The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [144]
He staggered out of the drawing room, weaving from side to side between the pieces of furniture and the glass cabinets. At his back, the voice of the journalist rudely asked for another cup of tea. He and Olímpio de Castro remained in the room, but the doctor went to see what had happened to the commanding officer of the Seventh Regiment. He found him in bed, panting for breath, in a state of great fatigue. He helped him undress, gave him a sedative, and heard him say that he would rejoin the regiment at dawn the next morning: he would entertain no discussion of the matter. This said, he allowed the doctor to apply the cupping glasses again and plunged once more into a tub of cold water, from which he emerged shivering. Massages with turpentine and mustard warmed him up. He ate in his bedroom, but then got up in his bathrobe and spent a few minutes in the drawing room, thanking the baron and baroness for their hospitality. He awoke at five the following morning. As he drank a cup of coffee, he assured Dr. Souza Ferreiro that he had never felt better in his life and warned the nearsighted journalist, who was just waking up, disheveled and yawning, as he sat at his side, that if there was the least little news item about his illness in any paper, he would hold him responsible. As he was about to leave, a manservant came to tell him that the baron would like him to come by his study. He led him to a small room with a large wooden writing desk on top of which a device for rolling cigarettes occupied the place of honor; on the walls, in addition to shelves lined with books, were knives, whips, leather gloves, and sombreros and harnesses. The room had windows with a view, and in the dawning light the men in the colonel’s escort could be seen talking with the journalist from Bahia.
The baron was in his bathrobe and slippers. “Despite our differences of opinion, I believe you to be a patriot who has Brazil’s best interests at heart, Colonel,” he said by way of greeting. “No, I am not trying to win your sympathies by flattering you. Nor do I wish to waste your time. I need to know whether the army, or at least you yourself, are aware of the underhanded maneuver being used against me and against my friends by our adversaries.”
“The army doesn’t interfere in local political quarrels,” Moreira César interrupted him. “I have come to the state of Bahia to put down an insurrection that is endangering the Republic. That is my sole purpose in coming.”
They were standing very close to each other, looking each other straight in the eye.
“That’s precisely what their maneuvering has been aimed at,” the baron said. “Making Rio, the government, the army believe that this is the danger that Canudos represents. Those miserable wretches don’t have any sort of modern weapons. The explosive bullets are limonite projectiles, or brown hematite if you prefer the technical term, a mineral found everywhere in the Serra de Bendengó that the people in the backlands have always used as shotgun pellets.”
“Are the defeats undergone by the army in Uauá and on O Cambaio also a maneuver?” the colonel asked. “And the rifles shipped from Liverpool and smuggled into the region by English agents?”
The baron scrutinized the officer’s fearless face, his hostile eyes, his scornful smile. Was he a cynic? At this point he couldn’t tell yet: the only thing that was entirely clear was that Moreira César detested him.
“The English rifles are indeed a part of their scheme,” he answered. “Epaminondas Gonçalves, your most fervent supporter in Bahia, had them brought here so as to accuse us of conspiring with a foreign power and with the jagunços. And as for the English spy in Ipupiará, he manufactured him too, by giving men in his hire orders to kill a poor devil who to his misfortune had red hair. Did you know that?”
Moreira