The Seamstress (60 page)

“I want to marry,” Ponta said. “Like you and the captain.”

Luzia laughed. “You’ve barely met her.”

“I’m fond of her,” Ponta replied.

“Bring her here then.”

“She’s scared. She won’t come.”

“She’ll have to. If she wants to marry you, she can’t be scared.”

Ponta nodded. He walked back to the girl and coaxed her over. When she stood before Luzia, she kept her head down and curtsied. Her legs were dotted with scars, some jagged, some round.

“Let me talk to her,” Luzia said, waving Ponta away. “What’s your grace?”

“Maria de Lourdes,” the girl muttered. “But everyone calls me Baby.”

“Do you sew?” Luzia asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And, do you cook? Can you skin an animal?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m not frightened by blood.”

“And your relations?” Luzia asked, nodding to the hunched farmhand and his wife. “They know about this?”

“No, ma’am. They’re not relations. My mãe died when I was born. Don’t know my pai. The colonel who lived here gave me to them, to his hands, since they don’t have children. All I do is work.”

Luzia nodded. “If you join, there’s no undoing it,’ she said, repeating what Antônio had once told her. “It’s not a suit of clothes. You can’t put it on and take it off when you please.”

“Can’t be worse than working for them,” Baby whispered. “It’s hell here.”

“The cangaço will be worse than hell,” Luzia said.

Baby bit her lip, then nodded. “I’ll die here. They won’t feed me right, when the drought comes. And I like Ponta. He’s handsome enough.”

Luzia looked at the girl. Her face was soft and round, like a child’s, but her hands and feet were calloused. Hard. She thought of her own stubbornness when she’d left Taquaritinga, afraid of being trapped behind a sewing machine. That fate didn’t sound so terrible now. But if she hadn’t left Taquaritinga, she and Emília might have ended up like Baby: forever indebted to a colonel.

“You’ll have to swallow a chumbo pellet every month,” Luzia said. “You can’t get pregnant; it’s for your own good. And there can’t be foolishness. Once you’re with Ponta, you’re bound to him and only him. And you’ll have to learn to shoot. Hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Luzia had hoped to discourage the girl, to scare her, but was surprised by Baby’s resolve. She called Ponta Fina back.

“I’m not the one to ask,” Luzia said. “Go talk to your captain.”

Ponta nodded. He took the girl’s hand and walked hesitantly toward Antônio. Luzia wanted to watch them, to see Antônio’s reaction. Instead, she turned her back and continued to embroider. She hoped to hear Antônio chastise Ponta, to convince the boy that including a woman like Baby in their group was a bad idea. Luzia tugged the thread roughly through her blanket’s cloth. She was a woman, and she hadn’t caused trouble. But Baby was pretty, and the group of cangaceiros was larger now, and included many young men.

Luzia heard someone behind her. She turned, believing she would see a disappointed Ponta Fina coming back to her for consolation. It was Antônio instead. Gingerly, as if his bones ached, he knelt on the ground beside her.

“Are you trying to marry off my men?” he asked. His voice sounded tired, but the left side of his mouth rose in a slight smile.

Luzia put down her embroidery. “I didn’t encourage it.”

Antônio nodded. “But I should let her in. That’s what you think.”

“No,” Luzia replied, suddenly angry. “Did Ponta say that?”

Antônio shook his head. “I thought you would see her side of things.”

“Just because we’re both women doesn’t mean I approve.”

Antônio rubbed the slack side of his face. “They’re following my example. Our example.”

“So?”

“So, I’m saying yes.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Luzia said.

“I know,” Antônio replied. He stared at her, his left side smiling. Luzia pressed her hand to his face. Slowly, Antônio took off his hat and rested his head in her lap, his ear against her belly. Luzia closed her eyes. For a brief moment they were like any other young couple, stealing a moment of affection.

Voices came from the cangaceiros’ camp. They rose to yells. Antônio sighed. Luzia did not want to open her eyes, but Antônio suddenly shifted away from her. His knees popped as he stood. Little Ear marched toward them. Behind him, Ponta Fina, Baby, Baiano, and a cluster of cangaceiros followed.

“He wants to marry,” Little Ear said, pointing to Ponta Fina.

“I know,” Antônio replied. He’d forgotten to put his hat back on. His hair was matted and parted at an odd angle, revealing a light patch of scalp along the side of his head. Luzia wanted to hide the vulnerable spot, to comb his hair with her fingernails.

“He can’t marry,” Little Ear said. “Unless he turns in his knives. Leaves the group.”

A group had formed around them and a few cangaceiros nodded in agreement with Little Ear. Antônio’s good eye narrowed. The active side of his mouth turned down. Bringing up such matters in front of the group was forbidden; Antônio would only let his men complain about each other in private, and only to him, in order to prevent infighting. He stepped closer to Little Ear.

“I don’t allow deserters,” he said.

Little Ear nodded. “I know.”

“Seems like you know a lot these days,” Antônio replied.

Luzia clasped the arms of her chair. She spread her knees wide, putting her weight into her legs. She tilted her pelvis up, heaving herself out of the chair. The entire group watched and Luzia hated her body for making her look so undignified. Little Ear shook his head.

“Women are trouble,” he said, turning back to Antônio. “You said it yourself, we need to be an army, not a family.”

“This isn’t your concern,” Antônio replied.

Little Ear jabbed his finger to his chest. “It is my concern. I’m part of this group. We can’t let in every rapariga we see.”

There were grumblings in the group. Some men shook their heads. Ponta Fina stepped forward, his peixeira sharp and gleaming in his hand. Baiano hooked an arm around Ponta and held the boy back.

“Apologize,” Antônio said.

Little Ear looked back and forth between Ponta Fina and his captain. “What?”

“Apologize. You’ve insulted his woman. An honest woman. There are no raparigas here.”

“I won’t.”

Antônio stepped closer to him. Little Ear held up his hands as if surrendering, then lowered them to his belt. Like the other men, he’d become accustomed to taking off his holsters and leaving his pistols and rifle on his blankets each evening. He carried only his knives. Little Ear removed the punhal wedged between his waistband and his cartridge belt. His face looked haggard and sad. He dropped the long, square-sided dagger onto the dirt.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

Antônio made no move to pick up the punhal. “I told you. I don’t allow deserters.”

Little Ear’s chin trembled. He crimped his lips to stop it. There was a tacit understanding between the cangaceiros and Antônio. By joining the group and sealing their bodies with the prayer of corpo fechado, every man assented to it. Luzia did as well. Antônio’s love, his protection, his leadership came in exchange for obedience, for belief. The minute a man’s belief wavered, that love was retracted. Little Ear had disobeyed his captain and he’d done it in front of the group. If Antônio didn’t stick to the terms of his agreement, if he didn’t punish those who disobeyed, he would lose respect and this would doom him.

Luzia felt a quiver in her belly. She saw movement beneath the tight canvas of her dress, then felt a jab to her lower ribs. Her boy delivered a swift kick, as if telling her to act, to move. Luzia stepped forward. She placed a hand on Antônio’s arm.

“Let him leave,” she said.

Little Ear snorted. “A woman’s mercy.”

Antônio stiffened. He snatched his arm away from Luzia. “Don’t touch me,” he said.

She pulled back. Antônio’s hand was raised and balled into a fist, the knuckles white. Luzia placed her arms over her belly. She couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t recall what she’d meant to say to Antônio or to Little Ear. She could only recall the smoke-filled church in Taquaritinga and Padre Otto standing before her, delivering his yearly Easter sermon. The story didn’t involve the Virgin Mother but that other Mary—the Magdalene—who had remained at the tomb of Christ long after all the other disciples had left and given up. Her reward was His appearance. But when she reached for him, He recoiled. “Do not hold on to me,” He ordered. Even as a child, Luzia had disliked Him for this. He was no longer a man but a God, and this deification made him capable of pushing away the one who’d loved him best. Luzia had always preferred the man to the deity.

“Kneel,” Antônio said.

Little Ear shook his head. “I’m one of your best men.”

“I know,” Antônio replied. “You’ve disobeyed. Now kneel.”

Little Ear assented. He took off his hat and threw it beside his discarded punhal. Antônio moved beside him. Little Ear’s eyes were cast downward but they didn’t look at the ground. They stared at his jacket front, at his cartridge belt. Always watch a man’s eyes; Antônio had taught Luzia this. He said to look carefully at men’s eyes because they revealed their intentions. Men always stared where they would move next. Pregnant women were expected to look away from violence, but Luzia could not: she watched Little Ear. As Antônio unsheathed his punhal, Little Ear’s hand moved. It was his right hand, hidden from Antônio’s view because of his bad eye. Tucked into Little Ear’s belt was another knife, a small one with a sharp tip, used to bleed animals. All of the cangaceiros carried similar knives. No one thought to take it away from him.

Luzia reached for her parabellum. It was in her shoulder holster, which rested snugly near the armpit of her bent arm. Her good arm reached over her enlarged breasts and her belly. She fumbled with the holster snap. On the ground before her, Little Ear reared up. His arm swung out in a large, graceful arc. In his hand, the knife blade glimmered, reflecting the firelight. Antônio dropped his punhal. Luzia finally tugged open her shoulder holster and, with her good arm, raised her parabellum. She could not aim correctly; Antônio had gripped Little Ear and the men grunted and fumbled in a strange embrace. Antônio’s good eye was wide and it moved in all directions. He resembled a cow in the slaughter pen, looking for the knife.

Luzia found her target. She pulled the trigger. The shot was like a bottle being uncorked: startling because no one knew where it would land. The cangaceiros froze. Baby screamed and all eyes fell on the girl. For an instant, Antônio looked away from the knife’s point. Little Ear struck. Then the small knife fell beside his feet.

“Shit!” Little Ear cried. His voice seemed to wake the men. Baiano moved forward, tugging Little Ear up by the arm. Already, the chest of Little Ear’s jacket was dark, the stain growing. Luzia had hit him in the shoulder. Ponta Fina moved in with his thick-bladed machete, but Luzia stopped him. They heard a cough.

Antônio stood motionless, his back to Luzia and the men, his hands at his neck. Luzia touched Antônio’s shoulder and he hunched toward her, his hands still clamped on his neck. His face was burgundy, as if he was angry. He coughed again. Blood spurted between his fingers.

As he fell, Luzia called his name. Her voice seemed far away. The parabellum slipped from her hand. She could smell something burning and realized it was the charred flesh of the preás, left on the cook fire. Luzia’s belly made her cumbersome. She dropped beside Antônio, her knees hitting the ground hard. Her hands seemed to move without her guidance, frantically untying Antônio’s wet neckerchief, then pressing her fingers against his face. The scarred side was calm, as always. The unscarred side looked perplexed. A wet, raspy noise erupted from the jagged tear in his throat, near his Adam’s apple, where Little Ear’s knife had punctured. Blood bubbled up, surprising Luzia with its intensity. She pressed her hands to the gash. It was warm! So warm! Like the thick water that sprang from dead riverbeds when she’d dug in them. Luzia pressed harder. The flies that had surrounded the stacks of rapadura had been startled away with the fighting, but suddenly, they were back. They landed on Antônio’s neck and in the puddle beneath him.

Ponta Fina knelt beside Luzia. Cangaceiros crowded around them. Luzia’s ears rang. They needed tasks, she thought. The cangaceiros needed to stay occupied.

“Bring me a hammock!” she yelled. “A clean hammock.”

The men rushed about, hearing her urgency, believing that their captain would live if they only hurried. Several entered the colonel’s abandoned house. Luzia heard them overturning things inside. She ordered Canjica and Caju to run and find a curandeiro or a midwife. Anyone who dealt with medicine, she told them. If they could not find someone, Luzia resolved to treat Antônio. She would place salt and ashes and malagueta peppers in the wound to stop its bleeding. She would sew it closed. Then they would carry Antônio to Dr. Eronildes. It was a long walk, but they would have to make it. She knew from her experience in slaughtering goats and other scrub animals that the neck concealed a vital tangle of tubes and blood vessels. Antônio would have to be treated quickly.

Antônio’s hand twitched. His fingers brushed her leg, as if caressing it. Luzia tried to lean closer but her belly prohibited it.

“Stay here,” she commanded him, her hands slippery against his wound. “Stay awake.”

When the men returned with a hammock, Luzia tied a cloth around Antônio’s neck. Baiano wrapped his captain carefully inside the hammock and with Inteligente’s help, hoisted Antônio up. Dazed, they waited for Luzia’s orders.

“Get inside,” she said. “We have to clean him properly. Don’t bounce too much.”

They placed the hammock, stained and dripping, in the foyer of the colonel’s house. Shriveled beans were scattered along the wood floor, remnants of the cangaceiros’ raid on the pantry. The blood on Luzia’s hands was already drying. It made her fingers hard to bend. When they shook, Luzia clenched them into fists. She could not let the men see her tremors.

She asked for Baiano’s help and heaved herself down again, beside Antônio. Luzia recalled her father in Padre Otto’s church, wrapped in a white funeral hammock. She was afraid to open the one that held Antônio, but the cangaceiros huddled around her, expectant. Quickly, Luzia parted the hammock’s cloth.