by Gayl Jones
Visions in a Glass of Water
I SAW THREE OR FOUR HUNDRED, long, narrow canoes moving down a river; in them were Portuguese, Africans, Indians. Some were sitting, others standing.
Luiza came and sat across from me on one of the cushions. The glass of water with three drops of oil was on a low table.
“Do you know the name of the guide?”
“Guide?” I asked. I didn’t know the meaning of the vision and so answered, “No.”
Next there was a large room. If it is possible to see a large room in a small glass of water I saw it. But it was as if the “smallness” of that space had changed, or my relationship to it, and it was as if both Luiza and I were sitting there in the saloon, with the crowd of people.
“Look at that table over there,” said Luiza.
“Where?”
“In the corner. It’s Barcala, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
Her eyes were in front of me, and yet I saw behind them or through them to the table where Barcala was sitting with a glass of wine and a book. He did not notice me, even though he looked up on occasion.
“Did you think he was in Holland? What’s he doing on Madagascar Island?”
“Madagascar?” I asked.
“Yes, where the pirates go. It’s a pirate stronghold.”
I looked around at the crowd of men and women, who looked like an assortment of renegades from different nations.
“Is that Alsace?” asked Luiza.
“Alsace?”
“Is she a witch or an enchantress?”
She turned my head in the direction where the woman was standing, apart from the tables, in preparation to sing, as she was holding a mandolin. Her eyes and hair were very black, her hair very long and thick, and she was wearing gold rings in her ears. She was dressed in a long skirt with red and black and gold “oriental” designs around the hem; her blouse was white and loose. She was looking down at the mandolin.
When she looked up her eyes were the hugest, brightest I’d ever seen. “What is she?” I asked.
“Morisco,” said Luiza. “She’s a Moroccan woman.”
The woman strummed the mandolin. Most of those in the saloon continued their conversations. I glanced at Barcala, who was looking up.
“Barcala, surrounded by pirates,” said Luiza. “Is this his solitude and freedom? Is this his contemplative life of writing and study? Do you think he’s a pirate too?”
“No,” I said.
Was this some illusion she’d conjured for me to see, somewhere in my imagination she was taking me. Was it reality? Was it the present, the past, the future?
Barcala was looking at the woman with admiration. I turned back to her. She began to sing, but in a language I did not understand. She moved through many emotions and seemed to hold many different emotions simultaneously—love, jealousy, anger, pity, remorse. And there were other emotions which I knew no names for.
When she finished, I glanced at Barcala, who lifted his glass to her. “A Toast To You, Moriana,” said Luiza, though she was still looking at me.
“Is she Moriana?” I asked.
“That’s the song,” said Luiza.
“What language was she singing in?”
“Arabic. A Moorish ballad.”
“Do you know the words?” I asked her.
She lifted her chin a bit and then began to recite. I heard the woman reciting and Luiza translating at the same time, translating the ballad for me; she said it was a ballad that she had heard many times; it was also part of the repertoire of the Spanish balladeers, many of whose ballads were of Moorish origin:
Don Alonso got up early a little after sunrise.
He went to invite friends and kinfolk to his wedding. He stopped his horse
At Moriana’s door.
“Good morning, Moriana.”
“Don Alonso, welcome.”
“I come to drink a toast to you, Moriana, for my wedding Sunday.”
“That wedding, Don Alonso, ought to be with me.
But since it’s not,
I accept the invitation just as well, and to prove we’re still friends, drink this fresh wine,
The kind you used to drink
In my room filled with flowers.” Moriana went quickly Into her room.
Three ounces of soliman with ground-up steel, and the eyes of a viper,
And the blood of a live scorpion.
“Drink, Don Alonso. Drink this fresh wine.”
“You drink first, Moriana. That is the custom.”
Moriana raised the wineglass to her lips. She kept her teeth together. Not a drop went inside.
But when Don Alonso drank, not a drop was lost.
“What did you give me, Moriana, What did you give me in this wine? I’ve the reins in my hands and I can’t see my horse!”
“Go home, Don Alonso. The day is already passing, and your wife will be jealous if you stay here with me.”
“What did you give me, Moriana, that I lose all my senses?
Cure me of this poison, and I’ll marry you!”
“It can’t be, Don Alonso, Because your heart is gone.”
“My wretched mother, who will never see me alive again.”
“More wretched mine, since I’ve known you.”
When she concluded, she raised the glass on the table and drank some. She put it down. I was silent, then I heard shouts. I stared into the glass.
“Alsace! The spy! The imposter! Hang her!”
They rushed toward the woman. She was held. Barcala stood up, but did not move forward with the others.
“I’m no traitor,” said the woman.
“Zairagia will know,” said one of the women from the crowd, a blonde, full-figured, dressed in trousers and a vest, a jealous look on her face. “If she’s telling the truth Zairagia will find out. She’s never wrong. The only time she’s been wrong has been when there’ve been air devils, but ordinary devils of our own world never fool her. Once she discovered such devils had entered me and she lay with me three whole nights before the devils dispersed.”
“The filthy witch,” said one of the pirates. “She only claimed that for her own lusts. Let the woman go. What harm can she do?”
An old woman came forward with a glass of water, chalk, and a black tablecloth. She spread the cloth on one of the tables, put the glass and the chalk down and took a vial of oil from her pocket. She set the vial beside the glass and took up her chalk.
There was the smell of a very strong perfume. She began to draw four large circles on the tablecloth. In the first circle she drew a cross. The second one she divided into four parts, the third into seven parts, the fourth into twelve parts. Then she began to draw a number of vertical and horizontal lines all along the table, placing numbers beside them.
“Zairagia demands a resolution to the question,” she kept saying. “Zairagia demands a resolution to the question. A resolution is demanded. Zairagia demands it.”
She began to make little Arabic letters beside the numbers. Then she said again, “A resolution is demanded.”
She did not seem to get any resolution and so she began to make geometric figures on the palms and backs of the Moroccan woman’s hands and then made designs on the woman’s forehead.
“Travel backwards in time,” she said. “Tell me the place and position where the devils entered. A resolution is demanded, an answer to the question.”
She placed several drops of oil into the glass.
“Look in it,” she told the woman. “Do you see devils dancing?”
“I see nothing but oil in water,” said the Moroccan.
“No devils dancing or speaking to you, no devil saying anything?”
“She’s the Black Devil,” said the blonde woman.
“No,” said the Moor.
There was still the smell of the strange perfume.
“Tell me, devils,” said Zairagia. “Are you devils of the earth or of the air?”
She waited,
and though no one else heard the reply, she told them the devils claimed they were of the earth. And she informed them further that in that case she had power over the said devils.
“At what time and place did you enter the woman and who commanded you to?”
She waited, then said, “They are very closed-mouthed devils and won’t say anything. I can’t get anything from them, but I’ll discharge them. Get out of the woman,” she commanded.
She smiled and clapped her hands at first and then she looked distressed.
“They tricked me. I’m very sorry, Francesca,” she said to the blonde. “But when the devils left this one, they ran into you, and they will be harder to remove now. It will take the old remedy.”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed the woman. “Why do they always come into me?”
“What do we do with the itinerant singer?” asked a pirate. “Let her go,” said Zairagia. “She can’t harm anyone now.”
“I say toss her into the sea,” said Francesca.
“We’ve got to get the devils out of you,” said Zairagia.
The Moorish woman broke away from the crowd who were now gathered around Zairagia and the woman. Zairagia took Francesca’s arm and was leading her away.
“Don’t go with her,” said one of the pirates. “She’s a liar. I’ve seen the world, and I know she’s lying. It’s all for her own lusts. I’ll take care of your devils!”
There was loud laughter. Before I could glance back at Barcala and the Moorish woman the “scene” dissolved.
I had once been told that some of my ancestors were Moroccan and wondered if this was the reason for the scene. But I was no enchanted Mooress.
There was a new picture. A windmill, a man standing on a country road.
“Is that Barcala?” asked Luiza.
“Yes, where is he?”
“Amsterdam.”
“Is this the present?” I asked. She was silent.
“Did Alsace go with him?”
“Do you see her?”
Yes, I saw a woman now, coming out of a house. A small house, smoke coming from the chimney, behind and to the left of the windmill. A black-haired woman. A Dutch woman? She was wearing an apron and a blue dress. She was smiling.
I grew angry. “It’s not Barcala I want to see. Where’s Anninho? Is he there too? He’s the one I want to find. I came to you to help me find Anninho.”
“Did I bring this vision?” asked Luiza, shrugging. “Am I to blame?” She shrugged again and stood up.
I watched Barcala standing with the woman talking and smiling, then they walked back to the house together. I could see through the open door a table piled with books and papers.
“Would you rather he’d stayed on the island with the Moroccan woman?”
I was silent.
“Or stayed here with you?” she asked.
“It’s not Barcala I wished to see, but Anninho,” I insisted. “I don’t want games or riddles.”
“Did I bring him?” she asked, then said, “Perhaps you’ve seen him and don’t know it. This is no diviner’s game. These are your own visions.”
I poured the water out on the floor. She tossed a rag at me to clean it up. When I finished, she was still looking at me. One of her eyes was green and the other was brown. Why hadn’t I noticed before that her eyes were of different colors? Her whole face seemed radiant.
“Why don’t you take a rest,” she said.
Her hands on her hips, she turned and walked into the front room. I put the glass upright and placed the towel on the table, and climbed into my hammock.
I saw a circle of tents in a desert.
Parasitic Organisms and Malaria
I COULD NOT RAISE UP from the hammock. I felt chills and fever. I was sweating. Luiza kept a cool cloth on my forehead. Why did she keep pricking my skin? What was she doing with my blood? Had she caused this with some “silent sound”? And was she now pretending to relieve it? She raised my head and tried to give me something to drink. I heard her say “Ata” something. What words was she mumbling over me? Her face got closer. She pulled my eyelids up. She admonished me for something.
Was she putting the blame on me for my illness? She was talking about something. She was standing in front of me and behind me talking. How was that possible?
“You must be intrepid. You can’t get sick just because it’s a fashion of epidemics.”
She mixed blood and milk. What was she doing?
“It’s a difficult task, but not impossible.”
“How many blacks do you think there are on whaling ships?”
“Don’t think of the past but the future.”
“This one has a fascination with the impossible.”
“Its main virtue is that it gives one more power.”
“All of the books are on the Index.”
“The whole thing is coming to the surface.”
“Who do you think is the source of all power, knowledge, and will?”
“Will?”
“He is the principle of the best.”
“That book is too technical for you. Experiments and calculations?”
“What is the relationship between apples, tides, and planets?”
I told them the prophecy, but it wasn’t believed. I was there. I don’t behave this way out of fear, but decorum. Ah, that one. He has illusions. What do you think was the real conquest of Palmares? There has always been a conflict between what one can imagine and what one can do in the world. Do you think the will is the deed? Do you want to know my vision? Unity of the power of both of us. But we have a different conception of time, you and I. Of the past and future. A different conception of heroic action. But we’re both intruders in the New World.”
“I’m no intruder.”
“Different degrees of responsibility and irresponsibility. And Barcala.”
“All of my complaints are with myself.”
“Not others? He thinks irresponsibility is freedom.”
“No, no. He’s a fatalist about the state of the world.”
“And himself? I can see history. Yet don’t I take chances?”
“What’s your goal?”
“Goal?”
“Why, I take every new existence as it comes. Here’s the chart of my personal development. Here’s the chart of the world’s. Don’t you see my position? I’ve got my work and you’ve got yours to do. Goal? I have my tasks, and all the armies of Brazil can’t keep me from performing them. Ah, that’s the difference between the visible and the invisible world.”
“Barcala’s illusions of honor and social standing . . . and your . . .“
“Hallucinations of a melancholy woman?” she laughed.
“What?”
She rubbed my forehead and neck and body with some kind of oil.
“Is this the little prison you’ve made?” she asked. “Don’t you think the times aren’t crucial enough? What little evil have you done? Are you responsible for some wickedness?”
She drew blood from me again and examined it. I saw her with the bark of a plant, leaves, a cluster of small flowers. She shaved the bark and powdered it and mixed the powder in water, leaving the stalk-like leaves and flowers on the table with the mortar and pestle.
“Do you think I’m wasting your blood? Those parasites should be out of your body by now, or be making some sure plans of escape. It’s been two weeks. Drink this down and they’ll all be fugitives tomorrow.”
She raised my head and I drank the tasteless liquid. In the morning, I got to my feet and went about the day’s tasks.
A Cure for Taciturnity
SHE DOESN‘T TALK TO ANYONE. I don’t know if she can’t or won’t,” said the woman.
I looked at the girl closely. Her face looked familiar, but she was no one I remembered knowing.
“No, she doesn’t say anything,” the woman repeated. “The people around here think she’s an idiota. But I don’t think so. See how pretty she is? She’s so pretty and has such a beautiful s
mile. And she behaves like an angel. How can such a child be an idiota?”
Luiza went over to the child and had taken her hands and was holding them.
“Is she your daughter?” asked Luiza.
“No, she’s not my daughter. Well, in my soul she is, but it’s impossible for me to bear children. Eu não posso ter filhos. I found her. I found her wandering alone. I still don’t know anything about her. She is very strange. She doesn’t say anything. I don’t know where she comes from. I just have a pass for today. I’m a housekeeper from the Carvalho plantation. She’s such a sweet child, but she’s making everyone in the Carvalho household nervous. They say she’s a little witch and are going to put her in the field. But look at her. She’s an angel.”
I looked at her, a very pretty child, with a shiny brown face and huge brown eyes. Why did she seem so familiar? She was looking at Luiza.
“She has an overfondness for paper,” said the woman. “She collects every scrap of paper.”
“What do you mean?”
“She writes things down on them.”
“What kind of things?”
“She won’t show me, but I think it’s things that happen in the household, and on the plantation.”
The girl kept looking at Luiza with a radiant smile. Her whole face seemed to be glowing with friendliness and some secret.
“She has such mystery,” said the woman. “She’s very sweet. I feel as if it’s some blessing that’s been given me. To have found her. That it’s my blessing. At first I thought she didn’t like me or that she thought I was foolish and I tried to make conversations with her. But now I realize that she cares for me, and that she’s my blessing.”
“Does it bother you that she doesn’t talk?” asked Luiza.
“No, but it’s the master and mistress. I’m afraid they’ll put her in the field or sell her. And I couldn’t bear it if they separated us. I can’t have children. She’s a blessing. Ah, look at her. Look at her eyes. They say the eyes are the revelation of the soul. Sometimes I just sit and look at her. They say she’s a devil or an evil spirit, but she’s an angel.”
“Has she harmed them in any way?”