Estevao joined them. He was not only wearing a pistol. His belt also held some sort of a knife, in a matching leather sheath. It was no penknife, but a serious-looking weapon.
“We look like three bandits, to me,” Sebastien joked. He noticed that all three cartridge belts were quite similar in basic style, as though they had been made by the same leather craftsman. Only the ornamentation differed. Cristiano’s, for example, was adorned with turquoises, while Estevao’s had polished brass studs, arranged in elegant little geometric patterns.
Sebastien commented on this.
“My belt was a gift from your uncle,” Cristiano explained. “He gave Estevao’s to him, too. All three of them were custom made, by the same leather worker. Seeing you wear that belt, Sebastien, brings back many happy memories to me.”
“My uncle left behind rather large shoes—or rather, boots—to fill. I’m not sure I’m up to the job,” Sebastien admitted.
“You will do fine,” Cristiano said.
“You’ll have to help me. Both of you.”
“That goes without saying. Now, where shall we ride to this morning?” Cristiano asked. “What would you like to see first?”
“I want to see everything.”
Cristiano laughed. “That isn’t going to be possible, not in one day.”
“Well, I don’t really care where we go, as long as I can get some exercise, out in the fresh air.”
After breakfast, the three men went to the stables, where Sebastien discovered, from the name plates on the stalls, that many of the horses were named after Brazilian soccer stars—Ronaldinho, Zé Roberto, Kaká, and so forth. Others bore the nicknames of teams—Seleção, for example, or Canarinho, which meant The Selection and Little Canary, respectively. Sebastien, at Cristiano’s urging, soon found himself mounting—with Estevao’s assistance, as usual—a magnificent black stallion named Gilberto Silva—which had not been named after Tio Gil, but after yet another famous futebol player.
The sun, a huge red ball, was just coming up over the horizon, which glowed with bands of magenta and pink. The coolness of the night still lingered in the air, and there was actually dew on the grass.
“Oh, this is delightful,” Sebastien exclaimed as they rode away from the main compound’s groups of buildings. “It’s so cool. Almost chilly. Very refreshing.”
“It will get warm very quickly, once the sun is up,” Cristiano warned.
They had not ridden far before Cristiano pointed, with his whip.
“There is the stone cairn I told you about last night.”
It was a modest pile of stones of various sizes and shapes, all of them speckled with pale green moss and grayish lichens, stacked in a roughly pyramidal shape. It sat in the middle of a particularly lush open pasture, bordered by copses of shrubby trees, and, sure enough, a dozen or so cows occupied the pasture at the moment, grazing. They were evidently so used to the presence of men on horseback that none of them raised a head to look at the three riders as they passed.
The only visible body of water was one of the island’s countless rivulets, meandering through the denser growths of trees in the distance.
“It’s hard to believe flood waters could reach this far,” Sebastien remarked.
“It would be another miracle if they ever did,” Cristiano joked. “But Saõ Martinho would drive them back.”
“You are irreverent, Cristiano,” Estevao complained.
“Look who’s talking!” his fellow Brazilian retorted.
“I am a pious man,” Estevao boasted.
“You are many things, none of which I care to mention in front of the mestre, for fear of offending him.” Cristiano smiled at Sebastien, in a way that told him he was being no more than half serious, at best. “As for me, I am a sinful man, and I admit it. But if the waters ever rise this high again, then I will be the first to throw myself down on my knees, and beg the saint to spare us. Surely Saõ Martinho will be more impressed by the heartfelt plea of a reprobate such as myself, than by the prayers of the innocent and the good. Don’t you agree?”
“I fail to see your logic,” Estevao scoffed. “You will be lucky if the waters do not sweep you away, and carry you far out to sea, as an example to all the unrepentant.”
“What do you think, Sebastien? After all, you, too, bear the name of a saint, and a martyr.”
Sebastien laughed. “I absolutely refuse to engage in a theological debate on such a beautiful morning. We will change the subject, men,” he said firmly, “to something more frivolous.”
With two such lively companions, the time passed quickly.
Sebastien was shown not only more pastures occupied by cows, but a herd of water buffalos, most of which were wallowing contentedly in a muddy pond. Wranglers on horseback monitored the animals. The men waved to Cristiano and Estevao, who waved back.
“Where shall we go to next?” Estevao asked.
Sebastien suddenly remembered something. “I had forgotten. I am almost ashamed to admit it. The reason I wanted to come to Brazil, originally, was to see where my uncle is buried. Where is it? Is it far from here?”
“It is in the village of Guarás, which lies that way, not far from here,” Estevao said. “Many of the workers who do not live on the fazenda, but commute back and forth, live there. It is the closest village to Saõ Martinho. We can ride there easily from here.”
“Then let us do so,” Sebastien declared.
“An excellent idea. My mother lives there, you know,” Cristiano said. “She will give us some refreshment.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose—”
“On the contrary, she will be glad to meet you. And she treats Estevao almost as though he were also her son. A prodigal son,” Cristiano joked, at Estevao’s expense.
“I am not as bad as all that,” Estevao protested.
“You have led many men astray,” Cristiano said—quite casually, which made Sebastien wonder exactly what he might be talking about. Estevao looked flustered, however, so Sebastien didn’t ask for clarification.
“Your mother was my uncle’s housekeeper for many years, I understand.”
“Yes. She taught senhora Beatriz everything she needed to know, so she was ready to take my mother’s place, when my mother chose to retire. Senhora Beatriz began working at the fazenda as one of the maids.”
“Your mother obviously trained her well. The house seems almost to run itself.”
“My mother will be proud to hear you say that, senhor Sebastien. She took great pride in her work.”
“She must take great pride in you, too.”
“All mothers take pride in their sons.”
Not all, Sebastien was tempted to say, his thoughts suddenly turning just a bit sour. But he said only, “True.”
Cristiano and Estevao seemed to share an unerring sense of direction—which was a good thing, because Sebastien soon felt as though he had lost all sense of direction himself. They rode along dirt tracks, too crude to be called roads, that cut through the vast expanses of grass. More often, they simply rode cross-country.
At one point Cristiano indicated a sort of metal stake, hammered into the ground and largely obscured by weeds. The top section of the stake had a combination of letters and numbers, incomprehensible to Sebastien, stencil-painted on it.
“I am sorry to tell you, Sebastien, that when we pass that marker, we will no longer be on your land.”
“Does that mean I’m no longer the mestre, and you two no longer have to take orders from me?”
“Yes and no,” Cristiano said, with a laugh. “It will depend on whether the orders are agreeable to us, or not.”
Oddly enough, Sebastien felt a sense of relief after they had crossed the invisible boundary line. It was as though an equally invisible weight had been lifted from his shoulders—at least temporarily.
“We must follow this road, to get to Guarás,” Estevao said.
The “road” was no more than two parallel lines worn into the dirt, tire
tracks left by a succession of motor vehicles. At one point, the “road” crossed a stream, with an extremely rickety wooden platform serving as a bridge. The planks resounded under the horses’ hooves.
They had left behind the open fields and were now riding through woods, the canopy of branches high overhead providing welcome shade from the growing heat of the sun.
They crossed a small clearing, dense with flowering bushes which brushed against the riders’ legs. Butterflies with yellow wings were floating over the scattered open spaces and resting about the edges of the stream, which gurgled as it continued on its course, twisting and turning through the close-growing trees until it was lost in them. The sun, climbing ever higher in the sky, lit up the landscape with an unreal brightness.
How beautiful this country is, Sebastien thought. What hidden beauty there seems to be, tucked away everywhere here.
Things seemed to happen like this, one hundred miles south of the equator. One chose to ride down a scraggly path, totally unprepossessing in appearance, and along the way one was confronted by this unexpected breathtaking beauty.
The horsemen exited the woods. There were houses in the distance, ramshackle to begin with, poorly kept, and with dilapidated fences dividing them.
“We are on the outskirts of Guarás,” Cristiano said. “I know it is not much to look at. The town itself, when we ride through it, is a little prettier—or so I have always thought.”
And so it proved. Sebastien found the houses and shops, which were either whitewashed or brightly painted in bold primary colors, or softer pastels, charming. Flowers were everywhere, cultivated in small gardens interspersed among the dwellings, or grown in pots, set on thresholds and on balconies.
They negotiated narrow streets, laid out with an indifference to strict symmetry, turned a slight angle, and found themselves in the so-called village square.
It was a small piazza only, on one side of which was the unreal sight of a little church—a church so perfect in its design, so delicately wrought, so soft in its graying white stucco, that it might have been a toy building, an architect’s model for a much larger and more imposing structure. Beside and behind the church extended the graveyard, which was bordered by hedges and trees.
The riders dismounted and tied their horses to a hitching rail, driven into the ground underneath a clump of trees.
“The horses can rest here, in the shade,” Cristiano said, giving his mount an affectionate pat on the side of its glossy neck.
Sebastien saw only one motor vehicle, a rusty old sedan parked at the far end of the square. The town was very quiet. He walked over to look at the façade of the church, with his two companions following.
No one came into the “square” all this time, except for a small rooster and his two attendant hens, who filed behind him demurely as all three fowls traversed the space, with the breeze ruffling their feathers. They might have been mimicking the movement of the three men.
“I’m afraid the church is not very grand, senhor Sebastien,” Estevao said apologetically. Perhaps he mistook Sebastien’s silence for disappointment.
“On the contrary, I’m glad it’s not,” Sebastien replied. “I can understand why my uncle wanted to be buried here, in this town. It’s very peaceful here.”
“Come, I will show you the grave,” Cristiano said. He led the way through a gap in the hedge, into the churchyard. The graves were laid out in uneven rows, again with little concern for symmetry.
“Here we are, senhor Sebastien,” Estevao said, guiding Sebastien through the maze, to a spot near one of the thickets of trees.
There lay a single flat grave slab, with little to distinguish it from the others nearby. On it were inscribed the name and the dates of birth and death. A small terracotta flower pot, with an elegant design of three-dimensional leaves and fruit around its rim, was set on the foot of the slab. A profusion of brilliant yellow flowers, which Sebastien did not recognize, was growing in the pot, trailing down over its sides. Sebastien gazed down at the grave and the floral offering. After a moment, he spoke.
“Yes, I recognize this from the photo Joaquin was kind enough to send me. I wonder who put those lovely flowers there?”
Cristiano spoke up. “My mother, no doubt. I recognize the pot. It is from her garden.”
“I wish I had brought flowers. Would it be possible to buy some, anywhere near here?”
“My mother would be happy to place her garden at your disposal. You could cut all the flowers you wished, there, to make a fine bouquet. But there is also a woman in the town who sells flowers and plants. Many people buy from her, to adorn the graves, as you see, or to place flowers inside the church. Perhaps you would like to plant something more permanent, there at the head of the grave? A rose bush, perhaps? They do marvelously well in this climate.”
This was no exaggeration—many of the graves had roses planted beside their markers, and in every case the plants were thriving, to the extent that many of them might have benefited from a hard pruning back. Not a few of the tombstones were all but smothered beneath the weight of thorny canes and massed blooms. There was a full range of colors—reds, pinks, whites, yellows, oranges.
“I would like to do that,” Sebastien decided. “Yes, let’s make Tio Gil’s grave look just like the others. Let him have a rose bush, too.”
“Let me arrange it, senhor,” Estevao offered. “I will go to the flower woman’s shop, and see what is available, while you look inside the church, if you wish.”
“Very well, Estevao. If you see something suitable, you choose it and buy it. I trust your judgment. Here.” Sebastien handed Estevao a fifty-real note. “Will that be enough?”
“More than enough, senhor.”
As Estevao went off on his errand, Cristiano and Sebastien walked back to the front of the church and entered it.
Inside, it was cool and dark, the small windows admitting comparatively little light. The interior was modest, with a small altar, separated from the nave by a low railing. Rows of plain benches provided seating, supplemented here and there by mismatched wooden chairs and stools. The images of the saints on display were of plaster or wood, crudely modeled or carved, and painted in garish hues. The only hints of grandeur were on the altar. It was enveloped in an altar cloth that looked quite new, crimson red with intricate embroidery, and set on the altar was a free-standing crucifix—modest in size, less than two feet tall, and appropriately rustic in style, but nonetheless an exquisite example of metalworking craft.
“Your uncle donated the altar cloth and the crucifix to the church,” Cristano said to Sebastien, in a whisper, as they stood beside the holy water font just inside the entrance.
“That surprises me. I didn’t think he was a particularly religious man.”
“He was not ostentatious about it. He preferred good deeds to formal religious observances. He gave a great deal of money to charity—always anonymously, although of course everyone knew he was the community’s benefactor.”
Cristiano touched Sebastien’s elbow, then drew his attention to a woman who was standing near the railing, with her back turned toward them.
She wore a simple but well-tailored dress, dove gray, and matching high-heeled shoes. Her head and shoulders were shrouded in a creamy white lace shawl. She stood motionless for a moment, then moved toward the altar and its crucifix, and made her genuflection and short prayer.
“My mother,” Cristiano whispered. “She comes here every day.”
Senhora Erendira rose and turned away from the altar. Looking up, she noticed the two men standing at the rear of the church, and she recognized her son at once. Smiling, she strode toward him, her carriage very straight, her heels clicking slightly on the tiled floor in the silence. As she approached, she went directly to Sebastien, and offered him her hand.
“Senhor Sebastien,” she said. “I see the resemblance. I might be looking at senhor Gilberto, when he was your age. I am so glad that Cristiano has brought you here.”
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br /> “How wonderful to meet you, at last.” Sebastien had taken her hand, but instead of shaking it, he clasped it between both of his own. “My uncle mentioned you so often in his letters.”
As they walked out of the church, senhora Erendira pulled the lace shawl away from her face. A large square-cut diamond ring sparkled on her hand. She kissed Cristiano, who then took her arm. Sebastien, seeing her face in the bright sunlight, guessed her age as perhaps sixty. She was still a beautiful woman, with a serene expression and warm brown eyes. Her dark hair had only begun to be streaked with gray, here and there, and her face was barely lined. It was easy to see where Cristiano had gotten his good looks.
Cristiano was talking to his mother, telling her about their ride, and about the errand Estevao had gone on.
“I trust Estevao has been taking good care of you, senhor Sebastien?” senhora Erendira asked.
“He is really a rather extraordinary young man.”
“When I worked for senhor Gilberto I was not sure, sometimes, which of us was the real housekeeper—me, or Estevao.”
“I know exactly what you mean, senhora. Now, I am not sure who is the mestre—me, or Estevao.”
“Look,” Cristiano said. “Speaking of the little scamp! Here comes Estevao, turned gardener! What a sight!”
A perspiring Estevao was crossing the square, pushing a wheelbarrow, which was loaded down with a rosebush in a plastic pot, a bucket filled with water, two large plastic bags, and a shovel. The rosebush had blooms of a distinctive deep dusty pink color, almost tinged with lavender.
“Do you like this color, senhor Sebastien?” Estevao asked. “It is the most beautiful rose the woman had.”
“It’s perfect,” Sebastien assured him.
“Yes, it is lovely, Estevao,” senhor Erendira said as Estevao greeted her. She and Estevao were obviously old friends.
Estevao tried to hand Sebastien the change from his purchase.
“Is there a poor box, inside the church?” Sebastien asked. “Good. We’ll put the money in there. You go do that, Estevao, while I dig the hole. I want to dig it myself, and plant the bush with my own hands.”
Brazilian Cattle Baron (Siren Publishing Ménage and More ManLove) Page 22