The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [373]
“He went up…” The Lion of Natuba coughs. “The angels bore him away.”
Another fit of coughing makes him close his eyes and double over. In the desperation that overcomes a person when he lacks for air, feeling his lungs expand, gasp, fail to receive what they need so badly, he thinks that this is really the end, that no doubt he will not go to heaven since even at this moment he is unable to believe that there is such a thing as heaven, and he hears, as if in a dream, the jagunços coughing, arguing, and finally deciding that they can’t stay here because the fire is going to spread to this house. “We’re leaving, Lion,” he hears, and “Keep your head down, Lion,” and unable to open his eyes, he holds out his hands and feels them grab hold of him, pull him, drag him along. How long does this blind journey last: gasping for air, bumping into walls, beams, people blocking his path, bouncing him back and forth and on through the narrow, curving tunnel through the dirt, with hands pulling him up inside a dwelling through a hole only to shove him back underground and drag him along again? Perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, but all the way along, his intelligence never ceases for a second to go over a thousand things once more, to call up a thousand images, concentrating, ordering his little body to hold out, to bear up at least to the end of the tunnel, and being amazed when his body obeys and does not fall to pieces as it seems to be about to do from one moment to the next.
Suddenly the hand that was holding him lets go and he falls down and down. His head is going to be smashed to bits, his heart is going to burst, the blood in his veins is going to come spilling out, his bruised little body is going to fly all to pieces. But none of that happens and little by little he calms down, quiets down, as he feels a less contaminated air bring him gradually back to life. He hears voices, shots, a vast hubbub. He rubs his eyes, wipes the dirt from his eyelids, and sees that he is in a house, not in the shaft of a tunnel but on the surface, surrounded by jagunços, by women sitting on the floor with children in their laps, and he recognizes the man who makes skyrockets and set pieces: Antônio the Pyrotechnist.
“Antônio, Antônio, what’s happening in Canudos?” the Lion of Natuba says. But not a sound comes out of his mouth. There are no flames here, only a cloud of dust that makes everything a blur. The jagunços are not talking among themselves, they are swabbing out their rifles, reloading their shotguns, and taking turns watching outside. Why isn’t he able to speak, why won’t his voice come out?
He makes his way over to the Pyrotechnist on his elbows and knees and clutches his legs. Antônio squats down beside him as he primes his gun. “We’ve stopped them here. But they’ve gotten through at Madre Igreja, the cemetery, and Santa Inês. They’re everywhere. Abbot João wants to erect a barrier at Menino Jesus and another at Santo Elói so they don’t attack us from the rear,” he explains in a soft, completely untroubled voice.
The Lion of Natuba can readily picture in his mind this one last circle that Belo Monte has become, bounded by the little winding alleyways of São Pedro Mártir, Santo Elói, and Menino Jesus: not a tenth of what it once was.
“Do you mean to say they’ve taken the Temple of the Blessed Jesus?” he says, and this time his voice comes out.
“They brought it down while you were asleep,” the Pyrotechnist answers in the same calm voice, as though he were speaking of the weather. “The tower collapsed and the roof caved in. The roar must have been heard as far as Trabubu, as Bendengó. But it didn’t wake you up, Lion.”
“Is it true that the Counselor went up to heaven?” a woman interrupts him, neither her mouth nor her eyes moving as she speaks.
The Lion of Natuba does not answer: he is hearing, seeing the mountain of stones collapsing, the men with blue armbands and headcloths falling like a solid rain upon the multitude of sick, wounded, elderly, mothers in childbirth, newborn babies;