Welcome to São Paulo, Brazil, in the not too distant future. Water is scarce, garbage clogs the city, movement is restricted, and the System—sinister, omnipotent, secret—rules its subjects' every moment and thought. Here, middle-aged Souza lives a meaningless life in a world where the future is doomed and all memory of the past is forbidden. A classic novel of "dystopia, " looking back to Orwell's 1984 and forward to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, And Still the Earth stands with Loyola Brandão's Zero as one of the author's greatest, and darkest, achievements.
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Yes, you can access And Still the Earth by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, Ellen Watson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literature General. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
I, THE KING, make known to one and all, through this my Royal Decree which carries the weight of Law: That it has been disclosed to me by the Proprietors of Factories of Tanned Hides in the Captaincies of Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco that inhabitants thereof, as well as those of Santos, Paraíba, Rio Grande, and Ceará, are currently felling the tree known as Mangrove for the purpose of selling the wood for lumber. Whereas the bark of the aforementioned Mangrove tree is the only example in the Viceroyalty of Brazil which may be used to produce tannin for the curing of leather; and Whereas, for that reason, the bark of the Mangrove has already reached an excessive price, with the inevitable result that in not very many years this indispensable material shall be widely unavailable; and whereas it is My desire to favor Commerce to the common benefit of all My Vassals, intending to protect particularly such Manufacture necessary to Navigation and the growth of Exports, it is My Determination that from this day forward the aforementioned Mangrove trees shall not be felled unless having previously their bark removed, the penalty for infractions being fifty mil-reis and three months in prison, except in the case of repeat offenders in which case the penalties shall be doubled.
Thus, in order to favor the enforcement of this Decree and the apprehension of Infractors, it is further made known that anonymous denunciation shall be accepted and likewise the authors of said denunciations shall receive payment in the amount of the penalty charged to the Infractors, unless the latter be without means to pay, in which case payment shall be made at the expense of the Municipal Council.
And be it further declared that the Manufacturers of Tanned Hides and their Agents, Deputies, or any or all persons who sell said Mangrove bark to such Manufacturers shall be freely permitted to remove said bark without regard to location or area; in the case that the above-mentioned persons be impeded in this work, that fact shall be made known to the Board of Inspection whereupon my Determination shall be executed, to which end I concede to the Board the necessary jurisdiction.
Thus resolved, and in this regard to further insure that these measures be fully executed, this Decree shall be made known by Myself to: the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the Chairman of the Board of Appeals, the Royal Treasury Council, the Overseas Council, the Board of Conscience and Religious Orders, the Municipal Council, the Committee on Commerce of this Domain and its territories, the Viceroy of the State of Brazil, all Governors, Captains-General, Chief Justices, Magistrates, and all People of this Kingdom, in order that they shall fulfill their charge without encumbrance whatsoever of any other law or custom, and eliminating all disposition to the contrary.
Be it therefore enacted that this Royal Decree shall carry the full weight of law fully approved by the Chancery though it shall not be so legislated; that it shall remain in force for the duration of one year; that it shall be registered and recorded in all places as such laws are customarily registered and recorded; and, further, that the original Decree shall be delivered to the Royal Archives in Lisbon. Signed in the Palace of Our Lady of Assistance, Lisbon, the ninth of July in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and seventy.
THE KING
Count of Oyeras
By virtue of this Royal Decree carrying the force of law, His Royal Majesty prohibits in the Captaincies of Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Santos, Paraíba, Rio Grande, and Ceará the felling of Mangrove trees which have not previously had the bark removed, under penalties contained herein, thus decreed and declared, to be thus literally executed,
For His Majesty to See.
THE SIRENS WAIL NONSTOP ALL NIGHT LONG. BUT WORSE THAN THE SIRENS WAS THE SHIP WHICH SANK AS THE CHILDREN’S HEADS EXPLODED
A pestilential stench. It comes from the cadavers, the garbage and excrement piling up in the Pauper Encampments over there Beyond the Pale. Who knows what would happen to me if they heard me calling those places by their nicknames. Isolation, I guess.
They say they’ve tried everything to get rid of the constant, nauseating odor of death and decomposition. No success. I wonder if they really tried. The trucks, painted a cheery green and yellow, drop off bodies day and night. We’re not supposed to know this, but things like that always come out. That’s the way it is.
Bodies pile up waiting to be cremated. Open-air sewers disgorge their contents into old riverbeds. The stacked garbage forms seventy-seven undulating columns—inhabited, all of them—and the sun, unbearably intense, rots the meat in a matter of hours. The fetid smell of death, combined with the ineffectual insecticides and formaldehyde, is so pungent it makes your nose bleed when there’s an atmospheric inversion. It even leaks into the obligatory gas masks, drying your mouth, burning your eyes, making your skin raw. At ground level the animals are dying.
That’s what makes up the noxious atmosphere that a battery of powerful fans are constantly, unsuccessfully trying to drive away. Trying to drive the stench far beyond the oikoumene, a word the do-nothing sociologists revived from the past to designate the slender space we live in. If you could call this living.
I turned, surprised. In thirty-two years of marriage, Adelaide had never felt the need to yell to get my attention. Seven forty-seven. I had to be at the bus stop in four minutes or I’d miss the S-758, my authorized transport. Funny, she knew that—so how come she decided to make me even later?
—What is it?
—You forgot your sport coat.
—I can’t stand to wear that thing and sweat all day long.
—Souza, you know they won’t let you work without a jacket.
—So much the better …
There was a frightened look in her eyes. Worried, I considered her face and asked myself a question. A question I don’t dare ask. If I did, who knows what might take shape, what might be revealed.
We had breakfast together every morning. Then she’d walk me to the door, where I’d put on my hat (yes, hats are back in again), gently squeeze her left shoulder (I don’t know if there’s any pleasure left in this for either of us), and look at my watch. I worry if I’m running late.
—Look how low the haze is, it’s going to be a scorcher.
The haze seems to be getting lower by the day. Six months ago it hovered above the city like the dome of a gigantic cathedral. The air trapped underneath, inflamed, is unbearable. Sometimes it condenses and the smell is sickening, it makes your head burn. If this haze keeps lowering, will it eventually suffocate us?
—Did you sleep?
—With those sirens going all night?
—I thought it was a burglar alarm. Who can tell anymore.
—I’m sure it was a fire. Not that it makes any difference. I could put up with the sleeplessness, but the alarms really get on my nerves.
—As if the infernal daytime heat weren’t enough …
—Remember when the gas tanks exploded, and the buildings burned nonstop? It was right after the Era of Extraordinary Rationing.
She handed me my gray sport coat. A waterproof synthetic fabric that was supposed to keep the heat out. Top quality. Just like cashmere. It was stifling. I noticed last year’s calendars piling up on the table, she was taking them down off the walls. Huh! Today must be the fifth of January. Who cares.
The calendars are always left open to the first day of the year. The red
, universal fraternity. Red fading to pink by the end of the year. Adelaide cleans them daily, hours and hours wiping the dust off the little pages. Living room, kitchen, bedroom. Ardently.
That eternal
. No reason to mark time passing, forget about it, she told me once. What good is it to know which day it is? But the hours—now they’re important. Each day compartmentalized, something specific assigned to each hour. It’s better to live one day eternally, everything contained inside that one day.
This attitude wasn’t like her. She was a quiet woman, an ex-bookkeeper for the railroad. Never talked much. She took things as they came and showed irritation only by keeping her silence and rubbing her eyes. The hollows underneath would sort of crinkle, and her eyes became elongated like a Japanese.
At the beginning of each new year she would collect the calendars from each room and wrap them up in brown paper. As I left for work on January fifth, she would always remind me: “Don’t forget the paper.” Year after year for thirty-two years as we said good-bye at seven forty-seven on the fifth of January, and she never forgot. I never remembered.
The changing of the calendars on the fifth was automatic. Adelaide took them down first thing in the morning. I’d come home for lunch instead of staying downtown. After lunch I’d take a little nap, though lately, with this stifling heat, there was no way I could sleep. Even so, I stayed in the bedroom. By the time I came out, the new calendars would all be in place and the old ones would be on the table wrapped in brown paper. I would take the packet to what was supposed to be the maid’s room and throw it on the pile. There they would be, piled up in chronological order: the last thirty-two years.
Eleven thousand seven hundred untouched days. Dusty, yellowing, unused, preserved. I walked into that room just once a year. We never had a maid, Adelaide always did everything herself. She said, with a touch of irony, that it was her mission. Only lately had I been able to convince her to hire someone to do the weekly cleaning. And only because maids earned so little. These days people would work for a plate of food, one glass of water a day. They didn’t want money, which made it tough on some employers: “If only she’d accept cash instead of demanding food and water …”
The hoarded days. Stockpiled. Not a mark on them. Not a single mistake. The sum of all our moments. I see now that each moment was a sort of antecedent. A wait, which renewed itself infinitely. We lived in anticipation of the someday that would have to arrive.
And so our life expanded like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point, to a state of tension, nerve-racking anxiety. As each day ended, the waiting was born in us again. We hoarded the instants which would make the following day full/empty.
Instants which were lacking something, something we needed but weren’t about to look for. We lived in a constant state of expectation, a real, concrete emptiness. A sort of twinge casting its shadow into every corner of the house.
We filled the apartment with objects. It resembled a bazaar, a collection of singular, unsalable articles. China closets full of glass dessert dishes, goblets, salt and pepper shakers, glasses, wine decanters. Walls covered with portraits, pictures of saints, pennants, stopped clocks.
