The Seamstress (25 page)

Luzia sat on a low stool, removed from the fire and the festivities. Vanity had brought her a cob of grilled corn, but she could not eat it. Everything tasted sour. A strong smell of perfume wafted through the smoke. The possibility of dancing with local girls had prompted the cangaceiros to buy a crate of Dirce perfume and pour bottle after bottle over their heads. Several of the cangaceiros guided girls around the fire. They kept a respectful distance from their timid partners. Baiano danced calmly, moving a beat slower than the music. Jacaré kept his head lifted and smiled, showing off his white teeth. Sweet Talker was the best dancer—his feet and hips swiveling loosely, as if they were oiled. Caju moved his partner about stiffly. And Ponta Fina stared at his sandals, worried about stepping on his partner’s feet. Half of the group, with the Hawk’s blessing, had opted not to attend the party. Instead, they’d followed the rouged women they’d seen that morning to their place of business.

Luzia heard high-pitched laughter. Near her, a group of children huddled on the ground and constructed fire balloons. Before the festivities, the Hawk had purchased a ream of colored paper and a kilo of unrefined manioc goma. The children made a paste with the starch and dipped their fingers into the thick white mixture. With it, they attached the paper to a skeleton of sticks. One of them glued a paper mustache to the statue of Dona Fidalga.

Colonel Machado’s son had been untied from the statue and locked in his father’s stables so he would not ruin the festivities. Behind her, Luzia overheard a cluster of local girls affirming how pleasant it was to have a party without the colonel’s permission, without his capangas skulking about and spoiling everyone’s fun. The same group of girls had given the Hawk gifts of bread and manioc pancakes. They had washed their hair and put on their best dresses. They lingered near him, clasping his hand and asking for his blessing. Back in Taquaritinga there had been dozens of girls like those—misled to believe that cangaceiros were brave, romantic souls. Dazzled by the men’s silk bandannas, their collections of gold rings.

Luzia smoothed out her trousers. She fidgeted with her braid. No one spoke to her. A group of women had come up to her shyly, offering buttered manioc pancakes and corn pudding. After they’d given their gifts they backed away, staring at her trousers and whispering to one another. Luzia wished for one of her old dresses: the white cotton one with yellow piping, or the light green one that Emília said complemented her eyes. Across the dance circle, the Hawk moved slowly through the crowd. It was the first time he’d risen from his seat beside the fire. The local girls twittered with excitement. Luzia kicked at the ground. All of that excitement for a foul-smelling, long-haired cangaceiro! He was no priest. He was no colonel. That night, he simply had the power of a colonel. That was what made him alluring to those girls, nothing else. Eventually, Colonel Machado would return. No one at the party seemed to realize that. Colonel Machado would return and he, too, would want revenge. Revenge, after all, was every caatinga man’s right. When he returned, Fidalga’s men and women would be forced to fawn over him just as they had over the Hawk, in order to save their skins.

When Luzia looked up, she saw that the Hawk was headed toward her. When he reached her, he stretched out his hand.

“I don’t dance,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to,” he replied, his hand still extended. “I want you to come with me.”

His smile was different from the strange, overly zealous one he’d had that morning—it was relaxed, his features softened by the firelight. Luzia paused. Her palms felt slick. “I’m fine here.”

“Are you scared?” He laughed.

Her fear was ridiculous; his laughter confirmed it. Luzia looked down at her trousers, her crooked arm, her calloused feet. There were dozens of fine-looking girls around the fire. There were the rouged women down the road. To think that he would show an interest in her was silly. Luzia rose from her seat. She would rather take a risk than endure his mockery.

She did not take his hand. Still, he clasped hers tightly and guided her away from the fire, toward the chapel. He pushed open the chapel’s arched wooden door and motioned for her to enter. Luzia hesitated.

“I want to show you something,” he said. “It won’t take long.”

On the floor, before the rows of pews, were sacks of beans, tablets of rapadura, and a pile of new blankets. They stepped over the cangaceiros’ new supplies and moved toward the back of the chapel, to a basin of blessed water. Beneath the basin sat a sewing machine. It was thin necked and black. Like Aunt Sofia’s old machine, it had a silver hand crank, but it was not rusted or old. It shone. Around the machine sat several spools of thread.

“It’s for you,” he said. “To decorate bornais. Hats, too. There’s a thick needle inside the drawer. It can sew straight through leather.”

Luzia knelt. She turned the handle. It felt cool beneath her fingers. She ran her hands along the machine’s curved needle foot and across its etched silver face. It had come from Colonel Machado’s house, no doubt.

“I can’t carry this,” she said.

“Inteligente will carry it.”

“I can’t let him do that. It’s too heavy.”

“It’s nothing for him. It weighs as much as an accordion. He’ll want to do it. I’ve seen him, and the rest, admiring your sewing.”

He knelt beside her. Luzia kept her eyes on the machine. She spoke softly, as if addressing the Singer.

“Why do you ask for their parents’ names?” she asked.

He sighed and wove his thick fingers together. “There’s so much land here and so few people. I don’t want to hurt someone related to one of our friends. Our allies.”

“If they’re known, they’re spared?”

“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.”

Luzia recalled the sightless capangas stacked on the colonel’s porch. She recalled Aunt Sofia’s nursery rhyme. “Why do people call you the Hawk?”

He reached out and patted the sewing machine tentatively, as if trying to tame a creature.

“My mother sewed,” he said. “She always wanted a machine like this. When I was a boy, we planted sweet melons, and she taught me how to put a tile underneath them so their undersides wouldn’t rot. I like melons. And corn. We planted that, too, my mother and I. She was strong, like an ox. I wanted a plot of land for us. Our own land. I wanted to raise goats. But that wasn’t the life I was born for. Sometimes God makes you put down your enxada and take up a gun. Doesn’t matter if that’s not what you wanted. That’s the path God chose. Sometimes we have to disobey ourselves to obey God. That’s the hardest thing a man can do.”

He took his hand from the Singer and stood. He stared up at the chapel ceiling. Luzia stared, too. There were only wooden beams and tiles.

“There are blessings to this life,” he said, his voice louder than before. “There’s no colonel telling us how to live. There’s no colonel ordering us to raise his cattle and goats, promising us a few in payment, and then branding all the newborns in his name. There’s no colonel to blame us when the crops don’t come up because it didn’t rain. There’s no tax collector saying we can’t sell our pigs or our goats because we haven’t paid some fee that will end up in his pocket. There’re no monkeys coming in from the capital, tearing up our houses and shaming our sisters or our mothers. We’re at God’s mercy. No one else’s.”

Outside the chapel there was a shout, then clapping. The Hawk shook his head, startled from his speech, and walked toward the chapel doors.

“They’re letting the fire balloons go,” he said. “Come see.”

There were three balloons, each large and lantern shaped. One wobbled in the sky. The other two sat in the dirt. A few men stuck their arms into the balloons, lighting their small kerosene tins. Once lit, the men stretched their arms wide and held the balloons high, waiting for a gust of wind. When it came, the entire town craned their necks, watching as the balloons slowly rose, one following the other. Luzia squinted at the sky.

Next to her, the Hawk unbuttoned a leather case attached to his cartridge belt. Inside were his brass binoculars. He offered them to Luzia.

The cangaceiros carried many items that had nothing to do with their daily survival. That night, Luzia finally understood their significance. She’d seen Tomás pin the lock of Lia’s hair inside his jacket. She knew then that beneath each of the men’s jackets, protected from the scrub’s sun and heat, were items that had belonged to their loved ones. In Fidalga, Luzia watched Tomás ransack the capangas’ possessions. And during mass that afternoon, she saw Tomás carefully place the items he’d stolen from the capangas on the floor before him. He spat on each one. Next to Tomás, Ponta Fina spat on the knives he’d taken from his victim. Sweet Talker spat on his riding crop. Chico Coffin spat on his bag of gold teeth. The cangaceiros carried the relics of the dead. The dead who had, in life, wronged the cangaceiros or someone they’d loved.

The binoculars were heavy and cold in her palms. Their handle was discolored.

“Who did these belong to?” Luzia asked.

The Hawk stared at her. The eye on his scarred side, the one that barely blinked, was rheumy and red.

“I can’t recall,” he replied. “But I liked the looks of them.”

Luzia nodded. She pressed the binoculars to her eyes. The stars seemed centimeters away. The paper balloons looked close enough to touch. She followed their bright path through the sky. They did not have the grace or the swiftness of birds. They bobbed awkwardly, dependent on the wind. Despite this they rose higher and higher, and for an instant, Luzia believed that they would disappear into the heavens. Then, one by one, they burst into flames and fell toward land.

Recife

December 1928–March 1929

1

T
he Great Western Railroad of Brazil equipped its first-class cars with electric lamps and rotating ceiling fans. Hidden behind frosted sconces, the electric bulbs emitted the same weak glow as candles or gas flames. They disappointed Emília, but the fan did not. Its blades moved as if touched by an invisible hand. Emília could not take her eyes from them. Degas noticed her fascination and went into a lengthy lesson on electricity. Emília nodded. She tried to listen, but Degas’ words were overshadowed by the hum of the fan above them, the click of domino pieces placed on the car’s game table by the two old gentlemen in the front row, the whistling breaths of slumped travelers, and the sound of the train itself. It had the same clattering rhythm as the pedal-operated Singer, but its pedaler never tired. The train pushed forward, resolute and inexhaustible, through the scrub.

“You must be fatigued,” Degas murmured.

It was Emília’s duty to pat his hand and tell him to go on, to reassure him that his electricity talk was interesting, but she would have her whole life to listen to her husband and only this night on the train.

“Yes,” Emília said. “I think I’ll sleep.”

Degas nodded, then faced forward and closed his eyes.

Earlier, the waiters had served juice and round, flaky empadas filled with shredded chicken and olives. Degas had looked at them dubiously and ordered a coffee, but Emília took empada after empada from the waiter’s tray. It was, after all, her wedding night. She’d had no reception, no sugar-coated cake. There wasn’t time; Degas’ law school classes had already begun. After their ceremony, he and Emília had ridden to Caruaru and caught the night train into Recife. Dona Conceição had counseled against their leaving so quickly. The wedding night was sacred. Spending it on a train instead of in a bedroom would only confirm people’s suspicions that Degas had already sampled his bride. The colonel offered his guest room to the newlyweds but Degas declined. Emília didn’t mind one bit—she didn’t want Dona Conceição and all of her curious maids inspecting their sheets the next morning. Their courtship and marriage had been out of the ordinary; their wedding night would be no different.

Degas had promised her a reception in Recife, where people would appreciate a tiered cake and fine food. It would have been wasted in Taquaritinga, he explained, and Emília halfheartedly agreed. She would have liked to have a grand party, to show those gossips and pé-rapados that she was no longer Emília dos Santos, the ruined seamstress, but Dona Emília Coelho.

Emília pulled the window lever. Cool air whistled through the open sliver. The moon was out. It’s light fell on the scrub, giving the leafless trees a white glow. Emília undid the clasp on her new traveling bag and took out her and Luzia’s Communion portrait. During the wedding ceremony, she’d placed the portrait—disguised under an embroidered towel—in the front pew, and afterward, during their horseback ride down the mountain and their carriage trip to Caruaru, she’d held the portrait close. Degas didn’t ask what was beneath the embroidered towel. He treated it as a lucky trinket, a whim that brought Emília comfort but was none of his concern. His discretion, or disinterest, was a relief.

Outside, beneath the arbor of that leafless scrub forest, was darkness. The tree trunks disappeared into shadow. There was no ground. It was as if a great ream of dark cloth had been rolled out before them, and they floated upon it. With each shudder of the train, Emília felt giddy and fearful. It was the feeling she’d had long ago, when she and Luzia had run toward that mango tree in their church dresses.

“Recife,” Emília whispered. Stripped to its syllables, the city’s name sounded even lovelier.
Hehhh,
as if letting out a long breath.
Ciii,
like the hiss of water and waves. And
fe,
the final, soft syllable that alone meant
faith
.

2

When they stepped out of the train, the sun was bright. It made Emília’s eyes water. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. Her hair curled wildly; the closer to the coast they traveled the frizzier it became until, upon arriving in Recife’s Central Station, it was a wiry muff that sprang from beneath the small-brimmed cloche Degas had purchased for her. Above them, perched on the domed roof, were four brass hawks, their wings open and luminous in the afternoon sun. Emília felt a tug on the skirt of her new traveling suit. She looked down and saw an urchin. One of his eyes was clouded with pus.

“Tia!” the boy cried. “Spare a coin?”

“Scat!” Degas ordered. The beggar child ran.

Degas gripped Emília’s arm and steered her away. He tended to do this: to hold her hand too tightly, to pull her wrist too forcefully. Back in Caruaru, before they’d seated themselves, Degas had tugged off her travel jacket without regard to the clasps, which caught on her blouse and nearly ripped the cuff. Emília believed it was awkwardness, a childlike impatience that she could remedy, given time. She hugged her traveling bag and let Degas lead her to their carriage.

She’d clipped many photographs of Recife—images of manicured gardens; wrought-iron bridges; paved streets with trolley tracks that extended, long and curving, like metal ribbons laid upon the ground. Emília had not considered what might lay in the margins of those photographs, beyond the boundaries of their frames. Gutters were filled with rotting vegetables and shards of green glass. Barefoot women balanced baskets of red cashew fruits on their heads. Trolley cars screeched along their metal rails. There were the shouts of peddlers, the yelps of street dogs, the wild calls of birds. The Capibaribe River extended wide and brown beside them. Emília had never seen so much water. Wooden shanties slumped precariously along its sides. She feared they would collapse at any moment. Humidity from the winter rains still hung in the air. The sun hit piles of horse dung scattered along the streets. Emília wiped her brow. When she closed her eyes, she felt as if she were inside a great, reeking mouth. She quickly opened them.

Months later, when she and her mother-in-law, Dona Dulce, took their first strolls around Derby Square, Emília finally encountered the gardens and smartly dressed women she’d seen in the photographs. Dona Dulce pointed each woman out, whispering her married name, her maiden name, and if she belonged to one of the Old families or the New. Sometimes they crossed paths with these women and were forced to stop and chat. Emília had not mastered the art of conversation. She could not keep track of all the words Dona Dulce had forbidden her to use. She was not allowed to talk about her family background. She was not allowed to make any references to sewing. She could not gesticulate like a country person, could not touch her hair or tug the fingertips of her gloves. Emília found safety in silence. It made her agreeable, charming, imperceptible. Out of politeness, the women spoke to her and inevitably asked her first impressions of Recife. Emília could not tell them she’d felt deceived. She could not describe her panic, her nausea.
Courtesy,
Dona Dulce often told her during their endless etiquette lessons,
demands that you never be disagreeable.
So when the women asked, Emília skipped her arrival altogether and began with the Coelho house.

She’d cried in relief when she saw it. The two-story house was painted white, with curling ceramic accents along its seams and around its windows. Its arched shutters and doorways were butter yellow and perched on top of each roof peak were large ceramic pinha fruits, their scaly rinds glazed and shining in the afternoon sun.

“It looks like a wedding cake!” Emília cried.

Degas laughed. He left her with a maid, who escorted Emília through the house’s wide, tiled hallways. The maid—a girl Emília’s age, perhaps younger—walked quickly. Emília could not peek inside the house’s many doorways. She could not run her hand along the main staircase’s brass banister. The girl led her through the central courtyard. There was a fern-lined fountain where a miniature horse with the tail of a fish spat water from its mouth. Emília wanted to touch its green scales.

On the other side of the courtyard, the maid opened a set of glass-paneled doors. She motioned Emília inside.

“Your hat,” the maid said, holding out her hand. She was square jawed and thin. She wore a starched white cap with a lace band that tied across her forehead, making the girl look elegant and almost regal, like an actress Emília had once seen in
Fon Fon.

“No,” Emília said, holding her cloche to her head. She could not remove it and reveal her frizzing hair.

The maid shrugged, then attempted to take her bag. Emília pulled back.

“I’m fine.”

“Wait then,” the girl said, “Dona Dulce will be here soon.”

After the maid left, Emília inspected the room. Nailed into its upper corners were four plaster cherubs, their cheeks puffed and round, their chubby arms outstretched. In alcoves along the walls, dozens of wooden Madonnas fixed their sad stares upon the room’s wicker-backed settees and mahogany chairs. In the far corner, a portable fan whirred. It was large and silver, with a metal grille in front of its blades. Inside the grille sat a block of ice. Emília stood before the fan. Cool air swept her face. She had heard of ice but had never seen it. It was translucent and shining, like a precious stone.

“I detest that contraption.” A woman’s voice rose over the din of the fan. “But my husband insists on it.”

She was the color of uncooked bread. Her wheat-colored hair, pulled back into a large, tight bun, blended with her pale skin, making her look like one of the porcelain Madonnas along the walls—long faced and flawless. The only difference was her eyes, narrow and amber colored, like a pair of cat’s-eye marbles embedded in her doughy face. They showed none of the Madonna’s mercy. Emília stepped away from the fan.

“It drips on my floor,” the woman said, pointing to a silver bowl beneath the ice. “I’m not partial to electricity,” she continued. “But all of the New families have it, so we must as well.”

She wore a long, dark gown with pearl buttons. Each time she shook her head, the dress’s crepe collar made a scratching noise against her neck. The woman stared, as if waiting for a response.

“Dona Conceição’s house wasn’t electrified,” Emília blurted out.

The woman seemed pleased by this. “You were her seamstress?”

Emília nodded.

“Poor woman. Her son is a wisp of a man. I think he’s tubercular. Dr. Duarte has warned Degas a dozen times about visiting him. I’ve also heard that the colonel is a horror. They say he can’t read or write.” The woman smiled at Emília. “You can read and write, can’t you, dear?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Dona Dulce walked toward Emília, taking short, controlled steps. The heels of her shoes barely clicked against the tiles.

“That is an original Franz Post,” she said, pointing to the painting behind the fan. “Do you know his work?”

The painting’s gilded frame overwhelmed the canvas. There was a town and a church, much like Taquaritinga. Black figures walked along the road, balancing baskets on their heads. The sun was setting and yellow brushstrokes fell upon the church steeple, making it golden, dazzling. In the corner there was darkness, a jungle. Animals—an alligator, a brightly colored bird, an armadillo—stared at the town. Whether they were invading or retreating, Emília could not tell, but she envied those animals, hidden in the dark, detached from life instead of in the very middle of it.

“It’s all right, dear,” Dona Dulce said, saving Emília from answering. “I didn’t expect you to know his work. He was Dutch. Quite famous.”

“I like it very much,” Emília said. Her head itched beneath the woolen cloche.

The young maid returned carrying a tray with a steaming silver pot. There were four lizardlike feet on the pot’s bottom. Its handle had hundreds of silver scales molded into a dragon’s tail. Its spout was the head—eyes open, mouth wide.

“This heat is oppressive,” Dona Dulce announced, then turned to Emília. “Wouldn’t you like to remove your hat?”

“No, thank you,” Emília replied. “My hair, it’s all esculhambado.”

The maid glanced up from pouring coffee. Dona Dulce’s close-lipped smile remained frozen but her eyes widened, her brow twitched. She took Emília’s arm.

“Let me show you our courtyard,” she said.

Sunlight reflected off the fountain’s tiles. Emília’s eyes watered. Dona Dulce drew her close, keeping her arm tight around Emília’s.

“Don’t ever use that word,” she whispered, “it’s low.”

“Low?”

“It’s something country people use,” Dona Dulce said, frowning. “You know which one I am referring to. I will not repeat it. Erase it from your vocabulary. Instead, use the word
disheveled.
And when you compliment someone’s things, such as my painting, you should say, ‘This is lovely.’ No one is interested in your likes or dislikes. That is vulgar.”

Emília’s eyes had finally adjusted to the courtyard sunlight. There were small ferns growing from the cracks between the fountain tiles. She touched them with the toe of her shoe. Flowers grew along the courtyard’s edges but they were not like Aunt Sofia’s dahlias. The Coelhos’ plants were thick, rubbery, impenetrable. Birds-of-paradise grew in clumps, their orange shoots tapering to a sharp point. Red and pink “ice cream” flowers grew in bicolored cones near the glass doorways. Emília could see into the Coelhos’ dining room, their study, their upstairs bedrooms, their dining hall. Each room stared into the other. From the inside, it was not like a wedding cake at all, but like a series of glass jars.

“Chin up!” Dona Dulce ordered.

Startled, Emília obeyed.

“You must grow a thick skin,” Dona Dulce said. “You must be able to tolerate criticism more severe than mine. I told Degas to think clearly. To consider what his decision would mean for you, and for the rest of us.”