PEOPLE SLEEP very heavily, some lightly, some, when they fall asleep, detach themselves from the world, some have to sleep in a particular position in order to dream. We would say that Joana Canastra belongs to the latter category. If she’s left to sleep peacefully, which is the case when she’s ill, and if she’s not in too much pain, she lies there just as she did in the cradle, or so someone who knew her then would say, resting her dark, weary cheek on her open palm and immersed in a long, deep sleep. But if she has things to do, things that have to be done at a particular time, then fifteen minutes before the designated hour, she abruptly opens her eyes, as if in obedience to an internal clock, and says, Get up, Sigismundo. Now, if this story were being told by the person who lived it, you would see that already dastardly changes have been made, some involuntary, some premeditated and in accordance with certain rules, because what Joana Canastra really said was, Get up, Sismundo, and one can see how little such minor errors matter when both parties know what they’re talking about, the proof being that Sigismundo Canastro, who has his own doubts about how his name should be spoken or spelled, throws off the blanket, jumps out of bed in his long johns, walks over to open the shutters and peers out. It’s still black night, and only a very sharp eye, which Sigismundo no longer has, or millennia of experience, which he has in abundance, could distinguish the imponderable change taking place in the east, perhaps it is the fact, and who can comprehend such natural mysteries, that the stars are shining more brightly, when you would expect quite the opposite to be the case. It’s a cold night, which is hardly surprising, November is a good month for cold, but the sky is clear and will remain so, for November is also a good month for clear skies. Joana Canastra gets up, lights the fire, puts the blackened coffeepot on to heat up the coffee, the name that continues to be given to this blend of barley and chicory or ground toasted lupine seeds, for even they are not always sure what they are drinking, then goes over to the bread bin to fetch half a loaf and three fried sardines, leaving little if anything behind, and places them on the table, saying, Coffee’s ready, come and eat. These may seem trivial words, the poor talk of people with little imagination, who have never learned to enlarge life’s small actions with superlatives, compare, for example, the words of farewell spoken by Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the room in which she has just become a woman, and the words spoken by the blue-eyed German to the no less maidenly, albeit plebeian girl who became a woman against her will after being raped amid the bracken, and, of course, the words she said to him. If these dialogues were being held on the elevated level demanded by the circumstances, we would know that, although this is hardly the first time Sigismundo Canastro has left the house, there’s more to this departure than meets the eye, which is why we’re telling you about it. Sigismundo ate half a sardine and a crust of bread, with no plate and no fork, slicing into the sardine and cutting chunks off the loaf with the keen blade of his penknife, and once this pap was safely in his stomach, he topped it off with the comforting warmth of that ersatz coffee, there are those who swear blind that the existence and harmonious coexistence of coffee and fried sardines is sufficient proof that God exists, but these are theological matters that have nothing to do with early-morning journeys. Sigismundo then put his hat on his head, laced up his boots, pulled on a worn sheepskin coat and said, See you later, and if anyone asks for me, you don’t know where I’ve gone. There was no need for him to give this advice, it’s always the same, besides, Joana Canastra would have little to say, because, although she knows what her husband is going to do, and she wouldn’t tell anyone that, even if they killed her, but since she doesn’t know where he’s going, she couldn’t tell them even if they did kill her. Sigismundo will be out all day and won’t return until after dark, more because of the path taken and the distance covered than because of the actual time it takes, although one never knows. The woman says, Goodbye, Sismundo, she insists on calling him this, and we shouldn’t laugh or even smile, after all, what’s in a name, and once he’d gone out through the gate, she went and sat down on a cork stool by the fire and stayed there until the sun came up, her hands clasped, but there’s no evidence that she was praying.
Faustina Mau-Tempo, at the other end of Monte Lavre, is not used to this, it’s the first time, which is why, although she knew her husband wouldn’t have to leave the house until sunrise, she couldn’t sleep all night, alarmed that the usually restless João Mau-Tempo should be sleeping so peacefully, like a man afraid of nothing, though he should be afraid. This is the body’s way of soothing the troubled soul. It’s daybreak, not daylight, when João Mau-Tempo wakes up, and the memory of what he is about to do suddenly enters his eyes, so much so that he immediately closes them and feels a pang in his stomach, not of fear but of quiet respect, the kind one feels in a church or a cemetery or when a child is born. He’s alone in the room, he can hear the sounds of the house and those outside, the cold trilling of a lone bird, the voices of his daughters and the crackle
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