Daria

by Irene Marques

  Camila’s family had tried many cures for her condition, ranging from horrendous exorcism sessions with the priest, to sessions with mediums, during which she would be held down naked on a cold bed of salt for hours, her mouth and nose often sealed off, making her almost die of suffocation. She would be brought into the churches, and the priests or the mediums would invoke countless liturgical orations, bathing her in blessed water and burning incense, to see if they could pull the evil out of her. But it was all to no avail, for she became worse with every session and would disappear for months, taking off with the Romani. Her husband, being the brute that he was, would accuse her of running away to be with other men and would spank her without mercy every time she came back. Little Arsénio, witnessing all this, tried to understand why his mother was the way she was and why his father was so mean. Because he was an only child, he had no support from any sibling, and the only friend he had was his cousin António, who, despite what many may think, was a very sensitive man. Arsénio’s mother also sought treatment from local or distant reputed witch doctors who would boast about their capacity to cure the sickest person and exorcise the darkest of evils. Astrilda de Campanal, the most renowned witch doctor in the whole nation, was once brought to Vimieiro to diagnose and cure Arsénio’s mother. Her diagnosis and treatment were as follows: “My dear Camila, I can see in you the spirit of your dead aunt Adosinda Raposo, who pretended to be a true Christian woman during all her life when in fact she was a marrana. In order to take her sinful and wretched spirit out of you, and in order for her to be absolved by Nosso Senhor Deus Todo Poderoso, Our Lord and Almighty God, and his son Jesus Christ, the true and only saviours, you need to say two hundred Ave Marias for her soul every day, for the rest of your life. If you do that, at the time of your death, your aunt will be saved and allowed into heaven to sit by the throne of God. If you start doing that tomorrow, you will be allowed to live in peace for the rest of your life, raise your son, and care for your husband as any other good woman does. If you miss any day of the praying or are not able to go through all the two hundred Ave Marias for any reason, your condition will return and, in order to regain what you lost and not upset the outcome, you will need to increase the number of Ave Marias by ten. One more thing: you need to always dress your son with his clothes inside out and put a clove of garlic in his pockets so that evil stays away from your house.” Arsénio’s mother tried to follow this daily ritual of praying, but it was very hard to keep up with it because she had many other duties and two hundred Ave Marias is indeed a lot. She would try to catch up at night after all was done, but by then she was often very tired and would often fall asleep before reaching the two hundred Ave Marias. She was always behind, so her condition never really improved and there was never an opportunity to see if the witch doctor’s diagnosis had been accurate or if the proposed cure would have worked.

  Arsénio had wanted to go to art school somewhere in another part of Europe, where life was gentler and where great masters had been born leaving behind illuminating wonders that remind us that this world, this world is nothing, nothing compared to what it could be, what we want it to be. He had dreamed about becoming a Leonardo da Vinci or a Rembrandt or a Jacques-Louis David. But his life had not permitted him to follow his call, and so he had to do and become what was necessary in order to survive and gain some respect, because, like his cousin, he was also poor and the son of the poor. He was poor and the son of the poor, and his father, a rude man with very bad manners who constantly beat him and his mother, could not understand the urgency of Arsénio’s artistic call. Instead of going to an art school somewhere in Europe, Arsénio had to do all kinds of jobs—brutish, unbecoming assignments that were very unpleasant and that forced him to become a brute, for one often becomes what one does, especially if one does not keep continuous guard over one’s deep self. When Arsénio realized that he could not go to art school and devote his life to painting and drawing, he became profoundly sad and indifferent to everything and everyone around him. The religious chants and the magnificent stained glass in the sublime cathedral of Queen Saint Isabel—including the images of the saints, the suffering, ecstatic Jesus Christ, and the Nativity scenes, many of which he had participated in as an angel and thoroughly enjoyed—had lost their incantation, their lustre, their power to bring happiness to his heart, give him any reason to think that life is beautiful, can be beautiful. The verbs to be and to become had been paralyzed, frozen in mid-air at a very high distance, unreachable. He was as sad as one can be; he saw nothing worth living for. He wanted to die so that he could be liberated from suffering, from living a life that had no meaning, no value. He wanted to return to a state in which to be and to become were the only verbs that he danced for, nourished, the only actions moving, propelling his limbs into the world. One day, when he was at his lowest, he went to the highest hill of Vimieiro with the intention of ending it all by jumping to his death. He had gone to the hill at midday in the summer, when it’s so hot you can barely think, after he had witnessed his poor, deranged mother being brutally beaten by his father. He was sitting on top of the hill, thinking his last thoughts, still trying to find something that would make him change his mind. But nothing was coming, and he was ready to take the mortal somersault. At that precise moment, the point of no return, he felt a soft hand touch his shoulder and he saw his cousin António right there by his side, a sacred sentinel, guarding him, keeping him from taking the wrong step, bringing him back to life. He took his cousin’s giving hand, and he trembled with both fear and relief, relief that there was someone there to rescue him when he needed it most and that that someone was his beloved cousin. In that moment, he knew that blood does indeed care. Blood does indeed speak. Blood does indeed move. They talked for a while, and Arsénio told António how he was feeling and what he was thinking about doing. Through a patience that only love and wisdom can engender, António walked him out of his miserable state of mind and made him see that salvation was still possible, that not all was lost. António told his cousin that a man had options and must exercise those options to escape desperation and failure so that the kingdom where we live can be regained and celebrated. Even though he was referring to Arsénio’s state of mind, his life, and those of his father and mother—that sad and sorrowful family of three—it was as if he were already uttering another vision, articulating a vision about a country, a nation that he would later save from doom and destruction with an iron will never before seen. He spoke with passion and conviction, his face thoroughly engaged in this uplifting speech, as if he were rehearsing for another cause, an even greater cause that would come later when the situation demanded. It was this power of conviction, this quiet but sturdy belief that made him the man that he became and made the nation powerful and respected again.

  “My dear cousin, think of the cool sunlight of the morning, how it kisses your cheeks and soul like a blessed branch of rosemary. Think of the beauty of your goats when you take them to the mountains. Think of how happy they are playing skipping games, up there in the high altitude, how alive they are, how in awe they are that they are allowed to go up there and stare at the world from afar. They can do this because you, you, my dear cousin, you love them dearly and gave them the freedom to go there by teaching them the way. My dear cousin, think about the splendour of the stained glass at church, our sublime cathedral. Think about the chant that you sing when you are there, the zone that you enter when you allow your limbs to fly with the Ave Marias or when you stare at the doings of Queen Saint Isabel. Think of the beauty of the crying Jesus, the fervency on his contorted face. Think of his life, how he gave it away as the most profound act of love, so that we could have less evil in the world and remember not to vacillate before challenge, before suffering, before need. Think about all of that. Think about all the light that comes from there, emanating from the deepest parts of the beautiful being, which we all possess in us. You can recreate this light when you paint and draw. Even if you can’t go to
art school and become a Rembrandt or a da Vinci, it does not matter. It does not matter at all because the light is in you, you are the light, and that light will shine anywhere to make the world a better place. Perhaps, my dear cousin, perhaps the solution would be for you to join me in the seminary, a place where we can pray and think, be taught and advance the soul. A place close to God, close to the blue azure that makes us melt into vast waves of never-ending magnetic pulses.”

  António was able to rescue his cousin from death. He gave him another chance by reminding him of the good things that were there for him, things that he needed to rediscover and embrace with both of his arms so that the light could again illuminate his darkness. After that encounter, up there on top of the highest hill of Vimieiro, where the two cousins had met many times before to share intimacies that only cousins and boys can share, Arsénio came home with a renewed vision of himself. He told his mother—who was experiencing an unusual clarity, peace of mind, and a sudden burst of physical energy, despite the heavy beating she had just endured by her vile husband—that he wanted to go to the seminary and join his cousin António. If he couldn’t go to art school and be a famed painter, then he would create his own world of art. He saw himself immersed in an environment that allowed him to develop his soul and stare at religious art, and he imagined how happy he would be in such a world. His mind and body recalled that beautiful day, when he was seven years old, when Vimieiro was celebrating its patron saint, Queen Saint Isabel. He recalled the awe and the magic and the communion he felt with people, with God, with the world, and with the universe. He saw again, with the same radiant brightness as he had then, the queen feeding the hungry people during the great famine. He saw the bread that became roses and the roses that became bread or even gold. He saw her give her own jewellery away in handfuls of selflessness to buy wheat—wheat that would become bread, bread that would become body. That is how one is, becomes, truly beautiful, how the verbs to be and to become can finally be joined, finally sublimated, transfused, transmuted. He smelled the incense and he heard the Ave Marias and he felt the touch of the priest on his hand, and the light, the stunning light of that cathedral illuminating all his limbs, all his cells and then reaching the soul so that he could feel complete. He saw the red capes of the stewards and the pretty quilts smelling of naphthalene coming down from the windows, and he saw the women and the children throwing flowers down on the people. Petals of red and white roses flowed down in slow motion to gently land on his face and his head and his arms, inebriating him with their aroma. That day became fully alive, and he saw himself as a man of religion, a man immersed in God and with God. He saw himself as a priest who would build the most beautiful church ever seen, a place full of light, stained glass, and images of all the saints of the world, those beautiful souls who have performed miracle after miracle to bring the reign of heaven to earth and remind us that God lives in each of us. He would develop a global network of religious art dealers who would bring to him art from everywhere, art that had never been seen, never even thought possible to exist. If he could not make art, he would make his world into one of art and beauty, art and beauty only, and nothing more. If he could not make art, he would bring art to the people and show them that through art, God is made alive. He went on and on about his new plan, painting this future life to his mother with great detail and enthusiasm. She listened to him with her eyes wide open and a smile on her calm face, a face so often inhabited by various troubling shadows. He described the beautiful, magnanimous, and grand church—the magnificent cathedral that he had in mind to build—and he told his mother about how happy the parishioners in that church would be because they would feel at home, body and soul. They would be brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, all hugging, all chanting and rising to the stars to greet God, to find solace and redemption. He was in a blissful state of mind, one of those states that people suffering from bipolar disorder often experience after they come out of the deep-seated depression that has assaulted them for days and days, making them live in a dark, endless cave, where no glimmer of light ever enters and you feel trapped in the most unkind, wretched infinity—a well, a will or no return. At the end of his magnificent story, his mother, Camila das Dores, took him in her arms and rocked him as if he were still a little baby. Then she sang to him for a long, long time until he fell asleep:

  Dorme, dorme, meu menino,

  Sleep, sleep my little baby boy, sleep my little angel.

  You are the salvation I have been waiting for, longing for

  Sleep, sleep my little baby, sleep, sleep my little angel.

  You are the son who will deliver my soul and that of my aunt Rosinda, opening for us the grand doors to the throne of God.

  Dorme, dorme, meu menino,

  Sleep, sleep my little baby boy …

  But the dream of becoming a priest and a religious art dealer could not be fulfilled either. When Arsénio told his father about this newfound wish of his, his father said that no son of his would become a priest because all priests were sissies, skirt kissers, hiding behind their golden capes. His father was a brutish, vile, and raw man; he was as cruel as they come, as if he were a mistake God made because He was distracted or tired or, worse yet, the pure unmediated creation of Satan. Arsénio’s father was in the animal business: he raised sheep, goats, hens, pigs, and cattle. He also owned a slaughterhouse and a butcher’s shop, and he forced Arsénio to work with him in this sordid and violent business, killing and selling animals. Because Arsénio raised the animals, he became very attached to them. Just like the Nubian master of the Romani circus, whom we will meet later, Arsénio came to have a profound connection with the animals. He would talk to them about all kinds of life matters, and he was sure they understood him and answered back. He spent many beautiful moments with these creatures. He played with the little lambs, kids, piglets, and calves. In the winter, he would bring them to the fireplace to warm them up, and he would feed them when their mother developed an udder infection and could not nourish them with her own milk. In the spring and summer, he would take the herd of goats and sheep to the mountains to graze on the grass and the fine herbs that grew abundantly there. He would spend entire days with the animals, observing them and noticing their growth. Sometimes he would stop the ferocious fights that would ensue during the mating season among the rams and billy goats who seemed confused about which female to mount—the goats or the sheep. And when it was time for the females to give birth, he became the midwife, easing the little ones in their passage through the birth canal so that they could enter this world more gently. He was fascinated by the love the mothers showed their newborns right from the beginning: licking them until they were clean, smelling them, and speaking to them in their tongues of love. Though he remembered that once he had a sheep that did not want to be a mother and kept rejecting her little lamb by charging at him and not allowing him to suckle on her nipples. He had to take matters into his own hands by separating the little one from the mother and feeding it with a bottle until it became independent and could feed on grass. A similar thing had happened with a female pig he once had which, after giving birth, started eating her own offspring, much to Arsénio’s horror. He tried to stop the mother’s attack on her own by using a long stick to get the piglets away from her, but his efforts did not work and he had to call his father, who took care of business by taking her outside and shooting her in cold blood with a single bullet in her forehead. He then did the same with the piglets that had been spared from the mother’s cannibalistic hunger because he said that they were tainted with their mother’s disease. When the animals were sufficiently grown or were getting old and could no longer reproduce enough to allow for profit, Arsénio’s father would take them to the matadouro, the slaughterhouse. He would summon Arsénio to help and force him to watch the slaughter or, worse yet, to kill the innocent creatures himself. Arsénio would beg his father to please, please spare him from such work giv
en that he had raised the animals himself and had fostered a very special relationship with them. The father would not listen to such nonsense, striking him on the face with a heavy blow and saying, “Are you a man or a fag? For the will that God instilled in me, I will make you a man!” Arsénio had no choice but to take the knife and sink it deeply into the neck of the lamb or the kid goat or the cow or the pig or the hen and watch them leave life and enter death, their blood coming from every vein, every corner of their bodies, running down to fall into the bucket until it was full. During these ugly moments, Arsénio’s hands would sometimes shake so much that the blade of the knife missed the mortal focal point and the animal would suffer more than it ought to, making Arsénio feel a horrible guilt. He looked at his hands tainted with the blood and life of the animals, and he felt that he was a criminal for whom the punishment of jail would not be sufficient. He thought that he too should die, that he too should be killed and die from this hideous bleeding death. He thought about cutting his own throat with the very knife he was using to sacrifice the animals so that he would no longer have to spend his life performing this evil act, killing those he had become very close to.