As Sparrow was an incurable romantic, he was always getting engaged, the victim of his explosive passions. Every engagement was properly celebrated, with joy at the beginning and with philosophical sadness when it ended a short time later.
“Somebody died,” a trucker said.
Corporal Martim listened hard.
“He died! He died!”
The two of them were coming along all hunched over with the weight of the news. From Sete Portas to Água dos Meninos, passing by the skiff docks and Carmela’s house, they’d given the sad news to a lot of people. Why was it that every one of them, on learning about Quincas’s passing, immediately uncorked a bottle? It wasn’t their fault, heralds of grief and mourning, that there were so many people along the way, that Quincas had so many friends and acquaintances. Drinking in the city of Bahia began much earlier than usual on that day. It couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t every day that a Quincas Water-Bray died.
Corporal Martim, forgetting about the fight and with the cards still in his hand, was watching them with increasing curiosity. They were crying—that was obvious. Bangs Blackie’s voice was all choked up.
“Our father, the father of the people, has died…”
“Was it Jesus Christ or the governor?” asked one of the black urchins, who had the reputation of a jokester. The black man reached out his hand and flung him to the ground.
They could all understand that it was a serious matter. Sparrow raised the bottle and said, “Water-Bray has died!”
The deck of cards dropped from Martim’s hand. The suspicious vendor saw his worst fears confirmed—aces and queens—as the dealer’s cards scattered all over. But the name of Quincas had reached his ears too. He decided not to argue. Corporal Martim asked Sparrow for the bottle, then threw it away with disdain. He stood for a long time looking at the market stalls, the trucks and buses on the street, the boats in the bay, the people coming and going. He got the feeling of a sudden emptiness, couldn’t hear the birds in the cages nearby in a vendor’s stall.
He wasn’t a man for weeping; a soldier doesn’t cry, even after he’s put aside his uniform. But his eyes grew tiny, his voice changed, he lost all his bluster. It was almost with the voice of a child that he asked, “How could it have happened?”
After picking up his cards, he joined the other two. They still had to look for Swifty. He had no certain perch, except on Thursday and Sunday afternoons when invariably he would be performing in Valdemar’s capoeira ring on the Estrada da Liberdade. Outside of that, his profession carried him off to distant places. He hunted for rats and toads to sell to laboratories for medical tests and scientific experiments—which made Swifty a figure to be admired in the opinion of the most respected people. Wasn’t he a bit of a scientist himself? Didn’t he talk to doctors, know big words?
Only after lots of walking and drinking did they come upon him, all wrapped up in his big coat as though it were cold, mumbling to himself. He’d gotten the news through other channels, and he was also looking for his friends. When he met them he put his hand into one of his pockets. To take out a handkerchief to wipe away his tears, Sparrow thought. But out of the depths of his pocket Swifty had pulled a small green bullfrog, gleaming like an emerald.
“I was keeping it for Quincas. I never found one so pretty.”
9
When they appeared at the door of the room, Swifty thrust out his hand, in the extended palm of which rested the frog with its bulging eyes. They stayed there standing in the doorway, one behind the other. Bangs Blackie stuck in his big head to take a look. Swifty, embarrassed, put the creature back in his pocket.
The family halted their animated conversation. Four pairs of hostile eyes stared at the shabby group. That’s all we needed, thought Vanda. Corporal Martim, who in matters of etiquette was second only to Quincas himself, took off his filthy cap and greeted those present.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We just wanted to view him.”
He took a step inside. The others followed. The family backed away. They had been standing around the coffin. Sparrow got the thought that it was a trick, that the dead man wasn’t Quincas Water-Bray. He recognized him by only his smile. The four of them were dumbfounded. They never could have imagined Quincas so clean and elegant, so well dressed. They instantly lost their self-assurance, and their tipsiness disappeared as if by magic. The presence of the family—the women especially—left them fearful and timid, not knowing how to act, where to put their hands, how to behave before the dead man.
Sparrow, so ridiculous with his face painted red and wearing his shabby frock coat, looked at the other three, suggesting that they get away from there as fast as possible. Corporal Martim was hesitating, like a general on the eve of battle, assessing the enemy’s strength. Swifty made a step toward the door. Only Bangs Blackie, still bringing up the rear, lifting his big head up to see, didn’t hesitate for a second. Quincas was smiling at him, and the black man smiled back. There was no human force capable of dragging him away from there, from beside little Papa Quincas. He grabbed Swifty by the arm, answered Sparrow’s request with his eyes. Corporal Martim understood; a soldier doesn’t flee the field of battle. The four of them drew back from the coffin to a corner of the room.
There they all were now, in silence: on one side the family of Joaquim Soares da Cunha—daughter, son-in-law, brother, and sister—and on the other side the friends of Quincas Water-Bray. Swifty put his hand into his pocket and felt the frightened frog, as though he wanted to show it to Quincas. With a movement that looked like ballet, the friends drew back from the coffin and the relatives drew closer. Vanda cast a glance of reproach at her father. Even in death he preferred the company of those ragamuffins.
Quincas had been waiting for them. He had grown restless as the afternoon ended, because the vagabonds were late in getting there. Just when Vanda had begun to think her father had been defeated and was finally ready to surrender, to silence the foul words on his lips, defeated by the silent, dignified resistance she had put up to all his provocations, that smile was gleaming once again on the dead face, and more than ever it was the corpse of Quincas Water-Bray that lay before her. Had it not been an offense to Otacília’s memory, she would have left off her mourning and dumped the unworthy body somewhere in Tabuão, given the barely used coffin back to the funeral parlor, and sold the new clothes to some old-clothes peddler at half price. The silence was becoming unbearable.
Leonardo turned to his wife and her aunt. “I think it’s time you two got going. It’ll be getting late pretty soon.”
Just a few moments before, all Vanda wanted to do was go home and get some rest. She gritted her teeth. She wasn’t a woman to give in, and she replied, “In a little while.”
Bangs Blackie sat down on the floor and leaned his head against the wall. Swifty nudged him with his foot. It wasn’t right to settle down like that in the presence of the dead man’s family. Corporal Martim showed his admonishment by staring at the black man. Bangs lifted his hand and pushed his friend’s annoying foot away as he sobbed, “He was our father! Papa Quincas…”
It was like a punch in the belly for Vanda, a slap in the face for Leonardo, a spit in the eye for Eduardo. Only Aunt Marocas laughed, her fat quivering as she sat in the only, and disputed, chair.
“How amusing!”
Bangs Blackie went from tears to laughter, taken with Marocas. Even more startling than his sobs was the black man’s hearty laugh. It was like a thunderclap in the room, and Vanda heard another laugh behind Blackie’s: Quincas was enjoying himself enormously.
“What sort of disrespect is that?” Her dry voice put an end to that beginning of cordiality.
With the reprimand, Aunt Marocas got up, took a few steps about the room, followed always by the admiration of Bangs Blackie as he looked her over from head to toe, finding her to be a woman to his taste: a bit old, that’s true, but big and fat, the way he liked them. He didn’t like those skinny little ones whose waists you c
ouldn’t even pinch. If Bangs Blackie could have run into that madame on the beach, the two of them would have had a ball; all you had to do was take one look at her and you’d see her virtues right off. Aunt Marocas began to mention her wish to leave. She felt tired and nervous. Vanda, having taken back her place on the chair by the coffin, made no reply. She had the look of a guard watching over a treasure.
“We’re all tired,” Eduardo said.
“It would be best if they left.” Leonardo had his fears about the Tabuão neighborhood at night, when all commercial activity ceased and the prostitutes and street people took over.
Well-mannered, as was his way, and wishing to cooperate, Corporal Martim proposed, “If you good people would like to go get some rest and a little shut-eye, we’ll stay on here and watch over him.”
Eduardo knew that wouldn’t be right: They shouldn’t leave the corpse alone with those people, with no family member present. But he would like to accept the proposal—oh, how he would: All day at the store, going back and forth, taking care of customers, giving orders to the help—it dragged a man down. Eduardo went to bed early and got up with the dawn, a strict timetable. When he got home from the store, after a bath and dinner, he would sit down in a chaise longue, stretch out his legs, and immediately fall asleep. That brother of his, Quincas, knew only how to be a nuisance. For ten years that’s all he’d been. That night he was obliging him to stay on his feet, having nothing but a couple sandwiches to eat. Why not leave him with his friends, that gang of tramps, the people he’d been hanging out with for ten years? What were he and Marocas, Vanda, and Leonardo doing there in that filthy hole, that rat’s nest? He didn’t have the courage to express his thoughts: Vanda was spoiled; she was quite capable of reminding him of the many times that he, Eduardo, starting out in life, had had recourse to Quincas’s wallet. He looked at Corporal Martim with a certain benevolence.
Swifty, defeated in his attempts to get Bangs Blackie to stand up, sat down too. He had the urge to put the frog in the palm of his hand and play with it. He’d never seen one that beautiful. Sparrow, who’d spent part of his childhood in a children’s home run by priests, searched his dull memory for a complete prayer. He’d always heard it said that the dead stood in need of prayers. And priests…Had the priest been there already, or was he coming only on the next day? The question was tickling his throat. He couldn’t resist.
“Has the priest come already?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Marocas replied.
Vanda scolded her with her eyes: Why start a conversation with that riffraff? But having gained her respect, Vanda felt better. She exiled the vagabonds to a corner of the room, made them keep quiet. However, it would be impossible for her to spend the night there. Neither she nor Aunt Marocas. She had the vague hope at first that Quincas’s indecent friends wouldn’t stay long, as there was neither food nor drink. She didn’t know why they were still there in the room. It couldn’t have been out of friendship for the dead man; those people don’t maintain friendships with anyone. In any case, even the disagreeable presence of friends like that was of no importance, because they wouldn’t be at the burial the next day. She, Vanda, would take charge of the events, and the family would be alone with the corpse once more. They would bury Joaquim Soares da Cunha with modesty and dignity.
She arose from the chair and called to Marocas: “Let’s go.” And to Leonardo: “Don’t stay too late. You can’t spend the whole night. Uncle Eduardo has already said he’d stay the whole time.”
Eduardo, taking over the chair, agreed. Leonardo went along to see them to the streetcar. Corporal Martim ventured a “Good night, ladies,” but got no response. Only the candles were lighting up the room. Bangs Blackie was sleeping, giving off a fearsome snore.
10
At ten o’clock Leonardo got up from the kerosene can and went over to the candles, looking at his watch. He woke up Eduardo, who was sleeping with his mouth open, uncomfortable in the chair.
“I’m leaving. I’ll be back in the morning, at six, to give you some time to go home and change your clothes.”
Eduardo stretched his legs, thinking about his bed. His neck hurt. In the corner of the room Sparrow, Swifty, and Corporal Martim were talking in low voices, having a heated argument: Which one of them was going to take Quincas’s place in Quitéria Goggle-Eye’s bed? Corporal Martim, exhibiting a revolting selfishness, would not accept being scratched from the list just because he was in possession of the heart and the slim body of little black Carmela. When the sound of Leonardo’s steps had disappeared onto the street, Eduardo looked at the group. The argument came to a halt. Corporal Martim smiled at the storekeeper. The latter was looking with envy at Bangs Blackie, lost in the best of sleeps. He settled himself in the chair again and put his feet on the kerosene can. His neck still hurt. Swifty couldn’t resist. He took the frog out of his pocket and put it on the floor. It took a leap. It was funny. It looked like a spook loose in the room. Eduardo couldn’t manage any sleep. He looked at the dead man, motionless in the coffin. He was the only one who was comfortably lying down. What the devil was he, Eduardo, doing there playing watchman? Wasn’t it enough to go to the burial? Wasn’t he paying part of the expenses? He was going beyond his brotherly duties, especially for a brother like Quincas, who was an annoyance to his life.
He stood up and moved his limbs about, opened his mouth in a yawn. Swifty was hiding the little green frog in his hand. Sparrow was thinking about Quitéria Goggle-Eye. A woman and lots of it.…
Eduardo turned to face them. “Tell me something…”
Corporal Martim, a psychologist by nature and by necessity, came to attention. “At your orders, commandant, sir.” Who knows, maybe the merchant would send out for some drinks to help pass the long night.
“Are you all planning to spend the night here?”
“With him? Yes, sir. We were friends.”
“Then I’m going to go home and get a little rest.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out a bill. The eyes of the corporal, Sparrow, and Swifty were following his movements. “Here’s something for you to buy some sandwiches with. But don’t leave him alone, not for one minute, eh?”
“You can rest easy. We’ll keep him company.”
Before they began their drinking, Sparrow and Swifty lit cigarettes and Corporal Martim one of those fifty-centavo cigars, black and strong, the kind only real smokers could appreciate. The powerful smoke passed across the black man’s nostrils, but not even then did Bangs wake up. As soon as they uncorked the cachaça (the disputed first bottle that, according to the family, the corporal had brought in under his shirt), Bangs Blackie opened his eyes and demanded a drink.
The first round brought out a critical spirit in the four friends. That stuck-up family of Quincas’s had shown itself to be stingy and greedy. They did everything halfway. Where were the chairs for visitors to sit in? Where were the usual food and drink they have at poor people’s wakes? Martim had served as watch for many wakes. He’d never seen one with such a lack of activity. Even at the poorest of them, they served at least coffee and a swig of cachaça. Quincas didn’t deserve such treatment. What did it get them to belch out their importance and then leave the dead man in that humiliation, with nothing to offer his friends? Sparrow and Swifty went to get something to sit on and some food. Corporal Martim thought it necessary at least to organize the wake with a minimum of decorum. Sitting in the chair, he gave orders: some crates and bottles. Bangs Blackie was on the kerosene can, and he nodded his approval.
It must be confessed, however, that with regard to the corpse itself, the family had behaved quite well. New clothes, new shoes—all of it elegant. And nice candles, the church kind. Even so, they’d forgotten the flowers. Where did you ever see a corpse without flowers?
“He looks like a gentleman,” Bangs Blackie said proudly. “An elegant dead man!”
Quincas smiled at the praise.
The black man returned his smile. “Little Papa…,”
he said, lovingly poking him in the ribs, the way he used to when he’d just heard one of Quincas’s good stories.
Sparrow and Swifty returned with some crates, a chunk of salami, and some full bottles. They stood in a semicircle around the dead man, and then Sparrow suggested they say an Our Father together. He managed, with a surprising effort of memory, to remember the prayer almost in its entirety. The others followed along, showing little conviction. It didn’t look all that easy for them. Bangs Blackie knew some drumbeats for Oxum and Oxalá, but his religious training hadn’t gone much further than that. It had been some thirty years since the last time Swifty had prayed. Corporal Martim considered prayers and churches weaknesses, not very much in keeping with military life. Even so, they made an attempt, with Sparrow leading the prayer and the others responding as best they could. Finally, Sparrow, who had knelt and lowered his head in contrition, grew annoyed.
“You bunch of boobs!”
“A lack of training,” the corporal explained. “But it did amount to something. The priest will take care of the rest tomorrow.”
Quincas seemed indifferent to the prayer. It must have been hot for him in those heavy clothes. Bangs Blackie looked his friend over. They had to do something for him now, because the prayer hadn’t worked. Should they sing a chant from candomblé maybe? They had to do something. He asked Swifty, “Where’s the toad? Take him out.”
“He’s not a toad; he’s a frog. What good will he be?”
“Maybe Quincas will like him.”
Swifty carefully took out the frog and placed him on Quincas’s crossed hands. The animal leaped and nestled himself in the bottom of the coffin. When the wavy light from the candles hit his body, green flashes of light ran over the corpse.
The argument over Quitéria Goggle-Eye started up again. Sparrow was more combative after a few drinks. He raised his voice in defense of his interests.
The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray Page 5
