All days are the same and yet none resemble each other. About halfway through the afternoon, troubling news arrived at the vineyard, no one knew quite what had happened, Something about the army in Lisbon, I heard it on the radio, but if that was the case, you would expect them to know all about it, but it’s a mistake to think that it would be easy to find out the facts in a forest of vines only a few short meters from hell, people don’t have a radio dangling around their neck as if it were a cowbell, or stuck in their pocket like some singing, talking creature, such frivolities are not allowed, the news came from someone who chanced to be passing and mentioned to the foreman what he had heard on the radio, hence the confusion. The rhythm of work immediately slows, the rise and fall of the hoe seems but an embarrassing distraction, and Maria Adelaide is just as curious as the others, she has her nose up, like a hare that has sensed the presence of a newspaper, as her uncle António Mau-Tempo would say, what’s happened, what’s happened, but the foreman is no town crier, his job is to watch over and guide the workforce. Come on now, back to work, and since there is no more news, the hoes return to their labors, and those who care about such matters recall that, a month before, the troops in Caldas da Rainha came out onto the streets, although with little result. The afternoon continues and ends, and if they did hear further news, they didn’t believe it any more than they had the first lot. In the latifundio, so far from the barracks in the Largo do Carmo in Lisbon,* not a shot has been heard and no one is wandering the fields shouting slogans, it’s hard to understand what revolution means and what it involves, and if we were to try and explain, someone would probably comment, with the air of someone who doesn’t believe a word we’re saying, Ah, so that’s what a revolution is.
It is true, however, that the government has been overthrown. When the workers gather together in their barracks, their civil rather than military barracks, everyone knows much more than they had imagined, at least they now have a small radio, one that runs on batteries, screeching and whistling so loudly that, from a meter or so away, you can’t understand a word, but it doesn’t matter, you get the gist, and then the fever spreads, they’re all very excited, talking wildly, So what do we do now, these are the hesitations and anxieties of those waiting in the wings to go on stage, and although there are some who feel happy, others feel not sad exactly, rather, they don’t know quite what to think, and if that strikes you as odd, imagine yourself in the latifundio with no voices and no certainties, and then think again. A few more hours of the night passed, and things became clearer, well, that’s just a manner of speaking, because, put simply, they knew what had ended, but not what had begun. Then the neighbors who were keeping an eye on Maria Adelaide, the Geraldo family, husband, wife and daughter, an older girl, decided to go back to Monte Lavre the next day, you might say this was a whim of theirs were it not for the very sensible reason they give, namely, that they wanted to be at home, they might lose two or three days’ work but at least they’d have a better idea of what was going on, rather than being stuck here in the back of beyond, they asked Maria Adelaide if she wanted to go with them, she had, after all, been entrusted to their care, Your father will be glad to have you back, but this was said simply to say something, because all they knew of Manuel Espada was that he was a good man and a good worker, and as for any suspicions they might have about him, these were only of the kind that arise in all small villages, where people are always guessing at what they don’t know. Others had also decided to return to their villages, they would go and come straight back, so many of them, in fact, that the foreman had no choice but to let them, what else could he do. Unfortunately, in the midst of what seemed to be the best possible news, the radio suddenly lost its voice and became a catarrhal growl so low that you couldn’t make out a single word, why did the stupid thing have to pick today of all days to go wrong. For the rest of the night, the workers’ barracks was an island lost in the latifundio sea, surrounded by a country that did not want to go to bed, exchanging news and rumors, rumors and
