Read Online The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray by Jorge Amado - Free Book Online Page A

in contrition, grew annoyed.
    “You bunch of boobs!”
    “A lack of training,” the corporal explained. “But it did amount to something. The priest will take care of the rest tomorrow.”
    Quincas seemed indifferent to the prayer. It must have been hot for him in those heavy clothes. Bangs Blackie looked his friend over. They had to do something for him now, because the prayer hadn’t worked. Should they sing a chant from
candomblé
maybe? They had to do something. He asked Swifty, “Where’s the toad? Take him out.”
    “He’s not a toad; he’s a frog. What good will he be?”
    “Maybe Quincas will like him.”
    Swifty carefully took out the frog and placed him on Quincas’s crossed hands. The animal leaped and nestled himself in the bottom of the coffin. When the wavy light from the candles hit his body, green flashes of light ran over the corpse.
    The argument over Quitéria Goggle-Eye started up again. Sparrow was more combative after a few drinks. He raised his voice in defense of his interests.
    Bangs Blackie complained: “Aren’t you two ashamed to be arguing about his woman in front of him? Him still warm and you like a couple of vultures.”
    “He’s the one who should decide,” Swifty said. He was hopeful that Quincas would choose him to inherit Quitéria,his only possession. Hadn’t he just brought him the prettiest green frog he’d ever caught?
    “Unh!” said the dead man.
    “You see? He doesn’t like this talk,” the black man scolded.
    “Let’s give him a drink too,” the corporal proposed, desirous to be in the dead man’s good graces.
    They opened his mouth and poured in the cachaça. A little spilled onto his coat collar and shirtfront.
    “I never saw anyone drink on his back.”
    “It would be best to prop him up. Then he can look right at us.”
    They sat Quincas up in the coffin, his head lolling from one side to the other. With the swig of cachaça his smile had grown broader.
    “Nice jacket,” Corporal Martim said, examining the material. “It’s foolish to put new clothes on a dead man. He died, he’s finished, he’s going six feet under. New clothes for the worms to eat while there are so many people in need…”
    Words full of truth, they thought. They gave Quincas another drink. The dead man nodded. He was a man who could agree with someone who was right. He was obviously in agreement with what Martim had been saying.
    “He’s ruining the clothes.”
    “It would be better if we took off the jacket so it won’t get all messed up.”
    Quincas seemed relieved when they took off the heavy, hot, black coat jacket. But since he was still spitting up cachaça, they took his shirt off too. Sparrow had fallen in love with the shiny shoes. His were a shamble. What does a dead man need with new shoes, eh, Quincas?
    “They’re just the right size for my feet,” said Sparrow.
    Bangs Blackie picked up his friend’s old clothes, which had been lying in a corner of the room, and together they put them on him. Then they recognized him.
    “There now. Yes, that’s the old Quincas.”
    They felt happy. Quincas seemed happier too, rid of those uncomfortable clothes. He was especially grateful to Sparrow because the shoes had been pinching his feet. The street peddler took advantage of this and put his mouth close to Quincas’s ear, whispering something about Quitéria. What had he done that for? Bangs Blackie had been right that talk about the whore would irritate Quincas. He became violent, spitting out a gush of cachaça into Sparrow’s ear. The others shuddered, scared.
    “He’s mad.”
    “What did I tell you?”
    Swifty finished putting on the new shoes. Corporal Martim got the jacket. Bangs Blackie would exchange the shirt for a bottle of cachaça in a shop he knew. They were sorry he didn’t have any underwear on. Corporal Martim spoke quite to the point when he said to Quincas, “I don’t mean to say anything bad, but that family of yours is a tad stingy. I