Land of Black Clay Read online

  The rest of the day I put myself to work in the newspaper’s file morgue, directed and organized by Olímpio de Souza Andrade, a student of Euclides da Cunha. I flipped through newspaper collections, getting my hands dirty, taking notes on a new pad. Gordo and Vinhaes stopped by several times, showing their interest in the story I was about to cover. Barbosa arrived with specific instructions: Veiga de Castro had suggested I not send reports via the Sapé post office, or any other nearby. I would have to go to João Pessoa or Campina Grande. Furthermore, The Nation would only launch the series after I’d sent three stories.

  “How many stories in the series?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  Barbosa left. I turned a page from The Nation of March 12, 1962, and found the news item about João Pedro Teixeira’s assassination—in the photo, next to the dead man, his widow Elizabeth and a scattering of sons. I took notes as I read it. When Mathias brought water and coffee, Barbosa also returned with a letter of credit, an envelope full of cash, and a plane ticket for João Pessoa.

  “If you want to go tomorrow, get to Galeão airport an hour before takeoff,” he advised as he left.

  The telephone rang just as Olímpio was bringing me Brazilian Geographical and Statistical Institute photos and a volume of the Township Encyclopædia, where I could get data on Sapé. I called up Manezinho in photography. He told me about an ultrasophisticated Olympus-Pen camera, perfect for someone like me who knew nothing about photography. It had the advantages, said Manezinho, of shutting off without sufficient light, and of automatically framing the image. I had only to hold it and to load and unload the film. It was small and light; it fit in my pants pocket.

  Well into the night, camera and film to one side, I stayed in the morgue thumbing through books and old papers. But there were few stories on the farmworkers’ murders and, in general, no photos. At least I now knew something about Sapé. I also took notes on the townships of Cruz do Espírito Santo, Santa Rita, and Alagoa Grande. All nearby, all dominated by big land holdings.

  From the morgue I went to a bar with Andrade. We had one beer. The second brought out his worries.

  “If I were you I wouldn’t take on this job. Whatever you get out of it isn’t worth risking your life.”

  I thought about his words. We were good friends. He was the one who’d helped me the most during my first few weeks at The Nation. Whenever I needed a fact to back up a story, there he was, offering what I sought and suggesting new sources. A good, close comrade, that Olímpio de Souza Andrade. And now, once more trying to protect me, he was gloomy, the table full of glasses. Was he right? Should I back out? Tell Barbosa that, thinking it over or without knowing why, I had decided not to go; and if so, would he send me against my will? Andrade became expansive, laughed and spoke out loud:

  “Plantation owners and newspaper publishers are capitalists, flour from the same sack!”

  Chapter 2

  On the flight to João Pessoa, I had plenty of time to think about Veiga de Castro’s words. If he, who was from Sapé, showed such apprehension, why was I, who knew nothing about the area, putting myself at risk?

  To orient myself, I decided I would spend two or three days in one of those small hotels whose regular clientele sit in wicker chairs in the television room, watching after dinner. After all, Veiga de Castro had always struck me as cautious. He presented himself that way every day in the newsroom. His articles were forthright, sometimes arguable, but they couldn’t be described as inconsequential. From what the editors had let on very discreetly, Veiga de Castro had socialist tendencies and had even written a book on the party’s activities, a work I had never seen and that few in the newsroom knew about. In truth, he was not one to sacrifice himself for anybody, much less for the paper, but, on the other hand, he had never shirked his obligations; he arrived with rigorous punctuality and, when the work day ended, left making recommendations to Barbosa, Vinhaes, and sometimes even to Gordo, for whom he had little regard. Veiga de Castro passed through life as a realist; he had a certain dose of fatalism. He tried to stay away from those he didn’t like or, as in Hélio’s case, spoke with him as little as possible, usually just to complain about trivial details.

  One day, when the courts ordered closure of the Solano Trindade School—a school for poor children—Veiga de Castro acted without hesitation. He wrote an editorial whose headline caused a stir: “Irresponsible Government, Immoral Justice.” The country was still under the dictatorship, even though the idea of political openness was being bandied about. Vinhaes warned about the reprisals that would follow, such as an end to the government’s publishing official notices in the paper. Barbosa expected a more direct reaction—Veiga de Castro summoned before a police inspector every day for a week, as authoritarian governments do to break one’s spirit, since the elite tolerated no criticism of the regime.

  Despite the most pessimistic predictions—which Veiga de Castro wouldn’t listen to—no reprisal materialized and the next week he launched a sharp new attack, demanding the school be reopened. It was, benefiting The Nation by transforming it into the leader of the opposition press, which opened the way for more courageous initiatives, including my trip. I recalled Andrade’s warnings but didn’t feel afraid.

  I lugged my green oilcloth soldier’s backpack from the airport to downtown. Inside, everything I had: some clothes, a portable typewriter, the Olympus-Pen, pens, reporter’s notebooks, packs of cigarettes, and the novel Memoirs of the Slave Isaías Carminha de Lima Barreto.

  I ate crab in the shell and later, for lunch, sun-dried beef with green beans in a restaurant-bar poetically called “Oysters and Wind.” After lunch and two lemon-and-sugar cocktails, I asked for dessert. The waiter put the dessert plate in front of me, with two superb pineapple slices laced with ice pebbles.

  “Pineapple from Sapé, the best there is,” he said cheerfully.

  I lit a cigarette, paid the bill, and walked on downhill among flowering foliage: fruit-laden mango trees, acacias thrusting slender branches above fences and walls, and flowering daisies. A strong wind swept the treetops, causing millstones of dried leaves to grind above the parallelogram-patterned sidewalks. After much walking, I hailed a taxi. I got out in the old city, just in front of the São Francisco church. I lingered, admiring the niches, the carved doors, the churchyard of old flagstones. Time had stopped there. I walked a bit farther. The small hotels and bed-and-breakfasts I saw didn’t look that great. I bought copies of The North and The Union newspapers. Both had front-page articles on events in Sapé.

  Near Sólon de Lucena Park, ringed by imperial palms and royal poincianas, I found the Hotel Costa do Sol, which looked interesting—neither small nor large, and clean even though the building was old. I filled out the registration card in the lobby, making sure to sign as a businessman from Recife. They put me in a large, comfortable suite with two rooms, a tiled bathroom, and air-conditioning. I could see the park from my window.

  I put the pack on the luggage rack, turned on the air, and stretched out on the big, clean bed. For a moment I eyed the chandelier, listening to the air conditioner’s hum, which blocked out the street noise. The solitude felt comfortable: no Gordo to demand copy or Barbosa to complain about delays. I was completely alone and, being so, I fell asleep.

  I woke up with the telephone ringing. Who would be calling me? I picked up the receiver. The desk clerk said someone was looking for me. I ran the comb through my hair, put on my clothes, and went downstairs in the slow lattice-doored elevator.

  “What’s up?”

  The lobby had armchairs and worn carpets. A big, pebble-filled vase held dried flowers. The thin, tall young girl got up, smiling.

  “I’m Alice. A friend told me you’d come.”

  I didn’t understand. I felt like getting rid of her right there, but invited her to have a drink. I asked for a martini on the rocks; she ordered a guaraná soft drink.

  “Who’s your friend?”

  Alice seemed amused. It
was then that I noticed her subtle beauty: a suave expression, eyes trying to see through me, a certain anxiety in her gestures, and that strength that timid women have.

  “I’m here in João Pessoa to find my father.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Political troubles.”

  “And?”

  “Some policemen grabbed him in Recife as he was leaving work and brought him here to João Pessoa.”

  “How do I come in to this story?”

  “I decided to wait here until I got word. Yesterday I called a friend in Recife. He said you were coming and had some information that might help.”

  “How’d you learn my address?”

  “Listen, João Pessoa doesn’t have many hotels. He told me your name was Jorge Elias, and I started looking.”

  “I am Jorge Elias, but I don’t know your friend. There’s some mistake.”

  I ordered another martini. Alice looked at me beseechingly, but she couldn’t rattle me; I had nothing to say.

  “What’s the Jorge Elias your friend knows like?”

  “I don’t know. I imagine he’s like you, sir.”

  “You don’t need to call me ‘sir.’ ”

  “Are you afraid to help?”

  “It’s nothing to do with that. I am Jorge Elias, I am from Recife, but I have nothing to do with people involved in politics. My business is buying and selling goats.”

  I looked at Alice and saw she didn’t believe me. She made as if to leave. I grabbed her hand.

  “What do you think happened to your father?”

  “I still don’t know. But it appears that he was taken to a sugar mill. The same mill has other political prisoners, doing hard time.”

  “Where is it?”

  “That’s the information I’m waiting for. I thought you could help me.”

  Alice looked so sad that I decided to walk around town with her. We ate popcorn near the movie theater and sat on the lawn beneath a royal poinciana in Sólon de Lucena Park. I tried to take her back home in a taxi, but she refused. She left smiling and seeming as strange as she had appeared in the hotel. I asked her to call me; she shook her head affirmatively, but I knew she wasn’t sincere.

  In the hotel, I couldn’t quit thinking about the misunderstanding. Was Alice an agent of the secret police—the Department of Political and Social Order, or another domestic spy agency, the National Intelligence Service? It was crazy to think so. A young woman of that type, so insecure and even ingenuous, had nothing to do with the police, unless she was an extraordinarily skilled actress. One way or another, the whole business bothered me. What if another relative of hers showed up? Or if she came back herself, with new problems? I thought and thought, thinking back also on Alice’s beauty—her fine, nervous hands, her eyes that tried to look inside me, that anxiety molding her gestures.

  “My father’s name is Elindo José de Albuquerque,” she had explained. He’s 52, wears glasses and for some time worked as a layout man at the Journal of Commerce, in Recife. He disappeared in 1969.”

  The next morning, after breakfast, I again read The North and The Union. I clipped out stories on land conflicts in Sapé. A peasant had been killed the evening before. The police said the killing had occurred during a fight among farmworkers. In one of the photos, those accused of disorderly conduct were all tied together at the neck with a long cord held by a police officer.

  At the reception desk, I asked for my bill. They had anticipated the trip I had to take into the interior. I went to my room to get my pack. The phone rang as I opened the door. It was Alice.

  “I forgot to tell you something that may be the only way to locate my father. He was transformed into a cabrocó. At the sugar mill where they’re holding him.”

  “What does cabrocó mean?”

  “I don’t know. No one does.”

  “What can I do to meet you again?”

  The connection was cut off. I picked up my pack, paid the bill. I felt like asking the desk clerk about Alice’s appearance in the hotel, but knew that it would be useless. Worse yet, I’d just raise eyebrows.

  I took the first taxi. For more than two hours I circled around the city, particularly in what was considered the old part of town. I don’t know the why or wherefore of it, but I felt somewhat guilty about Alice, if that was in fact her name. The car glided down tree-lined, well-paved streets, the trees green and flower-laden, the houses elegant, and me increasingly sad, thinking about Alice’s anxious eyes, her timid laughs, the words she couldn’t put together, her uncertainty, her fear at a time when, in Rio and São Paulo, people spoke of political openness, gradual democratization and things of that type; where the armed forces were trying to reshape their image; a much different time from the grim days when Herzog was killed, when Carlos Marighella, Lamarca, Pedro Pomar, Áurea Valadão, Maurício Grabois, Lúcia Maria de Souza, Orlando Bonfim and so many others had been assassinated or had disappeared. In João Pessoa the repression remained as firm as in the worst years of the Médici administration. Politics were not discussed here; the newspapers published long stories deifying the military and President Figueiredo. As Veiga de Castro had so well remembered, law and order depended on the factory owners and land barons. Those who tried to break such principles ended up killed by gangsters who acted openly, using arms supplied by the army itself. Reading the out-of-town newspapers from Recife, I learned of the mysterious killing of a journalist from Paraíba state who had decided to protest abuses one landowner committed against farmworkers. The journalist, Carlos Evandro, had been machine-gunned at his front door, at eight o’clock one Friday morning. Reading the João Pessoa newspapers, I learned of the disappearance of a Pernambucan sociologist, Maria Inês Gonçalves, dragged from school by three armed men. Days later her body was found by the side of a highway. Nothing about this crime had appeared in the Recife newspapers.

  The taxi driver tried to start a conversation several times, but I was occupied with my ruminations and memories. I tried to forget them, and had the taxi stop at a little store to get coconut juice.

  The taxi driver was a strong, dark type, hairy and with a somewhat tense air about him. But when he began to speak, he laughed and showed himself to be relaxed, without great cares. His life limited itself to his old but well-kept taxi, fancily painted and gleaming, in which he spent life roaming around João Pessoa’s streets and, often, outskirts. His name was Geraldo Peçanha. He had two brothers, one a tailor, the other a truck-driver. He didn’t like being a taxi driver but could think of worse professions.

  “When we were young—me and my brothers—our life on others’ land meant only one thing: we’d pull up cane straw and potatoes. Hell of a life, boy. My dad wound up crippled in his left hand by a machete cut. When my mom was 40 she looked 60, her face was wrinkled by so much sun. And the cane stalks scratching one’s body. I learned to drive a tractor, then I lucked out into driving a sugar cane truck, and now I’m here. This heap’s been around but it runs like new.”

  As he talked with me and the store owner, I thought about hiring him to take me to Sapé. Maybe it would be better to have someone around who could help me with simple things, such as finding a hotel and knowing the local landowners—the kind of information I hadn’t seen in the papers I’d read. Better than getting off a bus, shouldering the pack, running around the city looking for a place to stay.

  Geraldo cut short my musings with a plate of fried anchovies. I drank coconut juice with some cane liquor, offered some to him. He didn’t take it.

  “When I’m driving I abstain.”

  That fixed it. I’d go to Sapé with Geraldo. Why not?

  “You don’t want to know what one sees and hears driving around here. Last week I picked up an old geezer on Epitácio Pessoa Avenue. I drove two blocks; he told me to stop. He paid his fare and got out. I asked if he’d forgotten something. He made a face, looked at me as if he was about to give me some advice, and half-said: ‘If I were you, sir, I’d park this car. At
the end of the street you’re going to have an accident.’“

  “And then?” I asked.

  “I got out of there with the help of God and the Holy Mother. But I couldn’t get that warning out of my head, and I took the rest of the day off. Danger or not, why take a chance?”

  Laughter.

  “Geraldo, how about a stop in Sapé? I need to see an uncle who lives there.”

  “Hey! Speak of the devil, here comes luck. If we go now, we’ll get to Market Square at three. Which street does your uncle live on?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to find someone who knows his whereabouts.”

  “In Sapé, everyone knows everyone else. The city has two owners.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The Martinho and Barros families. Land, fields, streams, even people—they own them all.”

  Geraldo laughed somewhat nervously. The store owner turned serious:

  “They rule the roost. They know who’s coming and who’s going. I had a stall in the market. But there was so much persecution, so much fraud, that I decided to get out.”

  “Are you from Sapé?”

  “I’m from Cruz do Espírito Santo, but Sapé’s wealthier. So there I went, with a wife and two young children, trying to better my life. I never worked so hard, believe you me. One day some lowlifes showed up, one already drunk on cane liquor. They cut down my squash with a machete. I wanted to react, but my friend in the next stall stopped me. I’d have died that same day.”

  “Who were the thugs?”

  “Colonel Barros’s gangsters. They do what they damn well please in this city and nobody complains.”

  Driving down the paved, well-marked highway, I asked Geraldo about the Martinhos and the Barroses.

  “Around here everyone knows them. They’re the richest people in the state. One of the Martinhos has land that runs from Sapé to the Rio Grande do Norte state line. Barros keeps pace. And every day, one as much as the other, they buy new plantations. They say Barros has more than sixty of them and the Martinhos have too many to count.”