The War of the End of the World

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  He noticed then how repelled and frightened Jurema was, and took her by the arm. “Look at them, look at them,” he said feverishly, indignantly. “Look at the women. They were young, strong, pretty once. Who turned them into what they are today? God? No: scoundrels, evildoers, the rich, the healthy, the selfish, the powerful.”

  With a look of feverish excitement on his face, he let go of Jurema’s arm and strode to the center of the circle, not even noticing that the Dwarf had begun to tell the strange story of Princess Maguelone, the daughter of the King of Naples. The spectators saw the man with reddish fuzz on his scalp and a red beard, a scar on his neck, and ragged pants begin to wave his arms wildly.

  “Don’t lose your courage, my brothers, don’t give in to despair! You are not rotting away here in this life because a ghost hidden behind the clouds has so decided, but because society is evil. You are in the state you are because you have nothing to eat, because you don’t have doctors or medicine, because no one takes care of you, because you are poor. Your sickness is called injustice, abuse, exploitation. Do not resign yourselves, my brothers. From the depths of your misery, rebel, as your brothers in Canudos have done. Occupy the lands, the houses, take possession of the goods of those who have stolen your youth, who have stolen your health, your humanity…”

  The Bearded Lady did not allow him to go on. Her face congested with rage, she shook him and screamed at him: “You stupid fool! You stupid fool! Nobody’s listening to you! You’re making them sad, you’re boring them, they won’t give us money to eat on! Feel their heads, predict their future—do something that’ll make them happy!”

  His eyes still closed, the Little Blessed One heard the cock crow and thought: “Praised be the Blessed Jesus.” Without moving, he prayed and asked the Father for strength for the day. The intense activity was almost too much for his frail body: in recent days, what with the ever-increasing numbers of pilgrims pouring in, he sometimes had attacks of vertigo. At night when he collapsed on his straw mattress behind the altar of the Chapel of Santo Antônio, his bones and muscles ached so badly that the pain made rest impossible; he would sometimes lie there for hours, with his teeth clenched, before sleep freed him from this secret torture.

  Because, despite being frail, the Little Blessed One had so strong a spirit that nobody noticed the weakness of his body, in this city in which, after the Counselor, he exercised the highest spiritual functions.

  He opened his eyes. The cock had crowed again, and the light of dawn appeared through the skylight. He slept in the tunic that Maria Quadrado and the women of the Sacred Choir had mended countless times. He put on his rope sandals, kissed the scapular and the emblem of the Sacred Heart that he wore on his breast, and girded tightly about his waist the length of wire, long since rusted, that the Counselor had given him when he was still a child, back in Pombal. He rolled up the straw mattress and went to awaken the sacristan and sexton who slept at the entrance to the church. He was an old man from Chorrochó on opening his eyes, he murmured: “Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “Praised be He,” the Little Blessed One replied, and handed him the whip with which each morning he offered the sacrifice of his pain to the Father. The old man took the whip—the Little Blessed One had knelt—and gave him ten lashes, on the back and the buttocks, with all his strength. The Little Blessed One received them without a single moan. The two of them crossed themselves again. Thus the day’s tasks began.

  As the sacristan went to tidy the altar, the Little Blessed One headed for the door. On drawing near it, he sensed the presence of the pilgrims who had arrived in Belo Monte during the night. The men of the Catholic Guard had undoubtedly been keeping close watch on them until he could decide whether they might stay or were unworthy of so doing. The fear that he might make a mistake, refusing a good Christian or admitting someone whose presence might cause harm to the Counselor, sorely troubled his heart; it was one of those things for which he implored the Father’s help with the most anguish. He opened the door and heard a murmur of voices and saw the dozens of creatures camped in front of the portal. Circulating among them were members of the Catholic Guard, with rifles and blue armbands or kerchiefs, who on catching sight of him said in chorus: “Praised be the Blessed Jesus.”

  “Praised be He,” the Little Blessed One answered softly. The pilgrims crossed themselves, and those who were not crippled or ill rose to their feet. There was hunger and happiness in their eyes. The Little Blessed One estimated that there were at least fifty of them.

  “Welcome to Belo Monte, the land of the Father and of the Blessed Jesus,” he intoned. “The Counselor asks two things of those who come in answer to the call: faith and truth. There is no place for unbelievers or liars in this land of the Lord.”

  He told the Catholic Guard to begin letting them in. In bygone days, he conversed with each pilgrim, one by one; nowadays he was obliged to speak with them in groups. The Counselor did not want anyone to lend him a hand. “It is you who are the door, Little Blessed One,” he would answer each time that the latter asked that someone be appointed to share this responsibility.

  A blind man, his daughter and her husband, and two of their children entered. They had come from Quererá, a journey that had taken them a month. On the way the husband’s mother and the couple’s twin sons had died. Had they given them a Christian burial? Yes, in coffins and with the prayer for the dead. As the old man with eyelids glued shut told him about their journey, the Little Blessed One observed them. He remarked to himself that they were a united family in which there was respect for one’s elders, for the other four listened to the blind man without interrupting him, nodding their heads to confirm what he was saying. The five faces showed signs of that mixture of fatigue from hunger and physical suffering and that soul’s rejoicing that came over pilgrims as they set foot on Belo Monte. Feeling the brush of the angel’s wing, the Little Blessed One decided that they were welcome. He nonetheless asked if any one of them ever served the Antichrist. After having them repeat after him the oath whereby they swore that they were not republicans, did not accept the expulsion of the Emperor, nor the separation of Church and State, nor civil marriage, nor the new system of weights and measures, nor the census questions, he embraced them and sent them with a member of the Catholic Guard to Antônio Vilanova’s. At the door, the woman whispered something in the blind man’s ear, and in fear and trembling he asked when they would see Blessed Jesus the Counselor. The family awaited his answer with such anxiety that the Little Blessed One thought to himself: “They are elect.” They would see him that evening, in the Temple; they would hear him give counsel and tell them that the Father was happy to receive them into the flock. He saw them leave, giddy with joy. The presence of grace in this world doomed to perdition was purifying. These new residents—the Little Blessed One knew for certain—had already forgotten their three dead and their tribulations and were feeling that life was worth living. Antônio Vilanova would now register their names in his ledgers, and would then send the blind man to a Health House, the woman to help the Sardelinha sisters, and the husband and children out to work as water carriers.

  As he listened to another couple—the woman had a bundle in her arms—the Little Blessed One’s thoughts dwelt on Antônio Vilanova. He was a man of faith, an elect, one of the Father’s sheep. He and his brother were people with schooling, they had had various businesses, cattle, money; they might have devoted their lives to accumulating wealth and acquiring houses, lands, servants. But they had chosen instead to serve God alongside their humble brothers. Was it not a gift from the Father to have someone like Antônio Vilanova here, a man thanks to whose wisdom so many problems were solved? He had just organized the distribution of water, for instance. It was collected from the Vaza-Barris and the reservoirs of the Fazenda Velha and then brought round to the dwellings free of charge. The water carriers were recently arrived pilgrims; in this way, people got to know them, felt they were of service to the Counselor and the Ble
ssed Jesus, and gave them food.

  The Little Blessed One finally pieced together, from the man’s torrent of words, that the bundle was a newborn baby girl, who had died the evening before as they were coming down the Serra da Canabrava. He raised the bit of cloth and looked: the little body was rigid, the color of parchment. He explained to the woman that it was a blessing from heaven that her daughter had died on the only piece of earth in this world that remained free of the Devil. They had not baptized her, and the Little Blessed One now did so, naming her Maria Eufrásia and praying to the Father to take this little soul to His Glory. He had the couple repeat the oath and sent them to the Vilanovas to arrange for their daughter’s burial. Because of the scarcity of wood, burials had become a problem in Belo Monte. A shiver ran up his spine. That was the most terrifying thing he could think of: his body buried in a grave with no coffin to protect it.

  As he spoke with more pilgrims, one of the women of the Sacred Choir entered to tidy the chapel and Alexandrinha Correa brought him a little earthenware bowl accompanied by a message from Maria Quadrado: “For you alone to eat,” because the Mother of Men knew that he was in the habit of giving his rations to those who were starving. As he listened to the pilgrims, the Little Blessed One thanked God for having given him strength of soul such that he never felt the pangs of hunger or thirst: a few sips of water, a mouthful of food sufficed; not even during the pilgrimage through the desert had he suffered the torments of near-starvation that other brothers and sisters had. It was for that reason that only the Counselor had offered up more fasts than he to the Blessed Jesus. Alexandrinha Correa also told him that Abbot João, Big João, and Antônio Vilanova were waiting for him in the Sanctuary.

  He remained in the chapel for almost two hours more to receive pilgrims, only one of whom was not granted permission to stay, a grain merchant from Pedrinhas who had been a tax collector. He did not reject former soldiers, guides, or purveyors for the army. But tax gatherers were to depart immediately, never to return, under threat of death. They had bled the poor white, seized their harvests and sold them off, stolen their animals; their greed was implacable, and they risked being the worm that spoils the fruit. The Little Blessed One explained to the man from Pedrinhas that in order to obtain heaven’s mercy he must fight the Can, somewhere far away, on his own. After sending word to the pilgrims outside to wait for him, he headed for the Sanctuary. It was mid-morning now, and the bright sunlight made the stones shimmer. Many people tried to detain him, but he explained in gestures that he was in a hurry. He was escorted by members of the Catholic Guard. In the beginning he had refused an escort, but now he realized that one was indispensable. Without these brothers, making his way across the few yards that separated the chapel and the Sanctuary would have taken him hours because of the number of people who assailed him with requests or insisted on having a word with him. As he walked along, the thought came to him that among this morning’s pilgrims were some who had come from as far away as Alagoas and Ceará. Wasn’t that extraordinary? The crowd that had gathered around the Sanctuary was so dense—people of all ages craning their necks toward the little wooden door where, at one moment of the day or another, the Counselor would appear—that he and the four members of the Catholic Guard were trapped. They waved their bits of blue cloth then and their comrades on duty at the Sanctuary cleared a path for the Little Blessed One. As he walked with hunched shoulders down this narrow passage lined with bodies, he told himself that without the Catholic Guard chaos would have descended upon Belo Monte: that would have been the gate through which the Dog would have entered.

  “Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, and heard in answer: “Praised be He.” He was immediately aware of the peace that the Counselor created round about himself. Even the din outside became music here.

  “I’m ashamed at having made you wait for me, Father,” he muttered. “More and more pilgrims keep pouring in, so many I can’t speak with them or remember their faces.”

  “All of them have a right to salvation,” the Counselor said. “Rejoice for them.”

  “My heart rejoices to see that there are more and more of them each day,” the Little Blessed One said. “It’s myself I’m angry at, because I can’t find the time to get to know them well.”

  He sat down on the floor, between Abbot João and Big João, who were holding their carbines across their knees. Besides Antônio Vilanova, his brother Honório was there too, apparently just back from a journey, to judge from the dust he was covered with. Maria Quadrado handed him a glass of water and he drank it down slowly, savoring every drop. Enveloped in his dark purple tunic, the Counselor was sitting, very erect, on his pallet, and at his feet was the Lion of Natuba, his pencil and notebook in his hands, his huge head resting on the saint’s knees; one of the latter’s hands was buried in his coal-black, tangled hair. The women of the Choir were squatting on their heels along the wall, silent and motionless, and the little white lamb was sleeping. “He is the Counselor, the Master, the Comely One, the Beloved,” the Little Blessed One thought with fervor. “We are his children. We were nothing and he made us apostles.” He felt a rush of happiness: again the angel’s wing brushing him.

  He realized that there was a difference of opinion between Abbot João and Antônio Vilanova. The latter was saying that he was opposed to burning Calumbi, as Abbot João wanted to do, that it would be Belo Monte and not the Evil One who would suffer the consequences if the Baron de Canabrava’s hacienda disappeared, since it was their best source of supplies. He spoke as though he were afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or of uttering such serious thoughts aloud, in so soft a voice that the Little Blessed One had to strain his ears to hear him. How unquestionably supernatural the Counselor’s aura was if a man like Antônio Vilanova was so diffident in his presence, he thought. In everyday life, the storekeeper was a force of nature, whose energy was overpowering and whose opinions were expressed with a conviction that was contagious. And that booming-voiced stentor, that tireless worker, that fountainhead of ideas, became as a little child before the Counselor. “He’s not distressed, though; he’s feeling the balm.” Antônio had told him so himself many times in the past, as they had walked and talked together after the counsels. Antônio wanted to know everything about the Counselor, the story of his wanderings, the teachings that he had spread, and the Little Blessed One enlightened him. He thought with nostalgia of those first days in Belo Monte, of the sense of freedom and openness to others that had been lost. He and the shopkeeper used to chat together every day, walking from one end of Canudos to the other, in the days when it was still small and not yet populated. Antônio Vilanova bared his heart to him, revealing how the Counselor had changed his life. “I was always upset, with my nerves constantly on edge and the sensation that my head was about to explode. Now, just knowing that he’s close at hand is enough to make me feel a serenity I’ve never felt before. It’s a balm, Little Blessed One.” But they could no longer have long talks together, for both of them were now enslaved by their respective responsibilities. Thy will be done, Father.

  He had been so lost in memories he hadn’t even noticed when Antônio Vilanova stopped speaking. Abbot João was now answering him. The news was definite and Pajeú had confirmed it: the Baron de Canabrava was in the service of the Antichrist, he was ordering the landowners to supply the army with capangas, provisions, guides, horses, and mules, and Calumbi was being turned into a military camp. The baron’s hacienda was the richest, the largest, the one with the best-stocked storehouses, able to provision ten armies. It was necessary to raze it, to leave nothing that could be of use to the Can’s troops; otherwise, it would be much more difficult to defend Belo Monte when they arrived. Abbot João stood there with his eyes fixed on the Counselor’s lips; Antônio Vilanova did likewise. There was no need to discuss the matter further: the saint would know if Calumbi should be saved or go up in flames. Despite their disagreement—the Little Blessed One had seen the two men argue many times
—their feeling of brotherhood would be undiminished. But before the Counselor could open his mouth, there was a knock on the door of the Sanctuary. It was armed men, coming from Cumbe. Abbot João went to see what news they were bringing.

  When he had left, Antônio Vilanova began to speak again, though this time it was about the deaths in Belo Monte. With the flood of pilgrims arriving, the number of dead had increased, and the old cemetery, behind the churches, had almost no room left for any more graves. He had therefore sent people out to clear and wall in a plot of ground in O Taboleirinho, between Canudos and O Cambaio, so as to start a new one. Did the Counselor approve? The saint gave a brief nod. As Big João, waving his huge hands, perturbed, his kinky hair gleaming with sweat, was recounting how the Catholic Guard had begun the day before to dig a trench with a double parapet of stones which would run from the banks of the Vaza-Barris to the Fazenda Velha, Abbot João returned. Even the Lion of Natuba raised his huge head and his inquisitive eyes.

  “The army troops arrived in Cumbe at dawn this morning. They were asking about Father Joaquim as they came into town, and went looking for him. It would seem that they’ve slit his throat.”