Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters

by Maria José Silveira

  Maria had her friends, the Dutch and the Luso-Brazilians, and, as before, she was at peace with her neutrality. But she was not at peace with what she saw before her. Without Duarte, without the old woman, without her father, she felt that the world was too full of suffering. At night, peering into the distance as the sky was filled with the flames of burning sugarcane fields, she began to think that perhaps it was better to leave behind the mothballed factory and head for Bahia, as many others were doing.

  She gave up on the idea when her thoughts turned to Belmira, in whose eyes a tiny light had begun to shine. Even after he had been cured, the young Dutch soldier sought out the plantation during his leave, and when together the young man and woman forgot about the rest of the world. They couldn’t stray far from the plantation grounds on account of the war. All the same, Belmira would take Wilhelm on long walks. In the beginning, she tried to teach him the young country’s language and show him the plants and animals she had previously shown the scientists, thinking they would also interest Wilhelm. But it wasn’t long before she noted that the soldier’s interests were not of the scientific variety. His only desire was to know the tiny thickets of the gentle Brazilian girl’s body, the delicate flowers of her face and the moist fauna of her caves and hideaways.

  As far as Belmira, sweet Belmira, was concerned, she too yearned for nothing more than to faint with love into her handsome Dutchman’s warm and gentle arms.

  But love in times of war is, by its very nature, a temporary ceasefire. April 1648 arrived and with it the first Battle of Guararapes, which would change the course of the war, marking the beginning of the advance of the Pernambucans. It would also change the course of Wilhelm’s and Belmira’s story.

  The Dutch went to battle with an army of nearly five thousand men, Wilhelm among them; the Army of the Restoration, as the Luso-Brazilian forces were known, numbered just more than thirty-five hundred, of which two thirds, to the army’s good fortune, were home-grown soldiers—native-born, mamelucos, Indians. The Dutch forces were superior, in numbers and in combat skill, but the Luso-Brazilian forces had their familiarity with the land in their favor. Setting out from the mangroves, the jungle, and the hills, they went on the attack quickly and with great agility, bounding and dodging about in a way that, to Dutch eyes, appeared chaotic, but which in practice allowed them, with great success, to bedevil the sharp aim of the well-trained and well-disciplined Dutch battalions. The Brazilians gained the first significant advantage in the bloody hand-to-hand combat, leaving more than five hundred of their enemies dead, among them the young soldier Wilhelm Wilegraf.

  When the time for Wilhelm to return seemed to draw out too long, Belmira went to look for him on the hillside battleground. Her pain was so great when she found the lifeless body of her young beloved that this time her only refuge was to escape to an inner world, hers alone, where Wilhelm still lived, where her father still lived, where the old woman still lived, and where no one knew the meaning of war.

  Not even the birth of her daughter could bring her back. Her breast milk was scarcely enough to feed the infant girl who, like the newborn Belmira, wailed all night long. But her grandmother detected in the pitch of her crying a sliver of hope: it was no cry of lament inherited from her mother’s deep sorrow, but an angry cry of revolt. Revolt, Maria Taiaôba thought, would be easier to handle.

  Less than a year later, the two armies clashed again at Monte Guararapes. To this day, legend has it that a beautiful long-haired woman with alabaster white skin, dressed in blue and cradling a child, was seen walking among the wounded on the battlefield, surrounded by light. Many say it was Our Lady of Light. Others contend it was not, that the Holy Virgin was seen instead at the Battle at Monte das Tabocas and even at the first Battle of Guararapes, when she gathered the enemy’s bullets in her miraculous cloak and distributed them among the Pernambucan fighters. But in this second battle there was no apparition, and what they saw was not Our Lady. It was Belmira, carrying her daughter, hoping for a bullet that might kill her in battle, just as it had Wilhelm.

  This was the last straw for Maria Taiaôba. She understood that it wasn’t right to allow her granddaughter to grow up in the midst of war as her daughter had. She also thought that a change in their situation might spur a reaction in Belmira and bring her to her senses, or that she might find in some other place a remedy for the sadness that her herbs had been unable to cure. She did what many had done in those years: she buried all the tools for sugar production, packed only necessary belongings in trunks, chose her most loyal slaves, freed the others who hadn’t gone off to fight, and set out for Bahia.

  Maria Taiaôba named Wilhelm and Belmira’s daughter Guilhermina, a combination of both parents’ names. With her light skin, red hair, and great big brown eyes, the girl appeared to have inherited her grandmother’s natural vivacity and determination.

  When they arrived in Salvador, Bahia, Maria Taiaôba rented a house on the Ladeira do Lava-Pés. On account of her business prowess and practical spirit, she soon discovered a way to recover the family’s finances, by renting out her African slaves. The price of manpower had increased dramatically in light of the difficulty of finding slaves from Guinea after the Portuguese had lost some of their African colonies to the Dutch: one of the most lucrative forms of business at that time was renting out slaves. Maria used her native slaves to cut Brazilwood, which was still one of the most coveted products in the land, even if ever more scarce.

  When the war in Pernambuco ended in 1654 and Portuguese dominance was restored, those who had abandoned their sugar plantations began to return to them. Meanwhile, many of these had been confiscated by the Dutch and sold to Brazilians who were interested in acquiring them for a low price and maintaining production even under Dutch rule. This situation, wherein sugar plantations had duplicate owners, gave birth to the famous “war of the sugar plantations.” Who had a right to these lands: the old owners who had abandoned them, many following the orders and counter-orders of the Luso-Brazilian commanders at various stages of the war, or the new owners, who had maintained production in the pandemonium that set in amid the war’s many battles?

  Maria Taiaôba’s plantation had also been caught up in this war, the difference being that Maria had abandoned it when the war was nearly over and, in reality, had no thoughts of returning. She feared her daughter’s condition would deteriorate if she returned to the site of so much suffering. Additionally, Maria was doing well in Salvador and had managed to increase business. All the same, she had no desire to simply give away the land that had belonged to her father. Besides this, like everyone, she would happily receive an increase in the capital she could then invest in her business. Once again, her pragmatic spirit resolved the question to the satisfaction of all. Rather than wait for a decision from the restored Portuguese government—which, as could be expected, did not wish to raise the ire of either the new or the old owners and, as a result, took decades to arrive at a decision—Maria Taiaôba made a quick trip to Recife, where she met the old farm-hand who had appropriated her land. There they arrived at a private agreement that, even if not ideal, at least gave Maria the ability to expand her business in Bahia.

  She also used the trip to dig up the belongings she’d buried before fleeing. Among them, a durable trunk holding the tiny mother-of-pearl jewelry box that had been inside Filipa’s tattered cloth bundle.

  The war in Pernambuco had made Salvador the port par excellence for those who fled. The city on the hill, with a view to the Bay of All Saints and every bit as beautiful as Olinda, was one of the fastest-growing in the country. It was said that, when it first began colonizing, the Portuguese Crown had bestowed its favor upon Salvador, sending colonizers and money, furnishing slaves and other goods, drowning it in privileges so that it would grow quickly and steadily.

  After returning to the city with the money from the sugar plantation, Maria Taiaôba bought a tavern on the Ladeira do Bom Jesus. Behind the tavern, she built a house with a large
yard, where daughter and granddaughter could spend the days beneath the shade of the trees.

  Belmira’s alienation was Maria’s personal heartache. Maria sought out doctors, medicine women, priests, everything. One priest told her that Belmira’s illness was the devil’s work: she suffered from an inferno caused by hellfire that, instead of devouring her body, had filled it with woe. He blessed her and made several attempts to exorcize the girl’s private demon before admitting that his powers were inferior to those of the Evil One. The city doctor—an old Portuguese man—bled her with leeches: his diagnosis was that Belmira’s veins and body were stopped up, obstructing her body’s humors, causing them to become agitated and disturbing her corporeal harmony: hence her apathy, her aloofness, weak appetite, lack of a voice.

  It was all in vain.

  Maria considered selling everything and heading for Portugal, where she could find both her husband’s family and more advanced medical practices to cure such grief. But then she remembered her conversations with Duarte, and how he used to say that the cures to the new land’s illnesses were not to be found in Europe, how the Brazilian maladies demanded a Brazilian cure. Was Belmira’s illness Brazilian, or not? Maria didn’t know its source, but it made her daughter weaker and weaker, paler and paler, sending her further into her internal abyss.

  Maria would take Belmira to the beach, to walk on the sand with Guilhermina, who was already displaying a strong personality, with sudden fits of rage that saw her throw herself to the ground like an animal. Maria, who had initially felt relief when she realized that the girl’s crying wasn’t out of sadness, began to worry that her granddaughter might have inherited the devastating rage of her great-grandmother, Maria Cafuza. Observing mother and daughter, one of them as pale and silent as death, the other with hair like fire, a face full of freckles, running and screaming along the sand, she asked herself what she should do.

  Fortunately, life goes on without giving a second thought to questions like those, and slowly Maria’s tavern became one of the busiest in the city. Intellectuals, poets, and musicians gathered there in soirées that stretched on into the night; they played cards and backgammon, and the checkers and chessboards were in high demand no matter the hour.

  Maria Taiaôba never followed any religion or heeded anyone who would tell her what to do or impose rules on her. With the old woman at her side and under her father’s protection, she had learned to live differently, more freely than was typical, trusting herself and her instincts. Her experience heading up to the plantation and selling her sugar had greatly enriched her knowledge of life. Duarte, an educated husband, had also taught her a great deal, and she was perhaps one of the most learned women of her time in Salvador. She wore fabrics from the court, her house boasted the best furniture and comforts, her table abundant with food and wine. She had enough money to live well without needing to work, if she wished, leaving the slaves to work for her, but her independent, energetic spirit drove her to assume the management of the tavern herself. Her intelligent and free-spirited way fascinated many men, and though she had no thoughts of remarrying, she had no qualms or hesitations when the desire struck to share her bed.

  As a result, it was nearly inevitable that the men of Bahia fell for her. Just as inevitable was the hate she inspired in women. Not that these women were saints or anything, for they certainly were not. Travelers passing through at that time never tired of expressing shock over the licentiousness of the men and women of Bahia and Brazil, and more generally, of the uninhibited sexual habits of that era, even in the convents. At that moment, the country had many more men than women; women no doubt found this numerical disproportion quite convenient, and things began to really heat up.

  But while people in Olinda had known Maria Taiaôba since she was a child and knew the reasons for her unusual behavior, in Salvador no one knew who she was, and her manners were even more perturbing because of their mystery.

  It could indeed be a disconcerting thing to see the three free-spirited and independent women pass through the streets—Maria, at the fullness of her forty-something years, Belmira, in the ethereal beauty of her madness, and Guilhermina, in the obstinate vigor of her youth—walking up and down the hills of the city, leaving a trail of curiosity and fascination.

  People would look, remark, and sometimes even follow the women to the beach.

  As was the case with Antonio de Sá, the son of reinols and the warden of the jail in Salvador, married to the daughter of hot-blooded Castilians and father of three.

  As a matter of fact, it was on account of his wife, who would go on and on about this family of women from Pernambuco, that poor Antonio began to pay attention to the trio and above all the beauty of Belmira, who to his eyes seemed an otherworldly creature, without knowing that she in fact was. He began to frequent the Taiaôba tavern, and, considering himself a poet, started to pen verses about a muse who was no longer the olive-skinned Andalusian figure of his wife, but a woman from Pernambuco with the complexion of an angel. His wife couldn’t read, but as she watched the pages of scrawled-out poems pile up on the table, she was unable to contain her curiosity; certain as she was that they were all intended for her, she asked a friend to read them aloud.

  But as she listened to her husband’s, a poet whose greatest fault may have been an excess of realism, description of his muse the Castilian woman’s blood boiled, and not a single doubt remained in her mind regarding her rival’s identity. She raged through the streets, knowing that she would find Belmira and her daughter on the deserted beach where they always walked in the sunset hour, even when Maria was unable to accompany them, as fate would have it that day.

  Seeing Belmira sitting in silence, as she often did, and the ruby-haired girl nothing more than a dot on the far end of the beach, the Castilian woman attacked without a moment’s hesitation, clawing tooth and nail, pulling Belmira by the hair, biting her arms, and screaming obscenities. When Belmira made no move to defend herself and, in truth, seemed up close to be an extremely sick and fragile individual, the Castilian woman quickly regained her composure, but the harm had already been done. She left the beach muttering threats, but now these were half-hearted, as though she had suddenly been drained of all her hot air, just like a deflated balloon.

  For a few moments, Belmira did not move from where she lay on the ground. But the violence she had suffered was the last straw.

  Before Guilhermina could return from her race to the other end of the beach, Belmira got to her feet and very slowly walked into the waters of the emerald sea, as though she were wading into the deep, glistening eyes of Wilhelm, her handsome soldier.

  Guilhermina walked home without knowing where her mother had gone. Maria was overcome with the feeling something terrible had happened; her fear was confirmed the next morning when she was summoned after Belmira’s body had been found on the beach.

  At the funeral, Maria Taiaôba could not understand why a woman with olive skin whom she’d never seen before wept endlessly at her side, before embracing her and begging forgiveness.

  Without her mother to provide a silent counterpoint, Guilhermina became even more unruly than before. Perhaps she was merely a hyperactive and spoiled child, unused to discipline or boundaries. With great effort and patience, Maria nonetheless ensured that Guilhermina at least learned how to read, write, and count, though she never managed to make her sit still long enough to listen to even a bit of poetry, unless it were one of the more abrasive verses by The Devil’s Mouthpiece, Gregório de Matos, who regularly appeared at the tavern to provoke laughter in both grandmother and granddaughter. But if there was one thing that the girl liked—and did she ever like it—it was the sound of the drumming and chanting coming from the slaves’ quarters. She had a pretty singing voice and her energy made her one of the liveliest singers on nights when the slaves would host celebrations.

  The young girl also took no time to discover liturgical music and the melodies played on the organ, an instrument whose intens
ity left her in awe. She also found the spot in the church where the sound of the organ could best be heard, and she made a point of always sitting there, near the altar boy, a handsome brown boy who, as everyone in the city knew, was the priest’s son.

  THE BASTARD BENTO VASCO

  An attractive boy with brown skin, and well-muscled, Bento was the son of a Portuguese vicar of the Church of the Outeiro and his slave Domitila, a black woman from Angola, freed by the priest after their son was born, and who likewise grew up free. The two lived in a house at the rear of the church and assisted the priest in taking care of the house, the church, and celebrating Mass.

  Easygoing and with an inclination to keep the peace, Bento had, from an early age and with his father’s blessing, learned and dedicated himself to the art of making miniature sculpted saints. His unique style, even though not yet mature, had begun to earn him certain fame and led to a demand for his work from churches and homes in cities throughout the country.

  He also acted as altar boy during Mass and, kneeling before the altar, he first came to know Guilhermina by her voice, which stood out among the chorus. Later, without realizing it, he began to look for the girl with the fire-like hair, and soon his gaze, as though of its own free will, began to linger longer and longer on Guilhermina, her hair, the nape of her neck, her face—a gaze that was particularly inappropriate for church or for an altar boy.

  As was customary at that time, when the faithful donned their best clothes to attend Mass, Guilhermina also wore her Sunday finest. She was neither religious nor baptized, and she knew very little about God, sins, or saints, but for her, going to church on Sundays was like going to a party with music and singing, and she dressed accordingly in dresses of velvet and silk. Bento Vasco soon fell under her spell.