impersonality in a light grip, as if he knew that it would all drain
off into the ground the moment he became himself again. That
most extreme individuality he had attained on the hilltop could
only have been a spasm of this blind totality in which he now
moved forward. Lightened by fatigue he moved along without
feeling his feet touch the ground, keeping as his only point of
reference the neat house which kept getting bigger, bigger, and
bigger. It stood out clearly in that clearness of the air around it,
and that must have been the thing, intangible as it was, that was
drawing the man to that place.
As soon as he saw that the dogs, now restless, had sensed his
presence, he ducked behind a tree to look things over. By
pushing aside some branches he was able to take in the whole
aspect of the house, now completely visible. What confused him
was the fact that much larger than the house was the ant on
the leaf next to his spying eye-an instantaneous and reddish
equestrian statue framing his vision. Martim shook his head
several times until he freed himself of the size the monstrous ant
had taken on.
The upper story of the house did not correspond to the
greater extension of the ground floor but stood up like a bulky
tower. Martim had developed a craving for towers in his previous
life and now he felt a great satisfaction. Beds of daisies about the
house formed wavy yellow clouds in his tired eyes.
But if the house gained in clearness from his approach, it lost
( 4 9 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
the unity it had possessed from a distance. And from behind the
tree the man's eyes were incapable of uniting into one whole the
lack of logic of what he was looking at: a shed with a tile roof,
windows behind which lay things that simple calculation could
not reveal, doors half-opened so that all he could see were the
shadows made safe by distance, fences enclosing fields that
would not have been fields had it not been for the arbitrary
fences. It was obvious that all of this was coming out little by
little, getting bigger thanks to need or fantasy. It was a poor and
pretentious place. He liked it immediately.
Realizing that it would be suspect for him to be hiding
behind a tree the man finally came out. Without knowing what
he was doing, he held out his arms a little to show that he was
unarmed. And as he advanced-greeted by the dogs, now barking furiously-he perceived that the hazy figure in the shed was
.
moving.
Near him now, however, was the man sitting on the ground
under the tree. The man was eating, and the smell of his cold
lunch nauseated Martim a little because of his hunger. His face
became pleading, timid, and lowly like a face that implores. The
smell was strong as it reached his nostrils, and he was so
overcome that he almost vomited; he needed food so much. But
his body took on a new impulse; he got through the difficult
steps, and soon he was standing in front of the man, looking at
him with circumstantial hunger.
Without interrupting his chewing the workman looked
fixedly at his own bare feet as if deliberately not seeing the
stranger. With the acuteness that hunger had given his perception Martim would not let himself be cheated; a mute communication was established between them like that of two men in the arena, and the one who was not looking was waiting for
his chance to jump. A slight thrill of rage together with the
vague promise of a struggle, then came over Martim, but he
could sustain it only for an instant. The fact that he had felt a
moment of strength had brought cold sweat out on his forehead.
The slight feeling of joy gave a cynical cast to his face.
( 5 0 )
How a Man Is Made
"Whose place is this?" he asked, finally giving in to the
powerful silence of the other.
The barefoot man did not even move. He put his plate down
slowly, wiped his full mouth.
"It all belongs to her," he said slowly, nodding with his head,
and Martim, following the indicated direction with his squinting
eyes could now see the figure in the shed more closely. "I belong
here too," the man added, coupling this information with a false
yawn.
Whoever made the first false move would give the other one
his opportunity. The afternoon was beautiful and clear.
"I got lost," Martim said softly.
"Lots of people get lost around here on the way out of Vila,"
the other man said even more softly.
"Vila?"
"Vila Baixa," the man said, nodding his head vaguely to the
left, and raising his eyes for the first time with a look of frank
mistrust.
Martim looked that way but on the left there was nothing
but an infinite expanse of land, and the sky was lower and
dirtier. Feeling himself being examined he became even milder.
"That's what happened to me," he said. "I'm on my way
back to Vila Baixa. But first I'd like a little water. I want a drink
of water!" he said then, taking a complete chance.
The man stared at him. During the truce he had calculated
the other's thirst. There was no pity in his look but human
recognition-and as if the two loyalties had met, they looked at
each other with clear eyes which a moment before had been
filling up with something more personal. It was not hate; it was
love for one's adversary and it was irony, as if both of them had
detested the same thing.
"Just inside, over there," the workman said finally.
He got up with feigned difficulty and deliberate slowness.
Standing opposite each other for a moment the strangers measured each other with their eyes. Mutual rage made them look at each other with nothing to say. One allows rage in another
person, however, just as enemies have mutual respect before
( 5 1 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
they kill each other. Weaker than the tranquil power of the
other man Martim was the first to avert his eyes. The other
accepted without taking advantage. Martim, feeling once more
the warm contact of antipathy, began to walk toward the house,
followed at a certain distance by the victor and feeling a calm
menace on the back of his neck.
The dogs were growling indecisively, holding back the exultation and joy of a fight. Besides the whole afternoon had been one of long, tranquil joy. A crippled dog limped over to join the
others with that affiicted expectation of the invalid. Everything
was smooth yet stimulatingly dangerous. Basically no one
seemed to be impressed with what was happening, and everyone
was simply enjoying the same opportunity. Things revolved a
little, happy-ill-timed and happy. "Good God, I never saw
anything so round," the man thought, stupefied. A dog blacker
than the rest sank suddenly into the afternoon as if Martim had
fallen into an unsuspected hole. It was the dog that vaguely
alerted him and seemed to remind him of other realities. He was
feeling so light that h
e felt the need to tie a stone around his
neck. Then he forced himself with difficulty to remember where
he was. But to his own disadvantage he was feeling too well,
making him lose his perception, his principal weapon of combat.
The layout of the place, or farm, was not very large if one
considered only the part that was in use-a few brokendown
shacks, the barnyard, the cultivated plot. But it would have been
enormous if one also considered the extensive fields which in
some places, to show possession and nothing more, were cut off
by poorly-outlined fences. The green of the trees swayed dustily;
new leaves peeped out from underneath the coat of dust.
The roots were thick and gave off a smell in the end of an
afternoon; and they were arousing in Martim an inexplicable
bodily fury, like an indistinct love. Famished as he was, he was
excited like a hopeful dog by the smells. The ground with a
promise of sweetness and submission seemed ready to be friedand Martim, with no apparent intention except to make contact, leaned over and almost without breaking step touched the earth
( 5 2 )
How a Man Is Made
for an instant with his fingers. His head went dizzy from the
delicious contact with the dampness; he hastened along with his
mouth open. Nearer the house he could see that the shed was
now empty. The tile roof of the cowshed was falling apart; in
son1e places it seemed to be held up only by the height of the
invisible cattle themselves, whose movements slowly made the
empty light move too.
The water from the rusty can ran down from his mouth onto
his chest and wet the dust-hardened clothing. Again he could
hear the sound of soft movements of the hooves in the cowshed.
The sun disappeared and an infinitely delicate clarity gave everything its final calm shape. A shed nearby still had the memory of a door in a set of empty hinges. Martim wetted his face and his
hair; farther on he could see the makeshift roof of the garage . . .
Having arrived at the tense threshold of the impossible
Martim accepted this miracle as the only natural step left before
him. There was ho way for him not to accept what was happening-because man has been born for everything that can possibly happen. He did not ask himself whether the miracle was the
water which had drenched him to the saturation point, or the
truck under the canvas roof which was the garage, or the light
that was evaporating off the ground and the illuminated mouths
of the dogs. There he was like a man who has reached a goal,
exhausted, with neither interest nor joy. He had aged-as if
everything that could have been given to him had arrived too
late.
Under the tarpaulin was the truck, old but spotless and wellcared for. What about the tires? His myopic eyes could not make out the details of the tires. This difficulty rejuvenated him,
filling him with the doubt that is hope. Fascinated, he slowly
put the can on the ground and with dripping eyelashes examined
the truck, getting down to look at the tires, calculating their
possibilities in terms of miles.
"What do you want?" a serene low voice asked him.
Without surprise or speed Martim turned himself completely around, and he was looking into the inquisitive face of a ( 5 3 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
woman. He could feel the man behind him, halted in an
attitude of guard. He approached the shed, slowly swaying.
Hunger made his eyes light up with malice; his dark lips smiled
and parted. By the side of the shed the ground was covered with
purple poppies whose fallen petals had been put into piles. It
was a sight that gave the man a feeling of wealth and plenty. He
looked in quiet dissipation at the living flowers, some without
petals, others still unopened. His eyes sparkled with greed. He
saw everything at the same time as he swayed and enjoyed the
clearness of his eyes, which had become the same as that of the
light around him.
He did not know from where, but from somewhere a mulatto
woman appeared with her hair in curlers, and she stood there
laughing with her quick eyes. Martim could not tell from where
she had come or when she had appeared-which made him
become cautiously aware of the possibility that he was also
missing other things. The dogs had come close, growling with
the courage to attack. The wind and silence surrounded them.
The man hitched up his belt.
"So what do you want?"
"I was just looking around," he answered guiltlessly.
And he straightened up his chest in an effort to look like a
city man.
"I'm aware of that," the woman from the shed replied.
"He was thirsty; that's what he said," the man in back of
Martim said, and the woman listened without taking her eyes off
the stranger all the while.
"I already had a drink," he said with some candor, pointing
to the empty can. "The sun was hot," he added, shifting the
position of his legs.
Martim had a quality the pleasure of which he could not
enjoy because that quality was himself-a quality that in determined favorable circumstances made it impossible for most women to resist him : innocence. It would awaken a certain
corrupt greed in a woman, always so maternal and in search of
pure things. Once purity has been given its safeguards, woman is
an ogre. The woman from the shed looked at him quite coldly.
( 5 4 )
How a Man Is Made
"I'm also aware that you took a drink of water."
In some way everything that was yet to happen to that
woman was already happening in that instant. She noticed it in
the following indirect way: she passed her hand across her head.
The overdose of water was bubbling up inside of him and it
brought on a nausea mixed with an intense desire to sleep or
vomit : it gave a goodness of suffering to his face, something like
a halo.
"Well," Martim said then, turning around slowly, "good-
bye."
Vit6ria seemed to come to life.
"What did you want?"
Their looks crossed and penetrated without either finding
anything in the other, as if both of them had already seen many
other faces. Both seemed to know from experience that this was
one more of many scenes to be forgotten. And as if both of them
were aware of what that capacity for neutrality entails, without
knowing why, each tried to guess the age of the other. The
woman had already passed fifty some time before. The man was
in his forties. The mulatto woman was waiting and laughing.
Part of the man's brain was still occupied fearfully in trying to
determine the link he could not find : when had the mulatto
woman appeared?
This made him lose sight again of another important link:
little steps had approached and Martim barely had time to spot
the figure of a little Negro girl before she ducked behind a
hedge, like a bird.
The dogs were panting, their hot tongues showing.
"I was looking for work," Martim answered, getting ready to
leave. "Is there any work here?"
> "No."
They looked straight into each other's eyes without suspicion.
"The garden could use some," he said as he withdrew, his
back already turned to the woman.
"Are you a gardener?"
"No." He turned around with vague expectation.
They looked at each other again. For a moment it seemed to
( 5 5 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
them that they would be confronting each other forever, so
definitive was the position of each of them; and the dogs were
there. Martim heard the giggle of a child or a woman. He looked
at the mulatto woman, but she stood there unsmiling with hot
eyes. There was some movement in the hedge where the child
was hiding.
"Who sent you?" Vit6ria asked.
"Nobody," the man answered, and he was still able to stay
on his feet, sustained by the peaceful redness of the poppies.
"What can you do?''
"A little bit of everything."
"I mean your trade," she said a little sharply.
"Oh."
There was another giggle near him. Then, quite stimulated
by this applause, he hitched his belt and made ready to give a
funny answer or go away. But he said nothing and stood stock
still. It seemed to him, very intelligently, that the only way he
could avoid collapsing on the ground was to remain motionless,
and that it would be strategic to let things happen as they
would.
"Well?" the woman said again with more impatience.
He looked at her without expression until little by little his
eyes began to open wide in a comical sort of way.
"I am an engineer, madam."
She seemed slightly shocked. She examined him with curiosity. He bore her look without much effort. Perhaps he perceived that he had made an impression on her, because an air of insolence brought a smile to his face, one which was a little
beastly and a little happy, as if he had come through a difficult
moment.
"You're an engineer."
"That's what I said," the man replied with arrogance.
Vit6ria looked him over professionally, the way she would
have inspected a horse. Shamelessly the man let himself be
examined. This suddenly shocked the woman. She blushed. To
her he seemed indecently nlasculine standing there, as if that
The Apple in the Dark Page 8
