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By Root 2043 0

in the grotto. It was tied to the altar so that it wouldn’t make its escape, but it managed nonetheless to go back to the cave. And things went on like that, with the statue going back and forth, till a Holy Mission with four Capuchin Fathers and the archbishop came to Queimadas, dedicated the church to St. Anthony, and renamed the town Santo Antônio das Queimadas in honor of the saint. It was only then that the image stayed quietly on the altar, where people today light candles to it.” Galileo Gall remembers that when he asked Rufino if he believed the story that his wife had told, the tracker shrugged and smiled skeptically. Jurema, however, believed it. Galileo would have liked to palpate her head too, but he didn’t even try to do so; he is certain that the mere idea of a stranger touching his wife’s head must be inconceivable to Rufino. Yes, Rufino is beyond question a suspicious man. It has been hard work getting him to agree to take him to Canudos. He has haggled over the price, raised objections, hesitated, and though he has finally given in, Galileo has noted that he is ill at ease when he talks to him about the Counselor and the jagunços.

Without realizing it, his attention has wandered from Rufino to the voice coming from outside: “Regional autonomy and decentralization are pretexts being used by Governor Viana, the Baron de Canabrava, and their henchmen in order to preserve their privileges and keep Bahia from becoming as modern as the other states of Brazil. Who are the Autonomists? Monarchists lying in ambush who, if it weren’t for us, would revive the corrupt Empire and kill the Republic! But Epaminondas Gonçalves’s Progressivist Republican Party will keep them from doing so…” The man speaking now is not the same one as before, this one is clearer, Galileo understands everything he says, and he even seems to have some idea in mind, whereas his predecessor merely shrieked and howled. Should he go take a look out the window? No, he doesn’t move from the bed; he is certain the spectacle is still the same: knots of curious bystanders wandering from one food and drink stand to another, listening to the cantadores reciting stories, or gathering round the man on stilts who is telling fortunes, and from time to time deigning to stop for a moment to gawk but not to listen in front of the small platform from which the Progressivist Republican Party is churning out its propaganda, protected by thugs with shotguns. “They’re wise to be so indifferent,” Galileo Gall thinks. What good is it for the people of Queimadas to know that the Baron de Canabrava’s Autonomist Party is against the centralist system of the Republican Party and to know that this latter is combatting the decentralism and the federalism advocated by its adversary? Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden? They are right to enjoy the festivities and pay no attention to what the politicos on the platform are saying. The evening before, Galileo has detected a certain excitement in Queimadas, not because of the festival organized by the Progressivist Republican Party but because people were wondering whether the Baron de Canabrava’s Autonomist Party would send thugs to wreck their enemies’ spectacle and there would be shooting, as had happened at other times in the past. It is mid-morning now, this hasn’t happened and no doubt will not happen. Why would they bother to break up a meeting so sadly lacking popular support? The thought occurs to Gall that the fiestas organized by the Autonomists must be exactly like the one taking place outside his window. No, this is not where the real politics of Bahia, of Brazil, is taking place. He thinks: “It is taking place up there, among those who are not even aware that they are the real politicians of this country.” Will he have to wait much longer? Galileo Gall sits down on the bed. He murmurs: “Science against impatience.” He opens the small valise lying on the floor, pushes aside clothing, a revolver, removes the little book in which