Raised from the Ground Page 6

  Joaquim Carranca remarked one day to his sister how good it would be to find a boss who would take them all on, and she agreed, a habit born of years as a submissive married woman, but in this case what flickered before her was the hope of spending a whole year safe from unemployment, that would be her one modest but sure ambition, for they could hardly aspire to anything more. At this time, three brothers inherited Monte de Berra Portas following the death of the old owner, their father, who had sowed his seed in the womb of a very canny mistress, who, while appearing to submit to the patriarch’s terrible whims and to his thunderous rants and rages, had gradually tamed him, like a lamb, so much so that he agreed, at the last, to disinherit his closest relatives in favor of his three natural sons. Pedro, Paulo and Saul took turns presiding over the estate, each taking a different season, and when Pedro was giving the orders, the other two obeyed, a system that could have worked well if each brother hadn’t chosen to spy on his other siblings, with Saul declaring that when he wasn’t in charge, the household went to rack and ruin, with Paulo stating that he was the only really capable administrator, and with all three becoming embroiled in domestic alliances and plots, as often happens in families. The story of this triumvirate would, alone, be enough to make an opera. And then there was the mother, who screamed that she had been plundered by her own sons, or to speak more plainly, robbed, after all she had done for them, putting up with being the servant of that old pig and now finding herself the slave of her own children, who kept her short of money and a virtual prisoner in the house. At night, when the countryside drew the silence up about it like a blanket, the better to hide itself away in the great secrets of the dark, you would hear what sounded like a sow having its throat slit and the loud stamping of feet, it was the war between mother and sons.

  Joaquim Carranca found employment with these bosses, and João Mau-Tempo worked as a day laborer. All in all, they earned a pittance, enough, just about, for them not to be constantly hungry, but there was at least the advantage that they could all be together and have access to a vegetable patch where they could break their backs toiling away on high days and holidays. Joaquim Carranca’s wage at this time consisted of lodging, firewood, sixty kilos of maize flour, three liters of olive oil, five liters of cowpeas, one hundred escudos and, at the end of the year, a modest handout. As for the younger members of the family, they earned forty kilos of maize flour, a liter and a half of olive oil, three liters of cowpeas and fifty escudos. And so it went on, month after month. They would take their sacks and bags to the granary, their jug to the cellar, where the foreman would measure out their rations of food and oil, and the administrator would pay their wages, and that was all they had to keep body and soul together and to recoup the energy expended every day. Of course, not all of them did recover, and they accepted this, time would inevitably take its toll, the skull beneath the skin becoming ever more evident, but then we are all born in order to die. Joaquim Carranca died, without having had a single day’s illness, after coming back from working in his vegetable patch on one of those Sundays when it’s easy to believe in the existence of God, even without the aid of Father Agamedes, it was just a shame that the mattock was so heavy that he had to sit down on a log at the front door, feeling unusually tired, and when Sara da Conceição came out to tell her brother that supper was ready, he had lost all appetite. There he was, eyes wide, his hands open on his lap, more peaceful than he could ever have dreamed of being when alive, and he wasn’t a bad man really, despite his sudden rages, despite his cruelty to his oldest nephew, what’s done is done. Death is like a great strickle that passes over the measuring jug of life, discarding any excess, although it is often hard to make out what exactly its criteria are, as in the case of Joaquim Carranca, who was still needed by his family.

  Life, or whoever rules over life, with either a sure or an indifferent hand, expects us to acquire both our professional and our sentimental education at the same time. This conjunction is clearly a mistake, doubtless made necessary by the brevity of life, which is not long enough for things to be done in a more leisurely, timely manner, which means that one neither acquires enough nor feels enough. Since the world was not going to change its ways, João Mau-Tempo, as he acquired his working skills, also went courting in the local villages and dancing wherever the sound of an accordion was to be heard, and he was a good dancer too, and, who would have thought it, much sought after by the girls. As we know, he had inherited his blue eyes from that ancestor of four hundred years before, the same one who, not far from here, lying on the forebears of this same bracken, raped a young girl who had gone to the well for water, watched by birds whose plumage remains unchanged, and who gazed down on the pair struggling amid the greenery, a scene with which those creatures of the air had been familiar since the world began. And his blue eyes troubled the hearts of the young girls, which would melt when those eyes grew suddenly dark, though he himself was unaware of any ancient amorous rage rising up in him, such is the hidden force of past actions. Ah, youth. The fact is that João Mau-Tempo may have flirted a lot but he rarely went further than that. When he had had a few drinks, he might touch a girl rather more boldly or give her a clumsy kiss devoid of all the knowledge that the century was gradually accumulating for future general use.

  In the eclogues of old, the shepherds played their lutes and the shepherdesses wove their garlands of flowers, but in this modern version, João Mau-Tempo, during a ten-week contract that took him off to Salvaterra to cut cork, ate a whole string of garlic in the hope of preserving himself from the mosquitoes, as a result, you could smell him ten paces away. He was learning the cork trade in the hope that he might one day earn the eighteen escudos paid to master cork cutters, and fortunately enough, he was far from his would-be girlfriends, who, while they might have been pretty tolerant of most smells, would perhaps have drawn the line at garlic. Happiness, as we know, depends on such small details.

  And now João Mau-Tempo has received his call-up papers. He is full of daydreams, he imagines himself far from Monte Lavre, in Lisbon perhaps, having completed his military service, only a fool would miss the chance to find a job on the trams or on the police force or with the national guard, he has a smattering of education, he just has to push himself forward, he wouldn’t be the first. Call-up day is a day of celebration, with fireworks and wine, the young lads who finally deserve to be called men are all there in their freshly washed clothes, and when they’re lined up stark naked, they make macho jokes to disguise their embarrassment and stand at attention, red-faced, to answer the doctor’s questions. Then the draft board meets and makes its selections. A few men were chosen, and of the four who weren’t, only one went away downhearted. That was João Mau-Tempo, who watched his dream of wearing a uniform vanish into the realm of the impossible, his dream of standing on the platform of a tram, ringing the bell, or becoming a policeman and policing the streets of the capital, or, as a guard, guarding, ah, but on whose behalf, the very fields in which he labored now, and he found this possibility so troubling that it helped him get over his disappointment. One cannot think of everything all at the same time.

  So what is João Mau-Tempo to do? He has just turned twenty, he has been let off military service, he hasn’t filled out much since the days when he, tiny as a dwarf, battled with the weeds in Pedra Grande and ate the maize porridge that Picanço’s wife used to make for him out of familial charity. In Salvaterra, he buys his first cape and struts about in it like a tomcat with its tail in the air. It’s very full and reaches down to his heels, but the village doesn’t expect people to be dressed in the height of fashion, he has reached heights enough simply by owning a new item of clothing, regardless of what it’s like. When João Mau-Tempo plunges his mattock into the earth, he thinks about that cape, about the dances he goes to, about the girlfriends in his life, some more serious than others, and he forgets the pain of living here, bound to this place, so far from Lisbon, if he ever really had aspired to living there, if that wa
sn’t all just a youthful dream, for what else is youth for but to dream.

  A time of great storms is approaching, some will arrive with their natural boom and bluster, others more quietly, without a shot being fired, coming from far-off Braga, but we will hear more of these later on, when there is nothing to be done about them. However, although one should deal with each event in its proper order, and although, as we feel we should point out so as not to keep offending against the rules of storytelling, we have, in fact, already anticipated the death of Joaquim Carranca, which actually happened a few years later, let us nonetheless talk about the storm that remained fixed in people’s memories for reasons of grief and loss. It was summer, ladies and gentlemen, when one doesn’t really expect such things, though occasional solemn rolls of thunder boomed across the stubble, catapum, one moment distant and almost sleepy, the next flickering right above our heads and pounding the earth, whatever would we do without Saint Barbara’s help. Now, the Mau-Tempo family may seem to have been singled out for grim happenings, but only someone of little understanding could possibly believe that. After all, so far only one member of the family has died, and if we’re talking hunger and poverty, then any other family could serve as an example, for hunger and poverty are hardly in short supply. Besides, the uncle in question was not even a blood relative. Augusto Pintéu was married to one of Sara da Conceição’s sisters, and although he was a farm laborer, he chose, in his spare time, to work as a carter. He, naturally, had his appointment with death, but how oddly things turn out, for this simple, mild-mannered, soft-spoken man met a very dramatic end, with much celestial and terrestrial brouhaha, like a character in a tragedy. This serene man did not leave life as serenely as Joaquim Carranca. And such contradictions provide much food for thought.

  As we said, Augusto Pintéu also worked as a carter, traveling between Vendas Novas and Monte Lavre to be exact. The former had a train station, to which, with his pair of mules and his cart, he would take cork, coal and wood and bring back groceries, seeds and whatever else was needed, not many men enjoyed such a good life. On that day, which, being a summer’s day, should have been long and bright, the sky suddenly filled with black clouds and there was an almighty thunderclap. The heavens opened and unleashed all God’s store of water. Augusto Pintéu wasn’t particularly worried, because these summer storms come and go, and so he continued his work of loading and unloading, fearing nothing worse than arriving home soaked to the skin. When he left Vendas Novas, night had already closed in, lit by lightning so bright that there seemed to be some celebration going on up above, some holy procession. The mules knew the route blindfold and could find and recognize it even when it was flooded, as the lower parts already were. With two thick sacks on his head to protect him, Augusto Pintéu consoled himself with the thought that, in such weather, there was, at least, little danger of being ambushed by thieves, as had happened in the past. In a storm like this, highwaymen would all be safe in their lairs, roasting their stolen slices of pork and drinking coarse wine, because they rarely stole anything else. It’s three leagues from Vendas Novas to Monte Lavre, but Augusto Pintéu would not travel the last league, nor would his mules. By the time they reached the stream, the darkness had grown as black as pitch, and the waters roared and thundered loudly enough to frighten anyone. This was usually the place where, in good weather, you could ford the stream, with the water up to your knees, but for those on foot there was a broad wooden plank that went from shore to shore, past a giant ash tree that had been born there and grown up in the days before the course of the river had changed. In the midst of the water, the ash tree rustled furiously, defending with its thick roots its vital patch of earth, threatened now by the speed and force of the current. Augusto Pintéu had crossed there with his cart and his mules many times. He would not cross it again. Right at the beginning of the ford, the bed of the stream dropped away to form a deep, deep chasm, which was called, because everything has to have a name, Pego da Carriça, Wren’s Pool. Augusto Pintéu put his trust in the Holy Virgin and in his mules and thus managed to reach the middle, where the water lapped against the bottom of his cart. At that point, fearing the current seething about them and fearing that he would be swept away with no hope of salvation, he tried to drive the mules upstream. They resisted as best they could, but being subject to the whip and the bit, they finally submitted. At one point, the right-hand mule lost its footing, one wheel slipped off the edge and into the chasm, and amid screams and rumbles of thunder, Augusto Pintéu and his mules, along with the cart, the groceries and the other merchandise, were all drowned, plunged forever into the thick blackness of the waters, into mortal silence. They touched bottom and there they remained, with Augusto Pintéu still held fast to the reins, and the mules to the cart, because down below the waters were absolutely calm, as if they had been like that since the world began. The following day, accompanied by the widow’s screams and the orphaned children’s tears, they were pulled out, thanks to some lengths of rope and the efforts of some very brave men, while a crowd, come from far and wide, gathered on the banks of the river. It had stopped raining by then. That was a summer of great afflictions. So great were the storms that men working in the cork forests fell from the trees and, as they fell, cut themselves on their axes. This is a life more filled with tribulations than one can say.

  At the time, the Mau-Tempo family lived in Monte de Berra Portas with their uncle and brother, Joaquim Carranca. The next year, when Portugal had been following the Braga road* for some six months, João Mau-Tempo, along with his siblings Anselmo and Maria da Conceição, went to work in the winter pastures for a different boss, in a place called, for some reason, Pendão das Mulheres, Ladies’ Pennant. It was four long leagues away, on foot and on bad roads, from Monte de Berra Portas that is, whereas from Monte Lavre it was only a league and a half. There were quite a few girls in the party, which explained why the boys were so pleased, up there all week with those young women and only going home every other Saturday. The workers were mostly youngsters. The place was a hotbed of flirtations and dalliances, and quite a few got burned. At the time, João Mau-Tempo had a girlfriend elsewhere, but he didn’t care, and pretended that he was a free agent, and his skill as a dancer made him a most attractive prospect.

  What with work and romance, the weeks flew past, and then a girl from Monte Lavre joined them, a girl he knew well from having danced and sung with her countless times. But they had never been in love. Half serious, half joking, they addressed each other as Friend João and Friend Faustina, for that was her name. There would seem to be nothing more to say about them. However, this turned out not to be the case. Whether it was because of the freedom they enjoyed or because the time had come to tie that particular knot, João fell in love with Faustina, and Faustina with João. In matters of love, it can as easily bloom in diamond rings in shop windows as grow wild among the castor-oil plants, only the language differs. This love began to put down roots, and João Mau-Tempo forgot all about his other girlfriend, but since this new love was serious, they agreed to say nothing for the moment to Faustina’s family, because although João Mau-Tempo himself had done nothing to be ashamed of, he had inherited his father’s bad name, and these things stick, for as the saying goes, He who is born of a cat will run after mice. The secret nonetheless reached the ears of Faustina’s family, and they made her life a misery. He can’t be any good, he looks shifty with those strange blue eyes, and then there was that father of his, a loose-living, drunken fellow who only ever did one good thing, which was to hang himself. That is how some village evenings are spent, beneath the starry sky, while the male genet pursues the female genet and copulates with her amid the bracken. The lives of human beings are far more complicated, for we are, after all, human.

  It was January and very cold, the sky was one solid sheet of cloud, the laborers were walking along the road toward Monte Lavre for their fortnightly rest, and as befitted a courting couple, João was talking to Faustina, and she, fearing
the domestic storm awaiting her, was telling him her problems. Then suddenly they were assailed by the angry shouts and violent gestures of one of Faustina’s sisters, who, given their mother’s advanced age, had taken over as family spokesperson, and it was her treacherous ambush that so startled the couple. Natividade, for that was her name, said, Have you no shame, Faustina, you stubborn creature, it seems that no amount of good advice and beatings has any effect, Lord knows what will become of you. She said other things too, but Faustina did not leave João’s side. Natividade stood in front of them, intending to block their path and their destiny, if it is in a sister’s power to do such a thing, and it was then, so to speak, that João Mau-Tempo took hold of the world and felt its weight, because from then on, it would be a matter of world and man, house, children, the shared life. He placed one hand on Faustina’s shoulder, for she would be his world, and said, trembling at his own daring, We can’t go on like this, we either finish right here and now so that you don’t suffer anymore, or you come and live with me in my mother’s house, until I can get us a house of our own, and from now on I will do all I can to protect you. As we said earlier, the sky was one solid sheet of cloud, and it stayed like that, thus providing natural proof that the heavens care nothing about us, if they did, the clouds would have opened in glory. Because Faustina, a brave, trusting lass, the color of whose eyes and the expression of whose face we haven’t described yet, said in a firm, loud voice, João, where you go, I go, if you will promise to love me and care for me always. And Natividade said, You ungrateful wretch, and with that, she turned abruptly and shot off home like an arrow to announce this latest catastrophe. The two lovers were left alone, evening was coming on, and João Mau-Tempo took her hands in his and said, I will care for you for as long as we live, in sickness and in health, but now let us go our separate ways, and when we reach the village, we’ll set a time for our escape.