by Gayl Jones
He said my eyes told everything. The astrologer predicted him; I know it. Some stranger, some mysterious man. Olinda said she found all men mysterious. She found them? Ha. But then it’s the country that makes for that. You’re never allowed to see them. They’re all strangers he’s got, all mysteries, because they want them that way for a woman.
What is she serving them now? She acts like she’s the great mystery. Still it’s the black hand that comes up first. The black hand and the black nipple. Chocolates and sweetmeats. When she finishes her work I’ll call her in too. This new pomade from Portugal, I want you to put it on my hair, and bring me some of the wine they were having.
I didn’t say anything in the cellar. I just stood there. Maybe she saw me, but his back was turned. I just stood there silent, and walked back up the stairs. Go to the devil I said then.
Who’s playing the piano? I wanted to know why he brought that peacock. All of those customs are confused. What should a woman think or feel?
Those women they say they don’t have souls, or maybe they have half souls. Then I own half of that half soul. I’ll make her kneel, strike her hands together, and then come forward. The ideal woman, they say, thin waist and the rest like a cow. But a real woman’s not to exhibit herself in public like a slave.
First he gave me two sons and then a girl. The sons are whiskered now, like their father. I wonder when the war will start. And my own great revolt? He brings a peacock to a respectable woman. I say I didn’t want such . . . He looked funny standing there though, holding the bird. He set it down and it spread its feathers. What’s that? A peacock. Iknow what it is, but what’s it for? For you. No, I told him to take it back where he got it, I wouldn’t allow a peacock in or around my house. No, I said. He just thought it was a silly myth. I should have let him keep it and show him what would happen.
Not mine, it wasn’t. Not for me. Such a beautiful bird, though. It spread its wings like that. At first it wouldn’t turn around, and kept its back to me. They aren’t so pretty that way. Then he turned around and showed me such beautiful feathers. So beautiful they are. I wonder why they say those things about them. Because they’re so beautiful.
Some men don’t trust a beautiful woman. But they hide them all; it doesn’t matter. Except for them. They parade anywhere. And him, he brings a peacock to a respectable woman. Give it to that one. But still if it hadn’t been for that I’d . . . If I didn’t like a green one he said he’d bring me a blue one. No, I said, and then it flew up in the tree. I saw it eating leaves. Eyes they have. What if all of them could see one at the same time? If there were such creatures. But no one knows what’s in the world. It stood there like it knew how it looked, and then it flew up in the tree. I wonder what makes them show their feathers at certain times and not others. It’s like a blessing though. An ornamental bird he called it. Why shouldn’t it be for a respectable woman? But everyone’s afraid of them. They say they ruin a house. All those peacocks the Puerreydons had parading about.
The smell of cinnamon from the reception hall. The Russian. I caught a glimpse of him. Black eyes. But ducked down. I heard a man killed his own daughter for letting herself be seen by foreigners. Not foreigners. Ordinary men. Any men that were not part of the family. I wonder how they treat their women. Those Cossacks. Is he a Cossack? What’s a Cossack? But some kind of absolute obedience. Do they address their husbands on bended knees? Adultery punished by death. We’d be in the wine cellar, the corner where I saw them. But no, if my husband saw it, he’d come down the stairs, not go back up them. No invisible man and woman, when it’s the woman. No. His sword and his rage a mile long.
And if that one caught his woman in such a circumstance. Those black eyes. I wonder what it would be like to stare into them long.
He gave her a leather bracelet. I’ll bet he did. Only because they can’t wear gold. Well, it goes with her position. He got the bird to spread its feathers for me and show me how beautiful it was. Was it him that got it, or do they have their own free will? What makes them do it? What makes a woman when . . . Well, they spread it too. I wonder if he tells her she’s beautiful there. Now I see feathers up and down her legs. Ha. An eye there. Ha. Is it green or blue? Ha. No, dark-eyed they always are. But I said no. He claims he’s not superstitious, but me I am.
Always some guest. Where does he meet all those people? Some he doesn’t know. They just come, and it’s the custom of the country, and when that man murdered his wife he did the reckoning. I wonder if he was thinking of himself then, his own situation with that woman. Because he didn’t have to tell me that story. Other things that happen in the world he doesn’t tell me. But that one guest who came here, he looked like a drunken backwoodsman, but he’s from a respectable family in Recife. You never can tell. I didn’t let him know I saw the man. But he was standing right there. I told him he was in the wrong part of the house. The women’s rooms were here.
Something made with cinnamon she’s serving them now. I’ll take a bit of that too. That mulatto woman that that traveling minister had. They say it happens all over the country. Always from one place to the next, though, these men are. I bet she’s seen more of my own country than I have. The moral degradation of the country, that’s what they are. What did he call them? The warts on the country, the landscape. Well, I’ll call her that too. I wonder if he meant to include her with it. Well. I’ll call her in here myself, and see what he sees. Do you scratch a wart? What do they say is done? She would know. Yes. What do you do with a wart?
Says she speaks French from the last people that had her. You think you are so clever, but you cannot escape. Neither can I escape. That music makes me feel as if . . . I should have made myself known. Know what? What was I thinking about then? I should have made myself known. What? I should have made them know that I was standing there, that’s what it was. I was looking for you, I should have told him instead of just standing there in silence.
I wonder what his expression would have been. I put them out of my mind. They were invisible. They were invisible there. Together they’re invisible. When he’s alone, he’s visible again. I’m invisible then. They’re all handsome women. I never saw one that wasn’t. When they come together, something happens. They all say they’re the best on the continent. I wonder how that Russian treats his woman. A nobleman he said he was. A Cossack nobleman? Do the women walk openly and alone?
What kind of fruit is she serving? And one of them has written a long, important book. About what? The dreariness of the New World? A virtuous woman remains in the house and does not speak. I wonder if he lives in a castle. Do they live in castles? What room does he put her in? Does it make echoes?
Now the music’s faster. I can see myself dancing with him. How straight he stands, my hand in his. How straight. We’d talk about my dreary country and I’d ask about his. They say they’re a passionate people. A people of intense passions. I suppose every country has its passions. I suppose every country does. Are there intellectual, religious passions? What other kind? But that’s what they say of them, intensity and passion and one can see it in the eyes. What word would they use for this country?
I suppose a man and woman would use a different word for the same place, depending on what the customs are, the circumstances for each.
And her? I wonder how she sees him differently. Now he’s my silent husband, irritable, cold. And to her? Then he was so many interesting people. A dangerous man, a good storyteller. I bet they’re telling tiresome stories, except him. That vast, wild country. All but him. I wonder what stories men tell each other.
Maybe my husband is telling them that story about when he was in that battle against those Negroes. That Palmares. And this is the woman I captured. Would he speak so openly about her to those men? And even they, those Negroes, they said would capture women when they needed them, mostly Negroes and Indians but some said they saw white women there. But one never knows what one has in this country. That woman that discredited that whole family not
telling them about that Negro woman in her blood. Their son wanted to marry her and she was silent about it. In time they found out and annulled it, but still the harm was done. Nobody knows who they’re getting until everyone will have to have some kind of blood papers.
He doesn’t know, he never will know what’s in my imagination. But him, he can live in his dreams, his fantasies, his imagination, maybe even beyond them. Can a man live beyond his imagination? And then, if not, make it broader.
But then they scattered and he took the woman. I said he could have gotten better slaves than that. But he gave up some others for that one, and brought her into the house. Then I heard her singing in here. I made her stop that. Anyway, you don’t know what kinds of words are in those songs. She said it was a French song. Did I tell her I thought it was some magic? She said it was French, that she was some French people’s slave before she was in that place with the rebels. She called them rebels too.
But to her, it meant something different, one could see it in her eyes. I wonder if she had a man there. Someone. They said they had their own town there, their own settlement, and governed it, and had a king.
Long deep trenches. I wonder if. But there was a white woman there too. He said he saw her. Why didn’t you rescue her? He didn’t know what happened to her, but this one. He always saw her, though he didn’t say it, I knew he always did. The whole time. But then they got them on that expedition. He said they destroyed the place that time and there wouldn’t be any other problems with the renegades. Did he say renegades or fugitives? Those that weren’t killed were captured, and the few that scattered it would be impossible for them to form again. He said I could go see his head if I stayed in the covered hammock. So I did. They said they displayed his head so those fugitives wouldn’t believe he was immortal.
All those people standing out there, and some women out in the street. I asked him if he did it with his own hands. No, he said, there was another man and another who held him by the hair. So I suppose for a man such moments of excitement happen and not cruel dreariness. A woman contents herself with looking when looking’s possible. So I stayed in the covered hammock and got my fill of looking.
But women are the only reasons they build houses. But for protection too. Now he is out of the military and I’m glad. His architectural studies again and all those famous men he knows. But that one, he brought that one back when he could have had a bigger share of it and some land too.
I’ll call her in when they’re finished. You’re my slave too. I own half of the half-soul. I wonder what kind of personality he had. I watched from behind the hammock cover and it was like his eyes were looking right in mine. His jet black too. Did he see me? Looking as if he could see. And maybe he was really immortal and they were wrong, because he was staring at me out of those eyes, or I was just in the path of them. He was on that expedition for fifteen months, my husband, and when he came back he was with that girl. I said, Get the hell out. And he brought me a male peacock. Who did he think I was?
I’ll call her in. I’ll ring the bell for her services too. What is it, madam? she’ll ask.
Bring me every bit of everything the gentlemen have had. Suppose they’ve all had a bit of . . . Ha.
She’ll go and come back.
I own half of the half-soul.
Now rub my head for lice, and here’s some pomade newly arrived from Portugal.
I’ll keep her the whole evening doing that, scratching lice from my head. And putting on that sweet-smelling pomade. Yes, I know how to keep your woman. Then he’ll come for her and silently stare at me. Stand in the doorway. But I’ll keep her. I own half of the half-soul. I’ll keep the woman and he’ll go. Do I interest you? I wonder what that Russian does with his . . . women? Yes, he has them too. But a white peasant woman somewhere. In his own house, and maybe another white noblewoman or his mistress. Do they reside in the same house? Could I bear that better? Still something about the same nationality and qualities of a woman. If one that looked like me was walking about here, what would I do?
I’ll call her in, yes. Does he make her smile? Make her happy? Was she smiling then? I can’t remember how they were looking. I should have said, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Something to make them notice. Made myself known and seen. Does that Russian make her happy and she him? Why didn’t he bring her? Why didn’t he bring his noblewoman or even the peasant? But they don’t take their women on travels. Or has he been introduced to the wenches here?
You’re such a strange man, I’ll tell him, and he’d touch me carefully. But that one? Do you think he’d give her to the Russian for the night? I’ve never seen such a one like you before, he’d tell her. But they have black Russians, don’t they? Didn’t he say that? Black Russians I’ve heard they call them. And those Russians that look like they come from the East. But not like here. Are they just like other men? Me, he’d say he’d seen me over and over again in every country. But no, I’ll say I’m as strange to you as that one. An exotic creature, here in my own country and there in yours too.
Take me there and I’ll prove you’ve never seen one like this one. I’ll prove it. Looking at his eyes that way. I’ll look at him till he knows something about my strangeness. And my strange soul too, I’ll say. Anybody born here has a strange soul. But I’m a whole-soul I’ll tell him.
What will he be like? Some man beyond my imagination? But they all think they are. All men think they are beyond a woman’s imagination, and any woman contained within theirs, always. Don’t they write and paint about us? Aren’t we their muses?
He goes to her. And in what small corner of his imagination is that one? Before I would have vied for a larger corner, claimed my larger corner. See how a woman lives in a man’s imagination. I wonder how I would live in his imagination. What kinds of things would I do there? What should I ask him if we’re alone? I wonder what the Cossack woman is like. Why do I keep saying Cossack? A high forehead he had. I wonder if they give different promises, men from different countries, if they have a different set of promises they give a woman, the same promises, or none at all. Those satin shoes from France he brought and that promise he gave.
But how do I know, perhaps he got them from one of those French window girls. What they most dislike, a respectable woman.
I wonder what they’re talking about. Maritime trade, he said once.
And what trade? Peacocks, yes. Those men discussing maritime trade in peacocks. From Ceylon, or some place, they’ll bring them. He said at first they weren’t Brazilian birds. You can tell they’re not. From some exotic country, those. And what is it in the air that makes them?
And how many peacocks from Java? Ha.
What was that question he asked me, that strange one, about putting . . . first about what a man needs for his spirit . . . then about putting a man at his spiritual ease. The difference between what a man needs for his body and what a man needs for his spirit. And what about a woman and putting her at her spiritual ease? But then that promise. Something about a man’s being spiritually faithful to a certain woman. Ha. And what woman he didn’t say. Ha. Fifteen months on that expedition, or was it longer? All those dreams I had about his coming back. She walked behind him. At first he put her with the other women, slave women, half-souls, then brought her into the house.
Cassava and rice I’ll ask for and some of that wine they’re having, and then lean back while she puts her hands in my hair. Searching for lice.
But still it’s a good feeling. What about when it’s a man? Where does she put her hands then? Always when the strangers come, the women disappear. They must believe there aren’t any women here. No white women. I’ll have her take my hair down, everything. It must be a different feeling for a man. Then he’ll think she’s an enchanted Mooress.
I wonder if foreigners know that story. Maybe it’s only the Portuguese that tell it, and maybe the Spaniards. But still the Moors that were all over the country aren’t the same as the Ethiopians. When strangers come, the
y must believe that all the women there are Negro women and mulatto girls. All the women they see. A country of Negro women and mulatto girls they’ll think, and invisible women in the inner rooms behind thick walls and in covered hammocks.
Those conversations they must be having.
That time he let me watch the procession of St. Sebastian. Still I can’t see how they can slash themselves with broken glass. I was thinking of her then, of slashing her there with broken glass, and then when he . . . What would a man do when you take away that pleasure? I told him to go to the devil and he went to her. A half-soul if any. How they did it I don’t know, but all I could think of was her and what I’d do. Holy thoughts they must have to get through with it, and see their blood as His.
How large and soft he said my breasts were then. But it’s all the same story. The same thing he tells her, or maybe he tells her nothing because it’s not expected in the same way then. And that other man who had his wife shut up in a convent so that he could live with his black mistress. In freedom. With freedom. And how she felt locked in those small rooms. Still the same, except for no man coming. I told him to go to the devil and he brought me that peacock. The female ones don’t have such feathers, it’s only the male peacocks that have all that beauty.
After that first campaign he came back telling me all those stories. But it was only that last time that he brought the woman. I knew what it would be then. What was that Russian’s name? Pavel? His first one. His last name I’d never get. I wonder what his woman’s name is. What’s a good Russian name for a woman? Some lovely long one. And he calls her by it then, or some shorter version. Or maybe it’s their custom not to say anything at all to the woman. Not to call her by any name. No, everyone does, everywhere. But still maybe it’s better a silent husband than some of the things he could say to a woman.
