The War of the End of the World

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  They appear an hour later. By this time the Catholic Guard has so thoroughly blockaded the ravine with the carcasses of horses and mules and the dead bodies of soldiers, and with flat rocks, bushes, and cacti that they roll down from the slopes, that two companies of engineers are obliged to move up to clear the trail again. It is not an easy task for them, since in addition to the curtain of fire laid down by Joaquim Macambira and his band with their very last ammunition, which forces them to fall back several times just as the engineers have started clearing the obstacles away with dynamite, Big João and some hundred men crawl over to them on their hands and knees and engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Before more soldiers appear, João and his men wound and kill a number of them and also manage to make off with several rifles and some of their precious knapsacks full of cartridges. By the time Big João gives a blast on his whistle and shouts out the order to fall back, several jagunços are lying on the trail, dead or dying. Once back on the slope above, protected by the stone-slab parapet against the hail of bullets from below, the former slave has time to see if he’s been wounded, and finds himself unharmed. Spattered with blood, yes, but it is not his blood; he scrubs it off with fine sand. Is it the hand of Divine Providence that in three days of fighting he has not received so much as a scratch? Lying on his belly on the ground, panting for breath, he sees that the soldiers are now marching four abreast along the trail, cleared at last, headed toward the spot where Abbot João has posted himself. They go past by the dozens, by the hundreds. They’re no doubt on their way to protect the convoy, since despite all the harassment from the Catholic Guard and from Macambira and his men, they are not even bothering to climb up the slopes or venture into the bog. They merely rake the slopes on both flanks with rifle fire from little groups of snipers who rest one knee on the ground as they shoot. Big João hesitates no longer. There is nothing more he can do here to help the Street Commander. He makes certain that the order to fall back reaches everyone, leaping from one crag and hillock to another, making his way from trench to trench, going over the crest line and down the other side to make sure that the women who came to cook for the men have left. They are no longer there. Then he, too, heads back toward Belo Monte.

  He does so by following a meandering branch of the Vaza-Barris, which fills up only during big floods. Walking in the stony riverbed with only a trickle of water in it, João feels the chill morning air grow warmer. He works his way to the rear, checks how many dead there are, foreseeing how sad the Counselor, the Little Blessed One, the Mother of Men will be when they learn that those brothers’ bodies will rot in the open air. It pains him to remember those boys, many of whom he taught to shoot a rifle, to know that they will turn into food for vultures, without a burial or a prayer over their graves. But how could they have rescued their mortal remains?

  All the way back they hear shots, coming from the direction of A Favela. One jagunço says that it seems odd that Pajeú, Mané Quadrado, and Taramela, who are firing on the dogs from that front, should be doing so much shooting. Big João reminds him that when the ammunition was divided up, most of it was given to the men posted in those trenches forming a bulwark between Belo Monte and A Favela. And that even the blacksmiths went out there with their anvils and their bellows so as to go on melting lead for bullets right alongside the combatants. However, the moment they spy Canudos beneath little clouds of smoke which must be grenades exploding—the sun is now high in the sky and the towers of the Temple and the whitewashed dwellings are giving off dazzling reflections—Big João suddenly guesses the good news. He blinks, looks, calculates, compares. Yes, they are firing continuous rounds from the Temple of the Blessed Jesus, from the Church of Santo Antônio, from the parapets at the cemetery, as well as from the ravines of the Vaza-Barris and the Fazenda Velha. Where has all that ammunition come from? Moments later, a “youngster” brings him a message from Abbot João.

  “So he got back to Canudos!” the former slave exclaims.

  “With more than a hundred head of cattle and loads of guns,” the lad says enthusiastically. “And cases of rifle cartridges and grenades, and big drums of gunpowder. He stole all that from the dogs, and now everyone in Belo Monte is eating meat.”

  Big João places one of his huge paws on the youngster’s head and contains his emotion. Abbot João wants the Catholic Guard to go to the Fazenda Velha to reinforce Pajeú, and the former slave to meet him at the Vilanovas’. Big João guides his men past the line of shacks along the Vaza-Barris, a dead angle that will protect them from the gunfire from A Favela, to the Fazenda Velha, a maze of trenches and dugouts a kilometer long, constructed by taking advantage of the twists and turns and accidents of the terrain, that is the first line of defense of Belo Monte, barely fifty yards away from the soldiers. Since his return, the caboclo Pajeú has been in command on this front.

  When he arrives back in Belo Monte, Big João can hardly see a thing because of the dense cloud of dust that blurs everything. The gunfire is very heavy, and he hears not only the deafening rifle reports but also the sound of roof tiles breaking, walls collapsing, and sheets of corrugated tin clanging. The “youngster” takes him by the hand: he knows where there are no bullets falling. In these two days of fusillades and cannonades people have learned the geography of safety and go back and forth only along certain streets and certain angles of each street so as to be sheltered from the heavy fire. The cattle that Abbot João has brought in are being butchered in the narrow Rua do Espírito Santo, which has been converted into a cattle pen and an abattoir, and there is a long line of oldsters, women, and children waiting there for their share, while Campo Grande resembles a military encampment because of the number of cases of ammunition and barrels and kegs of powder amid which a great many jagunços are bustling back and forth. The pack mules that have hauled in this load are clearly marked with regimental brands and some of them have bloody whiplashes; they are braying in terror at the din. Big João sees a dead burro that emaciated dogs are devouring amid swarms of flies. He spies Antônio and Honório Vilanova, standing on a wooden platform; with shouts and gestures, they are supervising the distribution of the cases of ammunition, which are being carried off by pairs of young jagunços, who take off with them on the run, hugging the sides of the dwellings facing south; some of them are little more than children, like the “youngster” with him, who will not allow him to go see the Vilanovas even for a moment and imperiously herds him toward the onetime steward’s house of Canudos, where, he tells him, the Street Commander is waiting for him. It was Pajeú’s idea to have the kids of Belo Monte serve as messengers, now known as “youngsters.” When he proposed this, right here in the Vilanovas’ store, Abbot João said that it was risky; they weren’t responsible and their memories couldn’t be trusted. But Pajeú insisted, claiming the contrary: in his experience, children had been swift, efficient, and also loyal and steadfast. “It was Pajeú who was right,” the former slave thinks, seeing the little hand that does not let go of his until he has led him straight to Abbot João, who is leaning on the counter calmly eating and drinking as he listens to Pedrão, along with a dozen other jagunços around him. When he catches sight of Big João he motions to him to come over and gives him a hearty handshake. Big João wants to tell him how he feels, to thank him, to congratulate him for having brought in those arms, that ammunition and food, but as always, something holds him back, intimidates him, embarrasses him: only the Counselor is able to break through that barrier which ever since childhood has prevented him from sharing his intimate feelings with people. He greets the others, nodding or patting them on the back. He suddenly feels dead tired and squats down on his heels. Assunção Sardelinha places a bowlful of roast meat and manioc meal and a jug of water in his hands. For a time he forgets the war and who he is, and eats and drinks with gusto. When he is through, he notices that Abbot João, Pedrão, and the others are standing there silently, waiting for him to finish, and he feels embarrassed. He stammers an apology.

 
; He is in the middle of explaining to them what has happened in As Umburanas when the indescribable roar lifts him off the floor and jolts every bone in his body. For a few seconds they all remain motionless, crouching with their hands over their ears, feeling the stones, the roof, the merchandise on the shelves of the store shake, as though everything were about to shatter into a thousand pieces from the interminable aftershock of the explosion.

  “See what I mean, all of you?” old Joaquim Macambira, covered with so much mud and dust that he is barely recognizable, bellows as he enters the store. “Do you see now what a monstrous thing A Matadeira is, Abbot João?”

  Instead of answering him, the latter orders the “youngster” who has brought Big João there—and who has been thrown into Pedrão’s arms by the explosion, from which he emerges with his face transfixed with fear—to go see if the cannon blast has damaged the Temple of the Blessed Jesus or the Sanctuary. Then he motions to Macambira to sit down and have something to eat. But the old man is all upset, and as he nibbles on the chunk of meat that Antônia Sardelinha hands him, he goes on and on about A Matadeira, his voice full of fear and hatred. Big João hears him mutter: “If we don’t do something, it’ll bury us.”

  And all of a sudden Big João sees before him, in a peaceful dream, a troop of spirited chestnut horses galloping down a sandy beach and leaping into the white sea-foam. The scent of cane fields, of fresh molasses, of crushed cane perfumes the air. But the joy of seeing these horses with their shining coats, whinnying joyfully in the cool ocean waves, is soon ended, for suddenly the long muzzle of the deadly war machine emerges from the bottom of the sea, spitting fire like the Dragon that Oxóssi, in the voodoo rites of the Mocambo, slays with a gleaming sword. Someone says in a booming voice: “The Devil will win.” His terror awakens him.

  Through eyelids sticky with sleep, in the flickering light of an oil lamp, he sees three people eating: the woman, the blind man, and the dwarf who came to Belo Monte with Father Joaquim. Night has fallen, there is no one left in the store, he has slept for hours. He feels such remorse that it brings him wide awake. “What’s happened?” he cries, leaping to his feet. The blind man drops a chunk of meat and he sees his fingers fumble all about on the floor for it.

  “I told them they should let you sleep,” he hears Abbot João’s voice say and sees his sturdy silhouette emerge from the shadow. “Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor,” the former slave murmurs and starts to apologize, but the Street Commander cuts him short: “You needed sleep, Big João—nobody can live without sleeping.” He sits down on top of a barrel alongside the oil lamp, and the former slave sees that he is exhausted, his face deathly pale, his eyes sunken, his forehead deeply furrowed. “While I was lost in dreams of horses, you were out fighting, running, helping,” he thinks. He feels so guilty that he scarcely notices when the Dwarf comes over to them with a tinful of water. After he has drunk from it, Abbot João passes it to him.

  The Counselor is safe and sound in the Sanctuary, and the atheists have not budged from A Favela; from time to time there is a burst of gunfire. There is a worried expression on Abbot João’s tired face. “What’s happening, João? Is there something I can do?” The Street Commander looks at him affectionately. Though they seldom talk together, the former slave has known, ever since their days of wandering all about with the Counselor, that the former cangaceiro esteems him: he has demonstrated the respect and admiration he feels for him many a time.

  “Joaquim Macambira and his sons are going to climb to the top of A Favela to silence A Matadeira,” he says to him. The three persons sitting on the floor stop eating and the blind man cranes his neck, his right eye glued to that monocle of his that is a patchwork of slivers of glass glued together. “They’ll have trouble getting up there. But if they manage to, they can put it out of commission. It’s easy. All they have to do then is smash the detonating mechanism or blow up the chamber.”

  “Can I go with them?” Big João breaks in. “I’ll ram powder down the barrel and blow it to pieces.”

  “You can help the Macambiras get up there,” Abbot João answers. “But you can’t go all the way with them, Big João. Just help them get up there. It’s their plan, their decision. Come on, let’s go.”

  As they are leaving, the Dwarf goes over to Abbot João and says to him in a sweet, fawning voice: “Whenever you’d like, I’ll recite the Terrible and Exemplary Story of Robert the Devil for you, Abbot João.” The former cangaceiro pushes him aside without answering.

  Outside, it is pitch-dark and foggy. There is not one star in the sky. There is no gunfire to be heard, and not a soul in sight on Campo Grande. Nor a single light in any of the dwellings. The captured animals have been taken, once night fell, to pens behind the Mocambo. The narrow street of Espírito Santo reeks of butchered meat and dried blood, and as he listens to the Macambiras’ plan, Big João is aware of the countless flies hovering above the remains of the slaughtered animals that the dogs are poking through. They go up Campo Grande to the esplanade between the churches, fortified on all four sides with double and triple barriers of bricks, stones, large wooden boxes full of dirt, overturned carts, barrels, doors, tin drums, stakes, behind which hordes of armed men are posted. They are stretched out on the ground resting, talking together around little braziers, and on one of the street corners a group of them are singing, accompanied by a guitar. “Why is it men can’t resist staying up all night without sleeping even if what’s at stake is saying their souls or burning in hell forever?” he thinks in torment.

  At the door of the Sanctuary, hidden behind a tall parapet of sandbags and boxes filled with dirt, they talk with the men of the Catholic Guard as they wait for the Macambiras. The old man, his eleven sons, and their wives are with the Counselor. Big João mentally selects which of the sons the father will be taking with him and thinks to himself that he would like to hear what the Counselor is saying to his family about to make this sacrifice for the Blessed Jesus. When they come out, the old man’s eyes are shining. The Little Blessed One and Mother Maria Quadrado accompany them as far as the parapet and bless them. The Macambiras embrace their wives, who cling to them and burst into tears. But Joaquim Macambira puts an end to the scene by saying that it is time to leave. The women go off with the Little Blessed One to the Temple to pray.

  As they head for the trenches at Fazenda Velha, they pick up the equipment that Abbot João has ordered: crossbars, wedges, petards, axes, hammers. The old man and his sons hand them round without a word, as Abbot João explains to them that the Catholic Guards will distract the dogs by making a feigned attack while the Macambiras are crawling up to A Matadeira. “Let’s see if the ‘youngsters’ have located it,” he says.

  Yes, they have located it. Pajeú confirms that they have, on meeting João and his men at Fazenda Velha. A Matadeira is on the first rise, immediately behind Monte Mário, alongside the first column’s other cannons. They have placed them in a line, between bags and barrels filled with stones. Two “youngsters” have crawled up there and, after crossing through no-man’s-land and the line of dead sharpshooters, counted three sentry posts on the almost vertical sides of A Favela.

  Big João leaves Abbot João and the Macambiras with Pajeú and slips through the labyrinth that has been excavated along this stretch of land bordering the Vaza-Barris. From these tunnels and dugouts the jagunços have inflicted their worst punishment on the soldiers who, once they reached the heights and spied Canudos, rushed down the mountainsides to the city lying at the bottom of them. The terrible fusillade stopped them in their tracks, made them turn tail, run about in circles, collide with each other, knock each other down, trample each other as they discovered that they could neither retreat nor advance nor escape on the flanks and that their only choice was to throw themselves flat on the ground and set up defenses. Big João picks his way between sleeping jagunços; every so often, a sentry jumps down from the parapets to talk to him. He awakens forty men of the Catholic Guard and explains to
them what they are to do. He is not surprised to learn that there have been practically no casualties in this maze of trenches; Abbot João had foreseen that the topography would offer the jagunços more protection there than anywhere else.

  On his return to Fazenda Velha with the forty Catholic Guards, he finds Abbot João and Joaquim Macambira in the midst of an argument. The Street Commander wants the Macambiras to put on soldiers’ uniforms, claiming that this will better their chances of getting to the cannon. Joaquim Macambira indignantly refuses.

  “I don’t want to be condemned to hell,” he growls.

  “You won’t be. It’s so that you and your sons will get back alive.”

  “My life and my sons’ are our business,” the old man thunders.

  “Do as you please,” Abbot João says resignedly. “May the Father be with you, then.”

  “Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor,” the old man says in farewell.

  As they are entering no-man’s-land, the moon comes out. Big João swears under his breath and he hears his men muttering. It is an enormous round yellow moon whose pale light drives away the shadows and reveals the stretch of bare ground, without vegetation, that disappears from sight in the pitch-blackness of A Favela above. Pajeú accompanies them to the foot of the slope. Big João cannot help mulling over the same thought as before: how could he have slept when everyone else was still awake? He takes a sidelong glance at Pajeú’s face. How many days has he gone without sleep now—three, four? He has harassed the dogs all the way from Monte Santo, he has sniped at them at Angico and at As Umburanas, has gone back to Canudos to harry them from there, which he has been doing for two days now, and here he is, still fresh, calm, distant, guiding him and the others along with the two “youngsters” who will take his place to guide them up on the slope. “He wouldn’t have fallen asleep,” Big João thinks. “The Devil made me fall asleep,” he thinks. He gives a start; despite the many years that have gone by and the peace the Counselor has brought him, every so often he is tormented by the suspicion that the Demon that entered his body on that long-ago afternoon when he killed Adelinha de Gumúcio is still lurking in the dark shadows of his soul, waiting for the right moment to damn him again.