Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters Read online

  When she arrived in Recife, nothing was left of the meaty girl who had departed Bahia three weeks earlier. She now looked more like a skeleton overcome with pain, and with a single thought in her mind: to run away.

  On the day she first saw the sugar plantation, she was sure she had witnessed hell on earth as the priest had described it. Inside a cavernous shed, fiery stoves gave birth to fiery tongues that climbed the sides of enormous cauldrons, causing their boiling liquid to scream amid vaporous clouds; there was the deafening grind of wheels and chains, and an acrid smell that seemed to coat mouths and lungs even from miles away. All of this, along with the moans of the slaves forced into labor there, paralyzed the young Filipa with fear. Her job was to help separate the bagasse that the black slaves piled in the field behind the shed where the cauldrons could be found. This did not require her to enter into that devil’s lair, but it did nothing to soothe her terror.

  The terror was not hers alone: many of the adult natives were incapable of entering the enormous shed. They would rather be whipped to death than ever set foot in there.

  The Portuguese had developed a new technique for sugar production in the Azores, for which the Brazilian climate was ideal and the land spectacular. The Indians, the so-called “native blacks,” excelled at clearing the forest to make way for sugarcane, but they were disastrous at the complex and repetitive work at the sugar mill, whose purpose they could not understand. Armed with the machetes and knives they received from the Europeans, the Indians had taken a great technological leap forward, but the operations of the sugar mill, an example of the most advanced technology of its time, proved too much for them. And so, the additional labor of African slaves was becoming increasingly necessary in order to make the colony productive.

  MB’TA, THE SLAVE FROM GUINEA

  Mb’ta came from Bantu people, born to family of farmers in a slave-trading village in Africa. He had barely turned eighteen when he was caught in an ambush as he was returning home from his father’s rice fields. Mb’ta hadn’t yet given any thought to marriage, nor had he fallen for any girls in his village. He had a few plans for himself: he intended to ask his father’s permission to go live with an uncle who was a blacksmith in a village a half-day’s walk away, and to learn this highly respected profession. He had simply been waiting for his brother to take his place next to his father, and he was certain that this time would soon come.

  The young man had grown worried with rumors that men and women were being captured to be sold as slaves on the other side of the sea. And so, when one day a shiver ran up his neck and he sensed he was being followed, panic washed over him.

  Mb’ta was no warrior. He had not even undergone training to become a warrior. He’d always helped his father in the fields, dreaming of the day when he could join his uncle to learn his way around the foundry and master the art of ironmaking, forging weapons that his brothers, not he, would later take up. When he realized there were two or three men on his trail, he knew that, all alone, he had no chance. He tried to run, but it was no use.

  His life underwent an abrupt and irreversible change. Mb’ta wished to die and ever since that moment thought of only one thing: running away.

  After the hellish nightmare that was the sea-crossing in the hold of a ship, tossed amid a horde of other Africans speaking Bantu, Yoruba, and Hausa, Mb’ta landed in Brazil at the same sugar plantation where Filipa had been brought.

  They spent years without really noticing one another, despite working in close proximity. And perhaps they would never have noticed one another had Mb’ta not lost the iron amulet he had worn around his neck, his last tie to his village in Africa. The same amulet Filipa found and hid, fastened around her waist beneath the thick cotton clothing worn by all the slaves.

  Mb’ta found a way to approach the slave women to look for the charm, and soon came to Filipa to inquire, if she would pardon the interruption, whether she had seen an amulet that looked like this or that as she walked along the path that led to the stables. Filipa responded that no, she hadn’t seen anything, because she had liked the tiny, beautiful iron fist even without knowing what it meant. Only later, whenever the opportunity arose, and because she had begun to feel a little guilty, or perhaps for another reason altogether, did she begin to look for the young man with his black skin like that of a shiny, polished fruit.

  At night, when the slaves would gather around the fire, she began to notice the infectious rhythm coming from Mb’ta’s drums. She couldn’t take her eyes off him each time he stood up to wriggle his entire body in a frenzied dance that she found so foreign and, at the same time, so familiar. Mb’ta, for his part, had begun to take note of the young mameluca slave’s attentions. There were few women at the sugar plantation, and nearly all were either Indians or the daughters of Indians and white men. The two black Yoruba women from the kitchen were older and already had husbands.

  Dancing and beating his drum, he drew closer to Filipa, and suddenly she too was in the middle of the circle, swaying her body along to the beat, as though she had grown up dancing next to the Bantu man.

  And so, their meeting was quite natural. Mb’ta savored Filipa’s fragrant smell, an ancestral scent that directed his thoughts back to the meats seasoned for days over open fires in the houses of his village. Filipa liked Mb’ta’s pitch-dark skin, where she would bury her face and once again feel protected as she had in Sahy’s warm lap on those nights spent around the bonfire.

  Just as natural was the way they began to obsessively plot their escape. They spoke in Língua Geral, the language of the first inhabitants of this new Brazil, who came from so many different backgrounds.

  Filipa would say that she was an Indian, that her mother had taught her everything about the forest, that they would find some place near a river where they could build a camp. “And I know how to hunt,” Mb’ta would reply, “I used to hunt with my father back in my homeland, and once even killed a lion with other men from the village.” “And I know how to can meats,” Filipa would say, “which is a delicious way to preserve game from the hunt. My mother taught me, no one here knows I can do this, but I can, and I know how to plant cassava and make cassava flour.” “And I,” Mb’ta would say, “know how to fish with a spear or a net.” “And I know how to make a net,” Filipa would reply.

  Mb’ta would say that they needed to find a good weapon, at least one machete, though rope would also be good. “I can make rope,” Filipa would say, “I’ll work on it at night, in the dark, and hide it during the day. I’ve found a good hiding place.” And she would laugh as she remembered the amulet, which she still hadn’t found a way or the courage to tell Mb’ta about. “And I have a blade that I stole and hid away one day,” Mb’ta would add. “I can make a handle for it, and a wooden spear, I can make these at night, too, and hide them during the day.”

  The preparations, however, had to be postponed because, by the time she finally noticed, Filipa had been pregnant for months. She still wanted to run away, she was an Indian, she insisted, and Indians gave birth in the forest. “But how will you run from the men,” Mb’ta would ask, “how will you run from the dogs?” “I can manage,” Filipa responded, “Let’s go, Mb’ta, come.” But Mb’ta, poor Mb’ta, convinced Filipa it was better to wait.

  How was he to know that later everything would become much more difficult? How was he to know that the number of slaves who would later attempt to escape would be so great that security measures would be increased or—what was worse—that João Tibiritê was to arrive with his heinous philosophy that a runaway slave was a dead slave, because that was the only way they would learn?

  But there was no way to know, and so they delayed their escape.

  Maria Mb’ta was born. She had a birthmark, a dark triangle at the base of her neck, its peak slanted left. Filipa would gaze at the birthmark and remember the stories of her people that her mother had told by the bonfire, her with eyes closed. She thought about her people, whom she’d never known, and thought
about the tranquil brook where she and Mb’ta would build their home.

  Mb’ta made Filipa a necklace of tiny stones he’d found in the river and cut crudely with a nail he’d hidden among his belongings. Filipa returned the amulet to him without a word, as though she had just found it. Smiling, he tied it around young Maria’s neck.

  Life at the sugar plantation had become more and more difficult. The nights filled with drumming, music, and dancing were now only permitted on specific days of the week, holy days, or when some important white man made a visit. The work had grown more intense: the number of cauldrons had increased along with the number of slaves, who now worked in shifts so that production never ceased. Many times Filipa worked a different shift than Mb’ta, and days would pass without the couple seeing one another.

  The plantation owner was an ambitious nobleman who’d left Portugal in the 1550s to start life anew in the land that was being built up from nothing. With a bit of luck and a great deal of cunning, he’d managed to build his sugar mill and, after production and a client base had stabilized, he sent for his wife and children. The house became more lively, and Filipa, having just given birth to her daughter, was assigned to help with the household chores.

  It was the wrong job for the wrong person: how could she resist such temptation as, day after day, she visited the bedroom of the lady of the house?

  With the fascination for new objects she’d inherited from her people, Filipa had accumulated various little trinkets over the year, which she stored in a hiding place whose location only she knew. Some things she had found, as she paid close attention everywhere she walked, but others she had carefully and artfully stolen from here and there. They were always things of little value, like hairpins that were bent out of shape, hairpins that had fallen on the floor, or rusty nails.

  But no one escapes the inevitable. The day arrived when Filipa took a fancy to a cameo fastened to a bright-red velvet ribbon that the lady of the house sometimes wore around her neck when receiving guests. When the lady of the house took off the necklace, she would place it in a small jewelry box decorated with mother-of-pearl, a tiny box that made Filipa sick with the desire to stash it in her hiding place. When she found herself alone cleaning the bedroom, she always stopped to touch the box and open it. She didn’t know what fanned the flames of her desire more: the cameo with the most beautiful red ribbon she’d ever seen, or the box with tiny, white, inlaid stones—which she wanted to show Mb’ta so that, who knows, he might make her one just like it.

  Consumed by her desire, she decided one day to steal both. She hid the jewelry box between her breasts and walked out of the house, breathing a sigh of relief as she reached the yard, believing the worst was over.

  You can imagine what the consequences were for her actions.

  But what you have no way of knowing is that João Tibiritê had already been hired by this time as a slave-catcher to bring order to that “pack of lawless savages,” and it was he who tied Filipa to the tree stump and tore at her skin with his whip, proclaiming at the top of his lungs for all to hear that, as far as he was concerned, whoever strayed once could very well stray again, but no one would do so a third time because he would be killed first, killed right and killed slowly, and he was of the opinion that the longer it took to learn a lesson, the deeper the branding iron would sear into the malfeasant’s subsconscious.

  Filipa listened to all of this until she understood—and Mb’ta, too. All the slaves had been summoned to witness the punishment of that mameluca thief. Mb’ta had been bound and tied inches from his wife so he could watch the blood run down her back. But was there any reflection on what had been said—and I’m not even talking just about Filipa, whose bold temperament wasn’t given to patience and who thought everything had been the last straw on her haystack of suffering; but Mb’ta, too, who was always so sensible and cautious—did they reflect on João Tibiritê’s words, did they study his character to see whether he made good on his threats? Not a chance! In one of these inexplicable and illogical bursts of temerity, the two slaves decided they could no longer delay their escape.

  One week later, on a night with neither stars nor moonlight, they grabbed Maria Mb’ta and set off into the darkness.

  MARIA CAFUZA

  (1579-1605)

  Maria Cafuza was not, in fact, a cafuza, as she was not the daughter of an African man with an Indian woman, but with a mameluca. But who cared about these details? Certainly not Filipa or Mb’ta. For them, their daughter was always Maria Mb’ta, and so it was until the day they fell into the hands of João Tibiritê, the same day that Maria was called cafuza for the first time.

  If you’re still hoping to find a good-looking member of the family, look no further. This girl, it’s true, had a rare beauty, a combination of the best that could be found in all of the races that pulsed inside her. How can I describe her to make you realize just how beautiful she was? She was tall, with long legs, and golden-brown skin unlike any other. Silky hair the color of a blackbird fell in gentle curls over her shoulders. Lips that were ever so full, iridescent, almond-shaped eyes that alternated between green and violet depending on how the light struck them. A square chin and a silhouette so shapely that whoever saw her felt the desire to stop and admire her. And Maria’s smile was certainly the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen.

  But after she became Maria Cafuza, she never smiled again.

  And why should she? With the life she led, there wasn’t the slightest reason for a smile, and nothing could uncloud the fierce drama concealed behind her perfect features.

  All this is very sad, I know, but as I said in the beginning, I have no intention of glossing over the less savory aspects in this story.

  Maria watched her parents die, tortured at the hands of João Tibiritê. She watched as João tore out her father’s fingernails, rammed an enormous stick up his ass, gouged his eyes, and left him there bleeding on the ground. She watched as this same João turned to Filipa and began slowly cutting into her skin with an enormous, fine-edge knife, until her striped body was a stream of red flooding the piles of leaves that covered the ancient, pristine forest floor.

  Maria Cafuza watched it all. She was five at the time. Later, João Tibiritê took her with him.

  THE MAMELUCO FROM SÃO PAULO

  The story of João Tibiritê could have been different, and his character might have been, too. But who can tell the exact moment when a gene is corrupted, creating a monster? Let’s leave João for a moment and turn to his band of mameluco slave hunters, which included Manu Taiaôba, the son of a Portuguese settler and one of his three Indian wives.

  Some of Manu’s childhood was spent with relatives in his mother’s village, some on his father’s tiny farm, here and there, together with other little spitfires just like him. Then the Jesuits took him to their mission, baptized him, and tried to ensure he studied at their college and became a “good Christian,” fearful of the one true God and capable of the repetitive work crucial to the economic order of the newfound colony. But the call of the forest, of adventure, and especially his blood was much stronger, and, a mere twelve years old, he ran away to join João Tibiritê’s much-feared band.

  The Paulistas, as they were called, were known as ruthless hunters of runaway native slaves, and would venture deeper and deeper into the untamed backlands in search of their prey. The João Tibiritê posse was one such group. They made incursions that would last for months on end and return with hundreds of natives they’d captured in battles and ambushes. They would set out for their mission armed and ready; no one knew the landscape like they did, they were adept at hunting, fishing, and identifying edible plants, they could speak and understand any of the indigenous languages and Língua Geral, they had no difficulty facing the sun, rain, storms, thunder and lightning, they were hunters in search of jaguars and snakes, trained for war and adventure. A brand of men prepared for the circumstances they’d been born into and who lived to do exactly what they did: push furt
her and further into the backlands and tame the land.

  Manu Taiaôba, swift with his bare feet, his fine ear, and innate hunting ability, loved that life. It was as though he was born for it, and he spent hours dreaming and thinking of nothing else. He was soon devising battle strategies and logistics, and in a short couple years he became João Tibiritê’s right-hand man, responsible for devising new, innovative tactics for catching slaves.

  In that summer of 1583, João Tibiritê had captured a good number of slaves to take to Pernambuco, where he found a job as a runaway slave hunter.

  An epidemic of runaways seemed to have hit the area, and he was the right man to put an end to it. Not everyone in his posse liked the line of work, but João thought it better to stay awhile to earn some easy money as he prepared to make the long journey back to the parts known as São Vicente.

  As a result, Manu Taiaôba was present when João killed Maria’s parents. Although he was part of João’s posse, a group of adventurers accustomed to killing and who considered bloody victories their only reason for living, the strange and senseless violence of torture still caused Manu to turn away so as not to see the dismantled bodies of the black man and the mameluca woman. He had never felt this way before: a strange sort of pity filled his heart as he looked to their daughter, a skinny girl who looked as if she would fall apart when the captain snatched her up.

  Ever since that day, Manu was present for each moment of Maria’s life.

  There were no women in João’s posse, except for an old Indian witch-doctor who had begun to follow them one day and never left. When they arrived at camp the day Maria joined them, Manu called the old woman to her and told her to look after the girl.