Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters

by Maria José Silveira

  Her second love was a young military man who was passing through the village. They had one of those affairs that people tend to describe as torrid and short-lived.

  Her third, the most enduring because it demanded even less of her, was with the priest, and lasted some three years. It was also one of the most tranquil relationships, with its falsely clandestine encounters once or twice a week, with its lack of demands on either party, free of great demonstrations of jealousy, possessiveness, or quarrels. Falsely clandestine because—and of this there could be no doubt—everyone in the village knew about them, and only pretended to be unaware.

  Açucena also had an affair with a young slave. A tall, muscular, sheepish young man. But I can’t say for sure whether this affair took place during the time of her rendezvous with the priest, or just before or after. It must have been just before, since after the priest, Açucena finally met Caio Pessanha, a man from the Northeast who had fled the Revolution of Pernambuco in 1817. With him, she finally married.

  Caio was an adolescent at the time of the struggle in Recife. He’d barely turned fifteen, but had become involved body-and-soul in the movement for independence. He was at the side of Padre José Inácio de Abreu e Lima when Padre José set out on a trip to Bahia carrying letters in his rucksack written by the insurgents to explain the goals of the new republican government—a trip on which they were captured and the priest executed by a firing squad. Caio, little more than a boy, managed to flee, and after wandering around for some time in the backlands of Bahia and Goiás, turned up at the plantation belonging to Açucena’s great-uncles.

  Later, when things calmed down in Pernambuco, Caio resumed his studies in Olinda and continued his commitment to republican ideals. He was ardent, effusive, an admirer of the French Revolution, and a Mason. Seven years later, history repeated itself in Pernambuco, and once again it ended in tragedy, with the Republicans declaring the establishment and secession of the Confederation of the Equator. Caio was among them. And once again, troops arrived from Rio de Janeiro, invading, setting fire to Recife and laying waste to the city. The military’s forceful reaction, which resulted in the imprisonment and execution of the movement’s leaders and the execution of the insurrectionist Frei Caneca before a firing squad, forced Caio and other revolutionaries to flee wherever they could.

  That was when he decided to return to the middle of the country and work to spread his ideas. He became an educated and politicized peddler of revolution who used his salesman’s charm to spread Republicanism. From that point on, he was tied to many of the rebellions and revolts throughout the provinces that made those years an era of great political agitation.

  At the very end of one beautiful May afternoon, Açucena felt her heart stop beating for a brief but unforgettable moment as she watched a distinguished man arrive at the village mounted atop his horse, accompanied by two black men also on horseback. The man’s long hair was pulled back, his mustache carefully trimmed, his coloring seductive, dark. Caio Pessanha elegantly dismounted and introduced himself and the splendid black mare on which he’d arrived, whose name was Republica; and his two black aides, free men, Constancio and Belizário, with their mules, Liberty and Fraternity. He also presented his trunks full of wares, which served both as his disguise and his means of income. The unexpectedness of his manners and loquacity filled Açucena with surprise and joy from the beginning.

  Mariano knew Caio, and welcomed him in grand style to his home.

  Açucena bought two magnificent silk sheets and several necklaces, bracelets, and rings. She purchased two of the books he had brought. She bought linen bed sheets, woven by seamstresses from the Northeast, two silver chandeliers with finely worked details, and a carved bone-fan and wallpaper depicting a country scene. She bought, to tell the truth, a good part of the stock brought along by the journeying salesman, who stayed for dinner. Then it was Caio’s turn to be introduced to the delights of Açucena’s candied sweets and, hours later, her bed. Ultimately, he made the village the resting spot where he would always return during the best years of his life. They had two children: Socrates Brasiliense and Diana América.

  The likelihood is quite high that Açucena was the subject of much commentary for her love affairs and strange manners, so ahead of her time was she in that tiny countryside village, though nothing can be said on the subject with any certainty. Because if it’s true that an omniscient narrator supposedly knows everything, it’s also true that in literature, as in every other discipline, there’s an appreciable distance between theory and practice. A narrator knows many things, it’s true. If it were the opposite case it would be impossible to tell you this story—but to be frank, narrator and omniscience are separated by a considerable gap and heavy dose of exaggeration.

  Whatever the case, whether the liberties her heart took subjected her to gossip or not, this in no way hindered her from being considered by nearly everyone as a sort of blessing for that village.

  This was the case for several reasons, all of them quite concrete.

  As soon as they had come to live there after those several years spent on the Ambrósio plantation in Minas, where Mariano taught Açucena nearly everything she knew, uncle and niece had been a breath of fresh air to the tiny moribund village. They lived well and without worry off the inheritance from Inácio Belchior’s import-export business, managed for Antônia Carlota by the Ambrósio cousins, and from part of her lands in Goiás. They had arrived with money and slaves; not many, but enough to bring life to the small town.

  Out of a tiny house on the edge of the emerald mountains that surrounded the village, they made a magnificent two-story home—the first seen in those parts. And after the house on the foot of the mountains, they helped to renovate the church and built a gazebo in the village square. Mariano liked to build, to draw out plans and watch a building being erected. But it was Açucena who had the idea of giving her slaves the opportunity to learn a profession and encouraged them to dedicate themselves to their apprenticeships, for one of the rewards for whoever became a master craftsman was freedom. They had slaves who built mud houses, there were carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, certified artisans who would learn and teach each other, even as a sort of strategy toward their own freedom, since they knew that their capacity as a master craftsman would be more quickly recognized if they managed to train others who they could even leave as substitutes, ensuring their own freedom did not create hardship for Senhor Mariano and Senhora Açucena, who were deserving of nothing but appreciation and gratitude.

  With their skilled slaves, they had transformed the town into a center sought out by everyone in the surrounding area, a situation that brought welcome progress and activity. Those from outside the village came to order furniture from the local carpenter, suits from the tailor, keys, nails, and door knobs from the blacksmith. The town was becoming known as a small hub for craftsmen that had grown out of the enormous yard belonging to the large home on the mountainside, and this was good for everyone.

  Another reason people came was for Açucena’s magical hands. Not that she was a healer, but her natural talent with her hands led her to clean a wound here, apply pressure on an aching spot there, examine an old man who could no longer leave his bed, and by the time she realized it, her fame as a curer had spread far and wide. She would effortlessly set a broken bone, eliminated back pain brought on by years of hard labor, relieve the swelling on a wounded hand. As she conversed with those she healed, she would apply pressure to a certain spot, gently pat others, run her hands through their hair, caressing them with an affectionate manner and contagious laugh until suddenly the person no longer wanted to leave her side, and was soon feeling better than ever before. With her hands alone, Açucena cured bodies and lifted spirits.

  For all these reasons, the town residents showered her with thanks and affection. Her easy-going, happy, and charitable manner threatened no one and, on the contrary, left others inclined to take her in and protect her.

  Mariano w
as also pleased with his new life. One of the main activities in the village was card playing, and along with the modest orchestra and band he formed, where free blacks were allowed to play next to whites, he didn’t need much more than that to enjoy himself. They would gather nearly every night to rehearse and play in the house with its blue window-frames. On Sundays, they gathered in the square where he had paid for the construction of a gazebo especially for his little orchestra. They also played during religious processions.

  Açucena sometimes paused to reflect that her religiosity owed much to the music and incense found at church and during processions. In that town devoid of theaters or balls, the closest thing to a grand spectacle was the singing at Mass and the nighttime processions beneath the enchanting candlelight, accompanied by the melancholy sound of the band and the anguished voices of women singing. Açucena loved these processions so much that she took it upon herself to organize them, and the town’s processions became the most famous in the entire region. Not only for their beauty and the profusion of colorful arrangements of candles and the spectacular wooden candelabras, not only for the quality of music, but also, without a doubt, for the fact they were some of the few processions throughout the country where the little angels could be black. The village priest, who did everything Açucena asked, could not deny her that request, and so she made her little black angels, the children of slaves and free men, the best dressed in the entire region.

  When the little altar boys appeared at the church door dressed in red robes and white surplices, gently swinging silver censers to send the perfumed smoke of the incense skyward, and Mariano summoned the first chords from his band, Açucena’s heart warmed as she sought the best spot from which to appreciate the colorful, melodic procession that marched down the street.

  Açucena’s other joy was dancing the lundu. She would dance in her living room or around the slaves’ bonfire, she would dance anywhere. Plump as she was, she nonetheless possessed a sort of levity, a certain grace and a sway in her hips that provoked a fair bit of admiration. Her demeanor and her sensuality were to everyone’s liking and rejoicing, and she gave life to each dance. When Caio was present, the couple’s dancing left onlookers with their chins on the floor.

  Caio Pessanha was always coming and going on his trips as a traveling salesman and revolutionary, along routes and intervals Açucena knew well. But one day he was taking longer than expected and that morning, Açucena suddenly awoke with the certainty that she would never see him again. And so, when that very afternoon she saw Constancio arriving alone on his old mule Fraternity, she called her children so they would be at her side when their father’s faithful companion said whatever it was he had to say. Socrates was twelve, Diana ten. What Constancio had to tell was that Caio and Belizário had died on the roads of Bahia, ambushed by thieves, and that he, Constancio, was the only one who had managed to escape with his life.

  Constancio also told them how, in reality, they had gone to that region charged with a risky mission, carrying ammunition to a runaway slave colony that was under threat, whose leader was an old comrade of Caio’s. The situation was growing more dangerous each day because the price of slaves had increased ever since the trade was outlawed, and the plantation foremen went after the runaways like madmen. It was a tense journey, requiring they travel at night and hide with their cargo by day; they had tussled twice with soldiers they encountered along the way, but everything had gone quite well. Their mission complete, they had begun the trip home, at ease, their guard down. Perhaps for that very reason, feeling the danger had passed, they were too at ease and had forgotten that lately the roads had been the site of attacks by fugitive criminals who made their living by ambushing travelers. Frankly speaking, they were quite careless. “Senhor Caio only thought about getting back here to you, Senhora ’Çucena,” Constancio told her. Then the rest was what it was: the men didn’t have so much as the time to react, and Caio was shot right between the eyes. Belizário survived for a few more hours, which was worse because, wounded there in the remote scrubland waiting for death to arrive, with the sun beating down on his head, the shadows of vultures circling around him in his desperation, and without a single drop of water to alleviate his parched throat—his was a painful death. At least Caio had been spared this: he died before he had time to realize death was upon him.

  An icy cold swept over Açucena, and a sharp wound took root deep within her. She realized that a part of her life, too, had also come to an end out on the road. The best part of her life, no doubt, the part where she had known love. But she also knew that in every way and notwithstanding everything, it was merely that, a part. Her life and her children would have to go on.

  Three years later, death arrived for old Uncle Mariano. It arrived without much fanfare, in the form of a disease common to the elderly that left him only two days in his bed, days Açucena spent at his side, alleviating him of any pain or affliction. It was during these days that he told her how he had killed her father, Inácio Belchior.

  After Caio, Açucena had other loves, but none of them lasted long.

  Magnólia Liberta was born of one of these loves, a young musician who led Mariano’s band, Justa Independência, after the old man’s death. Açucena was certain that her love for processions had something to do with the mysticism and piety that influenced Magnólia’s life. As a young girl, Magnólia was the most beautiful angel, her blue satin dress shimmering in the lights. Her wings were the largest of them all, enormous angel wings made from little feathers that seemed to make her fly, thin as she was, with her sandy-brown curls and her voice that left no one with a dry eye. She was the one who coronated Our Lady in the month of May and led the Procession of Our Lord during Advent.

  Something of the emotion of these moments that she lived with such intensity must have left a deep mark on her childish heart, for Magnólia never wanted to perform any other role. Her life—all of it—played out in the peaceful village streets of light-colored stone, along the route to church, and back to the house on the mountainside. She was easygoing, serene, and projected an inner peace.

  When she was little, she liked to cover her head with the big copper pot from the kitchen until it hung over her face, and would delight in the reverberating echo created by the bewitching sound of her voice.

  When she was a young woman, she wrote sonnets, sonnets that spoke of the natural beauty that surrounded her and mystical loves. These she kept in an album with a thick cover, between pages littered with dried leaves and flower petals.

  Later, already grown, she would gather slaves and neighbors in the oratorium in the evenings to sing the third mystery of the rosary, prayers, litanies, and hymns. As she listened, Açucena was filled with admiration for her daughter’s voice, which emerged strong and crystalline above the choir’s, as though the other voices existed to create the base from which her voice could rise triumphantly. She also learned to make Açucena’s candied sweets and her feathered flowers, except she didn’t make the flowers from feathers, but from soft fabrics like silk, velvet, and satin. These were every bit as beautiful as her mother’s.

  From the house on the mountainside, Açucena watched her children grow, each pursuing his own path: Socrates went to study in Olinda, as his father had, and earned his law degree, and there he stayed, marrying a woman from Pernambuco and maintaining close contact with his father’s side of the family. Diana, at thirteen, set off for Rio to live her own series of tumultuous love affairs. Magnólia continued living with Açucena, never straying from her tender care. Açucena also raised Diana América’s first child, Dionísio Augusto, a freckled boy with red hair, and was a decisive influence in the life of Diva Felícia, her granddaughter.

  In the village, she continued to be the center that radiated good news and generous acts. Over time, her hands were increasingly a source of wisdom and relief, touching everyone with her great circle of affection. She was part of the village heritage, and people came from far away to see her.

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nbsp; There, from her tiny kingdom at the foot of the mountains, Açucena lived a long life and saw a great many things. She saw the arrival of abolition and danced the lundu in the square with all the black people of the village. She saw the declaration of the Republic, and to celebrate, she opened a bottle of French Champagne her granddaughter had brought her on a recent visit. She saw the dawn of the new century and the birth of her great-grandchildren, Dionísio’s children with a mulatta woman from right there in town, and had continued to live in the same house. She also saw the births of Diva Felícia’s children. And finally, she saw the birth of her great-granddaughter Ana Eulália, and it was that same year that she allowed herself to depart from this world after ninety joyful years.

  She died peacefully, in the most natural way possible, as though closing her eyes to enter into an extended slumber as she chuckled at the stories one of her great-grandsons was telling her.

  The entire village took part in her funeral procession. Family businesses closed for the day and everyone, before leaving their homes, locked their doors and their windows, a strange thing to see in that time and place where even at night no one locked anything. The children dressed up as angels, and flower petals littered the streets along the route of a procession that included men, women, youths, and children on foot, on mules, in carriages, on horses, as they followed the casket to the cemetery. The band founded by Mariano led the way, inspired as they played their final homage to the venerable village matron.

  Hers was a funeral that the people there would never forget.

  DIANA AMÉRICA

  (1846-1883)

  Just look how life repeatedly escapes our control: despite the objections of her mother and uncle, Diana América adored the Ambrósio cousins. When she turned thirteen, she asked her mother to let her go live with them in Rio de Janeiro.

  Sweet and affectionate until the moment things or people did not conform to her wishes, Diana had a fragile constitution, subject to colds and illnesses. She became a rather cunning and obstinate young woman, capable of bending even the emperor to her will if she judged it necessary.