Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [34]
Two police officers, out of uniform, had entered their house at midnight, one with a shotgun, the other with a submachine gun. “Give us the Rasta,” they said.
Gato, who had recently begun to grow dreadlocks when our teacher finally expressed an interest in doing so himself, had offended the sheriff because Gato, a person from a poor black family, was teaching capoeira to young local boys who were also poor and black.
Pedro, a lawyer friend of Luzia’s, and I arrived at dawn. We found Gato and one of his local students in open cages, naked, in the pouring rain. The jailer had ordered other prisoners to beat the fifteen-year-old student, and he was now a mess of bruised and broken skin. They had been afraid to touch Gato without a gun; skilled capoeiristas in such small towns were attributed almost mythical strength.
Pedro went into the office to speak with the sheriff while I waited outside. Several people came to look at me until finally, Dona Cida, who sat waiting beside me on the curb, invited me to go into a small bar next door. We ordered cold drinks and continued to wait. Dona Cida took out a small religious book and began to read.
“You can read,” I said. Dona Cida smiled.
“I taught myself many years ago. Gato and I are here now, but you understand that we live over an hour’s walk along the paths, in a smaller village?” I nodded. In Salvador, at the bar after practice one night, Gato had told me about his home.
“Well,” she continued, “girls have babies very young there and many do not know what to do. And we have no doctor. People cannot come there. The girls cannot pay for a doctor. So, I decided to learn this. And I wanted to read about God. So, I asked an old man who knew a bit of reading. He taught me what he knew, and then I learned on my own. And I studied about medicine. I learned what the old people in the area knew. I help the girls before they give birth, help deliver the children, and I help them afterward.” She smiled. “I think we have fewer babies die now. And mothers too.” I wondered to myself if anyone had recorded this local natural medicine knowledge.
“I am glad you are there,” I said. “Do you get medicine from the countryside?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “We have no money for medicine from the doctors. And much of the medicine from the forest is better anyway.” She glanced up nervously, and I saw Pedro approach. He looked hot and frustrated, his temper barely controlled. He slammed himself into the folding chair beside Dona Cida.
“These country idiots!” he said. “He isn’t following the law at all. He acts as though he doesn’t even care! By law, he cannot hold a person for more than twenty-four hours without charging him. He must, by law, release Gato now. And that kid. He cannot have the kid beaten. I can prosecute him for that!”
Dona Cida laid her hand on Pedro’s arm. It was small and dark upon his wide, light forearm. He was white, middle-class, and had lived in Rio much of his life.
“Please, do not offend Sheriff Teixeira,” she said. “He makes his own law here.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Pedro said. “This is part of national law and Bahia state law, just the same as everywhere else. He knows the regulations.”
“Yes, he does.” Dona Cida looked around to see that no one stood nearby. “We are poor and in the country. Let me tell you how the law works here. Sheriff Texeira was appointed from Salvador because he’s a cousin to the governor. He hates this posting and thinks he should have something better. He does not live here, but comes out for his work. He arrests people who cross or offend him, or who do not pay him the bribes he wants. He only lets them go when he’s satisfied they understand his control and when they have borrowed everything he thinks he can possibly get out of them. If people offend him too greatly, they are found beaten to death along the roadside.”
Pedro reared out of his