Palmares

by Gayl Jones

  There was a hush, and someone said it was not what they were but what they would be!

  Luiza had a strange expression on her face. What was she thinking, and why had she made no comments? I had made none, but this was my first such meeting, and I did not feel at home with such women.

  “Yes, I think we should keep the name we first chose,” said the woman with red squirrel hair. “Because our advancement is what the society is about. The contributions that we have made and can make. Perhaps among the Portuguese we are the forgotten . . .” She paused as if she was uncertain how to express her next thought. “However, we should be mindful of ourselves.”

  One of the mulatto women laughed and then covered her mouth. “. . . but the society represents our future. Perhaps Maria’s mother was not so forgotten.”

  Maria started to say something, but didn’t. Her cheeks were red.

  Then more women spoke of their own intelligence and morality and refinement, and it still seemed as if they were all the same woman speaking. I wondered what these women were really like, what distinguished one from the other, which one I would have developed a fondness for, or deep feeling, and furthermore what were their deepest feelings, the emotions, what was each of them imagining now, what were their daydreams, what memories did each individual woman have, what were their real personalities, what was not being spoken? Then I thought of something. If Luiza could hear the inaudible, then wouldn’t she know?

  Wouldn’t she know them for their true selves? Didn’t her amusement go beyond what the women were saying, but what they were thinking? I looked at her and she was looking right at me. Did she know? I looked away from her and thought of Scottish whiskey and coconut milk. I got up and served more tea and cakes. Again, the squirrel-haired woman was the only one who said “Obrigado.” When I served Luiza, she winked at me. I almost spilled the tea.

  I sat back down in the back of the room.

  One of the women was standing now. She had a sheet of paper and was reciting something.

  When sugar was gold men killed for sugar

  But now that gold is gold men kill for gold.

  She sat down. Some asked if gold meant more than gold. How can gold be more than gold? asked another. I mean as a symbol of something, said the first one. The inability to distinguish between the divine and the . . . gold is a thing of the earth. Someone laughed and said it wasn’t a poem; it was a thought. But a complete thought, another said. But it wasn’t a poem, insisted another. Someone else commented that it did not rhyme, and all good poetry should rhyme. Another said she should have written an essay.

  Another woman stood and read the following:

  “What Shall Be the Destiny of Truth?”

  What shall be the destiny of Truth, while falsehood sweeps the land?

  Will she be caressed by gentle zephyrs sweet, or buffered to a universe of darkness?

  I see her! Standing, always in a clear blue sky, touching every hand.

  Why is Truth a her? Asked someone. Someone else commented that only two words rhymed, hand and land. Another asked to see the poem and told her that she had misspelled destiny and written “density” and so the poem was really “What Shall Be the Density of Truth?” although in reciting it she had spoken correctly, pronouncing “destiny.” Then she informed the others that the woman had signed the poem “A Free Lady of Color.”

  “Why didn’t you use your name?” she asked.

  “Because I didn’t think my name mattered,” replied the woman. “It’s what I believe. And I think it can stand for what every colored woman believes.”

  The woman with red squirrel hair asked if they were all ready to perform the play that Moraze had written. My ears opened and I sat up straight.

  One of the women complained that she did not understand it, though she was quite ready to do it. She knew all her lines.

  Another woman said that she understood it quite well. That it was about how one always sees one’s enemies as devils, but never oneself. “Isn’t that so, Moraze? Nao e assim?”

  Luiza-Moraze had smiled, but made no comment.

  “No, it isn’t,” said another. “Nao, nao e assim. It’s about the lunatic they call the Mohammed of Bahia.”

  Luiza spoke, asking the woman if she’d seen the man.

  “No, I haven’t seen him. But he tried to organize a Male rebellion and they got him and put him in jail.”

  “In jail!” declared Moraze.

  “Well, he’s not in jail now,” said the woman. “They transformed him . . . I mean to say they transferred him from the jail to the Negro asylum.”

  Luiza started to say something else, but did not. She must not have wanted anyone to know her interest in the man. Or had she herself planned to be a part of the Male conspiracy?

  “Why are you so interested in the lunatic?” asked the woman.

  “She wrote a play about him, silly,” said another. “All authors have an interest in those people who spark their creative imaginations. It’s only natural. That’s why she wrote ‘O Maome da Bahia.’“

  Luiza nodded, but said nothing.

  “Well I think it’s an ambiguous play,” said another. “And Moraze won’t comment on it. She never comments on anything. How can we progress in knowledge of the Truth? My poem, for instance, is about a new criterion for superiority, not based on color, but on truthful qualities, and truthful actions. It’s important to make comments, assert what one’s position and viewpoint are on every subject. Well, every subject that one knows. Viewpoint is very important.”

  The woman in the silk sun hat said, “Ladies, we’d better get started. We have to get back to our respective homes before dark. You know how dangerous the streets are at night. They found another poor soul last night.”

  “Who?” everyone asked.

  “Some army captain. So you know how dangerous . . .”

  “Let’s not talk about it,” said the mulatto, Maria.

  “Does everyone have her part of the play?”

  “Yes,” everyone said.

  They arranged two of the benches on opposite sides of the table, and the woman in the silk hat stood at the head of the table.

  They were all silent and then the woman in the silk sun hat said, “Some are calling me the Mohammed of Bahia, others are calling me the fool of Bahia. What’s your viewpoint on the subject?”

  Alguns esta chamando o “Maome da Bahia,” outros “o tolo da Bahia”—Qual e a sua opiniao?

  Everyone was silent, as the play began.

  “No viewpoint?” asked the woman. “Except for the promulgation of my faith, I am a silent man.” She laughed and said, “I feel silly saying that, but it’s in the play.” She went on. “To the Africans I say it will preserve their languages and mythologies. They will be able to read and write in a language unknown to the planters.” She added an aside that she herself was a good Catholic. She continued, “And in that way huge bodies of knowledge will remain open to them, in science, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, many bodies of knowledge . . . What can I do? I am surrounded by nothing but Christians and New Christians. In the old days, I would have killed all of you. The only God is Allah. The only victory is victory over the infidels.” Then she exchanged places with one of the mulatto women, who stood at the head of the table. She stared at one of the women and said, “Look how she’s looking with such eyes. Look. Don’t you know that silence is against God?”

  The woman sat silently. Then there was the following exchange of dialogue that I did not understand, nor whom the characters represented who were speaking the lines, though it in places seemed to be some kind of inquisition.

  “It’s reckless talk that God disapproves of.”

  “And the government. I told them to bring that African and they made a mistake and brought this Portuguese Jew.”

  “I thought he was a New Christian.”

  “He might have told them he was. But wasn’t it that government that showed its disapproval of your reckless talk? Ha . . . Bu
t why didn’t they bring me that little African, either the sculptor or the poet. I’m not particular . . . To them it’s all the same, they don’t care. It’s all the same to them.”

  “May Allah make you grow in sweetness. The only God is Allah.”

  “The only God is God.”

  “Do you know what I’d do to you if I was my old self? When I was in the asylum they kept hitting me in my head and I’m not my old self anymore. But you don’t know when to expect the expected one.”

  “Are you the enchanted Moor?”

  “No.”

  “What do you have to say, Zerifina?”

  “Her name’s not Zerifina, it’s Zeferina. I have a great deal of respect for this woman. Don’t call her by the wrong name.”

  “I don’t believe her name’s either one of them.”

  “Well how’s one to know anything if she doesn’t talk. I remember her face but I don’t know her name. How do you know she’s even a woman? I don’t even know if she’s a woman.”

  “I thought you’d be as ignorant and brutal as the others.”

  “What ignorance, what brutality? It’s not my brutality, it’s the woman’s.”

  Then she corrected the line.

  “It’s not my brutality, it’s the world’s.”

  Then Luiza told her that the original line was correct.

  “He thinks because he wrote those forty volumes on the Koran that he’s not as ignorant and brutal as you are. I don’t trust anyone who mixes religion and blood, and besides that, I’ve read the work, studied it thoroughly. It’s the work of a crazed man, and besides that it’s not correct Arabic at all. Most of the final letters and even whole syllables are missing. And there’s no order whatsoever to the ideas, if they are ideas—they’re irrational, incoherent, and if you permit me to judge, it’s the work of a poor, ignorant, fanatic, miserable, insane devil. I’m not sure it’s human.”

  “God is enough for me.”

  “See how incapable he is of argument. If he has any thoughts let’s hear them. As for the work, he attempts to combine religion and science in some ridiculous attempt at a mystical vocabulary. Forty volumes?”

  “Yes, forty.”

  “These are your spiritual ancestors. That’s why I’ve gotten them together.”

  “You’ve gotten us together! Ha!”

  “Not me. You said yourself they brought the wrong one. Do you want me to go look for the Africans?”

  “I’m an African. I’m enough, and I have the true religion. My religion is the complete revelation of the will of God.”

  “He believes his is the only true religion, though he claims he’s a convert. Me? I came here and built everything without any Negroes. I worked like a Negro myself. No. I worked like a Moor. Ha. I did everything . . . But tell me. Why were your hands amputated by the government? What reckless talk?”

  “Not talk really. You see I’m a playwright, a very popular playwright I might add—with everyone but the government and the Catholic Church.

  “Social, political, religious satires I wrote. The people adored me, but you see what the attitude of the officials was. I defied them and continued to write, tying quills to my wrists. But this last time they were going to execute me.”

  “I thought you were executed.”

  “No, I escaped and came here to Brazil.”

  “And do you intend to import your satires here? Well, if you do we don’t have any theaters or any printing presses, so the joke’s on you. Ha.”

  “Maybe I’ll go to North America.”

  “It’s up to you, ha. But they’re worse on freaks than we are! Ha!

  “They’re worse on freaks than we are!”

  The woman began turning the pages of a large book that was on the table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This is the Index of Condemned Books. Don’t you recognize it?”

  “Well, what are you doing with it?”

  “I’m going to continue my playwriting here. And I’m going to put all the subject matter into my plays that is forbidden.”

  “Go ahead. You’ll be hanged for that. You’ll be hanged for sure.”

  “I bet he doesn’t put subject matter that goes against his religion.”

  “You’ll be hanged for sure. Tell me, New Christian, when they hang you, will you laugh at them or tell them dirty stories?”

  “Not dirty. Satirical.”

  “What’s the difference between comedy and satire? Did you import comedy or satire?”

  “Do you think it’s Mohammed I worship and not ‘The God’?”

  “Which one of you wrote The Book of Healing of the Soul?” No one answered.

  “You all deny it?”

  “It must be no one here.”

  “And yes, we’ve caught you too. We’ve caught you this time! Yes, we caught you. Who do you think you are, the enchanted Mooress, disappearing like that? Savage! Speak. Why were you brought here? Is it sorcery? Did anyone else see her disappear?”

  I do not include the full play here, but when they finished and I laughed everyone stared at me. Then one of the women said, “I don’t understand it either. I read my part but I didn’t understand it. Yet I don’t laugh at it. It’s unwise to laugh at it.”

  “Why are you so surprised that he’s in the asylum if in the play you have him in there?” asked another.

  “I’d forgotten where I put him in the play,” said Moraze. “I’d forgotten that I placed him in an asylum.”

  There was silence.

  “Well, we’d better go for today,” said the woman in the silk hat.

  “I don’t like it because there wasn’t any humor in it,” said someone. “A good play has to have some humor.”

  “Yes, there was humor in some places,” said another.

  “Anyway, we’d better go,” said yet another. “You all know what the streets are like at night. Moraze, thank you, my dear, may you grow in sweetness.”

  The women put the sheets of paper they had brought with them in a basket in the corner of the room.

  All of the women hugged and kissed each other and told Moraze and myself goodbye. They looked at me strangely, though as if they didn’t know whether I was also a free woman or Moraze’s slave.

  One of the women looked at me so strangely that Moraze introduced us, explaining that I was her apprentice, and that at the next meeting I would give a lecture on certain natural things that one could use to maintain health and beauty. The woman looked at me with delight and we shook hands, and then the woman left, telling the others who I was.

  “I saw you back there looking smug,” said Luiza when the women had left.

  “Me?”

  “Yes you,” said Luiza.

  She looked at me and winked.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She said nothing, and took out the green corn and began preparing dinner.

  “I want to go visit him tomorrow,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The Mohammed of Bahia.”

  “May I come along?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. I continued to look at her.

  “Was there something you wanted to tell me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Bring me the cinnamon and coconut.” I brought it to her.

  “Do you think all that flattering is necessary?” I asked. “Why were those women flattering themselves?”

  She would not say. But when we were eating supper, the dish she had made, and fruit, and drinking manioc juice she said, “Don’t you think I’d like to finish my work, then play, eat fruit, and exchange tales, like any free woman?”

  I did not know how to answer. I just looked at her.

  May Allah make you grow in sweetness.

  The Negro Asylum in Bahia

  THE CITY BUILT THIS ASYLUM in connection with the Church,” said Luiza as we were going there. We turned down a steep, wide, dirt street with many holes in it. “It would be an easy thing for them to fix
good roads here,” said Luiza. “But they don’t care, since they don’t have to walk on the street. And God forbid it if any of their daughters did.”

  The building looked like a huge gray-brown warehouse with barred windows.

  “There’s all kinds of sadistic abuse going on here,” she said. “But we won’t see it. They’re unchaining him now and leading him to one of the visiting rooms. What of those whom no one is ever permitted to see?”

  I pictured a low-ceilinged, dark, dank basement with straw on the ground, and men and women chained by the ankles and the wrists to the wall. The rooms above them were bleak, used by the staff during the day, and used as visiting rooms, and perhaps by the more “tractable” lunatics. In the “hole” water was thrown on them when they “stank” too much, they were kicked when they misbehaved, they were given salts and emetics when they complained of any ailments. And some of them who were perhaps not as recognizably insane as others, or those who had been “cured” were smuggled out and sold as slaves to tobacco and sugarcane plantations outside Bahia, and in Recife and Olinda and Porto Seguro, and perhaps to the mines at Minas Gerais.

  “How does one get to Minas Gerais?” I asked.

  “Perhaps one could follow the Sao Francisco River and then go across land to the West when it branches into the Rio do Velhos. Perhaps one could do that. But are you thinking of leaving me already? Are you thinking of going to Minas Gerais? Do you think you’ve learned everything?”

  I said, “No.” Then I asked her how she had obtained permission to come to the asylum.

  “One of the holy fathers,” she said.

  “Father Viera?”

  “One of them.”

  She was silent as we stood at the face of the building. There was no gallery or veranda, but a huge door. The building went up like the huge wall of a mountain.

  Luiza knocked. The door was opened by an old Portuguese. Luiza handed him the papers. He squinted his eyes and looked at them, then he led us down one of the dark, narrow corridors. “Por aqui. Por aqui. Rapidamente.” He unlocked the door to one of the rooms, and we entered. He locked the door behind us. Inside the bare room there was a man lying in a hammock.