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By Root 1996 0

and parapets with armed men. A door opened and by the light of a lamp she spied Pajeú. She doubtless uttered his name, thereby alerting the nearsighted journalist, for he immediately burst into sneezes that doubled him over. But it was not by order of the caboclo that Father Joaquim had brought them here, for Pajeú was paying no attention to them at all. He was not even looking their way. They were in the women disciples’ little room, the Counselor’s antechamber, and through the cracks in the stake wall Jurema could see in the inner chamber the Sacred Choir and Mother Maria Quadrado kneeling and the profiles of the Little Blessed One and the Lion of Natuba. In the narrow confines of the antechamber, besides Pajeú, there were Antônio and Honório Vilanova and the Sardelinha sisters, and in the faces of all of them, as in Father Joaquim’s voice, there was something unusual, irremediable, fateful, desperate, feral. As though they had not entered the room, as though they were not there, Pajeú went on talking to Antônio Vilanova: he would hear shots, disorder, confusion, but they were not to move yet. Not until the whistles sounded. Then yes: that was the moment to run, fly, slip away like vixens. The caboclo paused and Antônio Vilanova nodded gloomily. Pajeú spoke again: “Don’t stop running for any reason. Not to pick up anybody who falls, not to retrace your steps. Everything depends on that and on the Father. If you reach the river before the dogs notice, you’ll get through. At least you have a chance to.”

“But you have no chance at all of getting out—neither you nor anyone else who goes with you to the dogs’ camp,” Antônio Vilanova moaned. He was weeping. He grabbed the caboclo by the arms and begged him: “I don’t want to leave Belo Monte, much less if it means your sacrificing yourself. You’re needed here more than I am. Pajeú! Pajeú!”

The caboclo slipped out of his grasp with a sort of annoyance. “It has to be before it gets light,” he said curtly. “After that, you won’t be able to make it.”

He turned to Jurema, the nearsighted man, and the Dwarf, who were standing there petrified. “You’re to go too, because that’s what the Counselor wishes,” he said, as though talking past the three of them to someone they couldn’t see. “First to Fazenda Velha, in Indian file, crouching down. And there where the youngsters tell you, you’re to wait for the whistles to blow. Then you’re to dash through the camp and down to the river. You’ll get through, if it be the Father’s will.”

He fell silent and looked at the nearsighted man, standing with his arms around Jurema and trembling like a leaf. “Sneeze now,” Pajeú said to him, in the same tone of voice. “Not then. Not when you’re waiting for the whistles to blow. If you sneeze then, they’ll plunge a knife in your heart. It wouldn’t be right if they captured everyone on account of your sneezes. Praised be Blessed Jesus the Counselor.”

When he hears them, Private Queluz is dreaming of Captain Oliveira’s orderly, a pale young private whom he has been prowling around for some time and saw shitting this morning, crouched behind a little pile of rocks near the wells down by the Vaza-Barris. He has kept intact the image of those hairless legs and those white buttocks that he glimpsed, bared to the dawn air like an invitation. The image is so clear, steady, and vivid that Private Queluz’s cock gets hard, swelling against his uniform and awakening him. His desire is so overpowering that even though he can hear voices nearby, and even though he is forced to recognize that they are the voices of traitors and not of patriots, his immediate reaction is not to grab his rifle but to raise his hands to his trousers fly to stroke his cock inflamed by the memory of the round buttocks of Captain Oliveira’s orderly. Suddenly the thought is borne in upon him that he is alone, in open country, with the enemy close at hand, and instantly he is wide awake, every muscle tense, his heart in his mouth. What has happened to Leopoldinho? Have they killed Leopoldinho? They’ve killed him: he sees quite clearly now