Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters Page 10
The young girl had also begun to linger a bit and return these ardent gazes, raising her voice a decibel, as though to step closer to the boy and, with the warm touch of her voice, caress the young man’s muscular back.
Soon the two began to meet at the slaves’ gatherings to dance the lundu. The fieriness of Guilhermina’s long, flowing hair fell across Bento’s dark, muscular chest, and they could see nothing besides one other. With time, the lundu made the leap from the celebration grounds of the poor to the soirées of the wealthy, the dancers’ bodies fusing in pulsing, lascivious movements, but for now, it was still a black people’s dance that white society considered in poor taste.
Oh, how certain people take offense at the happiness of others! The love between Guilhermina and Bento, now plainly acknowledged, more open and free, flaunted before everyone’s eyes, was not easy to swallow. Certain things seem to assume colossal proportions if left to grow in the light of day. The contrast caused by the young girl’s angelic white hand resting languidly over the wiry blackness of the young man’s arm seemed to hover threateningly over the city.
It was as if Bahia and Brazil weren’t made up of blacks and whites and every combination thereof. As if the young lovers were partaking in some behavior entirely unknown and unseen before, rather than merely repeating the actions of the majority ever since slave ships had brought the first people from Africa to the young country. As if a black boy and a white girl courting in plain sight were scandalous, even though everyone else did it behind closed doors.
The priest barred Guilhermina from the church and removed Bento from his post as altar boy. Guilhermina, obsessive in her admiration for organ music, felt like a victim of something she could not understand and which, even if she had understood, she would never have accepted under any circumstances.
The scandal she raised outside the church door after she had been barred from attending Sunday Mass was recorded in the annals of the colony as one of the most severe cases of possession by the devil ever witnessed. Her screaming, the brute hate lashing out from her ember-like eyes, and the way she threw her body to the floor over and over, the stream of profanity and her kicks against the church door, her scratching of the door with her fingers, her nails digging into the solid wood until hot blood ran down her wrists, her fiery hair like a hurricane, her rage at full combustion and her wild howl—it was the vision of a tiny apocalypse on the church steps that morning.
After this, accused of possession by the devil, she had no other choice but to flee. Had it been up to her, she wouldn’t have left at all, and she only did so under the influence of Maria’s natural remedies. Maria helped pack her granddaughter’s things onto the horse-drawn cart with which she, Bento, and four slaves, five Indians, and two black house slaves (one of them pregnant), chosen by Maria for their strength and loyalty, set off for a faraway destination.
Guilhermina was sixteen years old.
Maria Taiaôba only heard from her years later. At that point, Maria was living with a young Bahian man, Juvêncio, the son of Brazilians who had an open mind and a broad smile, and who was much younger than her.
Juvêncio was always at the tavern and, little by little, with the aura of adoration that overtook him each time he saw Maria, his brown skin, wide smile, taut muscles, and soft guitar-playing soon found room in Maria’s heart as well as in her bed. He moved in with her and helped her manage the tavern. He was a simple young man, but he had a generous heart and made Maria happy.
The tavern was at the center of both of their lives. Maria felt at ease there, with her friends, with the young Juvêncio and his guitar, and with the nights that stretched to dawn fueled by heated political discussions, poetry, and singing. All the city’s important events were held at the tavern, and Maria Taiaôba’s house—much the way her plantation had transformed into an important and neutral place for meeting and catching up on the news during the war for Pernambuco—itself soon assumed, quite naturally and unexpectedly, an important place in the cultural life of Salvador. Amid the languor of colonial life, it was important to have a place where people could gather to talk and trade information, and Maria had a talent for surrounding herself with diverse and open-minded people.
After receiving news from her granddaughter, she began to plan a trip to visit the girl. One afternoon, far from home, in the forest where she still enjoyed gathering fruits and flowers for her sweets, she began to think about her approaching visit to Guilhermina, how she would meet the girl’s children, see the life she had built for herself (would she be the same as before? Did she make the desserts Maria had taught her to make? Was she happy?), when the sky grew dark and a heavy rain began to fall.
Arriving home completely soaked, she thought to prepare some of the remedies she often made to warm body and soul, but feeling tired, decided, It can wait until tomorrow.
In a few short days, pneumonia killed her at the age of sixty-six.
Juvêncio sold the tavern, the house, the furniture, and the slaves, and set off to find Guilhermina, for that had been Maria Taiaôba’s final wish.
GUILHERMINA
(1648-1693)
On the afternoon Guilhermina and Bento fled the city of Salvador, her head resting on Bento’s shoulder, her mind regaining its calm but still a bit muddled from her grandmother’s concoctions, Guilhermina slowly shook herself awake and thought back on fragments of her childhood. She remembered the cattle drive arriving at the plantation that had belonged to Manu Taiaôba, the swirling river with the heads of cattle, their horns knocking up against one another, the stir of hooves and mooing, and she smelled the sweet and acrid scent of cow dung. She heard the voice of an old man in a leather hat as he sat at the top of the large staircase leading to the porch, telling stories from the cattle drive.
The old man told how Manu Taiaôba, many, many years earlier, had discovered a way to teach the frightened cattle to cross the violent, rushing rivers of the backlands. How he had placed a cow skull on his head and jumped into the river, swimming and pretending he was a steer and showing them the way across. “It was your great-grandfather who invented this strategy,” he would tell her, “and today, everyone does the same.”
In her dream, she laughed, proud of her great-grandfather, but soon she thought to herself that no, it couldn’t have happened that way, she hadn’t known Manu Taiaôba, she hadn’t known the plantation, she hadn’t known the old man with the leather hat—I didn’t know my father, I only knew my grandmother, I only knew Maria Taiaôba.
For a second, she stirred about confusedly in her dream, but soon she realized: Of course, it was my grandmother who told me. Calm washed over her again and she saw herself on the beach, running far from her mother, the waves drawing closer and washing over her feet, and Belmira sitting there, still as could be, staring off into infinity, and then suddenly there was no one and then the sea washed her mother’s dress up on the beach, and then her shawl, Mother! she cried, Mother! . . . and Bento pulled her closer, Shhh . . . shhh . . . don’t worry, everything will be alright, Guilhermina, everything will be alright, I’m sure of it.
But how could Bento know!
Bento didn’t even know where they were going. They had already been in the horse cart for hours and the roads were becoming worse and worse, increasingly narrow, difficult to navigate with all the tree stumps and branches that lay along the shallow dirt clearing. Soon they would have to abandon the cart and continue on foot, but only after resting to allow Guilhermina to regain her strength.
When night fell they stopped in a clearing and slept through to the following morning. Bento had never imagined he’d find himself in such a situation, but before they left Salvador, a friend had advised him to settle down in a place where no one knew them, somewhere they could start a new life. It was better to follow the paths through the backlands and not along the better-known roads along the coast where, had the people of Salvador wanted to, they could have come after them.
They abandoned the cart, unhooked the
horse, and set out on foot. Their guide was an Indian who knew the region. When possible, they would walk along the river so as not to become lost, and to have water and fish at hand.
Guilhermina had already recovered her strength and was easily able to keep a steady pace, leaving Bento trailing behind. She liked the cold humidity of the dense, dark jungle, where the thick, tall trees with their bushy canopies kept even a sliver of light from seeping through. It was a source of peace to follow the guide’s footsteps through that unknown darkness; it composed the perfect dramatic setting for her personality and temperament. Later, she barely noticed the heavy swarms of mosquitoes tirelessly circling them, buzzing and leaving bites that slowly clot in the steam rising from the forest floor.
Their clothes often became soaked as they crossed muddy swamps; made for city life, Bento’s and Guilhermina’s shoes didn’t last long, and their feet suffered from the sticks and thorns. Their Indian guide taught them how to walk by flattening the soles of their feet against the ground and turning their toes a bit inward to reduce fatigue. They passed through regions thick with jaguars and saw earth overturned by their claws, great big gouges in the earth as though hacked out with hoes; they rubbed linseed oil into their skin so that the scent would keep the beasts at a distance.
They hunted as they could, fished, ate hearts of palm and wild cashew fruit. Their mood improved dramatically each time they found a monkey to roast.
After a few days on foot they entered a region of hills and mountain ranges. Their guide warned against making noise, hunting with shotguns, or even lighting a fire: they had entered territory belonging to the Tapuias, fierce warriors with long flowing hair like a woman’s. Fear caused the group to quicken its pace, limit their stops to rest, and eat less. When they arrived at the edge of navigable rivers, Bento and the slaves built improvised rafts they took as far as they could.
They wandered until they came across a troop of cattle-ranchers; their conversations with the cattlemen led Bento and Guilhermina to an idea. They asked their guide to take them to a region that served as a cattle crossing, at the basin of the Rio Doce, not far from what would later become the border between the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.
When they arrived at a clearing in the middle of a valley, Guilhermina thought it was a good spot for them to settle down. Bento agreed. They built a house out of logs, with a beaten earth floor and a thatched roof, and hung hammocks and selected wood for a table and stools. They constructed a corral and planted the cassava they’d brought with them.
Looking out upon the vast earth around him, Bento realized that raising cattle would have its advantages; cattle are a product that have no need to be carried; the cows and steer bear their own weight, simply requiring that someone show them the way. During long drives, however, one or more of the cattle would sometimes tire out or grow weak from lack of food or water. If Bento and Guilhermina were to establish themselves along the cattle-driving routes, they might end up with some of these ailing cattle, nurse them back to health, and slowly build up a small herd of their own for food or to sell down the line. From their doorstep, they could also sell the foods they planted to the cattlemen who passed by.
And that’s what they did, and life followed its course.
They went about clearing some more land in the floodplain and succeeded in obtaining corn seed from the travelers who passed through, and even planted sugarcane. They sold what they had or traded for what they did not at the tiny stand they constructed at the edge of the road. Soon they began to make rapadura, a luxury in those inhospitable backlands: the sweet taste of the hardened block of sugar energized tired bodies and brought a bit of warmth to the chest during early morning cattle drives.
The first ailing livestock the couple managed to recuperate resulted in Guilhermina’s discovery of her talent for raising cattle. From the very beginning, it was she who took charge of the animals with the help of the slaves. She had a special method for reviving the weakened cattle and was so devoted to caring for the cows and calves it was as if they were her own children. At times, she found herself thinking that the dream she’d had of Manu Taiaôba’s cattle drives had, in reality, been a sign as to their future endeavors.
Guilhermina was tall, strong, fearless, and possessed such natural authority as she performed the farm work that no one—neither man nor beast—tried to test her. She began to wear men’s clothing to better perform fieldwork, and the male cowhands treated her as though she were one of them, despite knowing quite well that she was their boss and a woman.
Guilhermina found peace in those wide-open spaces and their solitude.
Though it had been difficult for her to accept the rules of society life, it was easy for her to accept the laws of nature. She loved the dense forest, the wild animals, the heavy rains. She especially enjoyed the storms that brought lightning and thunder; she loved the rushing rivers and winds. In Bento’s eyes, his wife was also a force of nature, a sister to the storms, the long cattle drives, and the strong river currents.
Theirs was a solar life: they rose before the first rays of sun shone through the morning fog, they would rest when the sun had reached its peak, wrap up their work as the sun set, and sleep soon after darkness set in. They sometimes received travelers and other outsiders. Like others who were peopling the colony, Guilhermina and Bento gave lodging to all who passed through; this was their only contact with the outside world. Travelers were scarce in the region, but whenever they did come by, the farm’s door was open at any hour of day or night, and slaves were at the ready to serve them a hot meal. They sold provisions to anyone needing supplies for the road, but the meals served upon arrival were part of the hospitality, a necessity, a custom they observed in that era of endless distances and few villages.
They would have cattle dealers pass through and, at times, even an entire expedition, a tiny town on the march, raising a ruckus and a constant din that left Guilhermina feeling uneasy, at risk, and often she would seek refuge among the livestock, leaving Bento to see to the roadside stand and conversation.
There were only two things that Guilhermina longed for: Maria Taiaôba and organ music. But she knew it was unlikely she would ever have either again. All the same, she continued singing more than she ever had, and Bento bought a fiddle off a cowboy to provide accompaniment. All who passed through grew wide-eyed with her singing, and soon a legend was born of a woman with fiery hair who sang like an angel of God and belted out songs that were so melodious and beautiful they appeared to cast a spell over the livestock.
Bento was able to resume making his saints in peace, selling his statues to the cattlemen, who resold them when they reached the cities and were soon bringing him orders. In addition to the tiny statues, he sculpted altarpieces, but his talent was most apparent in the tiny images of women saints. These, his tiny saints, were strong; they had a formal and rigid posture characteristic of the religious art of the time. The only difference in Bento’s images was the subtle, more real sensualism than most baroque models, and a more vibrant color palette, even if he was limited to tones of red, yellow, and black, a detail imposed by the limited varieties of pigments to be found in the surrounding forests.
The region was rich in soapstone, also called panstone and used for kitchen cookware. A bluish-green or gray color, it was a soft stone uniform in texture, and was malleable like wood. Bento began to sculpt smaller pieces from this stone, pieces that gradually became more refined, more harmonious, tiny blue-green and gray jewels.
It was a life of isolation and endless horizons, and both Guilhermina and Bento were comfortable that way. Indeed, Guilhermina was happy, her world, at Bento’s side, was the livestock, broad horizons, the music coming from the bull’s horn, and her singing filling the vast fields that opened far beyond what the eye could see.
She became pregnant twice but lost the children; when the twins Jerônimo and Romualdo were born, she was nearing twenty. Soon after, she became pregnant again, but the girl w
as stillborn.
Guilhermina didn’t know what to do with the twins. She had accepted her natural role—just as animals gave birth, so did people. But, beyond feeding them and providing a favorable environment for them to grow, she wasn’t sure what more was demanded of her in relation to her sons. The two boys were very different from one another, but they were always a mystery to their mother: she didn’t know how to interact with or what to expect from them.
Their father, for his part, left their fate to God. He, too, was distant from his boys but, beyond feeding them, he considered it his duty to give them something of a religious education. To that end, he began to construct a small chapel on a little hill next to the house. He threw himself into the project with such enthusiasm that he spent all his time working there on his saints, the altar, and the altarpieces, practically forgetting about the boys’ education.
When the chapel was ready, it provided one more point of admiration among those who passed by the farm. It was small and had a single wooden cross hanging above the altar. All the numerous and varied statues, however, were small, delicate soapstone images of women saints. Until his death, Bento continued making saints for the chapel, filling nearly all its walls and creating a curious effect like a gray and blue-green cave peopled with miniatures, a strange sky overrun with tiny women saints.
One afternoon, Juvêncio arrived at the farm carrying the inheritance Maria Taiaôba had left to Guilhermina, namely a large sum of money. There were gold coins stored in a leather chest, along with some jewels—those from Duarte’s family—and the mother-of-pearl jewelry box with Filipa’s treasures. Guilhermina and Bento weren’t sure what to do with it, and decided to leave it in a corner of the room, inside the same trunk.