The Seamstress (26 page)

“What does it mean?” Emília asked.

Dona Dulce stared. She examined Emília’s face with the same intensity she’d had when admiring her Franz Post painting, but there was no admiration in her expression now. Dona Dulce looked as though she’d encountered a strange insect and was weighing her options—determining whether the creature before her was a harmless nuisance or a real danger. Before speaking, Dona Dulce surveyed the courtyard.

“It means that you are a Coelho now,” she said. “I can’t know your intentions here. I’m not a clairvoyant. It’s futile, and unseemly, for me to imagine what preoccupies your mind. I do know that this is a vast improvement over your last situation. I’m sure you also knew this when you married my son. What you might not know is the responsibility that comes with your good fortune. You’ll have to live up to your new name. And Degas, his father, and I will have to make sure you do. This is our responsibility now. Because whatever you do or say from this moment on is a reflection on all of us. Do you understand?”

Emília nodded. She took off her hat and smoothed down her hair. A dark object scuttled near her feet. She gasped.

“Oh, those are my husband’s turtles,” Dona Dulce said loudly, eyeing the maid who had come into the courtyard. Dona Dulce smiled, took Emília’s arm, and led her away from the animals. “Don’t touch them, dear. They’re liable to bite off a finger.”

3

At first glance, Emília believed that the Coelho house, with its wide stone staircase and musty carpet-lined hall, was the master house of a once glorious engenho. She had seen countless watercolor pictures in Padre Otto’s history books of the plantations with their majestic master houses surrounded by fields of sugarcane. During dinner, Dr. Duarte Coelho dispelled Emília’s notions. The Coelho house was only ten years old, a modern wonder wrapped in an antiquated shell. Dr. Duarte had thought of everything. Their water came from a well in the backyard where he had installed a cata-vento, which used the force of the wind to pull water into their pipes. In the kitchen there were a series of gas cylinders that heated the water before it mysteriously wound its way up to the bathroom. There were electric fans and lamps, a phonograph, a dumbwaiter, a radio, an icebox. All powered by wires that ran to wooden posts along the street.

“I paid good money to have those posts installed,” Dr. Duarte said.

Dona Dulce cleared her throat.

“Those are my property,” he continued, pressing a thick finger against the tablecloth. “I bought the wood, hired the men. I met with Tramways and gave them an incentive to extend their electrical lines here. Next thing you know, other families were moving to Madalena. New families. No riffraff.”

He was a thick, squat man with bags beneath his eyes and a soft waddle of skin below his square chin. He reminded Emília of an old bull, sedate yet still menacing.

Dr. Duarte declared that the Coelhos were one of the first families with enough foresight to move to the young neighborhood of Madalena. Recife was bursting out of its original territories. Only the Old families still insisted on living on the tiny Milk Island, or in the neighborhoods of São José and Boa Vista. The New families were building modern homes on the mainland, across the Capunga Bridge, away from the hubbub of the islands, the commerce of the port, and all of the unfortunate elements that came with it: the cabarets, the houses of disrepute, the artists and vagabonds who frequented the Casino Imperial. Dr. Duarte stared at Degas. Emília’s husband did not meet his father’s eyes, concentrating instead on his half-empty plate.

Degas looked like a diluted version of his father. Everything about Duarte Coelho—his barrel chest; his beaked nose; his dark eyes and thick, white brows—seemed more condensed, more intense. But Dr. Duarte never raised his voice or clasped his silverware as tightly as his son did. Emília wondered if time had tamed him.

“You have to agree that the world is changing,” her father-in-law said, interrupting Emília’s thoughts. He tapped his dinner plate with his fork. “We must change with it.”

“Of course,” Dona Dulce said, staring at Emília. “We must all suffer change.”

Before they entered the dining room, Dona Dulce had warned Emília that her husband liked to share his opinions. She needn’t participate in Dr. Duarte’s discussions, Dona Dulce said, because a lady never talked about anything substantial during meals. Although it frightened her, Emília was grateful for her father-in-law’s conversation. It allowed her to concentrate on something other than the strange food on her plate, the rows of mysterious utensils beside it, and Dona Dulce’s unwavering stare.

4

In Taquaritinga, people with means had outhouses. The Coelhos had a lavatory. Upstairs, near the bedrooms, was a room covered in square upon square of pink tile. In the center was a massive white tub with feet that resembled a panther’s thick paws. Steam rose from the tub’s surface. In the corner, attached to the floor, was a porcelain bowl with a water box and a pull-cord flush. Emília tugged the cord. The machine gurgled, then roared with water. Emília recoiled. She nearly dropped her traveling bag. She’d kept the purse—with her Communion portrait hidden inside it—near her feet during dinner and took it upstairs afterward, when Dona Dulce insisted she have a bath. Emília waited for the water in the toilet bowl to settle. She pulled the cord again.

“Miss Emília?” a woman called. She opened the lavatory door. It was Raimunda, an older maid with a creased brow and sagging cheeks. She was thin and birdlike, but lacked the grace of a bird. She seemed more like one of Dona Chaves’s chickens, interested in survival and not flight. A bit of her hair—kinky and brown—peeked out from her white lace cap. She looked toward the tub and frowned.

“It’ll get cold if you don’t get in there,” she said.

“I know,” Emília replied. Like the other maid, Raimunda addressed her as
you
and not
senhora
. It was as if they had instantly assessed Emília’s status and determined she was not worth the trouble.

“I was admiring the room,” Emília continued.

“You should be used to it,” Raimunda said. She placed the tips of her fingers in the water.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it. I used the downstairs washroom when I arrived.”

The maid pulled her hand from the bathwater.

“You’re not to use that room,” she said. “That’s for the help.”

Emília felt a surge of heat in her chest. Before dinner, the young maid had directed her to the washroom beside the kitchen. Inside were two clay chamber pots. Flies had circled their knee-high lids.

“Well, go along,” Raimunda said, turning her back. “I won’t look.”

Emília placed her purse on the floor. She unbuttoned her blouse. She’d sewn it herself, using the beige linen she’d purchased with her savings. Degas had offered to buy her clothes before their wedding but Emília had accepted only a hat and a travel bag from him. Only a woman of the life received clothing from a man who wasn’t her husband. She stepped out of her skirt. It was badly wrinkled. The hem was brown with dust. Dona Conceição had told her to wear an old dress on the trip, to keep her new suit and blouse fresh for her arrival in Recife. Emília hadn’t listened. She’d wanted to leave town looking glorious.

She eased herself into the tub. The water stung her skin. Raimunda turned around and stood beside her. The maid pushed her palm against Emília’s scalp.

“Dunk,” she said. “Go ahead, you won’t drown.”

Emília closed her eyes and went under. She imagined the fruits in Aunt Sofia’s jams, plopped into boiling sugar water until their skin fell away and all that was left was the meat underneath. When she came back up, Raimunda lathered her back and arms with a loofah. She scrubbed hard. Emília slid back and forth in the slick tub. She pressed her hands to its sides to keep from going under.

“Maria shouldn’t have taken you to that washroom,” Raimunda said. “She shouldn’t be greeting people. She’s too young for that. Dona Dulce uses her because she’s pretty, not because she does a good job. Dona Dulce’s very particular about appearances.”

Raimunda put shampoo into her hands and tugged it through Emília’s hair. Emília squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to know more about Dona Dulce but was afraid to ask.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” the maid said. “Got nice teeth. It’ll make things easier.”

“What things?” Emília asked.

“Living here.” Raimunda scrubbed her scalp harder.

“Why?”

“Dunk,” Raimunda ordered, pushing down her head before Emília could speak. The water had grown lukewarm and foggy. Emília came up quickly, rubbing her eyes.

“I don’t think living here will be hard at all,” she said. “It’s a beautiful house. So big. So modern.”

“That’s Dr. Duarte’s doing,” Raimunda said. “If Dona Dulce had her way, we’d be living like the Old families.”

“What does that mean? Everyone talks about Old and New. I don’t understand.”

“You will, soon enough. It’s not too different from the family fights in the interior. You are from the interior, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Your daddy a colonel?”

“No.”

“A rancher?”

“No.”

Raimunda paused, then pointed her finger to the murky water. “Wash down there,” she said and turned her back. Emília fumbled with the soap.

“Are you from the interior?” Emília asked. She pushed herself out of the tub, holding fast to the sides.

“Yes,” Raimunda replied. She knelt and toweled off Emília’s feet.

“Why did you come to Recife?”

Raimunda moved the towel faster along Emília’s torso. “You shouldn’t ask me questions.”

“Why not?”

“Because you shouldn’t.”

“But you asked me questions.”

“And if you had any sense, you wouldn’t have answered.”

“I don’t understand,” Emília said. She felt cold. She wanted to grab the towel and dry herself. “I thought you were being friendly.”

“It’s not my place to be friendly. And it’s not yours to allow me to be.” Raimunda worked the towel roughly through her hair, then stopped. They stood face-to-face. Raimunda looked both sympathetic and exasperated. It was the same way Aunt Sofia had stared into their bare pantry, stocked only with sour manioc flour and wilted greens, and been forced to figure out how to make them useful. Raimunda opened a tin of perfumed talcum powder.

“It’s not my place to give advice,” she said. “I’m not your momma.” She sprinkled the powder across Emília’s chest and under her arms. “But when you’re surrounded by frogs, you’d better learn to jump.”

5

Emília’s bridal bed was sturdy and old. According to Dona Dulce, the bed had been in her family since the first Dutch army had taken Recife from the Portuguese, three centuries before. One of Dona Dulce’s Dutch ancestors, a van der Ley, had been so enamored of the Indian cashew that he had the bell-shaped fruits carved into his headboard. Since then, every van der Ley bride had spent her bridal night in that bed. Though she was now a Coelho, Emília would be no different.

The bed’s massive frame was a far cry from the four crooked posts that supported her capim grass mattress in Taquaritinga. And the sheets! It would have taken Luzia months to produce the rows of blue and white flowers that crisscrossed the coverlet and lined the edges of the pillowcases. It seemed wrong to muss those sheets, to lay her head on those perfectly square pillows. Emília stood beside the bed. The night air felt wet and soupy. The perfumed talcum powder under her arms had clumped with sweat.

Down the hall, a scratchy female voice blared from the Coelhos’ phonograph.

Estou com pressa,
it said, first in Portuguese, and then in a strange, clipped gibberish.

“I am in a hurry,” Degas repeated, his voice drifting down the hall and into their room.

After dinner, Degas had gathered a stack of English language records and shut himself up in his childhood bedroom. “I must get back to my studies,” he’d said, then quickly kissed Emília’s forehead.

Bom dia, senhora. Good morning, ma’am.
The record’s voice chimed.

“Good mor-ning, maaaam,” she heard Degas repeat.

Emília inspected her nightgown. She’d sewn it herself, trimming the capped sleeves with lace, cutting and hemming the vertical slit in a perfect line just below the belly. This nightgown, along with a dozen others, had originally been made for Dona Conceição’s nieces and placed in their hope chests. On Emília’s wedding day, Dona Conceição had pressed a soft bundle into her hands and whispered, “For your bridal night.” Emília didn’t unfold the gift or admire it. She already knew what it was. She and Luzia had embroidered each of the nightdresses, sewing small, red crosses above the slits. They hadn’t stopped giggling as they sewed. Aunt Sofia had hushed them both. “When the time comes, that cross will be a comfort for those girls,” their aunt shouted. “They will lie back and think of God.”

Com licença, senhor,
the record said. “Excuse me, sir,” Degas repeated.

Emília knelt on the Coelhos’ wooden floor. She clasped her hands the way Aunt Sofia had taught her, and called upon the Virgin for mercy and guidance. But the Virgin, Emília thought, had had her first relations with God. The Holy Mother did not have to wait, nervous and sweating, for her husband to finish his English lessons and lie with her. The Holy Mother did not have to wear a slit-front nightgown. And later, when she lay with Joseph, she already knew what to do. She had already had relations with God, so relations with a man must have been simple after that. Emília stood. She could not concentrate on prayers.

É urgente.
“It’s urgent.”

Emília opened the large wooden wardrobe beside her bed. It was bare except for two dresses from Taquaritinga, her empty travel bag, and a few undergarments. Carefully, Emília slid the Communion portrait from its hiding place beneath her slips. She unwrapped the portrait and stared at her younger sister. Luzia’s eyes were wide. Her locked arm was uncovered. The lace that had draped it had slipped off; the camera captured it in midfall. It hovered over the floor, white and fluttering, like a bird. Emília looked back at her bridal bed. What would Luzia do in her place? Wait? Pray? Neither, Emília told herself. Luzia would not have married Degas.