by Gayl Jones
“He’s no white man,” she said. “And even if he were, they’re not all devils.”
“Isn’t he a Frenchman or a German? I heard him speaking some estrangeirado to Anninho. And Anninho treated him like an old friend.”
“He’s of mixed descendance. African, French, German, who knows?
“Maybe he’s got everybody’s blood in him. He’s one of Anninho’s whaling contacts. He used to be a whaling man until he lost his leg. He’s been useful as a spy for us. They don’t know what he is; no one can tell. The Portuguese soldiers and Bandeirantes come here at night to see the Nautch girls and to play the hurdy-gurdy. They don’t pester him the way they do me.”
“What are Nautch girls?”
“Oh, you’re an innocent.”
She put the flask in the cart under a bag of sugar.
“What’s balso?” I asked.
She laughed, then she said, “Whale’s sperm.”
“Why would he give you whale’s sperm?” I asked with my eyes wide.
“All kinds of purposes,” she said. “Some say it can change a person’s personality. But me, I use it as a balsam for wounds, and to keep away headaches and constipation. It’s as good as honey. For some things it’s better. For a man it takes away impotence, cures or protects a woman from infertility. Or so they say. It’s good for taciturnity. Someone who is indifferent and cannot express emotion.”
“Why are you looking at me so?” I asked, with a laugh.
She flicked the reins of the horse and we bumped along. I thought of where I would need that balso when we reached Bahia.
“If you make a pomade out of it, it will make the hair grow . . . Ronciere says, ‘Balso, and luck, and good judgment, and everything’s taken care of.’“
She smiled at me, as we passed one of the mountain trails that I had recently descended. There was the heavy smell of clove and cinnamon. I thought about Mexia and Jaguaribe and wondered if I would still be in the mountain hut if they had not arrived, or would I have affected a cure of my own will and gone in search of Anninho? My grandmother used to say that the will was the deed. “The will is the deed,” she’d say. I don’t know if it was her own notion, or if she were quoting someone. Perhaps for such a woman as her the will was the deed. But I could not discover Anninho by sheer will, by willing him to be beside me now. Ah, if I had such power!
“. . . and there are other secret remedies.”
“What?” I asked.
“The balso,” she said, with her eyes on the road.
“I wish it would help me find Anninho,” I said. “For that you’ll need the other two.”
“What?”
“Luck and judgment.”
Broken Bricks and Unripe Fruit
WE TRAVELED ALONG THE COAST, through forests, and spent the nights on deserted beaches. Even when we encountered strangers they would ride up to us as if to question us, but with one look at Luiza they would steer around—as if they had not recognized her from a distance but up close had recognized her, and as she was a free woman of their district, they let her and her “old companion” pass freely. Finally, we entered the road that led to the city of Salvador da Bahia. I was exhausted but Luiza seemed as fresh as when we had started.
Strewn across the road just before we reached the city were broken bricks and unripe fruit. It looked as if someone had been attacked. Luiza steered the horse to the edge of the road. She left the cart and everything in it, but took the flask of balso, and untying our horses, we went into the woods.
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
We tied the horses to a tree and sat down on a fallen log that lay near the edge of a low embankment, overgrown with weeds and bushes.
“Perhaps they chased someone out of town. It is a very suspicious and jealous town. We will ride in tomorrow. You are a stranger. You will be safer with me.”
“You have been here before?”
“I was born here.”
“I think I was born here. Here or in Recife. I don’t know my birthplace for sure.”
She was silent, then she said again that perhaps they had chased someone from the city. She said it as if it were a natural thing.
She got up and took a roll that lay across the back of her horse, and unfolding it, produced a hammock which she tied to two trees.
We had a meal of coconut meat and red berries which she picked from a nearby bush.
“Aren’t these poison?” I had asked.
“Only if you eat a bunch of them. It’s funny,” she said, knowingly, handing me three of the small red berries. “If you eat two or three of them they’re good for your health, but if you eat a whole handful they’re fatal.”
I ate mine after she had done so. I told her the story about the poisonous fish, and she laughed heartily, wiping her hands on her vest.
When it was dark, she made a fire under the hammock and climbed into it.
“Come on,” she said. “There’s room for two.”
I got into the hammock and lay down beside her. I rested comfortably at first and then climbed out in a rush. Several times during the night I had to climb out because of the little red berries that were good for the health!
Shellfish, Coconut Oil, and Cold Water
WHEN I AWOKE there were two women kneeling by the fire. One was Luiza, the other was an Aimore woman, her straight black hair hitting her shoulders. I saw only her bare back and the flap of her loincloth hitting against her buttocks as she squatted. Luiza saw me and motioned for me to come over. I rose from the hammock, but feeling the same “evidence” of the effectiveness of the berries of the night before, I ran into the bushes. I came out shyly and sat down near the fire where the Indian woman was preparing shellfish. She had a small flat nose and very beautiful large almond eyes but her skin had dark splotches on it, not the smooth brown of most of the Indian women I had seen. The rest of her complexion was a pale brown. She looked at me steadily and smiled, but said nothing. She had a white round birthmark on her right arm, shaped like a berry. Neither she nor Luiza was talking. When the woman finished, she put portions on banana leaves and passed them to us. We ate in silence. Luiza did not introduce me to the woman and I did not ask her name—though they began to talk of “the old man.”
“Yes, I saw him,” the woman said. “I prepared some mungaza for him and he went into Bahia at night. He said he would wait for you there.”
Luiza said nothing.
“There were heavy rains for nine days like he said there would be. And my hands started bleeding the way he said they would do.”
She showed red spots in the centers of her hands like bruises. “But he’s no longer crazy the way he once was. He no longer talks about ‘the holy war.’ I asked him, ‘Marinheiro, would you kill me too because I’m not a Muslim?’ He kept looking into the water, and told me about the rain and that one there coming with you. He said she’d want to learn your science. Do you have any remedies for my complexion? He said you’d have something.”
Luiza gave her the flask of balso and told her to rub it on her face morning and night and to wash it with coconut oil and cold water. The woman thanked her and took the flask, holding it against her bare bosom.
“What did he say of Bahia?”
“He said it was a place of murderers and comedians, but that they all have a taste for the supernatural.”
Luiza began to laugh softly, but for what reason I did not know.
A New Name and a New Place
HERE, I AM KNOWN AS MORAZE,” she said, as we entered the town. “That is my professional name.”
I did not ask her what she meant. She entered the town as if it could mean no harm to her. We were not riding the horses but leading them behind us, as we walked down a flat very wide street. There was no one on the street we entered, though it seemed to be a commercial district—all the buildings were white, box-shaped, one and two story warehouses.
I looked at her and it s
eemed as if she had grown an inch taller, and her shoulders which had seemed narrow were now broad and square as if they were padded with small cushions. I stared at the side of her handsome face as she gazed ahead, yet seemed at the same time to be watching me out of the corner of her eye.
“In Minas Gerais they know me as Zibatra,” she said without blinking, “but here I am Moraze.”
I stared at her. We came to the end of the street, to a long warehouse. We tied the horses to the post outside and I entered after her.
When we were inside, she remained the tall, strange woman. “What shall I call you?”
“I am Luiza Cosme to you,” she said. “But I tell you the other names so that you’ll recognize me anywhere.”
Inside, in the first room, were wooden benches and shelves filled with bottles and wooden statues of saints.
“Are you a witch?” I asked.
She looked at me with fierceness.
“No, I am not a witch. A witch is a very evil thing. It’s a very evil thing. I’m a curer of witches. I’m a curer. I offer medicines, spiritual protection, and supernatural visions.”
She turned away from me and went into the next room, leaving me standing there. She came out again and stood looking at me in silence.
“If you have any power,” I said. “You can tell me where to find Anninho, and what became of him. You can tell me my future.”
“Ah, you’re not afraid of the future? You’re no longer afraid of it?” I looked at her and then I turned away.
“Where are you going, Almeyda?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, without turning.
“Stay here with me, if you intend to search the city for him,” she said. “This is a place of murderers and thieves. They’ll kill you for a handful of maize.”
I turned.
“Show me what I should do.”
“What?”
“Help me to find him. Give me a vision.”
She didn’t answer. She indicated for me to follow her into the next room.
This back room was much like her “store” in Porto Calvo. There were grain sacks and leathern bags all along the walls. Two hammocks hung on opposite sides and Oriental tapestries and silks hung on the walls. There was the portrait of a dark-skinned, high-cheekboned, longhaired woman with large hoop earrings on the wall. There was a resemblance to Luiza but it was not her. Did she really change appearance with each change of name? Under one of the hammocks was a long trunk. A red candle sat on top of it, and a clay mold in the shape of a pyramid. That was her hammock she said, and the other one, with nothing underneath it was mine.
“I do not wish to show you anything of the future yet,” she said, looking at me. “I don’t know about you, but I like to avoid deceits.”
What did she mean? How could I deceive her? Wasn’t it the greater possibility that she could deceive me with some false precognition?
I looked at her, and then looked at a closed door that led to yet another room.
“That’s my library,” she said. “I call it my ‘inner chamber.’ It’s locked. I won’t allow you in there. Not yet. You want to learn from me, but I do not know what is possible yet.”
There was a knock on the door and she left me and went back to the first room. I did not follow. But I heard her.
“I can’t wash the gold out of your head until tomorrow,” she told the visitor. “What is it?”
“It’s mal de bicho.”
“Ah, those gold mines. They’re horrible. Every kind of disease comes from them. What do I recommend? A daily bath, and a dose of brandy every morning. I know it’s uncomfortable, but it will go away. I’ve said so, haven’t I? If it doesn’t, come back to me. This is such a time and place.
“The will isn’t always the deed. Some say the will is the deed, but it isn’t always. Anyway, come back tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll wash the gold out. No, perhaps it’s best if I do it now.”
An Angolan followed her into the room where I was sitting in the hammock. He was barefoot and walked with some difficulty as he followed Luiza. His eyes looked red from sleeplessness. His hair and shirt and trousers were dusty. Luiza took a basin from the corner and he sat on the floor near it. She washed his hair first and started to wash his beard.
“There. I’ll leave that for you,” she said.
He said that there was no woman he wanted in that city and that he could get quail or cotia in the forest. He said it was more important to help with someone’s freedom.
Luiza rinsed his beard and stood up. He looked at me and tilted his chin toward me but said nothing.
“Good day, Madam Zibatra,” he said to her and went out the back door.
“Is it some secret society?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. She slid the basin beside the trunk under her hammock but did not filter the gold out.
“I have heard of such societies, secret societies where they make contributions to purchase the freedom of others and build churches,” I said.
“Then they are not so secret,” she said. “Perhaps we purchase freedom, but we don’t build churches.”
She climbed into her hammock looking at me with wide black eyes. “Do you build ships?” I asked.
She still looked at me, but didn’t answer.
“Don’t you think that would cost a vast sum?” she asked after a moment, but she did not intend the question to be answered.
I was silent.
“Tomorrow or perhaps the next day I will decide about you.”
“What? To let me into your confidence?”
“Do you think I am already in yours?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You want to be my apprentice. But it’s not your choice; it must be mine.”
“Why do I want that?” I asked.
“You want to find Anninho, don’t you? You want to prevent another destruction of the New Palmares. You want to take what I know and learn what I do not know. I don’t know whether I will accept you.”
She lay down on her hammock and turned over on her side, away from me, and went to sleep. As I was also very tired from the journey, I lay down and slept as well.
The Dream of the Good Man
I CLIMBED ONTO THE HORSE, traveling along the mountain road. I had gone back in time, and Aguaribe had just given me the horse, and now I had climbed on. Aguaribe became Anninho, walking along beside me holding the reins and then Aguaribe-Anninho disappeared. But before he disappeared, he said, “Beware of the first evil.”
“What is the first evil?” I asked.
“What is the first good?” asked another man, who appeared at the side of the mountain road, as Anninho disappeared. It was the dictionary maker who had mutilated his hand and foot to avoid military service.
“I don’t believe it was the first evil,” he said, as he walked along beside me. “Do you think that’s what he meant?”
“What?” I asked.
“The shortage of white women and the necessity of the mulatto?”
The horse began to trot, but even with the increased speed the dictionary maker continued to keep up in spite of his severed Achilles tendon. His black hair was longer than the last time I’d seen him and it flapped behind him.
“I don’t believe in Mars or Venus, but will you go to Minas Gerais with me? I believe that Negroes are lucky. They have special powers.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The horse made sharp turns; the man followed. At some turns he was wedged between the horse and rock, but he continued alongside.
“Why, powers for finding gold. They tell me that every gold miner lives with a Negress. Don’t you agree that wealth is more important than color?” he asked earnestly.
I was silent.
“As long as I have to be silent and exiled in Brazil why not strike it rich!”
I said nothing.
“Don’t you think I’m a good man?” he asked. “I put years of wo
rk on that dictionary and they still wouldn’t print it. But I know you have powers for discovering gold. Come along.”
I still said nothing.
“The Brazilians are beasts. The Portuguese are beasts. Do you think there’s one good man or woman? A fool on horseback.”
It was there that the horse quickened his pace and I got away from him, but yet wasn’t that him again, standing at the base of the mountain, waiting?
When I got there it was not him, but a black man—a Cabo Verde? A Crioulo do Rio? A Mina? My grandmother had taught me how to recognize the different Africans, but I couldn’t recognize this one. He had an “F” on his shoulder for “fugitivo,” and one of his ears was cut off, meaning that he had escaped twice and the third time if he was captured his Achilles tendon might be severed, or something worse.
I stopped the horse, and he climbed on—not behind me but in front of me.
“Are you a slave or a free woman?” he asked. I started to answer but discovered that I could not.
“My name is Amur Yefik,” he said with a laugh. “I won’t cost you anything but distance and time.”
He turned the horse away from the road I had intended to take. “We’d better head for the interior,” he said. “Perhaps we can escape from the bushwhacking captains.”
He turned from the road into a path that looked as if it had not been traveled by men.
“You’re right!” he said. “It’s a tapir trail. I used to use them to smuggle gold. Hide it in my hair and in bags of sugar. For good purposes. And especially for freedom buying. I’m a man of no drink and no gambling. Let’s go here. A tapir’s been through here.”
We camped underneath a tree I had never seen in Brazil. It seemed to be several trees connected, as if a branch of one tree had gone down to the ground, replanted itself, and become the trunk of another tree, so that there was a whole line of such connected trees.
He tied the horse to one of them and we sat down under it.
He took a sheaf of papers out of his shirt. “Here’s a poem that’s circulating. It’s not mine. But someone who couldn’t get it printed is just circulating the manuscript.”