Captains of the Sands

by Jorge Amado

  He shoves the rope under his mattress, goes back to the cane field. Jeremias was taken to the hole. The beadles are counting the boys now. Ranulfo and Campos have gone off after Agostinho, who went over the wall during the confusion of the fight. The beadle Fausto has a cut on his shoulder and has gone to the infirmary. The director is among them, his eyes flashing with rage. A beadle counts the boys. He asks Pedro Bala:

  “Where were you hiding?”

  “I left so I wouldn’t get mixed up in it.”

  The beadle looks at him suspiciously, but goes on.

  Ranulfo and Campos come back with Agostinho. The runaway is beaten in front of everybody. Then the director says:

  “Put him in the hole.”

  “Jeremias is already there,” Ranulfo says.

  “Put them both in. They can talk that way…”

  Pedro Bala has a shudder. How are both of them going to fit into the small space of the hole?

  That night vigilance is tight, he doesn’t try anything. The boys gnash their teeth with rage.

  Two nights later, after the beadle Fausto had already retired to his partitioned room for a long time and they were all asleep, Pedro Bala got up, took the rope from under his mattress. His bed was beside a window. He opened it. He tied the rope to one of the hammock hooks there were on the wall. He let the rope fall out the window. It was short. There was still a long way to go. He pulled it up. He tried to make as little noise as possible, but even so, one of his neighbors woke up:

  “Are you running away?”

  That one didn’t have a good reputation. He was in the habit of squealing. That’s exactly why he’d been put next to Pedro Bala. Bullet grabbed his knife, showed it to him:

  “Look, stooly, try to sleep. If you so much as peep I’ll cut your throat, I swear as I’m Pedro Bala. And if you say anything after I’ve gone…Have you heard tell of the Captains of the Sands?”

  “I have.”

  “Well, they’ll get even for me.”

  He lays the knife within reach. He pulls up the rope all the way, ties the sheet to it at one end with one of the knots God’s-Love had taught him. He threatens the boy once more, tosses the rope out, puts his body out the window, starts his descent. Halfway down he already hears the squealer’s shouts. He lets himself slide down the rope, leaps to the ground. The drop is long, but he takes off running. He jumps over the wall then to avoid the police dogs that are loose. He runs down the road. He has a few minutes head start. The time for the beadles to get dressed and come out after him, turning the dogs out too. Pedro Bala puts the knife between his teeth, takes off his clothes. In that way the dogs won’t know him by the scent. And, naked, in the cold dawn, he starts running toward the sunlight, toward freedom.

  The Professor reads the headline in the Jornal da Tarde:

  LEADER OF CAPTAINS OF THE SANDS MANAGES ESCAPE FROM REFORMATORY

  It carried a long interview with the furious director. The whole warehouse laughs. Even Father José Pedro, who’s with them, laughs in a cackle, as if he were one of the Captains of the Sands.

  ORPHANAGE

  A month of Orphanage was enough to kill Dora’s joy and health. She’d been born on the hilltop, a childhood of running about the hill. Then the freedom of the streets of the city, the adventurous life of the Captains of the Sands. She wasn’t a hothouse flower. She loved the sunlight, the streets, freedom.

  They’d made two braids out of her hair, tied it with ribbons. Pink ribbons. They gave her a dress of blue cloth, an apron of a darker blue. They made her attend classes with girls five or six years old. The food was bad, there was also punishment. Fasting, losing play period. A fever came over her, she was in the infirmary. When she got out she was skinny. She still had a fever, but she didn’t say anything because she hated the silence of the infirmary, where the sunlight never entered and all hours seemed like the dying hour of sunset. When she could, she got close to the fence because sometimes she spotted Professor or Big João, who made their rounds out there. One day they passed her a note. Pedro Bala had escaped from the Reformatory. He would come get her out of there. She didn’t even feel the fever she had.

  They told her in another note that the Professor wrote and threw to her for her to arrange some means of going to the infirmary. But it wasn’t necessary, because a Sister noticed that her cheeks were flushed. She put her hand on her face:

  “You’re burning with fever.”

  It was always sunset in the infirmary. It was like an anteroom to the tomb, with the heavy curtains that stopped the light from entering. The doctor who saw her shook his head sadly.

  But the light came in with them. How thin Pedro Bala is, Dora thought when he came up by her side. Big João, Cat, Professor were with him. Professor showed his knife to the Sister, who smothered a cry. The girl who had chickenpox in the other bed was shivering under the sheets. Dora was burning with fever, she could barely stand. The Sister murmured:

  “She’s very sick…”

  Dora answered:

  “I’m coming, Pedro.”

  They went out through the door. Dry Gulch was holding the big dog by the collar. They’d brought along a piece of meat too. Cat opened the gate. On the street, he said:

  “Duck soup…”

  Professor warned:

  “Let’s get out of here before they give the alarm.”

  They ran down a hillside. Dora didn’t feel the fever because she was going along with Pedro Bala. He was holding her hand.

  Dry Gulch brought up the rear, his hand on his knife, a smile on his somber face.

  NIGHT OF GREAT PEACE

  The Captains of the Sands look at little mother Dora, little sister Dora, Dora, sweetheart, Professor sees Dora, his beloved. The Captains of the Sands look in silence. The mãe-de-santo Don’Aninha says a strong prayer so that the fever that’s eating Dora will disappear. With a branch of elder she orders the fever to go away. Dora’s feverish eyes are smiling. It seems that the great peace of the Bahia night is in her eyes too.

  The Captains of the Sands look in silence at their mother, sister, and sweetheart. No sooner had they got her back than fever laid her low. Where is her joy, because she can’t play hide-and-seek with her younger children, can’t go into the streets with her black, white, and mulatto brothers? Where is the joy in her eyes? Only a great peace, the great peace of the night. Because Pedro Bala squeezes her hand with warmth.

  The peace of the Bahia night is in the heart of the Captains of the Sands. They tremble with the fear of losing Dora. But the great peace of the night is in her eyes. Eyes that softly close while the priestess Aninha banishes the fever that’s devouring her.

  The peace of the night envelops the warehouse.

  DORA, WIFE

  The dog barks at the moon on the sand. Legless leaves the warehouse, takes Don’Aninha across the sands. She said the fever wouldn’t be long in leaving. Lollipop goes off too, goes to get Father José Pedro. He has faith in the priest, he might know a cure.

  Inside the warehouse, the Captains of the Sands are quiet. Dora asked them to go to bed. They lay down on the ground, but few of them are sleeping. In the immense peace of the night they’re thinking about the fever that’s consuming Dora. She kissed Zé Ferret, told him to go to sleep. He doesn’t understand too well. He knows that she’s ill, but he doesn’t think for a moment that she’ll abandon him. But the Captains of the Sands are afraid of that happening. Then they will be without a mother once again, without a sister, without a sweetheart.

  Now only Big João and Pedro Bala are by her side. The black boy smiles, but Dora knows his smile is forced, it’s a smile to cheer her up, a smile forcibly pulled out of the sadness that the black boy feels. Pedro Bala holds her hand. Farther off, the Professor is doubled over, his head buried in his hands.

  Dora says:

  “Pedro?”

  “What is it?”

  “Come closer.”

  He goes over. His voice is just a thread. Pedro speaks with love:<
br />
  “Do you want something?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “You know I do…”

  “Lay down here.”

  Pedro lies down beside her. Big João goes away, goes over by Professor. But they don’t talk, they stay given over to their sadness. But it’s a night of peace that envelops the warehouse. And the peace of the night is in Dora’s eyes too.

  “Closer…”

  He moves closer, their bodies are together. She takes his hand, brings it to her breast. It’s burning with fever. Pedro’s hand is on her young girl’s breast. She makes him stroke it, says:

  “Do you know that I’m a woman now?”

  His hand is resting on her breast, their bodies together. A great peace in her eyes:

  “It was at the Orphanage…Now I can be your wife.”

  He looks at her, startled:

  “No, you’re sick…”

  “Before I die. Come…”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Not if you come to me.”

  They embrace. The desire is abrupt and terrible. Pedro doesn’t want to hurt her, but she doesn’t show any signs of pain. A great peace in all her being.

  “You’re mine now,” he says with an agitated voice.

  She doesn’t seem to feel the pain of possession. Her face lighted by the fever swells with joy. Now the peace is only from the night, joy is with Dora. Their bodies come apart. Dora murmurs:

  “It’s good…I’m your wife.”

  He kisses her. Peace returns to her face. She looks at Pedro Bala with love.

  “Now I’m going to sleep,” she says.

  He lies down beside her, grasps her burning hand. Wife.

  The peace of the night envelops husband and wife. Love is always sweet and good, even when death is near. Their bodies no longer sway in the rhythm of love. But in the hearts of the two children there’s no more fear. Only peace, the peace of the Bahia night.

  In the early morning, Pedro puts his hand on Dora’s forehead. Cold. She hasn’t any pulse, her heart is no longer beating. His cry cuts through the warehouse, awakens the boys. Big João looks at her with wide-open eyes. He says to Pedro Bala:

  “You shouldn’t have done it…”

  “She was the one who wanted to,” he explains, and goes out so as not to burst into sobs.

  Professor comes over, stands looking. He doesn’t have the courage to touch her body. But he feels that for him life in the warehouse is over, there’s nothing left for him to do there. Lollipop comes in with Father José Pedro. The priest takes Dora’s pulse, puts his hand on her head:

  “She’s dead.”

  He starts a prayer. And almost all of them pray aloud:

  “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

  Pedro Bala remembers the prayers at night in the Reformatory. He hunches his shoulders, covers his ears. He turns, looks at Dora’s body. Lollipop has put a purple flower between her fingers. Pedro Bala breaks into sobs.

  The mãe-de-santo Don’Aninha has come, God’s-Love has come too. Pedro Bala doesn’t take part in the conversation. Aninha says:

  “She was like a shadow in this life. She became a saint in the other. Zumbi of Palmares is a saint in halfbreed candomblés, Rosa Palmeirão too. Brave men and women become saints for blacks…”

  “She was like a shadow…” Big João repeats.

  She was like a shadow for all of them, a happening that had no explanation. Except for Pedro Bala, who had her. Except for Professor, who loved her.

  Father José Pedro speaks:

  “She’s gone to heaven, she had no sins. She didn’t know what sin was…”

  Lollipop prays. God’s-Love knows what they expect of him. To take the body in his sloop and throw it into the sea, beyond the old fort. How can a funeral leave from the warehouse? It’s hard to explain all that to Father José Pedro. Legless does it in a hurried voice. The priest is horrified at first. It’s a sin, he can’t consent to a sin. But he consents, he won’t tell where the Captains of the Sands live. Pedro Bala doesn’t say anything.

  The peace of night is all around. In Dora’s dead eyes, the eyes of a mother, a sister, a sweetheart, and a wife, there is a great peace. Some of the boys are weeping. Dry Gulch and Big João will carry the body. But, facing it, Dry Gulch can’t reach out his hands, Big João is crying like a woman.

  Don’Aninha wraps her in a white shawl:

  “She’s going to Iemanjá,” she says. “She’s going to become a saint too…”

  But no one can carry the body. Because Pedro Bala is hugging it, won’t let go of it. Professor calls to him:

  “Let go. I loved her too. Now…”

  They carry her into the peace of the night, into the mystery of the sea. The priest prays, it’s a strange procession that goes through the night to God’s-Love’s sloop. From the sands, Pedro Bala watches the sloop as it goes away. He bites his hands, stretches out his arms.

  They go back into the warehouse. The white sail of the sloop is lost at sea. The moon lights up the sands, the stars are both in the sky and in the sea. There is peace in the night. A peace that comes from Dora’s eyes.

  LIKE A STAR WITH BLOND HAIR

  On the waterfront of Bahia, they say that when a brave man dies, he becomes a star in the sky. That’s how it was with Zumbi, with Lucas da Feira, with Beetle, all brave black men. But there was never a case of a woman, brave as she might be, becoming a star after death. Some, like Rosa Palmeirão, like Maria Cabaçu, became saints in halfbreed candomblés. None of them ever became a star.

  Pedro Bala jumps into the water. He can’t stay in the warehouse, amidst the sobbing and laments. He wants to go with Dora, join her in Iemanjá’s Lands of the Endless Way. He keeps swimming forward. He’s following the wake of God’s-Love’s sloop. He swims, keeps on swimming. He sees Dora before him, Dora, his wife, her arms out to him. He swims until he has no more strength. He floats then, his eyes turned up to the stars and the great yellow moon in the sky. What does dying matter when we’re going in search of the beloved, when love awaits us?

  What does it matter either that astonomers say that it was a comet that passed over Bahia that night? What Pedro Bala saw was Dora, changed into a star, going to heaven. She was braver than all women, braver than Rosa Palmeirão, than Maria Cabaçu. So brave that, before dying, while still a girl, she gave herself to his love. That’s why she became a star in the sky. A star with long, blond hair, a star like none other ever in the Bahia night of peace.

  Happiness lights up Pedro Bala’s face. The peace of the night came for him too. Because now he knows that she will shine for him among a thousand stars in the unmatched sky of the black city.

  God’s-Love’s sloop picks him up.

  SONG OF BAHIA, SONG OF FREEDOM

  VOCATIONS

  Not much time had passed since Dora’s death, the image of her presence, so swift and yet making such a mark, of her death, too, still filled the warehouse nights with visions. Some, when they came in, would still look toward the corner where she used to sit alongside Professor and Big João. Still with the hope of finding her there. It had been something without explanation. It had been something completely unexpected in their lives, the appearance of a mother, a sister. Reason for them to look for still in spite of having seen God’s-Love take her away in his sloop to the bottom of the sea. Only Pedro Bala didn’t look for her in the warehouse. He looked for her in the sky where there were so many stars, a star with long, blond hair.

  One day Professor came into the warehouse and didn’t light his candle, didn’t open a story book, didn’t chat. For him that whole life had ended, ever since Dora had been carried off by fever. When he’d seen the warehouse fill up with her presence. For Professor, everything had a new meaning. The warehouse was like the frame of a picture: now the blond hair falling over Cat, who saw his mother. Now the lips that kissed Zé Ferret to put him to sleep. Or the voice that sang lullabies. Also proud smiles for Dry Gulch’s bravery, as if she w
ere a fearless backlands mulatto woman. Or her entrance into the warehouse, hair flying, her face all laughter, back from the day’s adventure on the streets of the city. Or eyes full of love, fever burning her face, hands calling her beloved for the first and last possession. Now the Professor looks upon the warehouse as a frame without a picture. Useless. For him it had ceased having meaning or had too terrible a meaning. He’d changed a great deal in those months after Dora’s death, he went about silently, his face serious, and he struck up a relationship with that gentleman who once on the Rua Chile had chatted with him, given him a cigarette holder and his address.

  That night, Professor didn’t light a candle, didn’t open a story book. He kept silent when Big João came over beside him. He was gathering his belongings in a bundle. They were almost all books. Big João was looking at him, not saying anything, but he understood a lot, even if everybody said there was no bigger black boob than Big João the black boy. But when Pedro Bala arrived and sat down beside him too and offered him a cigarette, Professor spoke:

  “I’m going away, Bullet…”

  “Where to, buddy?”

  Professor looked at the warehouse, the boys going about, laughing, moving among the rats like shadows:

  “What’s this life going to get us? Just a beating at the police station when they catch us. Everybody says it might change someday…Father José Pedro, João de Adão, even you. Now I’m going to change mine…”

  Pedro Bala didn’t say anything, but the question was in his eyes. Big João didn’t ask anything, he understood it all.

  “I’m going to study with a painter in Rio. Dr. Dantas, the one with the cigarette holder, wrote to him, sent him some of my sketches. He sent word to send me down…Someday I’m going to show what our life was like…I’m going to paint everybody’s picture…You talked about it once, remember? Well, I’m going to do it…”