The Seamstress (79 page)

“A velório’s not the time to be soft footed,” she hissed. “You’ll scare someone to death.” Remembering her duties, Raimunda smoothed her apron and began to get up. “What do you need?” she asked.

“Sit,” Emília whispered. “I want my rosary, that’s all.”

Raimunda sat back and watched. In the dark, Emília could not judge the maid’s expression. She knelt beside her bed and, hoping to hide her actions from Raimunda, turned her back. She eased the jewelry box from its hiding spot beneath the bed, took off the chain around her neck, and put the gold key into the box’s lock. Quickly, Emília reached inside and removed the penknife. She felt its cool blade, its wooden handle with the bee carved into its side. Raimunda shifted in her chair. Emília cradled the knife close, locked the jewelry box again, and left the room.

Eronildes wasn’t in the downstairs hallway. Emília searched the foyer but didn’t find him; a maid had probably shuffled Eronildes into the black-curtained ballroom. Emília replaced her mantilla—wrinkled now, from being crumpled in her fist—over her hair and folded the penknife into her handkerchief. She would find a way to place it in Eronildes’ hands, to slip it into his coat pocket.

The ballroom’s air was thick with candle smoke. Mourners coughed. Emília stood behind them, cramped along the room’s edges. Before she could say “Excuse me,” and make her way back to her empty chair near Degas’ portrait, she caught sight of Eronildes. He did not see her. In the front of the mourning line, the doctor bowed to Dona Dulce, who nodded politely. Next to her, Dr. Duarte rose from his chair. Instead of greeting Eronildes with a handshake, Emília’s father-in-law clamped the doctor in a firm embrace. Eronildes did not stiffen in response to the hug. He did not politely pat Dr. Duarte’s back and then try to release himself. Eronildes seemed dwarfed in Dr. Duarte’s thick arms but he did not seem uncomfortable. Unable or unwilling to remove himself from the firm embrace, Eronildes slumped into it as if resigning himself.

Unseen in the back of the room, Emília shivered. Her insides seemed to cool and condense. Something within her fell into place, as certain as a lock sliding into its bolt. She’d felt this way twice before—once during her first Carnaval at the International Club, and later, the first time she’d held Expedito in her arms. Emília held the penknife tightly. She backed out of the ballroom and ran upstairs.

Raimunda was awake, as if she’d expected Emília’s return.

“I don’t want it after all,” Emília whispered. “My rosary, I mean.”

Raimunda didn’t respond. Emília quickly opened the jewelry box and replaced the penknife, still wrapped in a handkerchief. She clicked the box shut and pushed it back under the bed with the toe of her shoe. Emília’s pumps were black, like the rest of her outfit. Their patent leather made her feet shine. She was stylish even in mourning, Emília thought bitterly. Her hands shook. She had the urge to remove those shoes and chuck them out her window. Instead, she stared across the dark room at Expedito, asleep, and at Raimunda beside him.

“That doctor’s here,” Emília whispered. “Eronildes.”

Raimunda nodded. “The drinker.”

“Is that what you think of him?”

Raimunda clicked her tongue. “It’s not my job to think anything of anyone.”

“But if it were?”

“It’s not. And it won’t ever be. It’s not my place to give an opinion. And it’s not your place to care what I think.”

Emília sighed. She sat on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

“I can tell you what I know about other’s opinions,” Raimunda said, her voice unusually soft. “I know that Mr. Degas, God rest his soul, didn’t like that doctor. Dona Dulce says that Mr. Degas was misguided about some things, but that he was a good judge of character. Now, you were one of the people he judged—he picked you for his wife. So do you agree with Dona Dulce or not?”

Emília looked across the room. Her old sewing bag sat in the room’s corner, and in it were needles, thread, ideas for patterns, and her measuring tape. She’d brought it from Taquaritinga—a handmade strip of ribbon with each centimeter and meter mark carefully drawn on it.

Emília rose from the bed, riffled through her sewing supplies, and found the tape. She left the room without speaking to Raimunda. Emília needed an ink pen and she knew where to find one.

Degas’ room hadn’t been touched since his death. His bed was still unmade, his books scattered about the floor, his English records stacked precariously in a pile near the Victrola. Emília found a pen on Degas’ desk. There, she spread out her measuring tape. She drew extra centimeters between the inky lines already on the tape. She scrambled the numbers, changing the 6 to an 8, the 11 to a 17.

“Measure right!” Aunt Sofia’s voice echoed in Emília’s mind. “Don’t trust a strange tape. Trust your own eyes.”

Emília rolled the measuring tape into a tight ball and hid it in her hands. Downstairs, as soon as she took her place beside the Coelhos, Dr. Eronildes moved to greet her.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said.

“Thank you,” Emília replied.

Her palms were sweaty and Emília hoped the new ink marks had dried, that they hadn’t bled onto her fingers. Eronildes gripped her hand and bent to kiss it. Emília pressed the tape into his palm.

“Proof,” she whispered.

Eronildes stiffened. His lips were near her fingers. “I will confirm a date,” he whispered back, then pressed his mouth to her hand.

One week later, Emília received a black-bordered envelope addressed to Mrs. Degas Coelho. There was no return address and the card inside had no condolences, only a date:
January 19
.

It would be after Christmas and New Year’s, both of which would be muted holidays at the Coelho house.

“He will set a false date,” Degas had said. “He will cancel with you, but not with her.”

That didn’t matter anymore. Emília could only hope that the measuring tape would communicate all that she could not. If Luzia read closely enough, she might see the wrong numbers and recall Aunt Sofia’s old warning. Luzia might understand what Emília was trying to tell her—the meeting itself was a trick, a trap, just as Degas had predicted.

After the velório, Emília thought of Degas often. How frightened he must have been, with no candle to light his soul’s path. But surely the route to heaven was not as murky and dark as the waters of the Capibaribe. Surely Degas could find a way. This thought—that even Degas could pull past the darker aspects of his nature in order to find the good—made Emília believe that she could as well. As soon as it was safe, she would run away. She would warn her sister without Dr. Eronildes’ help. She would find Luzia and tell her about the Bergmanns. Until then, Emília hoped that the tape would relay her warning.

At night, in her dreams, Emília was a girl again. She and Luzia climbed that old mango tree. It was very tall—as tall as the
Graf Zeppelin
’s landing tower—and its fruits were heavy and yellow, shaped like teardrops. Luzia sat on the limb below Emília. She leaned back. She lost her balance. Emília reached for her. She fumbled for Luzia’s hand but could not save her sister, not without letting go herself.

Caatinga scrub, Pernambuco São Francisco River Valley, Bahia

December 1934–January 1935

1

T
he soldier’s body resembled a cross-stitch: his arms and legs were extended, his hands and feet firmly tied to tree trunks. Inteligente placed his massive brown hands at the sides of the soldier’s head, holding it steady. The man writhed and squirmed for a long time, trying to break free. Luzia let him. Soon he was tired out and calm, as docile as a calf in the seconds before its branding, accepting of its fate. Baiano stuffed cotton into the man’s nostrils, so he would have to keep his mouth open. Ponta Fina straddled the soldier. In his right hand Ponta held a pair of needle-nosed pliers stolen from a vaqueiro’s satchel. The pliers were a useful tool, good for removing bullets, thorns, teeth.

Luzia squatted beside the soldier. His eyes followed her. His hands were red and swollen from the bindings. Luzia traced his fingers with her own, moving slowly across his palm, touching the deep lines across it.

“Speak,” she said.

“I told you, I don’t know anything,” the soldier replied, his voice hoarse. “I left my squadron. I swear.”

“I don’t like swearing,” Luzia said. Nearby, Baby and Maria Magra giggled.

“I promise!” the soldier sputtered.

Luzia nodded. A loyal bar owner had sent her a message that a monkey had deserted. The soldier had traded his gun for drinks. When Luzia’s group arrived to question him, they found that the soldier had also given away his jacket and boots. The man was unkempt and incoherent. Until Luzia dragged him into the scrub, he’d planned to drink himself to death. The cangaceiros fed their prisoner only water, farinha, and meat, hoping to clear his head and loosen his tongue. After the theater fire, a wave of troops had entered the caatinga. Soldiers and residents alike tried to catch the cangaceiros. People across the scrubland condemned the Hawk and the Seamstress. Then, suddenly, the troops retreated. They abandoned their newly built posts and stopped trying to track down the Seamstress’s group. Luzia sensed something unusual.

The deserter wouldn’t tell her anything of value—only that Gomes had called his regiment back to the coast. But there was more to his story; Luzia felt it. The monkey wouldn’t look at her when he spoke. He fidgeted, sighed, and wept. The cangaceiros kicked him. Ponta Fina held his punhal to the man’s throat, but the soldier still wouldn’t speak. When the cangaceiros gave him dried beef, the soldier took large bites. He had a complete set of teeth, all of them white and thick. Unlike many of Luzia’s cangaceiros, who had to bite food gingerly or gum dried beef until it was soft enough to swallow, the soldier ate quickly and ferociously. One day, he begged for a piece of juá bark to rub across his teeth. At that moment, Luzia found his weakness. She, like Antônio, had become adept at discovering the things people valued most. She’d ordered the soldier strung up.

“You’re a deserter,” Luzia said, stroking the man’s fingers. “Your promises aren’t worth much. You left the army. Why keep their secrets now? Tell me, and I’ll let you go. I’ll take you back to that bar. I’ll buy you a bottle of branquinha.”

The soldier licked his lips. “I wasn’t a captain. I don’t know any plans.”

“Why bring troops all the way out here, and then go back?”

“I don’t know.”

Beneath her hand, the soldier’s finger twitched. Luzia stood. She nodded at Ponta Fina.

“Hold him tight!” Ponta said.

Inteligente clamped the soldier’s head harder. Ponta took a leather strap and placed it in the man’s mouth, tugging so that his jaw opened wide. Baiano knelt beside the soldier and held the strap with both hands, like reins.

“Start in the back,” Luzia said.

Ponta nodded and bent forward. The pliers’ metal prongs clicked against the man’s molar. Saliva darkened the strap.

“If you move it’ll crack, and hurt more,” Ponta said.

Beneath him, the soldier stiffened. Ponta Fina grunted and tugged. There was a sucking sound. The man screamed.

His cry was both terrified and angry and Luzia wished she could quiet the soldier or clamp her hands over her ears. She heard that kind of scream each night, in her sleep. Ever since the theater fire, Luzia had dreamed of that dark cinema. In her dreams, the projector moved but didn’t shed light on the canvas screen. Instead, the machine released a tinny rattle. The room became hot; not a stuffy heat but a searing one, like midday during the drought. Luzia’s skin burned. Shadowy figures blocked her escape. She heard a bar scraping across the front door, locking it from the outside. In her dreams, Luzia was still inside, and around her were the cangaceiros—her men and women—their hats crooked, their eyes wide with surprise.
Mãe!
they screamed.
Mãe!
In their voices Luzia heard both sadness and accusation, as if she’d betrayed them. Each time she dreamed of the theater fire her stomach felt unsettled. It wasn’t like the nausea she’d experienced when she was pregnant. Instead, it left a dry and coppery taste in her mouth, reminding her of the desperate days when, like an animal, she’d eaten dirt for sustenance.

The
Diário
called it a crime against innocents. They’d interviewed survivors. They’d called her heartless. In fact, it had been just the opposite: Luzia had felt too much in that theater. In the projector’s light she was ashamed and confused. This made her angry. When she heard the patrons’ insults, Luzia felt like the Cannibal Wife, a woman unable to control her gruesome cravings. Those theater patrons were innocents but they’d supported Gomes, which made them guilty. What did it mean, Luzia wondered, that she could redefine innocence and guilt so easily? If guilt was flexible, if it came and went at her whim, then the Seamstress was as capricious as a colonel. But the theater patrons had insulted the Seamstress and her cangaceiros, and that required punishment. If Luzia hadn’t reacted, if she’d left the theater with her head down, the entire town would have believed that the Seamstress was weak and that the Hawk—whom everyone believed to be alive—hadn’t come to her defense.

As soon as she’d dropped the thick wooden bar across the theater doors, sealing them shut, Luzia knew that her revenge was too harsh but she couldn’t backtrack; she would look indecisive. Antônio had taught her that indecision led to a bad end. What he hadn’t taught her, however, was that poor decisions often produced regrets, and regrets could not be cured. Antônio had shown her how to use the genipapo’s bark to soothe sore muscles. He’d shown her how to boil jacurutu bark to cure ulcers and how to mash the marmeleiro’s yellow flowers into a powerful expectorant. The cure for nervousness was eating the inside of a passion fruit, seeds and all. With all of these medicines, there was no plant or animal that eased remorse. There was no tea that flushed out guilt.

Ponta Fina fell backward onto the soldier’s legs. He put down the pliers and cupped a bloody molar in his hands. Baiano and Inteligente craned their heads to look at the tooth’s yellowed crown and forked roots. Underneath Ponta, the soldier twisted and bucked. Blood seeped from one side of his mouth, staining the leather strap. He gasped, choking.

“Lift his head,” Luzia said. “Let him spit.”

Inteligente obeyed. Baiano removed the strap from the soldier’s mouth. The man coughed and a pink, viscous liquid dribbled down his chin.

“Tell me,” Luzia said. “Where did your regiment go?”

“Near the São Francisco,” he said, his voice nasal and stuffy. The cotton in his nose was wet and stained pink.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Luzia closed her eyes. “Take another one,” she said. “A front one.”

Ponta nodded. Baiano moved to replace the strap.

The man coughed again, as if he were about to vomit. Instead, he made a high-pitched sound.

“What?” Luzia asked.

“A gun,” he yelled. “I heard my captain talk about it. We were leaving for a ranch near the Old Chico and some of us were nervous and he told us not to worry because there was a gun. It would do all the work for us.”

Luzia knelt to better hear him. “What kind of gun?”

“A fast gun. That’s all he would say. He called it ‘the better Seamstress.’”

“Why?” Luzia asked.

“Because it would outshoot you. That’s what my captain said. Only a few of us would get to shoot it. There’d only be a few guns. We wouldn’t need many. It shoots five hundred rounds without reloading.”

“That’s a lie,” Baiano said.

The soldier shook his head, still propped in Inteligente’s hands. “I swear…I promise. That’s what he told us.”

“Five hundred rounds,” Ponta whispered.

Luzia felt inside her trouser pocket. The measuring tape was rolled into a messy ball; after receiving it, she’d unraveled the tape so many times that she’d stopped bothering to wind it back tightly. Luzia ran her finger across its frayed end.

“When will she get here?” Luzia said. “This better Seamstress?”

“She’s…it’s already here,” the soldier said. “I mean, there…near the Old Chico. My captain said the guns would be ready when we got to the river.”

Luzia nodded.

“What now, Mãe?” Ponta asked.

Luzia stared at the bound soldier. If she let him go as a reward for his honesty, he might become a useless drunk and brag about his encounter with the cangaceiros. Or he might feel guilty about his betrayal of his squadron. He might try to find them, to get a message to them about what he’d told the Seamstress. If this happened, it would be Luzia’s fault. People would say she’d been too soft and that she’d put her group in danger. They would say it was just like a woman, to feel such useless compassion.

“Do it fast,” Luzia said, glancing at the soldier. Ponta Fina nodded.

She walked away from the group and deeper into the scrub, rubbing the measuring tape between her fingers. Dr. Eronildes hadn’t unwound it when he’d given it to her. She could tell by how tightly rolled the tape had been—Aunt Sofia had taught her and Emília to wind their tapes like that. Their aunt had also taught them never to trust tapes that weren’t their own. People weren’t careful, they made their tapes haphazardly and wrote the numbers incorrectly. Some seamstresses did this on purpose to guarantee business: they sold poorly made tapes so that their buyers would make inaccurate cuts, waste fabric, and finally call the seamstress in to fix their mistakes. Aunt Sofia herself had taught Luzia and Emília this lesson: when they were learning how to sew, she’d given them a bad tape. They’d trusted their aunt and, without inspecting the tape’s numbers, Luzia and Emília had cut their cloth using the sabotaged measurements. Their creations came out lopsided and awful. “Trust your own eyes!” Aunt Sofia had chided. “Don’t trust a strange tape, and don’t trust its bearer.”

2

Before Luzia had captured the soldier, Dr. Eronildes had delivered Emília’s tape as proof of their upcoming meeting. Luzia had performed the exchange outside Eronildes’ ranch; after the theater fire she wouldn’t go into anyone’s house, not even the doctor’s. Eronildes arrived alone and on foot, afraid the scrub’s thorns would blind his only horse. The doctor was pale, his hair drenched with sweat. The toes of his old boots were splattered with a chunky yellow substance.

“You were sick?” Luzia said upon meeting him. She was alone, having ordered the other cangaceiros to wait a few meters back.

Eronildes wiped his mouth. “I’m not used to exerting myself like this. In this heat.”

Luzia offered him water. Eronildes declined. He handed her the tape.

“Your proof,” he said.

Luzia’s palms sweated. She unrolled a small section of tape. It was an old and sturdy ribbon, the same kind Aunt Sofia had given them to make their measuring tapes. The first numbers were evenly spaced and neatly drawn. The writing on the tape was Emília’s. Before she could unwind it all the way, Eronildes spoke.

“I’ll have to send an express letter to Recife, to confirm the date. She insists on meeting on January twelfth.”

“So soon?” Luzia asked.

“The sooner the better.”

“Her husband just passed,” Luzia said. “She’ll be in lutofechado.”

Eronildes’ eyebrows rose and his eyes became wide.

“I saw the obituary,” Luzia explained. “I found a new
Diário
.”

“She’s going to ignore her luto,” Eronildes replied.

“How? She won’t be allowed to travel.”

“You share the common trait of resourcefulness,” Eronildes said. “From what I understand, it’s well known that Dona Emília didn’t have much in common with her husband or his family. She suffers in their house. She’s happy to escape it.”

“Suffers?” Luzia said, staring at the tape in her hands. She recalled all of the newspaper images she’d collected: Emília wearing fine clothes, running her own business, and associating with Recife’s high society. What she knew of her sister’s life Luzia had gleaned from photographs, and she’d always assumed Emília’s happiness. But Luzia knew better than most that images could lie, that they captured only an instant and never revealed the full truth. She felt a pang of sympathy for her sister—what had happened to Emília in Recife? She also felt the need to discount her sister’s plight. Emília had Expedito, a business, and a home; what did she truly know of suffering? As if hoping to discover the answer, Luzia turned her back to the doctor and unwound the tape completely.

“So, January twelfth then?” Eronildes said. “I have to head back. It is a long walk for me.”

Emília’s measurements were wrong. She’d written over the tape’s cleanly drawn tick marks. She’d changed the numbers and made them incorrect on purpose. Emília’s additions to the tape were hastily drawn—the ink smudged, the lines shaky—as if she’d felt fear or urgency when altering the measurements. Luzia felt dizzy.
Trust your own eyes! Don’t trust the tape and don’t trust its bearer.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Who?”

“My boy.”

“Fine. He’s healthy.”