Barren Lives

by Graciliano Ramos

  He took a step toward the tree. If he were to cry, “Get a move on!” now, what would the policeman do? He wouldn’t move; he would stay glued to the trunk. The good-for-nothing! Anybody could insult his mother. But then— Fabiano stuck out his lower lip and snarled. That sickly creature in uniform put people in jail and beat them. He couldn’t understand it. If he were a strong, healthy fellow, it would be all right. After all, it is no disgrace to take a beating from the government, and Fabiano could even feel proud in recalling the adventure. But that guy there! He gave a couple more snarls. Why did the government make use of people like that? Only if it were afraid to use decent folk. That pack was no good for anything but snapping at inoffensive people. Would he, Fabiano, act like that if he wore a uniform? Would he tread on the feet of honest working folk and give them beatings? He would not!

  Slowly he drew near, made a turn, and found himself face to face with the policeman, who stood gaping, leaning against the trunk, his pistol and his dagger hanging uselessly at his side. Fabiano waited for him to move. He was a good-for-nothing, to be sure, but he wore a uniform and he certainly wasn’t going to stand like that forever, his eyes bulging, his lips white, his teeth clacking together like a lacemaker’s spools. He was going to stamp, to yell, to straighten his back, and to plant the heel of his boot on Fabiano’s sandal. Fabiano wanted him to do that. The idea of having been insulted, jailed, and beaten by a weakling was unbearable. That cowardice reflected on him, made him seem more pitiful and contemptible than the policeman.

  He lowered his head and scratched the reddish hairs on his chin. If the policeman didn’t pull out his knife, if he didn’t give a yell, he, Fabiano, was going to be most unhappy.

  Should he bend before that trembling figure in khaki? He was thick-skinned; he had staying power and courage; he wanted to quarrel, to raise a row, and to come out of it with his head up. He remembered old fights over women that had taken place at dances, after he had had a few drinks of rum. Once, dagger in hand, he had sent the whole crowd running. That was when Vitória began to take a fancy to him. He had always been ill-tempered. Was he growing calmer with age? How old was he anyway? He didn’t know, but he was certainly getting on, losing his strength. If he had a mirror, he would see wrinkles and white hair. A wreck! He hadn’t felt the change, but he was wearing out.

  Sweat dampened his horny hands. Well then, was he sweating with fear because of a good-for-nothing that hid and trembled? Wasn’t that a terrible misfortune—the worst possible? Probably he would never get worked up again, but would spend the rest of his life like that, soft, without reacting to anything. How people change! Yes, he had changed. He was another person, far different from the Fabiano who had kicked up the dust in the dance halls. Now he was a Fabiano fit only to take a beating with the flat of a knife and to sleep in jail.

  He turned his face aside and saw the machete dragging on the ground. That wasn’t a machete; it was no good for anything.

  The devil it wasn’t!

  Who said it wasn’t?

  It was a real machete all right; it flashed like lightning through the brambles. And it had been on the point of splitting open a scoundrel’s head. It was sleeping now in its worn sheath; it was useless, but it had been a weapon. If things had lasted a second longer, the policeman would be dead. Fabiano imagined him lying there now, his legs spread apart, his eyes bulging with fear, a trickle of blood plastering his hair and forming a rivulet among the pebbles of the path. It would serve him right. He would drag him off into the brush and leave him to the vultures. And he would feel no remorse. He would sleep in peace with his wife, in their bed of tree branches. Afterwards he would yell at the boys, who needed to learn some manners. He was a man of guts, there was no doubt about that.

  He straightened up and fixed his eyes upon those of the policeman, which dropped beneath his gaze. A man of guts. It was foolish to think he was going to go moping around the rest of his life. Was he worn out? He was not! But why should he wipe out that sickly creature that stood drooping there and seemed to ask to go down before him? Why should he make a mess of his life for a weakling in uniform who idled around the market and insulted poor folk? He wasn’t going to make any such mistake; it wasn’t worth it. He would save his strength.

  He hesitated and scratched his head. There were a lot of characters like that, a lot that were both wicked and weak.

  He drew back, perturbed. Seeing him thus humble and orderly, the policeman pricked up courage and advanced, stepping firmly, to ask directions. Fabiano took off his leather hat, bowed, and showed him the way.

  “The law is the law.”

  The Birds

  The branches of the coral-bean tree down by the water hole were covered with birds of passage. This was a bad sign. In all probability the backland would soon be burnt up. The birds came in flocks; they roosted in the trees along the riverbank; they rested, they drank, and then, since there was nothing there for them to eat, they flew on toward the south. Fabiano and his wife, deeply worried, had visions of misfortunes to come. The sun sucked up the water from the ponds and those cursed birds drank up what was left, trying to kill the stock.

  It was Vitória who said this. Fabiano grunted, wrinkled his brow, and found the expression exaggerated. The idea of birds killing oxen and goats! He looked at his wife distrustfully; he thought she was out of her mind. He went to sit on the bench under the shed, and from there he studied the sky, filled with a brightness that boded evil, its clear expanse broken only by the lines of passing birds. A feathered creature kill stock! Vitória must be crazy.

  Fabiano stuck out his lower lip and wrinkled his sweaty brow still more deeply: it was impossible for him to understand what his wife meant. He couldn’t get it. A little thing like a bird! As the matter seemed obscure to him he refrained from going into it any further. He went into the house, got his haversack, made himself a cigarette, struck the flint against the stone, and took a long drag. He looked in all directions and remained facing north for several minutes, scratching his chin.

  “Awful! It’s like the end of the world!”

  He wouldn’t stay there long. In the long-drawn-out silence all that could be heard was the flapping of wings.

  What was it that Vitória had said? Her phrase came back to Fabiano’s mind, and suddenly its meaning was apparent. The birds of passage drank the water. The stock went thirsty and died. Yes, the birds of passage did kill the cattle. That was right! Thinking the matter over you could see it was so, but Vitória had a complicated way of putting things. Now Fabiano saw what she meant. Forgetting imminent misfortune, he smiled, enchanted at Vitória’s cleverness. A person like her was worth her weight in gold. She had ideas, she did! She had brains in her head. She could find a way out of difficult situations. There, hadn’t she figured out that the birds of passage were killing the stock? And they were too! At that very hour the branches of the coral-bean tree down by the water hole, though stripped of blossoms and leaves, were a mass of feathers.

  Desiring to see it up close he arose, slung his haversack across his chest, and went to get his leather hat and his flintlock. He stepped down from the shed, crossed the yard, and approached the slope, thinking of the dog. Poor thing! Those horrible-looking places had appeared around her mouth, her hair had dropped out, and he had had to kill her. Had he done right? He had never thought about that before. The dog was sick. Could he risk her biting the children? Could he? It was madness to expose the boys to rabies. Poor dog! He shook his head to get her out of his mind. It was that devilish flintlock that brought the image of the little dog back to him. Yes, it was certainly the flintlock. He turned his face away as he passed the stones at the end of the yard where they had found the dog, cold and stiff, her eyes pecked out by the vultures.

  Taking longer steps he went down the slope and walked across the river flat toward the water hole. There was a wild flapping of wings over the pool of dark water. The branches of the coral-bean tree couldn’t even be seen. What a flock of pest
s! When they came in from the backland they made an end of everything. The stock was going to waste away, and even the thorns would dry up.

  He sighed. What was he to do? Flee once more, settle some place else, begin life all over again. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger without even aiming. Five or six birds fell to the ground. The rest took flight and the dry branches appeared in all their nakedness. Little by little they were covered again. There was no end to it.

  Fabiano sat down dispiritedly at the edge of the water hole. Slowly he loaded the flintlock with bird shot, but did not use any wadding, so the load would spread and hit many enemies. There was a new report and new birds fell, but this gave Fabiano no pleasure. He had food there for two or three days; if he had enough munition he would have food for weeks and months.

  He examined the powder horn and the leather shot holder; he thought of the trip and shuddered. He tried to deceive himself into thinking it wouldn’t come about if he didn’t provoke it by evil thoughts. He relit his cigarette and sought to distract himself by talking in a low voice. Old Miss Terta was a person who knew a lot about that part of the country. What could be the state of his accounts with the boss? That was something he could never figure out. That business of interest swallowed up everything, and on top of it all the boss acted as if he were doing a favor. Then there was that policeman in khaki—

  Fabiano closed his fists and punched himself in the thigh for his bad luck. The devil! There he was, trying to forget one misfortune, and others came crowding upon him. He didn’t want to think either of the boss or of the policeman in khaki. But to his despair they insisted on coming to his mind, and he tightened up like a rattlesnake coiling in anger. He was unlucky, the un-luckiest fellow in the world. He ought to have struck the policeman in khaki that afternoon; he ought to have carved him up with his machete. But like a good-for-nothing country lout he had pulled in his horns and had showed the policeman the way. He rubbed his sweaty, wrinkled brow. Why bring his shame back to mind, though? He was just a poor devil. But was he determined to go on living like that forever? Worthless and weak, that was what he was. If he hadn’t been so timid he would have joined a gang of bandits and would have gone around wreaking destruction. Eventually he would get shot in ambush, or would spend his old age serving out a sentence in jail. This was better, though, than dying by the roadside in the broiling heat, his wife and boys dying too. He ought to have cut the policeman’s throat, taking his own good time about doing it. They could put him in jail then, but he would be respected—yes, respected, as a man of guts. The way he was now, nobody could respect him. He wasn’t a man; he wasn’t anything. He had suffered a beating and had not taken revenge.

  “Fabiano, my boy, get your chin up! Get some self-respect! Kill the policeman in khaki! Policemen in khaki are a pack of scoundrels that ought to be put out of the way. Kill the policeman and the people he gets his orders from!”

  He began to pant and be thirsty as a result of the energy wasted in his wild gesticulations. Sweat ran down over his red, sunburned face and darkened his ruddy beard. He came down from the bank and bent over the edge of the hole, lapping the brackish water from his cupped hands. A throng of startled birds of passage took flight. Fabiano got up with a flash of indignation in his eyes.

  “Dirty, low-down—”

  His anger was once again turned against the birds. Sitting back down on the bank, he fired many times into the branches of the coral-bean tree, leaving the ground covered with dead bodies. They would be salted and hung up on a line to dry. He intended to use them for food on the coming journey. He should spend the rest of his money on powder and shot and put in a day there at the water hole, then take to the road. Would he have to move? Although he knew perfectly well he would, he clung to frail hopes. Perhaps the drought wouldn’t come; perhaps it would rain.

  It was those cursed birds that frightened him. He tried to forget them. But how could he forget them if they were right there, flying about his head, hopping around on the mud, perching on the branches, lying scattered in death on the ground? Were it not for them, the drought would not exist. At least it would not exist just then. It would come later and last a shorter time. As things were, it was beginning now; Fabiano could feel it already. It was just as if it had arrived; he was already suffering the hunger, thirst, and endless fatigue of the trek. A few days earlier he had been calmly making whips and mending fences. Suddenly there was a dark line across the sky, then other lines, thousands of lines uniting to form clouds, and the fearful noise of wings, heralding destruction. He had already suspected something when he saw the springs diminishing, and he had looked with distrust at the whiteness of the long mornings and the sinister redness of the afternoons. Now his suspicions were confirmed.

  “Miserable wretches!”

  Those cursed birds were the cause of the drought. If he could kill them the drought would be choked off. He moved feverishly, loading the flintlock with fury. His thick, hairy hands, full of blotches and skinned spots, trembled as they moved the ramrod up and down.

  “Pests!”

  But it was impossible to put an end to that plague. He looked about the countryside and found himself completely isolated. Alone in a world of feathers, full of birds that were going to eat him up. He thought of his wife and sighed. Poor Vitória would again have to carry the tin trunk across the wasteland. It was hard for a woman with her brains to go tramping over the scorched earth, bruising her feet on the stones. The birds of passage were killing the stock. How had Vitória hit on that idea? It was hard. He, Fabiano, no matter how he might rack his brains, would never come out with an expression like that. Vitória knew how to figure accounts right; she sat down in the kitchen, consulted piles of different kinds of seeds, representing coins of varying value. And she came out right. The boss’s accounts were different, drawn up in ink, against the herdsman, but Fabiano knew that they were wrong and that the boss was trying to cheat him. He did cheat him. But what could he do about it? Fabiano, a luckless half-breed, slept in jail and was beaten. Could he react? He could not. He was just a half-breed. But Vitória s accounts must be right. Poor Vitória. She would never be able to stretch her bones in a real bed, the only thing she truly wanted. Didn’t other people sleep in beds? Fearing to wound her feelings, Fabiano would agree with her, though it was just a dream. They couldn’t sleep like Christians. And now they were going to be eaten up by the birds of passage.

  He got down from the bank, slowly picked up the dead birds, filling his haversack to overflowing with them, and gradually withdrew. He, Vitória, and the two boys would eat the birds.

  If the dog were still alive, she would have a feast. Why did he feel such a stab at his heart? The poor dog! He had had to kill her, because she was sick. Then he had gone back to the whips, the fences, and the boss’s mixed-up accounts. He walked up the slope and approached the jujubes. At the root of one of them the poor dog loved to wallow, covering herself with twigs and dry leaves. Fabiano sighed. He felt a tremendous weight in his chest. Had he been wrong? He looked at the burnt plain, the hill where the cavies hopped about, and he swore to the catingueira trees and the stones that the animal had rabies and threatened the children. That was why he had killed her. And he had given the matter no further thought at the time.

  Here Fabiano’s thoughts became mixed up. The idea of the dog mingled with that of the birds of passage, which he failed to distinguish from the drought. He, his wife, and the two boys would be eaten up. Vitória was right; she was smart and saw things a long way off. Fabiano’s eyes widened; he wanted to go on admiring her, but his heart was heavy. It felt as big as a bullfrog; it was full of thoughts of the dog. The poor thing, thin and stiff, her eyes pecked out by the vultures!

  Passing in front of the jujubes, Fabiano walked more quickly. How could he tell whether the dog’s spirit wasn’t haunting the place?

  Fear was in his soul as he reached the house. It was dusk, and at that hour he always felt a vague terror. He had been discouraged and d
ejected of late because misfortunes had been many. He would have to consult with Vitória about the trip, get rid of the birds he had shot, explain himself, convince himself he had not done wrong in killing the dog. They would have to abandon the accursed place. Vitória would think just as he did.

  Flight

  Life on the ranch had become difficult. Vitória crossed herself trembling, she told her beads, her wrinkled lips moved in desperate prayers. Slumped on the bench in the shed, Fabiano gazed at the yellow brushland where dry leaves, blown about by the swirling winds, turned to dust, leaving only twisted, scorched, black branches. The last birds of passage had disappeared from the azure sky. Little by little the stock wasted away, devoured by ticks. Still Fabiano resisted, begging God for a miracle.

  When he saw the ranch lifeless, however, he realized all was lost and made arrangements for the trek with his wife. He slaughtered the murrain-infected calf they still owned, salted the meat, and set off with his family, without taking leave of the boss. He could never settle that preposterous debt. All he could do was take to the road, like a fugitive slave.

  They left before daybreak. Vitória stuck her arm through a hole in the wall and closed the front-door latch. They crossed the yard, leaving behind them in the darkness the goat pen and the corral—now empty and with their gates hanging open—the rotting oxcart, and the two jujubes. On passing by the pile of stones on which the boys used to throw dead snakes, Vitória remembered the dog and wept, but no one could see her tears in the dark.

  They went down the slope, crossed the dry riverbed, and set out for the south. In the cool of the predawn they walked in silence for quite a distance, four shadows on the narrow road covered with small pebbles—the two boys in front, carrying bundles of clothing, Vitória with the painted tin trunk and the water gourd, Fabiano bringing up the rear with his machete and his dagger, the drinking gourd hanging from a cord tied to his waist, his haversack slung across his chest, his flintlock over one shoulder and the sack of provisions over the other. They covered a good three leagues before the first light of day appeared.