The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [249]
“Here’s a little flour for you,” he heard the wife of either Antônio or Honório Vilanova saying: their voices were identical. “And some milk.”
He stopped thinking, letting his mind wander, and was nothing but a ravenous creature who raised little mouthfuls of maize flour to his lips with his fingertips, wet them with saliva, and kept them between his palate and his tongue for a long time before swallowing them, an organism that felt gratitude each time a sip of goat’s milk brought this feeling of well-being to his insides.
When they finished, the Dwarf belched and the nearsighted journalist heard him give a happy laugh. “If he eats he’s happy, and if he doesn’t he’s sad,” he thought. It was the same with him: his happiness or unhappiness now largely depended on his gut. That elemental truth reigned in Canudos, and yet could these people be called materialists? Because another persistent idea of his in recent days was that this society had come, by way of obscure paths and perhaps through simple error or accident, to rid itself of concerns about bodily needs, about economics, about everyday life, and everything that was primordial in the world he had come from. Would this sorry paradise of spirituality and wretchedness be his grave? During his first days in Canudos he had had illusions, had imagined that the little curé of Cumbe would remember him, would secure him guides, a horse, and that he would be able to get back to Salvador. But Father Joaquim had not come back to see them, and people now said that he was away on a journey. He no longer appeared at dusk on the scaffolding of the Temple under construction, and no longer celebrated Mass in the mornings. He had never been able to get close to him, to make his way through the group of armed men and women with blue headcloths standing shoulder to shoulder to guard the Counselor and his most intimate disciples, and now nobody knew if Father Joaquim would be back. Would his lot have been different if he had managed to speak with him? What would he have said to him? “Father Joaquim, I’m afraid of staying here amid jagunços, get me out of here, take me where there are soldiers and police who will offer me some security”? He could almost hear the little curé’s answer: “And what security do they offer me, senhor journalist? Have you forgotten that only a miracle kept me from losing my life at the hands of Throat-Slitter? Do you really imagine that I could go back where there are soldiers and police?” He burst out laughing uncontrollably, hysterically. He heard his laughter, and immediately took fright, thinking that it might offend those blurred beings who lived in this place. Finding his laughter infectious, the Dwarf, too, burst into a loud guffaw. He could see him in his mind, a tiny, deformed creature, contorted with merriment. It irritated him that Jurema remained as sober as ever.
“Well, it’s a small world! We meet again,” a rasping male voice said, and the nearsighted journalist was aware that dim silhouettes were approaching. One of them, the shorter of the two, with a red patch that must be a neckerchief, planted himself in front of Jurema. “I thought the dogs had killed you up there on the mountain.”
“They didn’t kill me,” Jurema answered.
“I’m glad,” the man said. “That would have been too bad.”
“He wants her for himself. He’s going to take her off with him,” the nearsighted journalist thought instantly. The palms of his hands began to sweat. He would take her away with him and the Dwarf would tag along after them. He started to tremble: he imagined how it would be all by himself,