The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil (12 page)

When he fell in love with Clara, he had only debts to his name—not too many, though, because he lived with his cousin, a wood-carver by trade. After various failed attempts to find other work, he decided to enter his cousin’s trade, of which he already knew some elements. He easily learned more, but he was in a hurry and didn’t learn them very well. So he stayed away from anything delicate or complicated, doing only claw-feet for sofas and simple carving for the backs of chairs. He wanted to be employed when he got married, and that didn’t take long to happen.

He was thirty years old, Clara twenty-two. She was an orphan and lived with her Aunt Monica, in whose house she did needlework. She wasn’t so busy sewing that she couldn’t have boyfriends, but the boyfriends were only interested in killing time with her, so it appeared, and nothing else. They spent afternoons in the sitting room, gazing at her, and she at them, until the evening, when she had to go sew. She noticed that she didn’t really like them and didn’t miss them in their absence. She possibly never learned the names of many. She
did
want to get married, naturally. Her aunt said that it was like fishing: you just waited, cane pole in hand, to see if anything took the bait. But nothing did. Most fish swam by without stopping, and the few that stopped merely poked at the bait without taking it before swimming away in search of something better.

Love brings us various missives. One has to open the envelopes to see what is inside. When Clara first saw Cándido Neves, she felt immediately that this might be her future husband, the one and only. They met at a dance. Such, one could say, recalling the attempted initial profession of the groom, was page one of their romance, a book that turned out poorly typeset and worse bound. The wedding took place eleven months later, with quite a celebration. Clara’s friends tried to dissuade her from the step that she was about to take. They did not deny that the groom was a fine fellow, or that he loved her, or that he possessed a number of virtues. But they said that he was too fond of partying.

“Thank goodness,” replied the bride. “At least I’m not marrying some boring old hulk!”

“An old hulk, no. It’s that …”

But they didn’t finish the sentence. After the wedding, however, Aunt Monica spoke to them at the rundown house, where they had gone to live. She wanted to talk about their idea of having children. The new couple wanted to have one, just one, even though a child might try their scarce resources.

“You’ll starve to death, and the child, too,” the aunt told her niece.

“The Virgin, Our Lady, will provide for us,” replied Clara.

Aunt Monica should have delivered her dire warning when Cándido had proposed to the young woman. But Monica, too, was fond of celebrations, and liked the idea of a wedding. The three of them were fun loving. The couple laughed about everything, even their names—Clara, Neves, Cándido—all about whiteness and purity. Their high spirits put no food on the table, but laughter is easily digested. Clara sewed more now, and Cándido took odd jobs, nothing steady.

They did not give up the idea of having a child, however. It was the child who, apparently unaware of their plan, failed to materialize. One day, though, the child finally gave notice of its impending arrival; boy or girl, it was the blessed fruit that would bring them the future they’d sighed for. Aunt Monica felt a bit uncertain, but Cándido and Clara laughed at her worries.

“God will surely help us, Aunt Monica,” insisted the expectant mother.

The news flew from neighbor to neighbor. They had only to await the big day. The wife sewed more eagerly than before, which was a good thing, because now, in addition to the sewing that she did for money, she had to start piecing together the baby clothes out of scraps. She thought about the baby clothes until it seemed to her that she already had the baby, so much did she measure and sew for its diapers and little shirts. The scraps were small, and the intervals between them, large. Aunt Monica helped, it’s true, though resentfully.

“You’ll see how hard life is,” she sighed.

“Don’t other people’s babies get born somehow?” asked Clara.

“They get born, and their parents have a steady means to feed them, even if it’s not much.”

“What do you mean ‘a steady means’?”

“I mean a job, an occupation. What does the father of that unlucky kid that you’re expecting spend his time doing?”

Cándido Neves, as soon as he heard about the aunt’s warning, went to talk with her, and although he wasn’t rude to her, he was much less gentle than usual. He demanded to know if she had ever gone hungry while he was living with her.

“You only fast during Holy Week, and only then because you decline to share whatever I’m having. We never go without our codfish.”

“Sure, but there are just three of us.”

“So there will be four.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“What do you want me to do, then, that I’m not already doing?”

“Something more reliable. Look at that cabinetmaker fellow, the guy who runs the corner store, the typesetter who got married on Saturday … they all have steady jobs. Don’t get mad, now. I’m not saying that you’re worthless, I’m saying what you’re doing is worthless. Weeks go by that you earn nothing at all.”

“Yes, but one evening soon I’m going to more than make up for it. God won’t abandon me. Those runaways know they can’t play games with yours truly. Very few resist at all. A lot of them don’t even try to run and just surrender right away.”

He spoke with pride. It was money in the bank. Before long he was laughing, and soon Monica was laughing, too, because she was naturally fun-loving and the baptism promised a big party.

Cándido had lost the wood-carving job the way he’d let go of many others, better ones and worse ones. Now he was keen to catch slaves. Slave catching didn’t require you to stay a long time sitting in one place. It only required strength, a sharp eye, patience, courage, and a piece of rope. Cándido Neves read the advertisements concerning escaped slaves, carefully copied them on a bit of paper that he put in his pocket, and went out to do some research. He had a good memory. Once he had assimilated the information about the runaways, he quickly found, caught, tied them, and led them away. He was impressively strong and agile. More than once he was standing on a corner conversing absentmindedly and, among many slaves passing by, recognized one as a runaway. And he knew which one—the name, the owner’s name, the owner’s address, and the amount of the reward, too. He didn’t grab the slave right away, either. He waited for the right moment and then, one jump, and the reward was in his hands. Sometimes he shed a drop of blood, the work of the other person’s teeth and fingernails, but mostly he got by without a scratch.

One day Cándido’s profits began to diminish. Runaways didn’t come up and jump into his arms anymore. Other, very capable hands were at work. Slave catching was a growing business and lots of unemployed men had seen the potential, found a rope, copied the ads, and joined the chase. Cándido had more than one competitor in his own neighborhood. Now his debts began to rise without the payments that, at first, had been on time or almost on time. Life suddenly got harder. They borrowed money for food, and they didn’t eat so well. Sometimes it was a long time between meals. The landlord sent repeatedly for the rent.

Clara didn’t even have time to mend her husband’s clothes because she was busy sewing for money at all hours. Aunt Monica helped her niece, naturally. When Cándido got home in the evenings you could see in his face that his pockets were empty. He ate supper and went out again to look for runaways. Blinded by the necessity, he now occasionally grabbed the wrong person, a faithful servant doing an errand for his master. Once he captured a free man of color. He apologized a thousand times but the man’s relatives left him black and blue.

“It was bound to happen,” said Aunt Monica when she saw him walk in and after she heard his story about the mistake and its consequences. “Give it up, man! Look for a different line of work.”

Cándido did decide he wanted another job, but not because of Monica’s advice. He was simply ready for a change of pace. The only problem was finding an alternative trade that he could learn quickly enough.

Nature moved along: the fetus was growing, a considerable burden to its mother even before being born. The eighth month arrived, a difficult month, though less than the ninth, so let’s skip them both and narrate only their impact, which could not be more bitter.

“No, Aunt Monica!” howled our Cándido, refusing advice that I’d rather not put in print, advice hard for the father to hear, no doubt. “Not that! Never!”

It was in the last week of the last month that Monica advised the couple to leave the baby in the foundling’s wheel. There could hardly be a worse word for two young expectant parents, eager to kiss and care for their baby, eager to watch it laugh and grow fat and sassy. The foundling’s wheel! Cándido looked in horror at the aunt and finally pounded his fist on the dining table. The table was old and shaky and seemed about to collapse entirely. Clara spoke up:

“Aunt Monica isn’t trying to be mean, Candy.”

“Mean?” said Monica. “It’s the best thing for you and for the baby, too. You’re deep in debt and can’t keep food on the table now. How is this family going to get bigger without more money? And, anyway, you’ve got plenty of time. In a few years, when you can afford them,
then
you can have children, and you’ll want them as much as this one, or even more, because then you can take care of them. Someone else will raise this one, and it will be fine. Leaving it in the foundling’s wheel isn’t like leaving it on the beach or in some trash heap. At the convent, at least it won’t die, and here it
will
, if it doesn’t get enough to eat. So …”

Aunt Monica concluded the phrase with a shrug of her shoulders and, turning her back, went into her room. She had insinuated the idea before, but never so frankly, heatedly, or—if you prefer—so cruelly. Clara reached over to her husband, as if to comfort him. Cándido Neves made a face and called the aunt crazy under his breath. The couple’s tender moment was interrupted by someone knocking on the front door.

“Who’s there?” inquired the husband.

“It’s me.”

It was the landlord, to whom they owed three months’ rent and who had come in person to give them an ultimatum. His tenant invited him in.

“That will not be necessary …”

“Please be so kind …”

The landlord entered but refused to take a seat. He cast his eyes over the furniture to calculate its value and saw little. He had come to collect what they owed; he could wait no longer and, unless he was paid within five days, he would evict them. He had not worked hard all his life to give others a free ride. No one would think, to look at him, that he was a landlord, but his hard words more than compensated for his mild appearance, and Cándido made no reply. He inclined his head, half in acquiescence and half in supplication. His creditor offered no concessions.

“You have five days, or you’re out,” he said, lifting the latch and leaving.

Our Cándido went out as well, but in a different direction. He never panicked in such situations. He would get the money somehow, no telling how, but somehow, he was sure. He took a look at the announcements of runaway slaves. There were several, including some that he had seen for weeks. But he spent a few hours looking around without results and then went home. Four days later he remained empty handed and was ready to try anything. He went to talk to various of the landlord’s friends, getting only the suggestion that he vacate the premises.

The situation had become acute. They had found nowhere to move, no one to help them. They were going to be out in the street. They were not counting on Aunt Monica. The aunt, meanwhile, had artfully located a place for the three of them to live, a room or two behind the carriageway belonging to a rich old lady of her acquaintance, the sort of place where slaves used to live. Even more artfully, the aunt had said nothing about the rooms to Cándido, hoping that desperation would drive him to take the child to the foundling’s wheel and then find a steady job—straighten out his life, in a word. She listened to Clara’s lamentations, without adding her own, but also without offering consolation. She intended to astonish the couple, on the day of their eviction, with the good news that they would not have to sleep in the street after all.

And so it happened. Evicted, they moved into the rooms that had been offered, and two days later the baby was born. The father’s joy was enormous, as was his sadness, too. Aunt Monica insisted that the baby must be taken to the foundling’s wheel. “If you don’t want to take it, let
me
. I’ll go.” Cándido Neves pleaded with her to wait. He would take the baby himself. It was a boy, readers, exactly what both parents had wanted. They had only a little milk to give it, but, because rain was falling that evening, the father put off taking the baby to the foundling’s wheel until the following evening.

In the meantime, he reviewed all the notices concerning runaway slaves. Most did not specify the reward; others offered a negligible amount. One, however, promised a hundred milréis. The notice described a woman, a young mulata, with details about her physical appearance and the clothes that she had been wearing when she ran away. Cándido Neves had searched for her days earlier, without luck, and had given up looking. He had decided that, young and pretty, she must be hiding in the house of a lover. Now, however, the sizeable reward and his urgent need for money inspired Cándido Neves to make a final, supreme effort. The next morning he went out to search around Carioca Square and in the neighborhood around the churches of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of the Good Birth, where the runaway had last been seen. He did not find her. His only lead came from an apothecary who remembered selling an ounce of some medication, three days earlier, to a woman who matched her description. Cándido Neves, who spoke as if he were the runaway’s owner, thanked the man politely. He had no better luck looking for the other runaways whose rewards were unspecified or insignificant.