by Gayl Jones
“They tossed one of them over a place like that,” she said, looking down.
“Eh, that’s awful.”
“Yes.”
She steadied the horse as we rounded the corner and came back to even ground.
“It’s because I’m unattached and independent that she calls me a rascal,” she said. “Or because I’m indifferent to the things she finds necessary. But I wouldn’t be unfettered if chance hadn’t brought it about.
“Well, unfettered here in Minas. I couldn’t go to Bahia with you because I don’t have the certificates.”
“I could forge such documents,” I said. “I know how to write, and I’ve done that before.”
“Ah, I’ll think about it. I like you, but I get muddled in the city. I get confused. There’s so much tumult. The least thing disturbs me. I like to be free from oppression. Even when I had those owners, they were independent prospectors, like myself, very despegado, very despegado. If I were cattle, I’d always stray from the herd . . . When she called me ‘rascal,’ she didn’t mean any misconduct. I don’t want you to think she did. It’s just her way. She doesn’t know the difference between being ‘unbridled’ and independent.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I’ll go with you as far as I can and show you the best way, but maybe I won’t go into the city.”
“As I said, I’d like you to accompany me as far as you care to, and as I said, I can provide the proper certificates.”
“I still wonder at how you healed her without any scars.”
“There were some.”
“But so unnoticed. My face is chiseled. But I’m no whimperer. Agora é que di em cheio. Now I’ve had the devil’s own luck, but who needs to squeak about it? Maybe if I keep good company,” she said with a laugh, “maybe I’ll be of that number. I’m not annoying you, am I, with my chatter?”
“No, no.”
“I’m usually very taciturn, and I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself.”
“No, you’re not.”
She noticed wild boar bristle around the trunk of a tree and we took another trail because she didn’t want to “waste our powder.” I, however, had noticed something that she hadn’t. That the wild boar had been scratching at the base of the tree to get the copaiba sap to cure a wound. I did not mention this as we rode on in the new trail.
“If I go with you on your adventure,” she said, “Who knows, but perhaps I really will meet Tamarutaca.”
The Heroes of Turiri’s Village
MAURITIA OBSERVED ONE MORE FEAT of my “magic.” Infection had set in from the “scratchings” the Paulista had given me in the prison cell. It was not until we reached the freshwater lake that I saw another copaiba tree. I persuaded Mauritia that we camp there until midnight, at which time I drew the sap from the tree. In the morning the swelling and fever were gone.
Again she did not “make over” my performance, and seemed to resent it. Was it jealousy or envy? Still what I was doing was elementary compared to Luiza’s feats and the things I might have learned had I remained with her. I did not tell any of this to Mauritia. Once when I saw the “herva viva” I wanted to “show off” again with “my plant.” I would have told her to touch it, and it would have shriveled up and shrunk away from her. Then when I touched it, it would have remained whole and blossomed. But I decided against this, for if she did feel herself to be “evil luck,” then she would have felt it even more and her resentment might have been deeper. So when I spotted the “herva viva” I merely smiled without indicating it and we continued our journey.
“We will not go back to my house,” said Mauritia. “I am afraid that if Father Guilherme is responsible for those men arresting you, then he will harass you there.”
“All right,” I said. I had not told her about the man tearing my blouse and discovering my “empty” bosom, which may or may not have been responsible for my release.
“Do you leave your house ‘solitary’ often?” I asked. “But you said you did.”
“Yes.”
“But you never found any strangers living there?”
“No.”
When we crossed the Sao Francisco I kept expecting to see the “stranger” that I had met on my way to Minas. Somehow in my mind I thought we would see him again, that he would be the Tamarutaca that everyone had spoken of, that he and Mauritia would develop a deep affection for each other, and that Mauritia would remain with him while I continued on my journey to Bahia. But that did not happen. We passed the place where I had “awoken” to discover him. I looked around oddly, so that Mauritia asked, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“I want to go this way,” I said, as Mauritia was about to turn in another direction.
“Why this way?”
“There’s an Indian village here that I want to visit.”
“Tupi?” she asked.
I said yes.
We exchanged places and I rode in front so that the first person they saw would not be a stranger but a familiar face.
Before we got there however I saw the boy Turiri, sitting in a gameleira tree.
“Greetings, Almeyda,” he said, as I pulled back on the reins.
“I was just going to see you,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “And my eyes haven’t hurt me anymore.”
“That’s good,” I said. “This is my friend, Mauritia. This is Turiri.” They exchanged greetings.
“My father and the other men returned,” he said. “They told the women a story that the women would not believe.”
“What story?”
“That the man Zune was a false one and a liar. That really he was not Zune but an imposter, that they had seen him talking to other white men, loading the gold blankets on canoes. But my mother and grandmother and the other women wouldn’t believe my father or the other men. So the women stayed on Zune’s side. Though the men told him to go to thunder! The women continued to make the gold blankets for him.”
“Why didn’t they kill Zune?”
“Because the women would have nothing to do with them then. My grandmother swore she would give them a certain plant that would prevent the women from having children anymore. My grandmother swore she would do this, and all the women swore they would accept this plant if any harm was brought to Zune. He had become like a god to them, even though in the history he was no god, but only an ordinary man who had brought them in the past a religion. But the women continued to feel he was some god, some miracle from the past, so the men would take no action against him, for fear that the foolish women would destroy their whole race for the imposter. So they did not dare even to flog the devil.
“But all is not gold that glitters,” he said with a laugh.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean just that,” he said, straddling a limb. “He thought the new blankets were gold because they glittered like gold. Then when he gave the others the new blankets, they thought he had fooled them, and murdered Zune themselves. So that kept the women from taking the secret contraceptive plant. But still they’re not the same.”
“How have they changed?”
“They still go to the cave where Zune used to be, taking him gold treasures.”
“How can they take him gold treasures if he’s not there?”
“They think he only disappeared, like he did centuries ago, and that he will return. No, they won’t take that plant, because they believe he’ll return, and they want there to be other generations. They feel some other lucky generation will have the good fortune they’ve had. But the men know that that was not Zune, and so do I!”
“Can’t the men convince the women that he was false?”
“No, no matter what we tell them. That’s why I’m here waiting for you. Every day I wait for you to come back.”
“Why?” I asked. “I might not have come this way, or I might have stayed in Minas.”
“I thought you�
��d come and I don’t want anything to happen to you, because you cured me. I saw you all the way back there. I’ve got eyes like a hawk.”
“What would happen to me?” I asked.
“If you come back to the village the women will kill you. They think you’re Anhanguera. They think you’re the Old Devil who chased Zune away!”
I was silent. I thought perhaps I could take off my disguise and go through the village as myself, but suppose they recognized me?
“Then we’ll go back,” I said. “But I wish there was something I could do.”
“No, no,” he said.
I thanked him and we bid him goodbye. I turned the horse around and when we got to the path that Mauritia had originally wanted to go, we exchanged places.
“Did you believe the boy?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, wondering why she had asked that.
Rapadura, the Glass Beads, and a Promise of a Hidden Paradise
WHEN I SAW THE OLD WOMAN, I halted, as I thought she would chase me out of the vicinity again. But she did not. She held up her hand in greeting. I rode up to the stream and Mauritia and I dismounted. The laundry was spread out on rocks and branches drying, the woman sat smoking a long pipe. There was the smell of fermenting manioc in the air, from the nearby plantation.
“I thought you’d chase me away again,” I said, after greeting her.
“Oh, Madam Moraze explained to me that you had left on your own accord. She doesn’t hold any rancor toward you so why should I?”
At first I had thought of coming to Bahia without visiting Moraze, but now I took courage.
“This is my friend, Mauritia,” I said. The two women greeted each other.
“Sit and talk to me. I have to stay here and wait for the clothes to dry.”
I wanted to continue, but I did not want to offend the woman. And what if Luiza-Moraze rejected me? I would need some friend in Bahia. She offered us rapadura, small raw brown sugar cakes.
“That’s my name,” she said, “if you want to know.”
“What?”
“Rapadura,” she said with a laugh.
Had she given me her name before? I could not remember.
“Is the preacher still here?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.
“Eh, he and the woman have gone,” she said waving her hand in the air. “There’s no one there now except the Holy Father and the Frenchman.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“He convinced her to go with him to some paradise. He promised her a paradise—unlimited. But such men always come in the shape of promises. I don’t trust him, but she went off with him. But he’ll fall short of her expectations. I’ve never met a man who didn’t disillusion me, whether bound or free. It’s like that man who came around here selling glass beads or showing them and telling folks they was diamonds. If they wouldn’t buy the glass beads, he’d sell them maps of the diamond mines in Mato Grosso and Goias. Those who didn’t buy the diamonds bought the maps.”
“Did any go in search of the diamond mines?”
“Yeah, and when they got there they found that the mines was always mined by the crown, that none of the diamond districts had been opened up, not to regular folk, and so their trips was for nothing. Those regions that were opened didn’t contain very much, and when they tried to sell the diamonds the authorities wouldn’t pay them their true value.”
“Why didn’t her husband keep her from going, wherever it was they went?”
“He’s like that. He’s always refraining from comment on the things that she does, the things that get into her head. But he’s always a step ahead of her. She thinks she’s a free woman. But he knows what will happen. When she purchased the glass beads from that other stranger and found out they weren’t diamonds, he made her keep them. He’s like that. And this time. He knows she’ll come back, needing someone to protect and defend her. But me, I’ll have no sympathy and no respect for her . . . I’ve never met a man who wasn’t a disappointment, master or slave. I don’t trust anyone, whole or part-time.”
She began gathering up the clothes from the rocks and branches.
Mauritia and I helped her, and then we bid her goodbye.
“I used to feel that way,” said Mauritia, and we entered the road, leading into Bahia. “But she hasn’t lost any spirit!”
“No. Do you still feel that way?”
“No.”
We had ridden for some time before she said, “It was more destructive to me, more of a hazard . . . But who’s completely independent?”
Luiza-Moraze
WHO IS MORAZE?” she asked.
“A woman who lives here in Bahia. I want to visit her, but I don’t think we’ll stay here in this city. I think it will be useless to search for him here.”
“Already Tamarutaca is a legend,” she said, under her breath.
We had reached the back door of the “warehouse,” but before I could even knock, Luiza said from inside, “Let your friend enter, for I’d like to meet her, but you, Almeyda, I don’t wish to see.”
Mauritia looked at me with wonderment, but she entered, and the door closed. I stood in the yard looking bewildered and despondent.
“Brazil and Angola,” I thought I heard, but there were no clear voices from inside, and it was as the sounds one hears on the wind.
I wondered if Luiza-Moraze had refused to let me enter, only to keep her “prediction” true. It was nearly three hours before Mauritia emerged.
She had a strange expression on her face. Don’t ask me to describe it. But it was not the same Mauritia who had entered. What trick had Luiza played?
“I can’t continue with you to Parahyba,” she said. “I must stay here.”
“What do you mean you must stay? I need your company. Haven’t we been luck for each other?”
“Did I say the secrets of the world had not been revealed to me? What should I do if they have a chance of being?”
“Don’t trust her,” I said. “She’s like the seller of glass beads for diamonds and false maps in the place of true ones.”
“She told me you would say as much, because you were jealous of her and her powers.”
“Haven’t you seen my powers?”
“Yes, but they’re nothing compared to what I saw in there. And you could not help me to find my lost spirit or to find him.”
“Is it Tamarutaca?” I asked. “She did not help me to find Anninho.”
“But you did not stay with her long enough, you did not trust her. So that is why you’ve had to wander for nothing. But she’ll help me to find him and she’ll also cure me of my bad luck, so that when I find him, I can protect him, and he can protect me, and we can protect each other.”
I looked at her in despair.
“She’s not what she pretends to be.”
“She said you’d say as much and that you’re not.”
“I must have you with me,” I said. “She’s mesmerized you, tricked you into staying.”
“She said you’d say as much. And she says I mustn’t talk with you too long, or you’ll trick me into following you nowhere.”
“Nowhere?”
“She has books on everything, literature, art, music, science. And she knew about my gold-mining before I even opened my mouth.”
“She knew I was going there. That’s why. It’s no supernatural power.”
“She said you’d disparage her.”
“I’m not. She’s a good woman. But she’ll want everything. She’ll want to control everything. Your intellect, your affections, your will.”
“I’m not rejecting you,” she said. “I’m not choosing her over you. But if I go with you I see destruction.”
“Do you see it or did she see it? Did she make you see it?”
“In that direction I see destruction. But if I stay here, I see development, of all my capacities, and then I’ll find him!”
“Nothing I say will have any effect on you. She’s made up your mind. If she ha
d any real power, she’d come to the New Palmares with me, and we’d work together to prevent its destruction.”
“Her strength is in different things. If she spent her time fighting for ordinary things that others take for granted, she’d never make any progress. How could she accomplish anything, or contribute anything? I want to learn to observe and question and perceive what she does. You don’t know what she’s developing, you have no idea. She can’t spend her time on the same thing, every generation. But you don’t understand. You wouldn’t take advantage of what she offers and now you’re jealous that I do!”
“Come with me,” I asked again.
“No. I can’t stay out here too long,” she said. “You don’t understand what this will mean to me. You don’t know what my life has been.”
She kissed me quickly and went into the “warehouse.”
I slowly untied the horse, and leaving Bahia, rode off in the direction of Parahyba.
The New Palmares
HALT,” SAID THE MAN ON THE PARAPET. “Who are you?”
I looked up at a stranger. I realized that most of the people in this new place would not know me, even though I had removed my disguise before entering the trail.
“My name is Almeyda. I am the wife of a certain Martim Anninho. I used to live in the Palmares that was destroyed before this one was built,” I said. I felt a dizziness suddenly and held onto the horse’s neck.
He seemed to show some recognition, but continued to stare at me with suspicion.
“Enter, but stay just inside the gate,” he said.
I entered, but did not ride into the city. I dismounted and tied the horse to a tree. I sat down on the ground as I was told to do the day that I had first arrived at the Old Palmares.
He came, finally, and took my hand, and lifted me up, and we embraced. I tried to tell him hurriedly about the places I had been seeking him. If I had known that he had been here all along . . .
“I have not been here all along.”
“What?”
“Hush, let’s be quiet now. We’ll go to my home and you’ll rest and then we’ll tell our stories.”
