The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [157]
The Little Blessed One finally pieced together, from the man’s torrent of words, that the bundle was a newborn baby girl, who had died the evening before as they were coming down the Serra da Canabrava. He raised the bit of cloth and looked: the little body was rigid, the color of parchment. He explained to the woman that it was a blessing from heaven that her daughter had died on the only piece of earth in this world that remained free of the Devil. They had not baptized her, and the Little Blessed One now did so, naming her Maria Eufrásia and praying to the Father to take this little soul to His Glory. He had the couple repeat the oath and sent them to the Vilanovas to arrange for their daughter’s burial. Because of the scarcity of wood, burials had become a problem in Belo Monte. A shiver ran up his spine. That was the most terrifying thing he could think of: his body buried in a grave with no coffin to protect it.
As he spoke with more pilgrims, one of the women of the Sacred Choir entered to tidy the chapel and Alexandrinha Correa brought him a little earthenware bowl accompanied by a message from Maria Quadrado: “For you alone to eat,” because the Mother of Men knew that he was in the habit of giving his rations to those who were starving. As he listened to the pilgrims, the Little Blessed One thanked God for having given him strength of soul such that he never felt the pangs of hunger or thirst: a few sips of water, a mouthful of food sufficed; not even during the pilgrimage through the desert had he suffered the torments of near-starvation that other brothers and sisters had. It was for that reason that only the Counselor had offered up more fasts than he to the Blessed Jesus. Alexandrinha Correa also told him that Abbot João, Big João, and Antônio Vilanova were waiting for him in the Sanctuary.
He remained in the chapel for almost two hours more to receive pilgrims, only one of whom was not granted permission to stay, a grain merchant from Pedrinhas who had been a tax collector. He did not reject former soldiers, guides, or purveyors for the army. But tax gatherers were to depart immediately, never to return, under threat of death. They had bled the poor white, seized their harvests and sold them off, stolen their animals; their greed was implacable, and they risked being the worm that spoils the fruit. The Little Blessed One explained to the man from Pedrinhas that in order to obtain heaven’s mercy he must fight the Can, somewhere far away, on his own. After sending word to the pilgrims outside to wait for him, he headed for the Sanctuary. It was mid-morning now, and the bright sunlight made the stones shimmer. Many people tried to detain him, but he explained in gestures that he was in a hurry. He was escorted by members of the Catholic Guard. In the beginning he had refused an escort, but now he realized that one was indispensable. Without these brothers, making his way across the few yards that separated the chapel and the Sanctuary would have taken him hours because of the number of people who assailed him with requests or insisted on having a word with him. As he walked along, the thought came to him that among this morning’s pilgrims were some who had come from as far away as Alagoas and Ceará. Wasn’t that extraordinary? The crowd that had gathered around the Sanctuary was so dense—people of all ages craning their necks toward the little wooden door where, at one moment of the day or another, the Counselor would appear