The Seamstress (33 page)

“Comport yourself,” Dona Dulce had commanded before they’d left the house. So Emília sat quietly, one hand on her headdress, the other around a glass of guaraná soda, and watched the dance floor. When the Old families rose to dance, the New sat. The two groups eyed each other, the gentlemen laughing boisterously, the ladies whispering behind cupped palms.

Emília did not know how to samba or waltz or frevo. She only knew how to dance the quadrilha and forro. She’d memorized Dulce’s teachings about dances: never interlace your fingers, never touch faces, always use your elbow as a break to avoid coming too close to your partner.

The trumpets suddenly blared. The tambourine player’s arms shook at a frantic pace. The band charged into a frevo. The guests cheered. Both sides of the room stood. People let go of their partners. They jumped left and right, balancing on their heels, as if they would tip over backward, then quickly coming upright and repeating the frantic motion. The club staff handed out small golden umbrellas and the guests popped them open, swinging the umbrellas up and down to the music’s frenetic pace. Degas smiled. He gripped Emília’s arm and led her to the dance floor.

An umbrella popped open beside her. Emília’s headdress slouched forward, covering her eyes. She lost her balance and fell on Degas.

“You must relax!” he shouted. He took the glass vial from his pocket and broke open the top. He poured the ether into his handkerchief and threw the empty vial onto a nearby waiter’s tray. Then he held the handkerchief firmly over Emília’s nose and mouth.

Her nostrils felt cold. Her throat tingled. Her head felt strangely light; she saw the headdress fall, then disappear beneath dozens of stomping feet. Confetti stuck to her eyelashes. She felt as if her chest would burst. The ceiling swirled and heightened. The music played faster, then faster still, until it became tinny and strange, like one long ringing in her ears. Emília heard laughter. The sound of it startled her. She turned around and around to see where it had come from. Umbrellas popped open and shut in a golden blur. The laughter grew louder. Emília realized it was her own. She could not stop. When she tried, she laughed more. It became frantic, frightening. She saw the white-wigged Raposo woman beside her. The finch’s body bumped against the golden bars of its cage. Its wings did not open. Emília’s laughter faded. Her heartbeat quickened. Emília searched for Degas, but could not find him. She pushed her way through the crowd.

She did not know how long she stood at the edge of the dance floor with her eyes closed. She did not know how long it took for her head to stop spinning. When she opened her eyes, the frevo was over. Her headdress was gone. Her scalp hurt. She was on the Old families’ side of the floor. When she realized this, Emília quickly doubled back, avoiding the dance floor. She moved across the dark, table-free area. There, she saw Degas.

He stood with a group dressed as Gypsies and sailors. Their costumes were not as elaborate as the Old and New families’; the sailor men and women wore white hats; the Gypsies wore makeshift scarves. In the midst of such simple costumes, Degas—in his iridescent feathered headdress and chest plate—looked like a peacock. He stood behind Felipe, whose head scarf had come undone. Degas hesitated, then held the scarf ’s ends. Beneath his feathered chest plate, Degas’ arms were bare. His hands looked small and clumsy, but they knotted the scarf gently around Felipe’s head. A lock of Felipe’s hair had escaped and fell over his ear. With the tips of his fingers, Degas tucked it away. His hand lingered on Felipe’s neck. The young man craned his freckled face back, toward Degas.

A notion as swift and chilling as ether swept through Emília’s mind. Then it faded.

15

Dona Dulce sat, rigid and alone, sipping a glass of punch at the Coelho table. Emília did not want to sit beside her. Cigarette smoke clouded the ballroom and made her eyes burn. The music was too loud. She went outside for air. A line of automobiles and carriages sat at the front entrance. Two dark-haired Raposo girls made their way to their family’s motorcar. One of them recognized Emília from Derby Square.

“You don’t look well,” she said, her thick eyebrows knitting together. “We live in Torre. It’s right near Madalena. We’ll give you a lift.”

With the nerve and resourcefulness befitting a Raposo woman, the girl took Emília’s arm, guided her to the car, and tapped loudly on the window to wake the driver. When Emília protested, the girl would not hear a word of it. The driver was coming back, she said, to pick up the rest of the clan. He would inform the Coelhos that she had left early. Emília was truly tired of the party. She was grateful for the girl’s kindness. This changed as soon as they pulled away from the International Club.

Every well-bred girl over fifteen was a prospective bride and they liked to debate the qualities of a good suitor. After a brief discussion of the party, the Raposo girls settled upon comparing young men.

“I saw that Lobo boy,” one sister said. “He’s positively bent on you.”

The other Raposo made a sour face. “You think I want that safado? He’s got no future. No ambition. He’ll live off his father for the rest of his life. If we married, he’d have me living in his parents’ house! A girl should have her own servants. Her own house. Don’t you agree, Emília?”

The sisters giggled. Emília shrugged. For the rest of the ride, she feigned sleep. At the Coelho gate, the sisters gave Emília terse good-byes.

The Coelho house was dark, the night air muggy. In the distance there was the low rumble of street music, a steady drumming that switched to the fast beats of a frevo. A crowd cheered. Emília felt a sudden, terrible loneliness. She considered taking her Communion portrait from the closet and admiring it, but she didn’t have the strength to walk up those winding stairs. She let herself into Dr. Duarte’s study instead. There, curled up and sleeping, was the Mermaid Girl. Emília lifted the jar from its shelf. She held it in her lap. The glass felt cold at first, but slowly warmed to the temperature of her skin.

Emília didn’t understand all of Dr. Duarte’s ideas, but she liked the simplicity of measurement. Men were mysterious creatures. Even gentlemen, with their trimmed beards and perfumed elegance, could not always be trusted. How nice then, to be able to measure a man. And through these measurements, to determine who was kind and who was cruel. Who was capable of providing happiness and who was not.

Emília quickly put the Mermaid Girl back on her shelf. The child was not living, she reminded herself. And people were not like dresses. They could not be measured, marked, cut to size. The Raposo girls’ conversation, with its veiled jabs, plagued Emília. A good husband had ambition, while a bad one was dependent upon his father. No woman wanted that. Women wanted their own houses, their own servants. They wanted to be donas, not daughters-in-law.

Emília had always considered Degas a worthy groom. After arriving in Recife, she believed herself to be deficient, countrified, and in need of refining. She’d believed that her husband’s disinterest stemmed from her deficiencies. Now she knew better.

Emília appreciated the luxuries of her new life with Degas. Without him, she might have been one of those poor Recife seamstresses, trapped in a hot room and hunched over a machine for hours on end. But beyond Degas’ ability to provide dresses, or houses, or servants, Emília had hoped that an educated husband would bring her contentment. That together, they could make their married life resemble a fine cloth, with any irregular threads tucked away so deftly that they were unseen, making the fabric look smooth and lovely. But as Emília stood in that dark study, among foreign books and jars filled with pale remains, she recalled the chill of ether at the Carnaval party, recalled her husband’s hands gently tying a Gypsy scarf, and she felt a fearful certainty: she’d chosen poorly. And everyone around her—Dona Dulce, the Coelho maids, even those Raposo girls—seemed to suspect what Emília finally knew: that Degas was unable to weave together those many invisible threads that formed a woman’s happiness.

16

When the Coelhos returned, Emília was asleep on Degas’ childhood bed. She heard the faraway rumble of an engine. She woke with the click of the bedroom door. In the doorway stood the shadow of a man, dark and wide. Iridescent feathers shimmered around his waist and neck. Large white circles patterned the feathers, like a dozen pairs of eyes. Emília sat up.

“We looked everywhere for you,” Degas said. “Why did you leave?”

“I was tired,” Emília replied. “My eyes stung.”

“You should have told me.”

“The Raposos’ driver told you, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Mother is furious.”

“Why?” Emília asked, suddenly angry herself.

“A wife doesn’t leave without her husband.”

Emília lay back down. The feathers of her costume poked through its shining fabric, pricking her skin.

“And with the Raposos, of all people,” Degas continued. “Everyone in Recife will be talking tomorrow.”

“Let them talk,” Emília snapped. “They’ll be talking about me. That didn’t bother you before.”

She heard Degas’ heavy breaths, the buzz of a mosquito, the deep pounding of maracatu drums in the distance. Degas reached for the bed, as if his eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness. He slumped beside her, nearly sitting on her legs. He sat on her skirt instead, pinning her down. A yeasty, sour smell—a mix of alcohol and sweat—came from him.

“What do you know of me?” he asked. His voice was urgent, his eyes liquid and dark.

Emília felt a rush of annoyance. She could ask the same question. Degas never wanted to know how she spent her days. He never inquired after her feelings. Emília was simply something useful and attractive—like his Victrola or his wingtipped shoes—occupying a peripheral space in his world.

“You’ve never kissed me,” she said.

“I’ve kissed you dozens of times.”

“No,” Emília said. “Not the way you should kiss a wife.”

Degas rubbed his face with his hands. He choked out a sigh.

“No, I suppose I haven’t,” he said, staring at Emília. He smoothed her sweaty hair with his palm. “I haven’t lived up to my part of the bargain.”

“Bargain,” Emília repeated numbly. That’s what she used to do at the Saturday market, but she never liked it. Emília hated it, in fact. She always paid too much and received too little. Emília crumpled the edge of the starched sheet in her hand.

“Your mother wants a grandchild,” she said, her voice trembling and thick. “She blames me.”

“I’m sorry,” Degas whispered. “It isn’t just.”

He stood and held out his hand.

“Come along,” he said.

He spoke so gently that Emília stood. Degas held her arms above her head. He lifted off her wrinkled costume. Beneath it, she wore a slip and cotton shorts. Still, Emília felt strangely cold. She crossed her arms over her bosom.

“Lie down,” Degas whispered.

The sheets felt rough against her back. His hands were cold. They moved hesitantly at first, then grew forceful, grasping and pulling as if he were molding her beneath his thin fingers. Soon, her shorts were gone. The slip was bunched around her bosom. Degas was very heavy. Emília’s chest could barely rise or fall. Her breath grew short. Her head ached. She closed her eyes and recalled the flour mill in Taquaritinga: its moist heat, its sharp smell of manioc, its sweating men and women hunched over the pale tubers that were scraped, pressed, squeezed, and pounded until they became something else entirely.

Caatinga scrubland, interior of Pernambuco São Francisco River Valley, Bahia

December 1928–November 1929

1

B
eneath the needle of her Singer appeared the pink starbursts of macambira plants. Across the front flaps of bornais and along the cracked brims of the men’s hats, she sewed green appliquéd circles resembling the monk’s-head cactus. She sewed swirling orange shapes mimicking the imburana trees’ peeling bark. Luzia forgot the silly butterflies and roses of Dona Conceição’s tablecloths and towels. The scrub became her palette.

In that tangled mass of gray brush, any hint of color was startling. Luzia collected the husks of dead beetles that clung, golden and translucent, to tree branches. She admired yellow juá berries before mashing them into a foamy pulp to wash her hair. And when she heard the periquito-da-caatinga parrots’ sharp twitters—which broke through the stifling afternoon silence, like glass shattering above them—she searched the sky until she caught sight of their green wings. She could not see the birds, only their blurred outline, like a smear of color in the sky. Luzia strained to see faraway trees or ridges. She squinted to make things crisp instead of hazy and indistinct. Slowly, she began to ignore everything in the distance. She could see well enough—she could read the newspapers that the Hawk gave her and could clearly distinguish her stitches when she sewed. She didn’t need to see what was far off, only what was before her.

The cangaceiros appreciated her sewing. When the group invaded a town, the men looked for cloth and thread. They searched dusty stockrooms. They raided ladies’ sewing closets. Then they presented their findings to Luzia. The only items she would not accept were measuring tapes. She used only her own tape—the one Emília had packed for her—because she’d made it herself and was certain of its accuracy. “Never trust a strange tape,” Luzia told the men, echoing Aunt Sofia’s advice.

Only the very wealthy—colonels, merchants, politicians—had richly embroidered and appliquéd treasures. Now the cangaceiros did as well. And like everything they valued, they wanted more. They asked Luzia to adorn their cartridge belts, to make covers for their water gourds and canteens, to sew their initials onto their leather vaqueiro gloves. Even Little Ear and Half-Moon quietly handed her their possessions to decorate. So the cangaceiros, at first suspicious of Luzia’s presence, grew to believe that the Hawk’s prediction had partially come true: Luzia had not yet brought them good luck or bad, but she had proven useful.

Each evening she guided a faded bornal under her machine’s needle. Ponta Fina proudly turned the hand crank. The rest of the men watched. Luzia embroidered the more delicate stitches by hand but used the Singer to attach the appliqué fabrics—meticulously cut into tiny triangles, diamonds, crescents, and circles—onto bags and canteen covers. The machine had transformed sewing into an acceptable skill, a useful trade. Men did not fuss with lace or embroidery hoops but they could operate machines. Between the clatter, the cangaceiros asked Luzia questions and admired her work. Some tried their hand at sewing, but they were an impatient bunch. They tugged the practice cloth too fast through the machine’s needle. They allowed the bobbin thread to clump into thick knots. They wanted their talent to come all at once. Luzia shook her head.

“You must pay attention to each stitch,” she said, gathering her embroidery hoops and making the men sew by hand.

Each stitch was a design in itself. Each had its starting point, its ending point, its length, its tension. A skilled tailor (she didn’t dare call the men “seamstresses”) could read stitches like letters in an alphabet, Luzia said, and when she was met with the men’s blank stares, she corrected herself. A skilled tailor was like a good vaqueiro: he could decipher between stitches as he deciphered each cow in his herd. This took memorization, and the men had terrible memories. They renamed the stitches to help themselves remember. The backstitch became Baiano because it was consistent, straightforward, and used whenever you wanted the cleanest line. The caterpillar stitch was Vanity, because when you twirled the thread around the embroidery needle, the stitch looked elegant and complicated, but the result was always less than expected—just a few odd-shaped nubs along the cloth. Inteligente and Canjica were satin stitch and its outline. Satin was a thick filler stitch. It could be cumbersome and crooked without its outline to guide it and hem it in. Little Ear, to Ponta Fina’s delight, was the thorn stitch: a simple line of thread held down by pairs of sharply crossed stitches. Every new stitch that Luzia introduced had a man to go with it.

“And the captain?” Ponta asked. “What would he be?”

“I don’t know,” Luzia said, focusing her attention back on the Singer. “I haven’t discovered such a stitch.”

This was a lie. His was the first stitch she’d thought of when they’d started their memorization game. He was the shadow stitch. It did not resemble a stitch at all, but a block of color that showed through a fabric’s weave. It was made on the reverse side of a thin, almost transparent cloth—a fine linen or a light crepe. From the front, it was impossible to know how the effect was made or what stitch was used. Admirers knew that there was something behind the cloth but did not know what. The effect was lovely and disconcerting. The shadow stitch was deceiving—it was either the sign of a great seamstress or a way for a poor one to hide her mistakes. Whenever Luzia saw the stitch, she hated turning the cloth over. On the back of the cloth, the stitches could be well wrought and tight, or a messy clump of knots.

Luzia could not reveal this to the men, though they prodded her, teasing when she became flustered and impatient. They meant no harm; the cangaceiros taunted one another relentlessly and the fact that Luzia was included in their jokes solidified her place in the group. Some—Little Ear, Half-Moon, and Caju—were still wary of her, but the others became playful and relaxed. They treated Luzia as if she were a tomboy cousin they’d known since childhood—placing frogs between her blankets, teaching her how to play dominoes, and trying, unsuccessfully, to shock her with their conversations. After weeks in the scrub without a visit to a village or town, the men became bawdy and restless. They spoke of past conquests and envisioned new ones.

Luzia sewed quietly, pretending not to listen. The men recalled the salty, perfumed taste of women’s sweat. How, when dancing forro, they liked a girl’s hot breath on their necks. How, when a girl was nervous, her mouth was dry at the beginning of a kiss. And how, an instant afterward, it became wet and warm again. Luzia listened, mesmerized by the cangaceiros’ knowledge. They spoke of smells, of bodies, of hair and softness. They showed the same intense, technical appreciation as when they spoke of their guns, but there was more wonder in their voices. More reverence.

Luzia often glanced at the Hawk during these discussions. He never took part in them; most nights he didn’t even pay attention, choosing instead to make the next day’s plans with Baiano. But sometimes the Hawk sat back and listened, smiling at the men’s observations as if he agreed. Luzia sewed faster then, sticking the needle roughly through her hooped fabric. She was a woman, too, she assured herself. But would a man ever speak of her hair, her breath, her kiss? She did not resemble the perfumed and solicitous creatures the cangaceiros courted in towns—girls trembling in fear and curiosity, some offering warm macaxeira cakes on platters, some dancing and turning their faces coquettishly when the men tried to kiss them during a song. They danced stiffly at first, but by the middle of the night, the men and their partners moved close together, their hips swiveling in time with one another, their feet shuffling so quickly on the dirt floor that Ponta Fina had to splash water across it so that dust would not rise and sting their eyes. By the end of the night, the dancing couples often disappeared together. Luzia made camp with Ponta Fina and any other cangaceiros who’d already had their fun. The Hawk never danced, but a few times he’d disappeared as well and Luzia spent an uncomfortable night on her blankets, unable to sleep. She was angry that he’d found a woman for the night, but also strangely reassured; he was not a celibate or a saint but a man with weaknesses and needs, like the other cangaceiros.

Luzia had learned to control her clumsiness and slow her speech when she spoke to the Hawk. She still felt a terrible heat rise in her stomach and flush her cheeks if he came too close. She’d tried to uproot it, then to contain it. She tried to be an invisible part of the group and not think of the future or the past. There was no time for daydreams. The Hawk had charmed his men, but Luzia resolved that he would not charm her. He was moody, impatient, often vain. Still, it was hard not to be affected by his confidence. In the scrub, nothing was certain—not the rain, not their dinners, not their lives. But the Hawk never wavered, never backtracked, never lost his faith. He was skilled with a knife and often helped Ponta Fina skin their dinners. He was a patient teacher. He was an excellent marksman. It seemed that there was nothing he couldn’t do, so when he took people aside and asked for their help or advice, he made them feel unique and necessary. He did this to Luzia. She tried to ignore it, but to have his full attention, to have his eyes focused on her as if she were the only person in the scrub, thrilled her.

“Read to me,” he often asked, handing her a battered copy of a newspaper he had managed to buy from a merchant or coax from a traveling repentista singer. Newspapers were hard to find; few people outside the capital and the larger towns in the backlands knew how to read. The Hawk always said it hurt his eyes to read the articles’ small print. Luzia didn’t know if this was the truth or if he was a poor reader. Each day he read his collection of prayers aloud, but perhaps he was like Aunt Sofia—clever enough to feign reading through repetition and memorization.

The
Caruaru Weekly,
a thin rag printed in the countryside, featured article after article about the attack on Fidalga and Colonel Machado’s response. Upon returning to Fidalga to find his capangas dead and his son humiliated, Colonel Machado had traveled to the capital. He used all of his influence to petition the governor for troops. Elections were scheduled for January 1930, but campaigning had already begun. Brigade 1761, led by a young captain Higino Ribeiro arrived in Caruaru by train with much fanfare. They had new green uniforms with a yellow stripe down the sides. The local colonel distributed flowers to be thrown at the troops when they descended from the train. From there, it would take the troops weeks to walk through the scrub and investigate the Hawk’s whereabouts.

“What about the
real
paper?” the Hawk asked after Luzia had read through the
Weekly.
The
Diário de Pernambuco
was the thick daily printed in the capital. In it there was only a small blurb about the troop deployment, on page eleven, sandwiched between the obituaries and an ad for hair tonic. The front pages of the
Diário
were filled with news on the upcoming presidential elections. A short, beak-nosed Southerner named Celestino Gomes dominated the front pages.

“Gomes!” the Hawk growled. “Who’s this Gomes? What’s he done to get the front page every blasted day?”

Luzia read the articles aloud slowly, emphasizing each word. Gomes would run for president under his new party, the Liberal Alliance. To everyone’s surprise, his running mate would be a Northerner. A man named José Bandeira. Before she was finished, the Hawk had lit a cigarette and walked away.

Luzia continued reading. She liked the gaudy images of cinema ads with short-haired women draped in the arms of gallant men. She liked the reports of runaway trolley cars and missing horses. All of it reminded her of Emília and her sister’s love for such things. She thought of Emília often. She tried to recall the smell of Emília’s lavender soap, the feel of Emília’s strong hands. Luzia wondered if she’d escaped with Professor Célio. If so, Luzia prayed he wouldn’t mistreat her sister. She worried about what Emília would endure to fulfill her dreams of having a fine house and a tiled kitchen.

One evening, Luzia’s worries increased. The last paper the men had bought, a
Diário de Pernambuco
purchased from a mule driver, was months old and reeked of manure. In the Society Section was a wedding announcement.
Miss Emília dos Santos,
the paper’s small print said.
Miss Emília dos Santos.
Luzia read it over and over again. Dos Santos was a common name. So was Emília. And Toritama was not Taquaritinga. Still, Luzia ripped the announcement from the page and stuffed it in her bornal.

Their group moved inland—not to escape the troops, the Hawk insisted, but to follow the rains. The state of Pernambuco was long and thin. The wet season began on the coast as early as May and slowly moved westward, reaching the end of the state in January. That year, the rains dwindled the farther inland they moved, as if the clouds were exhausted by their travels. The small, waxy leaves that emerged from the caatinga trees had no time to thrive. Gullies narrowed into thin trickles of water. Vines shriveled and Luzia believed they were dead. She was wrong. The scrub, the Hawk told her, liked to play tricks on people’s eyes. On the outside, the plants were gray and lifeless. But when the Hawk twisted a twig off an angico tree, Luzia saw that beneath the gray bark, the tree was green. Alive. Enclosed in a veil of thorns and a thick, impenetrable skin.

Luzia envied those hardy caatinga plants. When she walked, even in the early mornings, Luzia felt as if she were trapped in a cookstove. Sweat evaporated from her body before cooling it. Her leather shin guards, her hat, and the strap of her water gourd hardened and cracked in the sun. Each day at noon, the men stopped walking and searched for shade. The heat made everyone slow and quiet. When they left their shaded spot in the late afternoon, once the sun had cooled, Ponta Fina made a makeshift broom from scrub brush and dragged it behind him to erase their footprints. If they came upon a farm’s stone fence, they balanced on top of its rock ledge and walked in a line so that they wouldn’t leave tracks. Since the evenings were cooler, their group walked well into the night. Luzia could not sew. There was no light, no time, and the Hawk said that the machine’s clatter was too loud. But despite all of their precautions, the men could be spotted from kilometers away. In the gray scrub, their embroidered and appliquéd treasures—covered in reds and greens, pinks and yellows—made them stand out like brilliantly plumed birds. Luzia suggested they tear out the stitching but the Hawk would not have it.