by Gayl Jones
Father Tollinare, of course, said nothing. And my mother said that, although he was talking to Father Tollinare, he’d looked at her when he said that last thing, about the taste of human flesh. But she said that she herself had heard differently about the Tapuyas, that they were the enemies of the flesh-eaters and not human flesh-eaters themselves, and that they were always fighting those who ate human flesh.
“In that dance you saw,” explained Entralgo, “they were only pretending, but in the old days it was real. Look at the wench, looking at me with eyes like a sea cow. I only tell what’s true. I don’t give false information. Do you still remember the taste of it? I bet if you don’t the old woman does.”
My mother had said nothing to this, though she had glanced at Dr. Johann who’d turned his back to her, so that she didn’t see his face.
When no one was looking, she grabbed at one of the wild figs and chewed it fiercely.
What Is Happening in Agriculture?
ENTRALGO SENT MY MOTHER AND ME into the field to carry water to the slaves there. Some of them would stop, drink water, then return to the field. Antonia came up to us, and I handed her a gourd to drink from. Her eye was red and swollen. The master, I was sure, had beat her again.
I noticed that a young white man was out in the field, working along with the slaves. However, unlike the others, he’d stop at times to examine the weeds and other plants. I remember I’d seen him before, when I’d gone to the stream on the other side of the cane field to take laundry. I carried a small load on my head. He was stripped to the waist and washing himself, even his armpits. I ducked behind a bush and waited till he’d left the stream, before I came forward to wash my clothes.
Now I asked, “Who is that white man?”
“Maybe he’s not a branco,” said my mother.
“That’s Entralgo’s son, don’t you know,” said Antonia. “Your master’s son, don’t you know.”
My mother laughed a cruel laugh.
“Not his son that way,” said Antonia. She straightened her shoulders, took a long drink from the gourd, then said, “That there’s his legitimate son, his ‘boy,’ who went off to study in Paris.”
My mother said nothing. She took the empty gourd from Antonia and scooped more water out from the barrel, then handed it to her.
“Then why does he have him work in the field like a common slave?” she demanded. “If that’s his boy-boy?”
While they talked, I kept staring at the pale boy whose brown, loose hair kept falling into his face. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt that opened at the collar, black trousers, and sandals. Tufts of brown hair peeked out at his collar.
“It’s his choice,” said Antonia.
“His choice? What d’you mean by that?”
“He’s come to teach his father what’s happening in agriculture, new European ideas that’ll help his father’s crops grow larger and faster. As if they didn’t grow large and fast enough.”
I watched the boy. I remembered walking down the long path to the stream and being frightened that he’d reappear again. Hairs in his armpits.
“He’ll fail,” said Antonia, decisively.
“Who says that?” my mother asked. “Why do you say it?”
“He’ll fail,” repeated Antonia. She touched her swollen eye. She poured a bit of water in her palm and bathed the eye in it. “Here he is bringing new European ideas, but is it Europe here? It’s not Europe here. It’s New World ideas that’ve got to be brought in here. New World ideas,” said Antonia.
She winked her swollen eye at me. My mother shook her head, saying nothing. Then she scooped the gourd into the barrel for another thirsty slave.
But it turned out to be true what Antonia, the so-called drunkard and thief, had said. Not only were the crops not larger and bigger, but they were smaller and more shriveled up and some did not come at all. After the disappointment, some said the son left and went back to Europe.
Others said Entralgo drove him off, that the son had wanted to say in the New World and keep trying, that he’d learn the right things to apply to Brazilian soils, but the father said no, he wouldn’t allow him to experiment with his fields. Go help the farmers in Paris, he said. There’re enough poor bugs in Brazil.
Still others said that the later thing couldn’t have happened, because they saw Entralgo standing in the yard shaking his son’s swollen and bitten hands, hands that were a dry white color and still covered with blood and dust. And so the father had to take them very tenderly.
Those who claimed the latter said that if Entralgo sent his son away, it was done out of love and for his own good.
It was Antonia, however, who said he’d called his son a poor bug, as well. And it’s probably true what she said, for after the poor bug left for Europe, she had another swollen eye.
Miss Pepperell and the Lice Scratcher
ENTRALGO’S DAUGHTER LAID HER HEAD in my lap. Her dark hair flowed to the floor, while I parted it and searched for lice. A strange white woman came into the room. She was whiter than any woman I’d seen so far in that country. She looked as if she was lost, but she kept staring at me.
Entralgo’s daughter turned her head to look at her, but said nothing. I combed my fingers through her hair again, but wouldn’t look again at the white woman, who was almost as white as rice. I wondered how Entralgo’s daughter felt with her head in my lap. The white woman left, then she returned and peeked at us again, then she left.
“Mistress, tell me, who is that woman?” I asked.
“She’s from England, from London. An introduction from the queen, no less. Well, one of the queen’s retainers, but that’s just as good.”
I didn’t tell her that I’d never seen a woman so white before.
“Her name’s Miss Pepperell, of all things. She’s very wealthy and she travels. She’s very wealthy, that’s all my father needs to know. He said she’s from a very old and decadent family in London. I heard him say so. And to her face. But she only laughed and said something about ‘an excess of traditions.’ ‘Not decadent,’ she said, ‘but an excess of traditions.’ I don’t know myself what they were talking about. It was some sort of joke, of course. My father fancies jokesters. But my father says she’s been to Russia and to Africa and places of that sort and now she’s come here.
“She’s a writer of some sort. He’s never been at all fond of lady writers. He thinks they all write nonsense. But she writes travel stories, and like I said, she’s a jokester, and he likes that.” She twisted her head in my lap. “But I don’t want to talk about her. Tell me a story about an enchanted black woman. That’s what I want to hear.”
“I don’t know any stories about enchanted black women.”
“There used to be stories about enchanted black women. My mother said she was always told stories about enchanted Mooresses. All the time.”
“The only women I know are ordinary,” I said.
She looked disgusted, shook her head rapidly back and forth, put her hand under my knee and pushed hard.
“Maybe she’ll put you in her book, you’re so uppity,” she said. “She was looking at you, anyhow. Hush.”
The strange woman, Miss Pepperell, came back into the room, looked at us, at me especially, and left again.
The girl burst out laughing. “Soon they’ll come for you, anyhow,” she said.
“To the Negro asylum?” I asked eagerly.
She said nothing. She picked a louse from her own hair and flicked it on the ground.
“Who for me?” I asked, then not to sound so uppity, I added, “Mistress, who for me?”
“A man’s come here for the cure.”
“The cure?”
She laughed again, jumped up from my lap and ran out. She was wearing nothing but her blouse and bloomers. I waited for her to return, but after a while, my mother came into the room carrying a butcher knife. She grabbed my hair and put the knife to my neck.
It was then that Entralgo and a stranger entered. The stra
nger looked frightened, but Entralgo’s face was hard and expressionless. Then he chuckled. My mother said in an even voice that unless they stopped their plans with me, she’d kill me.
Entralgo looked expressionless again. The stranger, in embarrassment asked, “You’re sure she’s a virgin, are you, Sir?”
“Yes,” said Entralgo. “Yes.” Entralgo started to come near.
“No,” said my mother. “You’ll not take my daughter.”
That was the first time I’d seen my mother behave that way. She was big-boned, but at the same time a very delicate and gentle woman.
“They say that only a virgin can cure this man,” Entralgo stated. “I want Almeydita.”
He still looked at my mother. The stranger reached down and scratched his genitals as though there were lice there.
“I’ll kill mine as surely as you’d kill yours if this were to happen. Would you give your daughter up to such a man?”
The stranger came to Entralgo and whispered something.
Entralgo said to him angrily, “Who’s the slave here?”
The stranger whispered again.
“Who’s the slave here?” asked Entralgo.
I could see behind them the girl standing outside the door with her hair flowing, and a look of amusement on her face. When her father turned, she ran.
My mother took the knife from my neck and held my head against her stomach.
“Who’s the slave here?” asked Entralgo again. “Why, we’ll see who’s the slave here.”
When we returned to the hut, my mother explained to me what had happened. At first she intended not to explain, but I kept asking her. Then she told me that it was believed that the blood of a black virgin would cure men with certain diseases. I thought of all the ways he could get my blood. Then she explained to me about the way in which a virgin’s blood is drawn by a man.
I sat on my hammock looking at her, very still, with my eyes wide.
She stopped talking suddenly, then she looked as if there was something she would tell. I kept waiting, but she refused to tell that thing.
“This is why you’ve not been bothered before now,” she said, looking at me. “There are gentlemen in this territory who know they can always count on Master Entralgo for such cure.”
That was when she mixed a certain herb and gave it to me to drink. I didn’t know what it was for, I simply watched her boil the water, then remove the clay jug. She put a dried root in it and covered it with a banana leaf, then she waited. When the water was very dark, she gave it to me to drink. She watched me until I had drunk it all down.
Miss Pepperell: Her Travels in Recife and Other Territories, 1680
Here begins Miss Pepperell’s travels and travails in Recife and other territories in the wild country of Brazil, 1680,” read the first page of the notebook.
One of the women who cleaned Miss Pepperell’s room after she’d left Entralgo’s found a notebook and rather than give it to Master Entralgo to send to Miss Pepperell wherever she might be, had given the book to my mother, knowing that she was literate and also had a daughter who was at Father Tollinare’s school. My mother gave the notebook to me because she did not read English. She’d barely learned Portuguese and Latin. But she knew that I not only read Portuguese and Latin, but that Father Tollinare, experimenting with the new generation of students was teaching us our choice of several of the “vulgar tongues.” Because I’d once overheard Father Tollinare’s telling someone how books in English, more than any other language, were often banned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, I chose to learn that language. In those days, it was strange for a slave to be able to choose anything. So I chose that language readily.
However, it was only years later that I was able to translate the notebook fully.
The entries were not stories, not those “vices” as the holy fathers called them, but rather thoughts that Miss Pepperell had while staying at Entralgo’s and perhaps notes for future articles and letters she’d write and send to the London newspapers.
Under the first title she’d scribbled, but drawn a line through “Tales of an English woman Abroad,” then she’d written and also drawn a line through “In the Americas, 1680.” I’ll include here a sampling of what the notebook contained, though as I say, it was only years later that I was able to translate it fully as I present it here:
Sometimes it all seems like a fine parade and comedy, even the so-called society here in Brazil. Exaggerated characteristics. But there are people here of great character, as our English men and women.
Sometimes I think, though, that if they were placed on a London street, they’d be seen as mere clowns and jesters. But I wonder, how am I seen? Mr. Entralgo entertains me with chocolates and conversation.
Sometimes I can’t tell the mulatto serving women from the daughters of the house. They are all a tawny people. I suppose it is because of the intensity of the sun. But it is the same as in New Spain. Often to be “white” here is merely to consider oneself white, or to be considered so by others. I have embarrassed myself at least several times treating a mulatto woman as if she were a mistress of the house. I must add that the women, all of them, go around in pantaloons and bare feet when they are inside the house. How can one distinguish one class from the other when they are all in pantaloons?
There’s been a gentleman visitor here rotten with venereal disease who wants one of the little slave girls. Disgusting. He has got none so far, and is off to another plantation. I must jot down the name of it. Corricao’s. A gentleman? Did I call him a gentleman? But I’ve heard them whisper that even the priests are rotten with it here.
I ride on horseback. This is a country of enchantment. The Indians, at least the ones near here, are not so fearsome as those in some of the countries I have been to. They are a quite handsome people. Golden.
Entralgo sees me talking to a slave man and calls me in. I swear he was a mulatto and I thought he was surely one of the gentlemen residing here, with a letter of introduction. I did intentionally talk to another slave man, though, while Entralgo wasn’t looking. I was listening to some of his remedies. There are all sorts of herbs and spices here that seem to have quite useful purposes. I wish I were a better naturalist. Entralgo says that in my country and some other countries that I’ve been, I may be a gentlewoman, but here such behavior can only be considered the behavior of a whore.
I have lice scratched from my head. I observed it being done. It feels quite pleasurable. So relaxing. Lice is everywhere.
As a woman, I’m shown little respect here. I used to think that peoples who hid their women respected them, but it’s not so, at least not here. Or perhaps it’s because I’m too much in evidence that they show me little respect. Oh, yes, I should have guessed it. Because I’m not here on the arms of a husband.
I’ve spoken too freely with one of the servants again and shown her every politeness. It’s because of my fascination with that medicine man and she promised to take me to witness one of his purification rituals. But alas, he won’t allow me to witness it. Even so, I had to explain to Entralgo that my interest is mainly in something that will go into the newspapers, that I have no personal interest in all of it. Even when I show him my sketch of the man to go along with the article “My Conversations with a Medicine Man,” he still disapproves. He looks at me as if I’m some new scandal in the world and says I’m not the woman of good family described in my letter of introduction and whose father he remembers dining with in Lisbon.
I tell him that this is the only way that I can finish my collection of sketches on the Indians and Negroes. But he fears I’m a bad influence on his wife and daughters and takes me in hand. He speaks again of my old and decent family, but I know he really thinks it’s an old and decadent one. He’s as much as told me so. And to my face.
I receive a slap in the face and an accusation. All very scandalous. He concludes I’m a whore, though in the beginning he liked my wit. A whore?
His wife calls me a po
or unfortunate woman. A very unsettling scene, and in the presence of Dr. Johann, a likable man. He (Entralgo) says he doesn’t want a woman here who might be the ruin of his daughter whom he has given every care and attention. So I must abandon my articles on the Indians and the Negro Medicine Man and the Women here. I cannot utter one word in my defense. But my fortitude remains.
I’ll return to New Spain and seek sanctuary with the Barbacotes. Is that their name? Or perhaps I should go visit the Corricao plantation first. Titles for articles: A Brief Conversation with a Medicine Man, A Woman of Society in Recife, I Miss the Church of England, Chocolate and Coffee, Notes on Good Behavior in This Country, Some Questions I’ve Been Asked About England Here and Answers I Have Given, Are There Any Free Negroes Anywhere? My Conversations with an Indian Medicine Woman, What It Means to Be an Ungentlewoman Here, Some Anecdotes, Among Strangers, Strange Men and Women in the Americas.
Sacred River
WHEN WE LEFT THE CIRCLE and went into the hut, he lay me in his hammock. I waited, not knowing what would happen. He began drawing lines on his face—moons and half-moons, many connected squares and lines down his neck. Just above his shoulders he began drawing arrows or what resembled arrows. Then he looked at me solemnly. When he got near me, he held my hands and together we watched the blood flow from my fingers.
My mother lowered her basket to the ground, then she picked up my clothes that had fallen, and placed them back in my tiny basket, and secured it on my head again.
“I don’t know what to make of you, Almeydita,” she said. “When will this spirit stop entering your head? They’ll think that you’re crazy too. Do you want them to send you to a Negro asylum too?”
I held my hands around the rim of the basket, as we went down to the river.
“For the Indians this is a sacred river,” she said softly. “But for Entralgo, it’s just any river.”
I said nothing. I thought she would tell me what the river meant, but she didn’t. When I got to the water I placed the tips of my fingers in it. He helped me wash the blood from my fingers and the wounds closed instantly. He said now the marriage ceremony had been completed and he kissed me.