“She didn’t work anymore, anyway,” Antonio giggled.
His sister was about to pounce when she heard the sound of shuffling slippers and turned to see Senhora Genevieve coming toward them. She waved her hands and mouthed angry sounds that no one really understood. The women frowned and made pleading gestures that they were sorry. Senhora Genevieve grabbed Terezinha’s hands and plucked at the white fur she had stripped from her dog’s back. Georgina assured her that her daughter would be kept far away from her little dog. Senhora Genevieve was not satisfied as she turned and left. Terezinha stood behind her mother and picked what remained of the dog’s fur, soft like candy floss, from between the webbing of her sweaty fingers.
It was obvious from Georgina’s smile that she was fond of her daughter’s resilience. Even at six, Antonio knew his mother saw something in his sister’s spirit that reminded her of herself.
“To this day the village still speaks of your wedding, you know,” Carmen offered.
“And to think it almost never happened,” Georgina said.
“You had second thoughts?” Aunt Louisa sounded surprised.
Satisfied that she had roused interest, Georgina nodded. “I did, but I wouldn’t let her win.” She continued her story, spurred by the vision of Terezinha, who had kicked off her shoes and was now twirling barefoot in the afternoon sun.
The making-of-the-bed was to be held in her home. It was an old marriage ritual that many Portuguese had long since abandoned, especially those who lived in the larger cities. But for the women of Lomba da Maia, it was yet another opportunity to socialize and to preserve tradition, and her future mother-in-law had insisted. The house that evening had been filled with the warm smells of fresh corn-bread, and the scent of olive oil used to make sweet dough sprinkled with sugar had mixed with the warm evening air.
“But it was the smell of my mother, the way I breathed her in, that I remember the most; apricot soap with a hint of dried straw—the smell I knew I needed to carry with me to Canada.”
The old sheets had been placed on Georgina’s bed, and the table had been set outside for the men. Her mother moved through the house in a frenzy, sure that there was enough food, certain that the outhouse had been scrubbed and sufficiently stuffed with pine branches. She couldn’t think straight, everything had to be just right. “I remember wrapping my arms around her, holding on even tighter, and breathing in deeply.”
People arrived shortly thereafter. The women sat on the benches that had been brought in from the barn and placed closely against the thick earthen walls of the kitchen. For a while the men, in suits far too small for their farmers’ bodies, scurried to the backyard to be with the other men, to smoke and play cards and drink.
Theresa heard a knock on the front door. She opened it and met Maria’s gracious smile. It was far too large for the contempt she knew Maria felt toward this marriage.
“I saw Manuel looking over his mother’s shoulder to steal a glance at me. I was carrying a tray of buttered corn-bread across the hall. It’s funny the things you remember. I looked over and quickened my pace. I kissed that woman’s sagging cheeks, but all the while I looked into my Manuel’s round face and large blue eyes. I’ll never forget how he smiled at me.”
Antonio looked across the square to see where his sister had run off to. She sat on her father’s lap, swung her pink feet as she tried to play his hand of cards. He resisted at first, then gave in as he always did, blew his cigarette smoke from the side of his mouth and looked over at his wife and son.
“What did he say, Georgina?” Carmen was eager to get the romantic epic back on track.
“His mother looked at Manuel sternly. It was enough to get him to fidget nervously with his tie and then head straight for the back door to meet with the other men. He tripped when he looked back at me.” Georgina smiled at the recollection of her small victory.
All night, Georgina had tried to approach her future mother-in-law, but every time she got near, Grandmother Maria would turn and begin a conversation with someone beside her. They had shared a few forced smiles. But, Georgina was certain that soon the awkwardness and the contempt would have to give way to something more familial, whatever that was. “‘Time has a way of doing that,’ my mother used to say.” Georgina shook her head, still caught in disbelief.
Grandmother Maria had entered the kitchen and sat in the corner on a low wooden stool. She pretended to read her Bible; she couldn’t read and everyone knew this, but she was far too pious for anything to be said. The other women busied themselves with needlepoint or crochet. Some knitted while others enjoyed the unfolding drama.
She laid her Bible down on her lap.
“‘Two weeks ago your daughter was alone, with nothing, and now … well, tomorrow she’ll marry my son, who I already lost once. Soon, our two families will be forever bound.’” Theresa’s metal crochet needles clicked faster, and stumbled as she picked up her pace.
“And then my mother stopped,” Georgina said. “‘We,’ and she stressed the word while looking sideways at my future mother-in-law, ‘are very happy with this blessed union.’
“‘I don’t know,’ my mother-in-law added. ‘My husband used to say that men are all barnacles. A barnacle starts out life swimming freely in the ocean. But, when it matures, it must settle down and choose a home. My dear husband used to say that it chooses to live with other barnacles of the same kind so that they can mate. He first chose Silvia … and then, well—’ Maria stopped.
“My mother rose from her bench. Her shoulders rolled back as if ready to spring.
“‘You’re trying my patience, Maria.’ But I moved to block my mother’s step. The anger had given her the strength to push against me and move toward my mother-in-law. I pleaded with her not to ruin my night. ‘I’m wasting my time with you, Maria. You have come into my home and insulted my family. For that you will pay dearly. Mark my words. You hold on to that Bible, now try to hold on to some self-respect. We have a ceremony to perform so that my daughter can marry, marry your son, and move far away to her new life.’
“My mother moved out of the kitchen, her long silver braid sweeping like a pendulum across her back, and slammed her bedroom door. The stress she placed on those two words, far away, had its desired effect. My mother-in-law’s eyes turned cold. But then her frown became a smug smile.”
It was the custom that each woman proceed alone to the bedroom, where she would leave a small token between the sheets, or tucked under the fitted one. There was no formal order, but it had long been understood that the young women would first bring sweet and hopeful offerings; the older women then brought symbolic gifts, usually bitter, with little or no fondness for the innocence of what was once promised them. The list of possible offerings was long; sugar sprinkled over the sheets symbolized a life of sweetness, eggs nestled under the pillows blessed the bride’s fertility. Some of the scorned women brought roses: the petals reminded the bride of passion and the thorns of the pain and suffering love would inevitably bring. Each woman went in alone with her offering for the young couple.
After their offerings were placed on the bed, the younger women returned to the hot kitchen, whispered and laughed. The older women were far more reserved as their offerings and duties were performed.
The evening had been soured by what Maria had said. The women felt it in the air. It wasn’t until midnight, when a few of the red-faced men came dancing into the kitchen, propping each other up, trying desperately not to topple onto the kitchen table, that the mood changed into what it was meant to be. Carmen remembered the older women halfheartedly trying to shoo the men away. Some women grabbed tea towels or the corners of their shawls to taunt them like bullfighters or flick them across their jowls or near their groins. Manuel came next, dragged on his back across the kitchen floor. Aunt Louisa recalled how Manuel’s head would fall hard on the ground, but his smile was never erased. They dragged him into the bedroom and strained for the strength to swing him on top of the righ
t side of the bed, the man’s side. There wasn’t even the slightest protest. Manuel had raised his head slightly from the floor and smiled dumbly. “Where’s my wife-to-be?” Georgina found herself stifling her warm laughter. Some of the younger women, including Aunt Louisa and Carmen, gently led her to her side of the bed. Everyone had already crammed into the small hot room. The men finally found enough momentum to rock and swing Manuel into the air before flinging him onto the bed. At the same time, the young women pushed Georgina and she too fell backward, smiling, onto her side of the bed.
“The look on your face, Georgina,” Carmen said. “The instant your body sunk into the mattress, your face twisted in pain and horror.”
“It all seemed to happen so fast.” Georgina’s mouth trembled.
“What happened, Mãe? Who hurt you?” Antonio caressed her soft cheek.
“Shhhh, no one.” She pressed his head close to her, kept her hand over Antonio’s ear and began to rock gently.
“I remember Manuel smiling at me, ready to kiss me. But every slight move cut and tore at my back and legs. That feeling has never left me—the more I turned, the more I tried to contort my body and get up, the deeper I felt the fine pricking of my skin.”
Her mother, Theresa, was the only one who recognized that something was not right. She dragged her daughter off the mattress. Georgina flopped to the floor on her knees and dropped her face into the expectant lap of her mother, who wrapped her arms around Georgina’s back and muffled her sobs with her chest. The bloody streaks that stained the sheets and blotted Georgina’s new dress had silenced the room.
In horror, Manuel clumsily tore at the shredded sheets that covered the mattress. It was littered with what looked like smashed shells, glistening green shards of glass, and barnacles. Grandmother Theresa stroked her daughter’s hair as her eyes searched for and landed on Grandmother Maria, who met her challenge for an instant and then sheepishly turned away. Without looking at anyone else in the room, Theresa rocked Georgina and moaned. “Get out!” she repeated. “Get out! Get out!”
After the bewildered throng spilled onto the dirt road and into their houses, Theresa spent the whole night tending to Georgina.
“She washed my back as I stood in a metal basin. She cut into her aloe plant and gently rubbed the juice on my broken skin, all the while blowing her cool breath. She hummed the same song she hummed when she used to bathe us as children, let me see, it was an old fado …” Here, Georgina tried to catch the first few notes of the song. Her voice cracked as she bent over and rubbed the back of her legs, where varicose veins were beginning to bud. “My mother patted dry the backs of my legs and my heels. And then she lightly wrapped my body in moistened cheesecloth, shrouded me.”
The women all remained silent. Antonio did not want to move but a fly had alighted on his brow and he moved his hand slowly to brush it away and slid down his mother’s legs.
“There were no words. I sobbed, still shocked at the horrible turn in the evening, as my mother dragged the damp cloth along my torn body. It’s the song I can’t seem to hold on to, the one my mother hummed as she took care of me by the flickering candle.”
Antonio had lined up all his marbles in the grooves between the cobbled stones when Terezinha skipped up to him in her bare feet and nudged his legs. There was a choral sound of clicking glass as the marbles spilled across the square. Terezinha squatted in front of Antonio and helped him gather them. She brought Thumbelina out from under the bench, picked up a pebble and dropped it into one of her doll’s legs. There was a rattling sound against the doll’s hard plastic.
“We’ll fill her up with rocks and then we’ll bury her in the ground.” Terezinha smiled at her idea. Antonio found a pebble under his shoe, reached over and dropped it into her doll.
“Make holes in her hands,” Antonio suggested.
Terezinha looked pleased and began to gnaw away at her doll’s fingers, tore at the loose plastic before spitting it out. “Now we can fill up her arms too.” They began searching for pebbles. Antonio made sure he didn’t venture too far from his mother; he didn’t want to miss a word.
Aunt Louisa continued with Georgina’s story, picking up seamlessly from where her sister had left off.
“The next morning, we all awoke before the cock’s crow. There was such uncertainty about the day. My mother and I were both afraid to enter her room. I had tried earlier and the door had been locked. I remember my mother saying, ‘She’ll be fine. We always end up fine,’ and as if on cue, Georgina opened her door and stepped into the kitchen with her wedding dress half on, the bodice flapped in front of her like a bib.
“Georgina reached into the flared sleeves of her dress, turned her back to us and said, ‘Mãe, help me pull up the dress.’ Her back was covered … we looked down and saw that some of the blood from the backs of her legs had already been blotted by her white nylons.
“‘Oh, filha, this can wait. Things have changed and you … ’ my mother cried.
“‘Nothing has changed.’ Georgina turned her face toward us and smiled. I’ll never forget it.”
Carmen looked at Georgina and made the sign of the cross. The bells of the church began to ring. Antonio looked at his mother just as she remembered the first few bars of the fado and began to sing.
Don’t cry my little one,
your pretty friends of glass and clay
sit on your windowsill at night,
playful in the day.
The other women now recognized the lullaby. They smiled and joined in the singing.
The winds may blow,
sending them tumbling down,
but the love I have,
the love you need from me,
will always be there.
Even Terezinha dropped her doll. It was as if the whole square had stopped, frozen in space and time. Antonio shaded his eyes from the brilliant sky and saw his father shift awkwardly and move in their direction. Antonio tugged at his mother’s dress, tried to warn her of his father’s advance. She knew. She saw.
“‘There’s nothing for you here!’ my mother said. It was with those words that I took my first step into the church and then the next step. I saw the woman who was to be my mother-in-law at the end of the aisle and I fought my pain. I held on to my mother’s hand and we walked toward the altar together, toward Manuel.”
Carmen now reflected on what she had seen. “We were all so quiet, the church was so silent. Frankly, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. You were smiling and you walked so gracefully, as if hovering across that aisle toward Manuel. I think we felt shame for what had happened. You passed with your proud mother, Louisa here was crying as she held your long beautiful train. And then we were silenced. It was only when you passed that we could see the traces of blood through the fabric of your dress; red blotches covered your back and legs, seeped through the satin and lace.”
Carmen looked down at Terezinha, who sat beside her now, and whispered, “Your mother was a vision—so beautiful.”
Terezinha nuzzled her cheek against Georgina’s arm. Antonio stood in front of his mother and faced his father’s shadow as it blocked the sun.
“Georgina, what is all this prattling so soon after my mother’s death. Laughing and singing, have you no respect?”
Antonio noticed how his father’s buttoned white collar stood in sharp contrast to his red neck and face. Georgina raised her arms slightly before anyone could protest.
“I remember looking to my side, seeing that woman, Maria Theresa da Conceição Rebelo. Padre Jose opened with an invitation for the family blessing. Manuel kissed my mother and asked for her blessing. My mother later said she had seen into his eyes saw how genuinely sorry he was and whispered, ‘Never come back. Take my filha, but never come back.’ Remember, Manuel?” she asked.
Manuel stood defeated.
“Manuel looked at me then and I smiled at him. Without hesitation, I turned toward his mother, who refused to rise from her pew. The congregation held
its breath. I bent down low to meet my new mother-in-law and her smell of mothballs. I held my breath and kissed her on both stone cheeks, then held her tight in an embrace.”
Georgina raised her face to meet her husband’s. He bowed his head.
“‘He’s dead to you.’ I whispered it so only she could hear. ‘As God is my witness, you will never see your son again. He’s dead to you.’ And I smiled. I remember hearing the roar and the applause that filled the church. I straightened, my stiff dress shifted across my cuts, pulled at my searing wounds. I held on to Manuel’s hand. I turned my crimson back to the crowd, to this backward little village of Lomba da Maia, and I solemnized my vows.”
II
CAGED BIRDS SING
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing …
The caged bird sings with fearful trill
of the things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom
Maya Angelou
URBAN ANGEL
MY FATHER DEMANDED WE all speak English. “We is in Canada now. We speak Canadian in this beautiful country with many beautiful things,” he’d say. He was so certain of his chosen land that I couldn’t help but love him. I just wished he would use a word other than beautiful, which he pronounced bootiful. He had been promising to take the family on a cross-country train ride for as long as I could remember—to see the country as he had. He was proud of his early days working on the railway, walking the lines like the Johnny Cash song he couldn’t stop humming. My father never stopped talking about lakes and rivers with long Indian names. My mother tried unsuccessfully to pronounce some of the places—Chilliwack, Coquitlam, Saskatchewan—all in the hopes of pleasing my father.
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