by Gayl Jones
She was the wife of no one, and rarely appeared in public places, but spent most of her days in her workshop or going silently to market. The several generations of the Bejerano women lived unmolested in the town by both the masters and the slaves, making sails, going silently about. And though none of them had taken a husband, each had strangely around the age of twenty years become pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, by whom no one knew, though everyone supposed some sailor. Then when the girl was grown, the mother would leave town, as if she had suddenly got her wings, her freedom. They whispered that Anna’s mother had left and become a wandering storyteller, while the one before her had left and gone across the sea and had become a singer and teller of tales in Syria, or some foreign port in the Far East. But no one knew really what had become of the women, and such stories were passed down, mostly by the women. The men felt it was their business only to leave the women unmolested, but not to talk of them.
It was the great-grandmother’s story that caused them to regard Anna in such a strange way. The great-grandmother, Old Zurara, as she was called, had been known only as a sail maker’s slave, but the sail maker had gone insane and told strange tales about her. He had gone insane and told strange tales, saying that she was not to be liked or trusted, or unfortunate things would happen in the town. People said at first that it was the man’s lunacy speaking. She had been sold to the sail maker by a Norwegian sailor. She was treated like an ordinary slave whose master has taken leave of his senses, and sold at a public auction, along with a boat and some new sails. She was purchased by a printer, who suddenly, and for no explained reason began to write and publish anti-slavery literature as well as to rail against unfaithful women, as he suspected certain women of the town as being, though he called no names. Then some men who were displeased with the literature, and though they saw their own wives implicated and dishonored, broke all the presses, burned the printer’s shop down, and drove the man out of town.
After that was all done, some people began to look at the woman strangely, but others treated her like an ordinary slave and sold her at a public auction, but before she was sold she was imprisoned in a slave pen. It was then that certain women in the town began to throw themselves into the sea. First they dreamed that they saw a man rising out of the sea. He was not a handsome man but they felt a strange attraction to him. They would keep having the dream until they would, finding it unbearable, throw themselves into the sea. This happened to women who were considered respectable and faithful wives. And men, fishermen, would speak of seeing a strange ship that seemed to be watching and waiting, but that they could never get near it, and speak with its captain. And whenever they saw it, they would have little luck in fishing.
The woman was taken out of jail when it was time for the next public auction, but people were afraid to buy her and she was looked upon as more than an ordinary woman. But fearing that more women would throw themselves into the sea, and more men would see the ghost ship as they had begun to call it, they gathered money and purchased the woman’s freedom and got a house for her near the ocean where she could continue her sail making.
At first the fishermen were afraid to buy any of the woman’s sails, but then one man, a foreigner, who knew nothing of the woman, ripped one of his sails, and had her mend it, went out, and came back boasting about the town and in the taverns about what luck he had had and what a fine catch. Whether or not it was due to the woman, and he did not claim it was, the townspeople suspected it of being, and the woman got more business than she could have imagined, though everyone stayed clear of the newly freed woman otherwise; and their women had no more dreams.
Then it was when Zurara was a young and beautiful woman, yet no man bothered her, and still her belly rose. One man claimed that when he was walking home one late night when it was the full moon he saw a man and woman rising out of the sea in each other’s arms, and he swore that the woman was Zurara, though the man was unknown. People were afraid to believe him and claimed it was the full moon making patterns on the water, or that it was a dream, or the moonlight had caused his lunacy. But Zurara was pregnant and the child grew making sails with her mother, until she too was a beautiful young woman, and the mother left to wander, and she stayed making sails until Anna was born and a grown woman. But as long as the woman went unmolested, the women of the town did not throw themselves into the sea and did not dream of strange irresistible men, and if there was any dreaming to be done, it was the dreams of the men for Anna Bejerano, the great granddaughter of the flying Dutchman’s slave.
Does a man come who does not know the legend, and seeks to marry the woman? Put the author himself into the story. He wants to take the woman for his wife, but sees her rising out of the sea, embracing another man. She becomes pregnant and tells him that all the generations must be the faithful love of this doomed captain. Another metaphor for the continent? The Dutch were here before the Portuguese. The flying Dutch.
Do you think the women of the town, long ago, made up such a story to prevent their men from spending all their time around such women? Still they stare at the woman, though they say nothing to her.
THE WOMAN WHO WANTED THE RETURN OF HER LOVER
“I am a man who would not like to marry forever,” he told the woman, and so he never married her.
So the woman went to a macumbeiro, a love sorcerer, and began to keep a turtle under her bed and fed it on cow’s milk, asking each day that she be the only woman to have the lover.
It so happened, however, that the same macumbeiro, on the woman’s visit, had fallen in love with the woman, and as soon as he had given her the remedy to make her to keep the lover, he had also told the woman that she would need to drink coffee mixed with sugar and clots of menstrual blood, and another ingredient, which he gave to the woman but did not tell her what it was—the latter being the remedy to enable him to keep her and to be rid of any lovers she might have, and for himself to never be rid of this wonderful woman and to experience the most passionate nights with her.
So it happened that the lover committed some crime, and his master, a sadistic man, tied the lover to two canoes going in opposite directions.
When the macumbeiro heard this he sent for the distressed woman. “I have kept my lover, but . . .”
“I know the story,” he said.
He kept looking at her, wondering why it was that his own remedy had not worked. He was certain that with what he had given her, no woman could resist loving him.
The woman had something in her skirt that she gave to him. It was a turtle.
“I’m afraid of this,” she said. “Afraid to keep it and afraid to destroy it.”
The macumbeiro took the turtle with his right hand and put it on the table.
“The milk he liked, but the coffee . . .”
“You were supposed to drink the coffee,” he said in despair.
“Do you think that’s why?” the woman asked in horror. “Is that why it happened? It’s all my fault. I didn’t understand.”
The macumbeiro in his anger that things had not gone his way, told the woman yes it was her fault.
So the woman, in a deep depression, left, and committed the same “crime” that her husband had committed, upon which the sadistic master bound the woman to two canoes going in opposite directions.
The macumbeiro stood watching. In the evening the turtle came to sleep beside him and bite his hair.
The macumbeiro, after some weeks of this, began to evoke the woman by evoking her memory through dreams and daily reveries. And the power of imagination of the macumbeiro is so that when he dreams of her he can evoke her actual as well as spiritual presence. Though he gets the woman there, however, he can never get her to express any strong feeling or emotion.
“Speak to me, Floriana.”
But she will not. Still it is enough for him to have corporeal glimpses of her in all of the complete beauty he remembers.
The turtle grows jealous of the woman, and one night pluck
s out the eyes of the macumbeiro, so that he can no longer see her, so that she cannot jump outside of his dreams and reveries into the “real” world.
But still he continues to dream about her and it is his internal vision of the woman that continues to absorb him.
Now at this point the turtle has been staying there long enough and is intelligent enough to discover the meaning and purpose of many of the herbs and potions, and so he takes one that will enable him to finally be rid of the woman, and have the exclusive attention if not the love of the macumbeiro.
So that night while the macumbeiro is sleeping, the turtle enters the dream and slays the woman, and at the same time restores sight to the man. So now the turtle is able to be with the man both in his dreams and in his waking.
It is at this point that the macumbeiro commits a crime for which the sadistic master would surely bound him to two canoes going in opposite directions, which he does. But when the macumbeiro is bound, he looks onto the bank, and sees the turtle, poised at the edge of the bank, ready to drink from the water.
PORT OF TRANSFER
I show my free papers to the captain and pay my fare. The printer’s slave is allowed aboard, as my servant recently purchased. I show him some abuse and harsh treatment, so that there are no suspicions. I discuss “regulating the behavior of slaves” with the captain. The gold more than the free papers allows me freedom of movement, though “my slave” must stay below in the cabin when not in my company. They think I am a wealthy sugarcane planter from Recife, as it is known that there are a number of mulattoes among them. Still there is some talk as always of the “arrogant mulatto.”
Slaves carrying loads of tobacco, sugar, cotton, dried meat, cacao, nuts, coffee, brazil wood on board to be shipped to Portugal. One I step aside for. He glances at me. Intelligent, sullen eyes. A Bantu from Angola. He looks at me as if I am an enemy. I stare away from him at the hills, other Negroes carrying hundred and two hundred pound loads of manufactured goods, textiles, and ironwork from the warehouses down to the ships—the churches, convents, town houses, public buildings in the distance. Along the coast to the starboard they are constructing a small ship. None of the ships they build here are large or seaworthy enough for international trade, but only for coastal trade. I think of Anninho’s plans.
Even the Portuguese do not build such vessels here. I feel that Amsterdam would be the best place for constructing.
A Dutch merchantman unloads pepper and Chinese silks and tea.
A Portuguese merchantman unloads five puny, giddy but marriageable women—one standing a bit apart from the others, wide-eyed, apprehensive. They are all wearing gaudy silks and remind me of parakeets. She looks as if coming here was her most daring act or most desperate one. Now she stares at one of the wonders of the new world—a chain gang being led away from the slave unloading dock. Ankle and wrist chains and iron collars fasten the necks of the men, the women’s hands tied with ropes and handkerchiefs. A man is flogged for some commotion. All of the Portuguese women are calmly watching now. Blood covers the man’s arm and the side of his face, the skin raw and red and swollen around the chains. When they are past, the other women turn away and chatter. That one’s eyes follow them up the hill away from the sea. A gentleman with a sword at his side and a glittering rosary around his neck descends from a carriage. He reads a paper and two of the women come forward. They all enter the carriage and it drives away. A man on horseback, wearing high jack boots, and a broad-brimmed straw hat, bends down and converses with the woman who stands apart. She shakes her head. He says something else to her. She shakes her head again, and then allows him to help her up onto the back of the horse.
On deck now the captain converses with a soldier and a planter. “Brazil doesn’t exist for itself, but for Portugal,” says the soldier.
“Everything’s in Portugal’s interest. If it didn’t exist for Portugal it wouldn’t exist.”
“If it didn’t exist for Portugal it would exist for some other nation,” said the captain. “The French or the Dutch or the English. Your only military objective is to keep the colony for the Portuguese.”
The soldier says nothing. I wonder if he was one of those who had fought against Palmares.
“Me? I have no intention of being humble in the face of the Portuguese or anyone else,” says the planter. “I have a very large estate, no small holding, a large estate and many Negroes, large productions, a large stake in this country. I’m a Brazilian. I have no intention of being humble to anyone. That’s what it means to be a Brazilian—not to be satisfied with a peasant’s life.”
“They’d humble you soon enough if you weren’t in the country’s interest. Most of your cattle are shipped to the Portuguese market.”
The planter doesn’t reply. He smokes a cigar and stares at the two remaining Portuguese women.
“One of them for you, Macao?” asks the captain with a laugh.
“They don’t last long,” says the planter, and he spits.
I watch the slave unloading dock, the edge of the dock being converted into the porch of a thatch-roofed clearing house. On the dock-porch sit two white men at a table. Now a small rowboat from one of the ships comes up carrying about five Africans, some wearing short white trousers, others loin cloths, all with no shirts. A white sailor sits in the boat, holding a musket and a long sheet of paper. The Africans, who are not chained, one by one grab hold to the post and climb up onto the dock. The sailor finally climbs up carrying the paper which he hands to one of the men.
I go one level below the deck where the sailors’ hammocks are hanging like cocoons from the ceiling. I pass sailors, sitting on trunks and boxes, conversing with women who are allowed on board while the ships dock, drinking rum and gorging themselves on fresh meat, fresh fruits, and vegetables, having spent so long eating salt meat and biscuits.
One of the sailors wraps a costly Chinese silk about the shoulders of one of the dock women. Another sailor takes a swig of rum and spits out, “Them that don’t lead a seaman’s life, don’t know what hardships is!”
As I go to the next level, the Bantu with the sullen, intelligent eyes is ascending—a slave of one of the Bahian merchants. I wonder if he or any of the new arrivals I had seen on the unloading dock will find their way to the New Palmares.
Also included in the manuscripts that Barcala Aprigio had sent to me, some of which seemed to be based on African Brazilian tales or reminded me of the tales the old Africans used to tell, was an experimental tale called “Lice Scratching.” I laughed at the title and went on to read the following:
LICE SCRATCHING
There is no one else here. No company. I lie in my hammock on my stomach. No view of the garden. He has some Russian nobleman as a guest and other distinguished visitors. Beefsteaks and tea. Should I call the woman to search for lice and pomade my hair? Portuguese pomade. That English woman goes in and out as if it were all decency, and back and forth to him. Or pork they are having and wine. That time I was in the wine cellar. I got my answer. No invisible girl. I said nothing. Bananas, bananas, bananas. If he’d caught some Negro disease. When he came to me I said, Go to the devil. I could have knocked the woman, that other woman I heard how she murdered the mulatto girl and what did that do?
But me? I still have her come and scratch the lice from my hair.
Touching my hair. But to him I said, Go to the devil. I thought of that way I’d reward him. She goes in the streets. I’d reward him that way.
Hand me some grapes, and take her hand. You’re my woman too. Should I call her? Bring me chocolate and sweetmeats. What kind of conversations do they have? Go to the devil, I told him.
I heard that story about the man who murdered his wife so he could devote all his time to his mistress. Such things happen. Now he’s silent with me. Anyway, he was then too. What are they talking about? Some investment. Afterwards, he brought me a peacock, a fine male one. But I said, “Don’t you know that peacocks and pigeons bring bad luck on a house?”
But such a pretty bird and he spread his wings for me. Wings.
Feathers. He flew up into one of the trees and one of the servants had to get him to take him away. I could see his eyes too, looking at the bird.
How then can something blessed with such beauty bring that on a house?
My silent husband. I’ve heard where they’ve loved the son and the father. Loved? Maybe it’s because it’s the first hand they see. They say it’s a black hand we all see on this continent. The first hand we see is a black one. To be born an enchantress. The tales they would tell of enchanted Moorish women over and over. Then see them as better than we are. All the danger of this country. I wonder if there are any astrologers in there. That time I went to that astrologer with my cousin Olinda. He didn’t know it. A scientific and realistic man he said he was that time. He couldn’t talk the kind of talk the other men did; he said he wasn’t a romantic and a sentimentalist.
Before we got married, he said he wasn’t good with courtship talk; a rationalist he said he was. But that astrologer, he would have called that a woman’s silliness. Still he predicted that man, didn’t he? His dark hands. A Greek he was, or an Egyptian, Olinda said he was, one of those. Why are they always the ones to know such mysteries? If he hadn’t predicted that man I . . . Still all the same he reminded me of the priest. There wasn’t any difference except I didn’t have to tell him the bad things I had done.
You stay silent and they tell.
If the walls weren’t so thick. Conversations he has with them. What does a Russian say? I wonder how one sounds in Portuguese.
Conversations. Then a woman goes and talks to a priest. That’s most of my visits and socializing. No, Sir, it isn’t that because it hasn’t been that for a number of years. She hears. That one knows everything they’re saying. Well, hears it anyway. You never know how much they understand, or when they’re pretending they do or don’t understand. Look at their eyes and it doesn’t tell. Mine tell everything, he said.
