Palmares

by Gayl Jones

  “They still celebrate you,” she said. “Some think you died and others that you simply disappeared, but they all think you are immortal.”

  He said something about a place they could enter but not possess.

  I remember it this way because I did not know what they were talking about.

  “Then I was at the slave market on Madagascar Island,” my grandmother had said.

  Sometimes they would touch each other’s shoulders as they talked.

  He had a look of piercing intelligence. Sometimes I felt he saw me standing there, hiding, observing them.

  The man said that my grandmother did not know what was possible in the world.

  “I know everything that was possible in that world,” she said. “But it’s the new one.”

  He said something about “force” and “guile.”

  She complained again of his cynicism. She said that something had possessed her and made her desire to fight with them, using every stratagem, sword, and sorcery.

  “But what can I do alone?” she asked. “Where will the strength come from? What is possible in this new world? I don’t know when to intervene in such matters and when to stand back in silence.”

  They were drinking rum and sugarcane brandy. When I asked her about the man she had denied him and said that I was a victim of my dreams again or of my own delusions. She was angry, but I had heard him say it, “Well, your intervention will be as meaningless as your silence.”

  She said it would be better to at least try to offer cures and protection than to simply grow old in the New World, to grow old and disappear.

  “Grandmother, who was that man?”

  “What man, child?”

  “The man who disappeared and they thought he was immortal. I saw you talking to such a man.”

  “You were dreaming. It was your dreams again. Your imaginings.”

  “What shall we do?” I said aloud to the horse and almost as if he’d understood my question, he neighed and shook his mane fiercely. I rubbed his neck and we galloped through the valley and into a forest of cassia trees, and into the road that led to Porto Calvo and the store of Luiza Cosme.

  I saw the two Franciscan monks on the road, walking ahead. I jumped down from the horse and moved into the forest. I tied the horse to a tree and walked along the edge of the road, hidden in the brush and the heavy smell of cinnamon from the cassia trees until I was close to where the monks were standing.

  “I won’t repeat the man’s visions. The ignorant people think he’s a saint. But they will attach themselves to anyone who they think will give them some power over their crude lives.”

  “He’s a heretic and a Muslim. They are calling him the Mohammed of Bahia,” said the other. “He is prophesying to the slaves that the only successful uprising will be a Muslim uprising.”

  “Well, when they capture him they’ll imprison him or take him to the Negro asylum in Recife.”

  “He should be burned, as they do in the old country.”

  “He’s harmless,” said the other.

  “He was harmless while he was preaching a holy war, when he didn’t care who the Christians were. But now that he cares!”

  “They say it’s his son who converted him.”

  I wanted to step out and ask the holy men who they meant. Was it Anninho’s father they were conversing about? Had Anninho escaped and joined his father in some plan? Had his father given up his dreams of a holy war and joined his son in his mysterious plans?

  “At least we must protect the souls of the Indians from these devils.”

  “It’s our duty to undo what he’s done.”

  “They are interrogating the fortune-teller. She was the last to see him.”

  “And that one. That sullen, unsociable woman who withdraws from everyone. Ah, if it was the old country. She should be in chains. She believes in reincarnation, you know. Though she professes to be a good Catholic. Some of the ignorant ones believe that she can make herself invisible, that she has powers of transformation, that she’s enchanted. If I could trick her up. They think they will have their glory days again. But these are the signs of the times! You can’t tell who the devils are. You can’t tell the New Christians from the old ones. And all the criminals and perverse characters in Europe are directed here, criminals, vagrants, gypsies, all banished to Brazil. But I know that one. Did you see the way she looked at the rosary? And when I handed it to her, she wouldn’t touch the cross or the body of the Savior, and placed it upside down. That was my spiritual interrogation. I wish it was the old country, or that there was some new bull issued to take care of this place. All the witches from Europe and Africa end up here!”

  “That makes our task harder. That’s why the Lord has placed us here. It’s our test.”

  “I’d rather work in a land of devils than a land of angels.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why in that way I know the Lord trusts me a hundred percent. To be sent among heathens and savages is the great gift.”

  “Yes, to be sent into a land of heathens and heretics!”

  “That’s the true test of one’s faith.”

  “Have you heard the rumor about Sister Catarina?”

  “Yes,” he said glumly. “But she’s so fat who can tell. She could have had a dozen of them and who would know.”

  “Someone said they saw her speaking with that one!”

  “Who knows? Who’d know unless you punched the nun’s belly.”

  “She makes them better than anyone.”

  “B . . .?”

  “No, no. Nun’s bellies. Very tasty. The pastries, you know. They call them ‘nun’s bellies.’“

  “Did you see her speaking with the devil?”

  “No. Some confessor. Confessing everyone’s sins but her own.”

  “Only in the New World.”

  “She swears Sister Catarina took a lover and had an angel made.”

  “Swears! You let her swear!”

  “Well, she said so.”

  “You don’t know where the devils are.”

  “My ear itches every time one’s around, that’s how I recognize them.”

  A minute later he scratched his ear, but did not seem to connect it with what he had just said. I wondered if the other Father noticed. If he did he did not mention it. They began walking slowly. I started to follow them, but one turned at the cracking of a twig. I ducked down. The other said, “A possum or a rabbit.” I followed them with my eyes, until they disappeared around the bend in the road. I stood there thinking of what I had overheard. If Anninho’s father was the man, who was the woman they had meant? If I could unravel that puzzle, would I be closer to him? I waited for some moments and then walked back to where the horse was. I untied him, and we entered the road again. I walked him, but did not ride as I did not wish to overtake the holy fathers and I did not want to be questioned or show my papers until it was absolutely necessary. An itinerant storyteller was what I would claim to be, and what if I were asked to tell some story?

  Should I tell of a fat nun who was suspected of having numerous pregnancies, and making angels, or of a land full of devils? I walked slowly, pausing now and then, so I would not overtake them.

  “Prester John? Who knows if it’s myth or reality? A black Christian king, they say. When I was a young man I thought I would be the one to find him and his kingdom. I would travel the world in search of Prester John. There was no poverty, no crime, no strife. All nationalities lived in harmony . . . no, not an African . . . A converted Moor . . . I heard all kinds of stories about him. I don’t think they tell Prester John stories anymore. The world is smaller than it was then and there are better communications . . . He was a priest-king, not simply a king, a spiritual leader, not simply a political one . . . He was a great book collector, all handwritten and in all the world’s languages. A generous and gentle man . . . Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  I had advanced upon them before I realized it, when I hea
rd them speaking about the legendary black Christian king—and now one of them was staring at me with angry curiosity. The other one was Father Tollinare.

  Father Tollinare Does Not Recognize Her But Believes Her Story

  FATHER TOLLINARE DID NOT RECOGNIZE ME, or if he did, he did not speak my name. But wasn’t I as old as he was now?

  “Who are you, old woman?” asked the other priest. Father Tollinare stood looking at me with indifference.

  “These are my papers,” I said, taking them out and handing them to him.

  He looked at them and handed them back to me. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m just an old storyteller, taking my wares where they’ll most please.”

  “An old liar you mean. Well, be off with you.”

  I glanced at Father Tollinare, but he was not looking at me. He was looking impatiently up the road.

  “God be with you,” I said.

  “The Lord in the mouth of devils,” I heard him say behind me as I galloped off.

  I wondered if he scratched his ear again.

  Gold Smuggling

  I TRAVELED TO THE EDGE OF THE TOWN and meeting no one else on the road, went around to the back of the store and tied my horse to a post. I knocked at the back door where the X was carved in the wood. There was no answer. I knocked again. Just as I was turning to go the door opened slightly. The woman saw me but did not recognize me.

  “Luiza Cosme?” I asked.

  “Yes, what do you want?” Her voice was harsh.

  “I’m Martim Anninho’s wife.”

  She laughed and said sharply, “I know his wife. I know the young woman. Tell me who you are or go.”

  I held my wrist in front of her, so that she could see the leather bracelet she had given me for luck.

  She looked at it and then looked at me with penetrating eyes. She opened the door wider and rubbed her fingers in my hair.

  “Come in, Almeyda,” she said.

  I entered the small back room where the sacks of “grain” were, and the whale oil lamp.

  There was a man sitting on one of the sacks—a slender Sudanese with bushy hair, wearing white cotton trousers and a shirt, holding a wide-brimmed hat on his knee.

  He said nothing to me, and so I did not speak. Luiza pointed to one of the sacks, which I sat down on.

  Luiza went over to the man and began moving her fingers in his hair as if she were searching for lice. I watched them with curiosity. The man ignored me. Luiza had her side to me. But each time she would locate what she wanted she would put it in a string-tied sack—the long string hung diagonally across her back and chest and the pouch rested on her hip.

  “There,” said Luiza, picking the last mysterious item from his hair. The man stood up and bowing slightly to Luiza, without even glancing at me, left.

  “He can wash the rest out and spend that on food and a woman.”

  “What are you talking about, Luiza?” I asked.

  She explained to me that the man was a gold smuggler who worked in the mines near Minas Gerais, and that he would hide gold in his hair.

  “Some of them have no idea of business. They smuggle the gold in. But they have no idea what can be done with it. They spend all of it on food, drink, and a woman. But that one has been of much use to us.”

  “To us?”

  She looked at me but did not say more.

  “Luiza, I don’t know what has become of Anninho. That’s why I’m here.”

  I told her about the destruction of Palmares, our hiding place, our capture. I did not mention Anninho’s plans of leaving Palmares, or the other strange plans I had overheard. I did not tell her more.

  “I have not seen him since I last saw you,” she said. “I knew of the destruction of the old place. I was confident that you and your husband had escaped and had gone to the New Palmares. The Aprigios are there.”

  Was this the same Luiza, who had spoken in broken Portuguese before?

  “No. I did not go with the others. Perhaps I would have gone if we were together, and he had not made such a decision . . . You know no one who might know his whereabouts?”

  “If he is alive,” she said with casualness, but did not continue.

  “What?”

  “I have seen the old one but not the young one.”

  “His father?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I have not seen Anninho.” She looked at me.

  “Where is the old man?”

  “He is where I will be leaving to go soon. I am going to take up residence in Bahia.”

  “I was intending to go there next,” I said.

  She looked at me, but said nothing.

  “Perhaps we can travel together,” she said, after a moment. “You have the needed documents?”

  “Yes,” I said, showing her the papers.

  She laughed and I heard her say, “Jaguaribe.”

  “You know him?”

  She nodded, but did not explain.

  She was wearing trousers and a man’s vest that I had seen her wearing that last night we had seen her. What were the strange connections of these people?

  “Do you think I’ll find him there?” I asked, looking at her intently.

  She was moving about the room as if she were searching for something under the sacks of grain but which she didn’t find.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps if we find the old man.”

  “What will you do with your store?” I asked. “If you take up residence there?”

  “It is not necessary for me to be here. Another will take my place.”

  Nautch Girls

  LUIZA AND I LOADED THE CART with tobacco, sugar, rum, candlesticks, and carvings. She tied my horse to the back of it, while hers would pull the cart along.

  “How did you come to wear such a disguise?” she inquired.

  “A woman, a Tapuyan woman named Maite suggested it to me.”

  “Ah, that one, that strange one, where did you meet?”

  “The same as I met you. Anninho took me to her. She says she was a spy for Palmares.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Luiza. She spoke as if she did not like the woman.

  We climbed onto the seats of the cart and she turned into the road. “We’ll arrive near there when it’s dark,” she said. “But it will be best to camp outside the city. It’s not good to travel the streets of Bahia after dark. All kinds of crimes and perversity.”

  I looked at her but said nothing, feeling uncomfortable on the hard board, as the cart bucked up and down on the road. I longed to be riding the horse again, traveling alone. But she would know the city, and the old man they called the “Mohammed of Bahia.” Some said he was a pure, full-blooded African; others said he had Arabic blood. Still others said he was born in Morocco. Others on the island of Madagascar. No one seemed to know for sure.

  “This isn’t the first time he’s disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t the first time Anninho’s disappeared. He disappeared after the destruction of the other Palmares and we thought he was captured or killed, but he was found. He’ll be found again. Don’t worry.”

  She flicked the reins and we rode in silence.

  “He’s the one who made the contacts with the men in the gold mines,” she said after a while.

  “Anninho?” I asked.

  “Yes. He has much ingenuity, that one. All kinds of ideas come from him.”

  She flicked the reins again and we turned into a familiar road, and there was the inn I remembered. Had she lied to me? Was she taking me to Anninho after all?

  “Luiza,” the man exclaimed, as we entered.

  He remained sitting, but extended his hand to her. He was smiling a broad smile. He was the same “white” man that Anninho had visited and the one I had seen in my vision. He did not recognize me for my disguise or he did not recognize me anyway. Luiza sat down across from him, but I remained standing.

  “Come and sit down, Almeda,” she said, placing a chair
for me. She had left out the “y.” Did she not want the man to know my true name?

  The man looked at me with curiosity, and then turned to Luiza. “So you are on your way to the Bay of All the Saints,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “But you never see me.”

  “They tell me you are there. That’s good enough.”

  “This is Martim Anninho’s wife.”

  “This isn’t the same woman.”

  “She dyed her hair and stained her face with wrinkles. But look at the eyes, they’re the same.”

  He looked at me carefully. “How is Martinho?”

  “She doesn’t know. I thought you might have seen him.”

  “No, not in a long time.”

  “Before or after the Velho expedition?”

  “A long time before. She was here then.”

  I was wondering how she could talk to this man with such ease and friendliness? Had my visions of him been true or false?

  “I have not seen your husband since that time,” he said, looking at me.

  I stared down at my hands.

  “It’s in Parahyba, I’m told,” he said to Luiza.

  The New Palmares was in Parahyba. What was this man talking about? Why did he know so much?

  “Well, it will be a long time before I get there. I’ve got business in Bahia. I don’t know what the old man is up to, but the authorities are looking for him. He came to see me, and since that time I’ve been under suspicion. They’re looking for some excuse to put me in jail or into slavery again.”

  He said nothing. She said she would be going and stood. I stood. “Wait,” he said. He got up and walked across the floor on his wooden leg. I listened to the sound. He reached behind the counter and got a flask. He came back slowly, and handed it to Luiza.

  “Balso?” she asked.

  He nodded and smiled a bit. She shook hands with him. I nodded goodbye and we left.

  “I don’t understand it,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Anninho was there too. Why do you visit that white man? Why do you confide in him?”