Bangs Blackie complained: “Aren’t you two ashamed to be arguing about his woman in front of him? Him still warm and you like a couple of vultures.”
“He’s the one who should decide,” Swifty said. He was hopeful that Quincas would choose him to inherit Quitéria, his only possession. Hadn’t he just brought him the prettiest green frog he’d ever caught?
“Unh!” said the dead man.
“You see? He doesn’t like this talk,” the black man scolded.
“Let’s give him a drink too,” the corporal proposed, desirous to be in the dead man’s good graces.
They opened his mouth and poured in the cachaça. A little spilled onto his coat collar and shirtfront.
“I never saw anyone drink on his back.”
“It would be best to prop him up. Then he can look right at us.”
They sat Quincas up in the coffin, his head lolling from one side to the other. With the swig of cachaça his smile had grown broader.
“Nice jacket,” Corporal Martim said, examining the material. “It’s foolish to put new clothes on a dead man. He died, he’s finished, he’s going six feet under. New clothes for the worms to eat while there are so many people in need…”
Words full of truth, they thought. They gave Quincas another drink. The dead man nodded. He was a man who could agree with someone who was right. He was obviously in agreement with what Martim had been saying.
“He’s ruining the clothes.”
“It would be better if we took off the jacket so it won’t get all messed up.”
Quincas seemed relieved when they took off the heavy, hot, black coat jacket. But since he was still spitting up cachaça, they took his shirt off too. Sparrow had fallen in love with the shiny shoes. His were a shamble. What does a dead man need with new shoes, eh, Quincas?
“They’re just the right size for my feet,” said Sparrow.
Bangs Blackie picked up his friend’s old clothes, which had been lying in a corner of the room, and together they put them on him. Then they recognized him.
“There now. Yes, that’s the old Quincas.”
They felt happy. Quincas seemed happier too, rid of those uncomfortable clothes. He was especially grateful to Sparrow because the shoes had been pinching his feet. The street peddler took advantage of this and put his mouth close to Quincas’s ear, whispering something about Quitéria. What had he done that for? Bangs Blackie had been right that talk about the whore would irritate Quincas. He became violent, spitting out a gush of cachaça into Sparrow’s ear. The others shuddered, scared.
“He’s mad.”
“What did I tell you?”
Swifty finished putting on the new shoes. Corporal Martim got the jacket. Bangs Blackie would exchange the shirt for a bottle of cachaça in a shop he knew. They were sorry he didn’t have any underwear on. Corporal Martim spoke quite to the point when he said to Quincas, “I don’t mean to say anything bad, but that family of yours is a tad stingy. I think your son-in-low made off with your underwear.”
“Tightwads,” Quincas corrected.
“Since you say so yourself, it must be true. We didn’t mean to offend them. After all, they are your relatives. But so stingy, so chinchy…buying our own drinks. Where did you ever see a wake like this?”
“Not even a single flower,” Blackie agreed. “I’m glad I haven’t got relatives like that lot.”
“The men are blockheads and the women vipers,” Quincas defined with precision.
“Look, little Papa, the chubby one might be worth a few puffs. She’s got a nice rear end.”
“A fart-sack.”
“Don’t say that, little Papa. She may be a little on the fat side, but that’s no reason to put her down. I’ve seen worse.”
“You dumb nigger, you couldn’t tell a pretty woman if you were looking right at her.”
Swifty, with no sense of the proper moment, spoke up. “Quitéria’s pretty, isn’t she, old man? What’s she going to do now? I was thinking…”
“Shut your mouth, you bastard! Can’t you see he’s getting mad?”
But Quincas wasn’t listening. He had turned his head toward Corporal Martim, who at that very moment was trying to steal his turn in the distribution of drinks. Quincas almost knocked the bottle over with his head.
“Give little Papa his cachaça,” Bangs Blackie demanded.
“He was spilling it,” the corporal explained.
“He can drink it any way he wants to. That’s his right.”
Corporal Martim put the bottle to Quincas’s open mouth. “Take it easy, old chum. I wasn’t trying to cheat you. There you are. Drink all you want. It’s your party, after all.”
They’d dropped the argument over Quitéria. From the looks of it, Quincas wouldn’t even let them mention the matter.
“Good stuff!” Sparrow praised.
“Crummy!” corrected Quincas, a connoisseur.
“A good price too.”
The frog had leaped onto Quincas’s chest. Quincas was admiring it. It didn’t take long for him to tuck it away in the pocket of his old, greasy coat.
The moon had come up over the city and its waters. The Bahia moon, with its flow of silver, was coming in through the window. The sea breeze came in along with it and put out the candles. You couldn’t see the coffin anymore. The melody from some guitars was coming down the hillside; the voice of a woman was singing the sorrows of love. Corporal Martim began singing too.
“He loved to hear a good song…”
All four of them were singing. Bangs Blackie’s bass voice carried on down beyond the hillside to where the skiffs were. They were drinking and singing. Quincas didn’t miss a single swig or a single note. He liked music.
When they’d had their fill of all the singing, Sparrow asked, “Wasn’t tonight the night for Master Manuel’s moqueca fish stew?”
“Right. Today. A moqueca with ray fish,” Swifty emphasized.
“Nobody can make moqueca like Maria Clara,” the corporal affirmed.
Quincas stuck out his tongue. Bangs Blackie laughed. “He’s crazy about moqueca.”
“So why don’t we go? Master Manuel might be offended.”
They looked at one another. They would already be a little late because they still had to pick up the women.
Sparrow expressed some doubt. “We promised not to leave him all alone.”
“All alone? What do you mean? He’s coming with us.”
“I’m hungry,” said Bangs Blackie.
They consulted Quincas.
“Do you want to come?”
“You think I’m a cripple, staying behind here?”
After a drink to empty the bottle, they stood Quincas up. Bangs Blackie commented, “He’s so drunk he can’t handle it. At his age he’s losing his capacity for cachaça. Let’s go, little Papa.”
Sparrow and Swifty went ahead. Quincas, satisfied with life, was doing a dance step between Bangs Blackie and Corporal Martim, holding their arms.
11
From the way things were going, it was looking to be a memorable, even unforgettable, night. Quincas Water-Bray was having one of his best days. An unusual enthusiasm came over the group—they felt themselves to be the lords of that fantastic night, with the moon wrapping the city of Bahia in mystery. On the Ladeira do Pelourinho, couples hid in ancient doorways, cats yowled on roofs, guitars wailed their serenades. It was a night of enchantment, as distant drumbeats sounded and the Pelourinho, where the pillory once stood, looked like a phantasmagoric stage set.
Quincas Water-Bray, enjoying himself mightily, was trying to trip up the corporal and the black man. He was sticking out his tongue at passersby and tipping his head into doorways for a leer at lovers. With every step he took, he felt like lying down on the street. The five friends had lost their sense of haste. It was as though time belonged to them completely, like they were beyond the bounds of any calendar and that magical Bahian night would last for at least a week. Because, as Bangs Blackie affi
rmed, the birthday of Quincas Water-Bray couldn’t be celebrated in the short span of a few hours. Quincas hadn’t denied it was his birthday in spite of the fact they weren’t too sure when they had celebrated it in previous years. But they had celebrated, that was for sure, Sparrow’s multiple engagements, the birthdays of Maria Clara and Quitéria, and, once, a scientific discovery by one of Swifty’s customers. In the joy of his accomplishment, the scientist had placed a bill of fifty in the hand of his “humble collaborator.” As for Quincas’s birthday, it might be the first time they would be celebrating it, and they had to do it right. They were going along the Ladeira do Pelourinho on their way to Quitéria’s house.
It was strange: There wasn’t the usual bustle in the bars and bawdy houses of São Miguel. Everything was different that night. Could there have been an unexpected police raid, shutting down the houses, locking up the bars? Had detectives taken Quitéria, Carmela, Doralice, Ernestina, and fat Margarida away? Might they be ending up in a trap too? Corporal Martim assumed command of the operation. Sparrow went ahead on a spying mission.
“You scout it out,” the corporal explained.
They sat down to wait on the steps of a church on the square. There was still a bottle to finish. Quincas was lying down, looking at the sky, smiling in the moonlight.
Sparrow returned, accompanied by a noisy crowd that was cheering and shouting. Easily recognized at the head of the group was the majestic figure of Quitéria Goggle-Eye, all dressed in black with a mantilla over her head, an inconsolable widow, supported by two women.
“Where is he? Where is he?” she was shouting, all excited.
Sparrow ran ahead and clambered up the steps. In his ragged coat he looked like a speaker at a street rally as he explained, “The news has got around about Water-Bray kicking the bucket. Everything’s all in mourning.”
Quincas and his friends laughed.
“He’s here, people. It’s his birthday, and we’re celebrating it. We’re on our way to a fish dinner on Master Manuel’s skiff.”
Quitéria Goggle-Eye freed herself from the comforting arms of Doralice and fat Margô and tried to drop down to where Quincas was sitting on a church step next to Bangs Blackie. But—due to the emotion of that supreme moment, no doubt—Quitéria lost her balance and fell backward on her ass on the stone steps. They immediately lifted her up and helped her get closer.
“You bandit! You dog! Damn you! What’s the big idea, spreading the news that you’ve died, getting everybody all worked up?”
She sat down beside Quincas, smiling. She took his hand and placed it over her ample breast so he could feel the beating of her afflicted heart.
“I almost died from the news, and here you are, off on a binge, you devil you. Who can keep up with you, Brayzie, you devil, so full of tricks? You hurt me, Brayzie, you were killing me.”
The group was laughing at it all. In bars the tumult picked up again. Life returned to the Ladeira de São Miguel. They continued on their way to Quitéria’s house. Quitéria was beautiful, all dressed in black like that. She’d never looked so desirable to them.
As they went along the Ladeira de São Miguel on their way to the brothel, they bathed in all manner of demonstrations of thanks. At the Flower of São Miguel, Hansen the German offered them a round of drinks. Farther along the Frenchman Verger passed out African amulets for the women. He was unable to go along with them because he still had an obligation to a saint to fulfill that night. The doors of the brothels opened up again, and women reappeared at the windows and on the sidewalk. Wherever they went, they heard shouts for Quincas, people cheering his name. He was nodding his thanks like a king returning to his realm. At Quitéria’s house everything was in mourning and sadness. On the bureau in her bedroom, alongside a print of Our Lord of Bonfim and the clay statue of the Indian Aroeira, her guide, a picture of Quincas clipped out of the newspaper—from a series of articles by Giovanni Guimarães on the “underground life of Bahia”—was in a prominent position between two lighted candles, with a red rose beneath it. Doralice, Quitéria’s housemate, had already opened a bottle and was serving drinks in blue wineglasses. Quitéria blew out the candles. Quincas was lying on the bed while the others went out into the dining room. Quitéria wasn’t long before joining them.
“The bastard fell asleep on me.”
“He’s on a mother of a bender,” Swifty explained.
“Let him get some sleep,” Bangs Blackie advised. “He’s had a rough day. He’s a right to…”
But they were already late for Master Manuel’s fish dinner, and after a while the feeling was to wake Quincas up. Quitéria, black Carmela, and fat Margarida would go with them. Doralice couldn’t accept the invitation. She’d just gotten word from Dr. Carmino. He was coming by that night. And Dr. Carmino, as they were all aware, paid by the month. It was guaranteed. She couldn’t disappoint him.
They went down the hill, hurrying now. Quincas was almost running, stumbling over the cobblestones, dragging along Quitéria and Bangs Blackie as he clutched them. They hoped they could get there in time to find the skiff still at the dock.
They made one stop, however, at Cazuza’s bar. Cazuza was an old friend. There were never many people in that bar, and a night didn’t go by when there wasn’t some fracas or other. A gang of pot smokers hung out there every day. But Cazuza was a nice man, and he’d serve drinks on the cuff, even a whole bottle. And since they couldn’t arrive at the skiff empty-handed, they decided to have a little chat with Cazuza and get three quarts of cane liquor. While Corporal Martim, an irresistible diplomat, was whispering over the bar to the owner, who was stupefied to see Quincas Water-Bray in the best of shape, the others sat down with something to whet their appetites, on the house in honor of the birthday boy. The bar was full with a bunch of morose young men, some jolly sailors, women down to their last penny, and intercity bus drivers who were leaving for Feira de Santana that night.
The fight was unexpected, and it was a beauty. Truth be told, Quincas was the cause of it. He was sitting with his head resting on Quitéria’s breast and his legs stretched out. The story goes that one of the young squirts tripped over Quincas’s legs as he passed by and almost took a tumble. He made a nasty remark. Bangs Blackie didn’t like the pothead’s attitude. Quincas had every right to be exactly where he was that night, even stretching his legs out any way he felt like. And he told him so. If the young fellow hadn’t reacted, nothing would have happened. But moments later another from the same group of pot smokers tried to get by too. He asked Quincas to move his legs. Quincas pretended not to hear him. Then the skinny guy gave him a hard shove and cursed him. Quincas bumped him with his head, and the fun began. Bangs Blackie grabbed the kid, as was his custom, and tossed him onto another table. The pot smokers got fighting mad and advanced. What happened then is impossible to describe. All anyone could see was Quitéria up on a chair, beautiful, with a bottle in her hand, swinging her arm. Corporal Martim assumed command.
At the end of the fight—a total victory for Quincas’s friends and the bus drivers who took their side—Swifty had a black eye; a tail of Sparrow’s frock coat had been ripped, quite a serious piece of damage; and Quincas was stretched out on the ground. He’d taken some hard punches and had hit his head on the floor tiles. The potheads had fled. Quitéria was bending over Quincas, trying to bring him around. Cazuza was looking on philosophically from behind the bar at chair legs sticking up in the air, overturned tables, and broken glasses. He was used to that, and the news would increase his fame and the number of customers in the place. He himself was not beyond appreciating a good fight.
Even Quincas came to after a good swig. He continued drinking in that strange way of his, spitting out part of the cachaça wastefully. If it hadn’t been Quincas’s birthday, Corporal Martim would have gracefully brought it to his attention. They headed for the docks.
By then Master Manuel was no longer waiting for them. He’d finished the fish dinner, which they’d eaten right ther
e by the dock, and he didn’t want to go out beyond the breakwater with just a bunch of sailors crowded around the clay pot. Deep down he’d never believed the news of Quincas’s death, and so he wasn’t surprised to see Quincas arm in arm with Quitéria. The Old Sailor couldn’t die on land in just any old bed.
“There’s still enough ray fish for everybody.”
They unfurled the sails of the skiff and hauled up the big stone they used as an anchor. The moon had turned the sea into a silver pathway, at the end of which the darkened city of Bahia stood outlined against the mountain. The skiff was slowly moving off. Maria Clara’s voice rose up in a sea chanty:
’Twas in the depths of the sea I found you,
All dressed up in your cockleshells…
They clustered around the steaming kettle. The clay dishes were filling up with the sweetest-smelling ray you ever tasted. A moqueca with dendê oil and pepper. The bottle of cachaça was making its rounds. Corporal Martim was never one to lose sight of the important things. Even during his command of the combat, he had managed to sneak a few bottles under the women’s skirts. Quitéria and Quincas were the only ones not eating, as they lay at the stern of the skiff listening to Maria Clara’s song. The goggle-eyed beauty was whispering words of love into the Old Sailor’s ear.
“Why did you give us such a fright, you devil of a Brayboy you? You know very well that I’ve got a weak heart. The doctor warned me against getting too upset. What gave you the idea I could go on living without you, you sharpie, you lowlife? I’m used to you, to your crazy antics, to your wise old age, to your way of not having any way, to how you like to be such a nice fellow. Why did you do this to me today?” And she took the head that had been hurt in the fight and kissed his wicked eyes.
Quincas didn’t reply. He was breathing in the sea air as one of his hands touched the water and raised a small wake in the waves. Everything was so peaceful as the party began: Maria Clara’s voice, the beauty of the fish stew, the breeze that had become a wind, the moon up in the sky, Quitéria’s whispering. But then some unexpected clouds came from the south and swallowed up the full moon. The stars began to be snuffed out, and the wind grew cold and dangerous.