Land of Black Clay

by Jose Louzeiro

  “Sick are we all: lesions exposed, and lesions hidden!”

  The hunchback bobbed in front of Asbal, signaling him to accompany him as he opened a door in the gloomy corridor. They showed him to a large and comfortable bedroom, with windows that had been left open, letting gossamer curtains waft in the breeze. Asbal lay on the bed looking at the high, carved ceiling. The wafting curtains made the silence even more profound.

  Dawn came with a chorus of cries and lamentations. Asbal felt like getting up, but reminded himself that suffering is akin to vanity. He knelt and prayed.

  “What can one sinner do before another sinner? The broken and the ragged?”

  The wailing continued. Asbal let himself be drawn to it. He buckled his sandals. In another bedroom, curled up like a dog, lay his attendant. The man in the wheelchair was trembling, yelling, and cursing himself.

  “What hurts you the most?”

  “Being alive.”

  “Arrogance.”

  “I’m not arrogant. I’m a coward. My sickness makes me recognize it.”

  “Sickness purifies you.”

  “I can’t tolerate suffering.”

  “What about him, your companion?”

  “He cries to see me cry. As he has never lived the glories that I have, he suffers less.”

  “What did you make your glories?”

  “Money and power. A former senator, owner of many plots of land, master of my future. I moved here because I understood that this was the epitome of suffering.”

  “Or for your redemption?”

  “I don’t believe in fantasies. Don’t forget I’m a landowner, a senator.”

  “Your sickness is a fantasy. Have you thought of someday making peace with solitude?”

  “I’m not afraid of solitude. What scares me is the thought of death—the not-being.”

  “And your attendant—what does he fear?”

  “In a certain way, he revels in our misery. Wandering around this mansion, he is proud to be able to mingle with important figures he’s seen from a distance and that he imagines to be here, with us. He speaks with them, spars with them, gets into long, inflammatory arguments. I’m even beginning to think my secretary is more intelligent than I have judged. He has ideas, and his best moments are marked by Machiavellianism. It’s intuitive with him, because he’s almost illiterate; he knows nothing of Niccolò Machiavelli.”

  “And your power—how has it harmed the poorest?”

  “It hasn’t one whit! I’m from the Martinho family—or it is possible you haven’t heard of us? The powerful Ribeiro Martinhos?” The old man laughed derisively.

  “We’ve been rich ever since a great-grandfather left us some land. New generations came along, and the lands multiplied. We bought whatever land had an owner and annexed whatever didn’t. I had myself elected a senator of the republic, the youngest member of the Senate at that time; the Martinhos’ fortune tripled.”

  “Did you ever write legislation to benefit yourself?”

  “Never. Except when the situation affected the other land barons.”

  “And the peasants?”

  “They labored. They always had a lot of work to do.”

  “And their recompense—what was their life expectancy?”

  “Stop lecturing. Our workers earned as much as the others in this region. There was an agreement among the bosses. Nobody paid more than anyone else. Had it been to the contrary, how could we have gotten rich?”

  “You don’t have any remorse?”

  “Why should I? As great an entrepreneur as I was, I made sure that many people would not die of starvation. That was how I became powerful. See how he accompanies me. Should I demand it, he’d lick my wounds. Why do you think he’s so dedicated? He hopes I’ll reward him with a part of my estate. Should I consider it?”

  “Now I can see. Your sores are bleeding.”

  “Spare me your sermons. Why was only I condemned? But be sure of this: I’ll fight back! My wounds are beginning to heal.”

  He extended his arms, his hands covered with fissures, some fingers missing.

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Nothing. I want to lament myself. What I have just said, with regard to my sickness, is a pure lie. The same as those I told the peasants who elected and reelected me. Today, my office is to lament. My discourse lacks for the strength of its rhetoric, I recognize, but gathers force around my execration. Do you wish to be my audience? I’ll pay you a salary. I speak, you listen.”

  “No. What would I do with your money?”

  “Then what do you want, besides lodging?”

  “To hear your soul. Your body’s already said too much.”

  The senator touched the hunchback with the toe of his lustrous boot. He opened a reddened eye and for a moment sought his bearings.

  “Bring tea!”

  The hunchback got himself up, stomping on the planks of the wooden floor. With his stubs, the senator rocked his chair from one side to another as though it were a hammock. His eyes filled with tears.

  “By chance do you intend to submit me to a judgment? Just look”—he turned to show his hands—”I’ve already been judged.”

  “That would be enough for whomever else, but not for you.”

  “I’m very rich, if you wish to know. I share with my newest brothers, Wenceslau and Júlio Ribeiro Martinho, the land we’ve accumulated throughout all these years. My part runs clear up to Rio Grande do Norte.”

  “So much land has given root to great pretensions.”

  “You can’t understand,” he said with a sad smile. “For those who were born to power, only wealth is of interest. We rich suffer from a process of exaltation: the more we have, the more we want. Our emotions develop toward senses of aspiring and wanting. To desire: I desired, if you wish to know. I would become vain hearing peasants pointing out my lands. ‘Where the sun sets it’s still the senator’s land,’ they would affirm. To me such statements were like caresses. I would stand, unable to sleep, thinking of the rivers, the expanses, the horizons—all mine. Until one day I became obsessed with an absurdity. I think it was then I became ill.”

  The hunchback, Alfredo, brought up a tray mounted on a wheeled cart and holding a pot of polished silver, Chinese porcelain cups, and a sugar bowl.

  “Keep it down, you idiot!”

  Alfredo became as quiet as a ghost. He put out the cups, poured the tea, and sat down again on the floor.

  “Why do you think you idealized an absurdity?”

  “I began to believe that what was on my land belonged to me: the fruit grown on it; that which roamed on the plains and in the valleys; that which flew over it or hid in its egg upon it; the sun, the moon, the stars. I had dominion over all of it; I could do with it what I wished.”

  “Even the stars?”

  “Why not? I’m an owner. The clouds exist to rain on my lands; the sun rises to heat my fields full of grain; the moon and the stars illuminate the way of my herds. But how could I exercise my will over those celestial bodies? If the rains fall as often as I want, why should the sun, the moon and the stars be different? I drew up what I called the ‘Martinho Project,’ with the aim of establishing a plan for the sun. It would shine when I wanted. Where I wanted. As brightly or dimly as I wanted. The moon would always be full and would rise in front of my mansion. I would have achieved this goal, I swear I would have, had this bad blood not poisoned me.”

  “To demand too much is to wound oneself.”

  “My projects always turned out well. The rich can do everything, that’s the truth. Had I been poor, do you know how I’d be treating the curse that dominates me? In the back of a sanitarium, cast aside, rotting amidst the garbage. But even now I have power, no matter how much my relatives are robbing me. Just look at what keeps me alive . . . .”

  So saying, he pulled a small metal box out of his pocket and shook it.

  “You see a few capsules. Each one cost a thousand U.S. dollars. Do you know h
ow many boxes I take each month? Five. What poor person could do it, huh? If I can fend off death, why could I not change the sun’s routine?”

  “You could change the peasants’ pain into happiness. That would be your chance to reach the stars.”

  “Have a bit of tea and save your moralizing for someone else. I’ve always been more susceptible to logic.”

  “If people are the image and the semblance of God, the stars shine in each one of us; heaven and earth are but one star-sprinkled space.”

  The senator drank a bit of tea and began to laugh. Alfredo waited upon his master, trying to avoid having any tea spill on him.

  “You gave a good speech, sir. If I were still active, I’d have it recorded in the Congressional Annals. ‘Heaven and earth are but one star-sprinkled space.’ Why didn’t I think of that? Besides being the richest man in Paraíba, I could have been the most enlightened, a crowd of farmworkers surrounding me, gleaming like fireflies. Is that what you said, or am I a bit off?”

  “You are cruel!”

  “Me, cruel? Do you think that I’d have the talent for that with one foot in the grave?”

  “You continue to be a landowner. Didn’t you want to change the course of the sun and the moon? You’re still working in that direction. You won’t let yourself be answered. That’s why you cling so to poor Alfredo. He’s a lackey you kick with the toe of your boot. You, the semi-rotten owner, but the owner nevertheless. A rich leper who gives himself the luxury of cheating death with an expensive remedy. Vanity heaped upon vanity.”

  “What else could I do? Why do you only concern yourself with peasants? What about me? Don’t I count? And the other plantation owners, fighting for successful agriculture so that there’ll be work in the field and Brazil will become a great nation? Could it be you haven’t thought of them?”

  “The plantation owners take care of themselves, senator—of their profits. To increase and multiply their wealth is the objective. The peasants’ role is like that of the cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. They live on leftover crumbs. Their salvation is their humility, added to the certainty that one day it will be different. There will be no more bosses.”

  “Should that day come, I hope to have died. Can you imagine the decadence that society will have to deal with? How can you expect that ignorant, lazy individuals will be competent to run even one of my plantations? And when it comes time to sit down at the negotiating table with the government and the bankers? Don’t make me laugh. It would be a disaster!”

  “The men of the people are wise, senator. You have always known how to conduct business, but it is the peasant who tills the soil, sews the seeds and gathers the ears of corn. To them only does the earth confide its secrets. To the landless!”

  “You don’t understand me. The advantage to being at death’s edge is but one: lucidity. I’ve never had so much. I close my eyes and hear the rats gnawing at the structure of this house. Next to them, engaged in the same exercise, relatives and friends whom I helped so much. What do you think I do? Worry about it? No. I show them that I know nothing. For that reason there are those who consider me extravagant. Others think me crazy. What judgment would you make?”

  “I already have made it. Your arrogance is the fruit of your power. But at the same time the question arises: what power? The peasants invent the ears of corn. The land baron is but the architect of the profit. He who does not create, senator, leaves no traces of his passage. He will not reach the stars.”

  “I would like to have met you in another era, when I could reflect without the worries that distract me today. I have read Virgil and Dante, and once knew by heart long passages of Don Quixote. How can I remain attentive to what you say when I have to worry about rotting tissue, deteriorating blood, and dislocating joints? I am at a disadvantage, the victim of a process of corrosion. In truth, I suffer for what I have not done, for the riches I have not accumulated, for the workers I could not have. Even so, after my death this place will be known as the Plantation of Senator Martinho. The floor will get an iron plaque. The initials of my name will never disappear!”

  “The distinguished senator still has not understood. What enriches is not the demarcation of a place or the mark of an owner. True richness comes from purity. The richest men of these lands have been those who did not own them: João Pedro Teixeira, Nêgo Fuba, Pedro Fazendeiro. Their names grew in proportion to their dedication to others, to their solidarity with others. Do you know what they wanted for the farmworkers, in the abstract? For them to be respected and to live in peace. Those were the riches for which they so ardently strove. During their quest, they left traces of blood, so that their ghost projects itself into the sky, here in the form of a cloud, there in the rumble of a storm.”

  Asbal picked up his staff, leaving the teacup untouched on the tray. The senator looked at him. Never had his eyes seemed so strange.

  “Will you not accept the tea that Alfredo made with so much pleasure? Or are you disgusted by he who has welcomed you?”

  Asbal took the cup in his hands and drank one swallow.

  “Goodbye, senator. Whom suffering will not teach, love will not rescue.”

  “Stay, man of God. You may occupy whatever room you wish in this mansion. I need you so that we can debate. Alfredo does not follow my ratiocinations. When he should answer me back, he becomes a yes-man. That’s the problem with assistants.”

  Asbal, who had walked to the other end of the room, stopped. The old senator seemed like a disheartened young boy. For the first time, he was showing humility.

  “Stay!” he implored. “I swear I will only tell the truth. Nothing but the truth.”

  “I have a lengthy task to fulfill, Mr. Owner-of-everything.”

  “What task is this that can’t be postponed?”

  “I tend the crosses that line the roadsides, those of them who were owners of nothing.”

  “What type of profession is that?”

  “That which is fitting for me. The simple work of a gardener.”

  “Who are you, then, to speak as you do?”

  “I am Asbal, the wanderer.”

  Chapter 15

  A few days after he had gone to take the journalist to the city, Luís returned home. The shack was bathed in sun and sadness. Tenuous blue smoke wafted from the clay chimney. Janaína was preparing a meal for Jeruza. When he came into the kitchen, carrying a sack of provisions, mother and daughter brightened up.

  “Where have you been keeping yourself, man?”

  I found out about a job in Cruz do Espírito Santo and went over there. I ran into Galdino and asked him to let you know.”

  “Well, he didn’t let us know, and I was going crazy. I was going to ask Mr. Tadeu to go find you.”

  “Worse yet, there wasn’t any work. So I went back to Sapé and met up with the reporter again. He lent me some money.”

  “How are we going to repay it?”

  “We’re on good terms with him. He’s not in a hurry to be paid back.”

  Luís pulled a package full of presents out of his sack and opened it. Out came an embroidered dress, the shiny pair of shoes Janaína had always wanted, a little dress for Jeruza, some socks, and a small soft-brimmed hat. His wife was taken aback by the luxury of it all. Luís ripped the paper of the second bundle, pulling out clotted cheese, a bottle of wine, plastic bags of rice and black beans, and a piece of beef jerky.

  “What a big spender!”

  Jeruza occupied herself with trying on the hat. Janaína hugged Luís as she had rarely done before. They clung to each other in silence.

  “I went by the union and filled out a card. The guys promised to find me work. As soon as there’s a space at Colonel Martinho’s Santa Cecília plantation they’ll call me.”

  “You joined the union? Colonel Barros’s goons are going to corner us like a mad dog!” She turned to embrace her husband, eyes full of tears.

  “Stubborn you are, damn it! Just as well. Maybe we should pack our bags and get
going.”

  “I need to work to pay back the reporter. Know who I saw at the union hall? Alves. She spoke to a whole bunch of people. Father Juliano was happy to see me. He promised to come out here one of these days. We worked out Jeruza’s baptism.”

  “And Jorge Elias? Is he willing to be the godfather?”

  Jeruza started to rummage in a small package that fell heavily on the floor.

  “Leave that alone, honey.”

  “What is it?”

  Luís opened it slowly as if wanting to surprise. He pulled out the 7.65-millimeter pistol from its velvet-lined case, along with the ammunition.

  “Luís! Are you crazy?”

  “The reporter gave it to me as a present. Want to try it out?”

  “No way!”

  Luís gripped the pistol and pointed.

  “Now let’s see who’s boss.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll see you with that gun.”

  “Nobody will see it. But when one of them comes up thinking I’m some poor slob, he’ll be getting as good as he gives.”

  Jeruza helped Janaína put the merchandise in a closet. Luís continued to toy with the pistol. He put it back in its case and pushed it underneath a wardrobe in a place where the little girl could not reach it. He seemed happy. Janaína’s dress lay stretched out on the bed, the shiny shoes to one side.

  “Know what I think?” asked Luís, grabbing his wife from behind. “From now on our life is going to change. It’s not difficult, Janaína. Traveling over there, it’s what I was thinking about.”

  “You’re sure acting strangely!”

  “I’m the same as always, just not the idiot I was before. I ran into some friends and they told me the same thing.”

  “And Jorge Elias—where’s he?”

  “In Judge Fernandes’s house. A mansion that seems more like a palace. Carpets, overstuffed chairs and lamps all over the place. With that new dress, in that place, you’d be hard to tell apart from a princess.”

  As night fell Janaína lit their two small lanterns and the metal-socketed oil lamp. She put the latter on one side of the table, which was adorned with a clean tablecloth, along with the bottle of wine Luís had brought back and a plate of cheese slices. She had gone to the bedroom, slipped on her shoes, straightened her hair in front of their small, stained mirror, and put on lipstick and a bit of rouge. She checked herself and lifted the curtain.