So what is João Mau-Tempo to do? He has just turned twenty, he has been let off military service, he hasn’t filled out much since the days when he, tiny as a dwarf, battled with the weeds in Pedra Grande and ate the maize porridge that Picanço’s wife used to make for him out of familial charity. In Salvaterra, he buys his first cape and struts about in it like a tomcat with its tail in the air. It’s very full and reaches down to his heels, but the village doesn’t expect people to be dressed in the height of fashion, he has reached heights enough simply by owning a new item of clothing, regardless of what it’s like. When João Mau-Tempo plunges his mattock into the earth, he thinks about that cape, about the dances he goes to, about the girlfriends in his life, some more serious than others, and he forgets the pain of living here, bound to this place, so far from Lisbon, if he ever really had aspired to living there, if that wasn’t all just a youthful dream, for what else is youth for but to dream.
A time of great storms is approaching, some will arrive with their natural boom and bluster, others more quietly, without a shot being fired, coming from far-off Braga, but we will hear more of these later on, when there is nothing to be done about them. However, although one should deal with each event in its proper order, and although, as we feel we should point out so as not to keep offending against the rules of storytelling, we have, in fact, already anticipated the death of Joaquim Carranca, which actually happened a few years later, let us nonetheless talk about the storm that remained fixed in people’s memories for reasons of grief and loss. It was summer, ladies and gentlemen, when one doesn’t really expect such things, though occasional solemn rolls of thunder boomed across the stubble, catapum, one moment distant and almost sleepy, the next flickering right above our heads and pounding the earth, whatever would we do without Saint Barbara’s help. Now, the Mau-Tempo family may seem to have been singled out for grim happenings, but only someone of little understanding could possibly believe that. After all, so far only one member of the family has died, and if we’re talking hunger and poverty, then any other family could serve as an example, for hunger and poverty are hardly in short supply. Besides, the uncle in question was not even a blood relative. Augusto Pintéu was married to one of Sara da Conceição’s sisters, and although he was a farm laborer, he chose, in his spare time, to work as a carter. He, naturally, had his appointment with death, but how oddly things turn out, for this simple, mild-mannered, soft-spoken man met a very dramatic end, with much celestial and terrestrial brouhaha, like a character in a tragedy. This serene man did not leave life as serenely as Joaquim Carranca. And such contradictions provide much food for thought.
As we said, Augusto Pintéu also worked as a carter, traveling between Vendas Novas and Monte Lavre to be exact. The former had a train station, to which, with his pair of mules and his cart, he would take cork, coal and wood and bring back groceries, seeds and whatever else was needed, not many men enjoyed such a good life. On that day, which, being a summer’s day, should have been long and bright, the sky suddenly filled with black clouds and there was an almighty thunderclap. The heavens opened and unleashed all God’s store of water. Augusto Pintéu wasn’t particularly worried, because these summer storms come and go, and so he continued his work of loading and unloading, fearing nothing worse than arriving home soaked to the skin. When he left Vendas Novas, night had already closed in, lit by lightning so bright that there seemed to be some celebration going on up above, some holy procession. The mules knew the route blindfold and could find and recognize it even when it was flooded, as the lower parts already were. With two thick sacks on his head to protect him, Augusto Pintéu consoled himself with the thought that, in such weather, there was, at least, little danger of being ambushed by thieves, as had happened in the past. In a storm like this, highwaymen would all be safe in their lairs, roasting their stolen slices of pork and drinking coarse wine, because they rarely stole anything else. It’s three leagues from Vendas Novas to Monte Lavre, but Augusto Pintéu would not travel the last league, nor would his mules. By the time they reached the stream, the darkness had grown as black as pitch, and the waters roared and thundered loudly enough to frighten anyone. This was usually the place where, in good weather, you could ford the stream, with the water up to your knees, but for those on foot there was a broad wooden plank that went from shore to shore, past a giant ash tree that had been born there and grown up in the days before the course of the river had changed. In the midst of the water, the ash tree rustled furiously, defending with its thick roots its vital patch of earth, threatened now by the speed and force of the current. Augusto Pintéu had crossed there with his cart and his mules many times. He would not cross it again. Right at the beginning of the ford, the bed of the stream dropped away to form a deep, deep chasm, which was called, because everything has to have a name, Pego da Carriça, Wren’s Pool. Augusto Pintéu put his trust in the Holy Virgin and in his mules
