Since Paulo’s return from Portugal, Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues had frequently suggested that his son should be thinking of a girl from a family of sangue limpo, clean blood, which to the Senhor meant no evidence of Jewish, black, or mixed-race ancestry. Paulo’s mother, Catarina Benevides, had made pointed references to the daughters of several senhores de engenho and to two cousins in the house of her brother. A visit to the brother’s plantation had been arranged two months ago, but Paulo found the girls dull and unattractive.
When he returned to the Costa Santos house, he was met at the doorway by Senhora Isabel, pale and weak but determined to offer him hospitality. She presided over a second meal, with Luciana at the table. Afterward, she sat with them in a front room, until she announced that it was time to retire. The conversation had been formal and polite, but Paulo had been happy simply to be in the presence of this gentle, modest girl.
The next morning the three Costa Santos boys came galloping on their bay ponies along the dirt road toward their house, with the oldest, who was twelve, yelling challenges to the others. Their father rode behind them at a leisurely pace, until he saw the young man standing in the shade of a brazilwood tree in front of his house; suddenly he spurred his horse toward Paulo Cavalcanti. As he dismounted, Joaquim Costa Santos called out a greeting to Paulo, following it with profuse apologies for having been absent.
“Were you fed? Did you rest comfortably beneath my roof?”
“Yes, senhor! Senhora Isabel rose from her bed, God bless her. Your Luciana, senhor . . . ” — Paulo laughed heartily — “A wonderful daughter!”
Joaquim raised an eyebrow at this last remark. He asked to be excused then and went in to his wife. Senhora Isabel’s cheeks were filled with color this morning; the obvious affection for her daughter shown by the senhor de engenho’s son had taken her mind off the unpleasantness of the green figs. She now told her husband what she had witnessed — “such soft, kind words from the senhor, such a look in his eyes” — adding that before she had gone to bed she had knelt at their oratory table and prayed to St. Joseph to strengthen senhor Paulo’s ardor.
Costa Santos embraced his wife and rushed to his daughter’s room. The eleven-year-old Ana lay in bed, still complaining of stomachache. Never again, she had promised her guardian angel, would she eat wild figs. Costa Santos laughed and patted her head comfortingly. Luciana stood opposite him, on the other side of the bed. Costa Santos said nothing about his wife’s report, but he mentioned Paulo Cavalcanti’s gratitude.
“Senhor Paulo may wish to thank you personally. Be ready for him, my girl.”
Luciana blushed and lowered her eyes.
“Be ready, girl,” Costa Santos repeated.
Later, Senhora Isabel and Luciana served the men a meal, the females emerging from the kitchen only to attend to Costa Santos’s requests, which were numerous, for he wanted Paulo to leave with a good impression of his household. Costa Santos could scarcely conceal his pleasure when he himself saw how Paulo glanced at his daughter. And after the meal, when Paulo bade farewell to them, Costa Santos had been unable to hide that joy, for the senhor de engenho’s son took him aside and asked if he might call on Luciana.
“But certainly, Senhor Paulo. Our house is always open to you.”
Before he left, Paulo was alone with Luciana for a few minutes, Costa Santos having gone personally to fetch Paulo’s horse from a corral near the house.
“I’ve asked your father’s permission to visit you,” Paulo told her.
She raised her eyes just enough to meet his and smiled demurely.
“I’ll come back soon, Luciana Costa Santos.”
“Please do, Senhor Paulo.”
“Very soon,” he said. “My sweet Luciana.”
Seven months later, early morning on August 11, 1757, there was a heavy knock on the door of the Costa Santos house. Senhora Isabel was in the front room, with a crowd of relatives and friends. She did not open the door but in a breathless, excited voice asked, “Who goes there?”
“We come in peace.”
“For what reason?”
Outside, there was a pause. Voices rose beyond the door. “Silence!” a man demanded. “Silence!” Then he announced: “By the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, we’re here to fetch Luciana Costa Santos.”
Those in the room cried out with alarm; some uttered long moans and groans. But Senhora Isabel gazed steadily at the dark timbers of the door and said nothing as the speaker outside continued:
“She’s the betrothed of our godson, Paulo Benevides Cavalcanti.”
Now Isabel Costa Santos said firmly, “You’ve come to the wrong house. Seek elsewhere and, with God’s help, you may find the girl.”
“No, senhora! How can I mistake this door?” This was a different voice. “How many times, senhora, by day and by night have I entered it?”
Isabel now nodded at a brother-in-law, who unbolted the door and opened it. “You have the senhora’s permission to come into the house. Search every room. You won’t find the girl.”
Paulo Cavalcanti strode boldly inside. He was strikingly handsome in a silver-brocaded jacket, dark breeches, and short black cloak. In one hand he carried three small cakes. He apologized to Senhora Costa Santos for the demand to enter her house but added, “Luciana Costa Santos was promised to me, senhora. Upon this day, she’s to enter the holy order of matrimony. Forgive me, senhora, but I won’t leave until I’ve found her.” He gazed around the room. “Is there anyone here who will hinder my search?”
“No, senhor. No!”
The adults stayed in the front room. Ana Costa Santos and her brothers followed Paulo on his quest. They waited silently outside each room as he searched within; when he emerged alone, they shrieked with disappointment. “Luciana is not here, Senhor Paulo!” Ana cried. “Oh, senhor, she’s gone away.” The boys repeated this, showing amusement at the sight of a grown man engaged in this game of hide-and-seek.
Finally, Paulo reached a room at the back of the house. Holding the three cakes in one hand, he pushed the door open. Senhor Joaquim Costa Santos stood protectively beside Luciana. Her two godmothers sat on the edge of the bed; both cried out as Paulo stepped into the room, and one of them crossed herself and began to mutter a prayer.
Paulo acknowledged them, and to each he gave a nuptial cake. The third he offered to Senhor Costa Santos. “With my soul, I ask God’s blessing upon you three,” he said. He took Luciana’s hand. “With my soul, I pray for them. My heart, Luciana Costa Santos, is for you alone.”
She looked at her father. “Oh, father, it’s time that I leave this house.” She was dressed in a black taffeta gown and wore a lace mantilla made by one of the godmothers.
“Go, my child,” Costa Santos said. “Go with my full blessing.”
The godmothers were standing now, and Luciana embraced them. Then Paulo led her to the front room, where Senhora Isabel stood waiting for them.
“I ask your permission, senhora, for the girl to go with me now.”
“Pledge that you will treat this rose tenderly, Paulo Cavalcanti. None is so precious to me.”
“A rose made in heaven, senhora! You have my pledge.”
“Take your bride, Senhor Paulo. Go in peace. And may God bless this union.”
Paulo’s brothers, Graciliano and Geraldo, and his godfathers, who had joined the crowd in the front room, now impatiently ushered the couple out of the house and into an open carriage, which was decorated with flowers and ribbons, its floor covered with fragrant cinnamon leaves. A row of carts made up a processional line, the one immediately behind the couple carrying Luciana’s bridal chest. The carts filled rapidly with members of the Costa Santos family and their friends, and at a signal from one of Paulo’s godfathers, the procession started off, with a group of musicians offering the first of many languid love songs to be heard this morning along the track that led to Engenho Santo Tomás.
The procession reached Santo Tomás early in the afternoon, and moved al
ong the last half-mile to the Casa Grande like the vanguard of a conquering army. Cavalcanti tenants and their families, engenho workers, slaves, and the invited guests stood beside the road cheering the bride and groom. Salvo after salvo of musket fire interrupted their shouts, and a rocket barrage unleashed by a group impatient to wait until dark exploded in the sky. Paulo and Luciana stood up in the carriage, which passed below three flower-bedecked arches, the last of which was opposite the entrance to the Casa Grande.
When the carriage stopped, Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues stepped down from the long veranda to greet the couple, his expression joyous. Like Joaquim Costa Santos, Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues had given his blessing to this union; he had hoped for a marriage to one of higher birth than a lavrador de cana’s daughter, but he had kept this to himself, for the Costa Santos family were respected, their faith beyond question, and their blood untainted.
Paulo and Luciana were married in the chapel of the Casa Grande at three in the afternoon, making their vows before Padre Eugénio Viana.
Luciana stood in front of Viana in her black dress. The lace mantilla that covered her hair and shoulders was open at the front, and her face had a radiant beauty, her cheeks full and rosy, her brown eyes shining. Paulo’s attention was on Viana, but at moments his eyes moved to steal a glance at his bride.
“Paulo Benevides Cavalcanti, wilt thou take Luciana Teixeira Costa Santos here present for thy lawful wife, according to the rite of our Holy Mother the Church?”
“I will.” A firm, loud response.
When the question was put to Luciana, she also answered in a steady voice.
When Paulo and Luciana emerged from the chapel, there was a tumultuous ovation from the crowd outside. Again the muskets roared, and rockets streamed into the sky, and the chapel bell was rung over and over — by the slave Onias, who had been released from his iron restraint six months ago and, at Padre Eugênio’s suggestion, given light duties on the grounds of the Casa Grande.
As the chapel emptied, Paulo’s mother, Catarina Benevides, lingered before the small armless statue of Santo Tomás, which was venerated by the Cavalcantis; she said a prayer for the newlyweds.
In January 1758, five months after Paulo’s wedding, Graciliano Cavalcanti disgraced himself in the eyes of Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues.
It all began on January 23 with the arrival at Santo Tomás of the vaqueiro Estevão Ribeiro Adorno. Ribeiro Adorno was driving three hundred cattle to Recife, and leaving the herd ten miles north of the engenho, he had come to pay his respects to his patrão. At the Casa Grande, Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues, Paulo, and Graciliano greeted him and another cattle drover on the veranda. A third rider stayed some distance away, holding the reins of the vaqueiro’s horses.
While his father and Paulo spoke with the cattlemen, Graciliano’s attention was on the rider who had not dismounted: Januária Ribeiro Adorno. She met Graciliano’s curious glances with an impudent look. Januária was seventeen now, and she had lost some weight, her cheekbones more pronounced and accentuating her Tapuya heritage, as did the silky black hair beneath the leather hat pushed far back on her head.
When Ribeiro Adorno saw Graciliano looking at the girl, he interrupted his conversation with the others. “My daughter, Januária, Senhor Graciliano.” He addressed his next words to the senhor de engenho: “I can drive three hundred cows in a straight and orderly line, senhor, but this girl? If I crack a whip, the girl laughs. If I speak kindly, she grows deaf.” He shook his head despairingly. “Two other daughters obey me, but not this one. I forbade her to come with us. She asked, but I said no. Three days away from the fazenda, we found her following us. What was I to do? I had no one to lead this stray back to camp.”
“Why did you run after them, girl?” Graciliano called.
Januária did not reply.
“Answer Senhor Graciliano!” Ribeiro Adorno shouted.
Januária fidgeted with the reins. Still she said nothing.
“I’ll tell you why, senhores,” Ribeiro Adorno said. “This wild, disobedient thing wanted to see the blue water,” she said.
Graciliano burst out laughing. Januária began to laugh, too, and they did not stop when they saw the others staring at them, Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues with some irritation, and Ribeiro Adorno with no small anxiety at his daughter’s impudence.
But the senhor de engenho turned his attention from the girl and asked about the fazenda and the herd. Ribeiro Adorno answered the many questions to the best of his ability, but this took a long time, and when he was dismissed, it was too late to go back to the other cattlemen. Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues gave instructions for them to be accommodated in the house of a Portuguese mill worker who was away at Recife.
After a meal, Ribeiro Adorno and the cattleman left Januária dozing in a hammock and went to talk and drink with a group of mill workers.
An hour later, Graciliano went to Januária for sex, a favor she willingly gave the senhor de engenho’s son. She had had intercourse with many men since her first experience at the age of nine with her brother, Jacinto.
Graciliano went to her twice more this night, and she pleased him. “I’ll take you to the sea, Januária Ribeiro Adorno!” he promised, when their lovemaking was over.
Though showing no great concern, he asked what her father’s reaction was likely to be. Januária snorted: There had been an old vaqueiro, Fructuoso, whose house she had kept for a year.
“When Fructuoso asked for me,” she told Graciliano, “Ribeiro Adorno didn’t refuse. Fructuoso gave him a musket and powder and a pretty ring, and Ribeiro Adorno took me to the old man’s hut. Why would he complain if I went with Senhor Graciliano to look at the sea?”
At first light the next morning, Januária slipped out of her hammock and tiptoed past Ribeiro Adorno, who lay with his mouth wide open and his snores reverberating in the room to which he had been carried back by the mill workers after cachaça had numbed his senses. Januária did not expect to find Graciliano Cavalcanti waiting for her at the stockade where the horses were kept, as he had promised before leaving her last night, but there he was, in the slight chill this dawn, rubbing his hands together and smiling as she walked toward him.
They led their horses to the bottom of the hill, beyond the mill and the senzala, and onto the path through the valley. Januária giggled as Graciliano helped her into the saddle, for she was unaccustomed to such gentlemanly behavior. She flashed him a smile as she pulled the strap of her hat tight below her chin.
“To the sea, Januária! To the sea!” he shouted, and dug in his spurs.
They halted twice to rest the horses, and the second time, toward midday, Graciliano again made love to her. Graciliano knew that Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues was going to show unholy anger at this expedition with the vaqueiro’s daughter, but he had not known his father to be unforgiving. Though the senhor had discouraged his sons from coupling with disbelievers, half-breeds, and blacks, he realized the futility of expressly forbidding such matings. But he had this to say: “Visit your harlots, but do so in privacy, like a gentleman.”
Ribeiro Adorno was not likely to set out after the patrão’s son with a long knife to draw blood for a daughter he himself had bartered away. Graciliano rode on to Olinda, with little on his mind but his pleasure with wild Januária, who came from the caatinga and wanted to behold the sea.
They began to catch glimpses of the ocean, and the girl reacted with excitement, hurrying her horse along the road. Late afternoon they crossed the Beberibe River, and Graciliano led her up a narrow path along a thickly wooded slope to the top of one of Olinda’s hills.
Januária rose in her stirrups, her eyes widening. She leaned forward and moved her head slowly from left to right. She glanced quickly at Graciliano, who was smiling at her, and then hastily returned her gaze to the Atlantic, which lay spread out before her.
“Santa Maria!” she cried. “The sea! Blue water! White water!” She looked at Graciliano with an expression of purest delight. “
Oh, senhor Graciliano, it’s beautiful! The sea!”
Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues grew the nail on the pinkie finger of his left hand three-quarters of an inch long, pale pink and manicured, a distinction favored by the aristocrats of Pernambuco to indicate a hand kept free from manual toil. When he was angry, Senhor Cavalcanti probed his white beard with downward strokes of the long nail, accompanying this gesture with irritable clucking sounds. Both these indications of his wrath were seen with alarming frequency after he learned that his son and the vaqueiro’s daughter were missing from the engenho.
Their absence was discovered early that morning, and Bartolomeu Rodrigues immediately summoned Ribeiro Adorno. “My son has run off with the girl,” the senhor admitted bluntly. “The slaves saw them go at dawn.”
“Senhor Cavalcanti, so help me God, I know nothing of this. All night I was with the mill workers.”
The vaqueiro, a daring knight in the caatinga, was out of his depth here. At Fazenda da Jurema, he could call for his sons and others to fetch their sharpest knives, for there was a throat begging to be slit. True, there was no rose of virginity to mourn, but the vaqueiro’s own honor was impugned.
But, in the presence of his patrão, here on the veranda of the Casa Grande, Ribeiro Adorno was confused. He watched the senhor’s long fingernail roaming through his beard and noted the grave and pensive features. Senhor Bartolomeu Rodrigues’s expression clearly suggested that his was the greater dishonor.
“I’m sorry, senhor,” Ribeiro Adorno said, holding his hat in his hand. “I should have sent the girl back.”
Bartolomeu Rodrigues asked Ribeiro Adorno to stay at the engenho to receive his daughter when she was returned to him. The cattleman who had accompanied him to Santo Tomás was sent back to the herd, with orders to take the animals to Recife.
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