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

pride of a handsome mulatto and the agility of his hands with a deck of cards brought him respect. Not to mention his skill on the guitar.
    He was exhibiting his way with cards at the Água dos Meninos market. By doing it with such ease, he was contributing to the spiritual happiness of bus and truck drivers, playing a part in the education of two black urchins just beginning their practical apprenticeship in life, and helping any number of vendors to spend the profits they had made from their sales that day in the market stalls. In that way he was undertaking work of the most praiseworthy kind. It goes unexplained, then, why one of the vendors wasn’t all that enthusiastic about Martim’s virtuosity in dealing, as the man kept muttering, “Luck like that’s got a fishy smell about it.” Corporal Martim raised his eyes, brimming with blue innocence at the hasty critic, passed him the deck to deal if he wanted to and if he thought he had the necessary competence. As for himself, Corporal Martim preferred to bet against the bank, breaking it and reducing the banker to the most abject poverty. And he would not tolerate insinuationsconcerning his honesty. As an old soldier he was particularly sensitive to whispers that cast doubt on his upright character. So sensitive was he that any new provocation would oblige him to bust somebody in the face. The enthusiasm of the urchins grew; the drivers rubbed their hands together, all excited. Nothing better than a good fight, spontaneous and unexpected like that. Just when everything was all set to start, Sparrow and Bangs Blackie appeared, bearing the tragic news and the bottle of cachaça, with just a tiny bit left in it. They were already shouting to the corporal from a distance.
    “He died! He died!”
    Corporal Martim stared at them, his good eye lingering on the bottle with quick calculations, and he commented to the group, “Something important must have happened for them to have drunk a whole bottle already. Either Bangs Blackie hit the numbers or Sparrow’s got himself engaged.”
    As Sparrow was an incurable romantic, he was always getting engaged, the victim of his explosive passions. Every engagement was properly celebrated, with joy at the beginning and with philosophical sadness when it ended a short time later.
    “Somebody died,” a trucker said.
    Corporal Martim listened hard.
    “He died! He died!”
    The two of them were coming along all hunched over with the weight of the news. From Sete Portas to Água dos Meninos, passing by the skiff docks and Carmela’s house, they’d given the sad news to a lot of people. Why was it that every one of them, on learning about Quincas’s passing, immediately uncorked a bottle? It wasn’t their fault, heralds of grief and mourning, that there were so many people along the way, that Quincas had so many friends and acquaintances. Drinking in the city of Bahia began muchearlier than usual on that day. It couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t every day that a Quincas Water-Bray died.
    Corporal Martim, forgetting about the fight and with the cards still in his hand, was watching them with increasing curiosity. They were crying—that was obvious. Bangs Blackie’s voice was all choked up.
    “Our father, the father of the people, has died…”
    “Was it Jesus Christ or the governor?” asked one of the black urchins, who had the reputation of a jokester. The black man reached out his hand and flung him to the ground.
    They could all understand that it was a serious matter. Sparrow raised the bottle and said, “Water-Bray has died!”
    The deck of cards dropped from Martim’s hand. The suspicious vendor saw his worst fears confirmed—aces and queens—as the dealer’s cards scattered all over. But the name of Quincas had reached his ears too. He decided not to argue. Corporal Martim asked Sparrow for the bottle, then threw it away with disdain. He stood for a long time looking at the market stalls, the trucks and buses on the