Free Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado Page B

a real carrousel for a few days, moving with it, riding its horses, watching the lights of all colors going around from close by. And for Legless, Nhôzinho França wasn’t the drunkard across the poor table from him at the Gate of the Sea. In his eyes he was an extraordinary being, something like the God Lollipop prayed to, something like Xangô, who was the saint of Big João and God’s-Love. Because not Father José Pedro and not even the priestess Don’Aninha would be capable of bringing off that miracle. In the Bahian nights, on a square in Itapagipe, the lights of the carrousel would spin madly, moved by Legless. It was like a dream, a quite different dream from the ones Legless was used to having on his nights of anguish. And for the first time his eyes felt moist with tears that hadn’t been brought on by pain or rage. And his damp eyes looked on Nhôzinho França as on an idol. For him Legless would even open the throat of a man with the knife he carries between his pants and the old black vest that serves him as a jacket.
    “It’s a beauty,” Pedro Bala said, looking at the old carrousel when it was set up. And Big João opened his eyes in order to see better. Hanging around it were the blue, green, yellow, and red bulbs.
    It’s old and faded, Nhôzinho França’s carrousel is. But it has its beauty. Maybe it’s in the bulbs, or in the Pianola music (old waltzes out of a time long lost) or maybe in the wooden mounts. Among them there’s a duck for the smaller children to sit inside. It has its beauty, yes, because in the unanimous opinion of the Captains of the Sands it’s something marvelous. Who cares if it’s old, broken, and faded if it pleases children?
    It was an almost unbelievable surprise when Legless arrived at the warehouse that night saying that he and Dry Gulch weregoing to work on the carrousel for a few days. A lot of them didn’t believe it, they thought it was just another trick on the part of Legless. Then they went to ask Dry Gulch, who, as always, was stuck in his corner examining a revolver he’d stolen from a weapons shop. Dry Gulch nodded yes and said a couple of times:
    “Lampião rode on it. Lampião’s my godfather…”
    Legless invited everybody to come see the carrousel the next night when they would finish setting it up. And he went out to meet Nhôzinho França. At that moment all the little hearts that were beating in the warehouse envied Legless’s supreme happiness. Even Lollipop, who had pictures of saints on his wall, even Big João, who that night would go with God’s-Love to Procópio’s
candomblé
rites in Matatu, even the Professor, who read books, and, who knows, maybe Pedro Bala too, who never envied anyone because he was the leader of them all. They all envied him, yes. The way they envied Dry Gulch, who in his corner, his straight halfbreed hair hanging down, his eyes squinting, and his mouth twisted in that rictus of rage, pointed the revolver, now at one of the boys, now at a rat who was passing, now at the stars, of which there were many in the sky.
    The next night they all went with Legless and Dry Gulch (the latter had spent the day off helping Nhôzinho set up the carrousel) to see the assembled merry-go-round. And they stood before it in ecstasy over its beauty, their mouths open with admiration. Legless showed them everything. Dry Gulch took them one by one to show them the horse that had been ridden by his godfather Virgulino Ferreira Lampião. There were almost a hundred children looking at the old carrousel of Nhôzinho França, who at that time was in the throes of a tremendous binge at the Gate of the Sea.
    Legless showed them the engine (a small motor that missed a lot) with the pride of an owner. Dry Gulch didn’t get off the horse that Lampião had gone around on. Legless was very careful with the carrousel and wouldn’t let them touch it, handle anything.
    It was when the Professor asked:
    “Do you know how to work the machinery