The Seamstress (39 page)

“You don’t like surubim?” Dr. Eronildes asked.

“I want a bowl,” Luzia said. She pursed her lips. Her months with the cangaceiros had ruined her manners. She’d forgotten to add “please” or “thank you,” and by the time she’d remembered, it was too late; Dr. Eronildes had already told the maid to exchange Luzia’s place setting.

“I hope you don’t mind my noting,” he said, “but you have amazingly healthy teeth for a woman of the
campo
. How do you keep them from spoiling?”

“It’s juá,” Luzia replied. “I chew juá bark.”

Dr. Eronildes’ eyes widened. He took a miniature pencil and a small, leather-bound notebook from his vest pocket and began to scribble.

“Juá! Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I’ll have to find the plant’s scientific name.” He looked up from his writing. “I’m trying to evaluate the medicinal properties of caatinga flora, you see. My mother insists that there is nothing worthwhile here, but where she sees desert, I see commerce.”

Luzia nodded. The cangaceiros had taught her about juá. She thought of Ponta Fina, Baiano, Inteligente, and Canjica. Had they been hurt? Had they found the meeting place? If so, they would wait for the Hawk, but not forever.

“How long before he can walk again?” Luzia asked.

Eronildes blinked. His eyes were magnified by his lenses, his lashes dark and thick. “Oh!” he sighed. “You mean our patient. He was lucky. The bullet went through muscle but no bone. It hit him in the meatiest part of his calf. Still, it should be several weeks before he’s up and about, no sooner.”

“I’ll have to get word to his men,” Luzia said.

“You’ll have to do that after he recovers,” Eronildes said, straightening his glasses.

“They won’t wait that long,” Luzia replied. “They’ll come looking for him.”

“I can’t allow that,” Eronildes said. “I would rather not have his gang here.”

“You saved him. They won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not frightened,” Eronildes said. He stabbed the miniature pencil back into his notebook and slapped it shut. “For the past three years, I’ve been neighbors with a colonel who’s vowed to castrate me, brand me, send me back to Salvador in a coffin. I’m not afraid of a colonel and I’m certainly not afraid of a few cangaceiros!”

He pursed his lips and his breath escaped loudly through his nose. His skin became flushed and blotchy, as if he’d touched an urtiga bush. He stuffed two large forkfuls of fish into his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Luzia said. “You’ve been very kind. I don’t think you’re afraid. If they came here, the men would behave. They’d be quiet. They just need to know he’s recovering.” Luzia paused and thought of the saints—how they appreciated a gift, a favor or a sacrifice in trade for their kindnesses. Perhaps men were no different. “They can help you,” she said. “In your feud with that colonel. They can make it so he won’t bother you again.”

Eronildes put down his fork.

“I don’t want that kind of help,” he said. “When I came here, I resolved to set an example. My workers thought I was a twit because I didn’t threaten them or beat them. Here, the only language is violence. You have to be a cabra macho. But I won’t abide that. You see, Miss Luzia, the reason I’m having trouble with my neighbor the colonel is because, unlike him, I pay my laborers fairly. So after their initial hesitation and making fun, people preferred to work for me and not for him. I have some of his best vaqueiros now. I have his best farmhands. They sneaked away. He killed some after they’d come over to my side, of course. But that didn’t stop others. What he and your cangaceiros don’t understand is that commerce will be the great liberator. Commerce will take away his power better than a gun will. So I don’t need your hooligans here, causing me trouble.”

“They’re not hooligans,” Luzia said. “They’ll come whether you like it or not.”

“Let them come then!” Eronildes yelled. He slapped the dining table with his long, pale hand. Their water glasses shook and spilled over. “Let them drag him out of here for all I care!”

Eronildes grabbed his tumbler and gulped the amber liquid in it. Luzia stayed quiet. If Emília were there, her sister would have given her a good kick under the table. The doctor sighed and hunched into his chair. With a tremulous hand, he pushed back his glasses.

“Forgive my outburst,” he said. “I don’t like to lose my temper. I have nothing against your cangaceiros. I would almost respect them if they weren’t just petty thieves.”

“They steal for necessity,” Luzia said, her hands bunched into fists, her face hot. She knew this was a lie but could not shake the possibility of the Hawk waking and listening from the little room near the kitchen. What would he say if she did not defend him?

Eronildes laughed. His teeth were long and stained, like pale kernels of corn.

“Necessity!” He chuckled. “Those gold rings I saw were a necessity? And those necklaces?” He shook his head. “What a waste. What a great waste. The rebellious men are thieves and the rest are led, like animals on a tether, by the colonels. The Northerner will never be a modern man until we educate the whole lot.” Eronildes pointed toward the kitchen door. “That man in there, I’m betting he’s a smart one. He has to be, to have made a life in the scrub for so long. If he had been properly educated, he wouldn’t be in the predicament he’s in now.”

“He knows how to read,” Luzia said.

“That doesn’t make an educated man,” Eronildes replied. “A man must think things through, not reach for a knife. He must see the consequences of his actions. He must forget superstition and belief. He must realize that we are not wards of divinity, but citizens of a state, a nation.”

Luzia stared at her plate. Some of Eronildes’ words confused her. Others angered her. She mashed the fish back and forth in her bowl.
Don’t be a matuta,
Emília would chide, had she been present.
Nod your head. Be polite. Agree.
But Emília wasn’t there and Luzia could not hold her tongue.

“I think people need schooling, too. A priest taught me to read, to write, to look at maps and do sums. I’m glad of it. But with schooling, people want to make something of themselves and there’s nothing here to be but a maid or a vaqueiro or a cangaceiro. Who wants to be any of those things? With schooling, they’ll want to go to the capital.”

“Not many,” Eronildes contested. “Salvador is far away. So is Recife. And they’re different worlds. There are no goats, no caatinga. The capitals are all coastline and clutter. People will want to stay with what they know.”

“Not with schooling,” she said. “They’ll want to know more. They’ll want to be doctors, like you.”

Eronildes laughed. “I admire your vision,” he said. “But I think you’re taking my idea of education too far.”

“Why?”

“People won’t want that much. Most will want to read and to vote. Nothing more.”

“That’s like giving a bird a larger cage, just to stretch its wings,” Luzia said.

Eronildes smiled. “That’s good. Where did you learn that saying?”

“From my aunt Sofia.”

“Well, I learned a saying from my father: Those born as parakeets will never be parrots.”

Luzia stared at her food. It was cold and she was not hungry. She wanted Emília beside her. Her sister always knew how to comport herself. Emília always said the right things, and was wise enough not to insist on unpleasant conversation.

Dr. Eronildes arranged his utensils in a neat diagonal on his plate. He placed his napkin on the table.

“You’re quite direct,” he said. “I appreciate that. You know, if we rebroke that arm of yours and set it again, it might work properly. The elbow is a tricky joint, but it is not impossible.”

Luzia slid her bent arm off the table.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m used to it.”

11

The month of May brought a series of fleeting rainstorms. Each day, Dr. Eronildes’ elderly maid prayed to São Pedro. Farmhands made bets about when the rains would fall and how long they would last. Along the São Francisco, fishermen frantically planted their roçados of beans, pumpkin, and manioc. The rains arrived, but they disappeared quickly. The crops were weak. Still, people thanked their saints by making fires and setting up altars because a little food was better than none at all. Even Dr. Eronildes expressed gratitude for the weak rains, though he did not pray. The only time he was silent and worshipful was in the evenings, when he sat before the pale girl’s portrait in his front room. Slowly, when the Hawk was well enough to move about, he sat beside Eronildes and took sips of the White Horse whiskey the doctor had shipped from Salvador. In the beginning, the doctor quizzed his patient on medicinal plants. The Hawk rattled off a series of remedies and Dr. Eronildes feverishly wrote them down, his pale bride temporarily forgotten.

Their conversations quickly strayed beyond barks and teas. Luzia sewed nearby and grew distracted, constantly pricking her finger with the embroidery needle Eronildes had given her. She worried that the men would argue, that the Hawk would lose his temper and that Dr. Eronildes would stop offering his care. But the man who lost his temper most was the doctor, while the Hawk smiled and sipped his drink. He looked at Eronildes with amused admiration, as one would look on a puppy or a younger sibling—something harmless and sweet yet intent on having its way. Eronildes bristled at this treatment but tolerated it because he, in return, respected the Hawk. Luzia could not determine if Eronildes’ admiration was for the Hawk himself or simply for his resilient body and its ability to withstand the doctor’s daily prodding and cleanings. He called him “Antônio,” not “Hawk” or “Captain,” or even “sir.” To Luzia’s surprise, the Hawk did not correct him. Eronildes was not a colonel or a rancher or a vaqueiro; he was another creature altogether, immune from the caatinga’s rules.

“You’re like a priest,” the Hawk said, making Dr. Eronildes frown. The doctor’s displeasure drove the Hawk on. “You both save lives.”

“No, Antônio,” Eronildes replied. “Priests don’t save. They feed fears. I’m wary of men who serve invisible masters. I serve bodies. I serve what is real, what is tangible. What is proven.”

“Nothing’s proven,” the Hawk replied, moving a mandacaru thorn between his teeth. “Except death.”

Luzia looked up from her sewing. Eronildes, pale and hunched, puffed impatiently on a cigarette. Beside him, the Hawk picked his teeth. His short, sturdy leg was propped on a wooden stool. His face was still tan, despite his time away from the caatinga sun. Between them, looking down from her portrait, Eronildes’ bride looked languid and bored, as if she was tired of their arguing.

Their evenings became more animated after Dr. Eronildes received his newspapers. Once a month he traveled downriver to pick up his supplies shipped from Salvador. Since they could not be delivered daily, his newspapers accumulated and arrived in large bundles tied with string, their pages wet and torn, with some sections pilfered by curious riverboat captains. Still, it took Dr. Eronildes days to read through all of the papers. The Hawk sat beside him and read what the doctor had discarded. Or pretended to. Later, in the quiet of his room, he asked Luzia to look through the papers again, to catch anything he’d missed. Luzia liked sitting beside him, alone in that dim room without Eronildes’ interruptions. She was glad the Hawk was awake and alert, but she secretly missed the time when he was feverish and sleepy and she could stare at him in peace. After the Hawk recovered, Eronildes rarely let them be alone, pressing them with questions.

Luzia appreciated the doctor, but for all of his generosity and goodwill, she could not like him. She grew tired of his constant scribbling and note taking, as if her actions and observations were subjects of an experiment she knew nothing about. On the eve of São João, when Eronildes distributed corn to his workers and allowed them to build bonfires and play an accordion, Luzia sat with the Hawk and the doctor on his porch and watched the festivities from afar. Luzia squinted. She could see only the glow of the fire and the shadows of the men and women dancing. When she looked away, she caught Eronildes observing her instead of the bonfire. The next day, when the Hawk was resting, Dr. Eronildes invited her into his study. There were stacks of books, a magnifying glass, and a large black writing board fastened to the wall. The board was dull with chalk dust. Across it, Eronildes had written letters, ranging from large to small. Then he told Luzia to stand at the far end of the room and read them aloud. She crossed her arms.

“I know my letters,” she said, unwilling to move.

“Then prove it,” he said, smiling.

Luzia stalked to the other end of the room and called out the large top letters but the bottom ones were blurs.

“It’s all right,” Eronildes assured her. “Without my spectacles, I couldn’t read any of these.”

Luzia nodded and watched him scribble notes in his book. The Hawk called Eronildes “a gentle soul,” and despite their disagreements he respected the doctor, preferring a man who had opinions to one who had none. Luzia agreed: Eronildes was a good man. Plainly good. He invited them to his table, he never raised his voice, never treated her like a servant. But receiving his goodness felt like being under a very bright light—the warmth was comforting at first but it soon became stifling, glaring, with everything exposed and stark. Luzia preferred the Hawk’s presence. She liked entering his little room beside the kitchen, where it was dark and cool. It took time for her eyes to adjust, and even when they did, even when she could see the outlines of his vaqueiro’s cot, his misshapen hat hanging on a peg in the wall, his chest rising and falling, there were still shadows. But looking up from his bed, he, too, would not be able to see her entirely. He would see only her outline, and would have to imagine the rest.

In the early mornings, when the sun was still cool, they took walks along the riverbank to exercise his leg. Eronildes discouraged the walks at first, saying that dust and sand would dirty the Hawk’s wound and reinfect it. It was better to rest, Eronildes insisted, to stay in bed. The Hawk would not have it.