Captains of the Sands (26 page)

“Do you know I want to be a priest?”

“How nice…” she said.

Lollipop’s face lighted up. He looked at Dora, spoke with an exalted voice:

“Do you think I’m worthy? God is good, but he also knows how to punish…”

“Why?” There was shock in Dora’s question.

“You don’t see how full of sin our life is…Every day…”

“It’s not you people’s fault…” Dora stated. “You haven’t got anybody.”

But now Lollipop had her. His mother. He laughed with satisfaction:

“Father José Pedro said that too. It may be…”

He laughed again, she smiled too, animated.

“…it may be that I’ll be a priest someday.”

“You will be, yes.”

“Do you want this Christ Child for yourself?” he suddenly asked.

He was like a son bringing some of his candy to his mother, who’d given him a nickel to buy it.

And Dora accepted as a mother accepts part of her dear son’s candy so he’ll feel satisfied.

Professor saw Lollipop’s mother, not knowing what she was
like, what she might have been like. But he saw her there in Dora’s place. He was envious of Lollipop’s happiness.

They found Pedro Bala stretched out on the sand. The leader of the Captains of the Sands hadn’t gone into the warehouse that night. He’d stayed looking at the moon, lying on the good warmth of the sand. The rain had stopped and the breeze that was blowing was warm now. Professor lay down too, Dora sat between the two of them. Pedro Bala looked at her out of the corner of his eye, pulled his cap farther down his face. Dora said, turning to him:

“You were good to me and my brother yesterday…”

“You should have gone away…” the Bullet answered.

She didn’t say anything, but became sad. Then Professor spoke:

“No, Bullet. She’s like a mother…Like a mother, yes. For everyone…”

He repeated:

“She’s like a mother…Like a mother…”

Pedro Bala looked at the two of them. He took off his cap, sat up on the sand. But Dora was looking at him with affection. For him…For him she was everything: wife, sister, and mother. He smiled at Dora in confusion:

“I thought you might be a temptation for everyone…”

She said no, he went on:

“Later on they could take advantage of a time when nobody was around…”

They laughed. The Professor repeated again:

“No. She’s like a little mother…”

“You can stay,” Pedro Bala said and Dora smiled at him, he was her hero, a figure she had never imagined but whom she would have to imagine one day. She loved him as a son without love, a brave brother, a lover handsome as no one else.

But Professor saw the smiles on them both. And he said yet again in a serious voice:

“She’s like Mother!”

He said it with a sullen voice because for him she wasn’t Mother either. For the Professor, too, she was the beloved.

Since her dress made her movements difficult and since she wanted to be one of the Captains of the Sands in all ways, she put it aside for a pair of pants Outrigger had been given at a house in the upper city. The pants had been enormous for the little black boy, so he offered them to Dora. Even so they were too big for her, she had to cut the legs to make them fit. She tied them with a cord, following the example of them all, the dress served as a blouse. If it hadn’t been for her long, blond hair and her nascent breasts everyone would have taken her for a boy, one of the Captains of the Sands.

One day when, dressed like a boy, she appeared before Pedro Bala, the boy began to laugh. He ended up rolling on the ground from laughing so much. Finally he managed to say:

“You’re funny…”

She was sad, Pedro Bala stopped laughing.

“It isn’t right for you people to feed me every day. Now I can take part in what you do.”

His surprise knew no limits:

“You mean…”

She was looking at him calmly, waiting for him to finish the sentence.

“…that you’re going out with us on the streets, doing things…?”

“That’s right.” Her voice was full of resolve.

“You’re crazy…”

“I don’t see why.”

“Don’t you see that you can’t? This isn’t anything for a girl. This is something for men.”

“As if you were all great big men. You’re all boys.”

Pedro Bala searched for an answer:

“But we wear pants, not skirts…”

“Me too,” and she showed her pants.

For the moment he couldn’t find anything to say. He looked at her thoughtfully, he no longer had an urge to laugh. After some time he spoke:

“If the police grab us they haven’t got anything. But what if they grab you?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“They’ll put you in the Orphanage. You don’t know what it’s like…”

“No more to be said. I’m going with you people now.”

He shrugged his shoulders in the gesture of someone who had nothing to do with it. He’d given his warning. But she knew very well that he was worried. That’s why she still said:

“You’ll see that I’m the equal of any one of them…”

“Have you ever seen a woman do what a man can do? You couldn’t stand up under a shove…”

“I can do other things.”

Pedro Bala accepted. Underneath it all he liked her attitude, even if he was afraid of the results.

She walked the streets with them, just like one of the Captains of the Sands. She no longer found the city her enemy. Now she loved it too, learned to go through its alleys, its hillsides, jump on moving trolley cars, on automobiles in her escape. She was as agile as the most agile. She always went with Pedro Bala, Big João, and Professor. Big João never left her, he was like Dora’s shadow, and he drooled with satisfaction when in her friendly voice she called him “my brother.” The black boy followed her like a dog and devoted himself completely to her. He lived in awe of Dora’s qualities. He found her almost
as brave as Pedro Bala. He would say to the Professor with amazement:

“She’s brave like a man…”

Professor would have liked it to be otherwise. He dreamed of a loving look from Dora’s eyes. But not that maternal love that she had for the younger and the more unfortunate ones, Dry Gulch, Lollipop. Nor a fraternal look like the one she gave Big João, Legless, Cat, himself. He wanted one of those looks full of love that she gave Pedro Bala when she saw him on the run, fleeing the police or a man shouting from the door of a shop:

“Stop thief! Stop thief! I’ve been robbed…”

She only had those looks for Pedro Bala and he didn’t even notice. Professor listened to Big João’s words of praise but he didn’t smile.

Pedro Bala arrived at the warehouse that night with a black eye and a red, bleeding lip. He’d run into Ezequiel, the leader of another gang of thieves and beggar boys, a much smaller group than the Captains of the Sands and without as much organization. Ezequiel was coming along with some three others of his gang, including one who’d been kicked out of the Captains of the Sands for being caught stealing from a comrade. Pedro Bala had gone to leave Dora and Zé Ferret at the foot of the Ladeira do Taboão so they could go to the warehouse. Big João had a job to do and couldn’t go with Dora. Pedro Bala thought of going with her, not leaving her alone on the sands. But since night still hadn’t fallen there was no danger of any black man grabbing her. Besides, he had to go pick up some pennies from the hand of González of the “14,” money owed from a raid the gang had made for some leather goods belonging to a rich Arab.

While he was heading for the “14” Pedro Bala was thinking about Dora. The blond hair that fell around her neck, her looks. She was pretty, she was just like a girlfriend. Girlfriend…He shouldn’t even think about that…He didn’t want the others in the gang to feel the right to think about dirty things with her. And if he told Dora she was like a girlfriend to
him, somebody else might judge that he had a right to say so too. And then there wouldn’t be any law and order among the Captains of the Sands. Pedro Bala remembers that he’s the leader.

He goes along so lost in thought that he almost bumps into Ezequiel. The four of them are standing in front of him. Ezequiel is a tall mulatto, he’s smoking a cigar butt. Pedro Bala stands there too, waiting. Ezequiel spits:

“Can’t you see where you’re going?…Are you blind or something?”

“What do you want?”

The boy who’d been with the Captains of the Sands asks:

“How are things with those faggots?”

“Do you still remember the beating you got there? You should keep your mouth shut.”

The boy grinds his teeth, tries to step forward. But Ezequiel makes a motion and warns Pedro Bala:

“One of these days I’m going to pay a visit to you people.”

“A visit?” Pedro Bala asks mistrustfully.

“They say that you’ve got a little whore there for everybody now…”

“Bite your tongue, you son of a bitch.”

Ezequiel dropped with the punch. But the other three were already on top of Pedro Bala. Ezequiel put his foot on Bullet’s face. The one who’d been with the Captains of the Sands shouted:

“Hold him good,” and he punched Pedro on the face.

Ezequiel kicked him twice in the face.

“Admit that I’m your boss.”

“Four…” Pedro Bala began to complain, but a punch shut him up.

A policeman was coming toward them, they scattered. Pedro Bala picked up his cap, the tears of rage flowed along with the blood. He shook his fist at where Ezequiel and his people had disappeared. The policeman spoke:

“Look alive, kid. Beat it, before I run you in.”

Pedro Bala spat pure blood. He went down the slope slowly, not even thinking about going to collect the money from González.
He went down muttering to himself: “They’re only men when it’s four against one.” And he thought of revenge.

He went into the warehouse, Dora was alone with her brother, who was sleeping. The last rays of the sun were coming in through the roof, giving a strange brightness to the big house. Dora saw him come in and went over to him:

“Did you get the dough?…”

But she spotted Pedro’s swollen eye, his split lip:

“What happened, brother?”

“Ezequiel and three others. They’re only men when there are four or more…”

“Did he do that to you?”

“There were four of them. Even so, they hit me when I wasn’t looking. I was dumb enough to think Ezequiel was alone. There were four of them.”

She sat him down, went to Lollipop’s corner, brought some water. With a piece of cloth she cleaned his wounds. Pedro was mapping out plans of revenge. She backed him up:

“We’ll get rid of them once and for all.”

Pedro laughed:

“Are you coming too?”

“I am…”

Now she was cleaning his lips, she was leaning over him, her face right next to Bullet’s, her blond hair mingling with his.

“What was the fight about?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me…”

“He said some things…”

“It was because of me, wasn’t it?”

He nodded his head. Then she brought her lips over to Pedro Bala’s, kissed him, and then ran off. He ran out after her, but she was hiding, she wouldn’t let herself be caught. In a while the others were returning. She was smiling at Pedro Bala from a distance. There was no malice in her smile. But her look was different from the sisterly look she gave the others. It was the soft look of a girlfriend, an innocent and timid girlfriend. They might not even know that it was one of love. In spite of its not being night there was romantic romance in
the big colonial house. She was smiling and lowering her eyes, sometimes she winked because she thought that was making love. And her heart beat rapidly when she looked at him. She didn’t know that it was love. Finally, the moon came out, spread its yellow light over the warehouse. Pedro Bala lay down on the sand and even through closed eyes he saw Dora. He felt it when she came over and lay down beside him. He said: