Raised from the Ground

he’s German or Portuguese, is not a man to work his vast estate with his own hands. When he inherited it or bought it from the friars or, since justice is blind, stole it, he found, clinging to the estate like a tree trunk to its roots, a few creatures with arms and legs who were created for precisely such a fate, by producing children and bringing them up to be useful. Even so, whether out of pragmatism, custom, etiquette or pure self-interested prudence, Adalberto has no direct contact with those who will work his land. And that is a good thing. Just as the king in his day, or the president of the republic in his, did not and does not go about bandying words and gestures with the common people in an overly familiar manner, it would seem quite wrong on a large estate, where the owner has more power than either president or king, were Flori­berto to be too forward. However, this intentional reserve did allow for certain deliberate exceptions, intended as a more refined way of bending wills and attracting perfect vassals, namely, the subservient creatures who, receiving as they do both caresses and beatings, enjoy the former and respect the latter. This matter of relations between employer and employee is a very subtle thing which cannot be determined or explained in a few words, you have to be there and eavesdrop like a fly on the wall. Add to this, brute force, ignorance, presumption and hypocrisy, a taste for suffering, a large dollop of envy, guile and a taste for intrigue, and you have a perfect training in diplomacy, for anyone who cares to learn. However, a few empirical rules, tried and tested over the centuries, will help us understand such cases better.

As well as land, the first thing Lamberto needs is a foreman, the foreman being the whip that keeps order in the pack of dogs. He is a dog chosen from among the others to bite his fellow dogs. He needs to be a dog because he knows all a dog’s wiles and defenses. You wouldn’t go looking for a foreman among the children of Norberto, Alberto or Humberto. A foreman is, first and foremost, a servant, who receives privileges and payments in proportion to the amount of work he can get out of the pack. He is, nonetheless, a servant. He is placed among the first and the last, a kind of human mule, an aberration, a Judas, who betrays his fellows in exchange for more power and a slightly larger chunk of bread.

The biggest and most decisive weapon is ignorance. At his birthday supper, Sigisberto said, It’s just as well that they know nothing, that they can’t read or write or count or think, that they assume and accept that, as Father Agamedes will explain, the world cannot be changed, that this is the only possible world, exactly as it is, that they will find paradise only after death, and that work alone brings dignity and money, but they mustn’t go thinking that I earn more than they do, the land, after all, is mine and when the time comes to pay taxes and contributions, I don’t go to them asking for a loan, it’s always been like that and always will be, if I didn’t give them work, who would, it’s them and me, I’m the land and they are the work, what’s good for me is good for them, that is how God wanted it, as Father Agamedes will explain in simple terms, we don’t want to make them even more confused than they are already, and if Father Agamedes doesn’t do the trick, then we’ll ask the guards to ride around the villages on their horses, just as a reminder that they exist, a message they’re sure to understand. But tell me, Mama, do the guards beat the estate owners as well, You’re clearly not quite right in the head, my boy, the national guard was created and is maintained in order to beat the people, But how is that possible, Mama, do you mean that the guard was made simply in order to beat the people, but what do the people do, They don’t have anyone who can, in turn, beat the estate owner when he sends out the guards to beat them, Well, I think the people should ask the guards to beat the estate owner, If you want my advice, Maria, the child is slightly mad, don’t let him go around saying such things, we have our work cut out as it is, keeping the guards in check.

The people were made to be hungry and dirty. People who wash regularly are people who don’t work, well, maybe it’s different in the cities, I don’t deny that, but here on the estate they’re hired to work away from home for three or four weeks, sometimes months, if that’s what Alberto wants, and during that time it’s a point of honor and of manhood with them to wash neither face nor hands and to remain unshaven. If they did wash and shave, if such a hypothesis were not so laughably improbable, they would be the butt of jokes from bosses and fellow workers alike. That’s the great thing about this day and age, the sufferers glory in their suffering, the slaves in their servitude. This beast of the earth must remain a beast who never rubs the sleep from his eyes from morning to night, indeed the dirt on his hands, face, armpits, groin, feet, arsehole must be for him the glorious aura surrounding work on the latifundio, man must be lower than the beasts of the field, for they, at least, lick themselves clean, man, however, must degrade himself so that he respects neither himself nor his fellows.

More than that. The workers boast of the beatings they get when working the land. Each beating is a medal to be bragged about at the inn, between drinks,