The Seamstress (67 page)

Luzia cut out and kept the newspaper photograph of the charity delegation. In the nights after a train robbery, after her hands and feet had been kissed by hundreds of starving men and women in thanks for her generosity, Luzia unfolded that photo and studied it. Emília’s expression was triumphant—cocky, even. A blanket covered the child’s face, so only his hands were visible. Luzia stared at those small, white fingers. They reached up, toward Emília. She was his savior. And Luzia was nothing, not even a memory.

5

Attacking a relief camp was a huge endeavor: the places were well guarded by troops and surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Government rations didn’t go only to Gomes’s relief camps, however. Before her child died, Maria Magra had been headed to a private camp run by a widow.

“The Widow Carvalho,” Maria Magra told Luzia and Baiano. “She sold her land to the roadway. She’s moving to Recife. People say she’s still got water in her well. And she’s got food; Gomes sent her rations. They said she’s selling them off to make money for her trip. If I’d made it in time, I would’ve bought some. I would’ve fed my girl.”

Maria Magra didn’t know the camp’s exact location, but Luzia and Baiano did. As the wife of the late Colonel Carvalho, the widow had inherited a ranch that extended as far as the cattle trail. Luzia, Antônio, and the cangaceiros had walked through her land many times but had never gone near her house; the widow had a poor reputation. Her husband had left her only land and no money, so she was forced to live frugally. Widow Carvalho was known as a tightfisted manager with a bad temper. It was rumored she’d shot her late husband in the foot during an argument, but few believed the story. Any man—especially a colonel—would have killed his wife for such behavior, and the Widow Carvalho was still alive.

Her house was a massive, whitewashed structure—a blinding landmark in the gray scrub. A line of people snaked around the porch. Some held burlap bags, others dented tin cups. Men wore trousers held up with ropes, on account of the weight they’d lost. Women cradled babies and held the hands of skinny children. The men in line stared at their feet, as if ashamed to face those around them. The women, however, were above embarrassment; they looked directly at the house’s porch. There, the Widow Carvalho collected coins in exchange for manioc flour, dried beef, and cooked beans.

Luzia’s stomach cramped. In their hiding place in the scrub, the cangaceiros shifted and muttered, impatient. It was the scent of those beans that had prompted their trip to the widow’s house. They’d smelled the food from kilometers away but hadn’t believed it—cooked beans! At first, the men thought their noses had tricked them, that their food dreams had finally made them lose their senses. But it was no trick. There, on the widow’s porch, alongside the burlap bags of dried food, sat a large, steaming vat of beans. How reckless, Luzia thought, to waste her last cups of well water on cooking.

From her hiding place in the scrub, Luzia watched the Widow Carvalho. She wore a long-sleeved black dress whose fabric had a dull shine, like a beetle’s carapace. Around her waist was a brown leather belt with a purse attached. The widow dropped coins inside it. After she’d collected her fee, customers were herded to the porch where a trio of hunched, sweating women scooped food onto their plates. Above the porch was a large poster of President Celestino Gomes. He wore military garb. His chest was puffed out and he smiled sympathetically. Below his image were the words “Father of the Poor.”

The widow’s house didn’t have the barbed-wire barrier of official relief camps, but it did have soldiers. Four armed men stood alongside the crowd, hustling people along in line. Luzia realized that the monkeys were not there as protection against cangaceiro attacks but to prevent riots among the widow’s customers.

“There’re two lines,” Ponta Fina whispered. “Those who can pay and those who can’t.”

Luzia straightened her spectacles. Those who didn’t give the Widow Carvalho money or some bit of jewelry were denied food and herded into a separate area. There, a soldier called out in a hoarse voice, “Roadway work! Roadway work!” and directed the refugee men to a nearby table. Seated behind it were two men wearing suits and bright white fedoras.

“Gomes’s officials,” Luzia whispered. Next to her, Baiano nodded.

One official made the refugee men dip their thumbs in ink and press them to a long sheet of paper. After they’d signed, the other official sprinkled the men’s heads with delousing powder, handed them a bundle, and steered them back into the food line, where they were promptly served. If these newly acquired roadway workers had wives or children, they were also given food. Women without money, husbands, or fathers were left without food. Occasionally the Widow Carvalho moved off the porch and into this desperate group.

The widow’s head emerged, white and vulnerable, from the black dress that encased her body like armor. She selected a girl from the destitute group and herded her to a separate section of the porch. There were a few other girls already huddled there. Luzia couldn’t see their faces clearly enough to judge their ages, but there was one feature that distinguished them from the crowd of refugees: their lips were greased red. Compared to the drab palette of browns and grays in the dry scrubland, the women’s mouths looked obscenely bright, like open wounds.

“What business is this?” Luzia asked. Ponta Fina grunted.

At Luzia’s command, Baby and Maria Magra removed their gear and walked arm in arm into the widow’s yard. The cangaceiras would pretend to be refugees and join the food line in order to observe the makeshift camp’s workings. Baby and Maria Magra would make sure that there were no hidden soldiers and that the roadway officials weren’t armed. Meanwhile, in the caatinga, Luzia assigned each of her cangaceiros a mark. During attacks, Antônio had given each man a specific task, a certain victim. Luzia marked the Widow Carvalho.

In the widow’s yard, Maria Magra and Baby crossed themselves. This was the signal that it was safe to attack. Luzia whistled and Baiano led a small group of cangaceiros through the widow’s front gate.

“Dirty monkeys!” they yelled. “Viva the Hawk and the Seamstress!”

Baiano fired a shot, hitting Gomes’s poster. The monkeys behaved as Luzia expected them to: at the sight of Baiano and his group, the soldiers left their posts and charged the front gate. They were well trained but too eager. Luzia and the rest of the cangaceiros quickly surrounded the widow’s yard, intent on performing one of Antônio’s old tricks: the retroguarda
.
As soon as the monkeys raised their weapons, Luzia and Ponta Fina led the rest of the cangaceiros through the sides of the widow’s yard, surrounding the soldiers. With a few quick shots, all four monkeys were down.

The two roadway officials also behaved as Luzia had predicted. As soon as the first shots were fired, the men squatted and clapped their hands over their heads, crushing their straw fedoras. The refugees, however, defied Luzia’s expectations. During past attacks, caatinga men and women got out of the cangaceiros’ way. They hid inside their houses or crouched quietly in the street, waiting for the attacks to be over. But the people in the widow’s yard did not drop their tin plates and scurry away. Even after the first shots, they stayed in line. Seconds later they began pushing one another. They shoved lethargically at first, as if testing their strength. Before the cangaceiros could stop them, the mob advanced toward the porch. The Widow Carvalho swatted men and woman with a large wooden spoon. People ignored her and dunked their tins into the vat of beans. They clapped handfuls into their mouths. Brown juice ran down their faces. Others tore at the bags of farinha until white flour spilled out of them and onto the porch. Women scurried along the ground and scooped farinha into their skirts. The widow’s helpers—the three hunched woman who’d distributed the food—did not step back from the chaos but began to help themselves to the widow’s supplies.

“I was first! I was first!” an old man yelled, clawing his way up on the porch. A child, caught in the crush, wailed.

Luzia aimed her parabellum. She couldn’t simply shoot into the air—the loud bursts of the cangaceiros’ rifles hadn’t startled the mob, so why would a pistol shot? She recalled her shooting lessons with Antônio, heard his voice in her ear:
If you take a shot, it can’t be a useless one. Every bullet counts.
An able-bodied man stood over the vat of beans, scooping its last remnants into his mouth. Luzia aimed. She tried to shoot his arm, but because of the jostling crowd, she hit the man’s chest instead. He bent forward. The people around him froze.

“Step back,” Luzia yelled, her voice even and deep, like Antônio’s once was. “Be calm. I’ll give you food and let you keep your money. And your dignity.”

The crowd stared at her, then at one another. Their faces were smeared with bean juice. Farinha was clumped between their fingers. Luzia kept her parabellum aimed. Slowly, the crowd dispersed. Canjica and Inteligente removed the dead refugee’s body from the porch. Ponta Fina and Baiano bound the roadway officials’ hands and feet. Luzia ordered the remaining cangaceiros to clean up the mess and organize any remaining food for distribution. When the Widow Carvalho tried to duck through her front door, Luzia grabbed her arm.

The widow’s wide mouth puckered in a frown. Fine hairs darkened her upper lip. The woman’s braid had come loose during the fray. With her free arm, the widow brushed gray hairs from her face.

“Where’s the Hawk?” she asked.

Luzia tightened her grip around the old woman’s arm. “Why?”

“I want to speak to him.”

“He’s busy. You’re under my authority.”

The widow cringed. “Then shoot me. Go ahead.”

Luzia shook her head. Even with a pistol aimed at her, this woman gave orders. “I’m not a maid in your kitchen,” she said. “I’ll shoot you when I please.”

“Fine,” the widow replied. “But I don’t deal with women.”

Luzia laughed, startled by her own mirth. She was exhausted and hungry and afraid that once the laughter started, it would not stop. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her jacket, as if hoping to wipe away her smile.

“You won’t be making any deals with me,” Luzia replied. Then, unable to resist: “You don’t trust your own kind?”

The widow sighed. “Women are mean. Especially to each other. I know because I am. You know, too.”

Behind the Widow Carvalho, the group of red-lipped girls huddled together on the porch. They stared warily at the cangaceiros. The newest girl—the one the widow had chosen from the crowd before the attack—did not wear lip paint. Her mouth was dry and cracked. Two faded ribbons were tied around the ends of her braids, proof that although her hair was snarled and dusty, she’d cared for herself at some point. Or her mother had. The girl’s eyes were dark brown, her lashes long. They resembled Emília’s eyes, and Luzia knew that, had things been different, had she and her sister stayed in Taquaritinga, they could have become victims of this drought. Emília could have been that pigtailed girl who regarded Luzia with a frightened and angry stare, like a child who had just been hit.

“What about them?” Luzia asked.

The Widow Carvalho shrugged. “There will be a roadway construction site near here. They were going there.”

“For what?”

“To work.”

“What kind of work?” Luzia pressed.

The widow narrowed her eyes. “They won’t be digging the road.”

Luzia stared at the pigtailed girl. “What’s your grace?”

“Doralinda,” she mumbled. “But I’m called Dadá.”

“Are you still a moça?”

The girl blushed. The Widow Carvalho laughed. “She’s as pure as the drinking water. You can’t find anything fresh around here anymore.”

The widow eyed the cangaceiros in the yard and on the porch. She licked her lips and moved closer to Luzia.

“Each of your men can have a little time with them,” the widow whispered. “I won’t charge much. They’ll have to stay outside, though. My house is not a harem.”

Luzia let go of the woman’s arm. She snatched the Widow Carvalho’s money belt and coins fell onto the porch, clinking against the stone floor. When the widow moved to pick them up, Luzia held her arm.

“My husband left me nothing,” the woman shrieked. “I need train fare to Recife.”

“You sold your land to the roadway. Didn’t Gomes pay you?”

“He gave me a promissory note. My money’s in a bank in Recife. But I have to find my own way there. He sent soldiers and food, but I can’t walk to the city.”

“So you’re selling them?” Luzia said, nodding toward the group of girls.

“We’ve made a trade. I give them food, they give me whatever the roadway men will pay them to go to the camps.”

“They don’t belong to you,” Luzia said, “just because you’re a colonel’s wife.”

“I know that. They go because they want to. I’m not pointing a gun at them.”

The widow chuckled. Luzia pressed her parabellum into the old woman’s neck, making her wince.

“They don’t belong to you either,” the Widow Carvalho hissed, her breath sour and warm. “We’re no different—you and I. You’ll give away this food and want something for your fine deed. I want their money. You want their allegiance. Which one of us is asking for more?”

“We’re not alike,” Luzia said, her mouth so close to the old widow’s face she could kiss her. “You’re a traitor, selling land to the roadway.”

The widow shook her head. “I have every right to sell! It’s my land. I can do as I please.” She arched her neck, trying to face Luzia. “Why do you hate Gomes so much? He didn’t cause this drought. He’s sending supplies. Gomes’s done more than the Blues ever did for your lot.”

“My lot?” Luzia said. She pointed to the red-lipped girls. “My lot’s being made to sell themselves because of that road. And those men out there are signing away their lives to work on the road for no wages. That’s not fair treatment. Gomes will make us into slaves. He isn’t helping us with this food. He’s bribing us. I’ll be the one to help my people, not him.”