The Violent Land (20 page)

With the back of his hand Virgilio struck her on the mouth. As the blood spurted from her lip, a look of fright and astonishment came over Margot's face. She was about to hurl an insult at him, then broke into sobs.

“You don't love me anymore or you wouldn't have struck me.”

He, too, was disturbed by what he had done; he could not understand how he had come to do a thing like that. It occurred to him that the very atmosphere of this country must be getting into his blood, must be changing him. He was not the same man who had arrived some months before from Bahia, every inch the gentleman, who never would have thought of striking a woman. Upon him, also, a civilized being from another region, the land of cacao had begun to weigh heavily. He hung his head in shame, gazing regretfully at his hand, then went up to Margot, took out his handkerchief, and wiped the drop of blood from her lip.

“Forgive me, my dear. I lost my head. I have so much on my mind, it makes me nervous. And then your talk about leaving me for Juca Badaró, about going away with another man. I didn't mean to—” She sobbed, and he added: “Don't cry any-more; I'll take you to Ilhéos with me.”

Margot raised her head; she was smiling already, for she believed that it was out of jealousy that he had struck her. She felt more his than ever now: Virgilio was her man. She huddled against him, making herself very small. And then, filled with desire, she drew him with her to the bedroom.

The shouts of the tailors reached Dr. Jessé as he went down the street: “Doctor! Dr. Jessé! Come here!”

The four tailors stood in the doorway of the Parisian Shears, the best tailor-shop in Tabocas, owned by Tonico Borges, who at the moment held the pieces of a pair of trousers in one hand and a needle and thread in the other. The Parisian Shears was not only the best tailor-shop in Tabocas; it was also, as everyone admitted, the headquarters for the most malicious local gossip. Here everything was known, even to the food that was eaten in private homes, and everything that happened was duly discussed. On this particular day the Parisian Shears was buzzing with excitement on account of the news that had just arrived from Ferradas in the wake of Horacio and his retinue. It was for this reason that Tonico Borges was shouting at the top of his voice for Dr. Jessé. The latter's presence was urgently needed by way of throwing light on a number of matters.

Short, squat, and puffing, his hat on the back of his head, his spectacles falling down over his nose, his boots thoroughly splashed with mud, the physician came up to them and inquired what it was they wanted of him. One of the tailors hastened to bring him a chair.

“Make yourself comfortable, doctor.”

Dr. Jessé sat down, depositing his instrument-case on the brick floor. That case was famous in the town, for in it was to be found the most diverse collection of objects imaginable: everything from a bistoury to dried cacao seeds, from injections to ripe fruit, from medicine phials to rent receipts for the houses that the doctor owned. Tonico Borges, who had gone to the rear of the shop, now returned with a big, ripe avocado.

“I was saving that for you, doctor,” he said.

Jessé thanked him and stowed the fruit away in his case. The tailors formed a circle about him, having drawn up their chairs as close to him as possible at a point that afforded them at the same time a view of the entire street.

“Well, what's new?” said Dr. Jessé.

“That's for you to tell us, doctor. You're the one that knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Well, they're saying around here that things are getting hot between Colonel Horacio and the Badarós,” one of the other tailors began.

“And that Juca Badaró is lining up people for his side.” Tonico completed the sentence for him.

“You call that news?” said the doctor. “I could have—”

“But there's one thing I'll guarantee you don't know, doctor.”

“Let's hear it.”

“That Juca Badaró has already sent for an engineer to survey the forest of Sequeiro Grande.”

“What's that you say? Where did you hear it?”

Tonico made a mysterious gesture. “A little bird told me, doctor. Is there anything in Tabocas that everybody doesn't know? When they have nothing to talk about, they make something up.”

But Dr. Jessé was not satisfied with this. “Seriously speaking,” he said, “who was it that told you?”

Tonico Borges lowered his voice: “It was Azevedo, who runs the hardware store. It was in his place that Juca wrote out the telegram sending for the man.”

“That I didn't know. I'll have to get a message to friend Horacio this very day.” The tailors glanced at one another; they did not like the look of things.

“They say,” Tonico went on, “that Colonel Horacio has sent Dona Ester to Ilhéos, so that she will not be in danger on the plantation. They say he means to go into the forest this week, that he has an agreement with Braz, with Firmo, with José da Ribeira, and with Jarde for the division of the timberland. He is to take half, and the rest is to be divided among them. Is that true, doctor?”

“It's news to me,” replied the latter evasively.

“But, doctor,” and Tonico Borges rolled his eyes, “it is even known that it was Lawyer Virgilio who drew up the contract, with a seal and everything. Ah! and Maneca Dantas, he's in on it, too. Everybody knows it, doctor; it's an open secret.”

Dr. Jessé finally owned up, confessing, even, that he himself was to get a slice of the forest.

“So you have a finger in the pie, do you, doctor?” said Tonico, jestingly. Have you bought your Colt .38 yet? Or maybe you'd like an old-fashioned horse-pistol? I have one that I'll sell you, in good condition.”

Dr. Jessé joined in the laugh that greeted this remark: “I'm pretty old to start out being a bad man.”

They all laughed loudly, for Dr. Jessé's cowardice was proverbial. And the astonishing part of it was that, in spite of this, he was looked upon with respect in the land of cacao. For the one thing that would utterly ruin a man in the region that extended from Ferradas to Ilhéos was a reputation for being a coward: such a man was one without a future in these towns and highways. If there was one virtue that was required of any male who undertook to live in southern Bahia in this period of the opening up of the country, it was that of personal courage. How otherwise venture among these
jagunços
and
conquistadores,
these unscrupulous lawyers and remorseless assassins, unless one had a complete disregard as to whether one lived or died? The man who did not react to an insult, who fled from a row, who did not have some tale of personal bravery to relate—such a man was not taken seriously by the
grapiúnas
.

Dr. Jessé was the one exception to this rule. A physician in Tabocas, a councilman at Ilhéos, Horacio's perpetual candidate, and one of the political leaders of the opposition, he was the sole person who could still retain the public's esteem in spite of the fact that all knew him to be chicken-hearted. His cowardice was indeed proverbial, being employed as a standard of measurement for that of others: “He's almost as big a coward as Dr. Jessé” or “He's a bigger coward than Dr. Jessé ever thought of being.” This was not, as might be imagined, a gibe levelled at him by his political enemies; the members of his own party knew that they could not count on him when a row was brewing. Stories that went to prove the doctor's lack of courage were told even in the wine-shops and the houses of prostitution.

For example, in connection with another brawl here in Tabocas, comparable to the one between Horacio and the Badarós, it was related how Dr. Jessé had gone down to a whorehouse and hidden himself underneath a bed. Then there was that rally in Ilhéos during the last campaign for the election of senators and deputies. There had come down from Bahia, as the opposition candidate for this region, a young fellow, son of a former Governor of the state, who was just beginning his political career. He was frightened out of his wits: for he had been told terrible things about this country, and he expected every minute to receive a bullet or a dagger-thrust. Horacio had sent his lads over to keep order at the meeting, and they had taken their places about the speakers' platform, revolvers in their belts, ready for anything. The Badaró ruffians, meanwhile, had scattered out through the crowd, being anxious to hear the young fellow from Bahia, who had the reputation of being a good speaker. Half drunk as always, Lawyer Ruy had opened the meeting, with a few digs at the federal government. Then came Dr. Jessé, whose business it was to introduce the candidate to the voters; and finally the visitor himself. The latter walked to the front of the small platform, which had been hastily improvised out of planks and packing cases and which swayed beneath the weight of the speakers, and cleared his throat by way of claiming the attention of his hearers. A dead silence fell.

“Senhoras, senhores, and senhoritas,” he began. “I—”

That was as far as he got. There being no senhoras and no senhoritas present, some rowdy cried out: “Your mother was a senhorita!” There was a laugh at this, while others called for silence. The speaker then said something about “lack of breeding,” and in the hullabaloo that followed, the lads from the Badaró estate drew their guns and began firing, with Horacio's men answering in kind. It was at this point, as the tale had it, that the youthful candidate tried to crawl under the platform in order to escape the bullets that were whirring about his head, but he found the space already occupied by Dr. Jessé, who not only refused to make room for him, but who reproved him severely.

“If you don't want to ruin yourself forever, sir, you'd better get back up there. I'm the only one around here who has a right to hide, for everybody knows that I'm a coward.”

The youth from Bahia, however, could not see it that way, and when he forcibly insisted on crawling under the platform, a tussle ensued. This was said to be the one and only time that Dr. Jessé had ever been known to get into a brawl, and the bystanders, who were in a position to take it all in, asserted that it was the funniest sight they had ever seen—like a hair-pulling match between two women trying to scratch each other's eyes out.

Tonico Borges drew up his chair to the doctor's side. “Do you know who came to town this morning?”

“Who?”

“Colonel Teodoro. They say he's siding with the folks up at the plantation.”

Dr. Jessé was astonished. “Teodoro? What has he got to do with it?”

Tonico could not tell him. “All I know is, he came in with a lot of
jagunços
. What he's up to I couldn't say. But he's got nerve, eh, doctor?”

“I'll say he has,” put in another of the tailors, “coming into Tabocas like that, with so many of Colonel Horacio's men here. And then that answer he sent back—how did it go, Tonico?”

Tonico knew it by heart: “The answer he gave Maneca Dantas was: ‘You can tell Horacio that I'm not joining up with anybody like him, that I don't do business with muledrivers.'”

Such was the response that Maneca had received when, in Horacio's name, he had gone to invite Teodoro to join them in the conquest of the Sequeiro Grande forest. Dr. Jessé was fairly agape by this time.

“Why,” he said, “you know everything. Life is cheap here, and no one escapes.”

One of the tailors laughed. “It's a great sport down this way, doctor.”

Tonico Borges then wanted to know if Horacio had given any orders concerning Teodoro, in case the latter came to Tabocas.

“I don't know—I don't know anything.” And the doctor picked up his case and hurriedly rose, as if he had remembered something urgent that he had to do. But before he left, Tonico had a final bit of gossip for him:

“They tell me, doctor, that Lawyer Virgilio is hanging around Dona Ester.”

Dr. Jessé's manner was grave, as he paused with one foot in the door.

“If you want the advice of a man who has lived in these parts for going on twenty years,” he said, “here it is: say anything you want to about anything and anybody, say anything you want to about Horacio, even, but don't ever say anything about that wife of his. For if he hears of it, I wouldn't give a penny for your life. That's a friend's advice.”

With this he went out, leaving Tonico Borges ghastly pale with fright.

“Do you think he will tell Colonel Horacio?” Tonico asked the others.

Despite their assurances that Dr. Jessé would not do so, that he was a good fellow, Tonico could not rest until he had gone around to the physician's consulting-room and had asked him not to tell the colonel; for that story had been told him “by the woman who lived with Margot, and who had overheard a quarrel between Virgilio and his girl about some wench or other, who, she thought, might be Dona Ester.”

“This is a terrible place, doctor,” he concluded. “They talk about everybody. No one can escape their tongues. But my mouth is sealed from now on. You won't hear a peep out of me. I was only telling
you,
doctor.”

“Don't let it worry you,” said Dr. Jessé soothingly. “So far as I am concerned, Horacio will never know anything about it. But now the best thing for you to do is to keep quiet. Unless you're thinking of committing suicide.”

He opened the door, Tonico went out, and a woman came in. The doctor at once began rummaging in his surgical case for a stethoscope. In the waiting-room men and women sat conversing. One woman with a child by the hand, upon catching sight of the tailor, left her chair and came up to him.

“How are you, friend Tonico?” she inquired with a smile.

“Very well, Dona Zefinha. And you, senhora?”

She made no reply, for she was in a hurry to tell him what she knew.

“Have you heard of the scandal?”

“What scandal?”

“Colonel Totonho of Riacho Doce has left his wife and family to go chasing after a hussy, some flighty young thing from Bahia. They got on the train together, in plain sight of everybody.”

Tonico made a gesture of boredom. “That's old, Dona Zefinha,” he said. “But I have some news that I'll guarantee you haven't heard, senhora.”

The woman was bursting with curiosity; her body was trembling all over from nervousness. “What is it, friend Tonico?” Tonico hesitated a moment, as Dona Zefinha waited anxiously. “Go ahead and tell me.” He glanced around in all directions, then drew her down the hall.

“They're saying around here,” he began in a low voice, “that Lawyer Virgilio—” He whispered the rest in the old lady's ear.

“Can it be possible!” exclaimed the latter. “Now, who would have thought of anything like that!”

“I haven't said a word, remember,” Tonico admonished her. “I'm only telling
you,
senhora.”

“Now, friend Tonico, you know very well that my lips are sealed. But who would have thought it? She always seemed such a perfect lady.”

Tonico disappeared through the doorway. Returning to the waiting-room, Dona Zefinha looked the other patients over. There was no one there worth her while, so she decided to let her grandchild's injection go until the next day. Saying good afternoon to the others, she remarked that it was getting late and she could not wait any longer, as she had an appointment at the dentist's. She went out dragging the child behind her. The tidbit she had just heard was burning her tongue, and she was as happy as if she had held the winning ticket in the lottery. With all speed she set out for the home of the Aventinos, three old maids who lived near St. Joseph's Church.