Raised from the Ground

of this world, render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s, a sower went out to sow his seed, pay no attention, when confronted by such tricky questions, Father Agamedes does tend to go off on a tangent and speak in parables, to gain time until he receives his instructions from the bishop, still, you can always count on him to say something. One cannot, alas, count on Leandro Leandres, who died last year in his bed, having received the sacraments as he deserved, meanwhile, all over the country, his many successors, associates, brothers or superiors have, we learn, been arrested, those, that is, who did not flee, and in Lisbon, we hear, shots were exchanged before they surrendered, people died,^* what, I wonder, will happen to them now. There is little news of the national guard, except that it is keeping a low profile and awaiting orders, Corporal Tacabo went, shamefaced, to Norberto’s house to say just this, cringing as he did so, as if he were naked, and he left as he had arrived, with eyes downcast, struggling to find an appropriate face to wear as he walked through Monte Lavre, past these men who look at him and watch him from afar, not that he’s afraid, a corporal in the national guard is never afraid, but the air of the latifundio seems suddenly to have become unbreathable, as if a storm were brewing.

And then the talk turns to the first of May, a conversation that is repeated every year, but now it’s a vociferous public debate, with people recalling how only last year the celebrations had to be organized in secret, with the organizers constantly having to regroup, getting in touch with those in the know, encouraging the undecided, reassuring the fearful, and there are those who still can’t believe that the first of May will be celebrated as freely as the newspapers claim, the poor distrust charity. It’s not charity, declare Sigismundo Canastro and Manuel Espada, opening a newspaper from Lisbon, It says here that the first of May is to be openly celebrated as a national holiday, And what about the guards, insist those with good memories, They’ll have to watch us go strolling past them, who would think such a thing would ever happen, the guards standing silently by while we shout hooray for the first of May.

And since we always have to overlay what we are allowed with what we imagine, if not, we do not deserve the bread that we eat, people started saying that we should hang bedspreads out the windows and deck everything with flowers, as we do for religious processions, any moment now they’ll be sweeping the streets and whitewashing the houses, that’s how easy it is to climb the steps of contentment. This, however, is also how human dramas are created, well, it’s an exaggeration to call them dramas, but they are genuine quandaries, what if I have no bedspreads in my house and no garden full of carnations and roses, whose idea was that. Maria Adelaide partly shares this anxiety, but being young and optimistic, she tells her mother that they must do something, if they don’t have a bedspread, then a large white tablecloth will do, draped over the door, a flag of peace in the latifundio, any civilian passing by should, out of respect, doff his hat, and any guard or soldier stand at attention and salute in homage outside the door of Manuel Espada, a good worker and a good man. And don’t worry about flowers, Mother, I’ll go to the spring at Amieiro and pick some of the wild flowers that cover the valleys and hills in May, and I’ll bring back some orange blossoms too, that way our front door will be as finely decked out as any castle balcony, we won’t be seen to be inferior to anyone, because we are the equal of everyone.

Then Maria Adelaide went down to the spring, although why she chose that particular place she herself doesn’t know, after all, as she said, the hills and valleys are covered in flowers, she takes the path that leads between two hedges, and even there she had only to reach out her hand, but she doesn’t, these are ancient decisions that run in the blood, she wants flowers picked in this cool place, with its abundant bracken, and farther on, in an especially sunny spot, there are daisies, the very daisies whose name changed when António Mau-Tempo picked one for his niece, Maria Adelaide, on the day she was born. She has her arms full of greenery now, a constellation of suns with yellow hearts, now she will go back up the path, she will cut some orange blossoms from the branches overhanging the wall, but she feels a sudden strange pang, I don’t know quite what I feel, I’m not ill, I’ve never felt so well, so happy, perhaps it’s the smell of the ferns clasped to my chest, I do sweet violence to them and they to me. Maria Adelaide sat down on the low wall by the spring, as if she were waiting for someone. Her lap was full of flowers, but no one came.

They’re interesting, these stories of enchanted springs, with Moorish girls dancing in the moonlight and Christian girls left raped and weeping on the bracken, and all I can say is that anyone who doesn’t think so has clearly lost the key to his own heart. However, only a short time after April and May, the same harsh measures returned to the latifundio, not as applied by the guards or the PIDE, for the latter has been abolished and the former live shut up in their barracks, peering at the street through closed windows, or, if they must go out, they keep close to the houses, hoping not to be seen. The harsh measures are the usual ones, it makes one feel like