The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [353]
“I thought it was a nightmare,” the Dwarf said at her back. He had stood up and was peeking over the edge of the hole. Rising up on her knees, Jurema also looked out, as the nearsighted journalist continued to lie there. Many people were running down Menino Jesus toward Campo Grande.
“What’s happening, what’s happening?” she heard his voice say at her feet. “What do you see?”
“Lots of jagunços,” the Dwarf said before she could answer. “They’re coming from Pedrão’s sector.”
And just then the door opened and Jurema saw a bunch of men in the doorway. One of them was the very young jagunço she had met on the slopes of Cocorobó the day the soldiers arrived.
“Come on, come on,” he called to them in a loud voice that carried over all the shooting. “Come and give a hand.”
Jurema and the Dwarf helped the nearsighted journalist out of the hole and guided him out into the street. All her life she had automatically done whatever anyone with authority or power told her to do, so that it took no effort on her part, in cases such as this, to rouse herself from her passivity and work side by side with people at any sort of task, without ever asking what they were doing or why. But with this man at whose side she was running along the twists and turns of Menino Jesus, that had changed. He was forever wanting to know what was happening, to the right and to the left, in front and behind, why people were saying and doing certain things, and she was the one who was obliged to find out in order to satisfy his curiosity, as consuming as his fear. The young jagunço from Cocorobó explained that the dogs had been attacking the trenches at the cemetery since dawn that morning. They had launched two attacks, and though they had not managed to occupy the trenches, they had taken the corner of Batista, and were thus in a position to advance on the Temple of the Blessed Jesus from behind. Abbot João had decided to erect a new barricade, between the trenches at the cemetery and the churches, in case Pajeú found himself obliged to fall back yet again. That was why they were collecting people, why the ones who had been in the trenches at Madre Igreja had come. The young jagunço ran on ahead of them. Jurema could hear the nearsighted journalist panting and could see him tripping over the stones and stumbling into the holes along Campo Grande and she was sure that at this moment he was thinking, as she was, of Pajeú. Yes, they would be meeting him face to face now. She felt the nearsighted journalist squeeze her hand, and squeezed his back.
She had not seen Pajeú again since the evening that she had discovered what happiness was. But she and the nearsighted journalist had talked a great deal about the caboclo with the slashed face whom both of them knew to be an even greater threat to their love than the soldiers. Ever since that evening, they had hidden out in refuges toward the north of Canudos, the section farthest away from Fazenda Velha, and the Dwarf would go out on forays to find out what was happening to Pajeú. The morning that the Dwarf came to report to them—they had taken shelter underneath a tin roof on Santo Elói, behind the Mocambo—that the army was attacking Fazenda Velha, Jurema had told the nearsighted journalist that the caboclo would defend his trenches to the death. But that same night they learned that Pajeú and the survivors from Fazenda Velha were in the trenches at the cemetery that were now about to fall. Thus, the hour when they would be forced to confront Pajeú had come. But even that thought could not take away the happiness that had come to be part of her body, like her skin and bones.
Happiness kept her—as nearsightedness and fear kept the man she was holding by the hand, as faith, fatalism, or habit kept those who were also running, limping, walking down to erect the barricade—from seeing what was all about her, from reflecting and drawing the conclusion that common