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Thirteen: Conversations
Thirteen: Conversations
Translation by Christopher Schindler
“Good
Evening,” is what Father Pereira said upon stepping into the room where
Commander Gabriel Gonçalves da Cunha, who was playing chess, awaited him.
The
Commander lifted his eyes from the chess board and stared at him.
Gabriel was
still a strong, thin and elegant man. He
always wore white linen suits that matched his silver-colored hair. He pointed out a chair, facing him, where the
Padre sat down.
Gabriel had
been playing chess alone. The two remained
in silence for a while as if they were thinking what they would say. They could hear sounds from the kitchen, the
steps of someone in the next room, street noises.
A maid
entered and the Commander handed her the chess board which she took carefully
so the game was not disturbed.
The heat in
the room was mild, large mosquitoes buzzed around. Modest furniture. Exquisite.
Modern.
“And our
man?” the Commander asked. That was the
topic of the visit, then. Father
Pereira, very reluctantly, had asked to meet with the Commander on a delicate
matter. Gabriel accepted, inviting him
to dinner. They would have an
opportunity to chat.
“A little
better,” the Padre answered. “It seems
some orders came in from the interior and he managed to sell something.”
“Wrong!”
the Commander yelled at him gruffly.
“You know nothing!”
The
Commander never lost his Portuguese accent despite having been in the Amazon
for decades.
“Juca das
Neves' debts amount to more than his inheritance!”
A few days ago Padre Pereira had heard this
sentence from Juca das Neves: “ Only you can save me”.
“How?” the
priest asked.
“Speak to
the Commander.”
Juca das
Neves had been a great friend of Pierre Bataillon.
When
Zequinha disappeared, Juca das Neves ordered them to look for him out in the
jungle. His envoy, Raimundo Bezerra,
organized an expedition. They left from
Praia do Cuco with two guides, looking for the place to which the Numa had
carried off the rich and powerful youth.
The rumor was that Zequinha had arrived at
the Praia do Cuco in a canoe to meet a Numa girl who was his sweetheart and
that in company of the entire Numa nation left from there with her in an
undetermined direction, vanishing into the jungle with the whole retinue to get
married in the village. Everyone said
that he went of his own will and, because of that, it would be totally
impossible to look for him as they were doing.
In spite of that, however, they searched
for nearly ten years in vain – later, to give him up for dead. His case was listed among other
disappearances of persons and even whole ships, like the Presidente do Pará,
in 1896, the Jonas, on the Uerê Lake, the Japurá 517 miles from
Juruá, the Tocatins at the mouth of the Cobio Bayou in 1900, or the Ituxi
in the Mixirire overflow in 1897, or
the Douro in some place in 1900, the Leopoldo de Bulhões returning
from the Encarnado in 1897, or even the Herman, the São Martinho,
the Alagoas – and many other ships that disappeared in the Amazon, as if
they had not shipwrecked but simply vanished, bewitched, no one having any news
of them again or of any of their crews.
Smoke from lamps, which cast a
yellowish light, impregnated the room.
The exotic atmosphere combined two cultural phases, art nouveau with the
up-to-date style which was starting to emerge from modernity in the industrial
production of North America. It was a
room with very high walls, it had a set of striped armchairs, an antique chest
of drawers. And an R.C.A. Victrola.
“Juca
das Neves will not get out of this,” the Commander said cruelly to the priest
seated opposite him. “He will fail. He is broke … finished!”
“It so happens that he is ill...” Padre
Pereira started to say.
Padre Pereira was there on a mission to
appeal to the Commander. He knew his
mission was impossible; the Commander was cold, logical. During all these years the Padre had received
much money from Juca das Neves for the orphanage. Now it was incumbent upon him, at the very
least, to do something in his favor.
“Ill, you say?” asked the Commander who
was the biggest creditor of Juca das Neves.
In spite of considering that money lost, it was always unpleasant to
know that someone was going to die without repaying, a surprise, a discourtesy. The Commander became even more
irritated. “What does he have?” he
asked.
“I don't know exactly,” the Padre said
evasively. “It seems that the situation
of the company is ending with him ...”
“And his daughter?” the Commander
rebutted.
This was the reply Padre
Pereira did not expect to hear. The
priest's look became severe; the old man looked like
he was reprimanding him to have
asked such a question, and it was with the most melancholy air that he
answered:
“As always! Juca ...”
the priest started, trying to change the subject. Gabriel cut him off:
“A bitch in heat.” The eyes of the Commander glowed in the
darkness.
“Yes,” the padre responded with a
restrained voice. Losing control of
himself, he added, as if he were recriminating on high, imploring the heavens:
“ The worst is that her father has no
authority over her; he is dominated by her!”
At that exact moment Juca das Neves' case
was irremediably lost.
“And her mother, as you know, is a
neurotic, she does nothing, knows nothing.”
Dona Constança was the mother.
“The child has gone astray ...” the Padre said
lamenting.
“And the father is broke!” old Gabriel
added, victoriously. “Fiery whore! But she's a pretty one, yes indeed.”
The priest turned away as if to
parry the insult.
“To complicate things,” Padre Pereira
added, “Juca das Neves has taken a man into his house...”
“A man?”
“Yes.
A young man from the interior.
Shrewd and well-mannered. He is
living there and works now at the Mercantile. His name is Ribamar.”
sábado, 2 de janeiro de 2021
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