by Gayl Jones
A Tapuyan speared our clothes and tossed them to us. He had tattoos on his arms and thighs. His head was shaped like a diamond. I stooped quickly to pick up my clothes.
“No,” said one of the Portuguese soldiers, a young man of about twenty.
“Let the man dress first,” he said.
Anninho did not stoop for his clothes. He stayed standing, rigid. The young man pointed his musket at Anninho.
“Tell them you are a free man,” I said. Anninho was silent.
Someone lifted me onto a red blanket and carried me into the forest. I only saw iuca trees and gameleira trees.
In the Barriaga Mountains
Someone was touching me, touching my breasts. Were they still there? Did I dream they were cut off and I saw them thrown into the river? I feel the sun on my forehead, and then the cool shadow of a hut, the smell of oranges and coconut, the taste of rum.
“Where did you find her?”
“The river bank.”
“Anninho?”
“I didn’t see him. Look what they’ve done to her. It must have been the mud that stopped the bleeding.”
“Wash the mud from her hair.”
A damp cloth against my hair and forehead. I see two shadows on the wall, the side of a man’s face, a woman’s cheekbones. A hand touches my shoulder. A hand rubs the soles of my feet. Another pain against my chest, cold water, leaves.
“What is that?”
“A medicinal plant.”
“What is it called?”
“Ipecacuanha.”
“Why have you kissed it?”
“It is not my kiss, it is the kiss of Iararaca, the mystical serpent.”
“Isn’t there blood enough? What are you doing, Luiza?”
“Luiza.”
“She says your name.”
“Luiza.”
“Yes, it’s me, Luiza Cosme.”
“Luiza.”
“Yes, it’s me, and this is Barcala who has brought you here.”
“Isn’t there blood enough?”
“This is a woman’s menstrual blood. It’s not the same blood. It has power in it. An old woman taught me this.”
“What’s become of Anninho?”
“Anninho was not seen. Did you see Anninho?”
“I saw no one but the woman.”
“Anninho.”
“She still calls him.”
“She must be in great pain and yet . . .“
“It is the juice of the Ipecacuanha.” She touches my forehead.
“What are you doing now?”
“Go for a walk, Barcala. This is woman’s work.”
“What of the others? Do they know the place?”
“Yes.”
“And the family of Martina Puerreydon? Will they come?”
“Yes. Go for your walk.”
Hand against my forehead. Long fingers. A rough palm. She kisses my forehead and chest.
“Believe in the lips that will heal,” she says.
She touches something to my lips. The taste of wine.
“Wine drunk before the universe began. It is the same wine.” She puts bits of something in my mouth. I turn my face away. Is this the fruit dipped in menstrual blood?
“Will you go with the others to the New Palmares, or will you stay?”
“Drink from the wine that was here before time was.”
She raises my head and I drink. I see the front and back of her at the same time and the two sides and the top of her head and the soles of her feet. Lightning jumps from her eyes.
“When you are well, I’ll take you to the woman Zibatra. It takes a mystic to know one. You’ll deny it, but weren’t you rescued?”
She scratches her fingers through my hair.
“This is a woman passionately loving her husband and waiting for his return.”
She traces a pyramid on my forehead. “Listen to an old woman.”
“Where is Luiza?”
“Luiza? I’m Old Vera, don’t you know me?”
“Luiza Cosme was here.”
“I’ve always been here,” she says. “I’m the same woman today as I was when they first brought you here.”
Barcala’s Conversation with the Printer’s Slave
NOW WHEN MY CHEST HAD HEALED considerably and I sat up, Old Vera would continue to rub my chest several times a day with a salve she had mixed, and she would place bits of crushed tobacco under my tongue. I would sit in an old wicker chair in the corner of the square hut, that had both a sleeping room and a kitchen. For some reason, I said nothing to no one. Though people would come in and out and some would bow to me, still I said nothing. Did the Portuguese cut your tongue out as well? Old Vera would ask. Did he cut the woman’s tongue out as well? Why have you stopped talking? She would ask. Still I would sit and watch people enter and leave, and wait for her to rub the salve where my breasts had been, and to place the crushed tobacco under my tongue, and to listen to Old Vera rebuke me for my silence. Someone had given me a man’s trousers and loose blouse to wear.
“Is it Aguirre Beltran you’ve brought?” she asked when Barcala entered with another man.
He was very tall and a tan color. His arms and legs were long and straight, and there seemed to be no curves to his body. His hair was short and curly, his forehead high, his mouth small but his lips full. His lips curled down slightly and he seemed to be frowning, and his brown eyes sparkled. He looked at me with surprise, his mouth seemed to open slightly, then he nodded. I must not have acknowledged his nod, for I sat there, with my hands folded in my lap. He turned awkwardly and looked at Barcala, who said nothing. Then Barcala told him to have a seat. They sat at the wooden table. Old Vera brought them bread and chocolate, then she sat on a mat near me.
“So your master has died and they won’t let you take over the printing shop,” Old Vera said, loudly, to the men who had entered.
My eyes widened. Had I seen or spoken with this man before? I stared at his broad shoulders. His head looked small for the shoulders which were straight across and angled, though the rest of his body was slender.
“Yes,” he said.
Barcala explained—Was it to me? And where had I heard this already?—that Beltran had been freed by his former master and that the printer’s shop had been given to him, but it was the law that no black man own a printer’s shop. Had the master known that?
“What will be done with the shop?” Old Vera asked.
“It will be sold to a white man.”
“Who will get the money?”
“The town.”
“And what will you do?”
“I want him to come back to Europe with me. The two of us, who can stop us?”
“So you have decided this is not your place after all?” Old Vera asked.
“Why should I stay here? There is no more Palmares. We were the lucky ones not to be destroyed. I want to be a free man again. Such things we could do there, Beltran, the printer and the Brazilian writer. But here, what is there to do but shovel dead men’s bones and suck blood from the teeth.”
He spoke of bringing Brazilian society into the things he would write abroad, the relationships in Brazilian society between black and white, rich and poor; he also spoke of it as being a continent of the occult. He would take things of Brazil with him. But he wanted to be treated with dignity again. The quilombos were destroyed. He spoke of his brother Martim, whom he called a man of culture, spoke of the collection of scientific and historical works Martim had left in Holland when he had decided to return to Brazil, of engineering projects he had directed in Holland, Armenia, and Southern Russia. But his brother had argued that such things should not be said simply of him, but there should be thousands like him, as there were thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen one could say those things of every day, and it was not those “ordinary” things that distinguished a man, but qualities of personality, of character, of intellect, and spirit. But still he praised his brother for those professional things he had acco
mplished, for such men as he could not take such things for granted . . .
There are other things he said of that nature, but it is difficult for me to remember the exact wording of such talk.
“Is Martim Aprigio going back to Europe too?” I asked.
Everyone turned and looked at me as if I were strange and had said something strange.
“No. That is what I have been saying. He intends to stay. If it were possible he would stay until all such men as him can take for granted the things that he does. But look what time is wasted, what energies, what qualities of personality, of character, of intellect, and spirit are dissipated. But this one, this man, no I won’t stay.”
They continued to look at me, especially Beltran, who looked as if he would say something to me, but did not.
“I have seen all I have to see here,” Barcala said. “Let Martim waste his life and his woman’s life here. I don’t have centuries to wait.”
“One only wastes one’s days when he refuses the truth,” Old Vera said.
“Tell me the truth,” Barcala asked.
Old Vera was silent, then she turned to me and her eyes widened and sparks seemed to jump from them. I swallowed the tobacco under my tongue.
“I will go with my brother and his wife and the family of Martina Puerreydon and the other fools as far as Parahyba and then I’ll return to Holland or to Southern Russia,” Barcala said.
“And you’ll write articles and stories and Beltran will print them?”
“That’s the idea,” Barcala said.
Old Vera laughed. “A man of culture,” she said. “And don’t you believe I’m a woman of culture?”
In the meantime Old Vera had gotten an onion and a piece of bread and sat eating it, pouring salt on the onion. She took a bite.
“I know the power of blood, and of the spirit, and of plants, and of old Iararaca, who moves from place to place, through time and the spirit. Am I not a woman of culture?”
He was silent.
“Will you write in Dutch or Portuguese?” she asked.
“Both, I suppose,” he said.
“Well, only you can make such a decision,” Old Vera said. “Perhaps God has sent you here to look at this outrage and then go away and write about it. It is only through God that such as you appear . . . Poor Almeyda sees nothing, or refuses to tell what she sees. Did the Portuguese cut out your tongue too?” she asked again.
Barcala stood up and put his long hands in his hair. He paced back and forth and seemed to be possessed of some passion. He put his hands to his sides and left his hair standing. He pulled at the beard he had grown.
“Oh, but that’s what I mean,” he said. “It’s not just that, not just the outrage I want to speak of. Sure it will be there. I’ll climb into the well of horrors and drop to the bottom. I’ll suck blood from my teeth. But this is also a land of great beauty. I don’t just want to write about my, our, relationship to white men, but to the universe itself. Why should they get in the way of everything? I want to go somewhere where they’re not my main concern. I want to write about everything. The whole universe.” He paused and mused. He swung around and pointed at me. “And I want to take her with me.”
My mouth flew open. Old Vera said, “Hear that?”
Barcala kept looking at me. I looked at him for a while and then my eyes dropped.
“She thinks she’s not a woman because of that?” Barcala whispered. “She thinks no man will want her. That is how they punish the likes of her. How dare they!”
I stared into my lap, but said nothing. I felt my chest tighten.
“Do you want to go to Holland?” Old Vera asked with a laugh. “Do you think that’s your fate?”
I said nothing.
Barcala brushed his hair back, looking at me, as if he had asked the question and was waiting for an answer.
“Don’t you like his hair out?” Old Vera asked. Then she said, “This is the kind of woman who’ll wander in solitude until that one returns.” She laughed. “You’ve never seen a woman like her. Do you believe that?”
Barcala said nothing. He still looked at me.
I shook my head. Old Vera laughed. Beltran stared at me with a look of surprise.
“I’d go with you,” Old Vera said. “But I’m an old woman with no hair.”
She bit into the onion and laughed again. “It is through God that one moves through time and the spirit,” she said. “Barcala thinks you are very beautiful, but you’re the first woman of color he’s ever really looked at.”
Barcala opened his mouth and began to speak, but decided to stay nothing.
Old Vera looked at me and laughed.
A Man of Wealth and Light Skin and a Woman Convicted of Casting Love Spells
I WENT OUT WITH OLD VERA to gather berries and birds’ eggs. That was the first time I had been out since I was brought there. When we returned a solemn man was sitting at the table. He was dressed in a black shirt and black trousers. He was sitting alone. Old Vera entered as if it were a natural thing to see him there, but I hesitated. “Come on, child,” she said, and then she greeted him. He greeted her and said his name was Sobremonte.
“Oh, you’re Sobremonte,” she said.
I entered and closed the door. Old Vera sat the baskets of berries and ostrich eggs in a corner.
Sobremonte sat in silence. He was a short, slender man of African descent it was plain to see, but his skin was very light. And his expression, or something made me feel that he was a man of wealth as well as light skin.
“And what has this land done to a young mulatto’s hopes?” she asked.
He turned and stared at her, as one stares at a stranger who has discovered some secret.
“Who is the man with clear blue eyes?” she asked.
“Are you a fortune-teller?” he asked, looking at her. “Or have I met you somewhere before? Has Barcala spoken to you of me?”
“I have neither met you nor has Barcala spoken of you. But have you sought redress for the wrong?”
He said nothing, then he said with sarcasm, “I am an irredeemable person from a long lineage of bastardies and the priesthood is inviolate. It would be eternally ruined with an infusion of my blood.”
“Have you ever seen a mulatto priest, Almeyda?” Old Vera asked me.
“No,” I said.
She laughed.
Barcala came in. “Sobremonte, my friend,” he said, greeting him and shaking hands. “What word do you have from my brother?”
“They should be here before dark, and the family of Martina Puerreydon.”
“And has he sent me no message?”
“He says you are a poor devil,” Sobremonte said.
“We are all poor devils,” Barcala said.
“Do you see the woman with blood in her teeth, surrounded by dead men’s bones? Do you come when she beckons you?” Old Vera asked.
No one said anything, then Sobremonte said, “This woman knew me before I even spoke my name. Or did I speak my name? Yes. But she knew details of my life. You told her I would be here?”
“I have not seen Old Vera, but Old Vera has seen everything.”
“It’s most vexing.”
“Most vexing? See how the man talks,” Old Vera said with a laugh.
“I have seen Old Vera in a trance, reciting lines from books in academic Portuguese, and knowing things it would seem impossible for such a woman to know in such a place,” said Barcala.
Everyone turned to Old Vera but she disclosed nothing. After a while she said, “It is only through God that one travels through time and the spirit.”
Barcala had a twinkle in his eye. “In her younger days,” he said, “she was convicted of casting love spells.”
“Love spells?” Sobremonte asked.
“He would not know of such things,” Old Vera said.
“But don’t forget. I am from a long lineage of bastardies,” Sobremonte said.
“What became of me?” Old Vera asked, wanting Barcala to
continue her story.
“You were whipped and sentenced for ten years and imprisoned. So they thought. But the next day someone saw you standing outside the prison. And they checked and you were gone.”
“How did you escape?” asked Sobremonte.
“That’s it. No conventional way. She claims it was some herb she took, but she won’t tell me its name.”
“I ate it and then I was free.”
“But love spells? How did you do harm in that?” asked Sobremonte. Old Vera was silent.
“It was the white women of the town who accused her. It seems that all their men were looking toward that young woman. And they were sure she had cast love spells. Surely not her beauty or those delightful eyes.”
Old Vera’s eyes danced and sparks jumped out. Was it only I that saw this?
“Look how the old woman’s eyes dance?” Barcala said, but had he seen the other? “Isn’t that how you charmed all the men of the town?” he asked.
“I charmed no one,” she said. “They charmed themselves.”
“But with your help, ha ha,” laughed Barcala.
I remained silent, watching the old woman’s eyes dance and sparks jump from them.
“This one has become solitary and secretive,” Barcala said.
Old Vera’s eyes widened and the sparks flew. “She was always like that,” she said.
Garrostazu
ONE MORNING I TOLD OLD VERA I was going for a walk. “Shall I come with you?” she asked.
“No. No. I’d like to go alone, I think.”
“Barcala will go.”
Barcala looked up from his writing.
“No. No,” I said. “I’d really like to go alone.”
“Fine,” she said.
Barcala said something about the woman talking. I walked outside.
I walked to the place where we had picked berries and then sat on a rock. After a while, I got up and wandered near the cliff. I thought of the men hurling themselves off of another cliff to prevent being captured, as Anninho told me some of them had done. How many of them had done this? Had there been women among them? He had only spoken of the men, or had I assumed only the men had done it. I wondered now if there had been any woman to hurl herself off of the cliff. Or had they all allowed themselves to be taken prisoner? I wondered what Luiza Cosme would have done and where she was now. I wondered about my grandmother. I had not wanted to think of her or what might have become of her. I saw her hurling herself off the cliff along with those men who had done so. But I could never see her reach the bottom. Why hadn’t I asked him? He had come back and I had not even asked him, “What of my grandmother? Did you see her? Did you see Indaya?” But if she had been among any that he had seen he would have told me so. She is captured by someone who does not know what he is getting. I thought of her laugh and laughed too. Ha. Ha. She is captured and divided among them but the one who gets her does not know who he is getting.
