Land of Black Clay

by Jose Louzeiro

  The little girl tried to explain but could only gesture.

  “Don’t go in the bedroom, Jeruza. The boy’s trying to sleep. Tonight he’s going to go with daddy. Do you want to go with them?”

  Jeruza shook her head affirmatively. Her father grabbed her by the arms and kissed her. Janaína jogged back to the shack, clutching the shirt.

  Janaína had already lit the kerosene lamp when I woke up. She was darning some clothing. I was sweaty and a bit agitated.

  “What’s the problem, Mr. Jorge?”

  “I had a bad dream. Did I scare you?”

  “No, I was just worrying a bit anyway. Luís went off to get the cart from Mr. Tadeu. It’s safer to travel that way.”

  “What a lot of work I’m putting both of you to.”

  “It’s nothing at all.”

  As we spoke I put on my shirt and used my hands to comb my hair. I was ready to go. I came out into the living area where Janaína continued working with needle and thread.

  “When do you plan to baptize Jeruza?”

  “On my mother’s birthday, July 14. If she were alive, she’d be fifty-two.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “They say it was intestinal. But I don’t believe it.”

  “Did they take her to a doctor?”

  “There isn’t one out this way, only poverty and misery. Nobody worries about the poor even when they’re able-bodied and working, much less when they get sick. Some time back Luís had some kind of stomach ache. No matter what he tried to eat, he’d stay ill.”

  “What was it?”

  “Tell the truth, I don’t know. We were told to get an old man named Asbal. They say he’s a prophet.”

  “I’ve heard about him.”

  “Old Asbal showed up one day when Luís was in really bad shape. He was afraid to eat, because his stomach would hurt so bad he’d get a headache. Mr. Asbal told Luís to drink milk. Then after a week, chamomile tea. No sweet cassava, sweet potatoes, or coffee. I made some bread for him out of flour. That’s when we made the brick oven. It makes a loaf you wouldn’t believe.”

  “And what was the illness? Did Asbal say?”

  “Some complicated word.”

  “Gastritis?”

  “That’s it. How’d you know? Are you a doctor?”

  “No, I’m not. But lots of people in my line of work get gastritis.”

  “What profession are you in that’s so dangerous?”

  “I’m a journalist, Janaína. A reporter. I came to Sapé to cover a story.”

  “Do you still have stomach trouble?”

  “No, I’ve managed not to catch journalists’ disease. I fend it off as much as I can by taking care of myself. I smoke, but not too much; I don’t drink much coffee.”

  Janaína laughed a pretty woman’s laugh as she tried to thread her needle.

  “We’ll be hoping you’ll be there for Jeruza’s baptism.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t forget.”

  The clatter of hooves and the creaking of a cart’s springs interrupted the conversation. Luís jumped out, carrying Jeruza, who was excited about the trip she’d just had. I looked out the window at the wagon, which was illuminated by the yellow light of an oil lamp hanging from a wire.

  “This changes everything,” said Luís excitedly. “A cart’s better than a bicycle.”

  “Do you need to go to the city anyway, or are you just doing this to keep me company?”

  “I’ll sell some cassava and sweet potatoes we’ve got inside. About fifty kilos’ worth.”

  “Great, let’s go. What about Janaína?”

  “Don’t worry—I can take care of myself.”

  I walked up to the horse, which was eating a bag full of corn. For a while I stood there studying the animal. It was strong and had a lustrous coat. Meanwhile the couple spoke in low voices. Luís and Janaína evidently loved each other but didn’t put their affection on public display. When the husband said goodbye, Janaína limited herself to telling him not to stop at small country stores on the way.

  “Since when have I been wandering from store to store down the road?”

  “I’m trying to think of your well-being.”

  “Don’t worry, Janaína. We’ll keep moving and keep our eyes open for any surprises. I don’t want to fall into another trap.”

  “When I come back I’ll bring you a present,” said Luís.

  “With what money?”

  “I’ll get a good price for the cassava and potatoes.”

  Janaína stood in the kitchen doorway, Jeruza nearby, as Luís put the sack of sweet potatoes and sweet cassava on the cart, took his seat and seized the reins. I embraced Jeruza and shook Janaína’s hand. She looked at me in a way she hadn’t before, showing a degree of emotion. I sat down at Luís’s side. Inside the shack the illumination was precarious compared to the bright flame of the lantern that we would take with us. The horse got moving; in a moment we were on the road. Besides the cassava and potatoes, Luís had brought his large, well-honed machete. I didn’t have any weapon; at my friend’s suggestion, I had put on an old canvas hat and drawn up my collar. The night was clear and cold. A strong wind blew from the east, but Luís knew it didn’t portend rain.

  “It’s just a windstorm. Tomorrow it’ll get hotter. ’Round this time of year, it don’t rain, no matter how much you pray.”

  Chapter 9

  Early the next morning we arrived at the farmers’ market in Market Square. A number of vendors were putting up stalls; others were carrying around sacks of potatoes and onions or prying open crates of dried fish. Luís didn’t seem to be tired, but I had been overwhelmed with the urge to sleep. Fortunately, we had had no problems whatever. We had encountered a disabled truck on the shoulder, its complement of workers sitting waiting by the side of the road for the driver, who had gone to a nearby plantation for help. Luís had offered his. I didn’t remember anything after that.

  In Magnólia’s little store we sat around a wood-topped table and drank coffee. Luís told me not to worry about money.

  “After I sell the cassava and sweet potatoes, I can lend you some,” he said.

  Magnólia asked after Janaína and the girl and told of the difficulty of working without the help of Leandro, her husband, whom the gangsters had killed the year before.

  “And Mr. Tomé?”

  “He never turns his back on the market. Eighty years old, but every Sabbath day he’s the first to arrive.”

  “I have cassava and a few sweet potatoes to offer him.”

  “Why don’t you offer them to me, for Christ’s sake?”

  Luís showed his pleasure. He hadn’t expected to sell his merchandise so easily. We continued drinking coffee.

  “And the boy here, is he from out your way?”

  “I went to visit some friends,” I said. “I’m from Recife.”

  “Recife. Whadda lovely city!”

  When the shopkeeper left, I explained:

  “I don’t want them to know I’m from Rio.”

  Luís understood. He stopped drinking coffee and went back to the cart, returning with a burlap sack.

  “What’s it worth?”

  The woman took a quick look and then placed the sack on a scale. The tarnished copper pointer signaled slightly more than one hundred fifteen pounds.

  “One hundred sixteen, compadre.”

  “It’s yours. How much is it worth to you?”

  “Seventy-five thousand. The same I pay the guys in the public market here.”

  “Done, Dona Magnólia.”

  “And a bonus,” added the cheerful woman: “the coffee and cake are on the house.”

  Luís put the money in his pocket and we returned to the cart.

  At the intersection of Presidente Vargas Avenue, we came across a poster: “BY ORDER OF THE MAYOR: NO COMMUNIST RALLY.”

  “What a provocation!”

  “They can say whatever they want,” responded Luís. “It’s a wonder they haven’t d
one away with Judge Fernandes.”

  “Does it mean there won’t be a rally?”

  In front of the judge’s residence, there were some cars and a scattering of people standing around, unusual activity for seven o’clock in the morning. The house’s windows were open and the lights were on although it was daytime. Luís parked the cart and pulled the horse’s harness, leaving it tied up in a way that allowed it to eat the tufts of grass protruding from the cracks between the cobblestones. We crossed the street and went up the stairs, then down the corridor, where we saw people I didn’t know, some of them grim-faced, the women agitated.

  “What happened?” I asked an old man who was smoking a pipe next to a window.

  “A gangster shot the judge.”

  “And?”

  “He’s in his bedroom. Dr. Jansen’s looking after him.”

  I hastened down the corridor, Luís following, and pushed open the door to the darkened room. Dr. Jansen looked like he hadn’t slept all night. The judge was hooked up to an intravenous drip.

  “Where have you been?” asked Dr. Jansen.

  “It’s a long story. This here’s Luís; he helped rescue me. And the judge, what happened to him?”

  “Colonel Barros managed to have the rally postponed. But, not satisfied with that, he slipped a half-dozen gangsters into the courtroom.”

  “How?”

  “As the trial was beginning, one of the thugs—according to what they say, a man named Vinte e Cinco—took advantage of the uproar, shot the judge and fled.”

  “And the judge?” I asked, approaching the bed, where Judge Fernandes lay, eyes closed, bandages covering his chest and right shoulder.

  “He took three hits. Two in the chest, which exited; one in the shoulder, which I haven’t been able to remove. He’s sleeping because of the morphine.”

  “What are the chances . . . ?”

  “One in ten,” replied the doctor matter-of-factly. “If the internal bleeding will stop, he’ll escape.”

  “And his family?”

  “His brother Emiliano showed up, but thought it would be better not to tell his wife.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You could write in your paper that in Sapé we’re undergoing periods of complete lawlessness. The city’s in the hands of the gangsters, who obey the orders of Colonel Barros.”

  The judge stirred, and Dr. Jansen approached the bed. Luís and I decided to leave. I passed by the kitchen, where Jandira was crying.

  “He spent a lot of time looking for you. He was worried.”

  “Me too, Jandira. Now take it easy; the judge is going to get well.”

  I went out a back door and to a closet in the adjoining house where my personal effects were. My typewriter lay on a side table, along with some pieces of paper and a small box with pens and pencils, exactly as I’d left them.

  “Listen, Luís. Things are pretty complicated around here.”

  “The nerve of that Colonel Barros!”

  “He’s used to the complicity of the military. He thinks he’s untouchable, as they say.”

  I found my money-filled wallet among some clothes and books that were lying around.

  “Shall we get a bicycle?”

  “What bicycle?” asked Luís wide-eyed.

  “A souvenir I’d like to give you.”

  “Let’s think about it a bit first,” suggested Luís. “After all, as I explained back at our house, that Vinte e Cinco’s no joke. He wants to be top dog, and that’s what he’s becoming. So instead of a bicycle, I think I’d rather have a gun. If Vinte e Cinco stays around here, he’ll just continue on the same course. No matter who—men, women, or children—for him if they’re alive it’s because they want to die.”

  “Where can we buy a decent gun?”

  “I know someone over in Oitozeiro. He knows these things. He was a police armorer for a time.”

  Jandira reappeared, half-hysterical, crying and laughing simultaneously.

  “The judge woke up. He’s calling you.”

  I ran over to the other house and into the half-lit bedroom. Dr. Jansen seemed excited.

  “He wants to tell you something.”

  I drew near to hear the judge’s soft-spoken, almost inaudible words. I couldn’t understand him. He repeated himself.

  “Everything’s fine. When I get better, I’ll give you the whole story. You’ll enjoy hearing it.”

  “He mustn’t exert himself,” Dr. Jansen said.

  I drew back. As I was leaving, I noticed Dr. Jansen seemed concerned.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “His blood pressure’s low. It may be the effect of the drugs; he’s been getting high doses of them.”

  I went back to Luís, who had been waiting, and showed him my own borrowed gun.

  “What a beauty!”

  “It’s a nine-millimeter Heckler, German-made. The judge lent it to me.”

  “With one of these I’d like to see the stuff Vinte e Cinco’s made of.”

  “We’ll find you one just as good.”

  Luís tied up his horse in the yard, bringing it through the large, partly cemented front entrance. We crossed the square and got a taxi.

  “Are you coming from Judge Fernandes’s house?” asked the driver. “How is he?”

  “Getting better,” said Luís. “He’ll be fine in a week.”

  The driver, sweaty-faced and somewhat overweight, laughed. “He’s a tough old bird!”

  “When he returns to his trial, he’s going to give the police a deadline for finding that Vinte e Cinco.”

  The driver became serious.

  “Is there anyone who can deal with that thug?”

  “You bet. Big-mouths like that all have a bullet with their name on it.”

  I listened to Luís vent his emotions. The subject of Vinte e Cinco tended to loosen his tongue. The car bounced over potholed roads, lined with women and children lounging in front of their small cottages.

  “Over there at that gas station.”

  We walked down a street that lacked a sidewalk but featured lots of greenery in the yards: mango trees and flowering acacias leaned over fences and walls.

  “I didn’t want to cause problems by having the taxi take us to the gun-seller,” said Luís.

  The sales room was camouflaged. In front, two boys worked in a team, while a third blew a primitive bellows on a glowing piece of iron in a brazier. Luís spoke with one of them whom he knew, and we went down a narrow corridor into a large skylit room whose walls were lined with display cases full of guns. There was a small glass-topped case that had some pistols and revolvers on display. The dim light showed a scar on the forehead of the proprietor, an overweight fifty-year-old man.

  “Mr. Adão, this is a friend.”

  Adão greeted me but did not shake my hand.

  “Do you still have that 7.65?”

  “The same one, no. But others.”

  He opened the sliding door of the display case and pulled out a velvet-lined metal box that contained a gun. Luís’s eyes lit up as he showed it to him.

  “A shot from this will go through a wall.”

  Luís put his finger on the trigger and aimed.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “It’s cheap. I bought it for three hundred thousand, with a flaw in the interior of the barrel and the sight, and fixed them up well. With the box it’s three hundred eighty, a real steal.”

  “That’s too much, for Christ’s sake!” exclaimed Luís.

  “I’ve got a real nice long-barreled .38. You won’t be at anyone’s mercy as long as you’ve got this.”

  Adão pulled the gun out of a package containing oil-stained rags.

  “What’s the advantage of the first one?”

  “It’s a precision-made pistol, so it’s easier to use. With this .38 you’ve got to have a strong wrist and know how to handle a gun.”

  “For three-twenty we’ll take the first pistol,” I told the gun-merchant.

/>   “What kind of offer is that, kid?”

  Luís picked up the first pistol, which he evidently preferred.

  “What about the ammo?”

  “Fifty thousand a box.”

  I smiled, but the dealer remained stern-faced. Still, we clinched the deal. I gave him the cash as the sounds of hammering on iron drifted back toward us. When we’d left the store, Luís couldn’t thank me enough.

  “You’ve done a lot for me, so don’t be silly. The one think I’d like to ask you is not to act hastily.”

  “The good part about buying a gun from Mr. Adão is that he provides good service. If anything’s wrong, you just have to bring it back.”

  “Yes, but he drives a hard bargain.”

  “He never gives discounts.”

  “Where does he get so many guns from?”

  “It’s contraband. Cops from Fortaleza and Alagoas sell to him. He’s been in the business a long time.”

  “And Janaína, what would she think of this?”

  “She won’t know. But next time you visit, for Jeruza’s baptism, you’ll notice a difference in her.”

  “How so?”

  “She won’t have any more reason to remain ashamed.”

  “You scare me!”

  “Vinte e Cinco is not human, Mr. Jorge. Every day he does some awful new thing. Before Janaína, he tortured some girls nearby. He stirs up the same trouble in Santa Rita and Alagoa Grande. The guy is notorious. Last year he beat a doctor here in Sapé, made a union president skip town, and now he’s shot Judge Fernandes. What kind of person is that?”

  We went into the judge’s house through the front. The hubbub had died down. Jandira appeared.

  “He’s getting better.”

  “Let’s hope he makes it. It’d be too bad if he never found out Vinte e Cinco’s fate,” said Luís humorlessly as he sat in an old armchair.

  “Why not stay around awhile?”

  “I have to buy a dress for Janaína.”

  “Good you remembered. Except it’s on my tab. I insist.”

  I stuck the money in Luís’s pocket and would not let him refuse it. I looked at him; his humble, somewhat fragile demeanor had returned.

  “We’ll be waiting for your return.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Luís led the horse by its halter; I helped him adjust the harness. In a few moments he had the reins in his hands. He kept to the side of the road as a car passed, maintaining his reserved and tranquil demeanor. He waved from afar and I waved back. When I returned to the house, I ran into Dr. Jansen.