Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [32]
“Here, this should be for you,” he said, handing me a sculpture. “It’s your orixá.”
“Mine?” I said. “I don’t have an orixá.”
“Yes, you do. You have ever since you came to the Candomblé gathering that night.”
“Which one is it?”
“I can’t tell you.” His voice sounded irritated. “You know. Just think about it.” He put his welding glasses around his neck and turned away. “Those beads you always wear,” he said. “Where did you get them? Why did you choose that color?”
“Actually someone gave them to me.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Then they knew too.” The beads were turquoise, a color I love. “And what about the picture you have hanging on your wall? Who is that? Who gave you that?”
“A woman in Cachoeira, where I went on a research trip with Rita, gave it to me.”
“Didn’t charge you, did she?”
“No. She said it would protect me...” I felt a cold touch in my chest. “Irmanjå,” I said. “She’s standing by the sea. I grew up near the sea. I worked as a commercial fisherman. I’ve spent a lot of time on the sea. My family in the States comes from near the sea.” Agnaldo snapped on his welding glasses. “You’re very slow sometimes,” he said. He handed me the sculpture.
“Here, take the statue. Burn a candle for her. Make her an offering.” He paused. “Didn’t you know who almost took you the night of the gathering?”
“How did you notice that?”
I couldn’t see Agnaldo’s expression through the dark of his glasses.
“Take the statue,” he said. “It will be a connection between us. She’s my orixá, too.”
seven
marginals
Languages are said to reflect the cultures that create them: Polynesian is said to have more words for love, English an extensive vocabulary in technology. Brazilian Portuguese has words that made me rethink my perceptions of my encounter with life. One was saudade. Saudade is that feeling of missing someone or a place, a longing. It is also nostalgia, remembering the sweet smell of autumn leaves, the honk of a ferryboat on a foggy day. There is no English word for saudade, but it’s a sentiment we non-Brazilians know, one that’s just difficult for us to express.
As I became fluent in Portuguese, I grew to love the language. Particularly the Portuguese that I learned, a Portuguese of the streets, full of slang, swear words, the tensions of survival, violence, religion, and love. And through learning the language, I began to understand more about how people I knew in Salvador viewed their world.
Brazilians also had a term they used for certain people, which, literally translated, meant “marginals.” These people were neither inside nor outside society, but lived on the edge. Amazonian Indians were outside society, a white university student inside. But other people, the poor and nonwhite, who were they?
I never met a Brazilian, no matter how poor or living in what circumstances, who called himself a marginal, yet everyone felt they had encountered others who were. The only sure thing about marginals was that somebody else considered them worthless to society; a child begging on the street knew that he or she could be killed by tomorrow’s dawn and society would not blink once.
I often visited Jorge’s family for Sunday lunch, but one week, a few days before one of my visits, the police had chased a young man around their neighborhood and then shot him in front of Jorge’s family’s house. When he moved, not quite dead, the policeman turned. “You miserable marginal,” he said, and shot him again. Twice.
Jorge’s mother Zezé believed in law and order. She believed in the police. But when she heard the shooting, her first reaction was fear, not from the threat of the dead man, but from the police. She feared they had shot someone in her family. She knew her children weren’t marginals, but police had a different perspective. So did the middle class.
The first time I went to visit Jorge’s family alone I asked advice about