"Today we're going to visit Seu Lucino’s daughters," Aunt
Maria told me.
And after lunch we went for a walk, the children in front, running, and
Aunt Maria with a maid and a couple of seamstresses walking behind, talking. On
the road we met people coming from the fair at São Miguel, their
carts empty now, having sold their produce.Women with flowers in their hair and
clogs on their feet walked past us too.
The black kids told me that they were 'girls' from Pilar who were off to
work the fair. They did not appear to have any produce to sell. Everybody was
talking; those on horseback with those on foot. We came across Zé Passarinho,
drunk as ever. The children pushed and shoved him, calling him names, and he
pushed them back, all the while yelling at them.
The road was shaded by hog plum trees and we went along picking their
fruit, though we did not eat everything. The yellow and red berries had been
known to kill.
Eventually we came to a wire fence. We went through a gate to a house
with a tiled roof and walls built of black mud. A naked child who was standing
in the doorway, ran inside, frightened at the sight of us. Some women appeared.
"It's the plantation children!"
They came out to see us, and when they saw Aunt Maria in the road they
cried for joy.
"Come in Maria Menina, come in, please. How are things? You're
looking well, thanks be to God, nice and plump."
And the women placed stools in front of the door, happy to see their
princess. Aunt Maria never talked down to them and asked them about the pigs
they raised, while they all ate guava fruit.
"Maria Menina, which is Dona Clarisse's little boy?"
My aunt called me over, and all the women chucked me and kissed me, all
saying over and again the same things.
They gave me guava and limes to suck.
My cousins were there too, throwing stones at the fruit trees. Behind
the house were orange, genipa and guava trees and pots with carnations and a
fenced in herb garden where coriander grew. The pigs and the chickens roamed
around freely, going in and out of the house like people. In the kitchen was a
little iron stove and a pot that contained the muddy water of the river which
they boiled and drank.
Two of the children, frightened by us all, ran off to a neighbouring
house. Then they brought other children to look at us, as distrusting as little
goats, dirty and with swollen bellies. But when my cousins wanted some genipa
fruit one of them ran up the tree like a little monkey to get them.
Aunt Maria was still talking in the yard with Seu Lucino's daughters,
which is how people referred to these three old spinsters. Now they were
complaining of their illnesses, asking my aunt when the doctor was coming to
the plantation so he might give them some medicine. Aunt Maria promised
that she would get them their medicine and she told them about António Silvino's
visit. The old ladies interspersed her narration with a selection of 'Good
Lords' and 'Our Lady in Heavens'.
In the evening we made our way home. The road was getting dark with
sunset shadows. The boys began to whisper of spirits and phantoms. We all
stayed close to Aunt Maria, fearful of souls from the other world, as we wended
our way back.
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