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NO BLOG DO ZEMARIA PINTO

http://palavradofingidor.blogspot.com/2021/04/folia-no-seringal-alegoria-e-parodia-em.html

 

CAPÍTULO VINTE

Twenty: Night

 Translation by Christopher Schindler

     It was seven o'clock in the evening.  Benito had to wait for the aged Frei Lothar to finish his soup before he could speak.  The friar, weak, with an embittered expression, had to be lifted so he could then fall, prostrate, onto a nearby sofa.  Benito lit a cigarette and listened:

     “The Caxinauá.  You have to find Maria Caxinauá.  Only she knows,” he said, passing his arthritic fingers over the cheek of the young man.

     An Indian woman brought him coffee - he drank coffee day and night.  Benito accepted a cup.  The cup shook in the friar's hand with its long, thin fingers, like twigs.

    “She must have returned to Hell's Bayou.  What...Paxiúba tried to kill you?”, asked the friar.

     Benito responded: “Yes.”

     “But, Paxiúba, why?”  Frei Lothar was still shaking his head.

     “Well, he was coming at me. I fired a shot, but I don't think I killed him.”

     “Thank God...thank God.  Wasn't he with Conchita del Carmen?”

     “No,” replied Benito, “he killed her.”

     There was a pause.  Silence, the friar sighed, his eyes tearful.

     “Maria should be on the Praia do Cuco, if I know her.  That's where Zequinha Bataillon disappeared.  You must reach her.  You won't know anything without her.  Listen, my son.  Before Pierre came to Brazil he lived in Paris.  He must have relatives there.  The last time I saw him was at Manixi.  He must have brought that pistol from Paris,” he was silent for quite some time.

     “She is the proof of the crime,” he added, finally.

     It was a Belgian pistol from the end of the century, silver.  Very popular at the time.  A relic.  I saw it several times on Bataillon's belt.

     “I saw it at Rio Ji-Paraná,” Benito said.  “Personalized.  It had the initials “PB” in gold...”

     “I saw it near the Richuelo Bayou,” continued the friar, “in the hands of the Indian Iurimã, who was married to Caciava, an Indian woman, who told me that he got it from the dying Zequinha Bataillon.  But I know they were lying.  Iurimã was a warrior.”

     He went on:

     “Zequinha's fortune today would be worth 20 million dollars.”

     And after a silence:

     “Pierre was a good musician.  I played the Kreutzer Sonata with him, failing to keep up with his tempo.  Those were unforgettable nights in the middle of the densest forest, in that well-lit music room full of curtains and carpets, playing Beethoven's Kreutzer.  He at the piano, an authentic Pleyel, a baby grand, though.  That sonata has a motif that repeats and on this pair of notes Beethoven constructs his plot, a warp and weft of questions and answers, examinations, a series of loving queries, passionately transcendent, that the violin takes up and prolongs, developing into quick and loud phrases in dialog with the piano...  the second movement tells a short and simple story, a consequence of what came before, that the violin repeats, retells, reinforces, harmonizes, supports and resumes.  The violin enters with soul...”

     Frei Lothar was hearing the music in his imagination, his eyes tearing up.  He was more of a musician than a mystic.  As a mystic, he was a physician. 

     “That palace,” he said, “was a museum of paintings and crystal, silver, Limoges china.  What happened to Dona Ifigenia's jewels?  Her jewels, big ones, were the showpiece of the house.  One day Ifigenia went to Belém to see Pavlova with whom she dined at her hotel.  She was a friend of intellectuals.  She came to Manaus to see that author of best-sellers at that time...what was his name?”

     “Coelho Neto...”

     “Yes.  Ifigenia corresponded with him; he had wonderful handwriting.  She often visited at the house of Thaumaturgo Vaz.  In 1889 she gave a reception for the the Count d'Eu at the Municipal Villa.  But she liked to stay at the Hotel Cassina.  I remember her in 1883 accompanying Paes Sramento à Conceição to the ceremony conferring the distinction for which he was honored by the Emperor - Induction as an Officer into the Imperial Order of the Rose.  Another coffee?”

     Frei Lothar was lost in reminiscences.

     “But who ended up with the pounds of gold?”, Benito asked returning to the main topic of his visit.

     “I don't know.  Nor the paintings.”

     “The paintings are at Ferreira's house,” said Benito.

     “Really?  There was a Fromentin in the music room.  They took over the Bataillons' assets...but how are you going to prove that?”

     There was a long, deadly silence in the room.

     “How are you going to prove that they killed Zequinha Bataillon?”

     No one said anything more.  Until the friar sighed:

     “Oh, much has happened!  Near the Crystal Waterfall, Pierre constructed a Japanese chalet.  Everything has disappeared.  The same also with the Marinchões' rubber plantation, at Calama.  At Ayucá the owner, I don't remember his name, personally set fire to everything he couldn't take, before leaving.  Ah, terrible!  Ah, yes, it was Rigoberto.  He lived in a struggle against gnats, strong men, the country, snakes.  At Ponta do Poedeira, I had to attend a childbirth, near Ayucá.  The mother died in my arms, but I was able to save the child.  On the Rio Jantiatuba, which runs very swiftly...”

     And there followed a prolonged silence.

     “And the gold, Father, the pounds of gold?” Benito asked.  “Who ended up with the pounds of gold?”

     But the friar was sleeping. 

Nineteen: Mystery

 

Nineteen: Mystery

 Translation by Christopher Schindler

     It was impossible to save the Novelty Mercantile of which only old furniture remained, out-of-style luxury.  In spite of everything, Ribamar opened the store every day.  The owner did not show up so as not to be humiliated by his creditors.  Weakened, prostrate, almost always drunk, he hid at home as if imprisoned by illness.  By and by Juca das Neves grew old.  Was he a ruined man?  Money for food began to become scarce.  He sold objects and jewelry so he could go to the market.  On the day that one of the bills which he could not settle became due, he sank into bed in anticipation of death.

     But Ribamar appeared at the threshold of his door.

     Ribamar had not opened the Novelty Mercantile that day.  He was already living with someone whom you will finally see entering this work of mine - Diana Dartigues.  But for the time being I will leave her in peace.  Diana was quite a bit younger than he was.

     He worked there for years hardly receiving any remuneration.  Ribamar, however, was a frightfully quick learner and quickly understood the company's situation.  Juca das Neves could confide in him - in part because he was the only one.  As a sign of friendship he gave him a room in the upper part of the house, a comfortable apartment with two windows opening on the garden.  But Ribamar almost never slept there since he was already acquainted with the mysterious Diana Dartigues, about whom no one knew who she was or where she came from.  She rented a small house in the Vila Municipal, a house that had belonged to the director of the Manaus Harbour, Baron Rymkiewicz, when he arrived there in 1900.  Certainly Diana was paying the rent.  Ribamar was no longer the same.  Elegant, natty and well-groomed, he was changing into the man that people would come to know as an older man.  He wore the best clothes and inherited suits from Juca das Neves, who was the same size as the young man.  Ribamar was seen in a collection of expensive coats, English H.J., silk shirts with stiff collars.  Juca das Neves had been very rich; he ordered his clothing from the best European couturiers.  When Juca das Neves returned from Paris he brought an entire Parisian collection with him.  He was more vain than his wife and daughter.  He had a wardrobe that would dress ten men.  But he became fat, didn't work and lived on booze.  Juca das Neves saw misery as a concrete reality.  He only opened up with Ribamar - Dona Constança, already completely mad, could not comfort him.

     “Tell me, my good Juca.  How much are your houses on Rua Frei Jose dos Inocentes worth?”

     “Nothing, my son,” replied the old man, tiredly.  They're old houses, mortgaged ...”

     Ribamar went toward the bed and sat down in a chair nearby.  He lit a cigarette.  He was strangely calm.  He was strangely confident.  He started to speak.

    Their conversation was leisurely.  At first Juca das Neves listened lying down, like a dead man.  Then, he was sitting up.  He put his foot out of the bed.  Then he was sitting on the edge of the bed, he stood up and walked around the room from one side to the other.  Following that, he started getting dressed - and lastly he left with the young man, he was someone else!  He was a changed man!  Another man entirely.

     What was deduced from that conversation and became known was that Ribamar managed to have the debts put off and the next day he, Ribamar, traveled to Transvaal to the Street of Flowers, which was for sale, and he went to make a proposition in person to Dona Conchita del Carmen to bring the women from there to the city of Manaus, to the houses on Rua Frei José dos Inocentes, where they would be lodged.  In short, Ribamar was about to enter upon the biggest enterprise in the history of the Amazon crisis and the only profitable one, which would prosper from then on, mainly because it had the support of the Gonçalves da Cunha family, Commander Gabriel, then governor who would give police protection.  Juca das Neves committed to settle his debts when the establishment was up and running.

     Antonio Ferreira, the ally of old Gabriel, sealed the contract himself.  For Ferreira it was better to wait and see, rather than lose everything, since nothing Juca das Neves owned could be sold and everything was pledged to the London Bank.  The bills were substitued with other bills payable in five years.  The mystery was finding out how Ribamar arranged so much money.  Clearly it came from Diana Dartigues.

     After a few years Ribamar de Souza would not only pay off the debts of the business but start to get the houses from hock, not only those on Rua Frei José dos Inocentes, but also the one on Rua Barroso and even the building of the Warehouse, which had remained closed all this time.  Ribamar, with the help of Juca das Neves, modernized the Novelty Warehouse and began carrying various North American products, like Singer sewing machines - enormously popular.  Ribamar expanded his operations and started to threaten the commercial empire of the powerful  Gonçalves da Cunha family and his ex-son-in-law Antonio Ferreira.  It was then that Ribamar finally got married - in a discrete, but elegant ceremony - to Diana Dartigues.

     Years later Ribamar de Souza was mentioned in connection with one of the most solid fortunes of Manaus and a political enemy of Commander Gabriel and his ex-son-in-law.  The elder Gabriel lost his prestige in the Federal Capital.  There was a mystery involving the origin of Ribamar's power that no one could quite figure out.  I don't know if you remember the figure of Diana Dartigues.  Tall, thin, elegant, Diana had a small oval head on which her long, sleek, black and shiny hair fell.  She had a dark complexion, almond-shaped eyes, a long and straight neck, fine, long hands.  You couldn't say pretty, but she was an exotic woman.  The last time one must have seen her was in the cemetery at Juca das Neves' burial.