Captains of the Sands (32 page)

That night, Professor didn’t light a candle, didn’t open a story book. He kept silent when Big João came over beside him. He was gathering his belongings in a bundle. They were almost all books. Big João was looking at him, not saying anything, but he understood a lot, even if everybody said there was no bigger black boob than Big João the black boy. But when Pedro Bala arrived and sat down beside him too and offered him a cigarette, Professor spoke:

“I’m going away, Bullet…”

“Where to, buddy?”

Professor looked at the warehouse, the boys going about, laughing, moving among the rats like shadows:

“What’s this life going to get us? Just a beating at the police station when they catch us. Everybody says it might change someday…Father José Pedro, João de Adão, even you. Now I’m going to change mine…”

Pedro Bala didn’t say anything, but the question was in his eyes. Big João didn’t ask anything, he understood it all.

“I’m going to study with a painter in Rio. Dr. Dantas, the one with the cigarette holder, wrote to him, sent him some of my sketches. He sent word to send me down…Someday I’m going to show what our life was like…I’m going to paint everybody’s picture…You talked about it once, remember? Well, I’m going to do it…”

Pedro Bala’s voice backed him up:

“You’re going to change our lives too…”

“How?” Big João asked.

Professor didn’t understand either. And Pedro Bala didn’t know how to explain it. But confidence in the Professor, in the pictures he would paint, in the stamp of hate he carried in his heart, in the stamp of love for justice and freedom he carried inside himself. A childhood lived among the Captains of the Sands isn’t anything useless. Even when later on you’re going to be an artist and not a thief, murderer, or drifter. But Pedro Bala didn’t know how to explain all that. He only said:

“We’ll never forget you, buddy…You read us stories, you were the sharpest of the group…The sharpest…”

Professor lowered his head. Big João got up, his voice was a call, it was a farewell shout too:

“People, people!”

They all came, stood around. Big João held out his arms:

“People, Professor’s going away. He’s going to be a painter in Rio de Janeiro. People, let’s give a cheer for the Professor.”

The cheer tightened the boy’s heart. He looked around the warehouse. It wasn’t like a picture without a frame. It was like the frame of any number of pictures. Like the pictures on a reel of movie film. Lives of struggle and courage. Misery too. An urge to stay. But what use was there in staying. If he left, he could be of more help. He’d exhibit those lives…They shake his hand, embrace him. Dry Gulch is sad, as sad as if a
cangaceiro
from Lampião’s gang had died.

That night on the dock the man with the cigarette holder, who was a poet, gives the Professor a letter and some money:

“He’ll meet you at the pier. I sent a telegram. I hope you won’t betray the trust I’ve put in your talents.”

Never had a third-class passenger had so many people seeing him off. Dry Gulch gives him a dagger as a present. Pedro Bala does everything he can to laugh, say pleasant things. But Big João can’t hide the sadness inside himself.

From far off, Professor can still see Pedro Bala’s cap waving on the dock. And in the midst of those strangers, officers in uniform, businessmen, and young ladies, he’s timid, doesn’t know what to do, feels that all his courage has stayed behind with the Captains of the Sands. But inside his chest there’s the
stamp of a love for freedom. A stamp that will lead him to leave the old painter who teaches him academic things and go paint pictures on his own, ones which, more than causing admiration, frighten the whole nation.

Winter passed, summer passed, another winter came and this one was full of long rains, the wind didn’t stop blowing on the sands a single night. Now Lollipop was selling newspapers, working as a bootblack, carrying passengers’ luggage. He’d managed to give up stealing to make a living. Pedro Bala let him stay on at the warehouse in spite of his not leading the same life as the others. Pedro Bala doesn’t understand what’s going on inside Lollipop. He knows that he wants to be a priest, that he wants to get away from that life. But he doesn’t think that will solve anything, won’t straighten out their lives at all. Father José Pedro did everything to change their lives. But only one of them, the others didn’t think he’d done too well. What had it got him? Only if all of them were united, as João de Adão would say.

But God was calling Lollipop. In the night, in the warehouse, the boy heard the call of God. It was a powerful voice inside him. A voice as powerful as the voice of the sea, as the voice of the wind that blows around the big old house. A voice that doesn’t speak to his ears, that speaks to his heart. A voice that calls him, that makes him happy and frightened at the same time. A voice that demands everything of him in order to give him the happiness of serving. God is calling him. And God’s call inside Lollipop is as powerful as the voice of the wind, as the powerful voice of the sea. Lollipop wants to live for God, entirely for God, a life of withdrawal and penance, a life that will cleanse him of his sins, will make him worthy of the contemplation of God. God calls him and Lollipop thinks about his salvation. He’ll be a penitent, he won’t look at the spectacle of the world anymore. He doesn’t want to see anything that’s going on in the world in order to have his eyes sufficiently clean to see the face of God. Because for those who don’t have their eyes completely clean of all sin, the face of God is as
terrible as the infuriated sea. But for those who have their eye and heart clean of all sin, the face of God is calm, like the waves of the sea on a morning of sunlight and tranquility.

Lollipop is stamped by God. But he’s also stamped by the life of the Captains of the Sands. He withdraws from their freedom, from seeing and hearing the spectacle of the world, the stamp of adventure on the Captains of the Sands in order to hear the call of God. Because the voice of God that speaks in his heart is powerful beyond comparison. He’ll pray for the Captains of the Sands in his penitent’s cell. Because he has to hear and follow the voice that’s calling him. It’s a voice that transfigures his face on the winter night in the warehouse. As if it were springtime there.

Father José Pedro was called to the Archdiocese again. This time the canon is accompanied by the superior of the Capuchins. Father José Pedro is trembling, thinking that they’re going to scold him again, are going to talk about his sins. He’s done many things against the law in order to help the Captains of the Sands. He fears he failed, because in almost no way has he bettered their life. But at certain cruel moments he derived a bit of comfort from those small hearts. And he had Lollipop…He was a conquest for God. Although he hadn’t done everything, although he hadn’t transformed those lives as he wanted, he hadn’t lost completely either. He’d managed something for God. He was happy in spite of his sadness over how little he’d accomplished for the Captains of the Sands. Even so, at certain moments he’d been like the family they didn’t have. At certain moments he’d been father and mother. Now the leaders were big boys, almost men. Professor had already gone off, others wouldn’t be long in leaving. Even if they went off to be thieves, to live a life of sin, at certain moments the priest had succeeded in lessening the spectacle of misery in their lives with a little comfort and love. And solidarity.

But this time the canon doesn’t scold. He announces that the Archbishop has decided to give him a parish. He concluded:

“You’ve given us a lot of trouble, Father, with your mistaken
ideas on upbringing. I hope that the Archbishop’s goodness in giving you this parish will make you think about your obligations and give up those Bolshevik innovations.”

The parish had never had a priest because the Archbishop had never found one prepared to go among
cangaceiros
in a village lost far in the backlands. But the name of the hamlet gladdens Father José Pedro’s heart. He was going among bandits. And
cangaceiros
are like big children. He thanked him, was going to speak, but the superior of the Capuchins interrupted him:

“The canon tells me that among those boys there’s one who has a priestly vocation…”

“I was going to mention that very same thing,” the priest said. “I’ve never seen such a firm vocation.”

The missionary smiled:

“Because we’re in need of a brother. It isn’t the same as being a priest, I know that full well. But it’s quite close to it. And if his vocation is real, the order might have him study and even have him ordained.”

“He’ll be wild with happiness.”

“Will you answer for him?”

Lollipop was going to be a monk. Someday he might be ordained. The priest leaves, thanking God.

They take the priest to the station. The train whistle is like a lament. Several of the Captains of the Sands are there. Father José Pedro looks at them with love. Pedro Bala says:

“You were good to us, Father. A good man. We’re not going to forget you…”

They don’t recognize Lollipop when he arrives dressed in a monk’s robe, a long cord hanging down the side. Father José Pedro says:

“Do you know Brother Francisco of the Holy Family?”

They look at Lollipop with a certain shame. He’s thinner, has an ascetic look. He looks very tall in the Capuchin habit.

“He’ll pray for you…” Father José Pedro says.

He says goodby. Gets into the coach. The train whistles, it’s like a farewell. From the window the priest sees the boys waving
their hands and their caps, old hats, rags that serve as handkerchiefs. An old woman across from him, dying to start a conversation, is startled to see the priest weeping.

Good-Life doesn’t come to the warehouse very much. He has a guitar, composes sambas, he’s great, he’s one more drifter on the streets of Bahia. No one leads a life like that of the drifters. He spends the day chatting on the docks, at the market, goes to parties on the hilltops and at the Cidade da Palha at night or to
macumbas
. He plays his guitar, eats and drinks the very best, rouses up halfbreed girls with his voice and his music. He raises rows at parties, and when the police chase him he takes refuge in the warehouse among the Captains of the Sands.