The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [228]
“Look at them,” one of the jagunços said, giving him a shake. “Look at them jumping into the river.”
Above the jumble of rooftops on the slope of Santa Ana, to the right, to the left, were other uniformed figures, clambering frantically up the hillside; others were leaping into the river, a number of them having first thrown away their rifles. But what drew his attention even more was the gathering darkness. Night would soon be upon them. “We’re going to take their arms away from them,” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Come on, boys, we can’t leave the job half finished.” Several of the jagunços ran toward the river with him, and one of them began to shout: “Down with the Republic and the Antichrist! Long live the Counselor and the Blessed Jesus!”
In that dreaming that is and is not, a dozing that blurs the borderline between waking and sleeping and that reminds him of certain opium nights in his disorderly little house in Salvador, the nearsighted correspondent from the Jornal de Notícias has the sensation that he has not slept but has spoken and listened, told those faceless presences that are sharing the caatinga, hunger, and uncertainty with him that for him the worst part is not being lost, with no idea of what will happen when day breaks, but having lost his big leather pouch and the rolls of paper covered with his scribbling that he has wrapped up in his few clean clothes. He is certain that he has also told them things that he is ashamed of: that two days before, when his ink was all gone and his last goose-quill pen broken, he had a fit of weeping, as though a member of his family had died. And he is certain—certain in the uncertain, disjointed, cottony way in which everything happens, is said, or is received in the world of opium—that all night long he has chewed, without repulsion, the handfuls of grasses, leaves, little twigs, insects perhaps, the unidentifiable bits of matter, dry or moist, viscous or solid, that he and his companions have passed from hand to hand. And he is certain that he has listened to as many intimate confessions as he believes that he himself has made. “Except for her, all of us are immensely afraid,” he thinks. Father Joaquim, whom he has served as a pillow and who in turn has served as his, has acknowledged as much: that he discovered what real fear was only the day before, tied to that tree over there, waiting for a soldier to come slit his throat, hearing the shooting, watching the goings and comings, the arrival of the wounded, a fear infinitely greater than he had ever felt before, of anything or anybody, including the Devil and hell. Did the curé say those things, moaning and every so often begging God’s forgiveness for having said them? But the one who is more frightened still is the one she has said is a dwarf. Because, in a shrill little voice as deformed as his body must be, he has not stopped whimpering and rambling on about bearded women, gypsies, strong men, and a boneless man who could tie himself in knots. What can the Dwarf look like? Can she be his mother? What are the two of them doing here? How can she possibly not be afraid? What is she feeling that’s worse than fear? For the nearsighted journalist has noted something even more destructive, disastrous, distressing in the woman’s soft-spoken voice, in the sporadic murmur in which she has never once spoken of the one thing that has any meaning, the fear of dying, but only of the stubbornness of someone who is dead, left unburied, getting soaked, freezing, being devoured by all sorts of creatures. Can she be a madwoman, someone who is no longer afraid because she was once so afraid that she went mad?
He feels someone shaking him. He thinks: “My glasses.” He sees a faint greenish light, moving shadows. And as he pats his body, feels all about him, he hears Father Joaquim: