The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [283]
He burst out laughing again and the ensuing sneezes occupied him for some time. When he had finished, his nose and eyes were badly irritated.
“But more than of his possible divinity, I thought of the spirit of solidarity, of fraternity, of the unbreakable bond that he was able to forge among those people,” the nearsighted journalist said in a pathetic tone of voice. “Amazing. Moving. After July 18, the only trails left open were the ones to Chorrochó and Riacho Seco. What would have been the logical thing to do? For people to try to get away, to escape along those trails, isn’t that true? But exactly the opposite happened. People tried to come to Canudos, they kept flocking in from all over, in a desperate hurry to get inside the rat trap, the hell, before the soldiers completely encircled Canudos. Do you see? Nothing was normal there…”
“You spoke of priests in the plural,” the baron interrupted him. This subject, the jagunços’ solidarity and their collective will to sacrifice themselves, was disturbing to him. It had turned up several times in the conversation, and each time he had skirted it, as he did again now.
“I didn’t know the other ones,” the journalist replied, as though he, too, were relieved at having been obliged to change the subject. “But they existed. Father Joaquim received information and help from them. And at the end they, too, may very well have been there, scattered about, lost among the multitudes of jagunços. Someone told me of a certain Father Martinez. Do you know who it was? Someone you knew, a long time ago, many years ago. The filicide of Salvador—does that mean anything to you?”
“The filicide of Salvador?” the baron said.
“I was present at her trial, when I was still in short pants. My father was a public defender, a lawyer for the poor, and it was he who was her defense attorney. I recognized her even though I couldn’t see her, even though twenty or twenty-five years had gone by. You read the papers in those days, didn’t you? The entire Northeast was passionately interested in the case of Maria Quadrado, the filicide of Salvador. The Emperor commuted her death sentence to life imprisonment. Don’t you remember her? She, too, was in Canudos. Do you see how the whole thing is a story that never ends?”
“I already knew that,” the baron said. “All those who had accounts to settle with the law, with their conscience, with God, found a refuge thanks to Canudos. It was only natural.”
“That they should take refuge there, yes, I grant you that, but not that they should become different people altogether.” As though he didn’t know what to do with his body, the journalist flexed his long legs and slid back down onto the floor. “She was the saint, the Mother of Men, the Superior of the devout women who cared for the Counselor’s needs. People attributed miracles to her, and she was said to have wandered everywhere with him.”
The story gradually came back to the baron. A celebrated case, the subject of endless gossip. She was the maidservant of a notary and had suffocated her newborn baby to death by stuffing a ball of yarn in his mouth, because he cried a great deal and she was afraid that she would be thrown out in the street without a job on account of him. She kept the dead body underneath her bed for several days, till the mistress of the house discovered it because of the stench. The young woman confessed everything immediately. Throughout the trial, her manner was meek and gentle, and she answered all the questions asked her willingly and truthfully. The baron remembered the heated controversy that had arisen regarding the personality of the filicide, with one side arguing that she was “catatonic and therefore not responsible” and the other maintaining that she was possessed of a “perverse instinct.” Had she escaped from prison, then?
The journalist had changed the subject once more. “Before July 18