Now the slapping of the water under the ferry could be heard, and at intervals the calls of bullfrogs from the two banks or the strange cries of birds. The big man approached the small, thin chauffeur, who was leaning against one of the bamboos with his hands in the pockets of his dungarees, once blue but now covered with the same red dust that had been blowing in their faces all day long. A smile spread over his face, all wrinkled in spite of his youth. Without really seeing them, he was staring at the faint stars still swimming in the damp sky.
But the birds’ cries became sharper, unfamiliar chatterings mingled with them, and almost at once the cable began to creak. The tall Negroes plunged their poles into the water and groped blindly for the bottom. The man turned around toward the shore they had just left.
Now that shore was obscured by the darkness and the water, vast and savage like the continent of trees stretching beyond it for thousands of kilometers. Between the near-by ocean and this sea of vegetation, the handful of men drifting at that moment on a wild river seemed lost. When the raft bumped the new pier it was as if, having cast off all moorings, they were landing on an island in the darkness after days of frightened sailing.
Once on land, the men’s voices were at last heard. The chauffeur had just paid them and, with voices that sounded strangely gay in the heavy night, they were saying farewell in Portuguese as the car started up again.
“They said sixty, the kilometers to Iguape. Three hours more and it’ll be over. Socrates is happy,” the chauffeur announced.
The man laughed with a warm, hearty laugh that resembled him.
“Me too, Socrates, I’m happy too. The trail is hard.”
“Too heavy, Mr. D’Arrast, you too heavy,” and the chauffeur laughed too as if he would never stop.
The car had taken on a little speed. It was advancing between high walls of trees and inextricable vegetation, amidst a soft, sweetish smell. Fireflies on the wing constantly crisscrossed in the darkness of the forest, and every once in a while red-eyed birds would bump against the windshield. At times a strange, savage sound would reach them from the depths of the night and the chauffeur would roll his eyes comically as he looked at his passenger.
The road kept turning and crossed little streams on bridges of wobbly boards. After an hour the fog began to thicken. A fine drizzle began to fall, dimming the car’s lights. Despite the jolts, D’Arrast was half asleep. He was no longer riding in the damp forest but on the roads of the Serra that they had taken in the morning as they left São Paulo.
From those dirt trails constantly rose the red dust which they could still taste, and on both sides, as far as the eye could see, it covered the sparse vegetation of the plains.
The harsh sun, the pale mountains full of ravines, the starved zebus encountered along the roads, with a tired flight of ragged urubus as their only escort, the long, endless crossing of an endless desert . . . He gave a start. The car had stopped. Now they were in Japan: fragile houses on both sides of the road and, in the houses, furtive kimonos.
The chauffeur was talking to a Japanese wearing soiled dungarees and a Brazilian straw hat. Then the car started up again.
“He said only forty kilometers.”
“Where were we? In Tokyo?”
“No. Registro. In Brazil all the Japanese come here.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. They’re yellow, you know, Mr. D’Arrast.”
But the forest was gradually thinning out, and the road was becoming easier, though slippery. The car was skidding on sand. The window let in a warm, damp breeze that was rather sour.
“You smell it?” the chauffeur asked, smacking his lips. “That’s the good old sea. Soon, Iguape.”
“If we have enough gas,” D’Arrast said. And he went back to sleep peacefully.
Sitting up in bed early in the morning, D’Arrast looked in amazement at the huge room in which he had just awakened. The lower half of the big walls was newly painted brown. Higher up, they had once been painted white, and patches of yellowish paint covered them up to the ceiling. Two rows of beds faced each other. D’Arrast saw only one bed unmade at the end of his row and that bed was empty.
But he heard a noise on his left and turned toward the door, where Socrates, a bottle of mineral water in each hand, stood laughing, “Happy memory!” he said. D’Arrast shook himself. Yes, the hospital in which the Mayor had lodged them the night before was named “Happy Memory.” “Sure memory,” Socrates continued. “They told me first build hospital, later build water.
Meanwhile, happy memory, take fizz water to wash.” He disappeared, laughing and singing, not at all exhausted apparently by the cataclysmic sneezes that had shaken him all night long and kept D’Arrast from closing an eye.
Now D’Arrast was completely awake. Through the iron-latticed window he could see a little red-earth courtyard soaked by the rain that was noiselessly pouring down on a clump of tall aloes. A woman passed holding a yellow scarf over her head. D’Arrast lay back in bed, then sat up at once and got out of the bed, which creaked under his weight.
Socrates came in at that moment: “For you, Mr. D’Arrast. The Mayor is waiting outside.” But, seeing the look on D’Arrast’s face, he added: “Don’t worry; he never in a hurry.”
After shaving with the mineral water, D’Arrast went out under the portico of the building. The Mayor—who had the proportions and, under his gold-rimmed glasses, the look of a nice little weasel—seemed lost in dull contemplation of the rain. But a charming smile transfigured him as soon as he saw D’Arrast.
Holding his little body erect, he rushed up and tried to stretch his arms around the engineer. At that moment an automobile drove up in front of them on the other side of the low wall, skidded in the wet clay, and came to a stop on an angle. “The Judge!” said the Mayor. Like the Mayor, the Judge was dressed in navy blue. But he was much younger, or at least seemed so because of his elegant figure and his look of a startled adolescent.
Now he was crossing the courtyard in their direction, gracefully avoiding the puddles. A few steps from D’Arrast, he was already holding out his arms and welcoming him. He was proud to greet the noble engineer who was honoring their poor village; he was delighted by the priceless service the noble engineer was going to do Iguape by building that little jetty to prevent the periodic flooding of the lower quarters of town. What a noble profession, to command the waters and dominate rivers!
Ah, surely the poor people of Iguape would long remember the noble engineer’s name and many years from now would still mention it in their prayers. D’Arrast, captivated by such charm and eloquence, thanked him and didn’t dare wonder what possible connection a judge could have with a jetty. Besides, according to the Mayor, it was time to go to the club, where the leading citizens wanted to receive the noble engineer appropriately before going to inspect the poorer quarters. Who were the leading citizens?
“Well,” the Mayor said, “myself as Mayor, Mr. Carvalho here, the Harbor Captain, and a few others less important. Besides, you won’t have to pay much attention to them, for they don’t speak French.”
D’Arrast called Socrates and told him he would meet him when the morning was over.
“All right,” Socrates said, “I’ll go to the Garden of the Fountain.”
“The Garden?”
“Yes, everybody knows. Have no fear, Mr. D’Arrast.”
The hospital, D’Arrast noticed as he left it, was built on the edge of the forest, and the heavy foliage almost hung over the roofs. Over the whole surface of the trees was falling a sheet of fine rain which the dense forest was noiselessly absorbing like a huge sponge. The town, some hundred houses roofed with faded tiles, extended between the forest and the river, and the water’s distant murmur reached the hospital.
The car entered drenched streets and almost at once came out on a rather large rectangular square which showed, among numerous puddles in its red clay, the marks of tires, iron wheels, and horseshoes.
All around, brightly plastered low houses closed off the square, behind which could be seen the two round towers of a blue-and-white church of colonial style. A smell of salt water coming from the estuary dominated this bare setting. In the center of the square a few wet silhouettes were wandering.
Along the houses a motley crowd of gauchos, Japanese, half-breed Indians, and elegant leading citizens, whose dark suits looked exotic here, were sauntering with slow gestures.
They stepped aside with dignity to make way for the car, then stopped and watched it. When the car stopped in front of one of the houses on the square, a circle of wet gauchos silently formed around it.
At the club—a sort of small bar on the second floor furnished with a bamboo counter and iron café tables—the leading citizens were numerous. Sugar-cane alcohol was drunk in honor of D’Arrast after the Mayor,
