by Gayl Jones
After a moment I got up and seeing the entrance to a cave walked into it. I did not go far before I saw a man in a white shirt, sitting with his back to me. His broad shoulders tapered to a thin line.
“Anninho? . . . Peixoto?”
He turned and smiled, but it was not Anninho, though I had seen him before. Was it the man we had gone to visit, the tutor? But he had been bald-headed and this man had a head full of thick hair, though he was the same age as that other one.
“Are you the enchanted Mooress everyone is talking about and looking for?”
I said, “No.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “How do you know if you’re enchanted or not?”
He got up and came near me and stood in front of me. He took my hands and kissed them. He kissed the side of my neck and touched my arms.
“Do you think I’m the enchanted Moor?” he asked.
“I haven’t heard any stories of enchanted Moors, just enchanted Mooresses,” I said.
“Do you ever wonder why not?”
“No.”
“Almeyda . . .“
“How do you know me? Who are you?”
“I am called Garrostazu,” he said. “Don’t you know me?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of you. You’re the medicine man, the diviner, whom they banished. Is this where you’ve been living all this time, in this cave? Where’s your wife?” I looked around.
“She’s at home,” he said, with a laugh. “No, I haven’t been living here. I came to see you.”
He kissed my neck again.
“I’m sorry the only gift I could give you was a loss of memory. But perhaps that is no gift. To remember only the tender moments and not the horrific ones.”
He kissed my hands.
“Still there were things that seemed difficult or impossible. Do you remember the battle? But I was banished, wasn’t I? No one believed.
“Only Anninho. Anninho believed the prophecy, but not the remedy. And what could I do without belief? I did everything possible to prevent the final acts of mutilation and blood. But what can a medicine man do without belief?”
He held my arms and looked into my eyes and kissed my forehead. I felt as if he were showing me not only his own kindness, but that it was also for someone else, as if he were carrying another’s message of tenderness and concern.
“Please tell me what’s become of Anninho,” I said.
He was silent, then he said, “I can’t tell you.”
I looked at him. He kissed my hands again. “I can’t tell you about Anninho,” he said.
“Can you tell me where I’ll find him?”
He was silent.
I said, “Anninho told me that you believe that King Zumbi is immortal, that he’ll return again.”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, he’ll return again. His spirit will return again, but he’ll be destroyed again.”
“Is there anything that can prevent his destruction?” He didn’t answer.
“Don’t you know?”
“He’ll return again, and be destroyed again, but the last time he returns he will have learned.”
“Learned what?”
He didn’t answer, then he said, “Anninho felt that I should have prepared my medicines in secret and in silence. But that’s not the type of man I am.”
He kissed my hands again and pointed me toward the entrance of the cave.
When I returned to the cabin, Old Vera kept staring at me, as if she could not take her eyes off of me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not the Azande woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
She shrugged her shoulders and I shook my head and sat down on the hammock.
Zibatra
WHEN I RETURNED FROM A WALK, Old Vera was sitting in the corner in the dark. I thought it was Old Vera and I started to greet her, but stopped for it turned out to be another woman.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Zibatra.”
I couldn’t tell if she said, “I’m Zibatra” or “I’m from Zibatra.”
“But that doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re Almeyda and you’re a Catholic. There’s a woman here who has suffered the same pain as you.”
She meant Old Vera. We had both had our breasts amputated, as our punishment. A slave’s crimes of defiance.
“Have you seen Old Vera?” I asked.
“You are the first to enter,” she said.
She was wearing a long dress with a fringe of velvet. I could only see the fringe of velvet sticking out of the shadows. She seemed very tall, and her thick hair was done up. I could see her outline but not her features.
She was too tall and her face was too long for Old Vera’s. “What do you want of me?” she asked.
“Of you?” I asked.
“Do you want to hear about your past or your future?”
“My past,” I said with hesitation. That sounded safer.
“Here’s a woman who wants to speak to you,” she said. “She’s half Indian and half Negro, and she’s wearing a rosary.”
It was Mexia she was speaking of, but I didn’t remember the rosary. “She asks you what do you want. What else is she trying to say? I can’t hear her plainly. Do you see her now?”
I saw Mexia’s eyes staring out of the woman’s face, glowing. “Yes, that’s her,” I said.
“What is she saying to you?”
“She’s silent.”
“Yes, and one speaks the truth in silence.”
The eyes disappeared. Had I really seen Mexia’s eyes in this woman?
“Another woman wants to speak to you, but she’s a bit crazy, or so they say.”
I saw my grandmother’s wild hair sticking out on the top of her head.
“I don’t know any mapmakers, do you?” she asked. “You are a woman passionately loving your husband, but your mind needs to be mended. Do you think so? Do all conquerors have the right to stare into the face of the vanquished? And break the seal of God? Ah, let the woman waste her sum of days if she’s a mind to. She wants to know who the woman is wearing the Dutch trousers . . . Wallada drink this wine, for the love of God.” She laughed. “How does a spirit court a spirit?”
I heard my grandmother’s voice in her voice, then I saw Mexia’s eyes again.
“A woman of quality comes to speak to you. Where is your captain?”
Zibatra’s velvet hem changed to silk, and her feet were bare. Could she really transform herself into many women?
“Didn’t he do his job? Didn’t he rid the land of all the black ones? And you? What’s become of you? Doesn’t he still kiss your dark neck?” The smell of eucalyptus. I say nothing.
“Doesn’t he have the right to stare into the face of the woman and break the seal of God? How many ways can they mutilate a woman?
“Here’s another woman who wants to talk to you. She wants to talk to you. See how straight her back is? Here she comes, singing a dirty song, laughing in the face of her murderers.”
“Zeferina?” I whispered.
“Why are they laughing at the dark woman?” She spoke in Zeferina’s voice, and then Luiza’s.
“Dance on the peacock’s belly. Who are you and what do you want of me? Is it right to remain tender in a time of cruelty? The blood of the whole continent is in my veins. Open your eyes and see me. Spread your arms and touch me. It takes a mystic to know one. From now on call me Brutality of Existence. I’m in a market where I see a mother sold.”
Now there are man’s legs peeking out of the shadows. White trousers, black ashy feet.
“From now on that’s what my name will be. Where are you taking this woman? Come here, child, and this man will comfort you. Lay your head on my shoulder. I am also a servant of existence. Any more from your past?”
“No,” I said.
“It gets harder and harder to stay in the past, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Bare slender
feet of a woman. “Here’s a woman who’s a slave while you’re a free one and you have the same color and the same blood. She won’t look you in the eye.”
“Nobrega,” I said.
“The moon is riding on her shoulders. Ah, but she’s got a better memory than you. Here’s a woman who puts oil in your hair and you share a bit of her soul.”
“Mother?”
Slender feet in sandals, shadow of a wide-brimmed hat, breasts showing.
“She kisses you and gives you a dark liquid to drink. The kiss that heals, the magic powder that protects. The navel of the woman bends across the sky, eating the sun at night, giving birth to him in the day. Who did this thing? Who mutilated you?”
She touches the center of my head.
“See how the sparks jump from her eyes?” Now she’s Old Vera in Dutch trousers.
“How do you judge the immortality of any man? Shall I bring you fish and chocolate?”
Now I remember. Two slashes of a machete.
Almeyda’s Reveries
Your face looks like the whole country.”
I say nothing. Had she turned herself into a circle, her ankles touching her neck?
“Do you think it takes a mystic to know one?” I don’t answer. She sits up very straight.
“Here’s an Indian woman who wants to speak to you, her baby sucking at her breast. What is it you wish to say, my dear? Look how unhappy and lonely she seems, but the baby sucks her fine breasts and laughs. There, there, little boy. There. There. Are there others here? Any others? We’re all hundreds and hundreds of years old. See how Almeyda looks around for all of you. Want to introduce yourselves?”
Her hands around a clay bowl. She drinks.
“Here’s a woman from a mission. You know, I don’t like to mix my own memory here. This is your story. And this one, isn’t she a true picture of this continent? Scabs on her bosom, the blood of the whole continent running in her veins. But why not? Why not? Push your blouse aside so she can see.”
I do not and a wind comes and pushes my blouse up.
“The two of you return. Oh, loved one, the only gift I can give you is the blood in your veins. And here’s a fool who wants to speak to you. See how wide his eyes are. But I rescue the fool and send him away. And here’s a man with his ear slashed. I mend it. Ah, yes.”
“What?”
“I’m asking this gentleman how he is, the one your grandmother is caring for. He says he’s better. He’s come here to witness the destruction of Palmares. Isn’t he a poor devil? But we’ll join again, I tell him, and form a new Palmares. Yes. Oh, I know this one. She looks at you so sadly and with such concern. Past. Heavy forest. Do not tell her her future. Here’s a woman who makes something from toasted kurumikaa leaves. To drink?
“To rub in the skin? Don’t worry, sweet one.” I stare at her shining hair.
“Here’s a woman come to mend a mind deranged. And here’s an enchanted Moorish woman.”
I feel sunshine on my face, then darkness again. I feel as if my body’s bound in a cloth, then I’m free. The woman has one glowing eye.
“Here’s a woman who boasts of her spiritual prowess, and here’s a bitter heart. There’s an old mapmaker. He thinks his eyes see farther than anyone’s. The memory in my blood is as deep as the memory in yours, Sir. There’s a woman wearing a mask of feathers, and now a boy’s clothes, but they won’t let her march in the festival. Carnival of exaggerated souls. A young Indian, a handsome man. But they tell me he’s denied the position of magistrate because of his wife’s blood. Oh, here’s an old storyteller, look at him, medicine man, look at him. He wants to please you. How are you, Sir? Almeydita, look at this one. Her cheekbones go all the way up to the sky. You still believe King Zumbi is immortal, don’t you? I told you the Portuguese soldiers got him, they grabbed him by the hair and cut his head off and put it on a stick so his people would not think he’s immortal. Don’t you believe it?”
“No, others say he jumped from the cliff and flew away with some of his men, and perhaps women too. They were afraid of his immortality.”
Now I’m silent again. Perhaps all our words will have some value. “Let’s go this way. It’s a bit steep, but we have to go there. They’re behind us. Take my hand. See, it wasn’t hard.”
A column, men and women. A long line, each person behind the next. Each person following someone, a bundle on their heads or strapped to their shoulders. That’s the way it is.
“Here’s a woman who knows how to speak with her own blood. How do you feel? Are you rested?”
“I have seen the river bleed.”
“Don’t speak of it, Nzingha . . .“
“I’m not Nzingha, I’m . . .“
“Do you remember when I came and sat by you? You said nothing, but then I knew how it would be with us. I haven’t forgotten you. My soul runs through the streets and forests and you’re here.”
Here’s someone carrying the dried feet and ears of an enemy. Love and horror in the same country. I see a woman with a broadsword. She presents it to different people, who carry it about to others. Perhaps I only dreamed I escaped after the defeat of Palmares. Perhaps it’s only a dream. Perhaps I’m still in the valley of Mandahu with all the others, my breasts amputated and covered with mud.
The battle was real. But perhaps the escape, the hiding in caves, in forests, in underground huts a dream, a fantasy of history and imagination.
“Don’t you see the woman, yourself, you, Almeyda, her breasts floating on the river, her consciousness still full of magic? Come closer, look. Remember the landscape, the hills, the mountains, the cliffs, the rivers, the dark rich land, the best fruit in Brazil. The ceremony of dreams. This picaresque story is yours. A dream, fantasista. A thatched hut.
“Here’s something to kill the hunger.”
I see drums and swords, men wearing feathers on their heads, bows and arrows, coming down from the top of the mountain, on two sides, a dream, malarial fever.
Almeydita, her breasts gone. Is this how one punishes a desire for liberty?
How long did you live in Palmares? Four years.
How could it have been four years? Four months it must have been. To be against our people is the policy of the state.
What do you know of Zumbi?
I know that he had little faith in the promises of the Portuguese, that he rebelled against his uncle Ganga Zumba and killed him, or so they say.
Where do you think you are? I don’t know.
Where do you think he is? Somewhere concentrating his forces.
Haven’t I told you his head is on a pole in a public square.
The straw woman appeared, bloated with straw, straw coming out of her mouth.
Yes, I’m a real woman, she said. Eternally real. And this is the man who might have altered the history of a nation.
Someone’s mixing a dish of almonds and cinnamon.
Some man is here discussing “the wart of fugitive Negroes.” Has the wart formed again? “An example of resistance without parallel.”
I see Negroes taken prisoner and distributed among the Portuguese soldiers. And here’s a man holding biscuits and a pair of shoes, ham and a sugar loaf. Fish and rice.
And this man, his job is to ferret out the hiding places of renegades. What’s your name, old woman?
Veridiana, but they call me Old Vera.
In the procession there are clowns and dancing girls, soldiers, prostitutes, kings, queens, goddesses, a few saints, some idiots, a carpenter, a mapmaker, an engineer, a bridge builder, a journalist, a tavern keeper, a blacksmith, a tooth puller’s daughter . . . and there’s Pope Innocent VIII riding on the witches’ bull, riding on old Summis Desiderantes . . .
The procession stops, for behind the pope, they are leading a woman. A woman who looks familiar to me, though try as hard as I might, Ican’t place her. Is it Mexia, or the adulteress, or is it Antonia? Is it all of those women in one woman?
They pause and a chair is placed for the wo
man and she’s commanded to sit down.
“Where’s the Jew’s hat? Who brought the Jew’s hat?
There’s a great deal of bustle and noise until the Jew’s hat is found, and it’s passed down the line by the men who stand around the woman, until it’s placed upon her head. The woman sits in the chair without any expression, as if she were beyond expressions. Her lower lip is pierced and a stone is inserted into it. It’s been put there, not as if the woman has desired it, as if it were a custom of her country, but to purposely mutilate and disfigure her. Her eyes are quite large and handsome and she has a mole on her cheek, a large fleshy mole.
The ones surrounding her are all men. Five are white men wearing judges’ robes and powdered wigs. The other five are black men, some with elaborately painted faces, others wearing masks. They look to be witch doctors or medicine men.
“The white ones are witch hunters,” says Zibatra, as if reading my thoughts. “The black ones are witch doctors and the white ones are witch hunters. Now you’ll see the workings of the African and European witch craze at the same time. Ha. Ha. Is this your past? It must be yours, it’s not mine. It must be yours. They’re all afraid of her, that’s why they gang up so. Look at that one, fingering the mole on her face, like it’s some strange fruit. What do they want?”