Farrago

Farrago

By

Lucille Bellucci

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Lucille Bellucci

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table Of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Film Review

Meow’s Way

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

YEMANJA

Time came when Maria Jose did not particularly want to go home to the barraca she shared with Nona. The journey was long and tiring, after an already long and tiring day working in the home of her Americans. They asked her at least once a week why she would not move in and give up her commute. Senhor Peter had painted the walls, bought a dresser and small closet, and a bed with head- and footboards. The little room, off the side of the main house, was like a palace compared to her barraca, which she sometimes had to share with oddments of nephews and nieces when their mothers, her sisters, sent them down to Rio to find work. Her three blouses and two skirts lived on wire hangers suspended on a nail driven through the tin wall. A spotted mirror hung from another nail. One cot with straw-filled ticking was her and Nona's bed. A cardboard box held four plates and some spoons and a knife. There was a blackened coal stove and a basin to hold water and a plastic trash barrel to haul it from the spigot at the foot of the hill. These things were the sum of her possessions. They were easy to keep track of and nobody wanted to steal them. On the favela hill where she and Nona lived people sometimes took what they wanted when you weren't home. If someone needed an extra plate or spoon these items might just disappear and turn up a month afterward without explanation back on your doorstep.

Maybe the reason she didn't want to move into the servant's room in the city was the children. Less and less she liked the idea of leaving them to Nona's care. Nona was just as likely to sell the little ones on the streets as feed them the black beans and rice Maria Jose set aside for them to eat. Nona made fun of Maria Jose for presiding over so many housekeeping machines in the home of her employers. Soon you'll be driving their car, she said. And then we could ride up to Bahia and see our families. My father just got himself a new woman. I'd love to see if this one has any teeth in her head. If she makes more babies I don't know where they are all going to stay in that shack. Aren't you glad we left home when we did?

Maria Jose wasn't so sure, at least about living together with her. It was funny how someone you had known all your life could change into a person more strange than a stranger. Nona gobbled up the street life of the big city within a few days of their arrival and then took to dawdling on the corners of Rua Santa Clara because there, she said, was where important things happened.

What kind of important things?

I saw a man rob a bank.

And what had that to do with you?

He might have noticed me. I'm pretty, aren't I?

Pretty but too dark-skinned, Maria Jose thought. Rich Brazilians got dark on purpose, by suntanning themselves on Copacabana Beach or at their private country hom es or on their boats. Their servants were born dark-skinned, like herself.

Ogum will open my road, Nona said. I brought him the best brand of cachaca at the terreiro. I always do.

Your Ogum.

MY Ogum. Stronger than your Yemanja. Yemanja is the mother of the weak. Ogum rides a horse and carries a sword and kills dragons.

I hear so many interesting things about macumba, Maria Jose, dona Catherine said one day in her fractured Portuguese. You must tell me more about these gods of yours. Do a lot of Brazilians believe in them?

Many are spirits. All Brazilians believe in them.

Dona Catherine looked amazed. You mean senhor Gabriel, the president of my husband's company, believes in spirits and makes offerings to them? What about his wife? She wears the latest French fashions. I can't believe that!

A senhora sabe, muttered Maria Jose. It was better to back off from disagreeing with your boss. If You Say So was the safest answer. It avoided offending and kept you out of trouble. She had seen Nona say it once to a police officer, but with a wicked glint in her eye. Her daring both frightened and delighted Maria Jose, who was ashamed of her own lack of courage.

Instead of speaking up to dona Catherine, she pretended, one whole afternoon during a thunderstorm, to be ironing clothes. The cord of the iron stayed unplugged, out of sight behind the washing machine. Everyone knew it was dangerous to use electrical things in such weather. You were as likely to draw a bolt of lightning as go to hell for spitting at the name of God. Dona Catherine had caught her one morning scrubbing the sheets on a wooden washboard in the yard sink. Maria Jose told her they were out of detergent for the machine and had only this bar of laundry soap. Dona Catherine had shaken her head and gone out to her bridge game.

Senhor Peter played a lot of golf, and the couple entertained at least once a week. If their guests numbered fewer than six, they invited them home. Dona Catheri ne had taught her to prepare roast beef the American way but in the matter of vegetables had only said, Do them your way but cook them well, emphasizing the Well in a way that made sure no single germ would escape alive.

One time she was discussing the menu for a dinner and saw Bico peering at her around the kitchen door.

And who is this?

My nephew, senhora. He won't be any trouble and look, he is sweeping the yard. He will work for his food while he is visiting me.

But he is so little. He's only about five, isn't he?

Maria Jose didn't know what she meant. Yes. Almost six. The youngest of my younger sister's three children.

The oldest one, Marta, she had placed outside a supermarket to help shoppers carry their purchases home. Be polite, she told her, or they will think you will run off with their packages. The middle child, Dedo, she had left on Avenida Copacabana to watch cars, but the first night after her work she found him huddled against a wall, his nose bl oody and eyes welted. His T-shirt was torn right up the back. Titia, they won't let me share. The big one says this is his sidewalk.

Maria Jose said, I told you to give them half of the tips you earn. You should have told them from the beginning.

Titia, I did tell them. They took everything.

Then you must run faster when they chase you. These boys are not from the country. They will kill you next time if you are too slow.

Each night, when she finished up at the house, she took Bico and went to collect Marta and Dedo. Marta would cry whenever she saw her aunt approaching her station outside the big supermarket called Casa de Banha. Nobody trusts me, Tia. I didn't make any money all day.

Maria Jose gave Marta her man-sized handkerchief. Don't wipe your nose on your dress. I'll have to wash and iron it soon if you keep this up. Yemanja, she thought. Show me the way with this child. I have no idea what to do with her. She was frightened that some man would notice Marta and steal her. Little g irls had no value except for what they could earn by opening their legs; there was a man living in Maria Jose's favela who made a very good living peddling his little girls. One more reason why she didn't like leaving Marta alone in the barraca.

Her nephew Dedo, the car watcher, sometimes gave her a lift of hope. Grinning but not speaking, he would join up with his aunt and brother and sister. When they got home, he opened his mouth and Maria Jose extracted tiny squares of Real notes. They were well covered with his saliva, but that was of no concern. Maria Jose washed them off and put them away in her brassiere, where she also kept her pocketbook. If Nona was home Dedo did not open his mouth even to eat rice and beans. The tips he earned barely amounted to bus fare; but when they added up to a decent sum she would send it to her sister.

On New Year's eve, Maria Jose gave the children a treat. The four of them crossed Avenida Atlantica and walked into the sand of Copacabana Beach, and there they sat near the water, snuggled in the warm moist sand. The night became purple before it became black; as the fiery summer air cooled, the beach filled with people, many of whom carried clay platters of food or garlands of flowers. The beating of drums arose and reverberated against the glass-fronted buildings along the Avenida. The dark-skinned priestesses, huge in their layers of white cotton, began to sing and wade into the water. The deeper they went, the more the skirts belled up around their bodies, until the women looked like floating balloons. The turbans on their heads swayed, the dozens of shell and bead necklaces dangling from their necks clacked. The surf swished around the feet of hundreds of worshipers praying to Yemanja, the Virgin Mary.

Cars along Avenida spewed heat and smoke as drivers sought parking spots. The drivers who didn't want to stop h onked their horns steadily as the traffic mess built up as far back as Posto 6 at the head of the boulevard.

As midnight neared people lit candles, set them into