Jerônimo rose to his feet, unaware of what he was doing, and, followed by Piedade, approached the circle around the two mulattos. There, resting his chin on his hands, which in turn rested on a garden fence, he remained silent, bewitched by their seductive song that bound and held him like supple lianas, caressing and treacherous.
He saw Rita Bahiana go inside and return in a skirt and sleeveless blouse, ready to dance. The moon emerged from behind a cloud at that moment, enveloping her in its silvery light, accentuating the sinuous movements of her body, full of irresistable grace, simple, primitive, a mixture of heaven and hell, serpentine and womanly.
She leapt into the middle of the circle, her hands on her waist, swaying her hips and her head from side to side, as if hungering for carnal pleasure, as if squirming with desire, sometimes thrusting out her belly, sometimes recoiling with outstretched arms, trembling from head to foot as though drowning in a sea of pleasure, thick as oil, in which she couldn’t get her footing and never touched bottom. Then, as if returning to life, she uttered a long moan, snapping her fingers and bending her legs, falling and rising, her hips in constant motion, stamping her feet swiftly in time to the beat, raising and lowering her arms as she clutched her neck first with one hand and then the other, while all her muscles rippled.
The crowd went wild; from time to time a shout of encouragement burst forth, red-hot, a cry straight from the blood. The steady rhythmic clapping continued, unceasing in its excited, insane persistence. And drawn forth by her, Firmo burst into the arena, agile and rubbery, playing fantastic tricks with his legs, melting away, sinking to the ground, then leaping in the air, kicking his heels together, his arms and head about to fly off his shoulders. And then Florinda joined in, followed by Albino and even—who would have thought it?—solemn and circumspect Alexandre.
Despotically, the chorado engulfed them one by one, to the despair of those who couldn’t dance. But no one danced like Rita; only she knew the secret of those entranced, cobra-like movements, of those gyrations that required her fragrance and her sweet, languid, harmonious, arrogant, tender, pleading voice.
Jerônimo looked and listened, feeling his soul take flight through his enamored eyes.
That mulatta embodied the mystery, the synthesis of everything he had experienced since his arrival in Brazil. She was the blazing light of midday; the fierce heat of the farm where he had toiled; the pungent scent of clover and vanilla that had made his head spin in the jungle; the palm tree, proud and virginal, unbending before its fellow plants. She was poison and sugar. She was the sapotilla fruit, sweeter than honey, and sumac, whose fiery juice burned through his skin. She was a green snake, a slithering lizard, a mosquito that for years had buzzed around his body, stirring his desires, quickening energies dulled by longing for his homeland, piercing his veins to rouse his blood with a spark of southern love, of music that was a long sigh of pleasure, a larva from the swarm of bright green flies that flitted around Rita Bahiana and shimmered in the air with aphrodisiac phosphorescence.
Though Jerônimo sensed all this, he couldn’t have put it into words. Out of his impressions on that Sunday night, what remained was a kind of inebriation he had never known before—caused not by wine but by honey sipped from a goblet of white, fragrant, American flowers, the sort he had seen near the farm, bent confidingly over shady marshes where oiticica trees exhaled their nostalgic scent.
He stayed there, gazing. Other girls danced, but he only had eyes for Rita, even when she fell exhausted into her lover’s arms. Piedade, drooping with weariness, called him home several times; he grunted in reply and didn’t even notice when she left.
Hours flew by, but he failed to notice their passing.
The party swelled. Isaura and Leonor appeared, along with João Romão and Bertoleza who, after finishing their work, wanted to have a little fun before falling into bed. Miranda’s family came to the windows, enjoying the sight of that rabble below them. People gathered outside in the street, but Jerônimo noticed nothing. Only one scene remained stamped in his memory: the sight of Rita, panting as she sank into Firmo’s arms.
He only returned to his senses when, in the wee hours of the morning, the instruments at last fell silent and each reveler returned home.
He saw Firmo lead Rita inside, his arm around her waist.
Jerônimo, now alone, remained in the courtyard. The moon, free of the clouds that had chased around it, silently kept its mysterious course. Miranda’s shutters were drawn. The quarry behind São Romão’s far wall rose up like a peaceful, moonlit monster. A dense stillness hung over everything; the only movement came from flickering fireflies in shadowy gardens, and the sway of dreaming trees.
But Jerônimo felt and heard nothing except that perfumed music that had dazed his senses. He understood clearly that the mulatta’s head of glossy, sweet-smelling hair concealed a nest of black and poisonous vipers that would soon devour his heart.
And looking up, he saw from the sky, which he normally beheld after seven hours’ rest, that it was nearly time to start work. He decided there was no point trying to sleep.
VIII
The next day, Jerônimo stopped work at noon and, instead of eating lunch with the other employees at the quarry, he headed for home. After barely touching what his wife had put in front of him, he climbed into bed and told her to inform João Romão that he was ill and was going to take the afternoon off.
“What’s the matter, Jerônimo?”
“I’m tired, honey—now go and tell him.”
“But are you really sick?”
“Listen, do as I say and we’ll talk about it later.”
“Holy Virgin! I hope they have some black tea at the store.”
And she left, feeling very concerned. Any little ailment he had drove her crazy with worry. “He’s so strong and healthy; what can be the matter? Could it be yellow fever? O Jesus, Son of God, I shouldn’t even think such thoughts! Help me!”
The news quickly spread among the washerwomen.
“He must have caught a chill last night,” said Bruxa, and she headed for his house, where she planned to prescribe a remedy.
The sick man turned her away, asking her to leave him alone; what he needed was sleep. But they wouldn’t let him rest; after Bruxa came a second woman, and a third and a fourth. So many skirts flounced in and out of his house that Jerônimo lost his temper and was about to protest vehemently when he smelled Rita’s perfume.
“Ah!”
“Good afternoon. What’s going on here, neighbor? You got sick when I showed up? If I’d known what was going to happen, I would have stayed away!”
The mulatta approached his bed.
Since she had gone back to work that morning, her skirts were hitched up and her arms were bare. Her white blouse was open at the neck, allowing a glimpse of her cinnamon-colored breasts.
Jerônimo clasped her hand.
“It was great watching you dance last night,” he said, looking much more cheerful.
“Have you taken any medicine?”
“My wife said something about black tea . . .”
“Tea! That won’t do you any good! It’s just muddy water! What you’ve got is a cold. I’ll fix you a cup of coffee, good and strong, with a shot of rum in it. Then you’ll sweat it out and next thing you know you’ll be as good as new. Stay there!”
And she left, trailing the scent of her perfume behind her.
Just the smell of her musk oil made Jerônimo look healthier. When Piedade returned, worried and sad, muttering to herself, he felt she was beginning to turn his stomach. And when the poor woman approached him, he noticed the sour smell of her body for the first time. He suddenly felt ill again, and the last traces of the smile he had worn a moment ago vanished.
“But what’s the matter, Jerônimo? Speak to me! Why don’t you say something? You’re scaring me . . . tell me, what’s the matter?”
“Don’t make any tea! I’m going to try something else.”
“You don’t want tea? But it’ll be good for you.”
“I told you I’m going to try something else.”
Piedade didn’t insist.
“Do you want a footbath?”
“Have one yourself!”
She fell silent. She had been about to say she had never heard him speak to her so sharply, but she decided not to annoy him further. “It’s just natural for him to be in a bad mood when he’s sick.”
Jerônimo shut his eyes so as not to see her, and he would have liked to order her out of the room so as not to hear her. But the poor woman, humble and solicitous, sat down beside his bed. There she sighed, living, at that moment, exclusively for her husband, making herself his slave with no will of her own, attentive to his slightest gesture, like a dog that, beside its master, anticipates his every wish.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. Why don’t you go back to work?”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s getting done. I asked Leocádia to wash my clothes. She didn’t have much to do today and—”
“You shouldn’t have done that!”
“Why not? Three days ago I did the same for her—and her husband wasn’t even sick. She was just fooling around out back.”
“That’s enough, don’t gossip. Instead of talking like that, you should be washing clothes. Go on, I’ll be all right by myself.”
“But I just told you there’s no problem.”
“The problem is that I’m not working, and it’s a bigger problem if you’re not working either.”
“I wanted to take care of you, Jerônimo!”
“And I say that’s silly. Go on!”
She sadly rose to her feet and was slinking away like a cowed animal when she bumped into Rita, who tripped in very merrily, holding a cup of coffee laced with rum. A heavy blanket intended to help him sweat was slung over one shoulder.
“Ah!” Piedade exclaimed, unable to think of anything else to say.
She decided to stay after all.
Rita, carefree as ever, put the cup down on the chest of drawers and unfolded the blanket.
“This’ll make you feel better,” she declared. “Any little problem gets you Portuguese so upset. Next thing you know, you’re ready to say your last prayers. Now cheer up! Show you’ve got some spunk in you.”
He laughed and sat up in bed.
“Isn’t that right?” she asked Piedade, pointing to Jerônimo’s bearded face. “Look at that face and tell me if he’s not about to ask us to bury him.”
Piedade said nothing and tried to smile, secretly offended that this outsider should meddle with her efforts to cure her husband. Though she had no logical reason to distrust Rita, her instinct, subtle and suspicious as in all women, put her on guard against the intruder.
“You feel better now, huh?” Piedade finally blurted out, forcing him to look at her without entirely managing to conceal her dissatisfaction.
“Just the smell did it!” Rita exclaimed, offering the sick man his coffee. “Go on, drink it! Drink it down and then stay under the covers. When I come back later, I want to see you well again, you hear me?” And she added, speaking more softly to Piedade and laying her hand on the woman’s plump shoulder, “In a few minutes he’ll be dripping sweat. Change his clothes and, whenever he asks for water, give him a shot of rum instead. Keep the windows shut or he’ll catch a chill.”
And she hurried out, shaking her skirts perfumed with marjoram.
Piedade then went over to her husband, who lay beneath Rita’s blanket, and, helping him raise the cup to his lips, she muttered, “I hope to God this makes you better instead of worse. You never drink coffee; you don’t even like it!”
“This isn’t for fun! It’s to make me get well.”
And in fact, he never drank coffee, not to mention rum, but he downed Rita’s “medicine” in one gulp and then pulled the blanket up to his nose.
The woman made sure his feet were covered and brought a shawl for his head.
“Now lie still, don’t move!”
And she stayed in the room, watching over him, walking on tiptoe, constantly going to the door to ask the washerwomen to make less noise. It worried and upset her that her husband was unwell. Soon Jerônimo asked her to change his clothes. He was drowning in his own sweat.
“Good!” she exclaimed, beaming.
And after closing the bedroom door and stuffing dirty clothes into a crack in one of the walls, she removed his soaked shirt and pulled another over his head. Then she took off his pants and, armed with a towel, began to wipe his body, starting with his back and then proceeding to his chest, armpits, buttocks, belly and legs, rubbing so vigorously that in effect she gave him a massage; after a while Jerônimo began to stir with desire.
The woman laughed, feeling flattered, and scolded him, “Now don’t be silly! Calm down! Can’t you see you’re sick?”
Jerônimo didn’t persist. He snuggled under the covers again and asked for water. Piedade went to get some rum.
“Drink this. Don’t drink any water right now.”
“But this is rum!”
“Rita told me to give it to you—”
Jerônimo obediently downed the shot of rum in the glass.
Abstemious as he was, and after sweating so much, Jerônimo quickly found himself in a voluptuous state known only to those who do not habitually drink: a marvelous relaxation of his entire body, a sense of slow arousal that precedes sexual release when the woman, having forced her lover to wait, finally responds to his hungry kisses. Now, in his comfortable bed, amid the room’s soothing shadows, with those clean clothes against his skin, Jerônimo felt good, happy to be so far from the burning quarry and the pitiless sun, hearing, with his eyes shut, the pasta factory’s monotonous purring in the distance, the chatter of the washerwomen as they worked, and—farther away—the strident crowing of cocks, while bells tolled, mourning a death in the parish.
When Piedade stepped outside to announce that the patient was feeling better, Rita hurried to his bedroom.
“Well, what do you say? Not so bad, huh?”
He looked at her and, without a word, slipped his left arm around her waist and clasped her hand. He intended this to be an expression of gratitude, and she took it as such and consented, but as soon as his flesh touched hers, desire leapt up in him: an impatient wish to possess her then and there, to devour her in one gulp, to split her open like a cashew.
Rita, feeling his grip tighten, quickly extricated herself.
“What a pest you are! Don’t be a fool! What’ll I tell your wife?”
But seeing Piedade enter the house, she pretended nothing had occurred and called out to the other woman, “Now he should sleep. Change his clothes if he starts sweating again. See you later!”
And she left.
Jerônimo heard her last words with his eyes closed and, when Piedade entered the room, he seemed to be sleeping. The washerwoman tiptoed up to his bed, pulled the blanket up around his chin, and tiptoed out again. At the front door Augusta, who had planned to visit the sick man, asked how he was. Piedade replied by laying her hand against her cheek and cocking her head to one side to explain that he was asleep.
The two went outside to speak, but at that moment a tremendous ruckus broke out in the courtyard. Henrique, Miranda’s boarder, sometimes would stand at the window when he had nothing better to do between lunch and supper, watching Leocádia at her work, following the movements of her firm buttocks and the swaying of her round tits beneath her calico blouse. Whenever he found her alone, he would catch her eye and then make indecent gestures, pounding his left fist with the flat of his right hand. She replied by jerking her thumb toward the big house, indicating that his host’s wife would surely oblige him.
On that day, however, the student appeared at the window holding a little white rabbit that he had purchased at an auction at a party the night before. Leocádia coveted the baby animal and, running over to the empty demijohns lined up beneath the house, fervently implored hi
m to give it to her. Henrique, still using sign language, indicated through his gestures what he wanted in exchange.
She nodded, and he pointed to the lot behind São Romão.
Miranda’s family was out. Henrique, casually dressed, hatless, and holding the rabbit by its legs, went out the front door, crossed a vacant lot on the far side of Miranda’s house, and entered the one he had pointed to. Leocádia was waiting for him beneath a mango tree.
“Not here!” she said as he approached. “Someone might come . . .”
“Then where?”
“Follow me!”
And she set off, her head down, walking swiftly through the high weeds. Henrique, still holding the rabbit, followed close behind her. His cheeks were flushed, and his face glistened with sweat. They could hear the hammers wielded by blacksmiths and stonecutters at the quarry.
A few minutes later she stopped beside a ruined shed near a clump of bamboo and banana trees.
“Here!”
Leocádia looked around to make sure they were alone. Henrique, still holding the rabbit, dove at her, but she held him off.
“Wait. I want to take my skirt off. It’s all wet.”
“So what?” he whispered, impatient to possess her.
“I could catch a cold.”
And she pulled off her thick woolen skirt, revealing her legs, which her blouse covered only as far as the knees: two solid, pinkish legs covered with flea and mosquito bites.
“Hurry up! Come on!” she urged him, lying on her back, pulling her blouse up to her waist, and spreading her legs.
The student fell upon her, enjoying her soft flesh but still clutching the rabbit.
For a moment, there was silence; the only sounds came from the crunching leaves beneath her body.
“Listen,” she said, “give me a baby. I need a job as a wet nurse . . . they’re paying good money. Last time Augusta Carne-Mole was pregnant, she worked for a rich family that paid her seventy mil-réis a month . . . and good food too . . . a bottle of wine every day! If I get pregnant, I’ll give you back your rabbit!”
And the poor little animal, whose legs the student still gripped, began to complain of the jolts it received at a steadily increasing pace.
The Slum (Library of Latin America) Page 9