by Ian McDonald
Carriers, each with a passenger clinging to his back, jogged past as Luis Quinn toiled up the zigzagging ladeira. A group of sailors released from Cristo Redentor held a race, kicking their mounts with their heels, pricking their buttocks with their knives to goad them into speed. They called greetings to Father Quinn as they passed; amicable now that he was off their ship onto his God’s element.
‘Animals!’ he raged at them. ‘Beasts on the backs of men! Down with you!’
Shamed and no little intimidated by the big man’s righteous rage, the sailors slipped from their mounts. As Quinn strode up through the white-clad carriers and gauze-shrouded chairs, riders climbed down from their straining mounts and toiled with him up through the heat. He heard their murmurs: Black priest, fiery Vieira has returned.
Before the steps of the Jesuit basilica Father Luis set down his small pack. He reached inside the pocket of his robe for a wooden cylinder, rounded at one end, the other stopped with cork. This he drew and removed from it a cigar. He ran it briefly under his nose. The first since Madeira. Luis Quinn held the fragrant leaf out to the slave.
‘This you can do. Find me a fire for this.’
The slave took the cigar, bowed, and scuttled off across the thronged square. Luis Quinn observed that he moved crabwise; half crippled by his habitual labor. From individual to general, particular to universal. A slave society. In such a society what is meant is never said, what is said never meant. Secrets, subtleties, subterfuges - he must expect nothing open or direct in this New World. Truth there will be - truth there must be, but disguised. So like the ship, where resentments and attachments alike must be hidden; alluded to by codes and rituals of behavior so that every word holds both its conventional meaning and its opposite and which is to be taken is entirely dependent on a hundred subtle social clues. Daily bread to a linguist who had learned the lingua geral in a single ocean crossing, or even to a priest, skilled in the deceptions of the human heart.
Faces black, brown, coffee. Few white. No women, save for a few slaves in wrapped fabric headdresses. The white women, the Portuguese, were nowhere to be seen. Then he saw a subtle movement behind a carved wood grille at an upper window, shadow within shadow. The mistresses were sequestered in their great houses, veiled behind the curtains of the sedan chairs, less free than their slaves. The men’s world of the street, the women’s world of the house. Casa and rua. Ways of home and ways of world. Hidden and public.
The slave returned, smoldering cigar in hand. With pure God-granted delight Luis Quinn drew on the leaf and felt the rich, spicy smoke curl down inside him.
Alleluias echoed from the host of trumpets and psalteries that flocked and perched around the roof beams. Luis Quinn walked at the rear of the choir. The recessional was a piece unfamiliar to him, accompanied by a consort of viols, theorbos, and a metronome bass drum, pagan almost to his European sense, unsettling in harmony and discord; yet the steady beat was a memory of the dance tunes of his childhood, harpers and fluters by the fire in the hall, fingers bright in the light. Spiritual and at the same time profane. Like this frenetic carbuncle of rococo: masters and patrons lifted on the twisted, crudely carved bodies of their slaves to turn hearts and hands and faces to the saints. And God, his Christ, his descending dove? Crouching, cowed among the colonels and donatories, the trade feitores and senhores de engenhos in the host of their wives and children and wealth: carved and painted negro slaves cutting cane; ships, the proud banners of exploring bandeiras; cattle; slaves coffled together by wire of purest gold threaded through their earlobes. New panels were being installed, old ones updated with new triumphs. The west end of the church was a wall of bamboo scaffolds and canvas sheeting.
‘I noticed that you seemed moved during the Avé.’ Provincial João Alves de Magalhães removed his stole and pressed it perfunctorily to his lips it before handing it to his altar boy, an oily-skinned youth, son of a feitor of the elite Misericordia lay order. ‘Are you a man much affected by music?’
‘I recognize in it a reflection of divine perfection.’ Luis Quinn raised his arms for his attendants to remove his lace surplice. ‘Much like mathematics in that respect. Like number, music is a thing entirely of itself, that makes no representation of any reality.’
‘And yet the physical motion of objects, the very act of navigation of that ship on which you came in, find their most accurate descriptions in mathematics.’
Altar boys carried Father de Magalhães’ heavy, gold-worked cope to the fan-shaped press. In Coimbra such display would have been considered affectation, even worldliness. Sober black and white was all the uniform the soldiers of Christ Militant required.
‘Or is it that these physical effects are the gross manifestations of an underlying mathematical truth?’
‘Hah! Coimbra sends me a Platonist!’ Father de Magalhães laughed. ‘But I am pleased you enjoyed the choir; our Mestre de Capela’s liturgical pieces are performed as far afield as Potosí. He studied with the late Zipoli in the Parana missions. Striking, isn’t it? That combination of índio voices for the higher parts and negroes for the tenor and bass. An uncanny sound.’ He washed his hands in the spout from a gold ewer and let an índio servant towel them dry. Father de Magalhães clapped Luis Quinn on the back. ‘Now, small coffee in the cloister before supper while I instruct you.’
The walled garden behind the college was returning the heat of the day to the evening, the air thick with the strangely stimulating damps and musks of heavy foliaged plants. Birds and bats dashed through the gloaming. What divine law is it, Luis Quinn wondered, that where the birds are fantastical in color and plumage their song offends the ear, yet at home the dowdy blackbird could wring the heart? In the time it took the boy to bring coffee the sky had changed from purple-streaked aquamarine to star-flecked indigo. On the ship the swift sunset of the tropics had been ameliorated by the breadth of the horizon; in this walled, private place night seemed to drop like a banner. The boy lit lanterns. Stars fallen to earth. His face was uncannily beautiful. Father de Magalhães dismissed him with a wave of his hand, stirred two spoons of sugar into his coffee, sipped, winced, and held his hand to his jaw.
‘I sometimes think God needs no other hell than an eternity of toothache. Tell me, Father Quinn, what do you make of this Brazil ?’
‘Father, I only stepped off the ship this afternoon. I can hardly have an opinion.’
‘You can be in a place five minutes and be entitled to an opinion. Commence by telling me what you have seen.’
From childhood Luis Quinn had been able to vividly recall scenes and mentally walk through them, re-creating the finest details - the color of a dress, the position of a bottle on a table, a bird in a tree - by the strength of his visual memory. In his mind he left the soft, lush college garden and traced in reverse the short walk from the Colégio across the Praça de Sé, winding down the thronged ladeira to the harbor, back along the jetty to the ship warping in to land. The image that faced him at every turn was of the mule’s face, eyes wide, nostrils bursting bubbles, going down into the green water of the Bay.
‘I saw a mad mule destroy itself in the harbor,’ he said simply.
‘The plague, yes. Insanity comes on them as sudden as a colic, and if they do not run themselves to death then they wreak such insane destruction that they must be destroyed there and then.’
‘It is a universal plague?’
‘It seems so. Already it is spreading to draft-oxen. You have heard our latest fantasy as to its origin? Dueling angels in Pelourinho?’
‘And I also saw men in horses’ harness. These are not unconnected, I think.’
‘The letter from Coimbra said you were a perceptive man, Father. I heard someone caused a commotion on the ladeira. Of course, since the time of Father Antonio Vieira we have maintained a consistent moral position regarding slavery. However, of late we find that position challenged.’
Luis Quinn sipped his coffee, rapidly achieving equilibrium with the general environment.
An unrelenting climate; no release in the dark of the night. A cigar would be a fine thing. After months of enforced chastity aboard Cristo Redentor, he found his appetite for smoke had returned redoubled. The beginning of attachment, of indiscipline?
‘I am not quite certain what you mean, Father.’
‘The Society is little loved in Brazil. We are seen to be meddlers, do-gooders. We offend against a natural order of races: the white, the black, the red. We have the ear of the Conselho Ultramarino still; but Silva Nunes continues his attacks in the heart of the viceroyalty, and general society - in particular the property holders - mistrusts us. There will be a new treaty soon between Portugal and Spain, a repartition of Brazil. The Amazon frontier is Portuguese almost by default. When it comes the destruction of our reduciones along the valley of the Paraná will be nothing compared to what the entradas will unleash on the Amazonian aldeias. Our enemies are already seeking proofs against us.’
‘Have they cause?’
‘They have. Father Quinn, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I task you with this mission: to proceed with all haste by ship to Belém do Pará, then by the Amazon to São José Tarumás on the Rio Negro where, as an admonitory of the Society, you will locate Father Diego Gonçalves and restore him to the discipline of the Order.’
‘What is the nature of Father Diego’s offense?’
‘I fear that a fine strong priest’s zeal has led him into great transgression. Tell me, Father Luis, since you landed how many people have told you that Brazil is not like anywhere else?’
‘Only a few dozen, it seems. And more while I was still on the ship.’
‘Well, I shall not add to their number, but I will say that the Rio Negro is not like anywhere else in Brazil. Beyond São José Tarumás they say there is no faith, law, or royalty. But there is Father Diego Gonçalves. Reports are few and far between, and those there are are more legend than truth: monstrous vanities involving the labor and resources of entire aldeias, an empire claimed in the name of God and of his Order over a thousand miles of the Rio Negro. The Lord’s vineyard is rich and ready there, but my reports suggest that he reaps more than the souls of the red men.’
Father Luis said, ‘I know that as little as a fallen crucifix may be grounds for Just War against a native village. I had thought it entirely a trick of the Franciscans.’
‘If Father Diego Gonçalves’ transgressive soul has fallen into vanity and barbarism - and I pray Jesus and His Mother it is not - then you must act immediately. Word cannot be permitted to return to the Reconçavo; it could be the splitting-wedge our enemies need to destroy our order. I have drafted letters patent investing you with full executive authority. It is important that you understand this, Father; full power of admonition.’
‘Father, you cannot . . .’
A rectangle of yellow light suddenly appeared in the indigo-on-indigo, insect-loud wall. A shadow filled it, spilled across the flagged court, became a face.
‘Fathers, the visitor for the admonitory.’
The first shadow gave way to a second, taller, more flamboyantly outlined in hat and wig, coat and sword. Provincial de Magalhães said under his breath, ‘As if God did not ask enough, Caesar now requires his percentage.’
Luis Quinn smelled the man’s perfume and the sweat it scant concealed, read his mild swagger and faint stoop and knew him for a government man before the tall, still flames of the lanterns disclosed his face. The visitor made leg.
‘Your service, Fathers. José Bonafacio da Nóbrega. I represent His Excellency the viceroy. Please, no introduction. Father Quinn, I was of course informed the instant of your arrival in Salvador; a high-ranking officer of the church will always attract our attention.’ He flicked out the tails of his coat, adjusted his sword, and seated himself at the table, legs crossed at the ankle. ‘The Society of Jesus, in this country at least, has long attracted the favor of the crown. You are the confessors of viceroys and fidalgos. However, the Third Order of St Francis claims the support of our captains and senhores de engenhos, as reflected in the ornateness of their churches.’ He held the basket hilt of his sword as he jerked, laughing silently at his own humor. Luis Quinn thought, Wear your graces and weary sophistications like your fine coat and sharply folded hat, but you are nothing but a legman, a runner. I have seen a dozen of you among the quintas of Porto, English spies tasked to scent out priests waiting to be smuggled back into Ireland.
Father de Magalhães raised a hand to summon fresh coffee. Nóbrega waved him down. ‘No coffee if you please, Father. I find it disturbs my sleep. I much prefer this of an evening.’ He took a small, flat silver case from his sleeve and set it on the table. Within were small balls of rolled leaf, each the size of the tip of the smallest finger. Never taking his eyes from Luis Quinn, Nóbrega produced two limes from a handkerchief with a prestidigitatorial flourish, quartered them with a pocket knife, and squeezed a single segment over three herb-balls. One he lifted daintily and placed on his tongue, the other he presented to Father de Magalhães on the silver lid. The third he offered to Luis Quinn.
‘I am unfamiliar with this . . . refreshment.’
‘Oh, it’s the most marvelous stuff. Acculico, the Spaniards call it. The feitores ship it across the Pantanal from Characas. The mines at Cuiabá simply couldn’t function without it. Sharpens the mind most wonderfully, enlarges the faculties, fills body and soul with energy and well being. Too good for slaves.’
‘And excellently potent against the toothache,’ Father de Magalhães added. ‘I do believe it could benefit meditation on all-night vigils and stations.’
‘Totally the wrong climate for it here, alas,’ said da Nóbrega.
‘Thank you, but I will keep my old European ways,’ Luis Quinn said, taking out a cigar. The boy brought fire. Quinn drew hard, releasing slow spirals of smoke into the star-soft night. ‘Senhor da Nóbrega, what do you require from me?’
‘Yours is reputed to be a learned order, a scientific order.’
‘It’s my particular call to be a linguist, but mathematics and the natural philosophies are widely studied at Coimbra.’
‘In the city Belém do Para is a madman who intends to take the measure of the world with a pendulum.’ Nóbrega leaned toward Luis Quinn, his manner animated, his eyes wide.
‘I believe this may be connected with a heretical English theory of gravitation,’ said Luis Quinn, marking the influence of the acculico on Nóbrega’s body and personality. ‘The Society teaches the Cartesian theory of vortices, which is a complete physical explanation. As I understand it, the English theory is purely mathematical.’
‘As you say, Father. This man - this mad scientist - is a Dr Robert Falcon, a geographer, from the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.’
‘I understood that Brazil was closed to foreigners, save those in the regular orders. Such as myself, by birth an English subject, if not by inclination.’
‘His Excellency finds his presence expedient. He arrived with his brother, one Jean-Baptiste, a self-taught mathematician who was inordinately proud of some device he had invented to take all the drudgery out of weaving. I say that’s what slaves are for - it gives them something to do - but that is your French petty intelligentsia. Jean-Baptiste was repatriated with the bloody flux six weeks ago, but Robert Falcon remains. He is in some desperate race with fellow academicians to precisely measure the circumference of the globe. It seems, like everything else in this modern world, there is profound disagreement on the shape of our terrestrial sphere - or rather, not quite sphere. You still have salt water behind your ears, so you will have a keen appreciation of just how imprecise an art of navigation at sea is, and Portugal is a maritime, mercantile empire. We have received informations that the rival expedition, which is to measure the globe by mensuration and trigonometry, has been granted leave of access by Spain to its viceroyalty of Peru and will shortly embark for Cartagena. Dr Falcon has been cooling his heels in Belém do Pará for five months already.’
; ‘Senhor, with respect, what do you require of me?’
Nóbrega dressed and savored a second acculico. Its effect was almost instantaneous: Quinn wondered if Nóbrega might be habituated to this benign, stimulating herb.
‘For the most precise measurements, Dr Falcon must conduct his experiment on the line of the equator. He has picked a spot five hundred miles above São José Tarumás on the Rio Negro as the most favorable, where what he calls “continental influences” are in equilibrium.’
‘I understand. I might travel with him.’
‘The other way around, Father. He might travel with you. The wrath of the crown is properly turned to the Dutch pirates and adventurers, but the memory of Duguay-Trouin and his pirates strutting around Rio like gamecocks is all too fresh. Has the father-provincial apprised you of the political situation on the Amazon?’