The Seamstress (11 page)

The way to tell a fine piece of embroidery was to look at the back. Aunt Sofia had taught her this. Luzia always turned over any embroidered nightgown or wedding dress or handkerchief and inspected the stitching. By looking at the back stitching, she could see how many times the thread was knotted and how small the knots were. If a seamstress was sloppy, they were large and few. If she was lazy, there were diagonal marks running across the back of the design because she had not bothered to cut and knot and then rethread her needle. The stitching told her everything. But people were not as easy to decipher.

The night was quiet. There were no more gunshots, no more hoots or hollers. Mosquitoes buzzed in Luzia’s ears, fed on her feet. She rubbed one foot with the other. She did not know how long she lay there, falling in and out of sleep, before she heard music in the distance—long, sad notes squeezed from an accordion. She shifted and almost whispered, “Do you hear that?” but realized that Emília was not there. She was awake as well, Luzia was sure of it, and she wanted to call out to her, wanted to tiptoe into their room and crawl into their bed, pressing her face to her sister’s back, as she had since they were children, settling into Emília’s warmth.

She slept fitfully in the hammock, slapping away mosquitoes and shivering in the early morning cold. When she finally nodded off, she slept well past her prayer time. She awoke to loud knocking. For an instant, she believed it was the saints in their closet, angry because she had forgotten them. Luzia nearly fell from the hammock.

“Mary Mother of God!” Dona Chaves cried from the far room.

The knock came once more, louder this time. “Come out!” a man yelled.

Aunt Sofia entered the front room. She wore a shawl over her nightgown. Dona Chaves clutched her arm.

“They’ve discovered my chickens!” their neighbor hissed.

Aunt Sofia shooed Luzia away from the front door, then unbolted it. Emília and Dona Chaves crowded at the window, competing to catch a glimpse of who stood outside. Luzia peeked over their heads. It was the boy from the ridge. His kinky hair had been washed and slicked back. His jacket was threadbare but clean. Four leather knife sheaths dangled from his belt, two on each side, within close reach of his hands. Each sheath held a different-size knife: one long and thin, another the length of a hand, one very thick, and one slightly curved. He was accompanied by an older cangaceiro Luzia did not recognize. His ears were so large and round that they bent beneath the leather rim of his hat. His lips were pinched, like the drawstrings of Luzia’s sewing purse. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder.

“You work for the colonel?” He addressed Aunt Sofia.

Their aunt hesitated. Her lips moved and Luzia knew she murmured a prayer under her breath. The boy cangaceiro stepped closer to the house. He looked into the window and spotted them. Dona Chaves gasped. Emília quickly closed the shutter.

“Yes,” Aunt Sofia replied. “I do. I sew for him.”

The boy whispered to the big-eared man, then motioned to the house.

“You’re the only one,” the man asked, “who sews?”

“No.” Aunt Sofia hesitated, glancing toward the window. “My nieces help me. But they’re just girls. They have no talent.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the cangaceiro said. “Get dressed and get outside—you and whoever helps you.”

“For what?” Aunt Sofia said.

“To work,” the big-eared cangaceiro replied. “The captain wants a seamstress.”

4

They were a strange procession: a cangaceiro boy carting Aunt Sofia’s ancient sewing machine on his shoulder; three women holding hands, heads bowed, lips moving in prayer; and the big-eared man walking behind them all, his hand on his gun, his eyes darting in all directions. The town’s streets were empty, but Luzia saw faces peeking from behind window shutters and between the cracks of doors.

At the square Luzia heard buzzing, as if a swarm of bees was circling. Slumped against the flamboyant trees’ crooked trunks were two uniformed soldiers and the colonel’s capangas, stripped of their black boots and leather hats. Without their boots, their feet looked soft and white, like infants’. They were tied back-to-back against the trees and their heads lolled sideways, as if whispering to each other. Flies filled their open mouths, their eyes, their bellies. The insects moved in a great, iridescent mass, making the bodies seem to twitch with life. Beneath the men, sliding down their pale feet, were dark puddles.

“Look away,” Aunt Sofia ordered. Emília obeyed, shielding her eyes. Luzia did not.

She had seen blood before—she had killed turkeys and chickens. All her life she had witnessed the Saturday-morning slaughter near the market in town. The cattle strung up onto two wooden posts, their hindquarters facing the air, their necks bent beneath the weight of their own bodies. The butcher’s sons skinned them from tail to head, slicing the hide away with their knives, and stray dogs sniffed and licked the blood, which ran from the cattle’s open mouths and mixed with the dirt. She had also once seen the rigid body of a criminal in the town square, his face and chest white from the quicklime that the colonel had ordered poured on the corpse in order to preserve it. But Luzia had never seen a man’s blood flowing from him. For an instant, she had the urge to touch the soldiers’ blood, to see if it was still warm. Then a terrible queasiness overtook her. Luzia covered her mouth and held Emília’s hand.

Colonel Pereira looked weary. He stood at the gate, relieved to see them. His capangas had been replaced by two cangaceiros who propped their sandaled feel against the colonel’s white wall, smearing it with dirt. The men were freshly washed, their foul smell muted, their wet hair soaking the backs of their tunics and staining the leather canteen straps that crisscrossed their chests. The cangaceiros stared at Emília, who crossed her arms over her bosom. Luzia moved closer to her sister. One of the men placed his brown fingers in his mouth. He let out a whistle so shrill and loud it made Luzia jump. Two more cangaceiros appeared at the gate. The men took possession of the sewing machine and each of their sewing bags before walking toward the house.

“They’ve promised to be respectful, Sofia,” the colonel whispered. “They want new clothing. Nothing more.”

Aunt Sofia nodded. She did not take her eyes from the colonel’s. “My nieces aren’t women, Colonel,” she said. “They’re still moças. I won’t have them leave here any different.”

“I don’t control these men, Sofia,” the colonel said, shaking his head. “But I have their word.”

“Do you trust a cangaceiro’s word?” Aunt Sofia asked, her voice stern. “I don’t.”

The colonel straightened. He took Aunt Sofia’s hand. “Then trust mine. Whatever happens inside these gates, outside them your girls will still have their honor.”

Luzia placed her hand on Emília’s back, steadying her. Her sister breathed quickly, her face turning sallow and dull, like a dead banana leaf. Luzia guessed Emília’s fears because they were her own: a moça became a woman on the first night with her husband, never before. Or, in Luzia’s case, if marriage was not an option, she had to live and die a moça, with her honor always intact. Girls who gave themselves without marriage were considered lost. Ruined, like a stained dress or a burnt cake. Luzia held Emília’s wet palm, unsure if the sweat was her sister’s or her own. If the cangaceiros didn’t keep their word, the colonel would protect only their reputations. Luzia suddenly hated the colonel. Hated his trimmed mustache and his slicked gray hair. Hated his calm.

“Our honor’s not below our stomachs,” Luzia said, her voice shaking.

Emília coughed. The colonel reddened, then stared at Aunt Sofia as if waiting for her to reproach Luzia. When their aunt stayed silent, the colonel turned and led them from the gate.

The colonel’s yard was filled with men, camped wherever there was shade. Three of them swung back and forth on the porch hammock, its cloth spread taut from their weight. Six men sprawled in the grass beneath the colonel’s avocado tree and smoked thickly rolled cigarettes, giddy from the tobacco. Two men buffed their alpercata sandals on the porch steps. Chicken bones were scattered around them, picked clean and shining with grease and saliva. They looked to Luzia like a swarm of strange white insects—albino cicadas ready to take flight.

Aunt Sofia gasped. Two young cangaceiros, soapy and naked, ran from the service area behind the house, splashing each other with water from metal pails. Their bodies were the color of coffee and milk, but their hands and faces were as dark as cured leather. It looked as if they wore masks and gloves.

“Dear Lord!” Aunt Sofia cried. She tried to cover Luzia’s eyes but could not reach. She cupped her big-knuckled hands over Emília’s instead.

“I apologize,” the colonel said. “They refuse to bathe in the house. They insist on bathing near the laundry tank. They’ve ordered my maids to wash their filthy underclothes in the kitchen sink, in the bathing basin.”

“Pigs,” Aunt Sofia hissed.

“I don’t know what I’ll tell my wife when she returns,” the colonel said. He rubbed his eyes. “Thank goodness Felipe isn’t here.”

The colonel’s only son, Felipe, studied law at the Federal University in Recife. The colonel had allowed him to move to the capital on the condition that he would come back eventually and run the ranch. Behind the colonel’s back, most people doubted Felipe would ever return. He was a freckled, handsome young man ten years older than Luzia. He slicked his hair and carried a cane instead of a peixeira knife. Unlike the sons of other colonels, Felipe had never disgraced a local girl. His father did not have to pay families a monthly allowance in order to bring up bastard children. Luzia had overheard the colonel declare wistfully that, in his youth, his own father had had to give away two goats each year as compensation for his son’s dalliances. But Felipe was no pai-de-chiqueiro, the colonel sighed, as if his son had forsaken his birthright. People in town also took offense at Felipe’s disinterest in their daughters. They secretly called the colonel’s boy “Pig Eyes” because of his pale lashes and hazel irises. Felipe was an avid horseman, and on the rare occasions when he visited Taquaritinga he spent his days riding his prize mare, or lolling in the porch hammock for hours, watching the street but never setting foot in it. Long before he’d left for law school, Emília had tried to attract Felipe’s attention. Each time they’d delivered their sewing to the colonel’s house Emília had attempted to engage him in conversation, but he rolled his eyes and looked away. Luzia thought him a terrible snot. She was disappointed Pig Eyes wasn’t present for the cangaceiros’ visit.

From the colonel’s porch there came another whistle, higher and more melodic.

“He’s calling us,” the colonel said, guiding them up the steps.

The scarred man sat before a small mahogany table, his face partially covered in shaving foam. His long hair was dark and wet, tied behind his neck with a bit of twine. The tall mulatto, who Luzia recognized from the ridge, now held a mirror before the scarred man’s face. A porcelain basin and water jug sat on the table alongside a tattered leather pouch. Arranged in a line on the pouch were a gold razor, gold clippers, and small gold scissors. The man swished his golden straight razor in the water basin and scraped the blade against his cheek. Luzia could see the path of his scar better now, with his hair tied back. It ran from his mouth all the way behind his ear, where it turned paler, thinner.

The colonel cleared his throat. “Here are the seamstresses. This is Dona Sofia and these are her nieces, Emília and Victrola.”

The man continued to shave. He wore a dirty cotton tunic untucked over his pants
.
His feet were bare and thickly calloused. His toes budded from them like the growths of old potatoes stored too long in the pantry. He stared into his shaving mirror, looking not at his reflection but at the guests behind him. He scanned Luzia quickly. She felt relief, but beneath it, prickling like a splinter, was disappointment. She couldn’t tell if he’d actually forgotten her or was simply pretending, and she wasn’t sure which option bothered her most. He tapped his razor against the porcelain basin, as if calling his visitors to attention.

“My men need some new undershirts,” he said. “New jackets and pants.”

He went on to explain that there were bolts of fabric in the house and plenty of thread, but Luzia barely listened. He shaved as he spoke, and she watched him move the blade gingerly around his thick scar, as if it still pained him.
My men,
he’d said, and as his face emerged from underneath the shaving foam, Luzia understood that he was the leader. He was the Hawk.

“We’ll need everyone’s clothes,” Aunt Sofia announced. “To trace.”

“All right,” the Hawk said. “Then my men will be naked this afternoon.”

“Dear Lord!” Aunt Sofia said, holding tightly to her rosary. “We don’t need the clothes. We’ll measure everyone.”

“Of course,” the Hawk chuckled, extending his chin and shaving the underside of his brown neck. “That’s why I sent for you.”

5

Without their half-moon hats, their cartridge belts, their rifles and silver-handled knives, they were long-haired boys. Their clothing was shabby. Their feet were bare. Their hair fell to their shoulders or curled in kinky masses at their ears. The Hawk walked up and down the line like a father examining his sons, telling them to stand up straight, slapping them on the shoulders, ruffling their freshly washed hair. They took turns—some stood in the measuring line, while others put on their hats and belts and stood guard at the gate.

If pants were requested, Aunt Sofia insisted on performing the measurements herself. Luzia was only permitted to measure above the waist. Emília followed them with a writing tablet and a thick pencil, nervously jotting down the men’s measurements alongside their names. They were not proper names but childish and odd designations. Some were named for trees and birds, others for places. Some had names that fit their looks: Jacaré had a mouth full of large white teeth; Caju’s nose was as hooked and brown as a massive cashew nut; and Branco was the lightest skinned of the bunch, with a sunburned face and dozens of freckles. Some names were their opposites: the big-eared cangaceiro called himself Little Ear; a stocky young man with drooping eyes and slurred speech introduced himself as Inteligente. Then there were names that made no sense, except to the cangaceiros themselves. There was Canjica, a sharp-eyed man with a limp and graying hair who seemed to be the oldest of the bunch. The kinky-haired boy called himself Ponta Fina. He was the youngest of the group. His teeth reminded Luzia of sugar cubes—very white and square, but with brown, bumpy edges, as if they were slowly dissolving in his mouth. There was a young man who called himself Chico Coffin, and another with a milky eye the color of curdled cream who called himself Half-Moon. There was Safety Pin, Jurema, and Sabiá. The tall mulatto was Baiano. The man with skin as dark and shining as a beetle husk was named Sweet Talker. And the Hawk was never called Hawk, but Captain.