Raised from the Ground

by José Saramago

  João Mau-Tempo has never been a man for going to mass, but now that he lives in Monte Lavre, he goes to church now and then both to please his wife and out of necessity. He hears Father Agamedes’s fiery sermons and compares them in his head with what he has picked up from the papers handed to him in secret, he makes his own judgment as a simple man, and while he believes some of the things written on those papers, he doesn’t believe a word the priest says. It seems that Father Agamedes himself finds it hard to believe, with all that ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth, which does not look good on one of God’s ministers. When mass is over, João Mau-Tempo goes out into the square along with the rest of the congregation, and there he finds Faustina, who had been sitting with the other women, and he walks part of the way home with her before going to join some friends to have a drink, just one, though the others laugh at him, You drink like a little boy, Mau-Tempo, but he merely smiles, a smile that says everything, so much so that the others say nothing more, it’s as if the body of a hanged man had suddenly dropped down from one of the beams in the inn. Then one of his friends says, Did Father Agamedes give a good sermon today, a question that has no answer, because he is one of the few men in Monte Lavre who never goes to mass, he only asks in order to provoke, João Mau-Tempo smiles again and says, Oh, it was the usual thing, then says nothing more, because he’s nearly forty now and never drinks so much that he loses control of his tongue. It was that same friend who gave him the papers, and they look at each other, and Sigismundo, for that is his friend’s name, winks and raises his glass of wine to him, Good health.

  IT WAS WHILE ANTÓNIO Mau-Tempo was employed tending pigs that he met Manuel Espada, who had been forced to take such unskilled work because he could find nothing else once he and his companions had become dubbed locally, and for two leagues around, as strikers. Like everyone else in Monte Lavre, António Mau-Tempo knew what had happened, and in his still childish imaginings, he found some similarities with his own rebellion against the pine-nut-roasting, stick-wielding foreman, although he never confessed as much, especially given that Manuel Espada was six years older than him, long enough to separate a mere child from a lad and a mere lad from a man. The foreman of these pigs didn’t work any harder than the other one, but he, at least, had age as an excuse, and the lads he employed didn’t mind taking orders from him, after all, someone has to be in charge, him in charge of us and us in charge of the pigs. The working day of the swineherd is very long, even in winter, the hours pass so slowly they positively dawdle, like a shadow moving from here to there, and pigs are creatures of little imagination, their snouts always pressed to the ground, and if they do wander off, they mean no mischief, and a well-aimed stone or a sharp thump on the back with a stick will bring them, ears twitching, back to the rest of the herd. The pig soon forgets such incidents, having a poor memory and being little prone to bearing grudges.

  There was, then, more than enough time to talk, while the foreman dozed under the holm oak or tended the animals farther off. Manuel Espada spoke of his adventures as a striker, although he never exaggerated, that wasn’t in his character, and he shed a little light on the kind of thing that can happen on the threshing floor at night with the female workers, especially the ones from the north who have no men with them. The two became friends, and António Mau-Tempo greatly admired the older lad’s serenity, a quality he lacked, for, as we will see later on, he was always itching to be up and off. He had inherited the vagabond tendencies of his grandfather Domingos Mau-Tempo, with the great and praiseworthy difference that he had a naturally sunny temperament, which didn’t mean, however, that he was always laughing and joking. Nevertheless, he had the same tastes and anxieties of any lad his age, and took on the ancient and never resolved question of what separates boys from sparrows, he always spoke his mind and was, on occasions, impetuous, and those qualities will make him a touch impatient and something of a wanderer. He’ll enjoy dances, as his father did in his youth, but will care little for large gatherings. He will be a great teller of tales about things he has either seen or invented, experienced or imagined, and he will possess the supreme art of being able to blur the frontiers between the two. But he will always work hard at acquiring all the rural skills. We’re not reading this future in the palm of his hand, these are simply the elementary facts of a life that contained many other things, including some that appeared not to be promised to his generation.

  António Mau-Tempo did not spend long with the pigs. He left Manuel Espada there and went off to learn skills that the latter, being older, already knew, and at thirteen, he was working with grown men, burning undergrowth, digging ditches, building dams, tasks requiring good strong arms. By the time he was fifteen, he had learned to cut cork, a precious skill at which he became a master, as, to be frank, he did with everything he turned his hand to. When he was still very young, he left his mother and father and traveled to places where his grandfather had left his mark and a few bad memories. But he was so very different from his grandfather that it never occurred to anyone that they could possibly belong to the same family, despite having the same surname. He was very drawn to the sea, he discovered the banks of the river Sado, and walked its whole length, which is no small journey, just to earn a bit more money than the pittance being offered in Monte Lavre. And one day, much later, as we will describe in due course, he will go to France to exchange a few years of life for a little hard currency.

  The latifundio has its pauses, the days are indifferent or so it seems, what day is it today, for example. It’s true that people die and are born just as they did in more remarkable times, hunger still doesn’t always take account of the needs of the stomach, and the heavy workload hasn’t grown much lighter. The biggest changes happen outside, there are more roads and more cars on them, more radios and more time to listen to them, understanding them is another skill entirely, more beers and more fizzy drinks, but when a man lies down at night, in his own bed or on the straw in a field, the pain in his body is just the same, and yet he should consider himself lucky to be employed. There’s nothing much to say about the women, their fate as beasts of burden and bearers of children remains the same.

  However, when one looks at this apparently lifeless swamp, only someone born blind or choosing not to see could fail to notice the watery tremor rising suddenly from the depths to the surface, the result of accumulated tensions in the mud, caught up in a chemical process of making, unmaking and remaking, until the liberated gas explodes. But to notice this, you have to look hard and not say as you pass by, There’s no point hanging around here, let’s go. If we were to go away for a while, distracted by different landscapes and picturesque events, we would notice, on our return, how, contrary to appearances, everything is finally changing. That is what will happen when we leave António Mau-Tempo to his life and return to the thread of the story we began, though all this is merely hearsay, including the story about José Gato and the misfortune that befell him and his companions, as António Mau-Tempo can witness and testify.

  This isn’t one of those tedious tales about the Brazilian bandit Lampião, nor of others nearer to home, such as João Brandão or José do Telhado, who were bad people or, who knows, just wrong-headed. I don’t mean by this that there had never been any shady characters on the latifundio, no bandits who would leave a traveler dead and stripped of everything he had, regardless of how little that was, but the only one I knew of was José Gato, he and his companions, or should I say gang, whose names, if I remember rightly, were Parrilhas, Venta Rachada, Ludgero, Castelo and others whose names I’ve forgotten, well, one can’t remember everything. I’m not even sure they were bandits. Itinerant workers, yes, that’s what they were. If they wanted to work, they would work as hard as anyone else, they weren’t criminals, but one day, it was as if they suddenly got the wind up their tails or something, and they put down their hoes or their axes, went to the overseer or foreman to receive what was owed to them, because no one ever dared to withhold their p
ay, and then they vanished. At first, they went their separate ways, each silent, solitary man for himself, and only later did they get together and form a gang. When I met them, José Gato was already the head of the gang, and I don’t think anyone would have tried to take his place. They stole mainly pigs, of which, it must be said, there was no shortage. They stole in order to eat and also to sell, of course, because a man cannot live only by what he eats. At the time, they had a boat anchored in the Sado river, and that was their slaughterhouse. They slaughtered the animals and placed the meat in the salting trough for times of need. And speaking of the salting trough, they once ran out of salt and were discussing what to do and what not to do, and José Gato, who was a man of very few words indeed, told Parrilhas to go to the saltworks. Normally, José Gato only had to say, Do this, and like the word of God, it was done, but for some reason Parrilhas refused to go, a decision he lived to regret. José Gato snatched off Parrilhas’s hat, threw it in the air, picked up his rifle and blasted the hat to pieces with two shots, then he said to Parrilhas in the quietest of voices, Go and get the salt, and Parrilhas saddled up the donkey and went to get the salt. That was the kind of man José Gato was.

  For anyone living in one of the work camps nearby and who was brave enough, José Gato was the main supplier of pork meat. One day, Venta Rachada turned up, in secret, of course, at the place where I was working, to ask if anyone wanted to buy some meat. I did, as did two of my companions, and we arranged to meet Venta Rachada in a place called Silha dos Pinheiros. We went there, each carrying our coarse linen bag and a little money, and, just in case, those of us who had some money put by left it back at the camp, we didn’t want to go looking for wool and come back shorn. I had fifty mil réis on me, and the others had more or less the same amount. It was pitch-black outside, and the place where we were to meet Venta Rachada was enough to give anyone the creeps, in fact, he was hiding there, waiting, and he played a trick on us by leaping out, pointing his rifle at us and saying, I could rob you of all you have, we all laughed, of course, and I, my heart thumping, managed to say, It would hardly be worth the bother, and then it was Venta Rachada’s turn to laugh and say, Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you, follow me.

  At the time, José Gato was based in the Loureiro hills, near Palma, you probably know the place. It was full of cane apple trees as big as a house and no one ever went there. An abandoned farm laborers’ hut served as their slaughterhouse. They all lived there and moved on only when they noticed any suspicious activity, strangers prowling around, or heard rumors that the guards were closing in. We walked and walked and when we got within sight of the hut, we saw two men on guard, rifles at the ready. Parrilhas gave his name, we went in and found José Gato and the other men playing the mouth organ and dancing the fandango, now I don’t know much about such things, but I thought they danced pretty well, and besides, everyone has a right to enjoy themselves now and then. Looped over one of the beams above the fire were some wires from which hung a large stewpot containing pigs’ innards. José Gato said, So these are our buyers, are they. Venta Rachada said, They are, and the only ones, too. José Gato said, Don’t worry, boys, before we do business, join us for a bite to eat, these were welcome words indeed, because the smell was already beginning to make my mouth water. They had wine, they had everything. To sharpen our appetite, we had some slices of ham and a few glasses of wine, José Gato played the mouth organ and kept an eye on the pot, he was wearing chaps made of donkey skin, with big buttons on them, as was the fashion, the rascal looked just like any other farmer. In one corner of the hut there were various rifles, the gang’s arsenal, one was a five-shot rifle and belonged to Marcelino, but more of that later. We were happily engaged in eating and drinking when suddenly we heard a bell ringing, ting-a-ling, and I must confess that I shuddered, this could all end very badly indeed. José Gato noticed my unease and said, Don’t worry, they’re friends, they’ve come to buy meat. It was Manuel da Revolta, so called because he owned a shop in Monte da Revolta, and I could tell you a few stories about him too, but another time. Anyway, Manuel da Revolta arrived, loaded six pigs onto his cart and carried them off, the next day, of course, he would be doing the rounds of the work camps, selling them, pretending he had slaughtered them himself, even the guards would buy meat from him, and I still don’t know to this day whether the guards were suspicious or whether it simply suited their purposes to say nothing. Then a fishmonger we all knew arrived, he kept us all supplied with fish and tobacco and a few other things that José Gato needed. He loaded one pig onto his bicycle, but left the head behind. Then someone else arrived, without a bell this time, he simply whistled and those on guard responded, that was the arrangement, just in case. He took away two pigs, one slung on either side of his mule, again with no head, the pigs that is, because obviously the mule needed his head to see where he was putting his feet. In the end, there were only two pigs left, lying on a couple of old sacks. A few rashers of bacon were fried and added to the stew, along with the seasonings, onions and so on, and then down it went into our stomachs, and boy, was it good that stew, washed down with a fair bit of wine. Then José Gato said, addressing me, António Mau-Tempo, Right, to business, how much money did you bring with you, and I said, I’ve brought fifty escudos, that’s all I’ve got. Said José Gato, It’s not a lot, but you won’t leave empty-handed, and he sliced a pig in two, a piece weighing four and a half or five arrobas, Open your bag, but first he made sure to take the money and slip it into his pocket. It was the same with the others, to all of whom he said, Not a word to anyone, if you tell a soul, you’ll live to regret it, and so we left, laden down with meat, and his warnings and threats stood us in good stead, because it turned out later that the pigs had been stolen from the very estate we were working on. The overseer bombarded us with questions, but all three of us kept our word. I dug a hole in the ground, lined it with cork, put in the meat and covered it with a cloth, having first sliced it up and salted it. It kept really well, too, and we had meat for a good long time.

  That’s just one story. Had it been João Brandão, I’m not sure how it would have turned out, but the man I dealt with was José Gato, with someone else it might have been different. Later, the gang moved to Vale de Reis, you city folk just can’t imagine how wild it is around there, grottoes and caves and evil-looking swamps, no one else would go anywhere near, not even the guards, they didn’t dare. The gang set up camp there, and they had a warning system in Monte da Revolta, whenever the guards appeared, Manuel da Revolta’s mother would stick a pole up the chimney with a rag tied on top, and that was the sign. One of the gang always kept an eye on that chimney, and as soon as he saw that old rag, he would warn the others and they would all vanish, disappear without trace. The guards never caught any of them. Those of us who knew the signal, when we were out in the fields working, we’d say, Something’s up.

  Let me tell you now about Marcelino. He was the overseer in Vale de Reis and owned a famous rifle that the boss had bought him so that he could shoot any member of José Gato’s gang he caught stealing. But before I tell you about that, I want to tell you another story about a rifle. Once, when Marcelino was out riding, José Gato ambushed him and, with his gun pointing straight at him, said mockingly, which was very much his style, Just open your arms nice and wide and I’ll take the rifle, and Marcelino had no alternative but to do as asked, however much it galled him. José Gato was a small man, but he had a very big heart. Then it was the turn of the five-shot rifle, you know how it is, you start telling one story and other stories get in the way. Marcelino was riding along a path, no one bothered to clear the paths then, they were too busy cutting cork and slicing it up into small pieces, so the undergrowth was really thick. Marcelino was riding proudly along with his five-shot rifle loaded with five cartridges, thinking, If anyone tries to attack me now, that’ll be their goose well and truly cooked, but José Gato was hiding behind a slender holm oak, aiming straight at him, Give me that rifle, I need it, and off he
went. Later, the boss said to Marcelino, I’ll buy you a carbine, I don’t want you being made to look a fool, and Marcelino replied tartly, I don’t want a carbine, from now on, it’ll be just me and my stick, that’s the best way to keep watch.

  Marcelino had no luck at all with rifles. He even lost the one he owned himself and kept at home. The swineherd’s dogs started barking, they could smell that something was up, and the swineherd went to Marcelino and said, The dogs are barking, there’s someone trying to steal the pigs. Marcelino immediately picked up his rifle and his cartridge box and stood there guarding the pigs. Now and then he fired a shot, and José Gato’s men, hiding in the bushes, knew that these shots were intended for them and responded, although without wasting much ammunition. And where was José Gato all this time, why, up on the roof, onto which he had climbed unnoticed and where he remained all night, crouched like a lizard so that no one would spot him, he was nothing if not bold. Come the morning, at daybreak or shortly afterward, just as it was beginning to grow light, and when any shots from the other side had long since ceased, Marcelino said, They must have run away, I’ll just go home and have my breakfast, I’ll be back in a jiffy. And the swineherd, whose own appetite was stirred by those words, thought, Yes, I’ll go and have a bite to eat as well, why not. With his enemies gone, José Gato jumped down from the roof, ah, I forgot to mention that Marcelino had left his rifle inside the swineherd’s hut, anyway, José Gato jumped down from the roof, took the rifle and the swineherd’s new boots and a blanket, perhaps they were short of those as well, and meanwhile, his companions, there were five of them at the time, grabbed a pig each and carried them off into the undergrowth. Sows are like us, they have a joint just here, and if you cut it, they can’t move, and that’s what happened with these, only about a hundred and fifty yards from the pen, if that. And with someone keeping watch all the time. The boars noticed the sows were missing, but went looking for them far away, down the road, and none of them thought of looking closer to home. That night, José Gato went to fetch the sows, and so Marcelino’s third rifle was lost.