The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [339]
The war is now a matter of a few scattered shots from one side or the other of the two barricades. The combatants limit themselves to spying on each other from their respective positions; when they glimpse a profile, a head, an arm, there is a sudden burst of fire that lasts only a few seconds. Then silence sets in once again; it, too, brings on a numbing, hypnotic torpor, disturbed only by random shots from the towers and the Sanctuary, aimed at no precise target, but rather in the general direction of the dwelling in ruins occupied by the soldiers: the bullets pierce the thin walls of wooden pickets and mud and often wound or kill soldiers inside who are sleeping or dressing.
That evening, in the Pyrotechnist’s shack, General Oscar plays cards with Lieutenant Pinto Souza, Colonel Neri (who is recovering from his wound), and two captains on his staff. They play on crates, by the light of an oil lamp. Suddenly they find themselves in the midst of a lively argument about Antônio Conselheiro and the bandits. One of the captains, who is from Rio, maintains that the explanation for Canudos is mixed blood, the mingling of Negro, Indian, and Portuguese stock that has slowly caused the race to degenerate to the point that it has now produced an inferior mentality, given to superstition and fanaticism. This view is vehemently countered by Colonel Neri. Haven’t there been racial mixtures in other parts of Brazil which have produced no similar phenomena in those regions? Like Colonel Moreira César, whom he admires and practically idolizes, he is persuaded that Canudos is the work of the enemies of the Republic, the monarchists out to restore the Empire, the former rich slaveowners and the privileged elite who have incited these poor uneducated wretches to rebel and confused them by instilling in them a hatred of progress. “The explanation of Canudos does not lie in race but in ignorance,” he declares.
General Oscar, who has followed this exchange with interest, is still perplexed and hesitates when they ask him his opinion. Yes, he finally says, ignorance allows aristocrats to turn these miserable wretches into fanatics and spur them on to attack what threatens the interests of the rich and powerful, for the Republic guarantees the equality of all men, thereby doing away with the privileges that are a right by birth under an aristocratic regime. But inwardly he is not at all convinced of what he is saying. When the others leave, he lies in his hammock thinking. What is the explanation of Canudos? Hereditary defects of people of mixed blood? Lack of education? A predisposition toward barbarism on the part of men who are accustomed to violence and who resist civilization out of atavism? Something to do with religion, with God? He finds none of these explanations satisfactory.
The next day, as he is shaving, without soap or a mirror, with a barber’s razor that he himself sharpens on a whetstone, he hears galloping hoofbeats. He has given orders that all movements back and forth between A Favela and the “black line” are to be made on foot, since men on horseback are too easy a target for the sharpshooters in the towers, and he therefore goes out to reprehend the disobedient riders. He hears cheers and hurrahs. The newcomers, three cavalrymen, cross the open terrain unharmed. The first lieutenant who dismounts at his side and clicks his heels identifies himself as the officer in charge of the platoon of advance scouts from General Girard’s brigade of reinforcements, the vanguard of which will be arriving within the next two hours. The lieutenant adds that the four thousand five hundred soldiers and officers of General Girard’s twelve battalions are impatient to place themselves at his command in order to annihilate the enemies of the Republic. At last, at long last, the nightmare of Canudos is about to end for him and for Brazil.
[V]
“Jurema?