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political people through his father's study
- polite greetings for the renowned Joao Martinho and low-voiced conferences
with his father.
The old man was fighting for his son - Joao knew this. But the elder Martinho
could only fight in the way he knew best: through the ritual kin system, with
pistolao 'pull' -
maneuvering behind the scenes, exchanging power-promises, assembling political
strength where it counted. Not once would he consider Joao's suspicions and
doubts. The
Irmandades, Alvarez and his Hermosillos - anyone who'd had anything to do with
the
Piratininga - were in bad odor right now. Fences must be mended.
'Stop the realignment?' the old man muttered. 'Delay the Marcha para Oeste?
Are you mad? How do you think I hold my office? Me! A descendant of fidalgoes
whose ancestors ruled one of the original capitanias! We are not bugres whose
ancestors were hidden by Rui
Barbosa, yet the cabodos call me 'Father of the Poor'. I did not gain that
name through stupidity.'
'Father, if you'd only ... '
'Be silent! I have our panelinha, our little pot, boiling merrily. All will be
well.'
Joao sighed. He felt both resentment and shame at his position here. The
Prefect had been semi-retired until this emergency - a very weak heart. Now,
to disturb the old man this way ... but he persisted in being so blind!
'Investigate, you say,' the old man mocked him. 'Investigate what? Right now
we don't want investigation and suspicions. The Government, thanks to a week
of work by my friends, takes the attitude that everything's normal. They're
almost ready to blame the
Carsonites for the Bahia tragedy.'
'But they have no evidence,' Joao said. 'You admitted that yourself.'
'Evidence is of no importance in such a time,' his father said. 'All that
counts is that we move suspicion far away from ourselves. We must gain time.
Besides, this is the very sort of thing the Carsonites might've done.'
'But might not've done,' Joao said.
It was as though the old man had not heard. 'Just last week,' he said,
gesturing with arm swinging wide, 'the day before you arrived here like an
insane whirlwind - that very day, I
spoke to the Lacuia farmers at the request of my friend the Minister of
Agriculture. And do you know that rabble laughed at me! I said we'd increase
the Green by ten thousand hectares this month. They laughed. They said: 'Your
own son doesn't even believe this!' I
see now why they say such things. Stop the march to the west, indeed.'
'You've seen the reports from Bahia,' Joao said. 'The I.E.O.'s own
investigators ... '
'The I.E.O.! That sly Chinese whose face tells you nothing. He is more bahiano
than the bahianos themselves, that s l y o n e . A n d t h i s n e w
female
Doutor he sends everywhere to snoop and pry. His mae de santo, his sidaga -
the stories you hear about that one, I can tell you. Only yesterday, it was
said ... '
'I don't want to hear!'
The old man fell silent, stared down at him. 'Ahhhh?'
'Ahhhh!' Joao said. 'What does that mean?'
'That means
Ahhhh!'
the old man said.
'She's a very beautiful woman,' Joao said.
'So I have heard it reported. And many men have sampled that beauty ... so it
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is said.'
'I don't believe it!'
'Joao,' the Prefect said, 'listen to an old man whose experience has given him
wisdom.
That is a dangerous woman. She is owned body and soul by the I.E.O., which is
an organisation that often interferes with our business. You, you are an
empreiteiro, a contractor of renown, whose abilities and successes are sure to
have aroused envy in some quarters. That woman is supposed to be a
Doutor of the insects, but her actions say she has a cabide de empregos.
She has a hatstand of jobs. And some of those jobs, ahh, some of those jobs
... '
'That's enough, Father!'
'As you wish.'
'She is supposed to come here soon,' Joao said. 'I don't want your present
attitude to ... '
'There may be a delay in her visit,' the Prefect said.
Joao studied him. 'Why?'
'Tuesday last, the day after your little Bahia episode, she was sent to the
Goyaz. That very night or the next morning; it is not important,'
'Oh?'
'You know what she does in the Goyaz, of course - those stories about a secret
bandeirante base there. She is prying into that ... if she still lives.'
Joao's head snapped up. 'What?'
'There is a story in the Bahia headquarters of the I.E.O. that she is ...
overdue. An accident, perhaps. It is said that tomorrow the great
Travis-Huntington Chen-Lhu himself
goes to seek his female
Doutor.
What do you think of that?'
'He seemed fond of her, when I saw them in Bahia, but this story about ... '
'Fond? Oh, yes, indeed.'
'You have an evil mind, Father.' He took a deep breath. The thought of that
lovely woman down somewhere in the deep interland where only jungle creatures
now lived, dead or maimed - all that beauty - it left Joao with a feeling of
sick emptiness.
'Perhaps you'll wish to march to the west to seek her?'
Joao ignored the jibe, said, 'Father, this whole crusade needs a rest period
while we find out what's gone wrong.'
'If you talked that way in Bahia, I don't blame them for turning on you,' the
Prefect said.
'Perhaps that mob ... '
'You know what we saw in that Plaza!'
'Nonsense, but yesterday's nonsense. This must stop now. You must do nothing
to disturb the equilibrium. I command you!'
'People no longer suspect the bandeirantes,' Joao said, bitterness in his
voice.
'Some still suspect you, yes. And why not, if what I've heard from your own
lips is any sample of the way you talk?'
Joao studied the toes of his boots, the polish glittering black. He found
their unmarked surfaces somehow symbolic of his father's life. 'I'm sorry I've
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