Raised from the Ground (15 page)

I
N THE INVENTORY OF WARS
, the latifundio plays its part, although not a large one. Those Europes, where another war has just begun, play a far greater part, and from what one can ascertain, which is not very much in a land of such ignorance, so removed from the rest of the world, Spain is in such a state of ruin it would break your heart. But any war is a war too many, that would surely be the view of those who died in a war they never wanted.

When Lamberto Horques took charge of the lands in Monte Lavre and environs, the soil was still fresh with the blood of Castilians, although as to freshness, that is merely a rather bloodthirsty image when set beside the far more ancient blood spilled by Lusitanians and Romans, or by the confusing tumult of Alanis, Vandals and Swabians, if they got this far, as the Visigoths certainly did, followed later by the infernal, swarthy caravan of Moors, and then the Burgundians arrived to spill their blood and that of others, and a few crusaders, not all of them heroes like Osberno,
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and then more Arabs, how much death these lands have seen, and the only reason we haven’t mentioned Portuguese blood is because all the blood spilled was Portuguese, or came to be, once enough time had passed for it to be naturalized, which is why we haven’t mentioned the French or the English, for they truly are foreigners.

Things did not change after Lamberto Horques took over. The frontier is an open door, you can almost step across the Caia river, and the plain seems to have been deliberately and lovingly made smooth by warrior angels so that combatants can face each other with no obstacles to get in the way of arrows or, later on, all the many different kinds of bullets. The vocabulary of the armory is very beautiful, from the helmet to the cuirass, from the halberd to the harquebus, from the bombard to the ballista, and if the knowledge that such an arsenal walked, trod and fought in these lands sends a tremor of fear through you, you would tremble again if you saw the efficacy of such inventions. Anyway, blood was made to flow, whether from this wound in the throat or from that belly slit open, and would make an excellent ink in which to write such secret enigmas as whether those people were resigned to their deaths and aware of why they were dying. The bodies are carried away or buried where they fell, the latifundio is swept clean, and the land is left ready for the next battle. That is why the relevant trades have to be learned thoroughly and practiced assiduously, without a thought for expense, as when the Conde de Vimioso wrote this detailed letter to his majesty, Sir, the men of the cavalry should be armed with a carbine and two pistols per soldier, the carbines will take musket bullets or smaller and the barrel will be no more than three spans in length, which will be quite sufficient, because if they had to be reinforced, as such bullets require, thus making the barrel longer, the carbines would no longer be manageable, they will also need a metal charger for their powder flask, the pistols, too, will be of good quality, with a two-span barrel, and come with saddle holsters and two chains to hang them from, it would be useful if I could have some spare pistols and carbines so that we can make more of them, and a good quantity of iron should be sent to Vila Viçosa to be distributed to the riflemen, some of the iron can stay in Montemor and in Évora, those are my requirements for the cavalry, however, I leave it up to your majesty to decide what is most convenient.

His majesty, because of financial difficulties, did not always prove to be a prompt and generous paymaster, In Montemor we have been working on the fortifications with the two thousand cruzados that your majesty was kind enough to send and with the further two thousand donated by the people, and since the agreement was that your majesty would give six and the people another six, the town council has written to say that your majesty needs to give a further two thousand which they will then match, I told them that they should try to come up with that amount, and I, meanwhile, would ask your majesty to send your two thousand so that the people can then make their contribution. These are bureaucratic negotiations with distrust on both sides and a lot of buck-passing, but there is no haggling over blood, no one says, Why doesn’t your majesty give a liter of your own blood, red or blue, it doesn’t matter, because within half an hour of being spilled on the ground, it will be the same color as the earth. People don’t dare go that far, because even if the blood of the whole royal household, including that of all the heirs to the throne and any bastard children the king or queen may have had, were poured into the same vat, it would still not be enough for the necessities of war. Let the people give their blood and their money, and his majesty will give the same amount of money that the people paid him earlier in taxes and tributes.

There are, of course, always calamities. All this talk of cavalry, crusades and fortifications, as well as the blood that binds them all together, belongs to the seventeenth century, a long, long time ago, but things have never improved, that’s how, during the war of the oranges, we lost Olivença and never got it back, and thus, embarrassingly, without a shot being fired, Manuel Godoy, meeting with no resistance, marched in, and to our shame and his gallantry, he sent a fruit-laden branch from an orange tree to his lover, Queen María Luisa,
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all that was lacking was for us to lie back and serve as their bed and mattress. Infinite misfortune, inconsolable grief, both of which lasted from the nineteenth century to the day before yesterday, there’s something about oranges, they have a bad effect on both personal and collective destinies, if not, why would Alberto order any windfall oranges to be buried and say to the overseer, Bury the oranges, and if anyone picks them up and eats them, they’ll be dismissed as of Saturday, and some men were dismissed because, in secret, they did eat the oranges, that forbidden fruit, while they were still good, rather than leaving them to rot beneath the earth, buried alive, poor things, what did we or the oranges do wrong. But there is a reason for everything, let us take a closer look at the situation, because, toward the end of the war that has just begun in Europe, a certain Hitler, Germany’s very own Horques Alemão, will send children of twelve or thirteen to form the last battalions of the defeat, wearing uniforms so big they fall from their shoulders and hang about their ankles, carrying recoil rifles that their shoulders are too frail to withstand, and that’s precisely what the owners of the large estates complain about, that there are no longer any children of six or seven who can tend the pigs or the turkeys, what will happen if they can’t earn their daily bread, they say to the brutalized parents who have already given their blood and their money and still haven’t caught on, or are just beginning to feel the stirrings of mistrust, as, in another century, they distrusted the king’s scornful rebuffs.

Wars are the least of it. A man can get used to anything, and between one war and another, he has time to make a few children and hand them over to the latifundio, without a spear thrust or a rifle shot cutting short the dream that the boy might be lucky enough to be made a foreman or an overseer or a trusted servant, or might choose to go and live in the city, which provides at least for a cleaner death. The worst of all things are the plagues and the famines that occur most years, and which are the ruin of the people, leaving the fields empty, whole villages closed down, you can travel for leagues without seeing a soul, although now and again you might spot ragged, wretched bands walking paths that the devil would walk only if carried on the shoulders of men. Some fall by the wayside, it’s an itinerary of corpses, and when the plague relents and the famine eases and the living are counted, you don’t have to count very high, because there are so few left.

These are all evils, and great evils at that. One might say, to use the language of Father Agamedes, that they are the three horsemen of the apocalypse, of whom there were once four, and if you start to count, on your fingers if you know no better system, the first is war, the second is plague and the third is famine, and there’s always the fourth, the wild beasts of the earth. The last is the most commonly seen and has three faces, the face of the latifundio, the face of the guards who defend property in general and the latifundio in particular, and then there’s the third face. He’s a serpent with three heads and but one desire. He who gives orders is not necessarily the best fitted to do so, and the best fitted to give orders does not necessarily look the part. But we should perhaps speak more clearly. This horse can be seen in all the cities, towns, villages and hamlets, and he trots along with his leaden eyes and his legs that resemble human hands and feet, but are not human. What human being would say to Manuel Espada, years later, when on military service in the Azores, and forgive us if we jump forward a little in the story, When I get out of here, I’m going to join the police for the vigilance and defense of the state,
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and Manuel Espada asked, What’s that, and the other man answered, It’s the political police, and it’s just great, say there’s someone you don’t like, you simply arrest him, haul him off to the civil authorities and, if you like, shoot him in the head before you get there and say he tried to resist. This horse kicks down doors, eats at the same table on the latifundio as Father Agamedes and plays cards with the guards, while the colt called Bom-Tempo kicks in the prisoner’s head. You can find these horses in cities, towns, villages, everywhere, they neigh, rub noses, exchange secrets and allegations, invent persuasive tortures and tortuous persuasions, which is what first made us realize that they did not belong to the equine race, Father Agamedes is a fool to believe that the horses he read about in the bible were real horses, a fundamental error revealed to Manuel Espada in the Azores by his promising fellow recruit. The roots of the tree of knowledge are not fussy about where they grow and are not put off by distance.

Father Agamedes bawls from the pulpit, There are certain men sneaking around who are intent on undermining your common sense, and yet in Spain, by the grace of God and the Virgin Mary, they were crushed, vade retro Satanas et abrenuncio, you must flee from them as if from plague, famine and war, for they are the worst misfortune that could befall our holy land, like the plague of locusts in Egypt, and that is why I will never tire of saying to you that you must heed and obey those who know more about life and the world, look upon the guards as your guardian angels, don’t resent them, because sometimes even a father is obliged to beat the child he so loves and cares for, and we all know that sooner or later the child will say, It was for my own good, the only blows that were wasted were those that struck the ground, that, my children, is how it is with the guards, not to mention the other authorities, both civil and military, the mayor, the administrator, the regimental commander, the civil governor, the commander of the legion and all those other gentlemen in positions of power, beginning with those who give you work, yes, what would become of you if there were no one to give you work, how would you feed your families, tell me that, answer me, all right, I know that the congregation does not normally speak during mass, but it is your own conscience you must answer to, and for all these reasons, I urge, demand and order you to pay no heed to those red devils who want only your unhappiness, because that was not why God created the earth, he created it that it might be rocked in the loving arms of the Virgin Mary, and if you believe that someone is trying to lead you astray with seductive words, then go straight to the guards’ barracks, for then you will be carrying out God’s work, but if you lack the courage, if you are afraid of reprisals, I will hear you in the confessional and do with your confession what my soul and my conscience deem to be the right thing, and now let us say a pater noster for the salvation of our country, a pater noster for the conversion of Russia and a pater noster for those who govern our nation, who have so sacrificed themselves and who so love us, our father, who art in heaven, blessed be thy name.

Father Agamedes is quite right. There are men roaming the latifundio, they can be found hiding away in groups of three or four, in solitary places or abandoned houses, where they keep watch, or in the shelter of a valley, some from here, some from elsewhere, and they hold long conversations. They take turns to speak, and the others listen, anyone seeing them from a distance would say, They’re itinerant workers, gypsies, apostles, and when they have finished talking, they scatter, taking out-of-the-way paths and carrying with them papers and decisions. This is what is called organization, and Father Agamedes is purple with rage, with righteous anger, May they be damned, may their souls fall into the very depths of hell, they are a harmful infection that seeks to destroy you, only yesterday I was talking to the president of the council, and he said to me, That fatal disease is already afflicting our village, Father Agamedes, we must do something to counteract the pernicious doctrines being spread among our families by these enemies of faith and civilization, O ingrates, do you not realize that the peace and order we enjoy in our country is the envy of other nations, and you come to me saying that you are willing to lose all that, you’re just spoiled, that’s your problem.