Now the odds were even. The foreman wielded his club as skillfully as Firmo practiced his capoeira. In vain the mulatto tried to strike him. Jerônimo, gripping the club by its middle in his right hand, twirled it so swiftly around his body that he seemed protected by an impenetrable whirring shield. No one could see his weapon; they just heard its hum, slicing the air in all directions.
And he attacked as he defended himself. The Brazilian had already been clubbed on the head, the neck, the arms, the chest, the back, and the legs. He was covered with blood. He roared and gasped for breath, angry and exhausted, attacking now with his feet and now with his head, ducking blows with leaps and dodges.
It seemed that victory would go to Jerônimo. The onlookers shouted their approval, but suddenly Firmo crouched down, moved in close to his opponent, and then quickly stood up, slitting Jerônimo’s belly with his knife.
Jerônimo groaned and collapsed, clutching his gut.
“He killed him! He killed him!” everyone shouted.
The whistles blew louder.
Firmo dashed for the back gate and disappeared into the vacant lot.
“Grab him! Grab him!”
“Oh, my darling husband!” Piedade wailed, kneeling beside Jerônimo’s body. Rita also ran up and flung herself to the ground, stroking his beard and hair.
“We need a doctor!” she shouted, glancing around for some charitable soul to help.
But at that moment, a tremendous banging was heard at the front gate, which groaned and shook as if about to burst asunder.
“Open up! Open up!” voices cried outside.
João Romão dashed across the courtyard, looking like a general determined to beat back a surprise attack, shouting, “Don’t let those cops in! Don’t let them in! Keep them out!”
“Keep them out!” the chorus echoed.
The whole courtyard seethed like a pot on the fire.
“Keep them out! Keep them out!”
Piedade and Rita picked up Jerônimo, who groaned in their arms, and carried him inside.
Men armed with clubs, axes, and iron pipes poured from doorways. A common determination stirred them to solidarity, as though they would be dishonored for all eternity if the police set foot in São Romão. A simple fight between two rivals was fine and good! May the best man win and keep the girl! But now it was a matter of defending their homes, their community, their loved ones and prized possessions.
“Keep them out ! Keep them out!”
Deafening roars answered the thuds on the gate, which continued unabated.
They were all terrified of policemen, who spread destruction whenever they entered a slum like São Romão. With the excuse of stamping out gambling and drunkenness, the cops burst into homes, smashing everything in sight. It was an old feud.
While the men guarded the back gate and stood with their shoulders to the front one, the women frantically piled up washtubs, tore up poles, dragged carts, mattresses, and sacks of lime and fashioned a hastily constructed barricade.
The thuds grew louder and more determined. The gate creaked, its wood splintering, and began to give way. But the barricade was ready, and everyone had taken up positions behind it. Those who had entered earlier out of curiosity found themselves trapped on the battlefield. Stakes from fences around gardens flew through the air. The redoubtable Machona hitched up her skirts, clutching an iron in her hand. Das Dores, whom no one would have taken for such a valiant warrior, scowled and seemed ready to play a leading role in their defense.
Finally the gate gave way. A gap appeared, boards fell to the ground, and the first policeman who entered was greeted with rocks and empty bottles. Other cops followed, some twenty in all. A sack of lime burst in their midst, sowing confusion among them.
Then the brawl really got under way. The policemen’s sabers couldn’t reach their adversaries, who showered them with projectiles of every description. The sergeant already had two gashes in his head, and two of his men had retreated outside, gasping for breath.
It was absurd to invade São Romão with so few troops, but the policemen persisted, not so much out of obligation as out of a personal desire for vengeance. They felt humiliated by the resistence. Had they possessed guns, they would have fired them. The only one who managed to climb over the barricade was immediately clubbed, rolled back down again, and had to be carried outside by his comrades. Bruno, covered with blood, clutched a rifle, and Porfiro had donned a policeman’s cap.
“Get those bastards out of here!”
“Get them out!”
And with each exclamation, a stick, a stone, a sack of lime, or a bottle flew through the air.
The whistles blew more stridently.
At that moment Nenen ran up, shouting, “Come here! Come here! There’s a fire in number twelve! Smoke’s coming out!”
“Fire!”
Panic swept through the crowd. A fire would finish off those hundred little houses in less time than it took the devil to bat an eyelash.
A dreadful stampede ensued. Everyone thought only of saving his own possessions. The police, taking advantage of their enemies’ confusion, pressed forward, opening breaches and finally entering the courtyard, where they lay about them with their sabers. People trampled each other, shouting and trying to escape. Some were afraid of landing in jail; others sought to protect their homes. But the police, vexed to fury and thirsting for revenge, broke down the doors and smashed everything in their path.
A mighty clap of thunder was suddenly heard. The north wind blew more fiercely, and sheets of rain began to fall.
XI
The sight of Marciana’s derangement had made Bruxa even crazier—so much so that she had tried to burn down São Romão.
While her neighbors were defending their homes tooth and nail, she had quietly piled up straw and kindling outside number twelve and set fire to it. Fortunately, the blaze was put out in time, but its consequences were as disastrous as if it had burned unabated, for although the houses were saved from the flames, they were devastated by the police. Some were completely destroyed. And things would have turned out worse had that providential downpour not also doused the policemen’s ardor. They retreated without a single prisoner: “If we take one, they’ll all follow us to the station. God preserve us!” Besides, what for? They had already accomplished their mission!
Despite all João Romão’s inquiries, no one could tell him who the arsonist had been, and only hours later did they finally go to sleep, taking stock of what they had salvaged from the onslaught. The sky cleared again at midnight. Many people were already up and about at daybreak, and João carefully inspected the courtyard, gloomily estimating his losses. From time to time he cursed. Apart from what the police had wrecked inside the houses, there were piles of smashed washtubs, broken poles, shattered lanterns, trampled vegetable patches. The front gate and the sign were nothing but splinters. To pay for the damage, he considered levying a tax on his tenants, raising their rents and the price of the food they bought at his store. He spent the whole day in a flurry of activity. He sent someone to buy new washtubs and to order new poles and fences. He put his own employees to work making a new gate and sign.
At midday he had to appear at police headquarters. He went just as he was, without a tie or jacket. Many of his tenants accompanied him, some out of comradeship and others out of curiosity.
The trip downtown turned into a regular party. It looked like a procession, a pilgrimage. Some of the women carried babies in their arms. A crowd of Italians marched in front, chattering away in a mixture of their own language and Portuguese, smoking pipes and in some cases singing. No one took a trolley, and throughout the trip they poked fun at everything they saw, roaring with laughter and arguing with each other while passers by stopped to stare at the mob of ragged ruffians.
The crowd filled the police station.
Although the questions were put to João Romão, everyone answered at once despite the interrogator’s useless threats and protests.
Nothing was cleared up, and everyone complained about the police, exaggerating the damage done the night before.
In regard to how the fight had started and ended, João claimed not to know anything, since he had been away at the time. What he did know for sure was that the police had battered their way into his property, ravaging everything he had worked and slaved to construct.
“Of course!” the policeman bellowed. “It wasn’t because anyone tried to resist!”
A chorus of angry replies rang out, justifying their resistance. They were sick of how the cops acted when nobody stood up to them! They wrecked everything they could lay their hands on, just for the fun of it! Couldn’t people enjoy themselves with their friends without being bothered? What the hell! It was the cops who were always trying to start a fight! If they minded their own business, there wouldn’t be any trouble! As usual, their sense of solidarity kept them silent about the fight. No one wanted to inform on Firmo, and the policeman, after questioning several others, dismissed them. They returned to São Romão even more boisterously than they had come.
Back home they could stab each other as much as they liked, for no one—and still less the victim—would dream of fingering the culprit. After the police had departed, a doctor came down from Miranda’s house and treated Jerônimo, who refused to say a word about the motive for the stabbing. “It’s nothing! He didn’t do it on purpose! We were just kidding around! No one meant to hurt anybody!”
Rita was as solicitous as she could be toward the wounded man. She was the one who hurried to purchase medicines, who helped the doctor and nursed Jerônimo. Many people looked in for a moment, but from the second the doctor left after stitching up Jerônimo’s wound, she stayed by his side, while Piedade, miserable and confused, did nothing but weep.
The mulatta didn’t cry, but her expression was one of tender sorrow. She felt irresistably drawn to that good and strong man, that gentle giant, that sweet-natured Hercules who could have slain Firmo with one blow but who, in his innocence, had allowed the thug to stab him. And all for her sake! Her heart surrendered to his bloody and poignant devotion. And he, poor devil, amid his grimaces of pain, broke into a smile at the sight of her enamored gaze, happy that his misfortune had won her love. He clasped her hands, her waist, wordlessly announcing, in his silent pain like that of a wounded animal, that he loved her desperately.
Rita caressed him, addressing him as “tu” and stroking his blood-caked hair right in front of his wife. The only thing she didn’t do was kiss his lips, though her eyes devoured him with ardent, hungry kisses.
After midnight, she and Piedade watched over him alone. They decided to take him in the morning to Saint Anthony’s Fraternal Order, to which he belonged. And the next day, while João Romão and his followers were arguing with the police and those left behind chatted about fixing washtubs and clotheslines, Jerônimo sat in a cart between his wife and Rita, on his way to the hospital.
The two women didn’t return until that evening, dropping with exhaustion. Their neighbors were just as tired, even though most of the washerwomen had taken the day off. Those whose customers were in a hurry washed their clothes elsewhere or filled the metal tubs they used for bathing, since they had nothing else. Their battle the previous day was the sole topic of conversation. Some recalled their valiant deeds and enthusiastically described every detail of the fray; others repeated the insults they had bravely shouted at the authorities. Later, complaints were exchanged. Everyone, man or woman, had received some blow or lost some possession, and, in a fever of indignation, they showed each other their bruises and damaged property.
By nine that evening, everyone was fast asleep. The tavern shut a little earlier than usual. Worn out, Bertoleza fell into bed. João Romão climbed in beside her, but he couldn’t get to sleep. He felt hot one minute and cold the next, and his head ached. Groaning, he called out to his mistress, asking for something to make him sweat. He thought he had a fever.
The Negress only rested when, many hours later and after changing his clothes, she saw him finally doze off. Shortly thereafter, at four in the morning, she rose. All her joints ached and cracked, she couldn’t stop yawning, and, grumbling to herself as she tried to wake up, she noisily cleared her throat. She woke the clerk and sent him to the market and then gargled at the kitchen spigot. She set to work lighting a fire in the one-burner portable stove to prepare coffee for the workers, striking several matches until she coached some puffs of thick smoke from the twigs.
It was getting light outside, and the slum was coming to life with its clamorous murmurings. The everyday struggle had begun again, as if without interruption. A well-slept night put everyone in a good mood.
Pombinha, however, woke this morning depressed and nervous, without the energy to get out from between the sheets. She asked her mother for coffee, drank it, and turned once more to the pillows, hiding her face.
“Don’t you feel better today, my daughter?” asked Dona Isabel, feeling her forehead. “You’re not feverish.”
“My body still feels weak—but it’s nothing. It’ll pass.”
“That’s from all the ices you had at the lady’s house. Didn’t I tell you? Now the best: thing will be a hot foot-bath.”
“No, no, for God’s sake! I’ll soon be up.”
And, indeed, at eight o’clock she rose and indolently combed her hair while standing before her modest iron washstand. One would say she lacked strength for the minimum effort; her whole self exuded the contemplative melancholy of a convalescent; there was a sweetly pained expression in the crystalline limpidity of her eyes, eyes of an ailing young woman. A sad pale smile half-opened the petals of her mouth, without brightening her lips which seemed dried up for lack of loving kisses; just so, a delicate plant will wilt, languish, and die unless over it a tender butterfly flutters its wings weighted with potent golden pollen.
An excursion to Léonie’s did her much harm. She brought back with her an impression of intimate vexations that were never erased for the rest of her life.
The cocotte received her with open arms, radiant at finding her at her side on those soft and traitorous couches surrounded by all that extravagant and tasteful luxury suited to expensive vices. She told the maid to let no one in—not one, not even Bebê—and sat down next to the girl, squeezing her hand, asking question after question, and requesting kisses that made her sigh with pleasure, shutting her eyes.
Dona Isabel also sighed, but for other reasons. With her limited sense of good taste and comfort, those gaudy mirrors, that gilded furniture, and those loud curtains awakened painful memories of happier times and sharpened her impatience for a better future.
Ah, if only God would help her too!
At two in the afternoon, Léonie offered her visitors, with her own hands, a platter of foie gras, ham, and cheese, accompanied by champagne, ice, and seltzer. She was as solicitous toward the girl as if the two had been lovers, raising the food to her mouth, drinking from her glass, and squeezing her hand beneath the table.
After these refreshments, Dona Isabel, who was unused to drinking wine, felt like resting for a while. Léonie showed her into an elegant chamber equipped with an excellent bed and, as soon as she saw the old woman sleeping, she quietly closed the door.
Fine! Now they were completely alone!
“Come here, my sweet!” she said, pulling Pombinha onto a divan. “You know, I love you more and more—I’m crazy about you!”
And she devoured her with impetuous kisses that smothered the girl, filling her with alarm and instinctive terror whose origin, in her naiveté, she could not understand.
“Why don’t we rest for a while too,” Léonie suggested, drawing her toward a bed. Having little choice, Pombinha sat down on the edge of the bed. Perplexed, longing to escape but too shy to object, she tried to return to their previous topic of conversation, when they had been seated at the table in Dona Isabel’s presence. Léonie pretended to listen, stroking the girl’s belly, thighs, and bosom
. Then, as though without realizing what she was doing, she began unbuttoning the top of her guest’s dress.
“Stop! Why are you doing that? I don’t want to get undressed!”
“But it’s so hot . . . you’ll be more comfortable . . .”
“I’m fine! I don’t want to!”
“You’re being silly. Can’t you see I’m a woman? . . . Look! I’ll go first!”
In a flash she was naked, ready to return to the attack.
The girl, feeling embarrassed, crossed her arms over her chest and blushed with shame.
“Don’t fight me!” Léonie whispered, her eyes half shut.
And despite Pombinha’s protests, pleas, and even tears, Léonie pulled her clothes off and pressed against her, kissing her all over and licking her nipples to excite her.
“Oh! Oh! Stop that!” Pombinha begged, squirming with desire and showing her fresh and virginal body to the prostitute, whose lust was quickened by the sight.
“What’s the matter? . . . We’re just playing.”
“No! No!” her victim stammered, pushing her away.
“Yes! Yes!” Léonie insisted, clasping her tightly between her arms and pressing her whole naked body against the girl’s.
Panting, Pombinha fought back, but those two large breasts, bobbing as they pressed against her adolescent chest, and the dizzying brush of that tuft of curly hair against her most sensitive spot finally aroused her, and her senses won out over her reason.
The Slum (Library of Latin America) Page 14