of burning wood. He gets up, he is, as we have said before, a small, wiry man with ancient, luminous blue eyes, and at forty-two his hair is thinning and what hair he has is turning white, but before standing up, he pauses to accommodate his body to the sharp pain in his side that always resuscitates after he’s been lying down all night, when it should be quite the opposite if his body has rested properly. He dresses and goes over to the fire in the kitchen, as if still wanting to savor the warmth of bed, you would never think he was a man accustomed to bitter weather. He says, Good morning, and his daughters come and kiss his hand, it’s good to see the family all together, all are currently unemployed, although they have plenty of things to do to fill the day, be it darning clothes or, in Gracinda’s case, working on her trousseau as best she can, though the marriage won’t be until next year, and that afternoon, she’ll go with her sister to wash clothes in the stream, a whole load of laundry from the big house, well, twenty escudos is better than nothing. Faustina, who is going deaf, didn’t hear her husband, but she felt him, perhaps the seismic tremor of the earth as he approached or the movement through the air that only his body makes, each body is different, but these two have been together for twenty years, probably only a blind man would make a mistake, and she has no problems with her eyesight, it’s her hearing that’s going, although it seems to her, and this is her usual excuse, that people nowadays gabble when they speak, as if they were doing so on purpose. This may sound like the sort of thing only the very old complain about, but these are simply people tired before their time. João Mau-Tempo is stoking up for the day, he drinks his coffee, which is as disgusting as Sigismundo Canastro’s coffee, eats some bread made from various flours, just which part of the wheat do they use in the flour, he wonders, and devours a raw egg, making a hole in each end, one of life’s great pleasures, when he can get it. The tightness in his stomach has gone, and now that the sun has risen, he’s suddenly in a great hurry, See you later, he says, and if anyone asks for me, you don’t know where I’ve gone, this is no pre-planned formula, they are merely the words that come naturally, and there’s no need to search for other reasons. Neither Gracinda nor Amélia know where their father is going, they ask their mother when he’s left, but she makes the most of her deafness and pretends not to hear. We shouldn’t blame the girls, they’re young and curious, certainly not irresponsible, an imputation that would doubtless offend Gracinda, who knows all about the exploits of Manuel Espada and his friends when they were only lads, and he was Monte Lavre’s first known striker.
The meeting is in Terra Fria. Places are given names doubtless for some comprehensible reason, but to find out why this place was called Terra Fria, Cold Land, on a latifundio that is as hot in summer as it is cold in winter, you would have to go right back to the origins, and those, as lazy people say, are lost in the mists of time. Before they get to Terra Fria, Sigismundo Canastro and João Mau-Tempo will meet at Atalaia hill, not on the very top, of course, they wouldn’t want to make themselves too visible, although in this particular area and on this occasion, the latifundio is not exactly as busy as the main square in Évora. They will meet in the dense woods at the foot of the hill. Sigismundo Canastro knows the place well, João Mau-Tempo less well, but all roads lead to Rome. And they will travel on to Terra Fria together, along paths that God never walked and along which the devil would walk only if forced to.
There is no one on the circular balcony of the sky, which is the angels’ usual viewing platform above the horizon whenever there is any significant activity on the latifundio. This is the great and fatal mistake made by the heavenly hosts, they measure everything against the crusade. They ignore small patrols, bold sorties, like these tiny dots, the volunteers for this mission, two men here, another farther off, another up ahead and another as yet far away and lagging behind, but all converging, even when they seem not to be, on a place that has no name in heaven, but which down here on earth is called Terra Fria. Perhaps above, in the peaceful empyrean, they think these humans are merely going to work, though there’s none to be had, as even heaven must know thanks to the occasional messages sent by Father Agamedes, and it’s true that the meeting is work-related. This is a different kind of work, however, and such a great responsibility that João Mau-Tempo will ask Sigismundo Canastro when he meets him and they have taken their first few steps together, or when he has finally managed to overcome his shyness, Do you think they’ll accept me, and Sigismundo Canastro will answer, with the confidence of someone older and more experienced, You’ve been accepted already, you wouldn’t be coming with me today if there was any doubt.
One man has come on his bike. He will hide it in the bushes, in some easily identifiable place, just in case he gets disoriented afterward and can’t find it. No need, of course, to worry about number plates, if he was in a car, the guards might stop him out of sheer pigheadedness or because they felt a sudden twinge of suspicion, Where are you going, where have you come from, show me your license, and that wouldn’t be good, this man happens
