The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [137]
He was another person when he knocked on Antônio Vilanova’s door. Assunção Sardelinha, Honôrio’s wife, let him in, and João found the storekeeper, his wife, and various children and helpers of the two brothers sitting at the counter eating. They made room for him, and handed him a steaming plateful of food that he downed without even noticing what it was that he was eating, with the feeling that he was wasting precious time. He barely listened as Antônio told him that, rather than taking gunpowder with him, Pajeú had chosen to go off with cane whistles and crossbows and poisoned arrows, his idea being that that would be a better way of harassing the soldiers who were coming. The black chewed and swallowed, paying no attention, his mind entirely occupied by his mission.
Once the meal was over, the others went off to bed in the adjoining rooms or trundled off to their hammocks, pallets, or blankets laid down amid the crates and shelves around them. Then, by the light of an oil lamp, João and Antônio talked. They talked for a long time, in low voices at times and much louder ones at others, in perfect accord at times and at others furious with each other. Meanwhile, little by little, fireflies invaded the store, glowing in all the corners. From time to time Antônio opened one of the large ledgers in which he was in the habit of recording the arrivals of pilgrims, births, and deaths, and mentioned certain names. But still João did not allow the storekeeper to go off for his night’s rest. After carefully smoothing out a crumpled bit of paper that he had been clutching in his hand, he held it out to him and had him read it over several times until he had memorized the words written on it. As sleep overcame the ex-slave, who had bedded down in a vacant space underneath the counter, so tired he hadn’t even taken off his boots, Antônio Vilanova heard him repeating the oath composed by the Little Blessed One for the Catholic Guard.
The next morning, the Vilanova brothers’ children and helpers went all about Belo Monte, announcing, whenever they came upon a group of people, that any person not afraid to give his or her life for the Counselor might aspire to become a member of the Catholic Guard. Soon so many candidates gathered in front of the former steward’s house of the hacienda that they blocked Campo Grande, the only straight street in Canudos. Sitting on a crate of merchandise, Big João and Antônio received them one by one. The storekeeper checked the name and date of arrival of each one against his ledger, and João asked them one by one if they were willing to give away everything they possessed and abandon their families as Christ’s apostles had done for His sake, and subject themselves to a baptism by resistance. All of them fervently consented.
Those who had fought at Uauá and O Cambaio were given preference, and those incapable of reaming out a rifle, loading a blunderbuss, or cooling an overheated musket were eliminated. The very old and very young were also eliminated, as were those unfit for combat; lunatics and pregnant women, for instance. No one who had ever been a guide for the police flying brigades or a tax collector or a census taker was accepted. Every so often,