by Amy Ragsdale
Skyler and I would leave our house at the “blue hour,” as my father used to call it, when the sky becomes deep and, in Penedo, the mystery planet appeared. (None of the constellations in that Southern sky looked familiar.) We’d saunter down the narrow sidewalk, hugging the wall of houses, the lumbering buses passing so close they’d raise the hair on your arm. The old were leaning on their windowsills; the young were in doorways or paired in the shadows.
We reached the open door of the capoeira salon, housed in a peeling pink building dating from 1843. Along the roofline sat busts of bearded, European-looking men. Below the busts, the pink paint peeled to reveal successive layers. Black graffiti tied it all together. The salon’s huge blue shutters would be closed, but the door would be open, and often Pirulito would be standing there, surveying the street. He was small, with pale, pocked skin and a curl of brown hair on his forehead. His ready laugh revealed braces. I guessed he was about eighteen.
“Boa noite. Quer jogar?”—Want to play?—he’d ask, twirling his pants cord.
“Talvez hoje”—Maybe today. I smiled.
I especially appreciated him because he was one of the first to invite me to spar, hesitant and clumsy as I was. We entered the high-ceilinged room and removed our flip-flops before going up the short set of stairs. A bat swooped through. The room’s wooden ceiling was beginning to cave in.
“Salve,” we shouted.
“Salve,” we heard back.
I could never get a grip on what this meant, but I gathered it was important to announce one’s arrival and for those already there to acknowledge it. Maybe it was a throwback to times when the newcomer might not have been so friendly.
Skyler crossed the room to exit into the open-air courtyard, where the players change into the capoeira uniform: white polyester pants held up with a cord, and a white shirt with the blue logo of Pura Ginga (the name of the local group, which has since changed to Mandingueiro). I asked Skyler if that felt awkward.
“Well, it did the first time when I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing there and all of a sudden these guys start dropping their pants! But now it’s okay.”
The cord’s colors (there are sometimes two) indicate the level of the player. Skyler immediately tuned into the hierarchy and figured out which colors meant what.
Often when we arrived, there were already people working on something in a more or less organized fashion. But people would continue to arrive, and leave, over the next hour and a half. As a result, we never really knew when the class started or when it ended.
The sessions did have a teacher, Mestre Bentinho, the man from whom we also bought chickens, which he’d freshly slaughtered behind his house. Tall, slender-hipped, his arms bulging with muscle, he had a quick, charismatic smile, bright in his chocolate-brown skin. He made us warm up with jumping jacks, bouncing stretches, repetitive lunges, and abdominal crunches. He then moved into teaching us combinations of lunges, squatting spins, and kicks, which jab, fan, and whack, all linked together with the glue of the ginga, a triangular step—side, rock back, rock front—used as a brief moment to reassess before the next attack.
Or this was mostly how it went. Frequently people would walk through the open door behind us, and Bentinho would begin a long, shouted conversation, finally sauntering away altogether to sit down and chat. Either someone else took over, so that we’d repeat whatever we’d been working on, over and over and over, until Bentinho noticed, or things gradually dissolved. This is when Skyler and his pals would start practicing aerial flips and slow-motion cartwheels (moves you were just supposed to pick up by osmosis), the older guys would start sparring in pairs, and I’d flop down on the floor to rest. I could feel my fifty-two-year-old legs getting sore right in front of me.
As a dancer, I could pick up the sequences, the order of movements, easily, which is different from being able to actually do them. I had no problem figuring out which way to turn or which leg was threading through what, and I could swing my legs higher than anyone there, which I did with gusto, mortified that I might accidentally hit someone ducking underneath me. But when it came to supporting myself upside down on my arms and, more significantly, knowing which way to dodge, I was lame. I seemed to have no instinct for self-defense, continually dropping my head toward a fanning leg rather than away. And this was not a lackadaisical, summer-afternoon fan; this was a slashing blade ready to lop my head off.
Those were Mondays and Wednesdays. On Fridays, the instruments came out—the berimbau, atabaque, and pandeiro—to be played in rotation by anyone who volunteered; the roda, the circle of participants, twenty or so, was formed to contain the energy, and two by two, we’d enter and spar. My stomach always tightened in nervous anticipation, but this was clearly Skyler’s and the other young men’s favorite part.
The berimbau is like an archer’s bow with a gourd attached near the bottom. It’s not easy to play. The first problem is balancing the string where the gourd connects to the bow, which is heavy, on your pinky finger, then pinching a round, flat stone between your thumb and index finger with that same hand, to tamp and untamp the string, in order to change the pitch. In the other hand, you hold a delicate stick, which you tap on the string to beat out various rhythms. It makes a twangy, metallic sound with a two-pitch range. When you’ve managed to coordinate all of this, you learn to dampen the gourd by bouncing it on your stomach. By the time we left Brazil, I was still trying to get the stone to hit the string.
The atabaque is a long drum on a stand, and while the rhythms the others played on it seemed fairly simple, I could see in their faces that when I tried them, something didn’t sound right. It seemed I couldn’t even master the pandeiro, a sort of tambourine. I had rather hoped I could play an instrument as a way to contribute and avoid having to go into the ring. But I found I could also happily just stand and clap, helping to hold the energy of the circle. I could barely understand the improvised singing but would try to join in the call-and-response, desperately catching up to the gooey mass of vowels I could make out only after they’d been sung. Bentinho usually led these, with that driving, semi-singing, semi-shouting sound—a style that lends itself to singing outdoors, where capoeira would have originated.
At first the tempo was slow. Two players knelt, facing each other, below the musicians. Often they crossed themselves. Then they slowly cartwheeled into the circle, never losing eye contact. That was important. They moved in mesmerizing slow motion, prowling. This “Angolan” style was low to the ground and molasses-like—a continuous dreamy morphing of forward lunge into retreating crouch, slow headstand-cartwheel, long hooking leg reaching between the other’s ankles. The eyes never lost contact as the two players circled, moving forward and apart, upside down and right side up, panthers looking for their moment to attack. I never noticed when the next pair knelt under the musicians, but eventually, the initial pair touched hands and ceded the ground. It was the older men in the group who usually practiced this style, and there was nothing that looked old about them. Their lithe power was totally intimidating.
As the tempo increased, the young bucks started to enter the ring, and the style changed radically, into the regional (pronounced hehgee-own-ow), a newer, faster form. This was where Pirulito excelled. In this more upright form, legs started to flash through the air in a blur, each player’s feet aimed at his opponent’s head. The players began to handspring and flip. Feet skimmed by ears, given extra speed and force by spinning or jumping into the kick, but never made contact. That was the point: to have the power to destroy but also the control and judgment to use it only when absolutely necessary. The salon was the place to learn this and how to apply it to life. Needless to say, I tried to get into the circle early, before the tempo sped up. Skyler, however, liked the speed and, to my amazement, was there kneeling by the musicians within our first week.
Another small, eighteenish guy also liked this part, and he often sparred with Pirulito. Both, not even five feet tall, one white, one bla
ck, danced nimbly around each other, legs fanning faster and faster, feet skimming by heads, forearms protecting their faces as they got progressively closer. Even though the goal was never to touch, one could still see when one player got the better of another. Usually everyone laughed and the sparring continued or passed to the next pair. But with Pirulito and his dark partner, who seemed to seek each other in the ring, the laughter seemed inevitably to disappear and the tension to rise, like mercury in a thermometer. The intensity of their eyes and the force of their kicks shot upward, until one Friday, they broke the space between them. Just as they started grappling hand to hand, Bentinho and other elders intervened with words and bodies sliding between. The fiery eighteen-year-olds were separated and pulled to opposite sides of the circle. The sparring stopped. The magic was broken. Bentinho said something about “Capoeira é respeito”—Capoeira is respect. The young men started to protest, but not much. They knew they’d lost control.
The roda ended early that night, but before it did, the pair was made to shake hands and enter the ring once more. Everyone was careful it didn’t go on too long, and the thermometer was not allowed to rise. Afterward, we stood in the circle, feet tightly together, right hands to our hearts, left palms flexed and extended in front of us, chanting a call-and-response after Bentinho: “Capoeira é . . .” “Capoeira é . . .” “Capoeira é . . .” As we gathered up our clothes, the elders gathered in conversation. No cheerful tchaus were offered as we left.
That night, Skyler and I walked back up the ridge, enjoying the cool air of the evening, but quieter than usual. He had his capoeira uniform cinched in his cord and strapped to his back like a true capoeirista.
“Do you think they have something going on outside capoeira, those two guys?” Skyler asked. “It just seems like every time they get together, there’s a problem.”
After that night, Pirulito came back, but his dark partner never did. I was sorry. I missed his elfin presence. “He’s like a deer,” Skyler had said once.
I had hoped somehow that the world of capoeira could have helped the two of them overcome whatever their differences were. But maybe that was asking a lot.
I hoped that the capoeira salon might be a place where Skyler could find a gateway into a supportive world of men. Initially, our lack of language was a handicap. I suspected that Bentinho had good things to say about learning to develop and control one’s power, about perfecting one’s skill but taking care of one’s partner, about what it means to become a man and work for the greater good rather than one’s own glorification. These would be timely things for Skyler to hear and learn to practice in a safe place at this point in his life. But even without the language, there was a lot one could feel from the aura of the place and the way the jogadores “played” with each other—the way they could play hard but still be gentle, the way their concern for the other came first, even with an adversary, the way respect for each other as humans was at the core.
One night, a Wednesday, an unexpected roda was held at the end of class. I was struck by the fact that everyone in the circle cut in to spar with a particular boy. I wondered why they were singling him out. When he was clearly exhausted, they let him stop, and the roda ended shortly afterward. We stood, feet together, and Bentinho spoke for a long time. I could pick out “. . . este rapaz de treze”—this boy of thirteen. Then he asked a couple I’d never seen before if they wished to speak. The woman had that tight-throat sound as though she were struggling not to cry, but she managed to say, “Ele é um bom filho”—he’s a good son.
Then the seriousness of the moment—this step through the first of those mirror-multiplied doorways into manhood—broke. Everyone dispersed into the room and we were given slices of cake and guarana-flavored soda pop.
Skyler, too, would soon turn thirteen. I hoped we’d stick it out that long in Brazil so that he, too, could have the chance to be tested and pass through such a doorway, to experience a rite of passage that doesn’t exist for many young people in the United States. I hoped that here in Brazil, Skyler wouldn’t have to make his way alone but would have instead the comfort of a group to help him understand who he is, as an individual, and what his role might be as part of something larger than himself.
14
Relax
BY THE END of September, our third month, we’d survived an ambulance trip to Arapiraca (and Skyler’s next five visits to the emergency room—for stitch removal, dehydration, and spreading foot infections); we’d found a house and furnished it from scratch; the kids had started school; Peter was generating new writing projects; and I’d established a pleasant daily routine of market shopping and work for my dance company back home. We’d accomplished a lot.
I made a list:
In three months, I have learned:
to pick out the good juice oranges with the small pores.
to stop the grizzled old man in the bent felt hat with the street cart and buy a warm cup of coconut-milk-and-corn soup.
to drink chilled água de coco out of a green coconut with a straw, while waiting for a lancha to take us across the river.
to get to the bank at 7:00 AM, before the lines form and the ATMs start to break down.
to be sure I have “small money” for the market because vendors rarely have change.
to hide my money in multiple places, the way the market women hide cash in their bras, in the folds of the stall’s black plastic roofing, or in the microwave, as at the snack stand at the sand-soccer court.
to say “Ne?”—Isn’t that right?—at the end of most sentences, and, if in doubt, to just use the verb ficar—to become, to stay, to make out: it works for most things.
to shout “Salve” and take off my flip-flops when entering the capoeira salon.
to kneel down, touch the berimbau, and cross myself (the first situation in which I’ve ever felt the need) before entering the capoeira ring to spar.
to throw toilet paper into the wastepaper bin, not down the toilet.
to never eat with my fingers—to eat French fries with toothpicks, cake with a napkin, pizza with a fork.
to knock on the door of the blue house advertising “Trufas” and wait while the shirtless man in shorts gets up off the couch and disappears into the back room to reappear with delicious, homemade chocolate truffles.
to sit down by our back window at five thirty to enjoy the sunset over the river with a caipirinha and watch the feasting swallows give way to bats as the land darkens and the warm lights of Bairro Vermelho appear against a still pale sky.
to relax.
PART II: Home
OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER
15
A New Start
WHAT IS IT about rainstorms that’s so exhilarating? I stood at our back window, watching the distant hills fade to white, then become obliterated, the bright patchwork of houses across the valley muting before my eyes. The cows in the valley bottom didn’t seem to notice, but the egrets didn’t fly. Is it hard for a bird to fly in a downpour? The monkeys, however, were fleeing: running the obstacle course of jagged-glass-tipped walls, barbed wire fence, and bouncing banana and palm fronds to dive under the teased wig of a mango tree. All the usual sounds—the scraps of music, the passing buses, Aniete’s radio—were gone, drowned out by the deluge.
Standing there by the window, I remembered all the other rainstorms, the ones I got caught in, and that exhilarating liberation from convention that somehow came with getting totally soaked.
The one when, as a college freshman, I had gone with my boyfriend to a Cambridge grocery store to buy snacks and got caught in a downpour carrying them home. Getting soaked sent us into a leprechaunish dance in a campus courtyard, oblivious to grocery bags dissolving into the pavement.
The one, thirty years later, when my ninety-three-year-old father had left our house in Mozambique for a walk. A half hour later, the rain came. I set off in our old Suzuki jeep searching, windshield wipers unable to clear the flood even when I set them on hig
h, imagining pneumonia seeping through his lightweight suit. I found him, calm and happy, in the library of the American consulate—a wonderful library that I hadn’t bothered to find in the ten months I’d lived there.
The one in my first month in Penedo that sent the skin peeling back on my cheap umbrella. Hopping the river streaming down the cobblestone street, I ducked into the nearest doorway and hastened down a dingy corridor to pop out into the open air of Eliason’s back-patio restaurant. (Eliason, round and grounded like John Belushi, but with the compassionate demeanor of a Benedictine monk, had befriended Peter during his first days in Penedo, helping him look for a house.) I found the one dry table under a leaking thatch overhang. Eliason brought me a thermos of cafezinho, a thick, sweet espresso served in a tiny cup. When I left an hour later, he wouldn’t let me pay and handed me a takeaway tin of beef and pork kebabs.
“Para seu almoço. Peter me emprestou dinheiro”—For your lunch. Peter lent me money.
Somehow every time it rains, something magical happens. Maybe it’s that wholesale washing of the world, the chance for a clean slate.
Rain makes you stop, makes you dive for cover and stand panting, hair wet like a dog’s, in the church door, or the artist’s studio, or under the plastic of a stall. It makes you stop and take the time to watch.
“Skyler, come see the rain. It’s amazing!” I called out then from the back window. I put my arms around him, and we stood a foot from where the rain streamed off the rounded roof tiles in strings of crystalline beads.
