The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [76]
He hears the name Caifás, repeated two or three times, in between words that he doesn’t understand, and struggles to open his eyes, and there Rufino’s wife is, standing next to the hammock, all excited, moving her mouth, making noises, and it is broad daylight now and the sun is pouring into the cabin through the door and the chinks between the palings. The light hurts his eyes so much that he blinks and rubs his eyelids hard as he gets to his feet. Blurred images come to him through a milky water, and as his head clears and the world comes into focus, Galileo Gall’s mind and eyes discover that a metamorphosis has taken place in the room: it has been carefully put back in order; floor, walls, objects look bright and shining, as though everything had been scrubbed and polished. He understands now what Jurema is saying: Caifás is coming, Caifás is coming. He notices that the tracker’s wife has changed out of her tunic that he ripped open and is now wearing a dark blouse and skirt, that she is barefoot and frightened, and as he tries to remember where his revolver fell that morning, he tells himself that there is no need to be alarmed, that the man coming is the guide dressed in leather who took him to Epaminondas Gonçalves’s and brought him back here with the arms, precisely the person he needs most at this moment. There the revolver is, next to his small valise, at the foot of the print of the Virgin of Lapa hanging on a nail. He picks it up and as the thought occurs to him that there are no more bullets left in it he sees Caifás in the doorway of the cabin.
“They tried to kill me,” he blurts out in English, and then, realizing his mistake, switches to Portuguese. “They tried to kill me. They’ve stolen the arms. I must go see Epaminondas Gonçalves, right away.”
“Good morning,” Caifás says, raising two fingers to his sombrero with ornamental thongs round the brim without taking it off, addressing Jurema in what strikes Gall as an absurdly solemn manner. Then Caifás turns to him, makes the same gesture, and repeats: “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Gall answers, feeling suddenly ridiculous with the revolver in his hand. He tucks it away at his waist, between his trousers and his belly, and takes two steps toward Caifás, noticing the confusion, the abashment, the embarrassment that have come over Jurema on the guide’s arrival: she is standing there not moving, staring at the floor, not knowing what to do with her hands.
Galileo points outside. “Did you see those two dead men out there? There was another one with them, the one who made away with the arms. I must talk to Epaminondas, I must warn him. Take me to him.”
“I saw them,” Caifás says, not wasting words. And he turns to Jurema, who is still standing there with her head down, petrified, flexing her fingers as though she had a cramp in them. “Soldiers have come to Queimadas. Over five hundred of them. They’re looking for guides to take them to Canudos. Anyone who doesn’t want to hire on with them they take by force. I came to warn Rufino.”
“He’s not here,” Jurema stammers, without raising her head. “He’s gone to Jacobina.”
“Soldiers?” Gall takes another step, bringing him so close to the newcomer that he is practically brushing against him. “Major Brito’s expedition is already here?”
“There’s going to be a parade,” Caifás says, nodding. “They’re lined up in formation in the main square. They arrived on the morning train.”
Gall wonders why the man doesn’t seem surprised by the dead bodies he saw outside the cabin when he arrived, why he’s not asking him