Glossary
Caatinga Dry thorn forest covering much of the interior of Northeast Brazil
Sertão Semi-arid interior of Northeast Brazil
Cangaceiro Bandit
Maconha Marijuana
Coronel Large landowner and local leader (unelected)
Sanfoneiro Accordion or concertina player
Nordestino Of the Brazilian Northeast
Sergio Marques rented the second to last house on the north side of the main and only street of Carolina in the state of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He chose the house partly because it had an inside toilet. This he knew would please Senhor Peter, his gringo boss. Personally, he preferred to shit in the sticks. But gringos were gringos, and he thought it important that his boss’s arse should not be exposed to the thorny scrub and voracious insects of the Caatinga, particularly at night. For sure, the flush consisting of a bucket of water and a drain to the pigsty at the back, left a lot to be desired but he hoped that Senhor Peter would be tactful enough to ignore the grunting and snuffling of the pigs each time the wooden toilet door banged shut.
In every other respect the house would provide a perfect base for himself, João Paes Leme his field assistant, and Senhor Peter for the six months they would be exploring for gold in the Sertão. There were two bedrooms, each with hooks for hammocks, a small kitchen with a tap over a sink and a gas stove, and a large room which looked out on the dusty main street and would serve as a field office. He would share a room with Paes Leme who would not dare complain about his snoring. The boss could have the other room to himself. Yes, the house was perfect, which was more than you could say for how he felt about the coming months and their chances of finding any gold.
Sergio hated the Sertão. It wasn’t just that it was blisteringly hot, poverty stricken and two thousand kilometres from São Paulo, his beloved home. No, he was terrified of disease, and the Northeast was full of it. There was malaria and dengue, schistosomiasis that blinded you, and leprosy, and dogs with the weeping sores of leishmaniasis which infected humans. But worst of all was Chagas. A beetle dropped from the thatch while you were asleep, sucked your blood then defecated in the wound, leaving you with a parasite that would slowly, very slowly, kill you. There was no cure. So, no way would Sergio Marques sleep under a thatch. He looked up at the tin roof – sure it made the house wickedly hot, but they would be outside in the field all day when the heat was at its worst, or mostly all day.
He went out into the midday heat. His boss should be here by now. Perhaps he was delayed at the ferry crossing of the great river. He looked up the wide main street. To be fair, Carolina was by no means the worst town in the interior. The main road was surfaced with neat granite pavé and the houses that lined it were whitewashed or painted pastel pink or blue. Most were simple, flat-roofed, single storeys although two boasted a second floor and pitched tiled rooves. At the far end of town there was a posto that sold gasoline and diesel fuel and ice-cold beer. Three mangy dogs lay in the shade of the only tree. The town was silent save for a baby’s crying coming from the house opposite. He looked south beyond the town to the open dirt road where a dust devil whirled its way across the scrub. He heard the hum of a distant vehicle, watched and waited as an olive-green Land Cruiser rattled its way across the corrugations. It pulled up beside him and his boss leaned out of the open window, sweat trickling down his dust-covered face.
‘Boa tarde, Sergio. Tudo bem?’
Sergio winced at the massacre of his beautiful language but at least the man tried. He replied in his equally bad English. ‘Good afternoon Senhor Peter. Everything is well.’
And for the next six months everything did go well, or mostly well. They employed a dozen men from the town to hack their way through the thorn scrub where they sampled soils and gravels from the desiccated stream beds. They climbed stony hills and made maps of rocks that he and Senhor Peter studied every evening over ice cold beers from the posto. There was some excitement when analysis of rock samples showed trace amounts of gold, but that’s all it was – traces invisible to the naked eye. They had bad days – one when their exploration led them to a field of maconha in full bud and the leather-clad cangaceiro guarding it leaped up and fired his ancient carbine to warn them off. Another when Paes Leme was bitten by a snake and Sergio drove him groaning and terrified sixty kilometres to the nearest town. There he was shot up with antivenom and vomited all the way back to Carolina. The Land Cruiser stank for a week, but Paes Leme lived. In a town called Carimirím the coronel warned them off, saying any gold they might find belonged to him. This more than irked Senhor Peter as he thought the surrounding rocks were very promising, but they did not dare go up against a swaggering Nordestino coronel – the man was always armed.
Six months was up, they’d spent half a million dollars and found no gold. Sergio was not surprised. But their work had brought some wealth to Carolina. The townsfolk were more than grateful and the night before they left arranged a barbecue, a churrasco in their honour. They took chairs into the street and sat around a fire in the warm night and a Sanfoneiro played Nordestino jigs on a concertina. The owner of their house killed one of the pigs and roasted it on a spit outside the house. Sergio watched it dripping fat and sizzling in the hardwood flames. He knew he was going to have to eat it. Or perhaps he could refuse. But no – his boss, chewing on a rib, the grease running down his chin, waved the joint at him. ‘Come on Sergio, dig in. This pig’s delicious.’
A neighbour hacked off a solid piece of leg meat and offered it on a fork to Sergio. He had to take it. He stared at it in the firelight. The meat was pinkly underdone. But everyone was watching him. Putting it to his mouth, he sank his jaws into the juicy flesh, his mind fixed on the sound of the toilet door banging shut and the snorting of pigs. He stomach heaved and he groaned. He would leave tomorrow not with dengue, malaria or dreaded Chagas, just tapeworm eggs hatching in his gut.