Captains of the Sands (30 page)

“The blacksmith’s shop?”

“I think the field is better. Digging in the ground…” He laughs.

Fausto says all right, the director advises:

“Keep your eye on him. He’s a bad bird. But I’ll teach him…”

Pedro Bala bears his look. The beadle pushes him.

Now he takes a slow look at the mansion. In the middle of the courtyard the barber shaves his head down to nothing. He sees the blond hair curling on the ground. They give him some pants and jackets of mixed blue. He gets dressed right there. The beadle takes him to a blacksmith shop:

“Have you got a machete, a sickle?”

He gives the items to Pedro Bala. They walk to the cane field where other boys are working. On that day, from being so weak, Pedro Bala can barely hold the machete. For that reason the beadles punch him. He doesn’t say anything.

At night, standing on line, he looks at everyone, trying to figure out who talked to him and gave him cigarettes. They go up the stairs, go to the dormitory that’s on the fourth floor so as to discourage any idea of escape. The door is closed. The beadle Fausto says:

“Graça, start the prayers.”

A yellowish boy makes the Sign of the Cross. They all repeat the words and the gestures. Then an Our Father and a Hail Mary, said in a strong voice in spite of their fatigue. Pedro Bala throws himself onto his bed. A dirty bedcover awaits him. They change the bedclothes every two weeks. And the bedclothes are only a cover and a case for a rock-hard pillow.

He’s already asleep when someone touches him on the shoulder.

“You’re Pedro Bala, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m the one who brought you the message.”

Pedro looks at the mulatto beside him. He could be ten years old:

“Have they come back?”

“Every damned day. They only wanted to know when you were getting out of the hole.”

“Tell them I’m in the cane field…”

“Would you like a little ass tonight? We’ve got some boys here, at night we…”

“I’m dead tired…How long was I in there?”

“A week. Somebody died there once.”

The boy goes away. Pedro didn’t ask his name. All he wants is to sleep. But the ones going to the pederasts’ beds make noise. The beadle Fausto comes out of his walled-off room:

“What’s going on there?”

Silence. He claps his hands:

“Everybody on your feet.”

He looks at them all:

“Nobody knows anything?”

Silence. The beadle rubs his eyes, walks among the beds. A huge clock strikes ten on the wall.

“Nobody has anything to say?”

Silence. The beadle grinds his teeth:

“Then you can all stand for an hour…Until eleven o’clock. And the first one who tries to go to bed goes into the hole. It’s empty now…”

The voice of a boy cuts the silence:

“Mister beadle…”

It’s a little half-yellowish boy.

“Speak, Henrique.”

“I know…”

All eyes are on him. Fausto encourages his informing:

“Tell us what you know.”

“It was Jeremias who was going to Berto’s bed to do something dirty.”

“Mr. Jeremias, Mr. Berto!”

The two come out from their beds.

“Stand by the door. Until midnight. The rest can go to bed.” He looks at all of them again. The ones being punished are standing by the door.

When the beadle withdraws, Jeremias threatens Henrique. The others comment. Pedro Bala sleeps.

In the mess hall, while they drink the watered coffee and chew the hard, stale bread, his tablemate speaks:

“Are you the leader of the Captains of the Sands?” His voice is very low.

“Yes, I am.”

“I saw your picture in the paper…You’ve got guts! But they did you in.” He looks at Bullet’s thin face.

He chews the roll. Goes on:

“Are you going to stay here?”

“I’m getting out…”

“Me too. I’ve got a plan…When I take off can I join your gang?”

“Sure.”

“Where’s your hideout?”

Pedro Bala looks at him mistrustfully:

“You’ll find the guys at Campo Grande every afternoon.”

“Do you think I’ll tell?”

The beadle Campos claps his hands. They all get up. They go to the different shops or to the cultivated fields.

In the middle of the afternoon Pedro Bala sees Legless going by on the road. He also sees a beadle, who touches him.

Punishment…Punishment…It’s the word that Pedro Bala hears most in the Reformatory. They’re beaten for any reason, they’re punished for trifles. Hatred is growing in all of them.

At the end of the cane field he passes a note to Legless. The next day he finds the rope in the cane brush. They must have put it there during the night. It’s a roll of strong, thin rope. It’s brand new. Inside it the knife that Pedro puts into his pants. The hard thing is getting the roll to the dormitory. Running away during the day is impossible because of the watchfulness of the beadles. He can’t carry the roll in his clothing because they would notice.

Suddenly a fight starts. Jeremias jumps on the beadle Fausto with his machete in his hand. Other boys jump on him too, but a group of beadles comes armed with clubs. They’re getting Jeremias down. Pedro puts the rope under his jacket, takes off for the dormitory. A beadle is coming down the stairs with a
revolver in his hand. Pedro hides behind a door. The beadle comes along fast, passes by.

He shoves the rope under his mattress, goes back to the cane field. Jeremias was taken to the hole. The beadles are counting the boys now. Ranulfo and Campos have gone off after Agostinho, who went over the wall during the confusion of the fight. The beadle Fausto has a cut on his shoulder and has gone to the infirmary. The director is among them, his eyes flashing with rage. A beadle counts the boys. He asks Pedro Bala:

“Where were you hiding?”

“I left so I wouldn’t get mixed up in it.”

The beadle looks at him suspiciously, but goes on.

Ranulfo and Campos come back with Agostinho. The runaway is beaten in front of everybody. Then the director says:

“Put him in the hole.”

“Jeremias is already there,” Ranulfo says.

“Put them both in. They can talk that way…”

Pedro Bala has a shudder. How are both of them going to fit into the small space of the hole?

That night vigilance is tight, he doesn’t try anything. The boys gnash their teeth with rage.

Two nights later, after the beadle Fausto had already retired to his partitioned room for a long time and they were all asleep, Pedro Bala got up, took the rope from under his mattress. His bed was beside a window. He opened it. He tied the rope to one of the hammock hooks there were on the wall. He let the rope fall out the window. It was short. There was still a long way to go. He pulled it up. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but even so, one of his neighbors woke up:

“Are you running away?”

That one didn’t have a good reputation. He was in the habit of squealing. That’s exactly why he’d been put next to Pedro Bala. Bullet grabbed his knife, showed it to him:

“Look, stooly, try to sleep. If you so much as peep I’ll cut your throat, I swear as I’m Pedro Bala. And if you say anything
after I’ve gone…Have you heard tell of the Captains of the Sands?”

“I have.”

“Well, they’ll get even for me.”

He lays the knife within reach. He pulls up the rope all the way, ties the sheet to it at one end with one of the knots God’s-Love had taught him. He threatens the boy once more, tosses the rope out, puts his body out the window, starts his descent. Halfway down he already hears the squealer’s shouts. He lets himself slide down the rope, leaps to the ground. The drop is long, but he takes off running. He jumps over the wall then to avoid the police dogs that are loose. He runs down the road. He has a few minutes head start. The time for the beadles to get dressed and come out after him, turning the dogs out too. Pedro Bala puts the knife between his teeth, takes off his clothes. In that way the dogs won’t know him by the scent. And, naked, in the cold dawn, he starts running toward the sunlight, toward freedom.

The Professor reads the headline in the
Jornal da Tarde
:

LEADER OF CAPTAINS OF THE SANDS MANAGES ESCAPE FROM REFORMATORY

It carried a long interview with the furious director. The whole warehouse laughs. Even Father José Pedro, who’s with them, laughs in a cackle, as if he were one of the Captains of the Sands.

A month of Orphanage was enough to kill Dora’s joy and health. She’d been born on the hilltop, a childhood of running about the hill. Then the freedom of the streets of the city, the adventurous life of the Captains of the Sands. She wasn’t a hothouse flower. She loved the sunlight, the streets, freedom.

They’d made two braids out of her hair, tied it with ribbons. Pink ribbons. They gave her a dress of blue cloth, an apron of a darker blue. They made her attend classes with girls five or six years old. The food was bad, there was also punishment. Fasting, losing play period. A fever came over her, she was in the infirmary. When she got out she was skinny. She still had a fever, but she didn’t say anything because she hated the silence of the infirmary, where the sunlight never entered and all hours seemed like the dying hour of sunset. When she could, she got close to the fence because sometimes she spotted Professor or Big João, who made their rounds out there. One day they passed her a note. Pedro Bala had escaped from the Reformatory. He would come get her out of there. She didn’t even feel the fever she had.