The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [347]
“Go out into the world to bear witness, Antônio, and do not cross inside the circle again. I shall stay here with the flock. You are to go out there beyond the circle. You are a man who is acquainted with the world. Go, teach those who have forgotten their lessons how to count. May the Divine guide you and the Father bless you.”
The ex-trader’s face screws up, contorts into a grimace as he bursts into sobs. “It is the Counselor’s testament,” the Little Blessed One thinks. He is perfectly aware what a solemn, transcendent moment this is. What he is seeing and hearing will be recalled down through the years, the centuries, among thousands and thousands of men of every tongue, of every race, in every corner of the globe; it will be recalled by countless human beings not yet born. Antônio Vilanova’s broken voice is begging the Counselor not to send him forth, as he desperately kisses the dark bony hands with the long fingernails. He should intervene, remind Antônio that at this moment he may not oppose a desire of the Counselor’s. He draws closer, places one hand on his friend’s shoulder; the affectionate pressure is enough to calm him. Vilanova looks at him with eyes brimming with tears, begging him for help, for some sort of explanation. The Counselor remains silent. Is he about to hear his voice once more? He hears, twice in a row, the soft little sound. He has often asked himself whether each time he hears it, the Counselor is experiencing writhing, stabbing, wrenching pains, terrible cramps, whether the Dog has its fangs in his belly. He now knows that it does. He has only to glimpse that very slight grimace on the emaciated face each time the saint quietly breaks wind to know that the sound is accompanied by flames and knives that are sheer martyrdom.
“Take your family with you, so that you won’t be alone,” the Counselor whispers. “And take the strangers who are friends of Father Joaquim’s with you. Let each one gain salvation through his own effort. As you are doing, my son.”
Despite the hypnotic attention with which he is listening to the Counselor’s words, the Little Blessed One catches a glimpse of the grimace contorting Pajeú’s face: the scar appears to swell up and split open, and his mouth flies open to ask a question or perhaps to protest, beside himself at the prospect that the woman he wishes to marry will be leaving Belo Monte. In utter amazement, the Little Blessed One suddenly understands why the Counselor, in this supreme moment, has remembered the strangers whom Father Joaquim has taken under his wing. So as to save an apostle! So as to save Pajeú from the fall that this woman might mean for him! Or does he simply wish to test the caboclo? Or give him the opportunity to gain pardon for his sins through suffering? Pajeú’s olive face is again a blank, serene, untroubled, respectful, as he stands looking down at the pallet with his leather hat in his hand.
The Little Blessed One is certain now that the saint’s mouth will not open again. “Only his other mouth is speaking,” he thinks. What is the message of that stomach that has been giving off wind and leaking water for six, seven, ten days now? It torments him to think that in that wind and that water there is a message addressed to him, which he might misinterpret, might not hear. He knows that nothing is accidental, that there is no such thing as sheer chance, that everything has a profound meaning, a root whose ramifications always lead to the Father, and that if one is holy enough he may glimpse the miraculous, secret order that God has instituted in the world.
The Counselor is mute once again, as though he had never spoken. Standing at one corner of the pallet, Father Joaquim moves his lips, praying in silence. Everyone’s eyes glisten. No one has moved, even though all of them sense that the saint has spoken his last. The eleventh hour. The Little Blessed One has suspected that the end was at hand ever since the little white lamb was killed