The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [207]
“You’re Jurema, you’re the wife of the guide from Queimadas,” Pajeú says at her side, in an excited voice. “He found you, then. And found that poor fool who was at Calumbi.”
“That’s the lunatic who fell into the trap last night,” someone on the other side of the circle says. “The one who was so terrified of the soldiers.”
Jurema feels a hand in hers, a tiny chubby one, squeezing tightly. It is the Dwarf. He looks at her with eyes full of hope and joy, as though she were about to save his life. Covered with mud, he clings to her.
“Stop them, stop them, Pajeú,” Jurema says. “Save my husband, save…”
“Do you want me to save both of them?” Pajeú says mockingly. “Do you want to stay with both of them?”
Jurema hears other jagunços laugh at these words from the caboclo without a nose.
“This is men’s business, Jurema,” Pajeú calmly explains to her. “You got them into this. Leave them in the mess you got them into, and let them settle the matter between them the way two men should. If your husband gets out of it alive, he’ll kill you, and if he dies you’ll be to blame for his death and you’ll have to account for yourself to the Father. In Belo Monte the Counselor will tell you what you must do to redeem yourself. So be off with you now, because war is coming this way. Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor!”
The caatinga stirs, and in seconds the jagunços disappear in the scrub. The Dwarf continues to squeeze her hand as he stands there watching with her. Jurema sees that there is a knife plunged halfway into Gall’s ribs. She can still hear bugles, bells, whistles. Suddenly the struggle ends, for with a roar Gall rolls a few yards away from Rufino. Jurema sees him grab hold of the knife and pull it out of his side with another roar. She looks at Rufino, who looks back at her as he lies there in the mud, his mouth open, his eyes lifeless.
“You still haven’t slapped my face,” she hears Galileo say, urging Rufino on with the hand that is clutching the knife.
Jurema sees Rufino nod and thinks: “They understand each other.” She doesn’t know what the thought means and yet she feels that it is altogether true. Rufino drags himself toward Gall, very slowly. Will he reach him? He pushes himself along with his elbows, with his knees, rubs his face in the mud, like an earthworm, and Gall urges him on, waving the knife. “Men’s business,” Jurema thinks. She thinks: “The blame will fall on me.” Rufino reaches Gall, who tries to plunge the knife into him, as the guide strikes him in the face. But the slap has no momentum behind it by the time it lands, for Rufino has no energy left or has entirely lost heart. The hand lingers on Gall’s face, like a sort of caress. Gall strikes too, once, twice, and then his hand rests quietly on the guide’s head. They lie dying in each other’s arms, gazing into each other’s eyes. Jurema has the impression that the two faces, a fraction of an inch apart, are smiling at each other. The bugle calls and the whistles have been succeeded now by heavy gunfire. The Dwarf says something that she does not understand.
“You struck him in the face, Rufino,” Jurema thinks. “What did you gain by that, Rufino? What use was there in getting your revenge if you’ve died, if you’ve left me all alone in the world, Rufino?” She does not weep, she does not move, she does not take her eyes from the two motionless men. That hand on Rufino’s head reminds her that in Queimadas, when to the misfortune of all of them God willed that the stranger should come to offer her husband work, he had once felt Rufino’s head and read its secrets for him, just as Porffrio the sorcerer read them in coffee grounds and Dona Cacilda in a basin of water.
“Did I tell you who turned up in Calumbi among the people