Raised from the Ground

came across a monster like that in the countryside, you’d die of fright, and the show is called The Clam, starring Beatriz Costa and Vasco Santana, the man almost had me crying with laughter. We’ll sleep here in the kitchen and in the corridor, don’t worry, we’re used to all sorts, the nights are different in Lisbon, it’s the silence, the silence isn’t the same, So, did you sleep well, and no one dares to say No, we spent all night tossing and turning, but now let’s have a cup of coffee and then go for a stroll around the city, but this isn’t a city, it’s the size of a county, and in Alcântara we’ll meet a group of men working on the railway line, and they say, Morning, bumpkins, and that’s it, our brother-in-law takes umbrage and goes over to them, What did you say, a few blows are exchanged, then we flee in shame, and the men shout, Look at the one in the jacket, Look at that bumpkin run, but we’re not bumpkins, and even if we were, that would still be no reason to scorn us. We will cross the river again, Look at the sea, and a gentleman traveling with us in the boat says very politely, Actually, this is the river, the sea starts over there, and he points, and then we realize that you can’t see land in that direction, how is that possible. When we disembark in Montijo, we’ll still have a few kilometers to walk, eight to be precise, until we reach our work camp, we spent an awful lot of money but it was worth it, and when we get back to Monte Lavre, we’ll have a lot to tell, because life has its good points too.

Sometimes when people get married, there’s already a baby on the way. The priest blesses the couple and the blessing falls on three, not two, as you can see by the sometimes quite prominent bump beneath the woman’s skirt. But even when that isn’t the case, whether the bride is a virgin or not, it would be very unusual for a year to pass without a child being born. And if God so wills it, it’ll be one child out, another one in, for as soon as the woman gives birth, she falls pregnant again. They’re real brutes these people, ignorant, worse than animals, because animals aren’t in heat all the time, they follow the laws of nature. But these men arrive home from work or from the inn, get into bed, their blood inflamed by the smell of their wife or by the wine they’ve drunk or by the sexual appetite that comes with tiredness, and they get on top of her, they don’t know any other way, they huff and puff, they’re not exactly subtle, and leave their sap to soak in the mucous membrane inside the woman’s incomprehensibly intricate innards. This is a good thing, better than going with other women, but the family is growing, more and more children are born, because they don’t take precautions, Mama, I’m hungry, the proof that God does not exist lies in the fact that he did not make men sheep so that they could eat the grass in the fields, or pigs so that they could eat acorns. But even if they did eat acorns and grass, they couldn’t do so in peace, because there’s always a warden or the guards around, with eye and rifle cocked, and if the warden, in the name of Norberto’s lands, doesn’t shoot you in the leg or kill you right off, the guards, who will do the same if they’re ordered to, or even if they’re not, can choose the more benign options of prison, a fine and a beating. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is a bowl of cherries, you pull out one and three or four come out together, there are even estates that have their own private prison and their own penal code. Justice is done every day on the latifundio, what would become of us if the authorities weren’t here.

The family grows, though many children die of diarrhea, dissolving in their own shit, poor little angels, snuffed out like candles, with arms and legs more like twigs than anything else, their bellies distended, until the moment comes and they open their eyes for the last time to see the light of day, unless they die in the dark, in the silence of the hovel, and when the mother wakes and finds her child dead, she starts to scream, always the same scream, these women whose children have died aren’t capable of inventing anything, they’re speechless. As for the fathers, they say nothing and, the following night, go to the taberna looking as if they’re ready to kill someone or something. They come back drunk, having killed nothing and no one.

The men go far away to work, wherever they can earn some money. At bottom they’re all itinerants, they go here and there, and come home weeks or months later to make another child. Meanwhile, as they labor on the cork plantations, watched by the overseers, each drop of sweat is a drop of spilled blood, and the wretches suffer all day and sometimes all night as well, counting the number of hours worked on the fingers of three hands, except when they have to resort to a fourth hand, like the four-legged beasts they are, to count the rest, their clothes don’t dry on their backs for a whole two weeks. To rest, if such a word can be used in the circumstances, they lie down on beds of heather with some straw on top of them, and, dirty and bruised, they moan all night, it’s quite wrong, how can they believe in Father Agamedes when they see him coming back from his Sunday lunch at Floriberto’s house. Judging from the loud belch that echoes around the estate, it was a