The Head of the Saint

by Socorro Acioli

  No one could understand why the family spent their whole holiday taking measurements of a small dark house that had all its windows bricked up and tidying and sweeping around it. The strangest part was when a car from a construction firm showed up and unloaded more than ten gallons of black paint.

  “Black? They didn’t get any other color? Must be for some kind of witchcraft,” someone said loudly.

  The couple went away for a few days. Enough time for those who were curious to go into the house and see what was going on. All the internal walls had been knocked down and everything inside painted black.

  “It must be something satanic,” said Gerusa, Francisco’s mother.

  “We won’t let anything bad happen,” said Father Zacarias, though he was fearful.

  The couple returned early the next morning, before sunrise. They arrived with a van full of chairs, a large piece of unfamiliar equipment and a big black sign, which they hung above the front door of the house.

  With the help of a stepladder, the father of the bride climbed up while his wife remained on the ground and handed him enormous white letters, one by one.

  When day broke, people flocked to the house to read what was written there. Two short words: “Cine Rex.”

  A cinema in Candeia. Nothing at all to do with witchcraft or dark rites. The room had been painted black to provide perfect viewing conditions.

  The couple set the opening for a week later. They still needed to arrange the seating, test out the projector and wait for the movies to arrive. On the day of the opening, showings would be free in order to attract a clientele, as a lot of people in the town didn’t even know what a cinema was.

  Aécio Diniz didn’t waste a minute: he talked to the couple who owned it, Ary and Thelma, and arranged a partnership whereby he would promote the Cine Rex on his radio programs in exchange for free tickets to give away to listeners.

  The cinema would show three movies over the course of a day, to audiences of small children, youths and adults. Despite some cheeky requests and anonymous letters, the couple was quick to announce that Cine Rex was a family establishment and would not be showing pornographic movies.

  On the day set for the opening, the line was enormous. The screening room was ready, but there was a serious problem: most of the movies hadn’t arrived. Ary and Thelma tried to explain to the residents that they would have to postpone the opening of Cine Rex. If they opened now, they said, they’d have to show the same movie three times in the same day.

  “So be it!” said Madeinusa, who had come for the opening. “What’s the movie called?”

  “Casablanca,” replied Thelma. It was her favorite.

  From nine in the morning, then, to eight at night, the population of Candeia was transported to Morocco. Men and women of all ages came out of the cinema weeping over the love story of Rick and Ilsa.

  Candeia became the world capital of romantic love, of marriages born of love and mad passion. Father Zacarias’s wedding schedule didn’t allow him a moment’s breath. Rich couples and poor, they all came to marry in Candeia.

  —

  Finally the new movies arrived and Cine Rex was too small for the number of people who wanted to watch them. Even with new movies on offer, the public demanded at least one showing of Casablanca every two days. Ary was in charge of the programming. He had spent his whole life waiting for the day when he could retire from his work and devote himself completely to the cinema, the second-greatest passion of his life. The first was Thelma, his wife. The two of them divided up the cinema duties well. Ary looked after the program and the ticketing. Thelma helped advise Ary on the choice of movies and took care of the snack bar: Thelma’s. Her cooking was a whole other sensation, and Candeia was introduced to an Italian dish that took the town by storm: Thelma’s lasagna.

  The only problem was that sometimes Ary got caught up chatting at the door and forgot to charge for tickets. Thelma, meanwhile, so loved the cinema that she would sneak in to watch the movies in secret and leave the lasagna burning in the oven. But these weren’t big problems, and the cinema continued to succeed.

  The new cinema was the second-biggest piece of recent news to spread across the airwaves via the velvet voice of Aécio Diniz. The radioman earned so much money from his undertakings that he bought a stake in Canindé Radio and funded the broadcast of his shows across a much larger area. That was how a journalist from the capital came to learn about the head of the saint, the miracle boy, the weddings, the cinema—the entire resurrection of the town of Candeia.

  The journalist’s name was Túlio, and he was well known for his investigative gifts and for his reports, which left no question unanswered. When he heard about the story of the head of St. Anthony he was intrigued by the one thing that everyone else had forgotten: why had the town been so neglected in the first place?

  For his first few days in Candeia, Túlio moved anonymously, as though just another curious visitor. He lodged in Dona Rosa’s house—a woman who had a remarkable memory of the place, like a library archive. He learned much from Dona Rosa, and he was soon certain that there was something very rotten in Candeia’s past. And the people needed to be told.

  By the time Father Zacarias received a little printed cordel recounting the history of Candeia, copies of it had already spread through the town. It was not yet even nine in the morning and already all the town’s inhabitants were walking around with the pamphlet in their hand.

  It was entitled “The Head of the Saint,” and it told the whole story of the place, ever since it had been a little village and later when it became a town, right up until the day it was condemned to death and later brought back to life with the arrival of Samuel, the prophet sent by St. Anthony to live inside his head.

  A woodcut image on the cover showed the saint’s head on the ground, with one of his tears becoming a river, and in the distance a man running away with bags of money.

  It was not an innocent pamphlet. Whoever was responsible for it had intended to reveal truths about the past, which up until that moment had stayed hidden. In its verses and rhymes there was a serious charge leveled against Osório, the perpetual mayor, of having stolen a lot of money from the local coffers. It described his house in the capital, his luxurious cars, the jewels belonging to his wife—who, according to the pamphlet, was well treated so that she might never suspect the secret love affairs he was having in various towns in the region.

  Soon afterward, an article with the same tenor of accusations was published in a newspaper in nearby Fortaleza. Journalists from the capital and from other states came to the small town, equipped to the back teeth with cameras to record evidence of this festival of absurdities. They tried to interview Samuel, who refused. He locked himself in the head as best he could, although he resorted to hiring security reinforcements to protect himself.

  The townspeople were revolted by what they read in the pamphlet. They demanded that the mayor appear to respond to each of these accusations. Father Zacarias sent Mayor Osório a message asking him to come to the town.

  As the spiritual guide of this ever-growing population, Father Zacarias had an obligation to confirm the facts in order to check whether they were anything but slander. But the old priest was sufficiently experienced and intuitive to know that nothing the pamphlet said was a lie. Osório had indeed bled Candeia dry.

  Reporters kept arriving in their cars. Several towns sent correspondents, because everything in that piece of writing and in that town was an absolute gift for journalists. Aécio Diniz hired a stand-in for his radio program and started to work exclusively as the town’s press officer. The more publicity, the better for his show and the radio station. He was now a partner in the saint’s-head consultations, in the retail of saints and candles, in Cine Rex and in sales of Thelma’s lasagna.

  The region’s news bulletins had never been so lively. The cameras didn’t miss a thing, going into houses and telling the dreadful stories of the bodies discovered when the recent arrivals h
ad begun to occupy the town.

  There were only two places the crews were unable to enter: the head of the saint and Niceia’s house. Aécio Diniz was waiting for an offer from a major international broadcaster to sell exclusive rights to show the inside of the head. He arranged to have the place surrounded, protected by wooden posts, chains and security guards, preventing anyone who might try to approach. He was even planning to construct a dome made of bulletproof glass.

  Niceia’s house, on the other hand, was a quite different problem. There was no one preventing anyone trying to occupy it, but all the reporters and cameramen who tried to go in would be struck down with strange and sudden ailments. Vomiting, stomach pains, headaches, dizzy spells, fainting. After a while nobody was sure whether the illnesses came from some curse or from the fear of getting close to the place. That was until a brave cameraman from a São Paulo network arrived. He had worked in the Middle East and on the Bolivian border, and nothing scared him, he said. He chose a lightweight camera, positioned it on his shoulder and armed himself with a mask over his face, a torch on his forehead and a revolver at his belt. Arriving at the gate of the house, he wiped away the sweat from his face but turned back to the crowd watching the scene to give them a thumbs-up. The cameraman leaped over the iron gate without any difficulty. He walked through the garden, filming everything, his muttered words inaudible to the crowd though the whole world would hear them on television.

  Before long he had pulled open one of the windows and climbed into the house, to the applause of the people waiting outside.

  “I’ll see what conditions are like and let you know when it’s okay to come in,” he said.

  The other journalists prepared their cameras and microphones and moved closer to the iron gate, their eyes fixed on the window. Some of them waited for the São Paulo cameraman to say the word, but others were already in the garden when they heard a cry. The cameraman leaped back over the windowsill and ran from the house, followed by a pack of more than twenty mad dogs, barking and growling, ready to tear off a piece of anyone who got close. The onlookers who had been surrounding the house began to run, terrified. They climbed onto the roofs of houses, some of them firing shots and throwing stones, but nothing they did could stop the dogs’ barking. It was a circus of monsters.

  The dogs only calmed down when everyone was some distance from the house. After this traumatic episode nobody tried to enter Niceia’s home again.

  From that day on, the brave São Paulo journalist never spoke another word. He was hurried to a hospital in Fortaleza, where he was interned until he recuperated from his nervous breakdown, the cause of which the doctors were unable to diagnose.

  Samuel heard what had happened—it was the only thing anyone was talking about—but nobody knew of his relationship to the crazy old woman.

  He thought about his arrival in the town, his wound, his conversation with Niceia. Nothing that happened to the journalists had happened to him. When he heard people talking about the mystery of Candeia’s last inhabited big house, which was impossible to enter, he decided to go back there to try to talk to his grandmother. As well as wanting to see what else was inside, he wanted to inform her that he would be leaving town, and soon.

  The world had changed a great deal for Samuel since he had arrived, barely alive, in Candeia. He no longer had the freedom to walk around where he wanted, whenever he wanted, without being followed by hordes of desperate women. If he was to go to his grandmother’s house, he needed a plan. The day after he’d made the decision to visit Niceia, he announced that the saint had asked him not to talk to anybody, not to give consultations, and also that nobody should come anywhere near the head or pray to him before six p.m. the following day. Samuel waited there in silence so he could try to listen to the Singing Voice, calmly and clearly.

  According to the made-up message from the saint, it would take a day to clean up the negative energies in the town. Anyone nearby could be harmed. Francisco spread the word among the people who were near the head, while Aécio broadcast it on his radio program. It worked. Samuel didn’t tell his friends what he was doing, he just said he needed a rest, and some peace.

  It was four a.m. when he went to his grandmother’s house. As soon as he clapped his hands by the gate, Niceia opened the inner door and appeared. Samuel noticed the broken window and tried to see whether he could make out anything inside the house, but it was impossible. The camera was still there, lying on the ground. Nobody had been brave enough to go and retrieve it.

  “Go away!” called Niceia firmly.

  “I’ve just come to talk to you, I won’t take too much of your time.”

  “I want to talk to you, too.”

  Samuel was surprised.

  “Leave Candeia. There’s danger coming.”

  “What danger?”

  “You see what’s happening in this town? You see these hordes of people, this chaos, those people from the television? It’s all because of you. It’s all your fault.”

  “It’s not! I never asked the saint to let me hear his messages, I didn’t even want to go there; it was you who sent me….”

  “It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have done what you did, and there are some people who feel such hatred—” The old lady broke off, then said more loudly: “There are some people who would kill you today if they could. You must leave. What day is it today?”

  “Sunday.”

  “Then you’ll leave on Thursday. That’ll be enough time to sort things out.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You listen clearly: on Thursday, before you leave, you’ve got to stop by here.”

  “Why?”

  “To say goodbye. I’m your grandmother, child.”

  “You’re my grandmother, but you’ve never even given me so much as a glass of water.”

  “You’re the one who ought to be giving things to me, now that you’ve gotten rich by deceiving the people of this town.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “I need nothing.”

  Samuel sighed. The conversation was as difficult as he could have imagined.

  “Between now and Thursday you be really careful, Samuel, really careful, because this is going to be a difficult week. Watch out, because…” The old woman stopped talking, then went on: “There are people coming. I’ll be expecting you on Thursday.”

  She slammed the door. Samuel hurried away and saw that there were indeed people already arriving. He walked with his head lowered so that nobody would recognize him. He ran over to the head. He wanted to make the most of the silence and say goodbye. He wanted to hear the Singing Voice, perhaps for the last time.

  There was nothing to stop him leaving Candeia that same day if he’d wanted to. He had enough money to go anywhere he pleased, even to travel by plane. No longer was he the poor, broken young man who had arrived in the town dirty, barefoot and begging for water and dry bread. He had prestige now, and money. He showered daily at Francisco’s, he wore good clothes, went to the cinema, ate lasagna and slept on a spring mattress inside St. Anthony’s head.

  He could have left the head, too, and built himself a house just next door. If he didn’t, it was because of the Singing Voice. If he hadn’t yet left Candeia, fed up with the routine of consultations, lies and noise, it was because of the Singing Voice.

  Even after everything that had happened—the miracles, the weddings—the Singing Voice had kept singing, at least twice a day, at five in the morning and five in the afternoon. On the occasions when Samuel was able to hear her, he could tell she didn’t speak Brazilian Portuguese very well. She used a mixed-up language, and Samuel didn’t know whether the mixture was just an accent or whether it was a different way of singing.

  There were four tunes, which she would vary. Sometimes she would sing the same song morning and afternoon. Sometimes she’d change. Samuel was able to hum along to each one of them, but he didn’t really understand what they meant. He would catch the occasio
nal word: “home,” “heart,” “farewell,” “sea,” “return,” “far.” The rest of the words seemed to belong to some other, strange language.

  His plan to keep people away was still working, and early that morning he pressed his ear to the crown of St. Anthony’s head and was able to hear the Singing Voice louder than ever.

  The tune unlocked something in Samuel’s chest, a drawer full of ancient dreams. There was a time when he used to dream. About the sea, for example. He dreamed about the day he’d take Mariinha to see the ocean for the first time and to find out whether it was true what they said about the water in the sea being salty.

  So he liked it when the Voice sang about the blue sea. “Vida de mar…,” it went, and he could understand that very well. He thought of the ocean, about his former desires, about the time in his childhood when his hopes were still alive.

  The Voice sang of longing, and he thought more about Mariinha—but without sadness, because not all longing is sad. He was able to imagine his mother united with her whole family of women, women who foretold their deaths matter-of-factly, as if it was just another day.

  Listening to the Singing Voice, he was able to be happy. Yet however hard he tried, he never managed to discover where it came from. The woman wasn’t praying, so she couldn’t be one of the ones who had come to his consultations. He would recognize her voice if she had, he was sure of it. It was a serious voice, hoarse and pronounced.

  Thinking about the Singing Voice without knowing her face was unbearable. But now Samuel had a date to leave. Thursday. He felt he had to obey the order he’d received from Niceia, his strange, strange grandmother. Perhaps because he missed having someone to obey. Perhaps because he sensed that Mariinha, were she alive, would have told him to do the same thing. Go away, leave this place, this whole deception.

  The Voice sang beautifully that day, at five in the morning and five in the afternoon, as she always had done. After six the crowd of women resumed their praying and it was no longer possible to hear anything clearly.