At the big house, the slave boys delivered their madrigals and pastorales, while here the drums of Africa reverberated.
Amador gave himself to the wild, lusty atmosphere, laughing and drinking with Affonso Ribeiro and the others, and when, later, a young slave girl approached him, he did not hesitate. He hurried the girl behind a row of slave quarters, and several times she cried out, for he used her brutally. Afterward, when she sat up next to him, she uttered a sudden, frightened giggle.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, mameluco, my mother said. . . .”
“What?”
“You’ll beat me?”
“No.”
She looked down nervously at the ground between her naked legs. “‘A foolish man, with wild dreams for the senhorita.’”
“Who is your mother?”
“The slave Celestina.”
“She’s right. It was a sickness.”
The girl looked at him dumbly, and he did not explain.
Early the next morning when Governor Maurits and his party left Santo Tomás, a groggy red-eyed Amador watched their departure. He studied Maurits as the count rode past him, finding it hard to accept that this small, delicate-looking man with his daintily-trimmed mustache and a triangular tuft of hair on his chin was lord of half of Brazil. Nossa Senhora! Why hadn’t Maurits attempted to climb the Serra do Mar to São Paulo? What a welcome the Paulistas would’ve given the heretic! Never!
After Maurits and his escort had gone, Amador crept back to his hammock in the quarters he shared with the Portuguese millworkers. The Portuguese dragged themselves off to the engenho and he found himself alone.
Go now, Amador Flôres, he told himself as he lay in the hammock. Go now, damn you — or stay forever lost. Lost, with Affonso Ribeiro and his people, a prisoner of this valley. Forget the lovely senhorita. Sweet Jesus, what madness — the senhorita and you, mameluco!
His thoughts moved from his own lustfulness to that of Senhor Fernão Cavalcanti. The slave girls were the senhor’s favorites — for a quick, sweet bite. But he also enjoyed another, more dignified passion: Dona Carlotta da Lago — “Dona Carlotta of the Lake” to all but Cavalcanti, who did not jest about his mulatta.
Carlotta, daughter of a Portuguese and a slave, lived in a house the senhor provided, overlooking the small lake, and maintained herself as a “lady,” with the fine clothes and jewelry Cavalcanti had given her. She had her own slaves, and did little but gossip with her friends. Cavalcanti had been sleeping with her since her seventeenth birthday; she was thirty-five now, and plump, but still very much the temptress of Senhor Fernão.
The three children from this union stayed with Carlotta’s parents, who were tenants in the valley. Like other bastards fathered by men of the Cavalcanti clan, they were openly acknowledged. There were senhores de engenho who grew so fond of their little bastards that they bequeathed them portions of their land and fortune and honored them with their name. This had not yet happened with any of the illegitimate issue of the Cavalcantis, most of whom had merged with the other half-breeds on the plantation, unimproved by the circumstances of their birth.
Dona Domitila’s attitude toward Fernão’s infidelity was unchanged from that of the first dona of Engenho Santo Tomás, Helena, the wife of Nicolau. Dona Domitila prayed for her husband, begging the Lord’s forgiveness. She would achieve nothing by openly challenging Fernão Cavalcanti’s behavior with the mulatta — nothing but the scorn of a man denied what he accepted as his simplest right.
Segge Proot had been most disapproving. “It’s shameful, Amador. Cavalcanti is damned without hope. He’ll burn in hell.” Proot rarely expounded such harsh Calvinism, but Cavalcanti’s wickedness was apparently too much for him.
Amador lay in the hammock now, thinking how miserable life must be for a Dutchman. He knew little of the heresies of the Dutch, but he imagined a wrathful, merciless God, deaf to the appeals of a confessed sinner. Amador’s surprise was very great when, at this particular moment, a visitor appeared: Padre Gregório Bonifácio.
“So! Da Silva! Are you quite rested, senhor?”
“Just one more hour, Padre.”
Bonifácio reached across and gave the hammock a vigorous shake. “Out! The senhor wants you!” he said. “Maybe he is tired, too — of lazy mamelucos.”
Amador could not tell whether the priest was serious. “I’m to go?”
“Is it not time?”
“More than enough. I’ve been thinking this myself.”
“I don’t know what the senhor wants. He just sent me to fetch you.” Bonifácio shook the hammock again. “Now, Amador!”
He swung out of the net, straightening his clothes as he tramped behind Bonifácio, whose gait was slowed by his enormous belly.
The priest had come to the engenho from Coimbra, in Portugal, thirty-six years ago, accepting the post from Tomás Cavalcanti. Bald now, his face dry and wrinkled, Bonifácio had enjoyed a long, lazy ministry with the Cavalcantis and the people of their valley.
He led Amador toward his messy, disorganized rooms at the side of the church, where he spent most of his time.
Opening the door to his rooms, Padre Bonifácio said, “Wait here, Amador, while I fetch the senhor.”
Padre Bonifácio returned in ten minutes with Fernão Cavalcanti, who greeted Amador and asked the priest to leave them. This request puzzled Amador: Why should the senhor need privacy if he simply wanted to tell Amador that he must now leave the valley and go home? Even before Padre Bonifácio had gone, Amador spoke up, declaring that he, too, had realized it was time for him to return to São Paulo.
“That’s not why I called you,” Cavalcanti said.
Earlier this morning, when Governor Maurits left, the senhor had been formally dressed; now he wore his shirt and breeches. He looked tired, his eyes sad.
“What, then, senhor?”
“You do not approve of me,” Cavalcanti said. “You think I sell myself to the Hollanders — that I collaborate.” He ignored Amador’s gestures of protest. “What choice is there, when you have nothing to fight them with? It’s very different at São Paulo, where there are no Hollanders. Jesuits trouble you, yes, but not Hollanders.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t come to talk of this,” he said. “There’s a service you can do for me . . . a valuable service, Amador.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to take the painter to the sertão.”
“Segge?”
“Proot thinks our savages are the most divine creations. He wants to draw them at their malocas.”
“Segge has talked about this,” he said. “But isn’t it to be arranged by the Dutch?”
“When?” Cavalcanti said. “This month? The next? A year from now? There are others — officials, scholars, better painters — they all want to travel their new land.”
“Better painters, senhor? Segge’s a fine artist, not so?”
“Other artists with Governor Maurits are more accomplished: Eckhout,
Post —”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You like this Hollander?”
Amador shrugged his shoulders in reply.
“Take him to the sertão and let him draw; perhaps his work will improve. For you, Amador Flôres, a new musket, as much lead and powder as you want, supplies, slaves for part of the way. When you return, payment in silver.”
“But you don’t even like Segge’s paintings,” Amador protested.
“A journey of six months — to the Tapuya in the sertão,” Cavalcanti went on. “Perhaps longer, I don’t know; it’s for you to decide. When you get back, I promise a passage in the first ship to the south.”
“You ask me to take Segge hundreds of leagues into the sertão to draw pretty pictures of flesh eaters?”
“That is what the Hollander wants, more than anything else. Will you take him?”
“You’ve been good to me, senhor. All these months at the engenho . . .”
“Do me this favor
, Amador Flôres, and it’s I who will be forever grateful. Take him away, Amador — far from my house, my lands. Take Proot out of my sight.”
Now Amador thought he understood. “He has angered the senhor?”
Cavalcanti paused for a time, as if gathering his thoughts. Finally he said, “Senhorita Joana has been very friendly toward you.”
Amador began to feel a vague sense of alarm because of his secret feelings for the senhor’s daughter.
“I have four daughters, two of whom are married to the best men to be found in the captaincy. Not yet spoken for are my child Beatriz, the image of her mother, and Joana — free, wild Joana.”
Amador was embarrassed by such personal talk from the senhor about his daughters. But, as he listened, he’d begun to puzzle over something else: Immediately after Amador had asked a question about Segge, the senhor started to talk about Joana. Why?
“If Joana needed your help, you would give it?” he heard Cavalcanti say.
“Certainly, senhor,” Amador replied guardedly.
“Then, take Proot from Engenho Santo Tomás . . . to the sertão. If he’s never seen here again, I’ll not care.”
Suddenly Amador saw what Cavalcanti had been trying to say.
“Oh, senhor! He and the sweet senhorita? No, senhor! I won’t take him to the sertão. I’ll cut his throat here!”
Cavalcanti took a step toward him. “I do not want him killed.”
“But hasn’t he hurt the senhorita?”
“No. He’s done nothing. It’s Joana. She tells Dona Domitila she’s in love with him. She loves the heretic and wants to marry him. My Joana.”
“Senhorita Joana . . . and Segge?” Amador said, as if confirming this for himself. Should he weep or laugh? “Why don’t you order him to take his things and get out of the valley, senhor?”
“Amador Flôres, you’re young. You don’t know what it’s like with daughters. If Joana saw me drive him away, she’d never forgive me.”
“Segge — Proot — has spoken to you?”
“He hasn’t been to see me, and I don’t want to wait until he does. Just tell me you’ll take him away, Amador — six months, a year, whatever.”
“And Proot?”
“Oh, yes, he wants to leave immediately. I said I would ask you.”
“Isn’t it strange, senhor, that a man who has the senhorita’s love would be willing to leave your lands?”
“I’m thankful for it. I thank God for anything that will save my Joana from this disastrous romance. Take the Hollander and his paint pots, then, and let Joana recover, Amador Flôres, and before you return, I’ll have found a man for her.”
“Yes, Senhor Cavalcanti, may you find this man,” Amador said.
XII
November 1640 - September 1644
In late November 1640, after an overland journey of four weeks from Engenho Santo Tomás, Amador and Segge reached the malocas of Nhandui, a powerful Tapuya chief, who was honored by the Hollanders as “King Jan de Wij.” The malocas were two hundred miles north of Recife, five days’ march inland from the coast. After the Dutch had consolidated their hold on Pernambuco, they had struck at captaincies to the north, and Nhandui’s warriors had helped them to defeat the Portuguese.
The success of this alliance was due largely to one man, Jakob Rabbe, a German Jew, who’d been sent by the Dutch as envoy to Nhandui. Known as “Captain Jakob” to the Tapuya, Rabbe had arrived five years ago, with trumpets, halberds, goblets, and mirrors, but it was not these lavish gifts alone that had led to Rabbe’s acceptance by the tribe. Captain Jakob had married a Tapuya woman and proved himself as accomplished as any warrior, and as ready to massacre Portuguese. On one occasion, Rabbe’s troop herded seventy-two colonists into a plantation chapel, and slaughtered all but three who hid in the roof beams.
Captain Jakob was waiting in the clearing to greet Amador and Segge when they reached the Tapuya stockade. Secundus Proot he welcomed joyously, in Dutch. “I see savages and Portuguese all the time. But months pass, Heer Proot, between visits of civilized men.”
To Amador, immediately afterward, Captain Jakob spoke in Tupi. He was a small man, with sensitive, weathered features that belied his violent nature; but his threatening tone had been undisguised. “You carry a passport from Count Maurits. I will tell my Tapuya, Portuguese, that they must respect this paper.”
Amador could find nothing to like about Captain Jakob and his warriors. The natives were similar in appearance to the Tupi: small in stature, dark eyes, skin varying in shades from yellowish tan to bronze and most often streaked with dyes. They wore their hair longer than a Tupi’s, almost to their shoulders at the back, and cut level across the front.
Segge immediately settled down to sketch and paint the natives. Once, his painting was influenced by what Amador had to say.
Segge had posed a Tapuya girl at the edge of a pretty pool. He sketched her with a bunch of leaves covering her genitals.
“I don’t see a savage,” Amador said bluntly.
They were in their hut. The canvas with the girl was well advanced and stood on an easel. Segge was busy with sketches for a painting of Chief Nhandui, and seemed not to hear Amador’s comment.
“The bandeira is true to life,” Amador added. “People can see how it is to march against the Carijó in the forest. But this . . .”
Segge stood up and moved to Amador’s side at the easel.
“Nothing savage here, Segge.”
“Bah! Anyone can see she is Tapuya — a princess of the wilds!”
Amador laughed. “Princess? Ah, Segge, how eagerly you accept the Jew captain’s word. To Rabbe, the worst of these brutes is King Jan. I suppose he tells you this savage is a maid of honor?”
Segge cupped his chin in his hand, the tip of his index finger touching his nose. “What more does it need?”
“You’re painting a cannibal — a flesh-eating, bone-grinding mother of pagans. Show this.”
One morning four weeks after their arrival, Amador saw that Segge had made some changes in the painting of the Tapuya girl: One hand, resting on her knee, grasped a severed human hand. Segge had given her a basket, which she carried on her back, and protruding from the basket was a human foot.
“Bravo!” Amador exclaimed. “Exactly! A savage for the world to see!”
A few days after Segge had finished this painting, a group of boys who belonged to the Hut of the Bachelors had reached the end of a five-year initiation period. With the rise of the moon and the soft moan of sacred flutes, they were to take their place as young men in a new hut, and girls given to be their wives would be brought to their side.
Throughout the day, Amador and Segge witnessed preparations for this final phase of initiation. At dawn the boys made a circuit of the village, announcing their preparedness for their new status. Then they appeared before Chief Nhandui and the mature men, who gave permission for the bachelors’ hut to be torn down. When this was done, the chief invited the initiates to take a brand from the elders’ fire. The boys carried this smoldering branch to a site chosen as the new meeting place of “Green Palm,” the name given their age group, and made a fire.
Jakob Rabbe explained that a Tapuya man moved through life with his age group. He entered it as a child, between the years five to twelve. From twelve to seventeen, he was a bachelor, for whom sexual relations with girls was taboo; these were years for learning the rites of man. When his age group completed its final initiation ceremony, they would be marriageable young men. Thereafter, every five years they would move up in the community, always part of the same group, until they were mature men.
“Wonderful!” Segge enthused. “Each season of life well defined as it is in nature.”
Rabbe had been with these Tapuya for five years, but he confessed that he had made little progress comprehending their ways: “They have ancestral clans, family ties, noble lineages, factions linked to ancient rites. The families and clans I understand; but what is the meaning of this division?�
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Rabbe asked the question as the most important of the day’s ceremonies was about to begin: make-the-logs-run.
“Perhaps they don’t know themselves,” Rabbe continued. “The village is divided into two factions. Each will race with one of their team carrying the log for a distance before passing it to another. Some say the division of the village represents the strong and the weak; some, the sun and the moon; still others, life and death.”
“Perhaps it’s a secret they reveal to none but their own.” Segge laughed.
“I have run in the race, Heer Proot. Why should they hide its meaning from me?”
The initiates were close by, having their heads shorn. Their bald crowns were then painted with urucu dye. While this was being done, Chief Nhandui and the village pagés addressed them, all exhorting them to carry their log swiftly to the finishing point.
Days before, the ground for the run had been prepared, a straight, wide path that started at a point six miles from the village. At noon the boys and a group of young men assembled here. At a signal from the elders, the boys raced off, one carrying the log for as long as he could keep a rapid pace; as soon as he slackened, he passed the log to another boy, a maneuver requiring great care, for it was a grievous dishonor if the buriti palm fell.
The initiates were given a few minutes’ advantage before their competitors set out after them with the second log. But the race was not confined to these two groups alone; though not attempting to relay the logs, others sped over the course beside the competing runners.
Segge stood at the halfway point and cheered with the Tapuya lining the route as the logs approached their position. He started to move back to let the runners pass, but found it impossible to get out of their way, and was swept into the race.
The Tapuya were delighted to see the big blond Dutchman thumping along. When he began to drop behind the main crowd of men and boys, a few spectators stepped in to run with him, laughing and indicating that he should keep up with them. He did his best, his jacket flapping behind him.
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