The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [152]
“I would have given anything to be with them when they routed Febrônio de Brito,” he said in a whisper, as though uttering words of love. “I’ve spent my life fighting and all I’ve seen in our camp is betrayals, dissensions, and defeats. I would have liked to see a victory, if only just once. To know what it feels like, what it’s really like, what a victory for our side tastes like.”
He saw that Jurema was looking at him as she had at other times, at once aloof and intrigued. They lay there, just a fraction of an inch apart, their bodies not touching. The Dwarf had begun to babble deliriously, in a soft voice.
“You don’t understand me and I don’t understand you,” Gall said. “Why didn’t you kill me when I was unconscious? Why didn’t you convince the capangas to take my head away with them instead of just my hair? Why are you with me? You don’t believe in the things that I believe in.”
“The person who must kill you is Rufino,” Jurema whispered, with no hatred in her voice, as though she were explaining something very simple. “By killing you, I would have done a worse thing to him than you did.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Gall thought. They had talked about the same thing before and each time he had ended up as much in the dark as ever. Honor, vengeance, that rigorous religion, those punctilious codes of conduct—how to explain their existence here at the end of the world, among people who possessed nothing but the rags and lice they had on them? Honor, a vow, a man’s word, those luxuries and games of the rich, of idlers and parasites—how to understand their existence here? He remembered how, from the window in his room at the boarding house of Our Lady of Grace in Queimadas, he had listened one market day to a wandering minstrel recite a story that, though distorted, was a medieval legend he had read as a child and as a young man seen transformed into a light romantic comedy for the stage: Robert the Devil. How had it gotten here? The world was more unpredictable than it appeared to be.
“I don’t understand those capangas’ reasons for carrying off my hair either,” he murmured. “That Caifás, I mean. Was he sparing my life so as not to deprive his friend of the pleasure of taking his revenge? That’s not the behavior of a peasant. It’s the behavior of an aristocrat.”
At other times, Jurema had tried to explain, but tonight she remained silent. Perhaps she was now convinced that this stranger would never understand these things.
The following morning, they took to the road again before the Algodões pilgrims. It took them an entire day to cross the Serra da França, and that night they were so tired and hungry they collapsed. The Idiot fainted twice during the day’s journey, and the second time he lay there so pale and still they thought he was dead. At dusk they were rewarded for their hard day by the discovery of a pool of greenish water. Parting the water plants, they drank from it, and the Bearded Lady brought the Idiot a drink in her cupped hands and cooled the cobra by sprinkling it with drops of water. The animal did not suffer from hunger, for they could always find little leaves or a worm or two to feed it. Once they had quenched their thirst, they gathered roots, stems, leaves to eat, and the Dwarf laid traps. The breeze that was blowing was balm after the terrible heat they had endured all day long. The Bearded