by Jorge Amado
The whole square is suspended for a moment. “He jumped,” a woman says and faints. Legless crashes onto the hillside like a circus trapeze artist who’d missed the other trapeze. The dog is barking between the bars of the fence.
NEWS ITEMS
The Jornal da Tarde publishes a wire from Rio reporting the success of an exhibition by a young painter unknown until then. Days later it reprints some art criticism published in a Rio de Janeiro newspaper. Because the painter is a Bahian, and the Jornal da Tarde is very mindful of the glories of Bahia. A portion of the criticism goes on to speak of the qualities and defects of the new social painter, using and abusing expressions such as setting, light, color, angles, strength, and others, it says:
…one detail was noticed by all who went to this strange exhibition of scenes and portraits of poor boys. It is the fact that all good feelings are always represented by the figure of a thin, blond girl with feverish cheeks. And that all evil feelings are represented by a man in a black overcoat and the look of a traveler. What interpretation would a psychiatrist find in the almost unconscious repetition of these figures in all the paintings? It is known that the painter João José has a history…
And the abuse of the words color, strength, setting, light, angles, and other more complicated ones continued.
Months later a news item passed this on to the readers of the Jornal da Tarde under the title of
A GREEK GIFT SWINDLER “CAT” RETURNED BY BELMONTE POLICE
The Belmonte police received a real Greek gift from the Ilhéus police. A well-known young swindler who operated in Ilhéus under the name of “Cat,” after having piled up some good money from a lot of landowners and businessmen, was shipped to Belmonte. There he continued conducting swindles, at which he was a master. He managed to sell an immense tract of land, the very best for the cultivation of cacao, to several plantation owners. When they went to look at the lands, they turned out to be the bed of the Cachoeira River, no less. The Belmonte police were able to lay their hands on the fearsome swindler and sent him back to Ilhéus.
“The Ilhéusans are a lot richer than we are,” the informant ends with a certain irony, “they can support the elegant ‘Cat’ in more comfort than the sons of beautiful Belmonte, Princess of the South. Because if Belmonte is the Princess, Ilhéus is quite properly called Queen of the South.”
Among police items of small importance, the Jornal da Tarde noted one day that a drifter known by the name of Good-Life had raised a tremendous row at a party in the Cidade da Palha, opening the skull of the master of the house with a beer bottle, and that he was being sought by the police.
During one Christmas season the Jornal da Tarde appeared with enormous headlines. A news item as sensational as the one that brought to light the story of the woman who traveled with Lampião’s band, the cangaceiro’s mistress. Because the population of the five States of Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Paraíba, and Pernambuco lives with its eyes fixed on Lampião. With hate or with love, never with indifference. The headline said in block letters:
16-YEAR-OLD CHILD IN LAMPIÃO’S GANG
Large type was also used for the heading of the story:
IS ONE OF THE MOST FEARED OF THE BANDITS—THIRTY-THREE NOTCHES ON HIS RIFLE—BELONGED TO THE “CAPTAINS OF THE SANDS”—DEATH OF AX-HEAD DUE TO DRY GULCH.
The story was long. It spoke of how in the villages sacked some time back people noticed a boy of sixteen among Lampião’s band, who bore the name Dry Gulch. In spite of his age, the young cangaceiro had become feared all through the backlands as one of the cruelest of the group. It was said that his rifle had thirty-five notches. And each notch on the rifle of a cangaceiro stands for a dead man. Then came the story of the death of Ax-Head, one of the oldest veterans in Lampião’s gang.
It so happened that the gang had caught an old police sergeant on the road. And Lampião had given him to Dry Gulch to “dispatch.” Dry Gulch was “dispatching” him slowly, with the point of a dagger, cutting out small pieces with obvious satisfaction. It was so cruel that Ax-Head, horrified, raised his rifle to put an end to Dry Gulch. But before he could fire, Lampião, who was very proud of Dry Gulch, shot Ax-Head. Dry Gulch went on with his task.
The item went on to tell of various other crimes of the sixteen-year-old bandit. Then the author remembered that a boy with the name Dry Gulch had lived with the Captains of the Sands and that it was possible that it was the same one. Then came several considerations of a moral nature.
The edition sold out.
Months later the edition sold out again, because it carried the news of Dry Gulch’s capture while he was sleeping by the flying column that covered the backlands in pursuit of Lampião. It announced that the cangaceiro would arrive in Bahia the following day. There were several pictures where Dry Gulch appeared with his somber face. The Jornal da Tarde said that it was the “face of a born criminal.”
Which wasn’t true, as the Jornal da Tarde itself observed some time later, when it related, in extra editions and supplements, the trial that condemned Dry Gulch to 30 years in prison for 15 known and proven killings. His rifle had 60 notches, however. And the newspaper recalled that fact, repeating that each notch was a dead man. But it also published part of the report by a forensic doctor, a gentleman of recognized honesty and education, already at that time one of the foremost sociologists and ethnologists in the nation, a report that proved that Dry Gulch was an absolutely normal type and that if he had become a cangaceiro and had killed so many men and with such extreme cruelty, it had not been because of an inborn vocation. It had been the environment…and the necessary scientific considerations followed.
Which, however, didn’t arouse as much curiosity among the public as the description of the beautiful, vibrant, and impassioned speech of the State’s Attorney, who had made the jury weep, and even the judge himself had brushed away tears as the attorney described with sublime oratorical force the suffering of the victims of the ferocious boy bandit.
The public was indignant because Dry Gulch didn’t weep at the trial. His somber face was filled with a strange calm.
COMRADES
There’s new movement in the city. Pedro Bala comes out of the warehouse with Big João and Outrigger. The waterfront is deserted, it looks as if everyone had abandoned it. Only a few policemen guarding the big warehouses. There’s no unloading of ships this day. Because the stevedores, with João de Adão at their head, have shown solidarity with the streetcar motormen, who are on strike. There seems to be a festival in the city, but a different kind of festival. Groups of men pass talking, automobiles cut through the street taking men to work, employees in businesses laugh, the Ladeira da Montanha is full of people going up and down, because the elevators have stopped too. The jitneys are jammed, with people hanging out the doors. The groups of strikers pass silently on their way to union headquarters, where they are going to hear the reading of the stevedores’ manifesto that João de Adão carries in his big hand. At the door of the union hall, groups chat, police stand guard.
Pedro Bala goes along through the streets with Big João and Outrigger. He says:
“It’s nice…”
Big João also smiles, little black Outrigger speaks:
“There’s going to be a wing-ding today.”
“I wouldn’t want to be a motorman or a conductor. They don’t get a pig’s wages. They did the right thing…” Big João says.
“Shall we go have a look?” Pedro Bala proposes.
They go to the door of the union hall. Men are going in, blacks, mulattoes, Spaniards, and Portuguese. They watch while João de Adão and the other stevedores come out to the cheers of the streetcar workers. They cheer too. Big João and Outrigger because they like the dockworker João de Adão. Pedro Bala not only for that reason, but also because he finds the spectacle of the strike nice, it’s like one of the nicest adventures of the Captains of the Sands.
A group of well-dressed men enters the union hall. From the door they hear a voice
discoursing, one that interrupts: “Sellout,” “scab.”
“It’s nice…” Pedro Bala repeats.
He has the urge to go in, mingle with the strikers, shout and fight alongside them.
The city goes to sleep early. The moon lights the sky, the voice of a black man comes from the sea opposite. He’s singing about the bitterness of his life since his loved one left. In the warehouse the children are asleep already. Even black Big João is snoring, stretched out by the door, his knife within reach. Only Pedro Bala is awake, lying on the sand, looking at the moon, listening to the black man sing of his yearning for the mulatto girl who’s gone away. The wind brings snatches of the song and it makes Pedro Bala look for Dora among the stars in the sky. She, too, had turned into a star, a strange star with long, blond hair. Brave men have a star in place of their hearts. But no one had ever heard tell of a woman who wore a star on her breast like a flower. The bravest women on the land and sea of Bahia, when they died, became saints for the blacks, the same as drifters who were also very brave. Rosa Palmeirão became a saint in a halfbreed candomblé, they pray to her in Yoruba. Maria Cabaçu is a saint in the candomblés of Itabuna, because it was in that town that she first showed her courage. They were two great, strong women. With muscular arms like men, like strikers. Rosa Palmeirão was pretty, she had a sailor’s swaying walk, she was a woman of the sea, at one time she owned a sloop, cut the waves at the entrance to the breakwater. The men on the waterfront loved her not only for her courage but for her body too. Maria Cabaçu was ugly, a dark-skinned mulatto, the daughter of a black man and an Indian woman, fat and hot-tempered. She attacked men who said she was ugly. But she gave herself over completely to a weak and sallow man from Ceará, who loved her as though she were a pretty woman with a beautiful body and sensuous eyes. They’d been brave, they’d become saints in halfbreed candomblés, which are candomblés that invent new saints from time to time, that don’t have the purity of the Yoruba candomblés of blacks. They’re mulatto candomblés. But Dora was braver than they. She was only a girl, she’d lived just like one of the Captains of the Sands and everybody knows that a Captain of the Sands is the equal of a brave man. Dora had lived with them, had been a mother to all of them. But she’d also been a sister, had run through the streets with them, raided houses, picked pockets, fought with Ezequiel’s gang. Then for Pedro Bala, she’d been sweetheart and wife, wife when the fever was devouring her, when death was already stalking her that night of so much peace. A peace that came out of her eyes for all the night around. She’d been in the Orphanage, had run away from it, the same as Pedro Bala had run away from the Reformatory. She had the courage to die consoling her children, brothers, sweethearts, and husband, who were the Captains of the Sands. The mãe-de-santo Don’Aninha had wrapped her in a white shawl, embroidered as if for a saint. God’s-Love had taken her out in his sloop to be with Iemanjá. Father José Pedro had prayed. They all loved her. But only Pedro Bala had wanted to go with her. Professor ran away from the warehouse because he could no longer stand the big house after she’d left. But only Pedro Bala had jumped into the water to follow Dora’s destiny, take that marvelous journey with her, the one that brave men take with Iemanjá in the green depths of the sea. That’s why only he saw when she became a star and crossed the sky. She came only for him, with her long, blond hair. She shined over his head of a near suicide by drowning. She gave him new strength, God’s-Love’s sloop was able to pick him up on the way back. Now he looks at the sky, seeking Dora’s star. It’s a star with long, blond hair, a star like no other in existence. Because no woman like Dora, who was just a girl, ever existed. The night is full of stars reflected on the calm sea. The black man’s voice seems directed at the stars, as there is wailing in his full voice. He, too, is looking for his beloved, who’d fled in the Bahia night. Pedro Bala thinks that the star that’s Dora may be running above the streets, alleys, and hillsides of the city now, looking for him. Maybe she thinks he’s on some adventure on the slopes. But today it isn’t the Captains of the Sands who are involved in a beautiful adventure. It’s the motormen, strong black men, smiling mulattoes, Spaniards, and Portuguese who came from distant lands. They’re the ones who are lifting their arms and shouting, the same as the Captains of the Sands. The strike is loose in the city. It’s a nice thing, the strike is, nicer than adventures. Pedro Bala has an urge to join the strike, shout with all the strength of his chest, heckle speeches. His father made speeches in a strike, a bullet cut him down. He has the blood of a striker in him. Also, that life in the streets had taught him to love freedom. The song of those prisoners that said freedom is like sunlight: the greatest thing in the world. He knows that the strikers are fighting for freedom, for a little more to eat, for a little more freedom. The fight is like a festival.
The shapes approaching make him get up mistrustfully. But then he recognizes the enormous figure of the stevedore João de Adão. Along with him comes a well-dressed young man with unruly hair. Pedro Bala takes off his cap, speaks to João de Adão:
“You got a lot of cheers today, eh?”
João de Adão laughs. He stretches his muscles, his face opens into a smile for the leader of the Captains of the Sands:
“Captain Pedro, I’d like to introduce you to Comrade Alberto.”
The young man holds out his hand to Pedro Bala. The leader of the Captains of the Sands first wipes his hand on his ragged jacket, then he shakes the student’s. João de Adão is explaining:
“He’s a student at the University, but he’s our comrade.”
Pedro Bala looks at him without any mistrust. The student smiles:
“I’ve heard a lot about you and your gang. You’re really something…”
“We’re tough, that’s for sure,” Pedro Bala answers.
João de Adão comes closer:
“Captain, we’ve got to talk to you. We’ve got business with you. Something serious. Comrade Alberto here…”
“Shall we go inside?” Pedro Bala asks.
They awaken Big João as they pass. The black boy looks mistrustfully at the student, thinks he’s from the police, moves his knife under his arm a little. Only Pedro Bala notices and says:
“He’s a friend of João de Adão. Come with us, Big Boy.”
The four of them go in. They sit down in a corner. Some of the Captains of the Sands wake up and watch the group. The student looks the warehouse over, the children sleeping. He shivers as if a cold wind had passed over his body:
“How awful!”
But Pedro Bala is telling João de Adão:
“What a great thing the strike is! I never saw anything so nice. It’s like a big festival…”
“The strike is the poor people’s festival…” the student says.
Alberto’s voice is soft and kind. Pedro Bala listens to him, carried away as if it were the voice of a black man singing a sea chanty.
“My father died in a strike, did you know that? Ask João de Adão if you don’t believe me…”
“It was a beautiful death,” the student says. “He was a champion of his class. Wasn’t he the Blond?”
The student knows his father’s name. His father was a champion…They all know him. He had a beautiful death, he died in a strike, a strike is the poor people’s festival…He listens to the student’s friendly voice:
“Do you find the strike nice, Pedro?”
“Comrade, this fellow is a great one,” João de Adão says. “You don’t know the Captains of the Sands or Captain Pedro…He’s a comrade…”
Comrade…Comrade…Pedro Bala thinks it’s the nicest word in the world. The student says it the way Dora used to say the word brother.
“Well, Comrade Pedro, we need you and your gang.”
“What for?” Big João asks curiously.
Pedro Bala introduces him:
“This black man here is Big João, a good man. Anyone good may be the equal of Big João, there isn’t anyone better…”
Alberto shakes the bl
ack boy’s hand. Big João is undecided for a moment, he’s not used to handshakes. But then he shakes that hand, half-bashful. The student says again: