The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [107]
She sighs once again, then kisses the beads of her rosary with fervent devotion. She looks at Rufino, who hasn’t moved or raised his head. “Many people have gone off to Canudos,” she says in a gentler tone of voice. “Apostles have come. I would have gone, too. But I stayed because I knew you’d come back. The world’s going to end, my son. That’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. That’s why what’s happened has happened. Now I can leave. Will my legs hold up for such a long journey? The Father will decide. It is He who decides everything.”
She falls silent, and after a moment Rufino leans over and kisses her hand again. “It’s a very long journey and I advise you not to make it, Mother,” he says. “There’s fighting, fires, nothing to eat on the way. But if that’s your wish, go ahead. Whatever you do will always be the right thing to do. And forget what Caifás told you. Don’t grieve or feel ashamed on that account.”
When the Baron de Canabrava and his wife disembarked at the Navy Yard of Salvador, after an absence of several months, they could judge from the reception they received how greatly the strength of the once-all-powerful Bahia Autonomist Party and of its leader and founder had declined. In bygone days, when he was a minister of the Empire or the plenipotentiary in London, and even in the early years of the Republic, the baron’s returns to Bahia were always the occasion for great celebrations. All the notables of the city and any number of landowners hastened to the port, accompanied by servants and relatives carrying welcome banners. The city officials always came, and there was a band and children from parochial schools with bouquets of flowers for Baroness Estela. The banquet was held in the Palace of Victory, with the governor as master of ceremonies, and dozens of guests applauded the toasts, the speeches, and the inevitable sonnet that a local bard recited in honor of the returning couple.
But this time there were no more than two hundred people at the Navy Yard to applaud the baron and baroness when they landed, and there was not a single municipal or military or ecclesiastical dignitary among them. As Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio and the deputies Eduardo Glicério, Rocha Seabra, Lélis Piedades, and João Seixas de Pondé—the committee appointed by the Autonomist Party to receive their leader—stepped up to shake the baron’s hand and kiss the baroness’s, from the expressions on their faces one would have thought they were attending a funeral.
The baron and baroness, however, gave no sign that they noticed what a different reception they were receiving this time. They behaved exactly as always. As the baroness smilingly showed the bouquets to her inseparable personal maid Sebastiana, as though she were amazed at having been given them, the baron bestowed backslaps and embraces on his fellow party members, relatives, and friends who filed past to welcome him. He greeted them by name, inquired after their wives, thanked them for having taken the trouble to come meet him. And every so often, as though impelled by some intimate necessity, he repeated that it was always a joy to return to Bahia, to be back with this sun, this clean air, these people. Before climbing into the carriage that awaited them at the pier, driven by a coachman in livery who bowed repeatedly on catching sight of them, the baron bade everyone farewell with both arms upraised. Then he seated himself opposite the baroness and Sebastiana, whose skirts were full of flowers. Adalberto de Gumúcio sat down next to him and the carriage started up the Ladeira da Conceição da Praia, blanketed in luxuriant greenery. Soon the travelers could see the sailboats in the bay, the Fort of São Marcelo, the market, and any number of blacks and mulattoes in the water catching crabs.
“Europe is always an elixir of youth,” Gumúcio congratulated them. “You look ten years younger than when you left.”
“I owe that more to the ship crossing than to Europe,” the baroness said. “The three most restful weeks of my life!”
“You, on the other hand, look ten years older.