The slave quarters from the time of captivity
still existed - twenty rooms sharing the same porch. My grandfather's black
women, even after abolition, remained on the plantation. They didn't leave the
'street', as they called the quarters.
I knew four of them; Maria Gorda, Generosa,
Galdina, and Romana. My grandfather continued to give them food and clothing.
And they worked for free, with the same joy of slavery. Their daughters and
granddaughters followed them in servitude, with the same love for their masters
and the same passivity of good domestic animals.
In the old slave quarters the children of the
plantation met their friends: there we met up with the black boys who were our
companions and the black women who suckled them; the good servants in whose
arms we grew up.
There we lived, mixed up with them, being told
off by the older black women, just like the black kids, sharing in the
affection and the scolding. Were we not brothers in that we had drank the same
milk as babes? I, personally, did not have brothers of the breast, because I
had spent my early years in the city. But my mother's nurse, Dona Generosa,
often acted as if she were my grandmother. She always took good care of me and
took my side when I argued with other children. When the other woman told her
off for being so partial she only had one reply,
"The poor thing doesn't have a
mother."
We liked to play in the quarters, jumping on
the boxes, hiding in the recesses in the walls where the women kept their boxes
and rosaries, their cheap jewelry and their lucky charms.
On the mud walls there were always little
statuettes of saints hung up, and a bed of hard planks in the corner where in
the past century they had made love and given birth to their children.
I never saw a husband near any of these women,
but all the same they lived with their enormous stomachs, perpetuating the
species, without foresight or fear.
Their children slept in stinking hammocks; the
whole room smelt of piss. The ground was always wet from the urine of the
previous night. But it was where we were happy, happy as if we were occupying a
luxury apartment.
The interesting thing was that we, the boys
from the main house, ran after the black kids. It was they who led us, bossed
us about in our games, because they knew how to swim like fish, they rode
horses bareback, shot birds with a bow and arrow, bathed in the pools whenever
they wanted to, and never asked anyone's permission to go wherever they wanted.
They could do everything better than we could, spinning tops, playing conkers,
flying kites. The only thing they could not do was read, but for us this was no
great deal.
We wanted to live freely too, bare footed and
bare headed, lords of our liberty like our friends who enjoyed their freedom
all day every day. Sometimes they took advantage of the power they had over us,
the fascination they held for us, asking us to steal things from the stores at
the main house; oranges, berries and pieces of cheese. They would exchange
their bows and their spinning tops for the treats we stole for them.
And they would let us into their spicy
conversations about sex. Through them I learnt the many interesting details
about what men and women do together and how babies are born. They were experts
in Natural History.
All of us roamed around the plantation
together. There was a shed where the old carts were left. This became our den,
and it was here that we had our interesting conversations.
Unlike the boys, the black women treated us
with respect. We heard no smutty words from their mouths. Their intimate
conversations came to a sudden stop when we were around. All the same, they
would receive their men in their rooms.
My cousin Silvino told me one day what he had
seen in Francisca's room one day,
"Zé Guedes,
with his rump in the air, and the bed creaking."
Every year there was another child. Avelina had
a child by Zé Ludovina,
another by João Miguel, another
by Manuel Pedro. These women had inherited from their mothers this ability to
produce children plentifully. That was where I liked to be, in the midst of
these people, knowing what they did, knowing their men, their fights, their
illnesses.
No one was allowed in Maria Gorda's room. We
never got close to this old African. She could scarcely speak, and at lunch
time and at dinner time, she would leave her room leaning on her stick to get
her rations.
She would shout at the boys and the women. She
came from Mozambique, but after eighty years in Brazil she still muttered and
chuntered in a tongue that was unknown to me.
I was afraid of the old lady. She was just how
I imagined the wicked fairies in Totonha's stories. Her room stank to high
heaven.
On the night of Saint John there was no candle
lit outside her door. The devil would be dancing with her all night long. There
was something hellish about her, something inhuman. Everybody in the slave
quarters was afraid of her. In the evening she would sit on a box at the door
of the house smoking her long cane pipe: but she sat on her own, murmuring
goodness knows what.
Old Galdina was completely different. She was
African too, from Angola, and walked on crutches after breaking a leg playing
blind man's buff with the children. Nobody shouted at Galdina and everyone
spoke to her respectfully. She had been my grandfather's wet nurse and everyone
called her 'Granny'. All the younger black women loved her and treated her like
she was the lady of the house. No one shouted at her, treating her with the
greatest respect.
I loved talking to her and hearing stories from
the coast of Africa. She had come from Angola when she was ten years old. They
had stolen her from her father. One of her brothers had sold her to a slave
trader, and they had branded her cheek.
The voyage had lasted many days; the men were
chained and the children loose. In the day they were sent up on deck to see the
sky and the sea. She took a liking to the sea life. The sailing boat was as
fast as a steam ship.
Then one day they reached land. It was a long
time before she was bought. The people who were most sought after were big men and
women in their prime.
Granny Galdina told us that on the voyage she
saw souls, white birds beating their wings against the walls of the ship,
fluttering their wings above the chained men.
And Granny taught us a few words she still
remembered from her language.
At Christmas they harnessed the ox-cart so
Galdina could go and hear the mass at Pilar. And they put soft cushions on her
bed. And for any reason at all she would start crying. And if one of the boys
were to be given a flogging she would plead for her grandsons with tears
filling her eyes.
Generosa was the cook in the main house. If you
messed with her pots and pans she would yell at you, no matter who you were.
She had goodness knows how many children and grandchildren. Tall, black and
strong, she needed no man's help. She never spoke without yelling but we all
loved her, for she was ever generous with her sweets and tarts. All we had to
do was ask and she would provide, ignoring any complaints from Sinhàzinha.
"I'm the cook and it is I who gives the
orders here in the kitchen," she would say.
And if anyone complained she would take no
nonsense.
"You can shout all you want to. There's no
slavery round here anymore!"
She would hand out the rations to the shepherd
boys and cowherds, calling them all 'shameless scoundrels.' Nobody paid any
heed to her anger. The boys knew that she had a heart of sugar. She might yell
at them, but she was always ready with some cough medicine, or a bandage for a
cut, and with a needle and thread to mend their torn clothes.
The slave quarters at Santa Rosa did not disappear
with the abolition. They continued attached to the main house, with the black
women giving birth, with its wet nurses, and its farm hands.
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