The Seamstress (32 page)

“He’s too old to take part in those games,” Raimunda muttered before the Carnaval seamstresses arrived. The front bell clanged, signaling their appearance.

“These women would gossip about their own mothers,” Raimunda warned. Emília nodded.

Dona Dulce had also warned her about the seamstresses. The mother-and-daughter team made only costumes, not real clothes. Their talents with sequins, feathers, crystals, and multicolored fabrics made them highly coveted during Carnaval, but shunned the rest of the year. Because of their popularity during the months of January and February, the seamstresses worked for dozens of families—Old and New—and were allowed into their vast homes. The women had sharp eyes and even sharper tongues, and they left each house with stories to tell at the next one. Emília’s fitting was held in the Coelhos’ sitting room. This way, the seamstresses could say that they’d been treated respectfully, but they couldn’t spy on the kind of private information found in a bedroom. Raimunda placed a low stool in the middle of the sitting room, and Emília stood upon it, wearing her best silk slip. The Carnaval seamstresses stared at her.

The mother had a wide smile and short hair, cut in a style that seemed at odds with her thick body and old-fashioned flowered dress. The daughter was thin and boyish. Both women had skin that was dark and oily, like well-roasted coffee beans. The women draped their gaudy creations across Emília’s body; they’d made her a long skirt of feathers, a shiny gold top, and an Indian headdress. Emília slipped the costume over her head. Mosquitoes swirled around her legs. The mother seamstress also circled her, tucking and folding the costume, making final adjustments. Raimunda stood nearby, pouring Emília glasses of water and warning the seamstresses to be careful with their pins.

“Such a nice figure!” the older seamstress said, patting Emília’s thigh. “Thin girls are no good.”

Emília didn’t nod or show any sign of agreement, afraid the woman would tell other clients that Mrs. Degas Coelho had maligned thin women. The mother shrugged her shoulders. The daughter laid a mound of iridescent feathers on the sitting room table and began to enlarge the Amazonian headdress.

“Indians and clowns are classic,” the mother said approvingly. “No one else picked them this year. You’ll be one of a kind. Did you choose the themes?”

“No,” Emília replied. “My husband did.”

The mother smiled widely. “Is it your first Carnaval?”

“This is Dona Emília’s first year in Recife,” Raimunda interrupted. “You didn’t make a costume for her last year, did you?”

The seamstress fixed her eyes on Raimunda. The maid crossed her arms and stared back.

After their first meeting in the Coelhos’ bathroom, Raimunda had become a constant, quiet presence in Emília’s life. Emília appreciated her silence. Everyone—Dona Dulce, Degas, Dr. Duarte, Miss Lindalva—had advice for her. Everyone spoke in riddles that Emília was tired of decoding. Raimunda did not. The maid dressed her, combed her hair, fixed her snared stockings, and clipped her nails with a solemn, dutiful efficiency. She did not ask for conversation and Emília did not offer it. After Dona Dulce’s revelation at the fabric store, Emília felt as if even the jaboti turtles and long-faced Madonnas could be Dona Dulce’s informants. Emília was thankful for Raimunda’s protection from the Carnaval seamstresses, but she couldn’t allow it. A maid was expected to defend her employers only when they weren’t present. A dona was required to speak for herself; she couldn’t have a maid do it for her.

“I’m only nineteen,” Emília said, trying to re-create Dona Dulce’s voice, a mix of boredom and sternness. “In the interior, a young lady doesn’t play Carnaval.”

In fact, in Taquaritinga no one celebrated Carnaval; they only observed Lent. “You have all of the sacrifice and none of the fun,” Degas had said once, during his stay at the colonel’s. Emília hoped that the seamstresses had never traveled outside Recife, so they wouldn’t know any better. The mother nodded and stared at Emília keenly, making a new assessment of her; it was widely known that wealthy residents of the interior sent their girls to convent schools, not to become nuns, but to be protected by high fences and strict rules. Emília bowed her head piously.

“Yes, Dona Emília,” the mother said. “Young girls shouldn’t be exposed to Carnaval. But the International Club is different. It’s not like the streets. There’ll be so many fine costumes…”

Emília nodded. The woman described the elaborate costumes she’d made for the Coimbras, the Feijós, the Tavareses, and others. Emília recognized the seamstress’s friendly tone, her enthusiastic banter in order to make a customer comfortable. Emília had done the same thing to her clients, not long ago.

“One man wanted a cangaceiro costume,” the daughter interrupted, looking up from her headdress work.

“I wouldn’t do it,” the mother quickly said. “There’s nothing elegant about them. No sequins. No feathers
. I
don’t make costumes out of sackcloth.” The mother studied Emília’s face and, noticing her interest, continued. “Did you hear about the latest attack?”

Emília shook her head.

“One of my clients has a colonel staying in her house,” the mother said, putting down her pincushion. “Colonel Machado-something-or-other. He’s in town to ask the governor for troops. He’s spitting mad. Some cangaceiros nearly killed his son. They attacked his town, killed seven men. Horrible.”

“Which ones?” Emília asked. “Which cangaceiros?”

The seamstress waved her hand. A pin fell. “One’s named after some bird—the Parakeet. The Rooster—”

“The Hawk?” Emília breathed.

“Yes. That’s it.” The mother looked questioningly at Emília.

“They’re common birds,” Emília replied, examining her fingernails. Her heart pounded; she hoped the seamstress couldn’t see its rise and fall through her slip.

“What else did he say,” Emília asked, “this colonel?”

In the back of the sitting room, Raimunda cleared her throat. Emília knew she shouldn’t be curious about such morbid things. The Carnaval seamstress, however, ignored Raimunda and was eager to oblige.

“Oh, I heard it was a terrible attack,” she said. “Just terrible. They had a party afterward and danced over the bodies. There was a friar, poor dear, who saw the whole thing. He was so shaken, he said one of the bandits was a woman. It’s an easy mistake—they all have long hair. But he insisted. Can you imagine?” The mother lowered her voice. “What kind of woman does that? What kind of family would let her? It’s shameful.”

Emília nodded. Her mouth felt dry.

“She must be as ugly as a cão!” the daughter laughed.

“Don’t insult a poor mutt,” the mother replied, giggling. “Comparing him to her.” When she realized Emília wasn’t laughing, she stopped. “Terrible fate for a girl,” she clucked. “If she’s real.”

The room felt too stuffy. Emília’s slip clung to her stomach. The feathered skirt had dozens of nibs that scratched the backs of her thighs. A mosquito buzzed near her ear but Emília didn’t swat it away, afraid of losing her balance on top of the stool. Raimunda stepped forward.

“You look pale,” she said.

“I need a rest,” Emília replied, stepping from the stool.

Before the seamstresses could complain, they heard the front gate creak open. Degas had returned. Raimunda stopped the fitting. Emília pulled off the costume and left the room, allowing Raimunda to take charge and order the seamstresses to put the final touches on her Indian headdress.

In the front hall, Emília saw her husband. Degas had worn his Pierrot costume to the Course; it was ruined. The rain had not dampened the Course’s usual rowdiness. Degas’ hair was stiff with molasses, his costume coated in a clumpy, yellow batter. His eyes were glazed and heavy lidded. He laughed when he saw Emília standing in her slip, then stumbled up the main stairs. In the hallway, Degas pushed open Emília’s bedroom door and fell into her bed.

Emília followed him. Degas’ laugh had been a mean-spirited snort. Derisive. Ugly. And now he was splayed across her clean sheets, his sticky hair staining her pillows. Emília wished the ants that regularly invaded Dona Dulce’s kitchen would find him. There would be no one to wash the sheets, to turn down the bed. Half of the Coelhos’ staff had been given a holiday. Raimunda and the ironing woman would be busy caring for Emília’s costume, Dona Dulce’s gown, and Dr. Duarte’s tuxedo. The Coelhos had reserved a table at the International Club ball that evening.

Emília tugged a set of sheets from their shelf in the linen closet. Let Degas sleep in his filth when they returned from the Carnaval party, she thought. She would make her own bed.

Emília removed the sheets from Degas’ childhood mattress; she refused to sleep on anything he’d touched. She pounded the pillows and tucked in clean sheets with quick, violent motions. Her finger hit the baseboard. Her nail snapped in half. Blood bloomed along the broken edge. Emília put her finger in her mouth and sat beside the half-made bed.

She stared at the English records stacked beside the Victrola. She stared at the machine itself. At its fat, crooked arm. At its sharp-tipped needle.

As a child, she had always been the dutiful one, unlike Luzia, who had made it clear through her quiet stubbornness that even if she obeyed, it was because she chose to. Emília missed her sister. She’d missed Luzia’s quiet strength, the way she covered her mouth when she laughed, the way she hooked her crooked arm through Emília’s wherever they walked. Every day Emília waited for word: an article in the paper mentioning the cangaceiros, a letter from Dona Conceição saying that Luzia had returned. None came.

Her finger continued to bleed, tasting salty and metallic in her mouth. The broken nail scraped against her tongue. Emília wanted to ask the Carnaval seamstresses more questions. She wanted to find out which family was housing the offended colonel and to pay him a visit. As soon as the idea entered her mind, Emília had to let it go. Expressing an interest in criminals would expose her to malicious talk—a lady didn’t ask about such things. A lady couldn’t care about cangaceiros. Emília recalled the seamstress’s questions: What kind of woman would stay with such men? What kind of family would let her? A shameful one, the seamstress had concluded.

Emília bit off her ripped nail. She braced for the pain of it, but when it came, it didn’t distract her from her anger. Her stomach burned, as if she’d drunk one of Dr. Duarte’s raw-egg-and-pepper concoctions. Emília was angry with those seamstresses for their speculations, their judgments. She was angry with Luzia for putting herself in a position to be judged by such gossips. But had she? Was there really a woman in that cangaceiro group? If so, was she Luzia? Emília felt like a child again—compelled to defend her sister, to take Victrola’s side and to be isolated and ridiculed for doing so. When they were children, Luzia held her hand or brushed Emília’s hair in thanks for her loyalty. Now Luzia was lost. She was like a ghost—neither alive nor dead, but floating in Emília’s memory, disrupting her new life. She couldn’t mourn Luzia, but she couldn’t save her either.

Emília had hoped that Recife would be a large, bustling metropolis. Large enough to make her forget about the things she had lost. Large enough to envelop and transform her. But, as Dr. Duarte often said, it was all a question of scale. The Coelhos’ world was confined to the Old and New, to private clubs and Derby Square and their gated house. Emília often felt as if she were locked within a vast, well-kept reception room. With all of its luxury, she felt cramped, closed in, unable to breathe. Sometimes, when she sat at the Coelhos’ breakfast table or lay in bed, she felt the urge to shout or to whistle for help.

Years before, on the day of her father’s funeral mass, when she and Luzia knelt side by side before the front pew and their father’s body lay wrapped like a cocoon in its white hammock, Emília had felt a similar urge. She’d curled her chin deep into her chest and placed two fingers in her mouth. The church was so quiet she could hear the hiss of kerosene lanterns, the rubbing of chapped hands, the smacking of lips as people sucked their Communion wafers. Emília breathed in, then out, releasing a whistle that made her tongue vibrate against her cheeks. There were gasps and murmers. “Horrible child!” a woman behind her hissed. Luzia smiled.

Even when Aunt Sofia dragged Emília outside and whipped her right there, in front of the congregation, she barely felt the spanking. All she could think of was that whistle—so shrill and loud it broke through the sounds around her and rose past the pews, past Padre Otto’s altar, past the cross, and up, into the darkest corners of the painted church ceiling, to a place no one could reach. And she thought of Luzia’s smile. How proud she had felt to receive it. How they had looked at each other, as if some secret had passed between them. As if they had caught a glimpse of something grand and mysterious within each other, something that they could keep, and if one forgot its presence the other would always be there to remind her.

14

Silver and gold streamers draped the International Club’s chandeliers. On the stage, a band dressed in white tuxedos played a fast-paced samba. Emília straightened her feather headdress. It was bulky and awkward. The feathers’ bony nibs scratched her forehead. Degas held her hand. They’d settled on the Indian costumes, since his clown jumper was ruined. Before they left, Degas jammed a long glass ether vial and two handkerchiefs behind his feathered waist belt.

Dr. Duarte’s table was in a prestigious spot beside the dance floor. Degas pulled Emília past their seats. He introduced her to other Indians and to Portuguese explorers, monks, pharaohs, and Greeks. She saw one of the Raposo women wearing an enormous hoop skirt and a white wig. Perched on top of the wig was a small gilded cage that held a finch. The bird fluttered back and forth nervously. A tall Lundgren girl had dressed as an Egyptian princess and wore a tiny, jeweled skullcap. Emília envied her. Her own headdress constantly shifted, snagging her hair and forcing her to support it with her hand. Felipe, the colonel’s son, stood in a crowd at the back of the room. He was dressed as a Gypsy, a scarf knotted on his head. He looked skinnier and more freckled than she remembered. He nodded to them. Degas nodded back. The ballroom was divided. The coveted front ends, nearest the band, belonged to the Old and New families, seated on different sides of the dance floor. The back of the room had no tables or chairs. It was, Emília discovered, the space meant for those who had invitations but not places at the family tables. Degas steered them back to his father’s table. He ordered glass after glass of sugarcane liquor mixed with mashed limes. Emília was curious to taste the drinks, but she didn’t take a sip. Dona Dulce stood near the base of the stage beside Dr. Duarte, watching Emília from afar.