The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [172]
“They aren’t politicians. They don’t know anything at all about politics,” Father Joaquim squeaks. “They’re against civil marriage; that’s what the talk about the Antichrist is about. They’re pure Christians, sir. They can’t understand why there should be such a thing as civil marriage when a sacrament created by God already exists…”
But at that point he gives a little groan and suddenly falls silent, for Moreira César has taken his pistol out of its holster. He calmly releases the safety catch and points the gun at the prisoner’s temple. The nearsighted journalist’s heart is pounding like a bass drum and he is trying so hard not to sneeze that his temples ache.
“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, in the name of what you hold dearest, sir, Colonel, Your Excellency!” He has dropped to his knees.
“Despite my warning, you’re wasting our time, padre,” the colonel says.
“It’s true: I brought them medicines, supplies, things they’d asked me to bring up to them,” Father Joaquim whimpers. “And explosives, gunpowder, sticks of dynamite, too. I bought them for them at the mines in Caçabu. It was doubtless a mistake. I don’t know, sir, I wasn’t thinking. They cause me such uneasiness, such envy, on account of that faith, that peace of mind that I’ve never known. Don’t kill me.”
“Who are the people who are helping them?” the colonel asks. “Who’s giving them arms, supplies, money?”
“I don’t know who they are, I don’t know,” the priest moans. “I do know, that is to say, that it’s lots of landowners. It’s the custom, sir—like with the bandits. To give them something so they won’t attack, so they move on to other people’s land.”
“Do they also receive help from the Baron de Canabrava’s hacienda?” Moreira César interrupts him.
“Yes, I suppose they get things from Calumbi, too, sir. It’s always been the custom. But that’s changed now that so many people have left. I’ve never seen a landowner or a politician or a foreigner in Canudos. Just poor people. I’m telling you everything I know. I’m not like them. I don’t want to be a martyr; don’t kill me.”
His voice breaks and he bursts into sobs, his shoulders sagging.
“There’s paper over there on that table,” Moreira César says. “I want a detailed map of Canudos. Streets, entrances into the town, how and where it’s defended.”
“Yes, yes.” Father Joaquim crawls over to the little camp table. “Everything I know. I have no reason to lie to you.”
He climbs up onto the chair and begins to draw. Moreira César, Tamarindo, and Cunha Matos stand around him. Over in his corner, the correspondent from the Jornal de Notícias feels relieved. He is not going to see the little priest’s head blown off. He gazes at the curé’s anxious profile as he draws the map they’ve asked him for. He hears him hasten to answer questions about trenches, traps, blocked streets. The nearsighted journalist sits down on the floor and sneezes, two, three, ten times. His head is spinning and he is beginning to feel unbearably thirsty again. The colonel and the other officers are talking with the prisoner about “nests of sharpshooters” and “outposts”—the latter does not appear to have a very good idea of what they are—and he unscrews his canteen and takes a long swallow, thinking to himself that he has failed once again to stick to his schedule. Distracted, dazed, uninterested, he hears the officers discussing the vague information that the priest is giving them, and the colonel explaining where the machine guns and the cannons will be placed, and how the regimental companies must be deployed in order to close in on the jagunços in a pincers movement. He hears him say, “We must leave them no avenue of escape.”
The interrogation is over. Two soldiers enter to take the prisoner away. Before he leaves, Moreira César says to him, “Since you know this region, you will help the guides. And you will help us identify the ringleaders when the time comes.”
“I thought