Brasyl

“For a small consideration,” said Luis Qui

“A trifling impost, that’s all.”

“I am under the direct authority of the Provincial of Brazil.” Luis Qui

“Indeed, Father, but Brazil is not like other places. You will find that little happens here without inducement.”

Brazil is not like other places. So many had said that to him, from Father James his spiritual director, even as he ordered him on the task most difficult, to this cocky puppy of a soldiereen in his wig and three-cornered hat gay with feathers.

“I do not think it would suit my cloth to be seen enjoying preferment over others. No, I shall wait my turn in the Custom House, Teniente. Sure when God made time He made plenty of it.” The officer bowed, but his mouth was sour. He took his bearer with him.

I ask only that I might be given a task most difficult. In the studies and libraries of the College at Coimbra, Luis Qui

“Brazil.”

“Brazil, yes. Where all the sin in the world has washed up. A request from the provincial of the College at Salvador for an admonitory.”

“To what purpose?”

“Our own provincial says only that he requires an admonitory from outside the colony.” Then, with a wry smile: “That seems to me to imply a task most difficult.”

Luis Qui

Luis Qui

Beyond the interminable questions and inspections and opening and resealings of the Customs House were the carriers, squatting around their feitor, a fat caboclo with ripped stockings and high-heeled shoes.

“Father Father, a carry a carry.” The slave was an indio, bow back and bow legs, yet his muscles were like bands of iron. He wore a brow strap that hung to beneath his shoulder blades. A pair of rope stirrups dangled around his neck. He knelt on the cobbles before a worn wooden mounting block.

“Get up get up,” Qui

“Yes yes a horse, your horse,” the slave answered in Portuguese, eyeing warily his foreman. “The only horse not mad or dead, mad or dead. I am strong, Your Holiness.”

“Up up,” Luis Qui

Carriers, each with a passenger clinging to his back, jogged past as Luis Qui

“Animals!” he raged at them. “Beasts on the backs of men! Down with you!”

Shamed and no little intimidated by the big man’s righteous rage, the sailors slipped from their mounts. As Qui

Before the steps of the Jesuit basilica, Father Luis set down his small pack. He reached inside the pocket of his robe for a wooden cylinder, rounded at one end, the other stopped with cork. This he drew and removed from it a cigar. He ran it briefly under his nose. The first since Madeira. Luis Qui

“This you can do. Find me a fire for this.”

The slave took the cigar, bowed, and scuttled off across the thronged square. Luis Qui

Faces black, brown, coffee. Few white. No women, save for a few slaves in wrapped fabric headdresses. The white women, the Portuguese, were nowhere to be seen. Then he saw a subtle movement behind a carved wood grille at an upper window, shadow within shadow. The mistresses were sequestered in their great houses, veiled behind the curtains of the sedan chairs, less free than their slaves. The men’s world of the street, the women’s world of the house. Casa and rua. Ways of home and ways of world. Hidden and public.

The slave rerurned, smoldering cigar in hand. With pure God-granted delight Luis Qui

Alleluias echoed from the host of trumpets and psalteries that flocked and perched around the roof beams. Luis Qui