The Seamstress (16 page)

Emília coughed. She cupped her hands to her face.

“Please, Miss dos Santos, don’t blame yourself. It’s perfectly understandable that you formed an attachment to me.”

Emília hiccupped into her hands. She wished she could be composed, like her sister. She wished she could gulp her tears down, somewhere deep inside herself, as Luzia did.

“You’d better go,” Célio said. He cupped her elbow in his clammy hand and led her to the classroom’s glass-paneled doors. “Miss dos Santos, please accept my deepest apologies,” he said, handing her the green valise. “You are a very attractive young woman and you have wonderful penmanship. But it was irresponsible of me to begin a flirtation with you. I overestimated your sophistication. I am truly sorry for whatever hurt I have caused you.”

Before she could speak, he’d herded her out of the door and into the sunlit road. Vendors carting wheelbarrows filled with cilantro and other winter vegetables scooted past her. The colonel’s donkeys stood across the road, unattended, their bridles hitched to a spindly tree, her chaperone gone to fetch some forgotten bit of merchandise. The green valise looked small and pathetic at her feet. Emília heard the door’s lock click behind her.

6

The heels of Dona Conceição’s hand-me-down shoes wobbled in the dirt. Their thin leather straps rubbed the bridges of Emília’s feet raw. At the first bend in the steep trail to Taquaritinga, she tugged the shoes off. She held them in one hand and her green valise in the other. Emília wanted to be alone; she couldn’t imagine riding back to Taquaritinga with the colonel’s old chaperone, on the backs of those godforsaken donkeys. Halfway up the mountain, she regretted her decision. It had begun to rain. The rain was light and scattered at first, and Emília walked in a crooked pattern, trying to dodge the drops. A cover of gray clouds settled along the steep serra to Taquaritinga, until Emília could no longer see the town of Vertentes below. Soon, the rain became fine and more consistent.

Her mourning dress grew heavy. Its wet fabric slapped against Emília’s legs. The rain felt soothing on her face, however. Back in Vertentes, Emília had rubbed away her tears so ferociously that the skin around her eyes felt plump and tender. She couldn’t cry anymore, and this irritated her. Why did she have to blubber in front of Professor Célio and finally grow composed when she was alone? A green raindrop fell on her foot. Emília stopped. She lifted her valise. The case’s canvas sides were soft, buckling inward from the rain. The fabric was streaked and uneven; the green dye bled onto the ground below.

“I’m sick of you!” Emília sputtered, shaking the bag.

She had the urge to throw the valise over the side of the serra. She walked fast. Her feet slapped the wet ground. She cursed Célio. Wished his silver comb would rust. Wished all of his precious hair would fall out. She cursed Santo Antônio and resolved to break apart her altar, to throw the white cloth rose into the outhouse. She would not ask the saints for any further help. She would sew until her fingers hurt. Until her legs ached. She would save her money. She would leave on her own.

A caramel-colored mare blocked Emília’s path. It chewed on the tall winter grasses that sprouted along the edges of the trail. A man sat upon the horse. He kicked its sides.

“Go on! Go on!” he yelled.

He wore a straw fedora. His suit jacket was bunched before him, stuffed between his body and the saddle horn. His blue dress shirt clung to his skin, and beneath its wet folds Emília saw his frame—rotund and ample, like a jackfruit. He wore linen suit pants. One cuff had stuck to the stirrup strap, bunching at the calf. Unlike his torso, his leg was tapered and thin. A band circled his brown calf and his sock was attached to it, held in place by a silver clip. The sock clip was round and etched, like a medallion. Emília thought it was a shame to hide such a lovely thing beneath pants.

The man swatted the mare’s hindquarters awkwardly with his crop. The horse swished his tail. The man tried to hit the horse harder but stopped, startled to see Emília. He was not handsome, but his teeth were exceptionally small and white and his smile so wide that she could see both lines of his gums.

“I can’t quite get this besta to move,” he said.

It had always irritated Emília when people—men especially—called their mares idiots. Now it made her livid.

“She’s no besta,” Emília said. “It looks like she’s smarter than you.”

The man flicked the brim of his straw fedora. Water dribbled onto his shoulders. “That’s true,” he said, his eyes widening, as if seeing Emília for the first time. “You’re right.”

Emília had prepared herself for an insult in response to her own. Instead, she felt flattered by his belief in her. Emília put down her valise. “Are you going up the mountain or down?”

“Up,” the man said. He released the reins and stared at his horse. “I hate animals.”

He wiggled his feet in the stirrups. The soles of his ankle-high boots were smooth, unscratched. The leather had no creases. Emília put down her shoes. She walked up to the mare and held the bottom half of the reins. Emília clucked and tugged it away from the roadside weeds. The animal puffed air from its nostrils. Emília kept hold of the reins while she knelt, picking up her valise and shoes with her free hand.

“Wait,” the man said. “This won’t do. I can’t have a lady leading my horse.”

He lifted a wet leg up and off the horse’s back. The mare shifted forward. The man’s other foot stuck in the stirrup and he hopped to get it out. When both of his feet were firmly on the ground, he grabbed his crumpled suit jacket and put it on.

“Why don’t I lead and you ride,” he said.

Emília shook her head. She felt tired and cold. “It knows it doesn’t have to obey you. It won’t let you lead.”

The man’s brow creased. He pressed his fingers to his small, trimmed mustache and shook his head, as if pondering greater questions.

“Well,” he finally sighed, “then the three of us will walk.”

He insisted on carrying Emília’s things while she led the horse. Emília was embarrassed handing him the shabby shoes and the buckling valise. She touched her hair and inspected her mourning dress; she looked a fright. But so did he. They walked in silence. As they made their way up the trail, the man panted. He stopped many times, pretending to admire the cloudy vista when Emília knew he was, in fact, catching his breath.

“I’m not used to trekking,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so remote. They informed me in Vertentes that the only way to make it up the mountain was by horse or by foot. Are you visiting this town—Taquaritinga?”

“No,” she said. The pain of her encounter with Célio came back and made her voice break. “I live here, but I wish I didn’t.”

A large toad, camouflaged in the dirt road, suddenly hopped toward them. The man staggered back, losing his hat. Emília giggled. The man’s face reddened, but he quickly laughed and picked up his fedora.

“We don’t have frogs that size in Recife,” he said, wiping mud from his hat’s brim.

“You’re from Recife?” Emília asked. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I’m making a visit. A law school friend of mine lives here.”

Emília stared at him. He looked too old to be a student. He looked older than Professor Célio, in his thirties or perhaps even his forties. “Is your friend the colonel’s son?” she asked. “Felipe?”

“Yes,” he replied. “How did you guess?”

“He’s the only person who attends university.”

The man nodded. “It’s our winter holiday at the law school. I plan on spending the rest of July here. My father believes the country environment will do me good.” He rolled his eyes and kicked at a stone with his new boots. It was an odd gesture, one that reminded Emília more of a sullen boy than a grown man.

“You look more mature than Felipe,” Emília ventured.

“I became interested in the law late in life,” the man said curtly. “I tried my hand at medicine and business, but both are better suited to my father.” He stopped himself, as if he had revealed too much. He inspected Emília. His eyes lingered on her hair, then trailed down to her bare feet. “The girls in Recife are wearing their hair that way. I mistook you for a city girl at first.”

Emília realized the significance of his last words—
at first
. Meaning, he had made the mistake of believing she was a city girl when really, she was nothing but a matuta. Behind her, the horse flicked its head and tugged the reins. Emília tugged back.

“I’m moving to the city,” she said. “Perhaps I will see you there.” She held out a hand. “Emília dos Santos.”

The man smiled widely, exposing his small teeth and dark gums. He put down her valise and took off his straw fedora with a flourish.

“Where are my manners?” he said, gripping her hand tightly. “Degas van der Ley Feijó Coelho. Please, call me Degas, like the painter.”

Emília nodded, though she didn’t know what painter he referred to. His first name was odd, but she was startled by his long string of last names. They sounded important, as if the three families he’d listed represented a long, noble line he could trace back to the beginning of time. They made her name seem meager, simplistic.

“Look!” Degas gasped and pointed behind her. Emília turned. The clouds around the mountain had parted. The scrubland was green. White squares of houses dotted the landscape and the yellow church steeple of Vertentes looked small and unimposing in the midst of so much land.

“What a marvelous vista!” Degas sighed.

He walked to the rocky edge and held his hat to his heart. Wind ruffled his white suit, making the damp lapels flap against his chest. The thin gold chain of his pocket watch dangled from his jacket and swayed against his stomach like a charmed snake. Emília stared at his profile—his café-au-lait-colored skin; his prominent nose that arched downward, the flesh at its tip rounded like a teardrop. He looked powerful and Arabic, like one of the sheiks in her romances. The mare nudged Emília’s arm with its soft snout again and again, as if trying to shake her from such daydreams.

7

When she returned to Taquaritinga, Emília welcomed the colonel’s charity. She sewed more dresses and table linens and kitchen towels for Dona Conceição than she ever had before. At the end of each week, she hid her payment—a wad of crumpled mil-réis notes—under her bed, next to her forgotten
Fon Fon
s. She grated her own cornmeal and purchased the lowest grade of sun-dried beef, soaking the strips for a full day in order to make them edible. She used the hardest, blackest soap to wash her clothes and her body. She could do without small luxuries if her sacrifice helped her to buy a train ticket. It was only a matter of patience.

Her work kept her from feeling the emptiness of the house. It kept her from thinking of Luzia. And it distracted Emília from the gossip aimed at her. Only “women of the life” lived alone. Or hermits. So, Emília was either indecent or unwell, or both. Her neighbor, Dona Chaves, made impromptu visits to spy on her condition. Word of Emília’s poor housekeeping—dust caked the windowsill and scraps of fabric littered the house’s floors—soon spread. Padre Otto counseled her to move in with Dona Chaves, or take a position as a maid with Dona Conceição. Emília paid him no heed. It was as if they were speaking of another girl, another Emília, and she was a passive observer of a life that had nothing to do with her own. Her life had become the monotonous pumping of the Singer’s pedal, the clicking of its needle, the feel of cloth beneath her calloused fingertips. Soon, she could identify fabrics by touch: the ridged
crepe da china
, the crosshatched linen, the rough
brim
, the filmy
algodãozinho.
The only things that broke the monotony of her life were the growing stack of mil-réis beneath her bed and the presence of Degas Coelho.

They had not spoken since that day on the ridge. When they’d reached the colonel’s gate, Degas spotted Felipe—pale eyed and freckled—resting in the porch hammock, waiting. Degas hastily thanked Emília and rushed inside the gates, forgetting his mare. Emília tied its reins to a tree and went home. The next morning, she saw three mules shuffle past her window, driven in the direction of the colonel’s house. There were three leather suitcases strapped to their backs, along with two wooden rackets and a round hatbox. Each day afterward, when Emília sewed on Dona Conceição’s pedal-operated Singer, she heard Degas Coelho’s voice. It carried across the colonel’s checkered tile floor and into the sewing room. Emília slowed her pedaling to better hear him. He complimented the cook and instructed the maids on how to starch his shirts. He huffed and groaned while playing badminton with Felipe in the side yard. He thanked the houseboy each time the child ran to retrieve their overshot birdie. During meals, Degas gossiped with Dona Conceição about Recife society. He peppered his Portuguese with foreign phrases. The words were garbled and strange.

“What the devil did he say?” the colonel often shouted, asking Felipe instead of Degas, as if their guest was not present.

The colonel was the only one Degas could not charm. While Dona Conceição tried on her new dresses behind the sewing room’s screen, the colonel paced the small room and whispered complaints to his wife. Emília kept quiet at her machine. Their guest could not ride a horse and was not interested in visiting the colonel’s ranch below the mountain. He did not care for cattle or goats. Worst of all, he kept Recife hours. He and Felipe played chess or read poetry late into the night, only waking in time for lunch. Each morning, the colonel insisted that Emília leave the sewing room door wide open. Adding to the Singer’s clatter, the colonel spoke loudly, dragged chairs and slammed doors until his son and his guest arose, bleary-eyed and grumpy, at a decent hour.

“You are a man, not a bat, Felipe,” the colonel often chastised his son.

This continued well past July. The law professors at the Federal University had called a strike and Degas stayed long after his winter recess had ended. For the first months of his stay, Degas did not notice Emília’s presence. The sewing room, near the laundry area and the water tank, was in a part of the house where Degas rarely ventured. But the sewing room’s window looked out onto the colonel’s side porch, where, one afternoon, Degas paced back and forth. Rings of sweat darkened the underarms of his shirt. It was the end of September and the sun was stiflingly hot, a sign that the summer drought would start early. Degas held a telegram in his hands. He read it, then pouted and paced again. Emília had never seen a person receive so many telegrams. Every other week a messenger delivered an envelope with a message dispatched from Recife. Emília stopped pedaling. She stood to catch a glimpse of the telegram’s thin, yellow paper. One day, she mused, she would receive telegrams.