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.”