that moment he realized why he was sad. “Everything is going to be destroyed yet again, everything is going to be lost,” he thought. He felt a taste of ashes in his mouth. He thought: “Like the time of the plague in Assaré, like the time of the drought in Juazeiro, like the time of the flood in Caatinga do Moura.” But those who were shelling Belo Monte that night were worse than hostile elements, more deadly than plagues and natural catastrophes. “Thank you for having made me feel so certain of the existence of the Dog,” he prayed. “Thank you, for thus I know that you exist, Father.” He heard the bells, ringing very loudly, and their pealing did his heart good.

  He found Abbot João and some twenty men carrying away the ammunition and the gunpowder: they were faceless creatures, shapes moving silently about as the rain poured down once more, making the roof shake. “Are you taking everything?” he asked him in surprise, for Abbot João himself had been adamant that the store should be the distribution center for arms and provisions. The Street Commander led him to the esplanade, by now a quagmire. “They’re deploying from here to there,” he said, pointing to A Favela and O Cambaio. “They’re going to attack from those two sides. If Joaquim Macambira’s men don’t hold out, this sector will be the first to fall. It’s better to distribute the ammunition now.” Antônio nodded. “Where are you going to be?” he asked. “All over,” the ex-cangaceiro answered.

  The men were waiting with the boxes and the sacks in their arms.

  “Good luck, João,” Antônio said. “I’m going to the Health Houses. Any message for Catarina?”

  The ex-cangaceiro hesitated. Then he said slowly: “If I die, I’d like her to know that even though she’s forgiven what happened in Custódia, I haven’t.” He disappeared in the damp night, in which another shell had just exploded.

  “Did you understand João’s message to Catarina, compadre?” Honório asked him.

  “It’s a story that goes back a long way, compadre,” he answered.

  By the light of a candle, in silence, listening to the dialogue between the church bells and the bugles and from time to time the roar of the cannon, they went on getting provisions, bandages, medicines ready. A little while later a little boy sent by Antônia Sardelinha came to tell them that many injured had been brought to the Santa Ana Health House. He picked up one of the boxes containing iodoform, substrate of bismuth, and calomel that Father Joaquim had procured for him and set out for the Health House with it, after telling his brot
her to rest for a while since the worst would come at dawn.

  The Health House on the Santa Ana slope was a madhouse. There was weeping and wailing on every hand, and Antônia Sardelinha, Catarina, and the other women who went there regularly to cook for the aged, the disabled, and the sick could scarcely move amid the crowd of relatives and friends of the injured who kept tugging at them and demanding that they attend to this victim or that. The injured were lying on the floor, one atop the other, and at times being stepped on. With the help of the water carriers, Antônio forced the intruders to leave, then had the men stand guard at the door while he went off to help treat the injured and bandage them. The shells had blown off fingers and hands, left gaping wounds in bodies, and one woman had had her leg ripped off. How can she still be alive, Antônio wondered as he gave her spirits to inhale. She must be suffering so terribly that one could only hope death would come take her as quickly as possible. The apothecary arrived as the woman was breathing her last in his arms. He had come, he said, from the other Health House, where there were as many victims as in this one, and immediately ordered that all the dead bodies, which he recognized at a single glance, be taken out to the henhouse. He was the one person in Canudos who had any sort of medical training and his presence calmed everyone. Antônio Vilanova found Catarina sponging the forehead of a boy wearing the armband of the Catholic Guard; a shell splinter had put out one of his eyes and slashed his cheek to the bone. He was clinging to her like a baby as she hummed softly to him.

  “João gave me a message,” Antônio said to her. And he passed the cangaceiro’s words on to her. Catarina merely gave a little nod. This thin, sad, silent woman was a mystery to him. She was an obliging, devoted disciple, yet at the same time seemed withdrawn from everything and everybody. She and Abbot João lived on the Rua do Menino Jesus, in a little hut squeezed in between two wood houses, and they preferred to be by themselves. Antônio had seen them, many a time, walking together down by the little cultivated plots behind O Mocambo, deep in a conversation that never seemed to end. “Are you going to see João?” she asked him. “Maybe. What would you like me to tell him?”