Raised from the Ground

usual with weary bodies, and even when they do sleep, there’s that ache from the day when they were working at the charcoal pit and tried to carry a great heavy log, if it was now, they’d tell them to piss off, I wonder what’s happening to our comrades, I can’t hear anything, only the footsteps of the sentries outside, and the clock chiming, I wish that bloody owl would shut up, it gives you gloomy thoughts. Locked in their rooms, the four make the same gestures, they look around them, there’s the table and the pencil, it felt like a game, like being back at school and having to do a dictation, except that there was no teacher to read and mark the lesson, their conscience would have to be their teacher, deciding what they would write in their slow, crooked hand, and each of them, at some point, wrote his name on the first line of the first page, right in the margin, as if they wanted to make sure they had enough paper to write down all they were going to write, my name is Agostinho Direito, my name is João Mau-Tempo, my name is João Catarino, my name is Carolino Dias, and then they sat staring at the page, all those lines to fill, and then on and on until the final page, it was like a wheatfield, but for some reason this pencil-cum-sickle won’t cut, won’t move forward, it gets stuck on this root, this stone, what on earth am I supposed to write, they’re waiting for me to tell them all I know, here on these crooked lines, or do they only look crooked because I’m so tired, João Catarino is the first to push the exercise book to one side, he wrote his name, he will write nothing more, his name will stay there so that people will know that the owner of that name wrote nothing more than his name, not a word more, and then, at different times, each of the other men pushed the exercise book to one side with a large, dark hand, some closed the book, others left it open so that the name was the first thing that would be seen when they came for them, and nothing more.

At the first crack, which is a very picturesque and rural way of speaking that came into being perhaps along with the unboarded roof, especially the thatched variety, in which cracks and holes appear with wear and tear and no thanks to the skills of the thatcher, and it is through those cracks and holes that the dawn light enters, although the light could have entered earlier from a star which, on its journey, was caught there by the eyes of some sleepless person. The idea of the exercise books was probably a ruse on the part of the PIDE agent and the lieutenant to be able to get a decent night’s sleep while the criminals made their confessions, or a subtle way of dispensing with a scribe and getting the work done for free. We’ll never know the truth until it is confirmed, or not, in this account of prison and interrogation. At the first crack, we have to go back to that phrase because the sentence was left unfinished and the meaning lost, when the doors opened and the dapper PIDE agent, as dapper and fresh as if he really had slept at home and in a good bed, went from room to room, his anger growing, because each exercise book told him only what he knew already, that this villain is called João Catarino, that this turd is called Agostinho Direito, that this piece of shit is called Carolino Dias, and that this son-of-a-bitch, yes, son-of-a-bitch, is called João Mau-Tempo. They must have planned it together, the bastards, Come here, there’s to be no more joking now, I want to know who organized the strike, who your contacts are, or the same thing will happen to you as happened to that other man. They don’t know who that other man is, they don’t know anything, they shake their heads, determined, weary, brave, hungry heads, oh dear, my eyes are filling with tears. And Lieutenant Contente, who was also there, says, You’ll end up being sent to Lisbon, you’d be better off confessing here on your home territory, among people who know you. But for some reason the agent softened, Send them back inside, we’ll decide what to do with them later. The four were almost dragged down the corridor into the courtyard, look up there, my friend, at the sky, it’s bright even though the sun’s not out, and then were plunged, stumbling over the bodies on the floor, into the darkness of the dungeon where their comrades were still being kept. Those who were asleep had to wake up, or else, grumbling, turn over, but all finally settled down again, because the four men, before they, too, lay down and slept, as was their perfect right, all said, hand on heart, that they had told them nothing, not a single word. That sleep did not last long, for these are people accustomed to sleeping little and rolling up their blanket when the sun is still hidden among the mountains in Spain, and besides, there is the nagging, cruel anxiety that slips in between the folds of the unconscious mind, shakes and distends them, breaking the chrysalis, and on top of that is the hollow ache in the stomach, which has not been fed for who knows how many hours, you wouldn’t even treat an animal like this.

It’s midmorning when the door opens again, and Corporal Tacabo says, João Mau-Tempo, you have a visitor, and João Mau-Tempo, who was talking to Manuel Espada and Sigismundo Canastro about what fate might await them, jumps to his feet in surprise and sees the astonishment on his companions’ faces too, it’s only natural, everyone knows that in situations like