The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [190]
“Not out of fanatics,” the baron shot back. “Not out of those whose beliefs are stronger than their fear of dying. Torture would have no effect on Gall; it would merely reinforce his convictions. The history of religion provides many examples…”
“In that case, it would have been preferable to put a bullet through him and deliver his dead body,” Murau muttered. “But simply to let him go…”
“I’m curious to know what happened to him,” the baron said. “To know who killed him. The guide, so as not to take him to Canudos? The jagunços, so as to rob him? Or Moreira César?”
“The guide?” Gumúcio’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “In addition to everything else, you gave him a guide?”
“And a horse.” The baron nodded. “I had a weak spot in my heart for him. I felt compassion, sympathy for him.”
“Compassion? Sympathy?” José Bernardo Murau repeated, rocking furiously in his chair. “For an anarchist who dreams of setting the world on fire, of wholesale bloodshed?”
“One who’s already left a number of dead bodies in his wake, to judge from his papers,” the baron said. “Unless they’re fake, which is also possible. The poor fellow was convinced that Canudos represents universal brotherhood, a materialist paradise. He spoke of the jagunços as though they were his political comrades, fellow believers. It was impossible not to feel affection for him.”
He noted that his friends were staring at him in greater and greater stupefaction.
“I have his testament,” he told them. “Difficult reading, full of all sorts of nonsense, but interesting. It includes a detailed account of the plot cooked up by Epaminondas: how the latter hired him, then tried to kill him, and so on.”
“It would have been better if he’d told his story publicly, in person,” Adalberto de Gumúcio said indignantly.
“Nobody would have believed him,” the baron replied. “The story dreamed up by Epaminondas Gonçalves, with its secret agents and arms smugglers, is more believable than the real one. I’ll translate a few paragraphs from it for you, after dinner. It’s in English, naturally.” He paused for a few seconds as he looked over at the baroness, who had sighed in her sleep. “Do you know why he gave me that testament? So I’d send it on to some anarchist rag in Lyons. Just think, I’m no longer conspiring with the British Crown but with French terrorists fighting for world revolution.”
He laughed as he watched his friends’ rage mounting by the second.
“As you see, we are unable to share your good humor,” Gumúcio said.
“I find that amusing, too, since it’s my property that’s been burned down.”
“Never mind your bad jokes, and explain to us once and for all what you’re up to,” Murau said reprovingly.
“It’s no longer important to do Epaminondas any harm whatsoever. He’s a boor, a country bumpkin,” the Baron de Canabrava said. “What’s important now is to reach an accommodation with the republicans. The war between us is over; circumstances have put an end to it. It’s not possible to wage two wars at the same time. The Scotsman was of no use to us, and in the long run he would only have complicated matters.”
“An accommodation with the Progressivist Republicans, you said?” Gumúcio stared at him in stupefaction.
“I said accommodation, but what I was thinking of was an alliance, a pact,” the baron answered. “It’s difficult to understand, and even more difficult to bring off, but there’s no other way. Well then, I think we may carry Estela to her room now.”
[VI]
Drenched to the skin, curled up on a blanket indistinguishable from the mud, the nearsighted correspondent from the Jornal de Notícias hears the cannons roar. Partly because of the rain and partly because battle is imminent, no one is asleep. He pricks up his ears: are the bells of Canudos still pealing in the darkness? All he can hear is the cannons firing at intervals and bugles blowing the call to charge and slit throats. Have the jagunços also given a name to the symphony of