Manuel Espada brings no gifts from near or far. He reaches out his hands, and each hand is a large flower, then he says, Gracinda, and can say no more, but kisses her on the cheek, just once, but what is it about that one kiss that brings a lump to our throat, and we’re not even family, if we did have something to say at this juncture, we wouldn’t be able to, and just when those gestures are being made and that word is being spoken, Maria Adelaide opens her eyes, as if she had been waiting for that moment, her first childish trick, and she sees a large shape and large open hands, it’s her father, she doesn’t yet understand what this means, as Manuel Espada well knows, so much so that he feels as if his heart were going to leap out of his chest, his hands are shaking, how can he pick up this child, his daughter, men are so useless, and then Gracinda Espada says, She looks like you, well, it’s possible, although at that age, only a few hours old, you can never tell, but João Mau-Tempo is quite right when he proclaims, But she has my eyes, and António Mau-Tempo says nothing, because he is merely the uncle, and poor deaf Faustina can only guess at what is being said, and says in turn, My love, quite why she doesn’t know, because, for reasons of modesty and reserve, these are not words normally used on the latifundio and in these situations.
Two hours later, and however much time he had spent there it would have seemed too short, Manuel Espada left the house, he is going to have to walk very fast to get to work before sunrise. The two waiting fireflies set off again, flying close to the ground now and shining so brightly that the ants’ sentinels shouted to their fellow ants inside the nest that the sun was coming up.
THE HISTORY OF THE wheatfields is one that repeats itself with remarkable regularity, but it has its variants too. It’s not that sometimes the wheat is ready to be harvested later or earlier, that depends on whether there has been too much or too little rain, or on the sun, which can transgress by sending too much heat or not enough, nor is it that the seeds were sown on a steep slope or on low ground, in clayey or in sandy soil. The men of the latifundio have long been accustomed to the perversities of nature and to their own mistakes, and are unlikely to be thrown by such slight and inevitable occurrences. And although it is true that the aforementioned variants, individually and as a whole, deserve to be dealt with at greater length, unhurriedly, with time to go back and discuss perhaps a forgotten lump of soil, without having to worry about our listeners’ growing impatience, it is also true, alas, that such considerations are out of place when telling a story, even when it’s a story about the latifundio. Let us accept, then, that we must keep quiet about all these subtle differences and let us add to less serious defects the far graver one of pretending that everything remains the same in the wheatfields from one year to the next, and let us merely ask why this delay, why have the harvesters, human and mechanical, not yet entered the fields, when even we ignorant city dwellers can clearly see that the moment is here and is passing us by, that the dry whisper of the wheat in the wind is like the whisper of dragonfly wings, in short, let us ask what damage is being done here and to whom.
The history of the wheatfields repeats itself, with variants. In the present case, it isn’t because the men are kicking up their usual ruckus, demanding more money. Well, it’s the same cry every year at every season and about every job, It’s as if they don’t know how to say anything else, Father Agamedes, instead of worrying about the salvation of their immortal soul, if they have one, they care only about bodily comforts, they have learned nothing from the ascetics, no, all they think about is money, they never ask if there is any or if I can afford to pay. The church is a great source of consolation in these situations, it takes a tiny sip of wine from the chalice, just another drop, please, do not remove this cup from me, and raises remorseful eyes to the heavens from which it hopes one day to receive rewards for the latifundio, when the time comes, of course, but the later the better, Tell me, Father Agamedes, what do you make of these idlers going around cheering this general,* it seems that these days one can trust nobody, I mean, a military man of all people, and he seemed so trustworthy, so well loved by the regime that made him, yet here he is, traveling around stirring up the populace, how did the government allow things to get this far. Father Agamedes has no answer to this question, his kingdom is not always of this world, and yet he has been a witness to and a personal victim of this great national terror, this hothead shouting wildly, I’ll sack him, I’ll sack him, and who was he referring to, why, Professor Salazar, of course, hardly the behavior of a candidate, a candidate should be polite at all times, but his behavior backfired on him in the end, and they say he’s on the run, and to think what a quiet life we had until now, before all this fuss, But between you and me,
