Orphans of Eldorado - Milton Hatoum [13]
When the bell rang at six in the afternoon, Dinaura would kneel in the direction of the church, with her eyes shut and her hands on her chest. One time, after she’d finished praying, she sat eagerly on my lap, but when I went to embrace her she jolted and ran away. I was rigid, stiff as a board. On other Saturdays, the people walking through the Sacred Heart Square would see Dinaura melt into my legs. The most sanctimonious of the women sent messages to Florita: my father was right, I took advantage of Indians and poor girls in general. To hell with that. I’d anxiously await the next Saturday, surrendering to the look from a silent face.
One day in July, a beggar from the square handed a note to Florita. It was from Dinaura. The festival of the Patron Saint. Shall we go? The festival was on the night of 16 July, and still lights the town every year. Pilgrims came from the interior of Amazonas and Pará. I remember my father used to bring many of the faithful from Manaus. They ate and slept in the boat; at night, they asked the Virgin to protect Amando. I heard the prayers and saw the faithful on deck with burning candles in their hands. It looked like a boat in flames, like a great anaconda lit up on the bank of the Amazon. In July, Amando really had been lavish with his money. He paid for the decoration of the square, the painting of the Carmo Church, the monasteries and parish churches, the new clothes for the lepers, the capes and ropes for the devotees of the Virgin. After the Mass he gave a huge meal of turtle meat to the people.
I was still a child when he dragged me to the festival, twice. The second time, I ran away. He and his servant, Almerindo, searched all round the town for me, and only came across me in the early morning, lying with Florita in the hammock in her room. When he came in, I shut my eyes. Florita got up and opened the window to quell Amando’s hatred. She said I had nausea, and an upset stomach.
Get out of that hammock, he commanded.
I obeyed, without opening my eyes. The first slap made my face burn and threw me back to the hammock; he bent over and slapped me again with the palm of his hand on the ear. The crack buzzed like an insect trapped inside my head. It was impossible to return the favour: my father was a heavy Cordovil, with thick fingers on his big hands. Then Florita confessed she’d lied. Amando threatened to throw her out of the house, and forced me to live with the servants for a month, eating their food and cleaning the yard. The first night I slept in the basement; that is, I couldn’t sleep because of the heat. Every night after that I slept in a hammock out of doors. The next year, Amando made me go to the Virgin’s festival again.
I remembered all this as I read Dinaura’s invitation. I was a man now, and Amando Cordovil was dead.
On the afternoon of 16 July the orphans and the boarders entered the Square of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in single file. Nobody wore a uniform. I saw the daughters of the wealthy families separated from the orphans, and a circle of tapuia girls shrinking back, paralysed by shyness and poverty. They all loved the Patron’s festival because it was the freest day in the year. They could sink their teeth into the food and the sweets; they could dance and sing till ten at night. The boldest of them ran down to the edge of the river and pushed themselves into the company of the boys from Manaus and Santarém. Three or four orphans, they say, got pregnant on the night of devotion to the Virgin, but I had no desire to know if it was true or not. What I wanted most was to see Dinaura. I heard the choir of the boarding girls; then the Tavares Trio played modinhas with a cavaquinho, a violin and a nhapé, an indigenous kind of maracas. As darkness fell, the bishop asked everyone to listen in silence to the penance of seven orphans.
The first recounted that one rainy night she had been possessed by the Cobra-Grande and had become so agitated that the whole island began to tremble, and as a result the river Amazon