The Head of the Saint (4 page)

It was exactly five in the morning when Samuel began to wake, tormented and confused. He could hear women's voices, several of them, all talking at once. Talking, talking, talking. It was like a prayer, an argument, a conversation, all at once. Perhaps it was a nightmare. They sounded like Mariinha's mourner friends, praying the rosary when people died. He sat up, startled, but the voices didn't stop. Louder, stronger, and—yes—it was prayer. Samuel ran out of the damned grotto without remembering that his leg was injured, that he was weak, hungry and tired, and within a few feet he'd fallen to the ground. There were no women praying outside at all; there was no one nearby, not even last night's dogs. Outside there was only forest, a fine rain and silence: no voices to be heard.

When he turned to look at where he was, with the help of the scarce light from the overcast sun, Samuel saw that the grotto was in fact a giant head, hollow and startling. The head of a saint. Although overgrown with plants, it was possible to see how grotesque the nose was—two huge holes—the face turned up toward the sky, with thick, closed lips, bulging eyes, a serious expression. The eyeballs were the most frightening part: a couple of concrete balls attached by steel cables to the hollow eyes. The head was made up of symmetrical pieces that had been numbered in white paint and fitted together. Samuel struggled to his feet and walked closer.

It was a hallucination, he thought. A bite from a mad dog and he'd gone crazy, too. Yet the day was getting lighter and Samuel could clearly see the strange grotto, big enough for him to stand up in. The neck to the crown of the head was almost the size of the little house where he had lived with Mariinha. Yes, it really was the head of a saint—hollow, huge, terrifying and forest-covered. A decapitated saint was his only shelter in the world. It was with that thought that he went back inside.

The wound to his leg was hurting more and more, and the skin around it became gradually hotter. He wasn't sure he could walk now. There was a little water left in the bottle and only a bit of soft bread. From inside the head he spotted the guava tree again and saw its low-hanging green fruits. He thought that he might be able to make it over there, and he shuffled along, wincing with each step. He saw the head again—terrifying—but this time he also looked up to the top of the hill. He blinked in amazement when he realized the rest of the saint's body was standing up there.

Perhaps some giant had decapitated the saint, he thought. He'd slashed through his neck with a sword and the head had rolled down the hill. There was no other way to explain that aberration: the head had rolled down like a ball and come to rest here. Gray, unpainted. Not the white of Father Cicero, not the colors of St. Francis. Samuel laughed to himself, laughed at the decapitated saint, picked green guavas from the tree and limped back into the head. He laughed out of fear.

He bit into the worm-eaten fruit, swallowed the caterpillars, appeased his hunger. It rained the whole day, and that was good. Samuel sat outside the head and took off his clothes to wash himself. He discovered that by the side of the saint's eye a spout formed that was just right for filling the bottle so he could drink the rainwater. The tears of the saint, Mariinha would have said. He spent the day like this, bearing the pain, remembering his mother, washing his wound, drinking rainwater.

When it was evening he fell asleep again, waking on the dot of five in the morning with the same women's voices tormenting what was left of his common sense. Again: when he looked there was nobody outside. Samuel pressed his ear to the concrete and managed to hear one of the voices more clearly. It was a prayer, very clear: a petition to St. Anthony.

The fact was that the women's prayers were reverberating inside the head of the saint and, for some reason, Samuel could hear them. The following day he ate guavas and leaves, drank rainwater, and noticed that the prayers were being made in the morning and in the evening, too. Not always all the voices, not always all the same words, but the one thing that remained constant was their petition: they were in love or they wanted to marry.

Samuel spent four days inside the head, eating guavas and leaves from the surrounding trees, drinking rainwater. The wound had gotten much worse. Hunger and fever were making him sicker every day, unable even to stand now. He would have been condemned to die inside that extraordinary tomb were it not for the blow to his back that he received on the fourth day.

A package fell in through the saint's nose, bouncing off Samuel's back where he lay. He twisted round to see several plastic bags with something inside them falling into the head. When Samuel tried to drag himself over to reach the parcels, a kid crawled into the grotto, immediately grabbed a package, and, shining a torch on it, opened it. After unwrapping lots and lots of bags, he pointed the weak torchlight onto the pages he was holding in one of his hands. They were pornographic magazines.

“What the hell is all this?”

The boy gave a loud yell at the shock. His only reflex was to yank his trousers up quickly, pale and terrified.

Samuel laughed out everything that he had kept inside him in all those recent serious days. He roared with laughter at how pathetic it was, this sight of a kid reading porn mags inside the head of a decapitated saint. He'd seen a lot in Juazeiro, but this was really too much.

His name was Francisco, the boy told Samuel, and he was thirteen. He had discovered the hiding place a year earlier, more or less, and had been going in secret ever since. He got the magazines from the truck driver who stopped at the Candeia café, and the head of the saint was the only safe place to go with them.

Unsteadily, Francisco stood up to leave, clearly still astonished by the discovery of Samuel in the saint's head.

“If you get me some food,” said Samuel, “I won't tell anyone about your bad behavior.”

“What are you, a bandit?”

“Not yet, but I do want to kill people I hate.”

“Are you running away from the police?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I've come to find my Devil of a father, but as soon as I have I'll be leaving right away. I'm only in here because of this wound to my leg. I won't be living in your castle, you needn't worry about that.”

The boy looked at the wound with an expression of disgust. It was filled with pus, swollen and purple.

“Is there a hospital here?” Samuel asked.

“No, just a health center.”

“And is there a doctor?”

“Only Fridays.”

“What day is today?”

“Saturday.”

Samuel thought for a moment.

“Francisco, if you can take me to the health center on Friday, I'll get some medicine. Then I can leave your head in peace. Both heads.”

“When did you get here?”

“A few days ago.”

“And what have you been living on?”

“Green guava. But I've eaten some leaves, too.”

“What medicine do you need to put on that leg?”

“Who knows? Rubbing alcohol?”

“It'll sting like hell.”

“Do you know somewhere to get any?”

“At home we've got ointment for cuts. I'll bring some.”

“If you want to bring a bit of food, I'll eat anything. I'm scared I'll die in here.”

“That's all we need, a dead body appearing inside the head of the saint. That's sure to make anyone who's still left in this place go completely nuts.”

“The more you help me, the quicker I'll get out of here. And I won't tell anyone about your hiding place.”

Francisco left. It didn't take much for him to succumb to Samuel's ridiculous blackmail.

He returned later that same day, bringing the ointment that his mother used to treat boils. He sat there awhile to chat, as if he was trying to understand. Francisco's curiosity seemed gradually to overtake his fear. He began to visit Samuel every day, bringing him food and water in secret. He didn't have any rubbing alcohol, but he did find a bottle of alcohol—cachaça—to clean the pus, so that at least the wound would not get any worse.

Going to the head of the saint every day was a huge risk for Francisco; it would almost be a crime in the eyes of the people of Candeia, for the town had been condemned to a slow death because of that hollow skull. But to Francisco, it was better to run the risk than to be turned in. If this kid told anybody about the magazines, he was done for. Besides, the outsider's company had become good fun. Samuel liked to chat.

“Can you hear them, too?”

“What?”

“Those women, with all their praying in here.”

“No one comes to pray in here. The people of Candeia hate this head.”

“Why?”

“It's the curse of this town. What do you mean, all their praying?”

“Since my first night here I've heard their voices asking the saint to help them find love. There's one girl who only talks about someone called Dr. Adriano….”

“And who is the girl?”

“I don't know her name. Her voice comes out right here.”

Samuel pointed at the exact place in the saint's head where he heard the voice come from, just above the right ear.

“I've not heard anything, not ever.”

“What time is it?”

Francisco looked at his watch and paused a moment.

“Four-forty.”

“It starts at five—morning and evening.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Might be, who knows…?”

“I think you are.”

“You'll have to wait and see.”

And as Francisco waited with a look of suspicion, Samuel talked a bit about his wound, the dogs, the ghost town. He said that all he wanted was to leave. He talked about Father Cicero, about the pilgrimages, about the days when he used to wake up early to sell hats on Horto Hill and how there were no hats to sell anymore. He started talking about his mother but quickly changed the subject. He said all the things he hadn't been able to say in those silent days—and then the voices began. Each one sprang from somewhere different. On the right side of the head, two handspans above the ear, came the voice of the girl who was in love with the doctor:

“My dear little saint, listen to me: I'll take you out from under my bed if Dr. Adriano marries me, I promise I'll do it right away and make a really nice altar in my house for you. Listen, dear saint, I want to go to the health center on Friday, but I don't know what excuse to give my mother; I'm not ill at all. My mother gets these ideas into her head. If she finds out I'm going to the health center, she'll close the café and come with me. I've already stolen one of his socks, my dear saint, I've already done the magic rituals, but nothing happens. Send me a sign, dear St. Anthony, send something straightaway so I can untie you, all right? Send the doctor to have lunch at the café, find some way of delaying the appointments so he doesn't leave too early. Do something! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!”

Samuel was holding back his laughter, both at the girl's words and at the expression on the face of Francisco, who had his ear pressed to the head, indignant: “I can't hear anything.”

“Well, I can tell you: there's a girl saying she likes good little Dr. Adriano. She wants to go to his office on Friday but can't think what to tell her mother….”

“You're only making that up because I said the doctor was at the health center on Fridays, liar.”

“I'm not, you brat, how could I have known his name? Did you by any chance tell me his name?”

“No.”

“So listen: she asked the saint for some way of deceiving her mother so she could go alone. She said otherwise her mother will close the café and go with her because she's suspicious.”

“Then it's Madeinusa, the daughter of Helenice from the café. We've only got one café here.”

“She's the one who gave me some dry bread, and the old lady shooed me off with her broom. Her voice sounds different, but it must be the loudspeaker effect of this Devil of a saint.”

“Oh man, don't call the saint a Devil, that's a sin.”

“Right, and reading a magazine with naked women inside the head of a saint is not a sin?”

“And there isn't anyone else praying, then?” Francisco changed the subject.

“Hang on.”

Samuel moved himself around with a bit of trouble because of his wound. He placed the palms of his hands on the walls and slid his ear around until he could make out another voice. There were two or three more, but they were intermittent and confused.

“There's one saying, ‘Forgive me, forgive me, beloved St. Anthony.' ” Samuel imitated her voice.

Francisco laughed but then stopped suddenly. “No way, I'm not falling for this. You're just a bandit, you've found out about the lives of the people here and now you're trying to pull this crap with me. The head's been here all these years and no one's heard a thing. I can't hear so much as a murmur.”

“But you said no one comes here, so how could you know?”

“Because lots of people from
outside
Candeia have come. At first they used the head as a toilet. Then all kinds of couples used to come—the people used to call it the Saint's Head Motel, although they stopped because they were afraid of the forest dogs. But people from the town really don't come at all.”

“Damned dogs.”

“Well, I don't believe a word of it. How can it be that women are praying over in their houses and the prayers end up here in the decapitated head?”

“Aren't they prayers to him?” Samuel asked.

“I suppose the prayers must travel somehow to whoever they're addressed to.”

“It might be that this head makes people cleverer, because I'm getting an idea.”

“Keep me out of it.”

“Too late, you're already involved. There are two parts to this idea: first of all we're going to set up this girl's date with the good little doctor on Friday.”

“How?”

“Hang on, I'll tell you. Listen, Francisco: between now and Friday, you keep bringing me food, water, a sheet and pillow and those magazines with naked women. If you believe in my ability to hear things, you can get your pockets ready to earn some money.”

“Sounds like a whole lot of trouble.”

“But if it's true, then I'm the guy who knows all the secrets of the women in this whole town. We can make money, and a lot of it.”

“I don't see how….”

“You know all the people in Candeia; you can tell me who's who. We'll set it all up. Arrange a wedding or wreak chaos, depending on the individual case. Blackmail brings money. I don't believe in saints, or in love. All I want is to be rich. I was born and bred selling things to pilgrims, man, trust me.”

Francisco stared, deep in thought. “Are there more women talking?”

Samuel pressed his ear up against the top of the head.

“There's just one, singing, but it's quite quiet. She sings beautifully, this one. I don't even need a portable radio.”

“How many are there usually?”

“Lots. But only about five or six I can hear clearly. The voices seem to be in the same places every day.”

“Is she the only one who sings?”

“The only one.” Samuel listened again. Nothing. “They must have stopped praying because it's time to put dinner on the table. Speaking of which, where's my food?”

Samuel stayed in the shelter till the day of the doctor's office hours, getting by with Francisco's care and studying the phenomenon of the prayers that reverberated in the huge, hollow head of St. Anthony. Samuel used a piece of coal to mark the place where each voice came through and concluded that there were only four women he could hear clearly. The others were very weak, faltering like a radio with a broken aerial. It was during this more detailed inspection of the head that Samuel spotted the letter
M,
painted in white with a circle around it. Someone had left their mark before him, but it seemed to have no connection to the voices. Just an
M,
that was all.

Francisco, who knew everybody in the town, worked out whom each of the voices belonged to. Samuel was glad he was no longer suspicious, that he had made Francisco see that there was no way he could have known so much about these women's lives, their names, the details of their routines.

The truth was, Samuel didn't understand why he was able to hear the secrets that only St. Anthony should know. Whether it was a lapse on the part of the saint, or some trick of the Devil's, there was no way of telling. It was the second-biggest event in Candeia's history. The first was the day the engineer from Rio de Janeiro told the population that the giant skull could never be lifted onto the body at the top of the hill. He was right. St. Anthony's head remained down on the ground forever. Evidence of an irreversible mistake that brought about the misfortune of the people of Candeia.