Captains of the Sands

  “Are you crying, son?” and she disappeared from the window to come over to him.

  Only then did Legless see that he was indeed weeping, wiped away his tears, bit his hand. Dona Ester came over beside him:

  “Are you crying, Augusto? Is something wrong?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m not crying, I’m not…”

  “Don’t lie to me, son. I can see quite clearly…What happened? Are you thinking about your mother?”

  And she pulled him over to her, sat down on the bench, rested Legless’s head on her maternal breast.

  “Don’t cry for your mother. You’ve got another mamma now who loves you a lot and will do everything to take the place of the one you lost…” (…and he would do everything to take the place of the son she had lost, Legless heard inside himself).

  Dona Ester kissed him on the cheek where the tears were streaming:

  “Don’t cry, your mamma will be sad.”

  Then Legless’s lips opened wide and he sobbed, wept huddled against his mother’s breast. And while he hugged her and let himself be kissed, he wept because he was going to abandon her and, worse than that, rob her. And she would never know perhaps that Legless felt he was going to rob himself too. As she didn’t know that his weeping, his sobs were a way of asking forgiveness.

  Events moved quickly because Raul had to take a trip to Rio de Janeiro on important legal business. And Legless thought there was no better time for the raid.

  On the afternoon he left he looked all over the house, petted Trinket the cat, chatted with the maid, looked at the picture books. Then he went to Dona Ester’s room, said that he was going to take a walk to Campo Grande. She told him then that Raul was bringing a bicycle back from Rio for him and then every afternoon he could ride in Campo Grande instead of walking. Legless lowered his eyes but before going out he went over to Dona Ester and kissed her. It was the first time he’d kissed her and she was very happy. He spoke in a low voice, pulling the words out of himself:

  “You’re very good. I’ll never forget you…”

  He left and didn’t come back. That night he slept in his corner in the warehouse. Pedro Bala had gone with a group to the house. The others had surrounded Legless admiring his clothes, his neat hair, the perfume that evaporated off his body. But Legless shoved one of them away, went mumbling to his corner. And there he stayed, biting his nails, not sleeping, in anguish until Pedro Bala returned with the others, bringing the results of their burglary. He told Legless that no one was the wiser in the house, that they’d all kept on sleeping. Maybe the next day they’d discover the robbery. And he displayed the gold and silver objects:

  “Tomorrow González will give us a pile for this…”

  Legless closed his eyes so as not to see. After they’d all gone to sleep he went over to Cat:

  “Do you want to make a deal with me?”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll swap these clothes for yours…”

  Cat looked at him in surprise. His clothes were the best without any doubt. But they were old clothes, far from being worth as much as the fine cashmere clothing Legless was wearing. “He’s nuts,” Cat thought while he answered:

  “Swap? Don’t even ask.”

  They exchanged clothes. Legless went back to his corner, tried to sleep.

  On the street Doctor Raul was coming along with two policemen. They were the same ones who had beaten him in jail. Legless ran but Doctor Raul pointed him out and the soldiers took him to the same room. The scene was the same as ever: the police who amused themselves by making him run on his gimpy leg and beat him and the man in the vest who was laughing. Except that Dona Ester was also in the room and looking at him with sad eyes and saying that he was no longer her son, that he was a thief. And Dona Ester’s eyes made him suffer more than the soldiers’ blows, more than the man’s brutal laughter.

  He woke up bathed in sweat, he fled from the night of the warehouse, dawn found him wandering over the sand.

  The next day, in the evening, they came to bring him his share in the theft. But Legless refused it without any explanation. Then Dry Gulch arrived with a paper that had news of Lampião. The Professor read the item for Dry Gulch and stayed looking at other things in the paper. Then he called:

  “Legless! Legless!”

  Legless came over. Others came with him and formed a circle. Professor said:

  “This here is about you, Legless…”

  And he read an item in the paper:

  Yesterday the son of the householders at number…street, Graça, Augusto by name, disappeared. He must have got lost in the city, with which he was unfamiliar. He limps on one leg, is thirteen years of age, very shy, and wearing gray cashmere clothes. The police are looking for him to bring him back to his afflicted parents, but so far they have failed to find him. The family would be grateful for any news of little Augusto and for his return home.

  Legless was silent. He was biting his lip. Professor said:

  “They still haven’t discovered the robbery…”

  Legless nodded. When they discovered the robbery they wouldn’t be looking for him as a lost son anymore. Outrigger put on a merry face and shouted:

  “Your mommy’s looking for you, Legless. Your mommy’s looking for you so she can suckle you…”

  But he didn’t say anything else because Legless was already on top of him and raising his knife. And doubtless he would have stabbed the little black boy if Big João and Dry Gulch hadn’t pulled him off. Outrigger ran off in fright. Legless went back to his corner with a look of hatred for everyone. Pedro Bala followed him, put his hand on his shoulder:

  “Maybe they’ll never discover the robbery, Legless. Never find out about you…It doesn’t matter.”

  “When Doctor Raul gets back they’ll find out…”

  And he burst into sobs that left the Captains of the Sands puzzled. Only Pedro Bala and the Professor understood and the latter threw up his hands because he couldn’t do anything. Pedro Bala started up a long conversation on a completely different subject. Outside the wind ran over the sand and its sound was like a moan.

  PICTURE-BOOK MORNING

  Pedro Bala, as he goes up the Montanha slope, is thinking that there’s nothing better in the world than walking like that, with no set destination, through the streets of Bahia. Some of those streets are paved with asphalt, but most of them, the great majority, are paved with black stones. Girls lean out the windows of former mansions and no one can tell if it’s a seamstress romantically waiting to marry a rich sweetheart or a prostitute looking at him from an ancient balcony with some very few floral decorations. Women with black veils are going into churches. The sun beats down on the stones or the asphalt of the pavement, it illuminates the tile roofs. On the terrace of a big town house flowers thrive in sad tin cans. They’re of different colors and the sun is giving them their daily ration of light. The bells of the Conceição Praia church are calling the veiled women who hurry past. Halfway up the slope a black man and a mulatto are bent over a pair of dice that the black has just rolled. Pedro Bala greets him as he passes:

  “How are things, White Owl?”

  “What about you, Bullet? How’s the sweet talk going?”

  But the mulatto had already thrown the dice and the black man turned back to the game. Pedro Bala goes on his way. The Professor goes with him. His thin figure leans forward as if he had difficulty in climbing the slope. But he’s still smiling at the festive day. Pedro Bala turns to him and catches his smile. The city is happy, full of sun. “Bahia days are like holidays,” Pedro Bala thinks as he too is filled with happiness. He whistles loudly, gives a smiling pat on the Professor’s shoulder. And the two of them give off a laugh that turns into a cackle. But they only have a few coins in their pockets, they’re dressed in rags, don’t know what they’ll eat. They’re full of the beauty of the day, however, of the freedom to walk through the streets of the city. And they go along laughing with nothing that they have to do, Pedro Bala w
ith his arm over Professor’s shoulder. From where they are they can see the market and the sloop dock and even the old warehouse where they sleep. Pedro Bala leans against a wall on the slope and says to the Professor:

  “You should paint a picture of this…It’s wild.”

  Professor’s face tightens:

  “I know it’ll never be…”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I catch myself thinking…” and the Professor looks at the docks down below, the sloops looking like toys, the tiny men carrying sacks on their backs.

  He goes on in a harsh voice, as if someone had struck him:

  “I’ve thought about doing a little painting from here someday…”

  “You’ve got the gift. If you could have gone to school…”

  “…but it can’t ever be a happy piece, no…” (Professor doesn’t seem to have heard Pedro Bala’s interruption. His eyes are looking far away now and he seems even frailer.)

  “Why?” Pedro Bala is startled.

  “Can’t you see that all this is really something beautiful? Everything so happy…”

  Pedro Bala points at the roofs of the lower city:

  “It’s got more colors than the rainbow…”

  “That’s right…But if you look at the people everything is sad. I’m not talking about the rich ones. You know. I’m talking about the others, the ones on the docks, in the market. You know…All of them with hungry faces, I don’t know how to say it. It’s something I can feel…”

  Pedro Bala wasn’t surprised anymore:

  “That’s why João de Adão had a little strike on the docks. He says that things are going to change someday, everything’s going to be just the opposite…”

  “I read that in a book too…One of João de Adão’s books. If I could have gone to school like you say it would have been good. I would have painted a nice picture someday. A nice day, happy people walking, laughing, falling in love just like the people in Nazaré, you know. But what school? I try to draw a happy picture, the day all pretty, everything pretty, but the people come out sad, I don’t know…I was trying to draw something happy.”

  “Who can say, maybe it’s better that you drew what you did. It might even be prettier, get more attention.”

  “What do you know about it? What do I know? We never went to school…I want to draw people’s faces, the layout of the streets, but I never had any school, there’s a whole lot I don’t know…”

  He paused, looked at Pedro Bala who was looking at him, went on:

  “Have you ever taken a look at the School of Fine Arts? It’s a real beauty, kid. One day I sneaked in, went into a room. They were all wearing smocks, they didn’t even see me. And they were painting a naked woman…If only someday I could…”

  Pedro Bala remained thoughtful. He was looking at the Professor as if thinking. Then he spoke in a very serious vein:

  “Do you know how much it costs?”

  “How much what costs?”

  “The school. The teacher.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “We could chip in, pay your…”

  Professor laughed:

  “You’ve got no idea…It’s all so complicated…It can’t be done, no, stop being foolish.”

  “João de Adão said that one day there’ll be schools for everybody…”

  They kept on walking. The Professor seemed to have lost the joy of the day. As if it had got far away from him. Then Pedro Bala gave him a soft punch:

  “Someday you’re going to have a couple of paintings in a gallery on the Rua Chile, buddy. Without school or anything else. None of those shitty schools can stand up to you…You’ve got it in you…”

  Professor laughed. Pedro Bala laughed too:

  “And you’ll paint my picture, eh? Put my name underneath, right? Captain Pedro Bala, brave man.”

  He took a boxer’s pose, one arm stuck out. Professor laughed, Pedro Bala laughed too, then the laugh turned into a cackle. And he only stopped laughing to go over to a group of idlers who’d gathered around a guitar player. The man was playing and singing a Bahian song:

  When she said goodby to me…

  My heart became a cross…

  They joined the group. A while later they were singing along with the man. And everybody sang along with them, there were sloopmen, drifters, stevedores, even a prostitute was singing. The man with the guitar was completely given over to his music, he didn’t even see anyone.

  If the man hadn’t got up to go away, still playing his guitar and singing, they would have forgotten to keep on climbing to the upper city. But the man went away, taking the joy of his music along. The group dispersed, a newsboy went by hawking the morning papers. The Professor and Pedro Bala went on up the hillside. From the Largo do Teatro they went up the Rua Chile. The Professor took the chalk out of his pocket, sat down on the sidewalk. Pedro Bala stood next to him. When they saw the couple coming Professor began to sketch. He drew as quick a picture as he could. The couple was very near now, Professor was drawing their faces. The girl was smiling, they were sweethearts no doubt. But they were so involved in their conversation that they didn’t even notice the drawing. Pedro Bala had to step in front of them:

  “Don’t step on the young lady’s face, sir…”

  The man looked at Pedro Bala and was just about to curse him when the girl saw the Professor’s sketch and called his attention to it:

  “That’s good…” and she clapped her hands like a little girl who had just been given a present of a doll.

  The young man spotted it and smiled. He turned to Pedro Bala:

  “Did you draw that, kid?”

  “My buddy here did, Professor, the painter…”

  Professor was giving the last touches to the man’s stylish mustache. Then he went on to perfect the girl’s sketch. She stood like someone who was posing then. They both laughed, she leaned on her boyfriend’s arm. The man took out his change purse, tossed a two milreis silver coin that Pedro Bala caught in midair. They went on their way. The drawing stayed behind in the middle of the sidewalk. Some young women coming from shopping saw it from a distance and one of them said:

  “Hurry up, that looks like an ad for Barrymore’s new movie…They say it’s great…And he’s a dream…”

  Pedro Bala and the Professor heard that and burst out laughing. And hugging each other they went off together in the freedom of the streets.

  Almost alongside the government palace they stopped again. Professor stood with the chalk in his hand waiting for a “mark” to get off the trolley. Pedro Bala was whistling beside him. In a while they had enough money for a good lunch and enough left over for a gift for Clara, God’s-Love’s girlfriend, whose birthday it was.

  A big old woman gave ten cents for her picture. The old woman was ugly and the Professor had preserved her ugliness in the picture. Pedro Bala observed:

  “If you’d made her younger and prettier she would have given you more.”

  Professor laughed. That’s how they spent the morning, Professor sketching the faces of those who came down the street, Pedro Bala picking up the silver pieces and coins they tossed them. Almost by noontime a man was coming along smoking with an expensive-looking cigarette holder. Pedro Bala ran to tell the Professor:

  “Draw the guy coming along, he looks like a first-class ‘mark.’”

  Professor began to sketch the man’s thin face. The long cigarette holder, the curly hair showing under his hat. The man was also carrying a book in his hand and Professor had an irresistible urge to draw the man reading the book. The man was passing by, Pedro Bala caught his attention:

  “Look at your picture, sir.”

  The man took the long cigarette holder out of his mouth, asked the Bullet:

  “What, son?”

  Pedro Bala pointed to the drawing the Professor was working on. The man was seen to be sitting down (there wasn’t a chair or anything, he was sitting on air), smoking through his holder and reading his book. His
curly hair flowed out from under his hat. The man examined the sketch carefully, looked at it from several angles, didn’t say anything. When the Professor finished his work, he asked him:

  “Where did you learn to sketch, my boy?”

  “Nowhere…”

  “Nowhere? What do you mean?”

  “Just that, sir…”

  “So how is it you can draw?”

  “I feel like it, I pick up a piece of chalk, I draw.”

  The man was a little incredulous, but he no doubt thought about other examples deep in his memory:

  “Do you mean you never studied drawing?”

  “Never, no, sir.”

  “I can guarantee it,” Pedro Bala put in. “We live together and I know.”

  “Then you’ve got a real talent…” the man murmured.

  He examined the sketch again. He took a long drag on his cigarette holder. Both boys were looking at the holder, bewitched. The man asked Professor:

  “Why did you draw me sitting down and reading a book?”

  Professor scratched his head as if it were a difficult question to answer. Pedro Bala tried to speak, but he didn’t say anything, he was perplexed. Finally the Professor explained:

  “I thought it suited you better…” he scratched his head again. “I really don’t know…”

  “It’s a real talent…” the man murmured in a lower voice, like someone who’d made a discovery.

  Pedro Bala was waiting for the coin because the policeman on the corner was looking at them mistrustfully. Professor was looking at the man’s cigarette holder, forged, a metal wonder. But the man went on:

  “Where do you live?”

  Pedro Bala didn’t give the Professor a chance to answer. It was he who spoke:

  “We live in the Cidade de Palha…”

  The man put his hand into his pocket and took out a card:

  “Can you read?”

  “We can, yes, sir,” Professor answered.

  “Here’s my address. I want you to come look me up. Maybe I can do something for you.”

  Professor took the card. The policeman was walking toward them. Pedro Bala took his leave: