The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin Read Free Book Online Page A

in italic script.
    He told him of Bahia and its three hundred churches, of the city of Lisbon and the Holy House of Rome. He made him play the role of St Sebastian at Corpus Christi processions. He called him ‘my green-eyed angel’ yet made him grovel and confess the blackness of his soul. Sometimes he led him into a bedroom reeking of incense and dead flowers, where he kissed him.
    The village boys called the newcomer ‘Chico Diabo’ and were always plotting to hurt him: he had only to glare in their faces and they shrank back.
    His one friend was the black boy, Pepeu, whom he held in thrall. Together they plucked finches alive, made certain experiments with the flesh of a watermelon, and shouted obscenities at the girls washing tripes in the river.
    Once, they tried crucifying a cat, but it got away.
    On market days, they went down to the slaughterhouse where old hags would be fighting with pariah dogs over offal. The butchers wore red caps and breeches of blue nankeen that were always purple, and they would splash about in the blood, puffing at cigars and poleaxing any animal still left standing.
    The cows stared unamazed at their murderers.
    â€˜Like the Saints,’ said Francisco Manoel.
    He knew, far better than the priest, the meaning of Christ’s martyrdom, and the liturgy of thorns and blood and nails. He knew God made men to rack them in the wilderness, yet his own sufferings had hardened him to the sufferings of others. By the age of thirteen, he wore an agate-handled knife in his belt, took pains to clip his moustache, and showed not a trace of squeamishness when he went to watch a flogging at the pillory.
    Every October, as the cashews ripened in the last of the rains, the cowhands from the outlying ranches would round up their herds and begin the long trek south to the markets of Bahia. Files of cattle converged on the town. They were cumbersome animals, with swinging dewlaps and hides the colour of cornmeal; and the men would ride around in clouds of dust yelling, ‘É . . . Hou . . . Hé . . . Hé . . . O . . . O . . . O . . . O . . .!’
    Sometimes, in the lane leading to the river, a tired cow would lie down and the other cows would spill sideways, break fences and trample the villagers’ bean patches. Women rushed from their houses and shook their fists, but the riders took no notice: the cattle-men never seemed to notice gardens.
    Francisco Manoel liked helping them winch the animals aboard the wherries. Then, after dark, he would listen to their stories of bandits and pumas. But if he asked to go along, someone was sure to say, ‘The boy’s too young,’ and he went back to the hard bed and disapproving crucifix.
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    HE HAD MADE up his mind to run away when a rider came into town with news that his mother’s old companion was dying at a ranch some leagues into the bush.
    Outside the shack a sorrel stallion chomped at the hitching post. He pushed back the cowhide that served as a door and saw a shrunken figure laid out on a pallet. A crust of pustules covered his face and his eyes were closed.
    Feebly, Manuelzinho gestured to his saddle, his quirt, an ocelot waistcoat, a waterproof made of boa skin and a leather hat sewn with metal medallions.
    â€˜Take them,’ he said.
    The boy rode off with some passing horsemen. He did not say goodbye to the priest. Nor did he ever go back.
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    FOR THE NEXT seven years, he drifted through the backlands of the North-East, taking odd jobs as butcher’s apprentice, muleteer, drover and gold panner. Sometimes he knew a flash of happiness, but only if it was time to be departing.
    Duststorms burnished his skin. His clothes reeked of sour milk and horses. When drought tore at his throat, he soothed it with an infusion brewed from the tail of a rattlesnake.
    Faces he forgot, but he remembered the sensations: the taste of the armadillo meat roasted in clay; the shock of