The Seamstress (15 page)

Before the last sewing class, Emília put on an embroidered slip and a new pair of knickers beneath her mourning dress. She’d rubbed handfuls of jasmine water on her neck, behind her ears, along the insides of her arms, and on the backs of her knees. She had never worn so much perfume and each time the colonel’s mule shuddered and sneezed beneath her, she believed that the animal was chastising her for her extravagance.

Emília stared out across the mountain ridge, unable to look at the mule beside her. Its back was empty except for cargo baskets. Emília’s green valise—so small it fit only a few undergarments, a nightgown, her blue dress, and her sewing bag—was tucked into her mule’s basket. The old chaperone had looked at her strangely when she handed him the valise. “My new sewing bag,” Emília had explained, and he’d believed her. People would comment on the valise, Emília knew, but only to say that she was back to her old, extravagant ways. Better to carry a valise than her uncle’s bones, they’d say.

The night before, Emília had stayed up late, hidden in her windowless bedroom so that people would not see the candlelight and speculate. She’d packed her valise, polished Dona Conceição’s donated shoes, and wrapped her hair between scraps of cloth to make it perfectly wavy. That morning, early, she’d taken her azulões into the backyard and opened their cage door. She’d closed her eyes so as not to see them go. Then she’d composed a note for Luzia, in case her sister came back. It was simple: she was going to São Paulo, but would return one day. Before leaving, Emília pried their Communion portrait off its nail and stuffed it into her valise.

During Aunt Sofia’s burial, Emília had placed Uncle Tirço in the crypt with her aunt. Afterward, alone in her house without even Uncle Tirço to comfort her, Emília thought of Professor Célio. She’d reread his notes, looked through each page of her Singer student manual, knelt at her altar to Santo Antônio and imagined a new life for herself. A quiet life, interrupted only by the rattle of a sewing machine, the shrieks and laughter of children, and the whistle of a kettle upon a gas range. Professor Célio had not visited or written, but gentlemen were considerate, Emília convinced herself. Perhaps he’d heard of her misfortune and did not want to trouble her. Emília imagined her empty sewing machine during class. She imagined Professor Célio feeling her absence as much as she felt his. And if he hadn’t missed her, Emília would make him realize, upon seeing her again, that he secretly had. He just hadn’t known it.

People in Taquaritinga would think the worst of her absence. They would say that Emília had become the kind of woman Aunt Sofia had always warned her about—a woman who led an easy life. Most of Emília’s old schoolmates had gone on to fill decent positions in town. They became maids at the colonel’s house or they married farmers and helped work their husband’s land. But there were other girls—girls who had never gone to school—who wore too much rouge and lip paint and lingered near the drunks at the wooden bar-racas. Sometimes, in the early mornings on her way to sewing class, Emília caught sight of these girls teetering home with no shoes on their feet and their hair a matted mess. Emília would never become like those women. She was running away, yes, but she would marry. She would become a respectable wife, a
dona de casa
. “Dona Emília,” people would call her, and she would nod and extend her hand.

Emília closed her eyes. She combed her fingers through the mule’s rough mane. The ride to Vertentes seemed interminable. Her stomach churned. Luzia’s old warnings lingered in her memory:
Did she truly think that Célio would marry her, a matuta? Did she believe that his intentions were honest?
Emília shook her head, shooing away Luzia’s voice. Emília knew that she valued the sewing instructor more than he valued her. She sensed she might startle him with her requests. But she also knew that Professor Célio was a gentleman. He’d written her letters. He’d praised her. A gentleman didn’t correspond with a girl unless his intentions were serious. Emília had read this in
Fon Fon
and she’d memorized it. She’d willed herself to believe it, despite her own doubts and her sister’s warnings. Luzia was gone and didn’t know what it was like to lose Aunt Sofia. Luzia didn’t know how ashamed Emília felt, receiving charity from the colonel and Dona Conceição. Suddenly they called upon Emília to sew new curtains and sheets and tablecloths. Dona Conceição no longer insisted she economize on cloth. She didn’t stand over Emília’s machine to check on her progress. And when Emília delivered the finished items, Dona Conceição simply cast them aside or stuffed them into a closet without even inspecting the quality of the stitching, as she’d always done in the past. Luzia had no business invading Emília’s mind with baseless warnings. Luzia did not know how lonely Emília’s life had become.

Emília quickly chided herself. She stared at the empty mule beside her. She didn’t know which was worse—resigning herself to Luzia’s death, or continuing to believe she was alive. If her sister lived, she’d probably suffered more than Emília could imagine. Still, Emília couldn’t help wishing for Luzia’s existence. She missed her sister’s strength, her common sense. Emília had so many doubts and questions. To be a real dona, Emília knew what was required of her. Or, at least, she had a notion. The romance serials in
Fon Fon
spoke of passionate embraces. Emília could picture these. She could picture Professor Célio—his hands soft and white, his thin frame hunched beneath his linen vest—embracing her, even kissing her, but she was confused as to what, exactly, would happen next. She and Luzia had speculated many times, before sleep.

“What do you think it’s like?” Emília had whispered once, cupping her hands to her sister’s ear so Aunt Sofia wouldn’t hear. “It must be terribly romantic.”

“It’s just like animals,” Luzia replied. “That’s what Ana Maria said.”

“No!” Emília hissed. She disliked the shopkeeper’s daughter. “Ana Maria is vulgar.”

Emília had seen the guinea hens cluck and scurry each time Dona Chaves’s rooster puffed his feathers and chased after them. She’d seen female pigs and goats go into heat, banging against the walls of their pens with their heads or hooves until they were placed with a male. Once, on their way to school, Emília and Luzia had witnessed two horses “in the sacred act,” as Aunt Sofia called it. Two men pulled a mare by a rope bridle and placed her in a small, fenced area with a stallion. The stallion flitted from side to side, releasing short, heaving puffs from his nostrils. The mare whinnied and ran in circles, kicking up clouds of dust. When she calmed, the stallion sprang forward. His hind legs seemed too thin to support his great weight. His belly was rounded, his front legs curled beneath him, his private parts dark and dangling nearly to the ground. He fell upon the mare’s back. She seemed to buckle beneath him, but sustained his weight. Emília refused to believe that it was the same between men and women. Perhaps the brutes from Taquaritinga were like animals in pens, but cultured men were different.

The mule beside her bayed. The old chaperone slapped its hindquarters with a stick. Emília closed her eyes. She imagined that with Professor Célio, she would feel only softness—a great softness that consumed her until she fell into a peaceful sleep beside him. Yes, Emília assured herself, that was the way it would be.

5

Emília trembled behind the sewing machine. Her foot caught on the pedal. She’d taken off her head scarf before class, stuffing it into her valise and revealing her bobbed hair. But the sewing room’s heat and her own sweat sabotaged her carefully made curls, making them flat and droopy. Machine number 17—Luzia’s place—sat empty before her. Their last lesson was embroidery. Professor Célio was kind and attentive, assuring Emília that she would catch up. The other women in class ran their tablecloths back and forth under the machine’s thick needles until the stitches became bulky, solid designs of flowers and curling vines. Emília could not focus. Her flowers did not look like flowers but like awful red blobs. She was grateful and frightened when the clock above Professor Célio’s desk finally chimed and class was over.

The older matrons crowded around Professor Célio and asked him their final, desperate questions. They tugged at his suit sleeves, vying for his attention.

“Professor, what if my needle breaks?”

“Professor, what if the pedal on my machine sticks?”

“Professor, why do my stitches always come out crooked?”

Emília took her time cleaning her workspace. She folded and refolded her practice cloth. She wound all of her thread tightly onto its wooden spindles. She clicked her valise lid shut. The young mother from machine 12 lingered near Emília’s chair. She stared at Emília’s dark dress and asked, “Where is your sister, dear?”

Emília tugged at the thread in the base of her machine.

“I’m sad to hear the other Miss dos Santos is ill,” Professor Célio interjected, taking his place beside Emília’s machine. “I hope you’ll teach her what you’ve learned today.”

Emília nodded. She felt flushed with love for him. Around her, the women began to list recommendations for Luzia’s fictional illness—copaíba oil for headaches, arruda tea for pain. Emília nodded absently. She watched Professor Célio run the metal comb through his hair. Quickly, gracefully, he dusted the machines and straightened the chairs. When the last of the women had left, Emília hung back.

“Today’s class was very good,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to miss the others.” Sweat dribbled down her side. Emília lowered her voice. “Do you know why I was absent?”

Professor Célio raised his pale hands, motioning for her to stop. “Your chaperone stopped in and informed me,” he said. “It is a matter of great discretion.”

“Yes,” Emília sighed, relieved.
A matter of great discretion,
she repeated to herself. How lovely. She peered out of the classroom window; her chaperone was late. Time was precious. Her hands felt slippery against the horn handle of her valise. She had prepared her speech carefully, her mind cluttered with words for days prior to the class as she fine-tuned each phrase and practiced each pause, rehearsing her plea in the hopes of sounding more dignified than desperate. She cleared her throat.

“When will you meet your chaperone?” Professor Célio asked.

“I’m not meeting him.”

“Oh?” Professor Célio paused, inspecting her valise. “Will you stay here, in Vertentes? Do you have family in these parts?”

“I have no family.”

“Forgive me,” Professor Célio said gravely. He shook his head, then took Emília’s hand in his. His fingers were as delicate and clammy as a child’s. He pressed his lips to her hand. Emília’s throat felt very dry and she gulped down saliva so as not to cough and spoil the moment. Professor Célio raised his eyes, keeping her hand near his mouth.

“Forgive my boldness,” he said. “I will be leaving for São Paulo in a few days. A new Singer representative will take over here. I was hoping to spend time with you. Perhaps—” he reddened, then continued—“perhaps without your chaperone.”

“Célio,” Emília began, the words imprinted in her memory like the blue tick marks of a sewing pattern, showing her what to attach and what to cut away. “As you know, I am in a desperate situation—”

“Of course,” Célio interrupted. “I understand, I just—”

“I know…,” Emília continued, the pattern clear in her mind, “I am rushing our courtship.”

“Courtship?”

“Yes,” she sighed, annoyed by his interruptions. Célio had dropped her hand. Emília reached down and clasped his. It had not been this hard to focus when she was alone at home, uttering this speech while she scoured pots or peered into the dark rafters before bed. “I know I am rushing our courtship. I would never want to burden you. But I know we are compatible—”

“Courtship?”

Emília squeezed his hand harder, exasperated by his repetition of such a tiny point. Flustered, she skipped ahead.

“I’m a fine seamstress. I can help you with any expenses. I am prepared to pay for my own train ticket.” Emília took a breath. This was a fib—she did not have enough for train fare—but she hoped that Célio would insist on paying for her. If he couldn’t, she would ask the colonel. Célio tugged his hand from hers.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re implying, Miss dos Santos.”

“I am asking you to hasten things. To take me with you, to São Paulo.”

“I’m very confused, Miss dos Santos. I will be traveling to São Paulo alone.”

“Oh,” Emília said. She’d worried he might say this, but had put the thought out of her mind. “Does that mean you’d like to extend our courtship?”

“We don’t have a courtship!” Professor Célio sputtered.

“But your letters?
Our
letters—”

“Those were notes. Notes are
not
letters, Miss dos Santos.”

Emília felt dizzy. She focused on a loose string of thread curled on Célio’s gray lapel. She had expected him to call her by her given name, not
Miss dos Santos,
which sounded prim and stodgy, as if she was a spinster. She tried to concentrate once more on her speech, but the words in her mind were jumbled and useless.

“I’m in a desperate situation,” Emília whispered. “I’m a fine seamstress.” Finally, she took a deep breath and faced him; his eyes were wide and panicked. Emília pressed on. “If you give me this chance, I promise you, you will never lack for care or affection. I know how to manage a house. I know how to iron a shirt. I will always be presentable.” She held his hand. “Please.”

Professor Célio slumped into machine number 15’s chair. He pursed his lips and released a long, slow breath.

“Miss dos Santos, I’m sorry. I believed this was an innocent flirtation.” He shook his head. “I should have known better.”

“Known what?” Emília demanded. Her eyes felt warm.

“It isn’t your fault, Miss dos Santos. It is mine. I didn’t take into account where I was.” He wafted the air with his hands. “You seemed very fun loving. Very modern.” He shook his head again. His foot tapped the machine’s iron leg. “I’ve been away from São Paulo too long.”