Land of Black Clay

by Jose Louzeiro

  “Beautiful!” said Luís, both startled and happy.

  Janaína walked toward the kitchen in a manner that showed herself off, which her husband liked. She poured wine into some glasses and offered him one, then sat down at the table. Luís raised his glass; his wife did likewise.

  “Know what’s missing? A necklace. One of those real pretty ones.”

  Janaína perched herself in her husband’s lap. They kissed.

  “If we move to João Pessoa, I could work to help with expenses.”

  “Not necessary. I’ll work hard myself.”

  Janaína ran her fingers through her husband’s hair; they went back to kissing. Never had the night been so romantic in that shack.

  They sat out in the yard, admiring the moon and making plans. Janaína talked and laughed; Luís offered her more wine.

  “One more glass and I’ll be smashed!”

  “Then we’ll go off to bed, just like on our wedding day.”

  “I want to move to a place with sidewalks. On a night like this, we could walk about without ruining our shoes.”

  “That’s the way it’s gonna be. I’ll get a job in business. I’m sure I’d be a good salesman.”

  “That’s the way I like to see you—happy and eager. Do you remember our dreams?”

  “A farm with a thousand turkeys. A month before Christmas I was going to sell the critters. We didn’t have enough money even to begin, but good ideas—those we had aplenty.”

  They laughed. Janaína seemed rather chatty. Luís took her hands and they danced on the lawn.

  As dawn drew near, the two were in bed. Janaína wrapped her husband in her strong brown arms and hugged him, her long hair draped over Luís’s face; the bed creaked. As the first birds began to chirp they were dozing. Luís was tired and would have remained in bed all morning long had Janaína not gotten up and roused him. As he got up he noticed her dress on the floor and her shoes in the middle of the room. He put on his shoes and went to the kitchen, Jeruza following. He put the child in a chair and lit the stove. Janaína came in to make coffee.

  “I forgot the time.”

  They began to laugh. In moments the coffee was ready. Luís washed his face, combed his hair, and put on his traveling jacket.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Sapé.”

  “Oh . . . did you make some appointment there?”

  “Jorge Elias asked me to return.”

  They drank their coffee in silence. Janaína’s happiness had evaporated. Luís kissed his daughter and looked at his wife.

  “Don’t worry. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll be back.”

  He took his gun out of its case, put it in an old holster, adjusted the belt, and let his jacket drape over the weapon. He adjusted the knapsack’s straps and went off. Janaína and her daughter lingered in the doorway, watching him recede down the dusty, deserted road.

  The bus groaned along in first gear, rocking and jolting over potholes. Luís was thinking back to conversations with his companions in the union. Someone had thought it odd that just two of Colonel Barros’s men—Vinte e Cinco and Bezouro—should have been at the rally trying to cause trouble, strutting around in the crowd as if they owned the place. Did the reporter know about Vinte e Cinco’s qualities? As soon as he had time, he’d be sure to fill him in. He touched his gun with his elbow and felt secure. Thenceforth the path would be much clearer. All he needed was to know where Vinte e Cinco was living and hang around in the vicinity like someone who didn’t want anything. Would Vinte e Cinco still remember the husband who’d gone to the bunkhouse to complain, the other roughnecks laughing? It would be a long conversation this time. Vinte e Cinco would have to resolve a doubt: who was Jeruza’s father? As soon as he remembered Janaína, he’d loosen his tongue. What should he fear from a man who had not had the courage to act right then, nor the next day, nor even years later? “Get out of here, you shit,” Vinte e Cinco would say, cocky and ponderous in his gait, dangling talon-like hands, his straight hair falling from one side of his forehead, his eyes narrow and evil, nailed beneath fat eyelids as if he’d just awakened.

  Although he’d never asked Janaína, he had heard parts of the story from others, and he could imagine what Vinte e Cinco had done. He obsessed over the imagined details. The first night, the screams. Gangsters who stood watch, guffawing. Each one doubtless would describe it to the others to draw out the conversation. He could hear Ticuca repeating Janaína’s pleas: “Oh, no! No. For the love of God.” The woman’s screams and Vinte e Cinco’s blows. Janaína being beaten into submission. Later the trembling. Ticuca mockingly mimicking her, the other gangsters laughing. “The little woman loves his dick!” He finished up, spitting into a corner.

  The second night also played itself out in his mind. Janaína no longer complained. She acted too quiet, as though she had revenge secretly in mind. Vinte e Cinco didn’t worry about it. He wanted the other gangsters to see, to make sure they knew about his sexual prowess. The bunkhouse’s windows were open, the lights ablaze. Vinte e Cinco, exhausted, lay on an old sofa; Janaína walked around nude. The gangsters leaned out a window. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Janaína drew up next to Vinte e Cinco, her face covered with red scratches, and turned around. Heavy hands fell on her shoulders; she let herself be penetrated, trembled, yelled out. Janaína shook, which the gangsters in the window found amusing.

  Luís didn’t know how the binge had ended. There was a lot of silence on the subject. People stared at the ground as if they wished to avoid it. He wanted to yell for them to talk. Would he have the courage to listen, or should he just focus on the gangsters? Ticuca, Bezouro, Pamonha and the young Beto: they were his objective. He’d get each one of them. But the kickoff had to be Vinte e Cinco. Maybe he’d tell him how the tale ended, huh? Who better than he to know what happened. His plan was ready.

  He got out of the bus, threading himself through a crowd of people carrying baskets and boxes and young men selling candy and fruit. The day was luminous and hot; trucks full of sugarcane drove by; the windows of nearby houses were open but empty. Luís made his way to João Pessoa Square, where there was more activity. He stopped near some men who were conversing.

  “Either the judge reconvenes the trial today or he’s calling it quits.”

  “If I were him, I’d wait for reinforcements from the capital,” said the oldest, a rather portly man. “To rely on those cop friends of Chief Cordeiro is suicide.”

  “What about the investigations? And the trials?” asked a third. “I think Judge Fernandes is letting himself get carried away by emotion. A judge just can’t behave that way.”

  Luís walked away. In front of the house he could hear the tapping of a typewriter. The door opened.

  “What happened?”

  “By the time I realized I was being ungrateful, I had already got home. So I decided to come back and be a soldier for the distinguished judge.”

  “And Janaína?”

  “Knowing I’m here, she’s put her worries aside.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Whatever’s necessary. I know the trial’s today.”

  “Just look at the story I’ve written.”

  Atop a table buried under books and papers lay a copy of The Nation, the story and accompanying photos taking up two pages. Elias’s byline appeared in bold face.

  “Wow! You had a lot to say!”

  “I didn’t tell even the half of it.”

  “When Colonel Barros reads this he’s not gonna like it.”

  “It’s not meant to be liked. Want to give me a hand here?”

  Luís shook his head in the affirmative.

  “Let’s go talk with the judge.”

  Judge Fernandes was reading papers, bandages covering his wounds. A radio was playing softly. To his side, Dr. Jansen sat reading the state capital newspapers in an armchair.

  “Excuse me. This man, Judge Fernandes, is my friend Luís. He got me out of
a jam.”

  The judge shook Luís’s hand, as did the doctor.

  “You once did us a great service, sir,” said Luís.

  “When?”

  “You ruled for us in a dispute over the plot of land we own out there by Alvorada Plantation.”

  Judge Fernandes let down his reserve a bit and smiled.

  “Did they stop bothering you?”

  “It let up, but I can’t find work. So I thought I’d join up with you and my friend Jorge Elias.”

  “That’s quite a thought, Luís. What about your family?”

  “Everything’s fine over there. My place is here, Our Lady willing.”

  “Then welcome. Jorge will fix you up with room and board.”

  The judge opened a telegram and read it: “Burning’s too good for one who rules in favor of communists over a decent citizen.”

  “As you can see, it’s not going to be easy.”

  “What about police reinforcements?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “It’s all flour from the same sack, Odilon!” declared Dr. Jansen, interrupting his reading of the newspapers. “If it were in their interest, half the military police would be occupying Sapé’s streets and squares, just like in the good old days of the dictatorship.”

  “Aren’t we still in a dictatorship by chance?”

  “But now it’s the time of so-called ‘political openness.’ They’re giving up the game; they can’t stand the heat.”

  “With the police or without, I’ll be in court at one o’clock to reopen Teixeira’s case. At the same time I’ll be issuing an order for Chief Cordeiro to get details on the inquiry into the deaths of Fazendeiro and Fuba. It’s the next step.”

  “Who’s the principal implicated in Teixeira’s case?” I asked.

  Judge Fernandes smiled mirthlessly.

  “Noé Batista, Elizabeth’s father. He appears to be the one who organized the murder. He’s the mastermind.”

  “That’s the same as accusing the Lowland Group. Monsignor Eugênio Martinho is going to fly off the handle when he hears about it,” warned Dr. Jansen.

  “That’s right, Judge Fernandes. It’ll be the lead of my next story. Batista plotted the death of his own son-in-law!” I said jocularly.

  Chapter 16

  At one o’clock, when we arrived at the courthouse, we found a multitude circling the building; inside, the spectators’ chairs were all occupied. There were few uniformed police, just five or six. Almeida and Father Juliano broke a path for our car to pass through. People clapped their hands. We went in via a side door that opened onto Gentil Lins Street. The atmosphere was tense. Dr. Jansen was worried about the judge’s injuries and made sure that people made way for him to pass unhindered. The judge stopped in his chambers to look over some files.

  “I’m awfully frightened, judge,” said Dona Inês, his secretary.

  “Don’t worry,” said the judge as he sifted through the papers, putting some in his briefcase. “Have the lawyers arrived? What about the prosecutor?”

  “Romão’s on his way. He called. The defense team has been here since noon. Carlos Antunes Magalhães and Joelmir Soares. Him I didn’t like.”

  “And the police, Dona Inês?”

  “Don’t know, Dr. Jansen. That’s what scares me. The police chief was here and he said there’d be enough uniformed officers. The others will be in plainclothes, according to him.”

  “There are only six,” commented the judge with an ironic smile.

  I took notes. Luís sat in a chair, half-lost in an environment that was foreign to him. Judge Fernandes got his robe out of a closet and put it on, helped by me and his secretary. He walked out of the room.

  “Luís, I’m going to try to sit as close to the jurors as I can. Try to do the same. It’s the best place to help protect the judge in case of emergency.”

  “You can bet on it!” he said confidently.

  When we took our places, the courtroom had filled. At the bench, in all his majesty, Judge Fernandes. He rapped his wooden gavel sharply, ordering silence. To his side, but lower, were the prosecutor José de Assis Romão and his assistant, the lawyer-criminalist Walfredo Colares; on the other side were Joelmir Soares and Carlos Antunes Magalhães.

  “Court is now in session. We will now resume the deliberations interrupted some days ago when I was shot in this very room, trying to enforce the rule of law and to punish those who this trial is beginning to disclose as responsible for the death of the farmworker and union leader João Pedro Teixeira, assassinated in an ambush April 2, 1962, on the Café do Vento road in this county. I yield the floor to the learned prosecutor.”

  Romão rose. He was dark-skinned, of medium height, and about forty years old. He adjusted his glasses, looked at the jurors and the two defense lawyers, and waited for a woman to sit down.

  “I call defendant Noé Batista, father of Elizabeth Teixeira, claimed by sworn testimony to be the mastermind of the crime.”

  The prosecutor continued to survey the back of the room as others’ eyes followed his. A thin, tall, bald man, sixty years old more or less, appeared, followed by two police officers.

  “Distinguished members of the jury,” continued the prosecutor. “As his honor the judge stated, we are here to take up once again the work begun the other day and interrupted by disorderly people who had the audacity to invade this sanctum. Brazen are they who act by force of arms. The intended establishment of a parallel power that defies constitutional authority cannot be tolerated in Sapé or in the other townships of the Paraíban Jungle Zone. To fire on a judge exercising his duty is an attempt to eviscerate the law and to defile the robes of the judiciary. But let the provokers be certain that justice exists; the judicial power is one of the components of the great constitutional power and neither may nor should be disdained. Those who tried to install a regime that would turn a blind eye to acts of intolerance during the dictatorship’s darkest days have been mistaken. Justice, as people say, moves slowly but surely. And when the justice of humans is insufficient to smooth over differences, there is divine justice, which gazes down on all alike, rising above complaints and lamentations.

  “João Pedro Teixeira was killed while returning home, bringing notepads and textbooks for his children. The school season was about to begin again. He wanted to see his children coming and going from school, each day with a new lesson, each day learning more about love, solidarity, and adaptation to society. One of the bullets that struck him perforated those books and pads. So went the last moments of that farmworker, condemned to death because he wanted other farmworkers to learn their rights and their duties. Those responsible for Teixeira’s death are many. Five, six, perhaps an entire organization: it is difficult to say how many at this juncture. One thing we do know for certain: here, before us, is Noé Batista, a small businessman, father of many sons and daughters; father of Elizabeth who married Pedro and now is a widow. There was sworn testimony, as I said, that Batista was the mastermind of this barbaric crime, riven with malevolent and astonishing connotations. This man belonged to and no doubt still belongs to the faction known as the Lowland Group, which in turn operates the institution whose sinister title is the Syndicate of Death. Before yielding to Mr. Colares, I would like to recall a detail that well illustrates the hate Batista held for Teixeira. That item is the following: the death of the union leader, one of the creators of the Paraíban Farmworkers’ League, was plotted in a meeting of Batista’s friends, seated around a table that Teixeira had bought, in the house that Batista had given to Elizabeth and later took back. Around that table, the very symbol of the Last Supper, Batista and his compatriots decided that Pedro would be assassinated in an ambush.”

  “Your Honor,” said Soares, “the learned prosecutor is weaving a pure fantasy. He is trying to transform Batista into a villain and Teixeira into a lamb. This is unacceptable stereotyping . . . .”

  “Overruled, counsel. Let the prosecutor continue.”

  �
�I’m nearing the end of my words. Your Honor, I remind the court that it is not by violence that we shall progress. Society will reach greater heights only when it provides social justice, when the farmworker is treated with dignity and those who sew the land reap its rewards as well. It will not be by invading courtrooms and shooting at judges, or by assassinating union leaders and priests, that this country will find its way.”

  Romão sat down. The judge turned the floor over to Colares—a criminalist and a tall, thin man with an ingenuous air about him. He paced from one side to another, slowly. He rested his hands on the wooden bar that separated him from the jury box.

  “Distinguished members of the jury, what we have just heard is a civics lesson given by one of the masters of the law. He spoke to us about the objective of work in society. Each one, with his or her contribution, makes the country stronger and healthier. This presupposes, therefore, that the riches generated by the workers must be shared with them. But I do not intend to reflect on the important words of the learned prosecutor, if only because they were perfectly clear by themselves. Nobody could have failed to understand them. My role, in this case, is to set forth the details, so as to show chronologically how Batista, as has already been said, plotted from the beginning the death of Teixeira. And why did he do this? The learned prosecutor reminded us that the case finds itself replete with malevolent and surprising connotations. Why so? What might this man have done that would cause us such alarm?

  “The history of Teixeira in Batista’s family begins with Elizabeth’s father’s giving up his attempts to make her his sidekick and eventual successor. When one fine day Elizabeth announced she would marry Teixeira, Batista felt defeated in front of the whole world. His plans, his aspirations, the desire to expand—all had lost any meaning for him. But why? Because Teixeira was black and Batista would not stand for his daughter being married to a black man. That was the first problem. Second problem: Teixeira was involved in union activities and Batista’s own workers were beginning to listen to him and follow him. And what did this black man, dissatisfied with working conditions in the fields, want? He wanted, at a minimum, for peasants to earn the same as urban workers. He demanded greater salaries, social assistance, school for all, respect for women, the elderly, and children. He wanted the schools on plantation lands to function. In the end, Pedro Teixeira was proposing a social revolution: everyone living well and satisfied with their working conditions. That was enough for Batista to grow closer to the members of the Lowland Group, whereupon it was decided that Pedro should die. The assassination conspiracy brought together Batista, Colonel Aguinaldo Vilar Barros, and the brothers Wenceslau and Júlio Ribeiro Martinho. Police officers Antônio Alexandre and Francisco Pedro da Silva participated in the ambush that took place on the Café do Vento road. That is all I have to say for now.”