The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [204]
Another shell landing filled the entire square with yellow light. The explosion lifted Maria Quadrado off the ground, set her back down again, and made her head ring. In the second of light she caught a glimpse of the faces of women and children looking up at the sky as though gazing into hell. She suddenly realized that the bits and pieces that she had seen flying through the air were what had been the house of Eufrásio the shoemaker, from Chorrochó, who lived close by the cemetery with a swarm of daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. A silence followed the explosion, and this time no one ran. The bells went on pealing as joyously as before. It did her heart good to feel the Lion of Natuba huddling next to her, so close it was as though he were trying to hide inside her aged body.
There was a sudden stir, shadows clearing a path before them and shouting: “Water carriers! Water carriers!” She recognized Antônio and Honório Vilanova and realized where they were going. Two or three days before, the storekeeper had explained to the Counselor that, among the other measures being taken in preparation for combat, the water carriers had been instructed that when the fighting began they were to pick up the wounded and take them to the Health Houses and take the dead to a stable that had been converted into a morgue, so as to give them Christian burial later. Stretcher-bearers and gravediggers now, the water carriers were setting to work. Maria Quadrado prayed for them, thinking: “Everything is happening as we were told it would.”
Not far off, someone was weeping. There was, apparently, no one in the square except women and children. Where were the men? They must have run to clamber up onto the platforms in the trees, to crouch down in the trenches and behind the parapets, and had doubtless now joined Abbot João, Macambira, Pajeú, Big João, Pedrão, Taramela, and the other leaders, armed with their carbines and rifles, with their pikes, knives, machetes, and clubs, out somewhere peering into the darkness, waiting for the Antichrist. She felt gratitude, love for these men who were about to be bitten by the Dog and perhaps die. Lulled by the bells in the tower, she prayed for them.
And so the night passed, amid brief thunderstorms that drowned out the pealing of the bells, and spaced cannon shots that pulverized one or two shacks and started fires that the next thunderstorm put out. A cloud of smoke that made people’s throats and eyes burn drifted over the city, and Maria Quadrado, as she drowsed with the Lion of Natuba cradled in her arms, could hear people around her coughing and hawking. Suddenly someone shook her. She opened her eyes and saw that she was surrounded by the women of the Sacred Choir, in a light as yet still very faint, struggling to dispel the darkness. The Lion of Natuba was propped up against her knees, fast asleep. The bells were still ringing. The women embraced her; they had been looking for her, calling her in the darkness; she was so weary and numb she could barely hear them. She woke the Lion up: his huge eyes gazed at her, gleaming brightly, from behind the jungle of his wild locks. The two of them struggled to their feet.
Part of the square was empty now, and Alexandrinha Correa explained to her that Antônio Vilanova had ordered those women for whom no more room was left in the churches to go back to their houses, to hide in the trenches, because now that day was about to break, cannonades would rake the esplanade. Surrounded by the women of the Choir, the Lion of Natuba and Maria Quadrado made their way to the Temple of the Blessed Jesus. The Catholic Guard let them in. It was still dark within the labyrinth of beams and half-erected walls. But the Superior