Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  In 1934 Juraci became an organizer of the Communist-backed Alianca Nacional Libertadora (ANL), which, with its motto Bread, Land, and Liberty, campaigned for cancellation of Brazil’s foreign debts, nationalization of foreign enterprises, universal suffrage, and agrarian reform. When President Getúlio Vargas outlawed the ANL the following year, the militant wing of the Communist party staged bloody revolutions in Recife, Natal, and Rio de Janeiro, all of which were suppressed, but with great loss of life.

  Juraci Cristiano, opposed to armed rebellion in principle, had been vehemently opposed to the insurrection. In the aftermath, however, he was arrested, along with the instigators, and imprisoned for ten days until Fábio’s grandson Edson, a lawyer, secured his release.

  Alvaro Cavalcanti had been outraged and wanted nothing more to do with Juraci, but eventually, with his own strong sense of loyalty to family members — in this instance, to Celso and Fábio, who had assumed responsibility for the orphan waif from Canudos — he relented.

  Both of Alvaro’s sons shared this commitment to family ties. Senhor Durval himself several years ago had asked Juraci to take charge of Santo Tomás’s two clinics, and ever since, “the old Communist,” as Durval privately called him, had been driving out to the usina from Recife each Wednesday and Saturday without fail.

  Dr. Juraci, almost a carbon copy of his father, Antônio Paciência, stood patiently, arms folded across his chest, as Anacleto finished his story and held out the notice he’d carried around for weeks.

  “What the Leagues say — is it true, Dr. Juraci?”

  He glanced quickly at the sheet of paper. “Yes, Anacleto,” he replied evenly, “it’s true. These facts are well known.”

  Anacleto gave a small, nervous laugh. “‘What does he know, the man in Senhor Nilton’s bar?’ I said to Raimundo. A rich man who drives a car — what would he know about the life of a poor man, Doctor?”

  “No, Anacleto, it is true,” Juraci repeated.

  “My Raimundo, he goes on and on about the cambão. I tell him we don’t want trouble at Santo Tomás.”

  “No one does, my friend. But your son is right: The cambão is a curse.” He glanced toward the open window, beneath which he could hear someone sweeping the ground. “Since Rodrigo Cavalcanti’s time,” he added, thinking aloud. “They say the cambão is for the benefit of all — to fix the roads, clean the Jacuribe, repair dams — ”

  “Cut cane!” Anacleto offered.

  Juraci straightened up. “Senhor Durval means what he says, Anacleto,” he said, almost harshly. “He will not tolerate a League in these valleys. It would be a serious mistake to challenge him now. Change is bound to come, but it will be slow. Tell your son he mustn’t do anything foolish.”

  Anacleto nodded, and waited for Dr. Juraci to say something more. When he didn’t, Pacheco trudged out of the building and headed slowly toward the river, where he had left Bald Valdemar’s mule. Had he glanced back, he would have seen Dr. Juraci at the window of the clinic, watching him until he was out of sight.

  Half an hour later, Juraci Cristiano was behind the wheel of his old Packard, climbing along the narrow rutted lane between cane fields as far as the eye could see. When he reached the large open area he was seeking, he parked, removing from his trunk the sandwiches his wife had made, a battered hat, which he stuck on his head, a three-legged stool, a portable easel, and a canvas. He'd come to this place many Saturday afternoons, sometimes staying till the shadows lay dark and heavy on the deserted Casa Grande of Santo Tomás.

  After Duarte Cavalcanti moved to the new house near the usina, the Cavalcantis had opened up the mansion to accommodate relatives and guests gathered for some special occasion, but Christmas 1940 was the last time anyone had stayed here.

  Juraci Cristiano had painted for a hobby as long as he could remember. His views of the Casa Grande were unique for their focus. Never had Juraci attempted to depict the mansion as a whole, convinced that what would be revealed was nothing more than a decaying, sad ruin. Rather, he trained his eye on intimate aspects - a section of façade mottled with shadows; a bench on the verandah, its blue tiles shot through with hair-thin cracks; the chapel patio, clumps of weeds growing between the stones and around the base of the Cross; the padlocked front doors.

  He would sit there in the blessed silence, the air reeking of cane and, every so often, a drift of perfume from what remained of the untended gardens. He would look at those sealed doors and remember the day they opened for him.

  Sometimes he would put down his palette, overwhelmed by the memories. He had so much to thank God for. And to his dying day, he would owe a debt of gratitude to the Cavalcantis.

  Juraci could scarcely contemplate what his life would have been had he been left behind after the war of Canudos. But there were rare occasions when it entered his mind - when he felt a distance between himself and the family who had adopted him. Sometimes he would sit with them when they were together en masse at the usina: Senhor Durval, himself, and the older males in the sitting room, most of the women in another room, the younger people outside on the verandah with a few guitars. And there would be a fleeting moment in which he felt he did not belong.

  As he sat down at his easel today, he experienced that feeling of alienation from the people of the Casa Grande. This time, it was thinking about Anacleto Pacheco that aroused it. The man had come to him for help and what had he said?

  "Change is bound to come, but it will be slow"

  How slow? he wondered. A century from now? When Raimundo Pacheco and his sons are in their graves, with their callused hands crossed on their chests?

  Juraci Cristiano was suffering from a feeling of absolute frustration. Fifty years ago, he had listened to Celso Cavalcanti talk of hope, of change. Dear God in heaven, when? This was 1958, and in this valley it was still the same: the cambão; the capanga fitting bullets into his gun; the older peasant barely eking out a living and still not able to read. Even in the caatinga it was the same. There had been no rain this year, not a drop, the worst drought in decades. A quarter of a million flagelados - the desperate, the hopeless - were fleeing the seca and jamming the streets of Recife, and the same old remedies were being prescribed: more surveys, more dams, more hydraulic works. Relief for the scorched earth, yes; but the pain of those who lived there went ignored, undiagnosed.

  Long before dawn on Friday, October 24, Anacleto Pacheco set out with Raimundo and five other tenants for Usina Jacuribe to set before Senhor Durval Cavalcanti their decision regarding the cambão.

  Since his meeting with Dr. Juraci three weeks ago, whenever Anacleto sat under his mango tree with friends, there was some talk of the cambão.

  Raimundo had again spoken with Senhor Eduardo Corrêa, who gave him a card with a telephone number in Recife where he could be reached in the event of trouble. The Ligas Camponêsas would take Senhor Durval before the magistrate in Rosário, Corrêa had assured Raimundo; they would use the law against Cavalcanti. Still, Anacleto had balked at the idea. What finally convinced him to approach the senhor was the return, on October 20, of José Cavalcanti.

  It was well known among the peasants that Senhor José and his wife, Dona Clara, had sympathy for the poor. Dona Clara, a teacher before marrying Senhor José, had not only improved the two schools in the valley; it was she who had brought the social worker, Senhora Xeniá Freitas de Melo. And Senhor José, who had organized the usina’s soccer team, was said to be planning a recreation hall for the workers.

  On the way to the usina, the “delegacão,” as Raimundo boldly called it, was in high spirits. They joked about Bald Valdemar, who had climbed up on a bench last night proclaiming he was the patrão and informing them that the cambão was finished. Bald Valdemar had every intention of going with the delegacão, but when one of the tenants stopped by his house earlier, he found the cart driver curled up in a ball on the floor of his front room, snoring loud enough to bring down the roof.

  Coffee cup in hand, Durval Meneses Cavalcanti awai
ted them at the top of the short flight of steps leading to his veranda. He had come out here the moment one of his servants told him some men were walking up the driveway. Though not quite fifty, Durval Cavalcanti had an almost imperious air, as might be expected of one who held sway over the lives of 2,800 people.

  At the bottom of the steps, the delegacão offered the traditional greetings and blessings. Senhor Durval responded in kind, then asked brusquely:

  “What’s the trouble?”

  Momentarily, the peasants were struck dumb.

  There was a sound behind Senhor Durval as José Cavalcanti joined his brother on the veranda.

  At sight of him, the peasants broke their silence with a flurry of greetings. In their eyes, he was “softer” by nature than his older brother, whom they saw as the patrão.

  As manager of the usina’s financial affairs, which frequently involved him in protracted negotiations, primarily for loans, Senhor José was often called away from Santo Tomás. And when they were not gone on business, he and Dona Clara divided their time between their house in Recife, their apartment in Rio de Janeiro (to which they migrated annually at Carnival), and occasional trips to Europe.

  Senhor José, who was still in his dressing gown, warmly acknowledged the delegacão but grew silent as his brother took a step toward the men.

  “Well, Anacleto?” Senhor Durval asked, singling out the one he knew best.

  “Yes, senhor. We came to see the patrão” — he paused, and his son nudged him in the ribs —“about the cambão.”

  “What about it?” Durval asked, with great calm.

  Anacleto clenched his jaws and glanced sideways at Raimundo, who nodded encouragement. “The others, myself . . . we want to work for pay. If the patrão wants more rent, we will give it. But” — again he paused; again Raimundo nodded — “we will not work like slaves.” This last word was barely audible, and Anacleto looked down at his feet.

  “What is that you say, Anacleto? Slaves? Who is a slave?”

  Speaking into his chest, Anacleto replied, “A man who works without pay.”

  Senhor Durval no longer looked calm. “You were told to come here. Who sent you?”

  “We came by ourselves,” Anacleto said, looking down again.

  “You’re lying, Pacheco.”

  “No, senhor. Ask them — they will say the same,” he said, gesturing toward the others.

  Durval turned to his brother: “The bastards have come here.”

  José Cavalcanti asked Anacleto directly if he had joined the Ligas Camponêsas.

  “No, Senhor José!” Anacleto replied instantly. “I swear it!”

  “I tell you he’s lying,” Durval said to José while keeping his eyes on Anacleto.

  “How many others are in this?”

  “No others, senhor. Just us. We — ”

  Durval Cavalcanti began to pace back and forth on the veranda. “How long have you lived at Santo Tomás, Anacleto?” he finally asked.

  “Me, senhor? The patrão knows. I was born here.”

  “Which means you’ve always worked the cambão, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes, senhor.”

  “And suddenly it’s slavery?”

  Anacleto didn’t answer.

  Durval addressed his brother again: “I’ve warned them time and again: I don’t want those Reds here. Not them. Not their priest friends, either. This is what their interference brings.” He turned back to Anacleto: “Where did you meet the bastards? When did they come?”

  “They didn’t, Senhor Durval — God’s truth!”

  Durval shook his fist in the air: “I won’t have a League here! Not on my land!”

  Before Durval could say another word, Raimundo stepped out in front of the delegacão, and between gritted teeth he said, enunciating every syllable, “There is no League at Santo Tomás . . . senhor.”

  Durval raised an eyebrow as he studied the brawny young man.

  “There was a man in Senhor Nilton’s bar,” Raimundo continued. “Eduardo Corrêa, of the Ligas Camponêsas. He spoke to us. About the cambão. And about other things. He — ”

  “You see?” Durval said to José. “I knew they were lying!”

  “No, Senhor Durval, you don’t understand. By ‘us’ I mean us in the bar. My father and the others weren’t there. Just me.”

  But Durval Cavalcanti had begun pacing again. “We’ve got to put a stop to this,” he said. “Christ only knows how far it’s spread already. Jesus, José! We worked for this land, every acre, and now these bastards demand that we give it away. Five thousand useless little plots. Two, three acres.”

  “It won’t happen,” José began.

  “You’re damn right!” Durval shouted. “They’ll do it over my dead body!” Suddenly he stopped pacing and faced Anacleto and Raimundo. “You can leave now. Go back to the fields.”

  The peasants didn’t move. “The senhor — ”

  “Go!” Durval ordered.

  Without a word, the peasants started down the asphalt driveway, their hats in their hands.

  “The Pachecos are finished here,” Durval mumbled. “I’ll send Joazinho to clear them out.”

  In the past, José’s had often been the voice of reason that prevailed when tempers — most often Durval’s — flared at the usina. What was less obvious to the workers was that despite Durval’s quickness to anger, he was eager to bring reform to the valley, even if he didn’t go along with all of José’s “liberal” ideas. José knew it wasn’t the loss of a free day’s labor each month that so incensed Durval; it was the thought of giving up one inch of what he believed rightfully and forever belonged to the Cavalcantis.

  Durval stormed back into the house and José followed him, keeping up a quiet but steady patter: “It could very well be true, Durval, just as the son said. You know Anacleto. He gets carried away sometimes. It could even be the cachaça talking —”

  Durval suddenly wheeled around to face his brother squarely. “No!” he barked, his face bright red. “This time he’s gone too far. They go!”

  Just after 10:00 the next morning, when Juraci Cristiano arrived at the main clinic at Usina Jacuribe, one of the Cavalcantis’ capangas was among the patients waiting to see him. The man had a deep cut on his forearm. “What was it this time, Felipe?” Juraci asked, as he applied bandages to the wound. The man was forever getting into brawls.

  “Pacheco’s Bahiana bitch cut me.”

  Juraci’s head snapped up. Be careful — that’s all he’d been able to say: Be careful, Anacleto. Juraci just stared at the capanga, afraid to ask what had happened. He didn’t have to.

  “The patrão sent us to throw them out.”

  “Anacleto? But why?”

  “The old fool said he wasn’t going to give the cambão anymore.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Juraci. They’re gone.” Felipe then went on to recount how the head capanga, Joazinho, and eight men had raided Anacleto’s house yesterday afternoon, taking all their belongings, forcing the family into a truck, and dumping them on the Rosário road, with just the clothes on their backs, “like the patrão said.”

  An hour later, even though the waiting room still held a few patients, Juraci Cristiano climbed into the Packard and drove to the Cavalcantis’ house. Senhor Durval was in Rosário, talking to their cousin, the chief of police, about the man in Senhor Nilton’s bar. But Senhor José was there. He was reluctant to talk about the eviction of the Pachecos.

  “It was my brother’s decision,” he said.

  “Pacheco cut cane here all his life,” Juraci responded, his face grim. “His father and grandfather, too.”

  José Cavalcanti sighed deeply. “I know life is hard for them. I’ve always tried to help where I could.”

  Juraci’s expression softened somewhat. “But Anacleto asked too much?”

  José nodded slowly. “Durval says if he gives in and abolishes the cambão. . . . What will the peasants demand next tim
e?”

  “No more than they’ve always wanted,” Juraci answered. “To be treated with a little dignity.”

  José averted his eyes. “I tried, Juraci,” he said in a muted voice. “Truly I did.”

  “Yes, José, I believe you did. If I find Anacleto, I’ll be sure to tell him.”

  The door of the house stood open. Inside, the dirt floors were littered with debris: parts of a broken chair; a deflated soccer ball, a burst bag of manioc flour. There were patches on the grimy walls where pictures had hung. A row of batteries was neatly arrayed on a shelf teeming with black ants collecting scattered grains of sugar.

  Juraci Cristiano walked out of the house and went over to the lush mango tree, where he sat down on Anacleto’s bench. As he looked back at the desolate sitío and the field of beans and manioc off to the right, he found himself thinking of the Casa Grande.

  For centuries, the mansion had symbolized the conquest of these lands, and the senzala and the shanty the conquest of man. Today, the Casa Grande and the home of Anacleto Pacheco, worlds apart and yet inseparable, were both empty and deserted. But God knew, the way of life they both represented hadn’t changed. True, José Cavalcanti wanted to improve the peasants’ lot, and so too did Durval, hard-headed as he was, but within bounds determined four hundred years ago, when Nicolau Gonçalves Cavalcanti came to this valley. Anacleto Pacheco had thought it was time to throw off the yoke. Others told him he was wrong.

  “Senhor Doutor?”

  Juraci hadn’t heard Bald Valdemar stepping cautiously toward him. “You were here, Valdemar?”

  The cart driver’s eyes misted over. “I saw it all.”

  Juraci put a hand on Valdemar’s shoulder. “Did Anacleto say where they were going?”

  Valdemar hastily wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Raimundo thinks — ”