Amazons

by Ellen Levy

  I was aware that I was embarrassing the fish-lipped, rich Focco. But I didn’t care. I was tired and I was bored and I was disappointed in all of us for not being more interesting.

  —Take me home, please, I said.

  His friends said they’d see him later at the hotel.

  Focco drove me back to my apartment in silence, clearly annoyed. If we had still been speaking by then, we might have agreed that the evening had been a disaster. But we weren’t speaking.

  Nevertheless, it took me a solid five minutes to get out of the tiny red sports car, fighting off Focco’s fishy kisses, his thick stubby fingers and fleshy hands. I felt I owed him, but I did not know how much, what was the right amount to tip in the economy of sex, what was the going rate of exchange.

  Amazon Snapshot #8

  I didn’t see numbers’ limitations then. I was comforted by their unvarying sameness, their reliability in any language. One remained one; two remained two, whether applied to a girl, a boy, a brick, a pile of lumber.

  This is the appeal of cost-benefit analyses, free-market democracy: we can imagine that we are all equal before the disinterested dollar, that value can be clearly assigned without having to deal with messier considerations—assessments of the good, the beautiful, the virtuous and worthy. In economics’ stark terms, an acre of land may be worth its yield in gold, corn, timber, or minerals, but what about its breathtaking beauty? The quiet it provides, the visual relief from cityscapes? Stripped of the messiness of ethics and morality, stripped of consideration of the public good (the beautiful, the virtuous, the worthy), such calculations can badly mislead us.

  Economics, in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, has come to be associated with market predictions, with balancing supply and demand, a faith in the freedom to consume. Price, our principle standard; cost-benefit analyses, our debased logic. But it wasn’t always so. Economics comes from the Greek oikos, meaning “house” (a root it shares with the word ecology) and nemein, “to manage.” We often think of the two matters—ecology and economics—as being at a great remove from one other: nature on one hand, cold cash on the other. But etymology reminds us that the two are intimately linked, and that their original meaning—their original purpose or aim—was to address the human place in the world.

  Higher Education

  From the hilltop campus of the Federal University of Bahia, you could look out over the bay for which the city—Salvador da Bahia—was named and glimpse Itaparica. As Nel and I were walking home together from campus one afternoon, she told me that Isa had acquired a boyfriend there since I’d seen her last, a man named Marcos who had a house on the island. She rubbed her thumb and fingers together and raised an eyebrow to indicate that he had money. She shrugged. We will go sometime, Nel said. He has a nice house. He likes Americans.

  I smiled. It seemed that we would go, that we’d do everything we planned. But then in late March the university workers went on strike, shutting down classes and putting an end to Nelci’s scholarship. Without money for rent, her options narrowed. Isa’s new boyfriend Marcos offered to let her stay with him on the island for a while, but she needed to stay in the city to earn money. Nel and I had become friends, and it seemed natural that she should move in with me. I thought hard about inviting her to move in. At the time I flattered myself that I could do something to protect Nel from having to depend on some man, but it was no sacrifice for me. I wanted the company and I felt generous being able to offer help.

  We were still in the infatuated stage of friendship. I was flattered that she spoke to me of serious things—politics, her ambitions, occasionally family; she was smart and I felt smarter in her company.

  One night, not long after the strike was declared, we went for a walk through the port toward the lighthouse and then past that, out beyond the Barra Vento bar to a promontory with a grassy knoll on which a statue of Christ stood overlooking jagged black rocks and pale surf visible in the moonlight.

  The sky was full of stars and a sliver of moon, and as we walked in and out of the shadow of streetlights, Nel told me about growing up in Feira de Santa, a small town in the interior. She said she’d been very close to her father. Now, they no longer spoke. When I asked why, she hesitated.

  —I got pregnant, she said. I had an abortion.

  I nodded. I knew that here, in a Catholic country, this was a very serious thing.

  She said that she used to live in Amaralina, a suburb a few beaches east of us, just ahead several miles. She’d lived there with her best friend, Valeria, who was also a university student then. When Nel’s father learned of the abortion, he cut her off.

  —I had to move out, she said.

  —Where’s Valeria now?

  She shrugged.

  —We don’t speak much anymore.

  It made me like Nel, her sorrow and history. And I liked her for confiding in me. Here hardly anyone had deemed me worthy of confidences.

  When we came to a public gym that marked the end of Barra and entry into another more elegant neighborhood, we stopped to lean on the railing and look out over the water, and I made up my mind.

  —If you want, I said, you can live with me for a while, until you find a place of your own. I was glad to find the right words in Portuguese.

  —Thanks, Elena, she said, but I have no money for rent. I couldn’t afford to pay you.

  —You wouldn’t have to pay me, I said.

  She looked at me as if trying to gauge my offer.

  —I don’t need money, I said. I have my bolsa.

  —It’s generous of you to offer, she said. I appreciate it.

  —It would be nice to have the company, I said.

  —I’ll think about it, she said. But she sounded skeptical.

  We began to walk again, turning back now toward home.

  —It would only be temporary, until you find a job, I said.

  —I hate the boarding house, said Nel.

  —You can let me know.

  —I will, Elena, she said. And we dropped the subject.

  We walked home under the artificial lights, the faraway stars.

  Salvador

  A few days later, Nel stopped by my apartment, alone. She stood outside the door a little formally, grave, restrained. She offered me her cheek and we exchanged kisses.

  —Tudo bem, Elena? she asked.

  —Tudo bom, I said. Entra, entra, I urged her. C’mon in.

  —Are you busy? she asked, looking around the unsociably tidy room. I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m sorry for coming by like this.

  —You’re not interrupting, I said. Have a seat. I gestured toward the makeshift couch. Quer cafezinho? I asked. In the northeast I’d learned it was common to offer guests a cup of hot, strong, sugary coffee and a shower to fight off the enervation that the heat here inspired.

  —Quero, she said, obrigada. Nel picked up the magazine on the end table and began to flip through it. I went to the kitchen and lit a burner and put on the red-enameled kettle to boil water for coffee that I’d later strain through a filter.

  When I returned to the living room, Nel was seated on my makeshift couch with the magazine open on her lap, but she was looking around the room instead of at the pages, squinting, as if deep in thought. The monkey sat tethered in the window, his back to us, facing the forest across the street, occasionally letting out a shriek, calling to other monkeys there. She took the coffee I handed her and thanked me. I sat down next to her, legs crossed.

  We talked awhile about Isa, who was on Itaparica for the weekend with her new boyfriend.

  —She asked me to come with, Nel said, but I didn’t feel like it.

  I nodded and sipped. I couldn’t tell if Nel missed Isa. Secretly I was glad to have her to myself; I was more at ease when we were alone.

  —I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night, Nel said, addressing her coffee. Y’know, when we walked to the farol.

  —Uh huh, I said.

  —If it’s still al
l right with you, I would like to move in.

  —Oh, that’s great, I said. I felt briefly that pinch of trepidation that accompanies an offer accepted, the vague fear that we were embarking on something complicated here, something that could go wrong. But I was too relieved by the prospect of company to care.

  —That’s great, I said again, smiling. I believed it would be.

  —I won’t stay for long, Nel said. Only until I can find a job and a place of my own.

  —You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.

  —As soon as I get a job, I will pay you rent, she said.

  —You don’t need to. I’ll be paying it anyway.

  —I want to, she said. I don’t want to be a burden.

  —You won’t be, I said. I’m happy to have you here.

  It didn’t occur to me that I was not the one Nel worried for. It didn’t occur to me that she was protecting herself, or trying to. I felt magnanimous, as if I were doing something useful here: protecting Nel from the necessity of depending on some guy—the married dentist, or Focco—protecting her against exploitation.

  —Do you really think two people can live here? she asked.

  —Definitely, I said.

  We talked about what we could do with the space to make it homier, more comfortable for two. I proposed we get another bed.

  —Where would we put it? Nel asked. I can’t afford one just now, and there isn’t room.

  —You can share the mattress with me, I said, feeling the smallness of the offer, the poverty of my furnishings suddenly a thing I noticed with embarrassment, as if I’d forgotten to dress.

  —No, Elena, she said. I don’t want to put you out.

  —You wouldn’t.

  —It’s not big enough for two, she said. You wouldn’t be comfortable.

  —I’d be fine.

  —I’ll sleep on the floor, Nel said, rubbing her palm over the stiff stubble of carpet. I’ll be fine. It’s sufficient.

  This seemed a penitential proposal, and I wondered, briefly, if she expected me to propose that she take the bed, that I take the floor, but I didn’t. I argued the point with her halfheartedly then I gave up and said, I can buy a hammock. I’ve been meaning to anyway. I can sleep in that, and you can take the mattress.

  She shrugged. Maybe, she said.

  I offered half the guardaropa for her use, but she said she didn’t need closet space.

  —I’ll be fine, Elena, she said. I don’t have much. I don’t want to inconvenience you.

  —You won’t, I said.

  —I’ll try to stay out of the apartment during the day, she continued, resolutely, so that you can have your privacy.

  —I’m happy to have you here, I said. And, at that moment, it was true, I was.

  The next day, Nel arrived in the afternoon with a small clear-plastic beach bag decorated with yellow daisies and filled with clothes, and a paper sack containing toiletries, magazines, and shoes. Her worldly possessions in two sacks. She brought little with her, she had little to bring, but she brought know-how and superstitions.

  Not long after she moved in, I noticed a glass of water under the coffee table and one in the corner of the room. When I asked her what these were, she told me it was a wives’ tale, a superstition: a glass of water in the corner of a room will collect spirits so they do not haunt the inhabitants. I didn’t ask if she felt haunted there, if she felt the need for protection. I thought it was a charming custom, a bit of local color.

  The afternoon that Nel moved in, we left the door open to the hall to let a breeze from the windows blow through. I hadn’t yet gotten around to putting up curtains over the enormous sliding glass windows that composed most of one wall facing the street, so the afternoon sun blazed in, filling the room with heat.

  Zé, a Mexican-American guy from Texas who lived across the hall, passed our open door as Nel was moving in and seemed delighted. As a rule, Zé avoided speaking to me, embarrassed to be seen with a fellow American, as if I’d outed him, but he had something of a crush on Nel and seeing her, he stopped in the doorway. He smiled at me, as if I’d risen in his estimation. He stepped into the apartment and leaned against the wall, one leg bent, a tennis shoe placed against the wall behind him, and watched Nel unpack her few belongings.

  —So, Nel, he asked, Where’re you gonna sleep? Looks like you’ll need another bed in here.

  —I’m going to get a hammock, I said. So Nel can have the bed.

  —I’ll sleep on the floor, Nel said.

  Zé laughed, as if this were a joke.

  —You won’t want to do that for long, he said.

  And we laughed too.

  If I could not save the forest, I would save Nel.

  Lembrança do Senhor do Bonfim

  As soon as Nel moved in, I began to feel more at home in Salvador. Nel arranged a laundress to pick up our clothes each week and wash them, so that we wouldn’t have to bring them to the lavanderia in the port, which Nel said was overpriced and where they often stole the buttons off my clothes. Our first weekend together, we went sightseeing, my first time. Nel took me to the Igreja do Bonfim, the Church of Happy Endings, a church famous for its miraculous powers of healing.

  Outside the church, in a praça quilted with white cobblestone, vendors sold colorful silk ribbons—sky blue, violet, emerald green, yellow, pink, orange, red fitas —printed with the slogan Lembrança do Senhor do Bonfim da Bahia. Nel bought us each a ribbon and tied one on my left wrist. Before tightening each knot, she told to make a wish.

  —When the ribbon falls off, she said, your wishes will come true.

  —Do I have to tell you what I wished for?

  —No, she said. You shouldn’t tell anyone or they won’t come true.

  I don’t remember what I wished for, but I can guess: I would have wished for an internship at INPA, that Paulinho (who lived still in the city where we’d met) and I be reunited. Foremost among my wishes would have been the wish that I grow thin, thinner, that I lose more. I didn’t know then that wishes often come to pass in a fashion other than intended.

  Inside, the church was dark and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light filtered through windows, to see the Virgin in blue standing to the left above the altar, the cherubim over our heads.

  Nel guided me to the right, where a doorway opened onto a room softly lit by candlelight. The room was small, rectangular, perhaps 15 feet by 30. The room was white plaster, and in the candlelight the very walls seemed to glow from within; the ceiling was crossed by rough-hewn wooden beams and seemed close, low, though when I looked up I realized that the ceiling was not low but merely appeared so, because it was hung with pale arms and legs that dangled like stalactites over our heads. On the thick wooden tables that lined the edges of the room were hands, feet, heads—each a perfect life-sized wax replica of a body part, as if the body were a child’s toy disassembled here. I walked around the room, looking at the severed heads and hands, the feet with their perfectly formed toes, the glass eyeballs staring blankly up.

  I was horrified and fascinated both. I had never heard of a shrine like this. Nel had to explain to me that the wax effigies were offerings brought by pilgrims, left by the suffering hopeful who hoped these figures might bring healing to that part of the body. The faithful came and lit candles and left these votives and their prayers.

  SENAC

  After Nel moved in, I began to make plans. I still thought about heading to the Amazon, but I thought about it less and the idea of staying in Salvador a while grew more appealing.

  I got up the nerve to go to Pelourinho and inquire about arranging an internship at SENAC, a cooking school that trained students in traditional Bahian cuisine. The school, it turned out, was not a Brazilian Cordon Bleu as I’d imagined, but a vocational training program for the poor who lacked formal education but scored well on an entrance exam. The course was free to those few who passed the exam and provided a certificate that enabled graduates to work in restaurants and hote
ls. It provided them with lunch each day, clean uniforms. Everyone enrolled was Bahian, smart, black, and poor.

  To study cooking in Bahia is to apprentice yourself to history, to become a student of another people’s palate, tastes accumulated over time; embedded in Bahian cuisine is the taste of yucca and yams, hot pepper and lime, palm oil and coconut milk, the flavor of a lost homeland. Salvador has been called the “soul of Brazil” and the African capital in the New World, in honor of its rich Afro-Brazilian culture; in four centuries of mid-Atlantic slave trade, the country imported more than 3 million African slaves, a third of all those trafficked, a violent legacy that lingers. It was the last nation in the Americas to renounce slavery in 1888, and its culture bears the traces yet.2 Years later I’ll wonder if we’re tasting history’s violent imprint in Bahia’s haunting cuisine: if this is the flavor of heartbreak.

  I arrived around 11 to inquire about enrolling in the school and spoke to a receptionist in a whitewashed, second-story room. I did not realize that I had come at an inopportune time, pre-lunch, approaching the restaurant’s busiest hour. When I showed up, the head chef and program coordinator was called away from the kitchen to deal with me. He was built like a refrigerator, huge and commanding; he wore a white chef’s hat above his broad black face; he was dressed in immaculate white pants, white shirt, a big white apron. He held a wooden spoon in one hand and looked sternly at me as he told me firmly that they could not accommodate a foreign student.

  —You cannot enroll without having passed the entrance exam, he said, an exam that had already been administered for the year. You cannot earn a certificate.

  —I’d be happy to audit, I said.

  —You cannot audit, he said, firmly. He seemed to consider the subject closed.

  —I am very interested in learning about Bahian cuisine, I said. I think how we eat tells us a lot about a culture and its people. I will work very hard.

  He told me that he was sorry, but that he could not help me. He had to get back to the kitchen now.

  —Please, I said. I will work hard.

  He turned to the woman seated behind the desk, evidently done speaking with me, and said, Have her fill out the forms.