by Gayl Jones
“No. She’s just silent. And anytime anything happens, they blame her.”
“What things?”
“Little illnesses their children have. Such things.”
“Do they mistreat her?”
“No.”
Luiza was silent. She was still holding the child’s hands. “I don’t know if I can cure her taciturnity,” said Luiza.
“I’m just so afraid they’ll send her out of the house. She’s like sunshine.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jaguara. She didn’t tell me. She wrote it down on a piece of paper. I’d been calling her ‘my blessing’ when I didn’t know her true name.” My eyes widened.
“She doesn’t trouble you with her silence so why should you change her?”
“But I understand. They don’t. They don’t believe she’s human.”
Luiza stooped down so that she was the same size of the girl. She still held her hands.
“Take her back home,” said Luiza, standing.
“But if I take her back they’ll send her away, or put her in the field,” cried the woman. “She’s the joy of my life!”
“They won’t send her away or put her in the field either,” said Luiza with a slight smile.
“You’ve made her so she’ll talk?” asked the woman, brightening, and touching the child’s head.
“No, she won’t talk,” said Luiza. “She won’t talk, but they won’t send her away either and there’s no field work for this one.”
The woman looked confused. She went out, holding the back of the girl’s head.
Luiza learned some weeks later that the little girl had committed suicide.
“How?”
“By eating earth.”
“Couldn’t you have done something? Didn’t you say you had a cure for taciturnity?”
“Come on,” said Luiza. “Let’s go and hear Mass. You can light a candle for the girl’s soul.”
The Shore of the New World or Manioc and Couscous
THAT‘S CALLED MOURARIA, said Luiza, pointing to a certain quarter of the city, as we walked on the wide cobble-stoned street. Between the town-houses and commerce buildings one could see down the hill to the sea and the docked ships, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch merchantmen. Only black slaves could be seen on the street, carrying loads on their heads from warehouses down to the ships, and businessmen’s messengers and apprentices. Men and women “of quality” occasionally rode by in covered carriages and hammocks.
“It’s set aside for Gypsies,” Luiza said of the quarter. “Oh, maybe it isn’t now.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, as I stepped aside for something that had been emptied into the street.
“Oh, sometimes I’m not sure. He hasn’t banished the Gypsies to Brazil yet, so maybe they aren’t there.”
“Who?”
“Why, the king of Portugal. He doesn’t want them to use their own language. It’s always the language. I hope the Gypsies don’t steal colored children. The horses and mules I don’t care about.”
I looked at her curiously, but did not ask her again what she was talking about. Imagine being with someone who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, and begins talking about it, as if it were an ordinary thing. Someone who knows the future as well as the past and present.
We climbed another hill to the cathedral.
Inside the church I lit a candle for the little girl. Luiza called St. George Ogun and said something to him in a strange language.
She touched my shoulder. “Ayida, come,” she said. “Let’s go sit in the gallery.”
Why had she mispronounced my name? Or was this another new one?
We sat in the gallery and listened to a peculiar sermon. The priest began speaking, not in Latin but in Portuguese, and talking familiarly. He began talking about the Church’s place in preserving the Indians and defending them, his concern for their “human dignity,” that the church should continue its battle on behalf of the Indians. Then he also started talking about the “kingdom of Angola” “by whose sad blood, and black but unfortunate souls, Brazil is nurtured, animated, sustained, served, and preserved.” Then he started talking about unhappy souls and happy souls. He spoke some about the Society of Jesus, and about their library in Bahia that he had visited and felt very proud of, and of the importance of the “learned man.” Then he talked again about the slaves. He said that he was glad that at least the colored people in Bahia were allowed to hear Mass.
When we left, Luiza said, “He’s a very famous priest. Very celebrated. He’s written all kinds of books. I suppose he’ll spend a couple more years here on the shores of the New World. We’re fortunate that he’s in Bahia to preach.”
She said nothing about the subject of his sermon.
“I’ve never heard a priest talk so much and in such a manner about the Indians and the treatment of slaves here, even Father Tollinare didn’t, though he taught us all . . . Who is he?”
“Father Antonio Viera.”
When we got back we ate manioc cakes and couscous for lunch.
Jequitinhonho
SHE WRAPPED TOBACCO in the leaf of a palm tree. It was the first time I’d seen her smoke.
“I don’t smoke very often,” she said. “Just when I’m fasting. It keeps hunger and thirst away for a time. Otherwise it’s not very wholesome.”
She sat on the triangular cushion in the center of the floor. She listened while I reproduced the sounds she had taught me.
“Let your superior soul rule there,” she said. “Let go of your inferior soul and let the superior soul rule. Now go through the transformations that I taught you.”
I made a small mistake, but it angered her.
“How do you expect to know the past and future history of anyone?” she asked. “How do you ever expect to learn anything about people and events, whether past, present, or future?”
I was silent. I redid the sound. When I finished, she said, “Now go study the magic in the written word.”
I got up and went into the study.
About an hour later she opened the door of the study. Behind her walked a tall, brown-skinned, shorthaired Tapuya Indian, dressed in a striped suit, and carrying books. A very handsome man—yet to me all the Tapuyas were handsome people. Perhaps to another Tapuya he was an ordinary-looking man.
Luiza took the books from him and placed them on the table. “Here’s some theology,” she said. “From the Jesuit College Library. What I want is some mathematics. There are some good ones but they’re all on the Index of Forbidden Books. Jequitinhonho, this is Almeyda,” said Luiza to the man. “If I’m not here, give the books to her.”
“I’ve already been there,” he said. “Indians are barred from the School of Military Engineering.”
“Ah,” said Luiza, slapping her forehead. “Negroes are barred from the Jesuit College Library, but the Indian can go. I suppose you have to have papers to prove you have no mulatta or native grandmother before you can get into the military engineering school.”
The man said nothing.
“Not even Froger’s wife could find these books from her French husband’s store. Eh, these churchmen. It’s wasteful and primitive.”
“I should get back,” said the man.
“Who is he?” I asked, when he had left.
“He works in the Jesuit College Library. The Jesuits brought him up,” she said. “They’re saving his soul. You see, he brings me all the books he’s told to destroy. Everything that comes in is checked, examined, rechecked, and re-examined. It’s very entertaining, I’m sure, for the examiners. But most of the great works, I’m sure, are destroyed before they even get in the country, probably before they leave the continent. If the biblical prophets had written in these days! And any books on mathematical principles are lost unless they calculate the Ten Commandments or the dimensions of the holy cross. But the Law, it doesn’t change with the new enthusiasms of an age!”
“What Law?”
She looked
at me with pity and clicked her teeth. “There’s only One Knowledge, One Power, One Will,” she said. “How do you ever hope to perform miracles, to prophesy, to receive revelations? You might as well spend your days fishing in the river. But come, I’ll teach you the one thousand pressure points and how to read the turtle’s back. You’re laughing, but everything in the world is part science and part magic and part foolishness. But one must have some dignity in one’s own surroundings.”
Science, Magic, and Foolishness
TWO WOMEN ENTERED—one was Portuguese, her dark hair tied in a knot on the top of her head—the other woman was fair-haired, with rosy cheeks, and plump, middle-aged—an English woman? A Dutch? The Portuguese woman looked at Luiza with a familiar expression, the other woman with friendly curiosity. The Portuguese woman looked to be in her late twenties.
“Is this the Brazilian mystic?” asked the other woman, speaking with an English accent and in a tone I did not recognize. But I recognized the woman as someone, a person of note, I’d seen during my slavery days, although we’d both grown older, and she, of course, did not recognize me. She’d been to stay at one of the plantations, because there were no inns or public houses like the ones in England.
“Yes, this is Moraze,” said the Portuguese woman. She stepped forward at first boldly. She was wearing a brown cotton dress and a red shawl and brown mantilla. The English woman was wearing a violet satin that buttoned down the front and had lace around the collar, no shawl, but a feathered hat that matched the dress. When the young Portuguese woman saw Moraze’s expression—which I could not see, for I was in the corner in back of her, grinding some new leaves we had obtained—she stood silent.
“My name is Mrs. Florence Pepperell,” said the woman. “I’m a writer from London, England. I’m presently writing a book on the natural history of Brazil. Right now I’m working on the flora and fauna, a section of native medicines that make use of plants and animals. This is not my first time to Brazil. I traveled here quite frequently as a young woman. I have already completed my study of the Indian medicine men and women, and I am beginning my work with the Negroes. I’m not new to this country, as I said, but it never stops fascinating me. Everything’s here. You’re fortunate to be the first that I’ll be talking to among the Negroes. I’d like you to teach me what you know. Madam Froger was kind enough to tell me all about you. She’s said very good things about you.”
She paused finally. Luiza was silent. I wanted to see her expression, but there was no way. She stayed silent.
The English woman was smiling at first, her teeth very white, her cheeks very rosy, then the smile and the rosiness left. She looked confused and then angry.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” she asked. Moraze was silent.
“Why won’t she talk to me?” she asked Madam Froger.
The Portuguese woman looked embarrassed, and somewhat apprehensive.
“I’m a very reputable woman,” said the English woman, whose blonde hair had a reddish tint. “My works are very well known in England and throughout Europe—the Europe that matters—England and France. I say ‘my works,’ because I write under the pen name of a man. Otherwise they wouldn’t be taken seriously, perhaps not even printed. I’ve traveled throughout Africa and India collecting material. I have letters to recommend me, but I didn’t think I had to show them to you. My works are very well known, my dear. Why won’t you say something to me? Why won’t you say something? You’re probably a quack anyway. You’re probably not a ‘dear’ at all. Well, you’re not the only black witch in Brazil! I’m sure one of them will speak to me.”
The Portuguese woman’s face was “white.” The English woman turned around and walked out. Madam Froger glanced timidly at Luiza-Moraze and then followed the other one. Luiza closed the door. But still she did not turn around. When she turned, I still could not see her expression, because of the way the sunlight fell on the back of her; it showed over the top of her head and hit my eyes, so that it seemed as if her whole face and body were in shadow.
“I must speak to Madam Froger,” she said. “She probably thinks she was doing something wonderful for me, to have her friend put me in her Flora and Fauna of Brazil. She’s a very good person, bringing me books and all, but she doesn’t really know me. Should I have let that woman talk to you?”
I shook my head. She was standing very straight and her shoulders were very square.
“Does she think I’d want the people in Europe to laugh at me over their tea? Even their own medicine is a mixture of science and magic and foolishness. Why should they laugh at mine? No, Madam Froger does not know me well.”
“You could have had fun with her, tricked her and told her lies,” I said before I realized it. It was as if I were speaking someone else’s thoughts.
“Do you think I’d do that? It’s best to tell her nothing. And even that’s no guarantee.”
“Of what?”
“She’s angry. Who knows what she’ll put in her book and blame and discredit me with?”
“So one is doomed either way, isn’t one?” said I. “Whether one does or one doesn’t.” I started to tell her that I’d seen that woman years ago and that she indeed did write books and had approval letters, whatever such letters were called that were presented to the plantation owners—yes, “letters of introduction”—but for some reason didn’t want to admit knowing her, or rather, having seen her before. She did not recognize me, and for some reason I didn’t want to admit how easily I recognized her. I felt bewildered.
“No, not either way,” she said, then she was silent. I kept grinding leaves.
“Russian furs and vodka,” she said after a moment. She was still standing in the door, looking at me.
“That’s what they’re unloading down at the dock. There’ll be ladies of fashion tomorrow going to Mass, wearing their Russian furs. So silly. And how hot do you think the sun is here?”
The Philosophic Society for the Advancement of Free Colored Women
FREE WOMEN FROM THE TOWN OF BAHIA and outlying areas came. They were all well dressed, wearing clean cotton dresses and cotton scarves, or straightened hair, about ten of them. Several of the women, however, wore silk dresses and silk sun hats. Most of the women were medium brown to dark. There were two mulattoes and a yellow freckled woman with red squirrel hair. They sat in the benches in the front room. Luiza had moved a long table into the room and covered the shelves with tapestry. The table was full of books and pamphlets. It almost looked like a sitting room. I served the women tea and cakes. (The only one who said thank you was the one I’ll call “Esquila.”) Luiza sat on a bench apart from the others as if she were the leader. Another woman sat beside her with a pen and paper—the club’s secretary? When I finished serving the women I set the remaining tea and cakes down on the table beside the books. I stood against the back wall. Luiza looked at me disapprovingly, and so I sat down at one of the benches in the back. I was not used to the company of such women. They all seemed very strange to me and again Ifelt a sense of bewilderment. There had been “free” women in Palmares, but these women were “free” in the Portuguese world and possibly anywhere in the wide world.
Luiza asked if any of the women wished to make any comments before they started.
One of the women began talking. She was an attractive dark brown skinned woman with her hair tied in a bun in the back. I only saw the bun, and the side of her animated face. She began by saying that she was new in Bahia, and that she felt fortunate to be here among intelligent, sensitive, and gifted black women, that she had not expected such fortune, of finding such women to converse and communicate with in this region. There were murmurs of approval and appreciation as she spoke. She went on to say that there were many Portuguese who did not believe that there were blacks of high cultural standards. She said that it made her proud to be a Negro in the company of women of such obvious moral and intellectual achievements and distinction, women who knew and understood the moral worth and refinement
of other women, other freeborn women of good character and worthiness.
One of the women said that she had not been born free, but that she had earned her freedom, and that for her too it had been very uplifting to be a part of such a society, that even while she was a slave she had cared about moral and literary and philosophical pursuits, and that she agreed with the woman who had just spoken, that she knew had regained her freedom after much effort, and that not all slaves were hewers of wood or meant to be, that her mother had been a “tutor” to even her master’s children and had tutored her and some of the other slaves in secret. She said that she was grateful for the mental and moral discipline that had been a part of her upbringing and going to Mass every day, even though she had to sit in the gallery, and she was grateful to be continuing that kind of discipline in such a society.
I glanced at Luiza while both the women were talking. She sat silently and seemed to be looking on with a kind of amusement, though not a “smug” amusement. The woman who sat beside her, wearing a yellow silk sun hat and acting as secretary to the group took notes.
Other women started talking and said much of what these women had said. It was almost as if I were hearing the same woman talk. Each of them flattered the others on their intelligence, sensitivity, their worth and worthiness, and their “gifts.” What these “gifts” were I did not know, except for Luiza’s, for having worked with her closely for so many months.
However, I had never heard her brag about her accomplishments.
When I listened again another woman was talking about her commitment to the struggles of these women, and that they should each recommit themselves to each other’s struggles, re-affirm their loyalty to each other, so that they might be victorious over the insanities and oppression of their country, the hardships and cruelties, the desperation.
She spoke of her love and admiration and respect for all the women present. All courageous and yet tenderhearted women. She admitted that her accomplishments were more modest than theirs, and thus she was grateful to have been invited be among them. Then she commented on the name of the society. She said that it should be called “The Society of the Forgotten Women.”