Standing at the top of the tower, resting his warrior’s hands on the ramparts, his conquistador’s hands, grown calloused from gripping his sword, Norberto looked on everything he had made and saw that it was good, and then, as if he had lost track of the number of days, he did not rest, Those devils in Lisbon may be willing to ruin the legacy our grandparents left us, but here on the latifundio we respect the sacred fatherland and the sacred faith, send in Sergeant Armamento, Things are going much better, sir, send in Father Agamedes, You’re looking very well, Father Agamedes, you look younger, That must be because I have been praying for your excellency’s health and the preservation of our land, Of my land, Father Agamedes, Yes, sir, of your land, that’s what the sergeant here says too, Yes, those were the orders I received from Dom João the First, and I have passed them on to generation upon generation of sergeants, but while these three have been talking in the warmth and shelter of the house, winter has arrived and bitten the workers, and just because they’re used to it doesn’t mean they feel it any less keenly, The bosses are the owners of the land and of those who work it, We are even less important than the dogs that live in the big house and in all the big houses, they eat every day and from a full bowl, no one would let an animal die of hunger, Well, if you don’t know how to look after an animal, you shouldn’t keep one, But with men and women it’s different, I’m not a dog and I haven’t eaten in two days, and these men who have come here to make their demands are a pack of dogs who have been barking for a long time, any day now we’ll stop barking and we’ll bite, just like those red ants, the ones that raise their heads like dogs, yes, we’ll learn from them, see those pincers, if my skin wasn’t so tough and calloused from wielding a scythe, I’d be bleeding.
This is empty talk, which relieves one’s frustrations but changes nothing, for the moment, it makes no difference whether I’m unemployed or not, I mean what is the point of working, the overseer arrives with the cynical air of one who doesn’t care, who knows how deep his cynicism goes, and says, There’s no money this week, you’ll have to be patient, maybe next week, meanwhile, in his pocket, Dona Maria the First and Dom João the Second* are singing a duet, and a week later, he says exactly the same thing, and one or two or three or four or six weeks later, there’s still not so much as a whiff of money. The boss has no cash, the government won’t allow the banks to release it, no one believes the overseer, of course, he’s been lying for so many centuries now that he doesn’t need to use his imagination, but the government should come here and explain the situation, there’s no point setting it down in newspapers that we can’t read, and they talk so quickly on the television that by the time we’ve understood one word, they’ve gabbled another hundred more, what did they say, and on the radio we can’t see people’s faces, and how can I believe anything you say if I can’t see your face.
And somewhere on the latifundio, history will record the exact spot, the workers occupied a piece of land. Just so as to have some work, that’s all, may my right hand wither away if I’m lying. And then other workers turned up on another estate and said, We’ve come to work. And this happened first here and then there, and as in the spring, when a solitary daisy blooms in a field, always assuming there’s no Maria Adelaide to come along and pick it, thousands more are born on a single day, where’s the first one gone, and all of them are white, their faces turned to the sun, it’s like the earth’s bridal day.
However, these people are not white but swarthy, a colony of ants spreading over the latifundio as if the land were covered in sugar, you’ve never seen so many ants, all with their heads raised, I’ve received bad news from my cousins and from other relatives, Father Agamedes, God did not listen to your prayers, to think the day would come when I would witness such misfortunes, that I should be put to the test like this, seeing the land of my ancestors in the hands of these thieves, it’s the end of the world when people start attacking property, the divine and profane foundation of our material and spiritual civilization, You mean secular, my lady, not profane, and forgive me for correcting you, No, profane is the word, for what they are doing is profanation, they’ll do the same as they did in Santiago do Escoural, mark my words, but they’ll pay for it, in fact, we were talking about that just the other day, what will become of us, We must be patient, Senhora Dona Clemência, infinitely patient, for who are we to question the Lord’s plans and his wayward paths, for only he knows how to write straight on crooked lines, perhaps he is casting us down in order to raise us up tomorrow, perhaps this punishment will be followed by our terrestrial and celestial reward, each in its appointed time and place, Amen.
This, albeit using different words, is what Lamberto is saying to Corporal Tacabo, who is a shadow of his former martial self, It doesn’t seem possible, the national guard simply standing by to
