The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [282]
“Yes, one of his faithful followers, and also something of a hero.” The journalist broke into one of those bursts of laughter that sounded like light stones sliding down his throat; as usually happened, this time, too, his laughter turned into a fit of sneezing.
“He was a sinful curé but he wasn’t an idiot,” the baron reflected. “When he was sober, one could have a decent conversation with him. A man with a lively mind and one who was even fairly well read. I find it difficult to believe that he, too, would fall under the spell of a charlatan, like the unlettered people of the backlands…”
“Culture, intelligence, books have nothing to do with the story of the Counselor,” the nearsighted journalist said. “But that’s the least of it. The surprising thing is not that Father Joaquim became a jagunço. It’s that the Counselor made a brave man of him, when before he’d been a coward.” He blinked in stupefaction. “That’s the most difficult, the most miraculous conversion of all. I can personally testify to that, for I know what fear is. And the little curé of Cumbe was a man with enough imagination to know what it’s like to be seized with panic, to live in terror. And yet…”
His voice grew hollow, emptied of substance, and the expression on his face became a grimace. What had happened to him all of a sudden? The baron saw that his caller was doing his utmost to calm down, to break through something that was holding him back. He tried to help him go on. “And yet…?” he said encouragingly.
“And yet he spent months, years perhaps, going all about the villages, the haciendas, the mines, buying gunpowder, dynamite, fuses. Making up elaborate lies to justify these purchases that must have attracted a great deal of attention. And when the sertão began to swarm with soldiers, do you know how he risked his neck? By hiding powder kegs in his coffer containing the sacred objects of worship, the tabernacle, the ciborium with the consecrated Hosts, the crucifix, the chasuble, the vestments that he carried about to say Mass. And smuggling them into Canudos right under the noses of the National Guard, of the army. Can you have any idea of what that means when you’re a coward, trembling from head to foot, bathed in cold sweat? Can you have any idea of how strong a conviction that takes?”
“The catechism is full of stories like that, my friend,” the baron murmured. “Martyrs pierced with arrows, devoured by lions, crucified…But, I grant you, it is difficult for me to imagine Father Joaquim doing things like that for the Counselor.”
“It requires total conviction,” the journalist repeated. “Profound, complete certainty, a faith that doubtless you have never felt. Nor I…”
He shook his head once more like a restless hen and hoisted himself into the armchair with his long, bony arms. He played with his hands for a few seconds, focusing all his attention on them, and then went on. “The Church has formally condemned the Counselor as a heretic, a believer in superstition, a disseminator of unrest, and a disturber of the conscience of the faithful. The Archbishop of Bahia has forbidden parish priests to allow him to preach in their pulpits. If one is a priest, it takes absolute faith in the Counselor to disobey the Church and one’s own archbishop and run the risk of being condemned for helping him.”
“What is it you find so distressing?” the baron asked. “The suspicion that the Counselor was really another Christ, come for the second time to redeem men?”
He said this without thinking, and the minute the words were out of his mouth he felt uncomfortable. Had he been trying to make a joke? Neither he nor the nearsighted journalist smiled, however. He saw the latter shake his head, which might have been a reply in the negative or a gesture to chase a fly away.
“I’ve thought about that, too,” the nearsighted journalist said. “If it was God, if God sent him, if God existed…I don