Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters

by Maria José Silveira

  That’s what he thought, and that’s what he did.

  When, after successive defeats, the Luso-Brazilian generals were forced to surrender as he had predicted, Manu Taiaôba was already in the wide-open backlands far from the battlefield, raising his cattle. He learned the commanders had once again given the order to burn the sugarcane fields and other crops so as to leave nothing behind for the Dutch but scorched earth—but he didn’t worry since he knew that his son-in-law, like many other landowners, would not obey the suicide order. Duarte, like many of his kind, had chosen to remain neutral and tend to his land, in contrast to those who had abandoned their plantations and fled for Bahia or other captaincies further south.

  Duarte had thought through his decision to remain neutral.

  No matter how hard he tried, he could find no reason to fight alongside the Portuguese and Spanish who, aside from not being native to Brazil, were confiscating the goods and livelihoods of so many of his people on the old continent. On the other hand, ever since he had arrived he had felt such deep kinship with the country that he considered himself a true Brazilian: he intended to build a life in that blessed land, to make his family a family of true Brazilians, born and raised and defending the interests of Brazil and not some foreigners, no matter who they were. His position during the war was, then, constant and well considered: he would collaborate with neither side, but gave shelter to all soldiers who were wounded or retreating. In the face of the threat of famine, he decided to plant more corn and cassava and reduce sugar production.

  Maria Taiaôba approved of her husband’s position. She considered it wise not to force a choice between the rule of two foreign powers, just as she considered it a good idea for her father to fight in the war, since that is what he liked to do and that was his calling. Maria carried peace in her heart, and in the midst of all that, it hurt her to witness so much suffering. She and the old woman were unrelenting in their work to provide food, water, and a few kind words to whoever passed by. They also set up a small shelter near the plantation entrance for treating the wounded with herbs and natural remedies.

  When battles raged nearby, the two women would set out, baskets full of herbs in hand, to tend to the wounded. Maria also brought slaves wielding hoes to dig graves and bury the dead, whom the enemy had left to be devoured by the swarms of crows that circled the battlefields. Many times, they arrived too late, when nothing more than an acrid odor was left in the heavy, still air, the smell of rotting entrails disdained even by the satiated vultures that watched the women from a distance with something like an air of contempt.

  With so many people passing by and even spending the night at Duarte and Maria’s sugar mill, news of the war came and went from one side and the other.

  Some told of the tragedies that swept the land, the devastating hunger, the scorched landscape, the landowners and slaves scurrying beneath the moonlight to bury sugar-making equipment and other valuables before they fled. Others told stories of drinking escapades of the Dutch, true walking distilleries, and how they became stuck in the mangrove with their heavy uniforms, only their heads visible; the natives need do nothing more than show up and bury them, with a thump of a club over the head. Others reported how African slaves took advantage of the disorganization wrought by the war to escape to the Serra da Barriga, some 150 miles away, where they built a village full of people called Quilombo dos Palmares. Still others spoke of what had happened with the mameluco Domingos Fernandes Calabar, some saying he was merely a guide and had been executed so swiftly because he knew too much, had known high-ranking sympathizers, since it was he who took the Flemish commanders to their rendezvous in the dead of night, and it was they, the sympathizers, who had ordered his killing, fearful he might prove unable to hold his tongue.

  Conversation stretched into the night beneath a sky alight with the flames that rose across several points in the distance, transforming the warm backlands evening into a sweltering night of blood and suffering.

  The war ended slowly as Portuguese resistance soon waned into a series of retreats. The flames covering the night slowly died out, the retreating soldiers growing ever more scarce, the sound of fighting growing more and more distant until everything grew silent across the land speckled with patches of scorched land, abandoned homes and sugar mills, solitude, sorrow, and hunger. Now only the Dutch passed by the plantation, their troops loud, rowdy, and often drunk.

  Little by little, the news reaching the plantation began to tell of good things. News of the Dutch prince who had arrived, his energy, and the projects whose construction he had ordered. Recife would be modernized, transformed, it would be a real beauty of a city. Merchants would now have more freedom without the difficulties that the Portuguese monopoly had brought.

  Months passed, and Maurice of Nassau soon became a beloved ruler.

  Each time Duarte traveled to Recife, he returned full of enthusiasm. The prince wasn’t constructing opulent temples dedicated to the glory of God, as the Portuguese had done, but had commissioned useful projects that improved the city and served to increase labor productivity. He had seen the plans for the Mauritian city, to be constructed near Recife, between the mouths of the Caparibe and Beberibe rivers, with streets, city squares, and canals. He had seen the palace and the botanical garden being built.

  One night, after a trip to Recife, Duarte went to bed inspired, his head full of plans. Filled with affection, he had told his wife and daughter about his decision to bet on the young country’s prosperity, and that important changes were afoot. Who knew, perhaps he would soon be able to send for his aging parents, from whom he had heard nothing in quite some time.

  In the middle of the night, his moaning, tossing, and turning woke Maria. Distraught, she could barely touch his skin, which was burning with fever. There was no need to wake the old woman—when Belmira, at her mother’s request, arrived frightened at the bedroom door, the old woman was already mixing her remedies.

  This time, all of her wisdom was for naught: Duarte passed away three days later from some malicious tropical fever, which may have been malaria, or tertian fever, or something else entirely. He, who had loved this land so much he could only see its beauty, had succumbed without a chance to its maladies.

  Belmira was at her father’s bedside when he died. The girl who had been born and raised in wartime was quiet and had sad eyes. She was very attached to her father and his romanticism. By the age of eight, she could recite passages of Luís de Camões from memory, just as her father had taught her, and she collected the flowers and leaves she gathered on walks through the forest with the old woman and her mother in a thick album her father had given her. She would glue the leaves to the pages and in her careful handwriting take down the names the old woman taught her. During several conversations, she had told her father that she wanted to learn to cure people of their illnesses. Duarte, who treated her as an adult, said he thought that was wonderful; this young country had its own unique illnesses whose cures ought to be found here, where the old woman sought them.

  Her father’s death left the girl so inconsolable that Maria was forced to overcome her own pain to tend to that of her fragile and pale daughter. Just like the fine porcelain of the East Indies Company, the very last present her enthusiastic husband had bought her in Recife, Maria knew that her daughter, too, could crack under the slightest pressure. There are those who grow stronger when faced with adversity, but the majority does not. The majority clams up, unable to overcome their dread when they see themselves forced to confront the misfortunes fate has in store for them.

  After her father’s sudden passing, Belmira began to think her dream of curing illnesses was a useless and empty one. One of the few things that still made her happy, however, was to walk with her mother and the old woman through the dark forest. There, they would gather up herbs as Maria picked fruits to make sweets and vibrant flowers to adorn her hair and her daughter’s in an attempt to once again bring, in some measure, a bit of color and lig
ht to her melancholic daughter’s cheeks.

  One June afternoon, as they returned from one of these walks, they came upon a group of Dutch artists and scientists who had arrived with Prince Maurice. The vision of Maria so adorned, which years before had captivated Duarte, is said to have also fascinated the young artist Albert Eckhout, who asked Maria’s permission to paint her with her basket full of fruits and flowers.

  Perhaps it truly is her, perhaps it isn’t, but even if Maria Taiaôba was the figure portrayed in Eckhout’s famous painting Mameluke Woman, this doesn’t mean she looked exactly like the woman who appears in Eckhout’s portrait: no matter how realistic the Dutch painter’s life-size paintings of the people of this land were, no portrait corresponds entirely to the model the artist has before him. Portraiture is not photography, but rather the expression of what he who paints sees or is capable of seeing.

  One thing is certain, however: the golden-brown complexion and the sharp nose, the soft-sloping lips, the almond-shaped eyes of a woman who finds cause to laugh in the situation before her, are all Maria’s. The curly hair, no—Maria’s hair was straight and jet-black—but the necklace and teardrop earrings of pearl and gold could well have been those Duarte had given her, part of the family jewels he had brought from Portugal. The white satin dress was also not hers—Maria certainly had her share of dresses of silk, velvet, and satin, which she’d sewn herself, but she would never have worn them for a walk through the jungle. It’s possible the painter transformed simple, white cotton fabric into shimmering satin in order to obtain the density and luminosity he sought.

  Whatever the case may be, the friendship between the three women and the Dutch was a fact. The young Dr. Pies and the naturalist Georg Marcgrav were particularly astounded at the old woman’s wisdom and Belmira’s album full of plants.

  Many times the doctor and Marcgrav would set off with Belmira and the old woman through the woods and along the riverbanks. Belmira and the old woman would show them the male papaya tree, sage, achiote, and all manner of herbs and plants. They showed the men unknown specimens of animals like the scarlet ibis, the oronooco eagle, and the many snakes that slithered about. At the edge of rivers that ran crystal clear, they showed the men fish of varying sizes and colors, and from a distance pointed out several species of alligator. They would pick fruits such as pineapple and pitomba and give them to the Dutchmen to eat. Seated on tree trunks at the edge of creeks, Dr. Pies and the old woman spent long hours discussing venoms and antidotes, medicinal plants and their therapeutic properties.

  Though it was evident the men had done considerable research, traveling along the coast and through the countryside of Pernambuco, even crossing the Rio São Francisco, and had also spoken with many other native-born Brazilians to gather incredibly rich material that allowed them to complete the first two publications with systematic classification of the flora and fauna of the tropics—published in Holland in 1648, Historia Naturalis Brasiliae and De Medicina Brasiliensis—these books contained, without a shadow of a doubt, the contribution of the duo, the young girl and the old woman.

  Deep within Belmira’s heart, the scientists’ attentions managed in some way to alleviate the pain of her father’s absence; when they left, in 1644, they carried with them the album full of plants that Belmira had given them, along with the promise that she would write them whenever she discovered some new plant.

  The widowed Maria was now responsible for looking after the sugarcane plantation herself. The foreman, a trusted advisor to Duarte, stayed on as her right-hand man, but it was she who would negotiate the price of sugar with the Dutch of the East India Company, and it was she who made all the decisions. Intelligent and observant, she was a quick study and no fool. She soon discovered that she liked doing business and that she knew how to do it well. Her style wasn’t to assume great risks or bets, but rather to play it steady and safe. She didn’t earn enormous sums all at once, but she was always bringing in earnings, and in no time she had managed greater profits than those of the old sugar-market negotiators who considered themselves smarter than the rest. Maria became known for her pragmatic approach to business, her kindness toward others, and her straightforward and honest gaze.

  At the plantation, the slaves considered her a fair and just woman, and her sugar mill had one of the fewest cases of runaways during the chaos that set in with the war.

  In the city, however, the respect all maintained for her was, frankly speaking, due much more to her money than to some recognition of her virtues.

  During the war and the Dutch invasion, many women had taken on roles that had previously been reserved for men, but not all of them had Maria’s intelligence and good sense, or her grace and beauty, or her youthful exuberance.

  There were scheming and envious women who had always existed; they thought Maria was this and that, they found her daughter to be very pale and therefore judged her to be malnourished, and they thought that the old woman, whom they never hesitated to call whenever they needed, was, regardless, a witch—and once a witch, always a witch. Whoever cast spells for good could also do so for ill. And how else do you explain the death of Maria’s first husband, that charming gentleman and skirt-chaser whom no one could resist and, in fact, no one did resist—he knew many a bedroom throughout Olinda, those belonging to both single and married women.

  Of course, there were also many men who wished to take advantage of the still-young Maria, be it in the bedroom or in business, and they became livid when they realized that the widow’s naiveté was something that existed only inside their heads, for in both these matters Maria Taiaôba was a remarkable woman. Natural and free, as she had always been, if someone spoke of her sensuality, and if she were in the mood, she would allow things to proceed to a tryst in the woods, but not any further. Twice a widow and more concerned with her daughter’s well-being than her own, she had no wish to think about another marriage so soon.

  When war broke out again, plans were made to launch an insurrection from Bahia, before the Luso-Brazilian troops began to make their way back north toward Recife.

  These events swept into the thick of Maria and Belmira’s lives.

  First, the news arrived of the death of Manu Taiaôba, who had died in the jungle, fulfilling his wish. Following orders, the old warrior’s right-hand man buried his leader in the same place he had buried Maria Cafuza, and then brought the news of his death to the old man’s daughter.

  Soon thereafter it was the old woman’s turn to tell mother and daughter that she had grown very tired and needed rest. By her count, she’d fulfilled her mission, having raised three generations—mother, daughter, and granddaughter—and had taught them everything she could; they would have to forgive her, but she had no desire to witness yet another war.

  She explained in great detail how they were to bury her and, a few days later, when the old woman made no appearance in the morning, Maria knew she had died.

  The year was 1646, war was raging, and for the first time in their lives, Maria and Belmira found themselves alone.

  A SOLDIER NAMED WILHELM

  Wilhelm Wilegraf was born in Amsterdam, which was the center of European commerce at that time. His grandfather, a brilliant naval engineer, had been one of the men responsible for the construction of the frigate, a new type of warship that brought the Dutch great fame in the seventeenth century, making it possible for them to threaten Spanish and Portuguese dominion over the seas. Wilhelm was the youngest child of a rich and powerful family of Lutherans; his father had been one of the celebrated commanders of the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish empire.

  Wilhelm’s older brothers were large-scale merchants: their ships, which sailed from Amsterdam full of European products, would pass along the African coast to load up on slaves, then head for the Antilles or the Brazilian coast, where the crew would sell both the products and the Africans on board, only to load the ship once again, this time with sugar, before sailing back to Europe. Returning to their port of ori
gin, they completed their tour of the “most lucrative trade under the sun,” as the English were fond of saying.

  Wilhelm wished to follow not the example of his brothers, but that of his father: he embarked on a military career. On his first mission, he enlisted to go to Brazil, this magnet of tropical light that represented an irresistible attraction for Europe’s young men.

  Wilhelm arrived in Brazil in 1646, when the Dutch once again found themselves practically surrounded on the coast. Soon after setting out for the first time, and after spending a few days in smaller skirmishes in the jungle, Wilhelm and his group passed through the Taiaôba estate, where he remained after falling prostrate, burning with a fever common among the recently arrived European soldiers. Given the family he came from, his commander thought it better not to force him along, but to leave him to the care of the widow and her daughter, people he knew to be neutral and who, besides, enjoyed a reputation for their knowledge of natural medicine—especially the young girl, who appeared to have inherited the knowledge of the late old woman.

  And so, the young soldier fell under the care of Belmira and her natural remedies. Whoever lived at the sugar plantation or simply passed by—native-born slaves or those from Guinea, overseers or field laborers, people from Recife and Olinda, cassava planters and peddlers, soldiers and commanders, fugitives and combatants—knew exactly what would inevitably follow upon seeing Wilhelm and his caretaker. Maria Taiaôba was, above all, overjoyed, believing the situation might provide an end to her daughter’s sadness and that unknown evil that had seemed to corrode her soul ever since her father’s death.

  Given the resurgence of war, the sugar plantation’s economic prospects had once again become uncertain: the price of sugar continued to plummet in Amsterdam and, what’s more, the factory’s production had been seriously compromised. The men Maria trusted most felt the itch to join the ranks grow stronger and stronger. Many slaves, too, longed to fight, others tried fleeing for the runaway slave colonies; supplies were becoming scarce and the suffering of all was greater by the day.