Captains of the Sands (23 page)

Professor could only say:

“Are you really going?”

Good-Life said yes, they went out of the warehouse. Good-Life looked at the city, gestured with his hand. It was like a
farewell. Good-Life was a drifter and no one loved his city like a drifter. He looked at the Professor:

“When you paint my picture…Are you still going to paint it?”

“I am, Good-Life…” (The wish to say loving words as to a brother.)

“Don’t have me full of pockmarks, no…”

His shape disappeared over the sands. Professor stood with his words withheld, a knot in his throat. But he also thought it was nice of Good-Life to go off to his death like that so as not to infect the others. Men like that are the ones who have a star in place of a heart. And when they die their hearts stay in the sky, God’s-Love says. Good-Life was a boy, he wasn’t a man. But he already had a star in place of a heart. His shape had already disappeared. And the certainty that he would never see his friend again filled the Professor’s heart. The certainty that the other was going to his death.

At the
macumbas
in honor of Omolu the black people, punished with smallpox, were singing:

Omolu had scattered smallpox over the city. It was a vengeance against the city of the rich. But the rich had vaccines, what did Omolu know about vaccines? She was a poor goddess from the jungles of Africa. A goddess of poor blacks. What could she know about vaccines? Then the smallpox descended and devastated Omolu’s people. All Omolu could do was change the smallpox into milk pox, a white and simple pox. So black people died, poor people died. But Omolu said it wasn’t the milk pox that killed them. It was the pesthouse. Omolu only wanted the milk pox to mark her black children. The pesthouse was what killed them. But the
macumbas
asked her to take the
smallpox away from the city, take it to the rich landowners in the backlands. They had money, leagues and leagues of land, but they didn’t know about vaccines either. And Omolu said that she was going inland. And the blacks, the acolytes, the dancers, and the
macumba
priests sang:

Omolu promised to go. But so that her black children wouldn’t forget her, in her farewell chant she told them:

And on a night while the drums were beating at the
macumbas
, on a night of mystery in Bahia, Omolu took off on a locomotive of the Leste Brasileira and went into the backlands of Joazeiro. The smallpox went with her.

Good-Life came back skinny, his clothes dancing on his body. His face was all pockmarked now. The others still looked at him suspiciously when he came into the warehouse that night. But Professor went right over to him:

“Are you all right, kid?”

Good-Life smiled. They came over to shake his hand, Pedro Bala gave him a hug:

“You’re a good boy, you’re a tough boy.”

Even Legless came over, Big João stood beside Good-Life. The mulatto looked at his friends. He asked for a cigarette. His hand was fleshless, his face bony. He remained silent, looking lovingly at the old warehouse, the boys, the dog, who was sitting in Legless’s lap. Then Big João asked:

“What was the pesthouse like?”

Good-Life turned around quickly. His face took on a bitter expression of distaste. He took a while to answer. Then the words came out with difficulty:

“You can’t describe it, you can’t. It’s too much…It makes you sick. When people go in there it’s like getting into a coffin…”

He looked at the others, who were hanging on his words. His voice was bitter:

“Just like getting into a box to go to the cemetery…Just the same…”

He couldn’t find anything else to say. Legless asked between his teeth:

“What else?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I don’t know…God, don’t ask me…” He lowered his head as it rocked back and forth. His voice came out very low, as if he were still afraid. “It’s just like going to the cemetery. Everybody is already dead.”

He looked at them as if asking them not to ask any more questions. Big João spoke for the rest:

“We shouldn’t ask any questions…”

Good-Life backed him up with a gesture of his hand. He said in a very low voice:

“Nothing…It’s just too awful…”

Professor looked at Good-Life’s chest. It was all pockmarked. But in the place of his heart the Professor saw a star.

A star in the place of his heart.

They were at a corner table. Cat pulled out his deck. But neither Pedro Bala, nor Big João, nor the Professor, nor even Good-Life was interested. They were waiting in the Gate of the Sea for God’s-Love. The tables were full. For a long time the Gate of the Sea had been without customers. The smallpox wouldn’t permit it. Now that it had gone away people began to talk about the deaths. Someone mentioned the pesthouse. “It’s tough being poor,” a seafarer said.

At one table they were ordering cane liquor. There was a flurry of glasses on the bar. Then an old man said:

“No one can change destiny. It’s something done up there,” and he pointed to the sky.

But João de Adão spoke up at another table:

“Someday people are going to change the destiny of the poor…”

Pedro Bala raised his head. Professor listened with a smile. But Big João and Good-Life seemed to support the words of the old man, who repeated:

“No one can change it, no. It’s written up there…”

“Someday people are going to change things…” Pedro Bala said and everybody looked at the boy.

“What do you know about it, squirt?” the old man asked.

“He’s the son of the Blond, the father’s voice is talking,” João de Adão
answered, looking with respect. “His father died to change people’s destiny.”

He looked at everyone. The old man fell silent and he was looking with respect too. They were all getting their confidence back. Outside there a guitar began to play.

The music had already started again on the hill. The drifters were coming back to play the guitar, sing
modinhas
, invent sambas they would later sell to famous samba singers in the city. In Deoclécio’s store there was a group every afternoon again. For some time everything had come to a halt on the hill, giving way to the weeping and lamentations of women and children. The men went by head down on their way home or to work. And the black coffins of adults, the white ones of virgins, the little ones of children went down the harsh slopes of the hill to the distant cemetery. When it wasn’t a case of sacks going down with smallpox victims still alive being carried off to the pesthouse. The family wept as it would for a dead person, with the certainty that he would never return. No music from a guitar. No full voice of a black man cut through the sadness of the hilltop in those days. Only the call of the watchmen, the convulsive weeping of women.

That was what the hill was like when Estevão was taken to the pesthouse. He didn’t return, one afternoon Margarida learned that he had died there. That afternoon she already had a fever. But the milk pox in the washerwoman’s body seemed to be one of the milder forms and she hid the news from everyone, she succeeded in not getting put into a sack. In a short time she was getting better. Her two children went about the
house doing what she told them. Zé Ferret wasn’t much use, still unable to do anything at the age of six. But Dora was thirteen going on fourteen, her breasts had begun to appear under her dress, she looked like a little woman, very serious, finding medicine for her mother, taking care of her. Margarida got better when the guitars were already being played on the hill, because the smallpox epidemic was over. Music grew to dominate the hilltop nights and Margarida, if she wasn’t completely well yet, went to the houses of some of her customers looking for clothes. She returned with the bundle on her back, heading for the water spigot. She worked all day in the sun and in the rain that fell that afternoon. The following day she didn’t go back to work because she had a relapse of milk pox and a relapse is always terrible. Two days later the last smallpox coffin went down the hill. Dora didn’t sob. The tears ran down her face but while the coffin was going down she was thinking about Zé Ferret who was asking for something to eat. Her little brother was weeping from grief and hunger. He was too small to understand that he’d been left without anybody in the immensity of the city.

The neighbors fed the orphans that afternoon. The next day the Arab who owned the shacks on the hill ordered them to spray alcohol on Margarida’s in order to disinfect it. And then he rented it, because it was a well-located shack, high up on the slope. And while the neighbors were discussing the problem of the orphans, Dora took her brother’s hand and went down into the city. She didn’t say goodby to anyone, it was like a flight. Zé Ferret went along not knowing where, dragged by his sister. Dora was going along calmly. In the city she would have to find someone to give them something to eat, who could at least take care of her brother. She would set up a job as table maid in some house. She was still quite young, but there were many houses that really preferred a young girl because they wouldn’t have to pay as much. Her mother had spoken about getting her a job as table maid in the house of a customer. Dora knew where it was and went there. The hill, the guitar music, the samba a black man was singing all were left behind. Dora’s
bare feet burned on the hot asphalt. Zé Ferret went along merrily, looking at the city that was unknown to him, the streetcars going by full of people, the buses honking their horns, the crowds crossing the streets. Dora had gone to the house of that customer once with Margarida. It was in the Barra district, they’d gone on a cargo trolley, carrying the bundle of clean clothes. The lady of the house had fussed over Dora, had asked her if she wanted to work there. Margarida had agreed to bring her when she was older. That was where Dora planned to go. And by asking different people she found her way to Barra. It was a long way and the asphalt burned her shoeless feet. Zé Ferret began to ask for something to eat and complained about being tired. Dora calmed him down with promises and they continued on. But at Campo Grande Zé Ferret couldn’t go any farther. The distance was too much for him, for his six years. Then Dora went into a bakery, broke the only five hundred
reis
she had, bought two loaves of day-old bread, left Zé Ferret sitting on a bench with the bread:

“Eat and wait for me, you hear? I’m going over there, I’ll be right back. But don’t budge from here or else you’ll get lost…”

Zé Ferret promised with a very solemn face, biting into the hard bread. She kissed him and continued on.

The policeman who told her the way looked at her breasts that were forming. Her blond hair, ill-treated, was waving in the breeze. The soles of her feet were burning and she felt fatigued all over her body. But she went on. The number was 611. When she reached 53 she stopped a bit to rest and think about what she would say to the lady of the house. Then she started up again. Now hunger was helping to weaken her body, that terrible hunger of children of thirteen, a hunger that demands immediate food. Dora felt like crying, like letting herself drop onto the street in the sun and not moving. A memory of her dead parents came over her. But she reacted against everything and continued on.

Number 611 was a big house, almost a small palace, with trees in front. In a playground a swing where a girl Dora’s age
was playing. A boy in his late teens was pushing her and both of them were laughing. They were the children of the owners of the house. Dora stood looking at them enviously for a few minutes. Then she rang the bell. The boy looked but continued pushing his sister. Dora rang again and the maid answered. She explained that she wanted to speak to Dona Laura, the lady of the house. The maid looked at her with mistrust. But the boy stopped pushing his sister and came over to the door. He was looking at Dora’s breasts that were beginning to show, the thighs under her dress. He asked:

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to talk to Dona Laura. I’m the daughter of Margarida, who used to be her laundress…She doesn’t know that she died…”

The boy didn’t take his eyes off Dora’s breasts. She was pretty, the girl, big eyes, very blond hair, the granddaughter of an Italian and a mulatto woman. Margarida said she took after her grandfather, who also had blond hair along with a big, well-cared-for mustache. Dora lowered her eyes because the boy wasn’t taking his off her breasts. He also became flustered, spoke to the maid:

“Go call Mother…”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy took out a cigarette, lighted it. He blew smoke into the air, pursing his lips, took another peek at Dora’s breasts:

“Are you looking for work?”

“Yes, sir.”

The breeze lifted her dress a little. He got lewd thoughts when he saw the piece of thigh. He was already thinking about bed, Dora bringing breakfast, the messing around that would follow: