Palmares

by Gayl Jones

  Peeking in at the low window, I could hear clearly what Father Tollinare was saying. He began to tell Alejandro that he had hopes for him with regard to a certain high post in the government. I knew that the brancos were becoming not opposed to having Indians in such high positions now, as in the early days when they considered Indians mere savages and children and though the majority of Indians were still thought mere savages and children, yet some of the brancos now, who referred to themselves as indianists, had even begun to boast of their Indian ancestors, even those with only imaginary ones. The Indian, I once remembered hearing Father Tollinare say, was what distinguished Brazil from the Old World.

  Anyway, Father Tollinare began to tell him of a certain Indian, a captain-major who’d had such a grand position, and what had he done? Why, he’d done something unworthy of that honor. He’d been informed that he shouldn’t, that under no circumstances, should he marry a certain preto woman, that he shouldn’t tarnish his good blood with hers, but what had he done? Why, he’d done so anyway.

  One priest had refused to marry them, but they’d found another who would. Some profligate. And so, the Indian, the captain-major had been dismissed from that high position in which he might have attained even greater honors.

  Now that Alejandro knew that history, he said, he should not commit the same error.

  “No, my boy, there are important men here who know of you, quite important men, who know of you and who have been anxious for your return. Yes, my boy.”

  Certainly, Father Tollinare explained, he’d first sent him to study abroad because he expected when he returned he would enter the priesthood, but now things were changing, there were more choices, more recognition of an Indian’s humanity. And everyone had heard such magnificent accounts of him, his intelligence, his moral virtue.

  He’d hoped that Alejandro would by now have forgotten the woman and his affection for her. He himself had seen that affection blossoming and that’s partly why he’d sent him away. Even though she has the blood of the Indian, of his own people, there is Negro blood there too, and so she is all preto, or might as well be, and if he were to marry her, why, there’d be no place in the government, no worthy position for him, no position of honor.

  He himself, he went on, recognized that she was a real and human woman.

  “Yes, Alejandro, as I myself recognized that you are real and human. But I’m not a man of my own century, you see. Even so, I must look realistically at my own century. I must be pragmatic. Why, years ago, I’d have been that priest who’d have not refused to marry them. I’d have been that profligate. But now I’m a pragmatic man and I must look realistically at my own century, and so you should do. Love? Certainly, for a young man of your gifts, Alejandro, a young man who has borne other burdens of your century . . . Why, certainly I believe, as any righteous man, that the marriage would not be unworthy before God. But it is before men that we are speaking of now Alejandro. Mexia . . .”

  When he said her name I almost fell into the window. I caught my balance and listened harder.

  “Mexia,” he repeated, “is a beautiful and not unintelligent woman, and so I can understand your desire, Alejandro, any man’s desire for her, I should say, but now I will be that priest who refuses.”

  For there were many goods, he explained, many kinds of good, and he wanted the broad good for Alejandro, a position which perhaps no other Indian of his century would obtain. It would be solitary there, like the priesthood. But they had had such remarkable accounts of him.

  Alejandro’s eyes seemed unchanged throughout the long speech, and he continued to sit stiffly.

  Finally, Father Tollinare stood up, stretched himself, and looked as if he would come to the window. I ducked down. He closed the shutters and spoke of the moon being especially bright. Then he must have left, for I heard the door close. Or was it Alejandro who had left? The following day, however, when we came for the lessons, there was no Mexia to be found.

  The Dance

  WHILE DR. JOHANN WAS THERE, Entralgo gathered some of his slaves together and had them dance for him. Two of the men who were musicians were told to play, while two men and two women danced. My mother was known as one of the best dancers, so she was one of the women that Entralgo chose. In those days, as I’ve said, women often wore dresses that exposed their breasts or they simply wore skirts; the breasts, especially the breasts of a preto or mulatto woman, were not considered shameful. My mother and the other women were dressed in this fashion. The two men wore cotton trousers and white cotton shirts that were tied by a string at the neck and open at the front.

  Other people on the plantation were allowed to stop their work and stand around and watch. There was pineapple and cassava to eat, which we were told that Dr. Johann had provided for us, as a gift in return for our allowing him to paint us. This seemed an odd expression to me, for none of us had allowed him anything. Yet I partook of the pineapple and cassava along with the others.

  When the dancers entered, I noticed Dr. Johann’s eyes widen when he saw my mother among them. He had that look again, as if she’d done something disrespectful—to him or herself I still didn’t know. Then the men and women were dancing, raising their arms into the air, lifting their bare feet. A lot of the children on the sidelines raised their arms, too, as they watched, and so did I. Most of the grownups, though, just stood and simply watched. The dancers were the only ones who were smiling. The men looked as if they were delighted with the dance and with the women. The women had a similar expression; they were delighted and happy with the dance and with the men. But those who stood on the sidelines looked solemn, except for some of the children, who clapped their little hands and laughed.

  I continued watching Dr. Johann. His eyes kept getting darker and darker. In fact, his whole face seemed darker. He’d brought his canvas and brushes out into the yard, but instead of painting anything, he simply stood there looking. Then after some minutes, he walked toward the dancers. He stood nearest my mother, standing very still. The dancers kept dancing, but there was more tension and uneasiness in their movements, particularly in my mother’s, although she tried to maintain her look of ease and abandon. Then Dr. Johann stepped closer. I thought he was about to reach out and grab my mother, but Entralgo was beside him now and grabbed his arms, saying nothing. Then he nodded to the overseer, who unfolded his own arms and clapped his hands for the dancers to stop and for the people to get back to their work.

  I stood there wondering about what I’d seen. The overseer scowled at me and clapped his hands. I ran to mother. I reached for her hand, but she didn’t take hold of mine. I walked beside her back to the hut, my hands at my sides. She bent to enter the low door of the hut and I walked in behind her. Inside she turned to look down at me, then she touched my arm. I stared up at her, then down at the shadow of her arm on my arm.

  She started to stay something, but instead she hugged me.

  At night as I lay on my hammock, I saw the shadow of a man. It bent to enter the small hut. It went to my mother’s hammock and touched her arm. It said it hadn’t seen such dances before. It called the dance dissolute, vulgar, unreligious. It didn’t want her doing such dances. I knew it was Dr. Johann’s shadow. He said he didn’t want any woman of his to do such dances.

  My mother was silent. I strained to look, but it was dark and I couldn’t tell how her expression was. I could only see the tilt of her head. She raised up a bit, looking. I wondered if he too wished to see her expression.

  “Your woman?” she asked. “Yours?”

  “As long as I’m here, you’re mine. When I leave you can go back to being your own.”

  She laughed, then she said, “No woman is her own in this country, Sir.”

  He bent toward her. His shadow seemed to cover hers.

  “This is a country where neither the women nor their daughters are respected. How is it in your land?”

  His shadow left hers and he went out. I closed my eyes and slept. In my dreams, I thought
another man had entered. He stood near her in silence, and like Dr. Johann had touched her arm.

  “You’re still true to me, Acaiba?” he asked.

  “True?” she repeated, as if that were an impossible question.

  “You still believe in me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  In my dream, my grandmother was standing in front of me wearing many things on her body—fans, palm branches, the feathers of ducks and peacocks. She was dressed in blue and white and she walked around very slowly and dignified, her head held high.

  “Gold means nothing to them,” she said. “Dignity is their most prized possession.”

  Then she began to make the movements of the ocean—soft, gentle waves, then violent ones. She arched her back and made waves of her hips. She was wearing yellow flowers in her hair, and her cheeks and lips were red.

  “Have you been to the house of images?” she asked.

  She lifted me up from the hammock and carried me about as if I were a feather, then she replaced me.

  A man came in carrying pickaxes, hammers, and other tools. He kissed her briefly and they walked out together, laughing.

  Fiestas

  WHEN DR. JOHANN ASKED Father Tollinare to take him to see the dances of two tribes of Indians who were in that territory, my mother and I were permitted to go along with them, as well as two men, who carried their belongings and Dr. Johann’s canvases, paints, and other art materials.

  Father Tollinare and Dr. Johann walked in front, then came my mother and I, followed by the two men. We walked on a narrow path through the forest, sometimes in single file. The forest was damp and close and dark, the trees covered with trumpet vines. We walked for several hours before stopping at the edge of a clearing.

  We didn’t reveal ourselves to the Indians, although we could have, for these were not warriors, and they knew Father Tollinare. As always, here were more women and children than men, and they were all without clothes, and the women had long golden breasts. I stared at the women’s breasts and the heavy, bulging muscles in the backs, arms, and legs of the men. The men wore cloths around their private parts, but the women and children wore nothing even there. I stood near Dr. Johann as he motioned for his canvasses and charcoal and began to sketch.

  Soon I began watching his drawings more than the real people. I watched him sketch the long breasts of one of the women. She was bent forward slightly, carrying a basket across her back, and holding a child’s hand. Her hair was long, straight, and black, and her cheekbones very high.

  Father Tollinare stood by silently, solemnly. Sometimes I would look at him. He’d watch the Indians first, then watch Dr. Johann, then watch the cinnamon trees. Sometimes he’d leave us, go back a ways, then return.

  Since Mexia had disappeared, he was mostly silent now.

  Dr. Johann drew a woman holding a child, another squatting with a baby sucking at her breasts. I wondered if the milk from golden breasts tasted golden. It was mostly the women he drew, but there was one man. In the drawing, the man didn’t wear a loincloth. Dr. Johann drew his navel and then his heavy private part. I thought that Father Tollinare would say something, even at this, but he didn’t.

  Then four men came out into the clearing, carrying shields and spears. Dr. Johann stepped away from his canvas, looking startled and surprised. Father Tollinare whispered that the dance was beginning. Dr. Johann watched as the men danced a pretended fight. He kept watching. I waited for him to sketch them, but he didn’t.

  When the dance ended, and the men sat down exhausted, it was then I thought Dr. Johann would sketch them. But still he did not. Instead, he began to sketch a canoe and a running stream that wasn’t even there. After that, the face of one of the women began to appear. Suddenly, she was sitting in the canoe holding her child.

  We did not go into their camp. I wondered, though, what they’d have done if he’d showed them drawings of themselves. Would they have been pleased or alarmed?

  On the way back through the forest, Dr. Johann wondered aloud also what they’d have thought, seeing themselves.

  “That you were trying to conjure their spirits,” Father Tollinare said, solemnly. Then he added in the same solemn voice, “By now they believe it’s their destiny to have their spirits conjured.”

  Dr. Johann said nothing. He scratched his head. I pulled a wild fig from one of the trees and ate it.

  At night when we were in our hut, when my mother had finished her laundry and her trip to see Dr. Johann, she sat in her hammock and began to tell me of something she remembered vaguely. She said that going to the place of the Indians had made her think of it. There was a long march and she was riding on the shoulders of a man. She was no more than two or three. But that part of the memory was very clear, and the people in the march were not her own people, but the people we’d just seen. They’d allowed my mother and my grandmother to journey with them.

  “I don’t know what it was all about,” she said, swinging slightly in her hammock. “I kept feeling that they were protecting us, that it was for our protection that we went along with them. Perhaps we’d just escaped from some place and had gone to them for refuge. It must’ve been that.”

  As she talked, I pictured myself riding on the shoulders of one of the men I’d seen. Riding on his shoulder and eating a wild fig. But we weren’t in a long march, not in a column. The line had formed not a column but a circle and so we were walking around in a circle. The people wore masks with sad faces, masks of people, of ducks, of horses, of strange animals I’d not seen before. I didn’t know whether they were imaginary, magical animals or real ones. One man had his whole body covered with a cloth made of the bark of a cinnamon tree and he was painted with squares and triangles, but his real face was exposed. The man whose shoulders I was riding on was naked, fully, but I couldn’t see his face. They began to walk faster and faster in the circle. The man asked me to hold tighter, because they were trying to protect us, me and “the crazy woman.”

  I held on as tight as I could, till I grew dizzy and let go and tumbled backward to the ground. Then he was bending over me, chanting something that was the repetition of one sound. I felt as if I were the center of a magical ritual but that nothing was demanded of me, except what destiny intended. He sang the same monotonous song again and again and his voice grew higher and higher, till it was octaves higher than any sound I’d ever heard, till it grew too high to hear. The same sound over and over. What the word meant I don’t know.

  Although he was bending over me, and this is the strange thing, it was still the back of his head that I saw, his straight hair, a feather, a fish-shaped gold ornament, strips of fur. I wondered how he could bend over me, and yet I could not see his full face. His voice grew higher and higher as before, then lower and more solemn. Then lower still. I waited for it to get too low to hear. But then he gave a great shout and lifted his arms in the air. Yet, it was still the back of his head that I saw, and sometimes the side of his face and one high cheekbone, but never did he turn toward me enough for me to see his full features.

  Others lifted me onto his shoulders again. Although I’d fallen I had felt no pain. Again we were marching in the circle.

  “Somehow I felt it was for our protection that we were with them,” my mother was saying. “But I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember how we left them and got to this place. I can’t remember anything about our movements in time or place. We were just here.”

  She climbed down out of her hammock and went to a corner of the hut. She came back and handed me a bowl of coconut milk. As I drank it I saw myself on the man’s shoulders again, marching in the circle. A woman entered the circle, one of the women with long golden breasts, and they moved around her three times. Then someone lifted me from the man’s back and placed me into the arms of the man. It was a man I knew. It was Alejandro, the man Father Tollinare had sent to study in Europe, the man who had absconded—it was Father Tollinare’s word; I’d overheard him say it to E
ntralgo—with Mexia.

  “You’ll have to bear with me, my love,” he was saying to me. “I’m a silent man, given to few sentences.”

  “What are you about, Almeydita? Your daydreams again?”

  My mother stood over me. She picked up the bowl that was on the ground beside me. There was coconut milk all over me and my hammock and the ground.

  “There’s no more,” she said.

  Now it was I the woman in the circle, no little girl. Then the silent Alejandro took my hand and brought me into the hut.

  When Dr. Johann went again to the Indian village, I didn’t get to go along with them, but my mother went along with them, and when she returned repeated everything to me. At the village Dr. Johann had done more sketches. My mother described one of them to me: a sketch of a man with feathers decorating his body. He was raising a wooden sword and cracking the skull of another man. The strange thing was that nothing like that had occurred while they were at the village. Not even a war dance.

  “Tell me something about them,” Dr. Johann had asked Entralgo as they headed back.

  “They used to eat each other, but they don’t anymore. Even those they loved, they’d eat. When the Company of Jesus came, they converted them and changed their ways.” Entralgo laughed and peeked at Father Tollinare and went on talking. “They’re called Tupis. I mean Tapuyas. All they used to do was eat and drink and kill. Now all they do is eat and drink. They don’t fight anymore. They only eat Christian things. Now they’re very courteous to each other, very loving. If only the Company of Jesus could do that for the rest of us, eh Father? But I bet, I’d swear to it—mustn’t I swear?—that there’s some amongst them who still remember the taste of human flesh. What do you think, Father?”