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Authors: Socorro Acioli
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come from, but as he started to listen for the first time, Francisco appeared.
“You’re a genius!” Francisco said to Samuel. “Look what we’ve done!”
“I didn’t know it would all happen so quickly.”
“But it did, and I’ve already made a tidy profit today.”
“You’d better split that with me.”
“Are the two of you planning to make money from the miracles of the saint?” asked Father Zacarias.
“The parish will benefit, too, Father,” replied Samuel, who had grown up learning how to handle the priests in Horto.
—
It was Francisco’s father who thought of asking one of the Canindé artisans to go back to making statues of St. Anthony to sell. It had been forbidden, but that was before the miracle. Now everybody wanted one.
Expedito, the artisan, went to see the saint’s head to draw the details so that he could make his just the same. That was when he noticed, hidden in a corner, the letter
M
in a circle.
“And what’s this?”
“I don’t know. Can’t be anything important,” replied Samuel.
All the same, the saint maker recorded the letter and the circle in his drawing. He returned to Canindé quickly: with any luck he’d have a clutch of saints to sell the following day.
The only people who ever joined Samuel inside the head were Francisco, Father Zacarias and Expedito. The women waited anxiously for a word from Samuel, who was uneasy, torn between taking advantage of the thriving trade, thinking what to do about all those women and feeling sorry, very sorry, that he couldn’t hear the Singing Voice in the midst of all the noise. By now he was desperate to know who it belonged to.
Fortunately for him, Francisco had an eye for a good opportunity and spotted the potential in one spinster’s desperate appeal: “I want to talk to the saint’s messenger—I’ll pay anything!”
It was as if she’d spoken some magic words. Francisco didn’t know precisely what to do, but Samuel would certainly be able to put together a plan.
Candeia was reborn. It was brought back to life by the hands of the faithful women who worshipped around the head of the saint, lit candles, prayed day and night and waited for a chance to talk to the messenger. They wanted to get married. Almost all of them had a secret love hidden in their hearts, sometimes even a forbidden one, but a love of some sort. Others didn’t even have this. They had no focus for their prayers, no particular beloved for the saint to bring to them, but they wanted to get married because, out in the backlands, a woman who doesn’t marry is a cactus without a flower.
Then came the men, brought to the head of the saint by their curiosity. Aécio Diniz got more slots on Canindé Radio and talked about nothing else. The more people who came to Candeia, the greater the profit for Samuel, Aécio and Francisco, impromptu partners in that enterprise.
Everyone, without exception, was shocked at the state of neglect Candeia was in. Many had thought no one lived there anymore. Before Samuel’s arrival, only a few of the houses were inhabited. Some men decided to break in and occupy the empty ones, cut back the forest that had grown around and inside them, hang lamps outside, take the hammocks to be washed in the lagoon behind the hill. Many went to fetch their families from Canindé and the surrounding towns.
A few of the houses weren’t as empty as they looked; their owners were still inside—dead. Chico the Gravedigger had had no idea that these corpses existed; he’d assumed that everyone had left rather than died here. Now he identified each body by his or her house, sometimes by the boots they had been wearing or the locket on a necklace. It would be impossible to identify anyone by anything else, as the bodies no longer had faces.
The gravedigger made a point of giving a modestly dignified burial to every newly discovered body. He asked the new occupiers to bring the images of the saints from the oratories in each house
“You’re a genius!” Francisco said to Samuel. “Look what we’ve done!”
“I didn’t know it would all happen so quickly.”
“But it did, and I’ve already made a tidy profit today.”
“You’d better split that with me.”
“Are the two of you planning to make money from the miracles of the saint?” asked Father Zacarias.
“The parish will benefit, too, Father,” replied Samuel, who had grown up learning how to handle the priests in Horto.
—
It was Francisco’s father who thought of asking one of the Canindé artisans to go back to making statues of St. Anthony to sell. It had been forbidden, but that was before the miracle. Now everybody wanted one.
Expedito, the artisan, went to see the saint’s head to draw the details so that he could make his just the same. That was when he noticed, hidden in a corner, the letter
M
in a circle.
“And what’s this?”
“I don’t know. Can’t be anything important,” replied Samuel.
All the same, the saint maker recorded the letter and the circle in his drawing. He returned to Canindé quickly: with any luck he’d have a clutch of saints to sell the following day.
The only people who ever joined Samuel inside the head were Francisco, Father Zacarias and Expedito. The women waited anxiously for a word from Samuel, who was uneasy, torn between taking advantage of the thriving trade, thinking what to do about all those women and feeling sorry, very sorry, that he couldn’t hear the Singing Voice in the midst of all the noise. By now he was desperate to know who it belonged to.
Fortunately for him, Francisco had an eye for a good opportunity and spotted the potential in one spinster’s desperate appeal: “I want to talk to the saint’s messenger—I’ll pay anything!”
It was as if she’d spoken some magic words. Francisco didn’t know precisely what to do, but Samuel would certainly be able to put together a plan.
Candeia was reborn. It was brought back to life by the hands of the faithful women who worshipped around the head of the saint, lit candles, prayed day and night and waited for a chance to talk to the messenger. They wanted to get married. Almost all of them had a secret love hidden in their hearts, sometimes even a forbidden one, but a love of some sort. Others didn’t even have this. They had no focus for their prayers, no particular beloved for the saint to bring to them, but they wanted to get married because, out in the backlands, a woman who doesn’t marry is a cactus without a flower.
Then came the men, brought to the head of the saint by their curiosity. Aécio Diniz got more slots on Canindé Radio and talked about nothing else. The more people who came to Candeia, the greater the profit for Samuel, Aécio and Francisco, impromptu partners in that enterprise.
Everyone, without exception, was shocked at the state of neglect Candeia was in. Many had thought no one lived there anymore. Before Samuel’s arrival, only a few of the houses were inhabited. Some men decided to break in and occupy the empty ones, cut back the forest that had grown around and inside them, hang lamps outside, take the hammocks to be washed in the lagoon behind the hill. Many went to fetch their families from Canindé and the surrounding towns.
A few of the houses weren’t as empty as they looked; their owners were still inside—dead. Chico the Gravedigger had had no idea that these corpses existed; he’d assumed that everyone had left rather than died here. Now he identified each body by his or her house, sometimes by the boots they had been wearing or the locket on a necklace. It would be impossible to identify anyone by anything else, as the bodies no longer had faces.
The gravedigger made a point of giving a modestly dignified burial to every newly discovered body. He asked the new occupiers to bring the images of the saints from the oratories in each house
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