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By Root 2122 0

César mutters. This is something that his officers have heard him say many times since they boarded the train in Rio. Despite the heat he is not sweating. He has a pale little face, eyes with an intense, sometimes obsessive gaze, and rarely smiles; his voice is very nearly a monotone, thin and flat, as though he were keeping a tight rein on it as is recommended in the case of a skittish horse. “The minute they discover we’re getting close they’ll bolt and the campaign will be a resounding failure. We cannot allow that to happen.” He looks once again at his companions, who listen to him without saying a word in reply. “Southern Brazil has now realized that the Republic is a fait accompli. We’ve brought that home to them. But here in the state of Bahia there are still a great many aristocrats who haven’t yet resigned themselves to that fact. Especially since the death of the marshal; with a civilian without ideals heading the country, they think they can turn the clock back. They won’t accept the irreversible till they’ve had a good lesson. And now is the time to give them one, gentlemen.”

“They’re scared to death, sir,” Cunha Matos says. “Doesn’t the fact that the Autonomist Party organized the reception for us in Salvador and took up a collection to defend the Republic prove they’ve got their tails between their legs?”

“The crowning touch was the triumphal arch in the Calçada Station calling us saviors,” Tamarindo recalls. “Just a few days before, they were violently opposed to the intervention of the Federal Army in Bahia, and then they toss flowers at us in the streets and the Baron de Canabrava sends us word that he’s coming to Calumbi to place his hacienda at the disposal of the regiment.”

He gives a hearty laugh, but Moreira César does not find his good humor infectious.

“That means that the baron is more intelligent than his friends,” the colonel replies. “He couldn’t keep Rio from intervening in an out-and-out case of insurrection. So then he opts for patriotism, in order not to be outdone by the Republicans. His aim is to distract and confuse people for the moment so as to be in a position to deal us another blow later. The baron has been well schooled: in the English school, gentlemen.”

They find Pau Seco empty of people, possessions, animals. Two soldiers, standing next to the branchless tree trunk atop which the signal flag left by the vanguard is fluttering, salute. Moreira César reins his mount in and looks around at the mud huts, the interiors of which are visible through the doors left ajar or fallen from their hinges. A toothless, barefoot woman, dressed in a tunic full of holes through which her dark skin shows, emerges from one of the huts. Two rickety children, with glassy eyes, one of whom is naked and has a swollen belly, cling to her, staring at the soldiers in stupefaction. From astride his horse, Moreira César looks down at them: they strike him as the very image of helplessness. His face contorts in an expression in which sadness, anger, and rancor are commingled.

Still looking at them, he gives one of his escorts an order: “Have some food brought them.” And he turns to his adjutants: “Do you see the state they keep the people on their lands in?”

His voice trembles and his eyes flash. In an impetuous gesture, he draws his sword from its scabbard and raises it to his face, as though he were about to kiss it. Craning their necks, the press correspondents then see the commanding officer of the Seventh Regiment give, before riding off again, that ceremonial sword salute reserved at parades for the national flag and the highest authority, here addressed to the three miserable inhabitants of Pau Seco.

The incomprehensible words had been pouring out in great bursts ever since they came upon him lying near the sad-faced woman and the dead body of the mule being pecked at by urubus—black vultures. Sporadic, vehement, thunderous, or hushed, murmured, furtive, they poured out day and night, at times frightening the Idiot, who began to tremble. After sniffing the redheaded man, the Bearded Lady said