Land of Black Clay

by Jose Louzeiro

  Alice understood that her job would be much more difficult. She had thought about these things before, but this was the time to concentrate on them. Why Sapé? she thought. It seemed to her to be a thing of chance—of destiny, as they say. Why was she impelled to meet Jorge Elias in the hotel in João Pessoa, and why did she happen to link up with him in the bus terminal in Campina Grande? Why was she there at that moment, reliving the past? She was proud of the father she’d had, but it did no good to live by his memory. Elindo José de Albuquerque was dead. To insist on finding him and anointing him a martyr would be to interfere with her desire for revenge. But there was another possibility: to accept as a fait accompli that the military regime had ruined her family. Would it not be cowardice to do so? No. She could consider it the end of a chapter. She would reflect back the military’s violence and arbitrariness with the love that the military did not have, the love that the powerful did not know. Her father had spoken of the humiliation of those who live by arduous work. He used to write late into the night, composing his book, a reflection on the peasants who had formed a union in the city of Palmares. She liked to hear him tell about it and about a man named Gregório Bezerra who had done so much for the workers of that municipality and who so ardently defended the process of educating the majority. “If we are aware of what we want, the pain hurts less.” Her father continually would remind her of Bezerra’s lessons, would read his book to her for her to hear them. She slept with his words still sounding in her ears.

  Alice fell asleep dreaming of her father and of the book in progress. Seated around the table in late morning, he would edit the sentences that filled page after page, as Alice watched with admiration. Who else would trouble himself with the problems of fishermen who no longer knew their trade? Who else would give work to the peasant who had decided to unionize, and worry about the children who carried cane bundles so heavy they caused bone deformities and others who lived in the mud like crayfish, subsisting on shellfish?

  How much had Alice’s father worried? Here was a man who refused to conform, working with letters and turning them into words and sentences to protest so much injustice. In her dream, she saw men going into their house, one of them tipping over original plates, pages being thrown onto the floor, her father angered, indignant, the police armed, there to ensure his humiliation. Tears flowed; uncle Dilermando was drying her face. Alice woke up; her book had fallen on the floor.

  “When did you arrive?” he asked.

  “Early tonight. I didn’t think you were in Sapé.”

  “I’m not planning to travel any more right now.”

  “What happened to Janete?”

  “One of Colonel Barros’s men tried to do her in.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? Janete was mixed up with them.”

  “And you? How’s the search going?”

  “Elindo was turned into a cabrocó at the São João sugarmill. He’s disappeared.”

  “What the heck is that, uncle?”

  “He was parboiled in a vat of hot water.”

  “Oh, my God!” said Alice, stunned by the news. “What now?”

  “As long as my health’s good, I’m in no hurry. Those who crippled Elindo and Janete are gonna pay.”

  Dilermando took off his heavy jacket, revealing his muscular arms. He leaned on the head of the table.

  “Would you like to eat?”

  “No. I’m happy just to see you. We’re all together once again. Almost all of us . . . .”

  “Grandma’s still worried about Heleninha.”

  “Me too. As soon as I get some money, y’all are getting out of Sapé. I’ll stay a little while longer.”

  “Know what I’m thinking, uncle? Let’s not look for revenge. Each one of us starts to take care of his or her own life. That’s the best way to honor father’s memory.”

  Dilermando stared at his niece with a pained expression.

  “That’s fine for you to do. You’re young. Me, no. I’m fifty years old. My job is to pay them back for what they did to my brother.”

  “I feel responsible for your determination, uncle.”

  “Don’t martyr yourself. Elindo deserves what is being done for him. Me, I gave him a lot of work. Remember the times I’d end up in street brawls? He’d go to the police stations in Olinda and Recife trying to get me out of the hands of the cops. He had an angelic side, just like I’ve got a diabolical one.”

  Alice looked at her uncle, whose face had been transformed by sadness. She touched his tousled, dirty hair and noticed the rank odor of clothes he hadn’t changed for days, his grizzled beard, narrowed eyes and lips drawn tight.

  “I like you so much, uncle. What you’re saying makes me more afraid.”

  “Don’t worry about it. God gave me a resistant hide. I’m a type of alligator, you see: nasty stares don’t faze me; bullets can’t penetrate.”

  So saying, Dilermando put up his hammock and stretched out, his long legs hanging out. Alice decided to sleep in the easy chair. She stuck a pillow under her head but left the light on. Her uncle rocked back and forth lightly, causing the hooks on which the hammock loops were hung to creak.

  “And Pedro and Rubens, huh, Alice?”

  The question caught her as she was falling asleep. She wanted to respond but wasn’t able to. She didn’t know if her uncle wanted to talk or if he was drifting off into a dream. Dilermando turned out the light and gave his hammock another push to keep it rocking. Outside, the dog barked. Dilermando thought about many problems: Elindo, Janete, Heleninha, Grandma Quitéria, and Alice. On the other hand, he suspected that his fellow citizens knew of his activities. At least the local pharmacist, Chief Cordeiro, and Alcides the taxi-driver. What if he got rid of those jerks? As long as he could remain in the shadows, he’d survive. Poor Alice to consider him so strong. In truth he was hardly a fisherman anymore, so far from the ocean, lost in those parts, wanting to do justice with his own hands. But the years of hope and suffering had been many. It wouldn’t do to turn back. I’ll go ahead, Alice, he thought, though to succeed I have to turn my weaknesses into strengths. Janete will get out of the hospital and I’ll be in a position to punish some of her enemies. I don’t trust Jesuíno, nor Agripino, and much less Colonel Barros, whom I’ve never met. I hate Chief Cordeiro, and I’m nauseated by that turncoat taxi-driver who goes out to Alvorada Plantation to rat on people like Father Juliano and Judge Fernandes, to say that this or that peasant has joined the Sapé Rural Workers’ Union. That trash needs to be disposed of, Alice. It does no good to act like brother Elindo wanted. What happened to him? What have they done with all of his writings? All lost. And the suffering it’s brought to the other members of the family? Dona Corina and my father died of worry, Pedro and Rubens are scattered to a far corner of the planet, Cristina moved far away and doesn’t write, and Clóvis died so young. We survived, Alice. Old Quitéria, I who was a rabble-rouser, Heleninha who is an angel. After so much turmoil, how to return to a life of fishing? How to go down to the sea without letting one be swept away by treacherous currents? Thinking about it clearly, Alice, we’re finished. What’s left to be done is for you to learn this and hit the road. It’s time for you to quit. Find a boyfriend, get married to him, raise a family, and live happily ever after. One doesn’t put rotting fruit in the same basket as good. What I need to do is submerge myself in the world, never to reappear. Why bring more anguish to Grandma Quitéria? I always get home late, rock myself to sleep in this hammock, and leave before sunup. I don’t want to be seen. Quitéria’s eyes burn into me like flames. Heleninha must have to wash her hands every time she touches me. I’m an exotic species of leper, Dilermando reflected ironically: my wounds are invisible except to those of my ilk. Jesuíno, Zé Anta, Bezouro, Vinte e Cinco: they can see my lesions. Before them I am an open map. When a man gets to this point, what originally motivated him is no longer relevant. Noble motives—but then? I’ll become a criminal. To avenge my brother, I took the path of the delinque
nt. After so much twisting and turning, I’m no longer sure who is the hunter and who the hunted. To live and to die are cast in the same mold; they’re the same thing. When one kills his first human, he partakes of the victim’s blood and is contaminated. There is no place sufficiently remote for a criminal. The sun’s rays fall on us like iron bars. I wander in society’s midst but am a prisoner, tied up. Being strong, the burden is, for me, a little lighter. But I’m tongue-tied. I have nothing left to say, nor even to hear.

  Chapter 13

  From late Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, Azulão stayed outside the hospital where Janete was confined. No car came or went without his noticing the occupants. One certainty dominated him: Galho Dentro would try to finish the work he’d started. The question was whether he’d do it right there or only after the girl had been sent home. This uncertainty hastened his decision.

  He wandered up and down the deserted cobblestone street under a hot sun. The stalls in the market square were sold out; flies buzzed around the remnants of the day’s fish sales. Under oilcloth covers, vendors slept, sweating. Azulão went down Tiradentes Lane, an alley of colorfully whitewashed houses with uneven walls. Glancing at the numbers, he stopped in front of number seventeen: a pink-whitewashed house with green window frames and a red door. He lingered a while, making sure he was not being observed, and then quickly climbed a concrete post attached to the house’s eaves, reached the roof, and knelt. There was no sound that might cause concern. Hands and knees on the tiles, Azulão moved forward, forcing an outer door and then the interior window above the dishwashing rack. With great effort he was able to squeeze through, an arm scratching on a prong of the rack. The shadowy interior was pierced by shafts of sunlight that shone through gaps in the roof tiles. He found the bedroom. Janete had not been wrong. Galho Dentro was sleeping, a bottle of cane liquor by his side, fish knife and .38 gleaming on the bedside table. He noticed an icon of St. George and the dragon above the headboard.

  He pulled out his thin nylon belt, wrapped the ends in his hands, and tied a knot. Putting one foot on top of the bed, he slipped the knot over Galho Dentro’s arms in one quick movement and gripped him around the neck. He awoke with a start, eyes bulging and face turning red. The bed frame broke as Azulão continued to cling to him, domesticating him as if he were a wild horse. Presently he began to lose his strength, and passed out. Azulão went to the kitchen, filled a can with water, and threw it on Galho Dentro, who shook his head, opening red, frightened eyes.

  “You’re gonna tell me one thing, pal: why’d you mess with Janete?”

  “I do what I feel like. Untie my arms, asshole!”

  Azulão hit him. “Speak while you can,” he said, breaking a leg off a chair. “Why’d you work over Janete?”

  “I’ll tell you if we can make a deal.”

  “Answer my questions.”

  “You maniac!”

  Azulão broke the chair leg over Galho Dentro’s shoulder. The man shuddered and tried to yell, but Azulão put a hand over his mouth.

  “Why Janete?”

  “I always had the hots for her. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me. She’d go out with anyone except me. She won’t be good for anyone else now, either.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  Galho Dentro lowered his eyes as Azulão broke off a second chair leg.

  “I stuck a beer bottle inside her.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She was getting to like that reporter.”

  Azulão tore off a swatch of cloth from the bedspread and gagged Galho Dentro. Tightening the knot, he began to beat him. Galho Dentro struggled, trying to flee but unable as the blows fell, unable to make the slightest sound. As Azulão dragged him by the ears his eyes stared wildly from his face covered with a mixture of sweat and blood that also flowed onto his chest and back. Azulão took out the gag and pulled cords out of a nearby hammock, tying them together.

  “No! Not that! . . .”

  Hearing a sound from outside, Azulão moved quickly and deftly to the window, which he opened cautiously. The afternoon continued calm; the alley was deserted. He threw the cord over a beam, dragged up the gangster and bound his feet. Then he pulled the cord strongly.

  Slowly, as the wood creaked, Galho Dentro rose to the ceiling, his eyes still filled with terror. He knew that he was living his final moments yet could not react to the fury of that deranged man, of whose loyalty nobody on the plantation had ever been confident. But now all those were vague recollections; his mind was becoming as confused as his position was uncomfortable.

  Azulão returned from the kitchen with a wood-handled paring knife and began to carve Galho Dentro’s chest and belly with it. The gangster struggled against the cords and emitted slow, stifled groans. Azulão went to a corner and knelt, waiting. He wanted to make sure Janete’s persecutor had indeed gone. In moments the body relaxed, the joints distended. As death took over, the blood ran down next to a pillow, forming a pool.

  Azulão cautiously opened a narrow window. An old man was carrying a basket full of potato roots. Nothing more. Silence continued to predominate. He washed his hands in the kitchen sink, dried himself off, checked his clothes, and left. Locking the front door behind him, he took the key.

  Far away now, he continued to think of Janete. I put a beer bottle inside her. She won’t be good for anyone else now!

  In the street he saw people carrying banners and posters. A Volkswagen Kombi with loudspeakers announced the presence of the union leader Margarida Maria Alves at a spontaneous meeting of the Sapé Rural Workers’ Union.

  “Come join us for the meeting, friends! Afterward, there’s a party and firecrackers!”

  Azulão stayed on a street corner watching people pass by. He had just figured out why Galho Dentro had been staying in that house. He was monitoring the union gathering. Women and men carrying banners and placards were following Father Juliano. Even from a distance he could see his demeanor, affable and good-humored as always. He felt like going to the union meeting. What were the peasants who so irritated the plantation owners up to? He walked alongside a quiet, more somber contingent. Only then did he suddenly realize it was Sunday and that was why stores were closed and there was a holiday air about the city. Pennants flapped in the wind as banners greeting Alves stretched from one side of the narrow street to the other. The union president, Sólon de Almeida, a dark, strong, balding man, climbed up on a table and began to speak.

  “Friends! In a moment Margarida Maria Alves will be here. She’s coming from Recife, where she’s been at the Congress of Farmworker Unions, and she’s got good news. Our union is honored to have her as a guest.”

  Applause rang out each time Almeida mentioned Alves’s name.

  “She’s the loyal successor to the work of praiseworthy leaders like Pedro Teixeira, Pedro Fazendeiro and Nêgo Fuba. Nobody is going to stop the farmworkers’ progress in the field, no matter how great the brutalities practiced against us. We want the same benefits for farmworkers that city workers get. We’re fighting for a signed union card, a Christmas bonus, vacations, retirement after thirty years’ work, extra pay for large families, and maternity leave. That’s the focus of our struggle.”

  Suddenly the orator’s voice was drowned out by the cry of the crowd. Alves was arriving in a little truck whose flatbed was filled with people. Firecrackers pierced the torpor of the hot, luminous afternoon as people ran and squeezed together around the vehicle. She embraced Almeida and Father Juliano greeted her. She was short but strongly built and her face was happy. Azulão watched her movements. As he continued to stare he realized at one point how resolute that woman seemed. She had climbed up onto the dais formerly occupied by Almeida.

  “My friends, women and men. As Sólon must already have said, I’m coming from Recife. I passed through Alagoa Grande just to change clothes and see my husband and son.”

  People laughed.

  “But I’m here to tell you that the farmworker meet
ing was successful, despite the refusal of the press to cover it. For three days we discussed the bases for the future of our struggle. It was decided that we must not accept a salary less than the urban minimum wage, and that we will demand thirty days’ vacation, large-family pay, maternity leave, a decent wage for working children, and night school. We will not accept the building of company towns and we bitterly oppose the obstinate resistance of the colonels to our union activities.”

  Alves was continually interrupted by applause and whoops of approval. She extended her arms, palms raised.

  “Friends, we know our role in this society that exploits and repels us. We need to remind ourselves of one basic thing: it is we who produce the food that sustains people in the cities. And if they won’t provide the minimum conditions for our survival, we’ll stage a general strike until bosses and politicians meet our demands.”

  Thundering applause rang out. Even Azulão was moved by Alves’s words. He wanted to applaud her but held back. Looking over hundreds of heads, he could see that Father Juliano, the union president, and various women he recognized as church workers were all excited.