The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [306]
A voice interrupts his train of thought. “Teotônio?” It is a first lieutenant whose tattered tunic bears the still decipherable insignia of his rank and unit: Ninth Infantry Battalion, Salvador. He has been in the field hospital since the day the first column arrived in A Favela; he was in one of the vanguard corps of the First Brigade, the ones that Colonel Joaquim Manuel de Medeiros led in a mad charge down the mountainside of A Favela to attack Canudos. The carnage dealt them by the jagunços from their invisible trenches was frightful; the front line of soldiers can still be seen, lying frozen in death, halfway up the slope where it was mowed down. First Lieutenant Pires Ferreira was hit square in the face by a projectile; the explosion ripped off his two raised hands and left him blind. As it was the first day, Dr. Alfredo Gama was able to anesthetize him with morphine as he sutured the stumps and disinfected his face wounds. Lieutenant Pires Ferreira is fortunate: his wounds are protected by bandages from the dust and the insects. He is an exemplary patient, whom Teotônio has never heard weep or complain. Every day, when he asks him how he is feeling, his answer is: “All right.” And “Nothing” is his answer when he asks if there is anything he wants. Teotônio has fallen into the habit of coming to talk with him at night, stretching out alongside him on the stony ground, gazing up at the myriad stars that always stud the sky of Canudos. That is how he has learned that Lieutenant Pires Ferreira is a veteran of this war, one of the few who have served in the four expeditions sent by the Republic to fight against the jagunços; that is how he has found out that for this unfortunate officer this tragedy is the culmination of a series of humiliations and defeats. He has thus realized the reason for the bitterness that haunts the lieutenant’s thoughts, why he endures so stoically sufferings that destroy other men’s morale and dignity. In his case the worst wounds are not physical.
“Teotônio?” Pires Ferreira says again. The bandages cover half his face, but not his mouth or his chin.
“Yes,” the medical student says, sitting down alongside him. He motions to the two aides with the medicine kit and the canteens of water to take a rest; they go off a few paces and collapse on the gravel. “I’ll keep you company for a while, Manuel da Silva. Is there anything you need?”
“Can they hear us?” the officer in bandages says in a low voice. “This is confidential, Teotônio.”
At that moment the bells ring out on the hillside opposite. Young Leal Cavalcanti looks up at the sky: yes, it is getting dark, it is time for the bells calling the people of Canudos together for the Rosary. They peal every evening, with a magic punctuality, and without fail, a little while later, if there are no fusillades and no cannonades, the fanatics’ Ave Marias can be heard even up in the camps on A Favela and Monte Mário. A respectful cessation of all activity occurs at this hour in the field hospital; many of the sick and wounded cross themselves on hearing the bells ring and their lips move, reciting the Rosary at the same time as their enemies. Even Teotônio, who has been a lukewarm Catholic, cannot help feeling a curious, indefinable sensation each evening, what with all the prayers and ringing bells, something that, if it is not faith, is a nostalgia for faith.
“That means the bell ringer is still alive,” he