Palmares

by Gayl Jones

  When I finished my laundry I asked my mother if I might go visit Tempo, and she said yes. I raced up the side of the mountain. He did not smile at me as before. He looked at me solemnly as he held on to the bridle of one of the horses. When I saw him look so solemn, I did not run to get onto the horse, but stood very still.

  “How are you today, Almeydita?” he asked.

  I nodded, then I said I was fine.

  “Are you the same today as you were yesterday?”

  I said yes. I must have looked at him strangely.

  “Don’t you want your ride today?” he asked with a smile.

  I waited for him to ask the old question, but he didn’t.

  Again, I stood very still, looking up at him.

  “Aren’t you going to ask about my mother?” I demanded. “Don’t you want me to tell her anything?”

  He said he’d tell her himself. I must’ve been looking at him strangely again, for he gave me my strange look back. Then I stared down at his riding boots. Finally, I walked down the hill to where my mother was, lifting her basket of laundry onto her head and nodding toward mine.

  Mercado

  WHERE ARE WE GOING?” I asked, as we got into the same wagon that my grandmother had ridden away in. “Are we going to the Negro asylum too?”

  She said that we were not. She looked expressionless, then solemn. Although there was straw on the floor of the wagon, where we placed our backs was hard. Three silent men also sat in the wagon. They were not from our plantation, but we were all on our way to the same place, wherever it was to be.

  “Where are we going?” I pestered her again. She didn’t answer.

  “You’re going to market,” said one of the men.

  My mother looked at him but didn’t change her expression.

  “What would you like?” he asked. “National or international travel? Would you like to go to North America, little girl? How about Cuba?”

  “Russia,” I said. “Or England.”

  My mother looked at me. The man laughed.

  “What about back to Africa?” he asked. “What about back to the Old Country?”

  “They don’t sell you back there,” I said.

  He laughed again. I looked at him closely and then I remembered. I’d seen him once before when my mother had been allowed to go into town with Entralgo’s wife who was going to visit her cousin but taking her own servants with her. We’d seen him crossing the street. He was wearing a dark coat and a white ruffled shirt and dark trousers like a white student or licenciado would wear, and he even wore buckled shoes. Though he was wearing only cotton trousers with a rope belt now, I knew it was the same man. Entralgo’s wife had laughed when she saw him and so did the black driver. Later, when I asked my mother why they’d laughed at the man, she explained that they always laugh whenever a black man dresses “out of his color.” It had been the first time I’d seen such a black man, and I’d turned my head all the way around to look at him, but I hadn’t laughed.

  “Why?” I’d asked.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed.

  “You didn’t laugh,” I said.

  “No,” she replied.

  Entralgo’s wife had asked the driver who the silly man was. The driver answered that he was a black schoolteacher in the town. The mistress had laughed again, for on the plantations there was no such thing. She’d never heard of such a thing. The driver explained that he was a tutor to many white students in the town. The mistress laughed again, a deeper laugh, and exclaimed that such an absurdity could happen only in the city, which she considered an immoral place anyhow.

  I glanced at my mother, who did not seem to recognize the man. Every now and then, though, as we journeyed, I’d sneak another look at him. He was wearing dark trousers and a plain white shirt, but was as barefooted as any slave.

  The wagon stopped in front of a long barn and we were told to go inside. Before we’d left the plantation, they’d taken our garments and given us two wide pieces of cloth. My mother didn’t cover her breasts with it, only the lower part of her body. Her breasts were large and firm. I too put my cloth around my waist and knotted it, but it hung below my knees.

  The three men sat on the floor of the barn with others who were already there. My mother remained standing and so did I. A strange white man came to the doorway and peeked in at us. I crossed my arms about my chest, as if I were a branca, even though I had no breasts then. I looked at my mother. But, like I said, in those days it was not shameful for a preto woman to show her breasts. I myself had only learned shame while in the casa grande. My mother did not cover her breasts as I had done, although she was the one that the stranger watched, and the only one.

  He had dark slick hair like Dr. Johann, and I began to wonder whether Dr. Johann knew that my mother and I had been taken away to market and whether he himself would come to purchase us. So I imagined it was Dr. Johann standing there considering what price he’d give for us, instead of the stranger. In my mind, I questioned him.

  “I heard you say that when you left my mother would no longer be your woman. But she’s the one who’s leaving, who’s being sold away, even before you’ve had your chance to. How do you feel about her now, Sir? How do you look at her now? Is she still your woman?”

  He wouldn’t answer, although he kept watching my mother as if she were the only one there, or as if there was some power she possessed that drew his eyes to her.

  There were straw mats on the floor that the three black men had sat down upon. One was filing his toenails with the edge of a small stone, the other was chewing on a piece of reed he’d picked up from the floor. The third man who looked like the black schoolteacher I’d seen crossing the street in town sat with his knees drawn up, his arms across his knees, his face in his arm, staring at the ground. None of them seemed to know that my mother and I were there. They didn’t look at us at all.

  It seemed strange that they’d let my mother keep a certain wide hat and long earrings that she was wearing, and that she said a certain man had given to her. I don’t know what certain man she meant. If it were Dr. Johann I’m sure she’d have said so. But she kept them almost as if they were charmed. I watched her and then I looked at the white man again, who was still watching her. He kept staring at her face, her breasts, her smooth round shoulders. She still didn’t look at him, and her eyes seemed vacant. I don’t know how long it was that he stood in the doorway, his arms folded. He was wearing a loose white shirt and trousers, but of a fine, well-cut material. I didn’t think it was stranger than a kind of hat my mother was wearing, but it was not a slave’s hat.

  Finally, the man who stood in the doorway left, and then in the evening another man came to get my mother, for she’d been sold. Before she left with him, she put her face against mine. I could feel her soft breasts against my shoulder. I could smell the oil in her hair.

  Behind her the stranger reappeared in the door, and the man who’d come for her pulled her away from me. Her eyes remained vacant as though she’d pushed them beyond tears. I stood very still as the water dropped from my eyes. The black man who’d been the teacher and who had his head in his arms looked up at me, then he patted the ground beside him. I went and sat down, but he said nothing to me. He put his hand on my chin and touched the side of my face and wiped the tears away, but still he said nothing.

  I sat with him a long time in silence and then I heard something that sounded like, “They drink the hair of Indians,” but it made no sense and must’ve been those words you form when you’re sleeping. Every now and then the man would reach out and touch my shoulder, but he wouldn’t speak to me.

  “Where are the new Negroes?” I heard someone call. Others came and stood in the doorway.

  “The woman was sold, but the little girl, she’s still . . .”

  “The brutality of existence,” the man whispered, touching my shoulder and leaning toward me.

  “The brutality of existence,” he repeated. “That’s what I’ll call myself
when they ask my name again. Brutalidade da Existencia. I’m no longer Matoso. If they ask you, ‘Who’s this man?’ you must tell them, ‘Brutalidade da Existencia.’“

  I was the one who was pulled up from the ground. I looked at him as I was going, but his head was on his knees again and he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Brutalidade da Existencia,” I said, but he wouldn’t look up.

  I was put into the same wagon I’d been brought here in. As we traveled, I recognized the landscape. It wasn’t to a new place I was being taken, but to an old one. I was put into the hut of my mother. I waited to be told what had occurred to me, but no one came, and so I climbed into my hammock and fell asleep.

  Virgin of the Stones

  I WAS LYING IN THE HAMMOCK when he came back into the hut. He’d washed the lines from his face and neck and had oiled his whole body until it was slick and shining. This time he didn’t make my fingers bleed, but climbed into the hammock with me.

  “Is this the same girl?”

  “Yes, she’s the same one.”

  “And a virgin?”

  Something hard and soft and firm scraped against my belly. Then I felt my mother’s breasts against my shoulder again.

  “What’s wrong with the girl?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He began to curse. I felt him moving between my knees.

  “I can’t enter her. She won’t be entered. It keeps pushing me out. It’s like trying to penetrate a stone.”

  A finger on my stomach, touching me between my legs. The man cursed again, said the names of holy saints, called on the Virgin of Solitude, then said Entralgo’s name.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he repeated.

  He got out of the hammock; it swung heavily. The two shadows of men left the hut. I touched myself between my legs, but felt no stone there.

  “I’ll have her examined. I’ll have the old woman examine her.”

  The man cursed again, saying that he’d waited for that one because he’d wanted that one. He’d wanted it to be a pleasure as well as a cure.

  But he’d waited long enough.

  “I’ll have the old woman look at her.”

  “Why’s it that only a black one can cure such a malady?” he asked.

  He cursed again, and then he called the name Corricao. I’d heard that name before, but felt certain it wasn’t the name of a saint.

  Entralgo was silent, then he said something that I couldn’t make out.

  “In the condition I am in at the moment . . .”

  “. . . then it is best that you leave.”

  In the morning, an old woman whose name I didn’t know and who refused to have anyone call her anything, except “old woman” if it was necessary arrived (and the story was that even when she was young she refused to be called anything at all, except “woman,” when that was necessary). I was silent when she entered and I was silent too when she spread my legs open and began to touch me.

  “Am I going to die?” I asked.

  “No, you’re not going to die,” she said sternly, although she looked at me as if she knew something that I didn’t. Then she left the hut and returned with a bowl and cloth. First she wiped my stomach and then she wiped the parts between my legs carefully again and again.

  Entralgo entered while my legs were spread. I tried to close them, but the old woman without a name held them open. Entralgo looked between them as though he were seeing nothing, or something that he’d seen many times. Then he leaned forward as if seeking something.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he asked. The old woman was silent.

  He waited, but didn’t press her.

  “It’s a rare thing,” she said when she was ready to speak. “I’ve only seen it once, though I’ve heard tales of it. Perhaps some have a name for it, but I don’t. There’s something that has made the muscles here so they won’t give.” She touched. “So they won’t give at all. See how they contract tighter when I . . . If there’s a name for it, I don’t know it.”

  Entralgo was silent. I tried to shut my legs, thinking that he might try to touch me there too, but the old woman held them open. She cooed at me.

  “Does it sound strange to you?” she asked Entralgo.

  He kept staring at the place he’d seen many times, and then at the place where he sought something. Finally, he asked, “When she’s a woman, will she grow out of it?”

  “I’ve only seen it once, and heard tales of it. But they say it’s a condition that stays with a woman.”

  Entralgo said nothing. He got closer to me and touched me himself.

  I squirmed, but the old woman held me. When he was satisfied there might be some strange truth in what she was saying, he left. Though before he left, he gave me a look I couldn’t read. But it was still the look of someone seeking something.

  “He’s gone to wash his hands and then he’ll go to the chapel,” said the old woman. She wiped me again and then pushed my legs together. “I’ve seen this only once,” she said, looking at me closely. “I’ve heard tales of it and I’ve told tales of it. When I tell my tales, I tell them that it’s what the gods do to protect certain women whom the devil desires. But I didn’t do this. I’m not responsible for this. Who did this? Who gave you the secret plant? Who knows the secret plant but me?”

  Vision and the Woman Without a Name

  SHORTLY AFTER MY MOTHER HAD BEEN SOLD, Tempo disappeared from the mountainside along with his saddle horses. Now I took my mother’s huge laundry basket down to the stream, except now there was no play, no bounding up the hillside to speak with Tempo, or ride one of his horses.

  I carried my laundry down to the stream and squatted beside the old woman without a name. She must’ve read my thoughts, because she said, “Tempo no longer keeps his saddle horses on the mountain.”

  I nodded.

  “Who’ll make you race to the sky now?” she asked.

  “No one,” I said.

  The woman laughed.

  I saw a man and woman on the side of the mountain, and the man embraced her. But by now I was used to such daydreams and paid them no mind.

  “Did you think they were strangers?” she asked, looking at me askance, as she scrubbed her own laundry. “Can’t you tell when a man and woman have come a long journey together?”

  I looked at her. She was a thin dark woman with straight gray hair. Perhaps she was part Tupi, I don’t know. I looked back at the side of the mountain. The man and woman were not there. I moved the clothes back and forth in the stream.

  “A man has many spirits and so does a woman.”

  I said nothing, but now I felt that I was beside my grandmother again, and wondered why they’d not taken this other crazy woman away.

  “A madwoman and the daughter of the daughter of a madwoman,” she said, reading my thoughts again.

  “Has he followed her? Has Tempo followed my mother to the other plantation?” I asked hurriedly. “Is that why he’s not here? Did he love her dearly and follow her?”

  The woman without a name laughed. “If a man disappears, he must reappear somewhere.”

  I rinsed a girl’s underclothes. One of Entralgo’s daughter’s. In my mind I saw Tempo on the side of another mountain and my mother racing to meet him. Then he got on one of his horses, lifted her to the back of it and they rode off.

  The old woman looked at me, not askance, but fully. “Come on and shoulder your burden,” she said. “It’s time to get back.”

  She lifted her basket of clothes onto her head. I raised my own. I held my hands on the sides of the basket. She walked with hers sitting freely. Her hair was so straight I wondered how she could balance it. I stared at the muscles in her legs. They were the muscles of a younger woman. As we walked, I kept straightening my basket.

  “When you become a woman,” she began.

  “What?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. We followed the other women and watched the steam rise from trees. When the clothes were dry, we folded
them into baskets.

  There was one thing that the woman without a name would never mention, and that was when she had come to examine me. She behaved as if it were not a thing that had happened in the world.

  Even when I asked her what was Entralgo seeking, she pretended not to know.

  Dreams

  WHY IS IT THAT YOU HAVE NO NAME?” I asked her.

  “Oh, I’m sure that I’ve got one, but it’s unknown to me. But what’ve you come for?”

  She was sitting on the floor of her hut smoking a long pipe. I sat across from her.

  “What have you dreamt?” she asked, before I told her why I’d come.

  “Three white men in a boat and the other boat had seven black men.

  “The black men had round heads and wore white loincloths. The white men were wearing white hats and white suits. The two boats were close to each other and the men were looking at each other. Then there were two white men sitting at a table and two white men standing. They were dressed in dark suits. Three black men naked, except for cloths around their loins, were standing in front of them, waiting. The black men had marks on their faces, stars and dots. Their faces were solemn. They didn’t speak the language of the men they stood in front of. I saw the side of one of the men’s faces. His cheeks, his temples, his forehead were painted. When he turned toward me, I saw the marks from his head to the tip of his nose.

  “He looked at me without seeing me, and then he turned back to the men at the table. I felt he’d been a man of power somewhere.”

  She was silent, then she said, “Describe them.”

  “What?”

  “The scars on the man’s face.”

  “Long slashes, a six-pointed star with dots between the points, a half circle with long slashes inside.”

  I made the marks on the ground. She watched but said nothing.

  “I’m an old woman who’s lost her name and has no memory of such markings,” she said. “I’m no interpreter of dreams.”