The Seamstress (57 page)

“Love what is before you. Make no distinctions,” Padre Otto had often said. But it was impossible
not
to make distinctions. The child in her belly was a phantom. He was unformed, unknown. He was fragile, and Luzia could not trust fragility. She could only trust strength. Antônio was flesh and bone. He was real, alive beside her. At that moment, he was the easier of the two to love.

People are weak,
Luzia thought.
We fall back on what is easy. What is known.
One day, when he was old enough to understand, she would tell her boy this.

6

She’d never liked photographs. Never liked the way people looked in them—bodies stiff, faces frozen, eyes dark within their sockets like two soulless holes. Paintings, at least, were made by men’s hands. And songs, like the ones the traveling repentistas sang while strumming their small violas, told stories. Photographs came from within a black box, products of a mysterious and godless creation. They told no stories. You didn’t know what had happened before the photograph was shot or what would happen after. You could only guess, and Luzia hated guessing. She preferred precision. A centimeter was the difference between trousers that were comfortable or ill fitting. Between embroidery that was even or lopsided. Between a shot that hit heart or lung, muscle or bone.

After a few weeks of walking near the São Francisco, they found a decent-size town equipped with a chapel, a struggling market, and a photographer. Luzia hesitated at the idea of a portrait.

“They’ll know your face,” she said. “They’ll know mine.”

“That’s what I want,” Antônio replied.

Forty cangaceiros lined up in three rows. The new recruits knelt on one knee, their alpercatas polished, the brims of their hats newly broken and tacked upward in the required half-moon. The second row of men crouched, their rifles at their sides for support. The third row stood. These were the group’s senior members: Baiano, Canjica, Inteligente, Little Ear, Sweet Talker, Half-Moon, Caju, Sabiá, Ponta Fina. Rings gleamed on their dark fingers. They tightened the silk scarves around their necks and twisted their bornais forward to show off Luzia’s embroidery. They were covered in her designs, Antônio most of all. They wore their punhais tucked at an angle into the waists of their pants, so that the knives’ handles appeared above their cartridge belts. On the ground, just in front of the kneeling cangaceiros, were the mapmakers. They sat cross-legged in the dirt, their hands bound behind their backs. The bandages Eronildes had placed on their feet were stained and ragged.

Luzia stood in the center of the third row, beside Antônio. Like the men, she did not smile. She’d chewed juá bark obsessively, but her teeth had still suffered. After leaving Eronildes’ ranch, one of her top teeth had begun to ache. When she’d sucked on the tooth, a rotten taste, like sour milk, emerged. It began to taint her breath. During their travels, they’d found a vaqueiro who owned tooth pliers. He’d made Luzia drink a cup of sugarcane liquor and then, while Antônio held her arms, the man tugged out her rotten tooth. Now another tooth ached. On account of the child, she’d traded her hat for a bottle of pure molasses. She hated the sweetness of it, but each day she spooned the syrup into her mouth. She’d been craving dirt again, and had even put a dusty chunk of the clay soil along the river into her mouth, only to spit it out. It was dangerous—earth had invisible worms that could take over her belly and eat the food meant for her child. Eating molasses ruined her teeth, but it lessened her cravings. It gave her the energy to rise from her blanket each morning and walk alongside Antônio.

The photographer Antônio had hired was skittish and wide-eyed, like the rock-dwelling mocós the cangaceiros hunted. He was nothing like the impatient, snooty man who had photographed Luzia and Emília on their First Communion. Luzia remembered the shame she’d felt when he’d covered her crooked arm with a doily from his prop bin. When the flash popped, Luzia had moved just to spite him. Emília never forgave her for ruining their photograph.

Antônio’s photographer didn’t dare hide Luzia’s bent arm. If she shifted or blinked, he would snap another shot without protest. This time, Luzia didn’t have to wear gloves or a starched Communion gown. Instead, she wore a canvas dress of her own design. She was only four months along, but her trousers were already too tight. After leaving Dr. Eronildes’ ranch, Luzia had taken the fabric he’d given her and sewn a dress. It was sensible and smocklike, to hide her belly in the coming months. She’d made plenty of pockets along its skirt front so she wouldn’t miss her trousers. She’d saved a satin ribbon taken from a Blue Party woman. Luzia used it as piping along the dress’s seams. She embroidered white and red dots along the cuffs and in a V shape across her chest. Despite the heat, Luzia also wore thick stockings and leather shin guards.

Before her, the photographer hid beneath his camera’s curtain. Dust and sun had turned the black cloth gray. People huddled behind him. The town’s residents fanned their faces. Even in the late afternoon, the sun didn’t weaken. It was March nineteenth—Saint José’s Day—and there was no rain. The day wasn’t over, though. People prayed to Saint Pedro in the hopes of convincing him to send water. Several pious women knelt around Antônio’s photographer, hoping to continue their prayers and, at the same time, get a glimpse of the Hawk and the Seamstress.

“Chove-chuva, chove-chuva, chove-chuva,” the women chanted. “Have compassion on us, dear Mother Mary. On our laments and our pains. On our pride and our stubbornness. We will all die of thirst because we are sinners. But we ask you, Holy Mother of land and of sea, to give us water. Give us this grace, so that we may love you more.”

The photographer raised his flashbulb. The afternoon sun was so bright that they could not face it. Antônio didn’t want squinting in his portrait. The photographer positioned them at an angle so that their eyes could be open. He assured Antônio that their faces would be clearly visible; the camera flash would expel any shadows. When the pictures were developed, the photographer promised to personally take them to Recife. Antônio gave him money for a train ticket and told the man that he could sell the photos for whatever sum he pleased and keep all the profits, as long as they were published in the papers.

The photographer began to count backward. Luzia smoothed her dress. She straightened her spectacles. Beside her, Antônio shifted. For the photograph he’d squeezed his feet into a pair of the mapmakers’ high-topped leather boots. He’d slit open the sides but they were still too tight. He had to move back and forth to keep his feet from tingling. It took several seconds for the camera shutter to click. Luzia’s eyes watered. She could sense the cangaceiros’ anxiousness and her own. It burned in her chest, like a breath held too long. Suddenly, there was a pop. The flashbulbs exploded, leaving the smell of smoke and a grave silence, an instant of not knowing when or if to move.

The photographer emerged from beneath his gray veil. The cangaceiros cheered. Before they disbanded, they huddled around Luzia and extended their hands.

“Bless me, Mãe,” each man said.

“You’re blessed,” she replied.

The men asked for Luzia’s blessing each time they surveyed a town, or raided a disloyal colonel’s house, or separated along the cattle trail in wait of travelers. The group’s oldest members clasped her fingers and called her “Mãe,” as if Luzia were a replacement for the mothers they’d left behind long ago. Little Ear and Half-Moon, still wary of her presence, took her blessings halfheartedly and only for the Hawk’s sake. The group’s newest members lowered their eyes and whispered like embarrassed suitors, “Bless me, Mãe.” In the past weeks, the men had become more fervent in their reverence. After she’d traded her hat for the molasses, Antônio gave Luzia a long linen shawl that she wore over her head to protect her from the sun. The shawl, coupled with her growing belly, had affected the men. They kissed the cloth’s dirty edges, placed small offerings of food at Luzia’s feet, and argued over who would carry her sewing machine. Early on, Antônio had convinced his men that Luzia’s presence protected them from harm, but even he was surprised by the strength of their reverence. He was proud, too. Luzia appreciated the men’s respect, but she was also wary of it. She recalled the mangled saints’ statues tied to people’s roofs in punishment for their poor service. Reverence was always conditional. Luzia sensed that the cangaceiros’ worship hinged on luck; they would love her until that luck ran out.

While the men received their blessings, the photographer set up a faded canvas backdrop. Before it, he placed a stool and two iron neck rods. The rods stood upright, like hat stands except adjustable in height and with metal semicircles attached to their tops.

“I don’t want those,” Antônio yelled. “They’re for corpses.”

Startled, the photographer quickly dismantled the neck braces. Antônio looked down at the mapmakers.

“You boys keep still. I want the capital to see you’re alive and well.”

The older man nodded. He’d lost much of the plumpness in his face, making his skin slack and his cheeks hollow. The younger one stared stubbornly forward, ignoring Antônio.

“Take that stool away, too,” Antônio directed.

The photographer scratched his sunburned scalp. “Pardon me, Captain, but shouldn’t the dona sit?”

“No. She’ll stand. Won’t you, My Saint?”

Luzia nodded. Quickly, she remembered his bad eye and faced him. “Yes,” she said. “Of course,”

The photographer took away the stool. The mapmakers sat before the canvas backdrop, and Antônio stood behind them. Luzia took her place beside her husband. Antônio turned his good eye to face her. He straightened her spectacles, then reached behind her neck and brought her braid forward. It was thick and heavy. Its end touched her hip bone. Luzia had broken her childhood promise to Saint Expedito; on her eighteenth birthday she hadn’t cut her hair and left it on the saint’s altar as Aunt Sofia had instructed. Promise or no promise, Antônio wouldn’t hear of cutting her hair short like the capital’s women. He held Luzia’s braid to his mouth and kissed it. Once again, the photographer crouched beneath his gray veil and lifted his flashbulb. Luzia’s back ached. She wished Antônio had let them use the iron rods to brace their necks and hold their bodies straight.

As if divining her thoughts, Antônio said, “Stand tall, my Saint.”

The flashbulbs popped in a neat row, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. For minutes afterward, Luzia could still see the white circles of light. Even when she closed her eyes, they floated in the darkness behind her lids, as if trapped there.

Instead of dismantling his tripod and backdrop, the photographer slid another plate into his camera. Behind him, Baiano, Sweet Talker, and Ponta Fina spoke to the praying women, gently escorting them away from the photo site and into the town’s chapel. Above them, the sun was an orange orb, like the yolk of an egg. The mapmakers shifted, hot beneath their frayed driving coats. Luzia watched the photographer recalibrate his camera.

“There’s no color in your face,” Antônio said, holding her locked elbow. “Didn’t you eat?”

“I’m tired of farinha,” she replied. “It’s all stale.”

It wasn’t the manioc’s sour taste that sickened her but its texture, clumped and chewy. Her stomach turned each time the men dusted it onto their beans.

“I’ll try to get you cornmeal,” Antônio said, taking her arm and leading her out of the sun. “You should have some rapadura. To give you energy.”

“Don’t waste food,” Luzia replied. “I’m fine. It’s the flashbulbs, that’s all. They hurt my eyes.”

“It’ll be worth it,” he assured her. “Now they’ll see us. They’ll publish us for the capital! They’ll see we’re no vagabundos.”

“Yes.” Luzia nodded. “We’ll get our ransom.”

Antônio’s unscarred side twitched. He wiped his rheumy eye. “Go sit in the chapel, my Saint. Join the women in their novenas.”

Luzia shook her head. “He’s going to take another picture. I saw him replace the plate.”

“I don’t want you here for that picture.”

“Why not?” she asked, suddenly angry. Hadn’t the ransom been her idea? Hadn’t she written the telegram?

“You shouldn’t see blood,” Antônio replied.

Luzia stiffened. An expecting woman could not see death. She could not cross running water. She could not touch the scales of a lizard, or play with cats or dogs for fear that her child would resemble the animals. She could not set objects on her stomach because they would leave a mark on the baby’s face. Wearing a key around her neck would cause a harelip. Seeing an eclipse would paint the child’s skin, making him mottled or black. Luzia had heard all of those decrees. She believed none of them.

“What blood?” Luzia insisted.

“Those mapmakers,” Antônio said. “Today’s their last day.”

Luzia felt a familiar tightness in her chest; it was the dread she experienced each time she took a shot, afraid she’d miss her mark and afraid she wouldn’t.

“We haven’t gotten our ransom,” she said.

Antônio clicked his tongue, chiding her. “You think they’ll pay? The doctor was right. The capital will replace them. We have to send a message. If not, they’ll think they own us.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “I never expected money. I did this to show Gomes that I could, that we could. They want heads, and they’ll get them.”

Luzia looked toward the mapmakers. The younger one stared back intently, trying to comprehend their argument. The older one wiped his brow. During their map lessons he’d been serious and soft-spoken. He’d explained the trajectory of the proposed roadway without making Luzia feel uneducated or silly. In return for his kindness, Luzia had told him about the ransom request. She’d told him to be respectful and patient; that way, he’d survive.

“They haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “The old one never insulted you.”

“Measuring the trail insults me.”

“Why?”

Antônio shook his head. “Men like Eronildes, they think we can invite the devil to our table. They think he’ll eat what he’s given and then thank us kindly. I know he won’t. First Gomes wants a road, next he’ll want two, then three. Then he’ll want the land around the roads, then the land around that. I won’t let him get that far. I won’t let that devil past my gate.”