The Brooklyn Rail

“Bruma” was, for me, the standout novella in the excellent collection, Three Stories of Forgetting, by Djaimilia Periera de Almeida. The “forgetting” in this collection is oftentimes a deliberate erasure of colonial wrongs, and each story investigates memory as process, both conscious and unconscious. Bruma was sold into slavery at age thirteen, and has been encouraged to forget himself. The saudade that he feels is not the longing for some gauzy, soft-focused Beulah. No, Bruma longs for his own life. In this story, Perieria gives him the chance to reclaim interiority in a semi-sacred space. The cabin becomes a Walden, but far more powerful because it is the only place where Bruma, often fog-like or spectral, is able to condense into full personhood. In the other “home,” Bruma is reduced to the bare life of enslavement. All this alters what might appear to be a scene of bushcraft or wilderness survival into a transcendent effort of one man making his own space for selfhood—specifically the selfhood that was erased in Portuguese colonialism.

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He was drinking tea and cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. In the kitchen, the cook was preparing the fish, when, through the window, he saw that the boy was loading up the cart. Idleness opened a door. He found himself in a dark hallway. The kitchen disappeared. Bruma rested his chin in his hand and closed his eyes, and the cabin appeared to him among the shadows, aglow. It wasn’t a dream or an epiphany, but respite after a long road. Powerful surf was crashing far away, softened by the distance. Late in life was still timely. That was how the idea of the cabin came to him.

Having no money, he pieced it together as a bird does a nest and, that afternoon, pilfered a brass candlestick from the manor. Seeking justice on his own behalf, he extracted as much wood and twill from the storeroom as he could over the course of a winter. He hid them in the forest. The rain drenched the wood and rotted the twill. He hid the candlestick in a box in his tiny quarters. The first twigs were followed by seeds, dust rags, window latches, a tin, tiles, nails, and cane. Bruma wasn’t preparing for offspring, but he was gripped by a single-minded passion for a nest.

In the spring, he rustled up rope, a rocking chair, two wool blankets, a bag of sawdust, a hammer. The manor was the same without those small things and no one, not even the cook’s daughter, noticed a thing. One night in spring, he set to work. He chose a cool clearing in the forest, made a circle with rocks, and in the middle of the circle dug and drained a foundation. With four tree trunks driven into the earth, he marked the corners of a rectangle and, using sailor knots and a row of cane, built a structure with four walls and the beginnings of a porch. Not knowing how, he thought, he had at least built the skeleton, albeit modest, of a remedy for exile. He sat on the chair, with a blanket over him, to contemplate his work. It wasn’t a castle and he didn’t want it to be. But the cane standing in the foundations he’d dug himself, seen against the first rays of light as it came through the spikes of the fir trees, the impression that he’d engineered a structure without following anyone’s orders, the joy of finding himself before a vision of his own making, contented Bruma and gave him a feeling of purpose.

 

From the door, the smoke of cigars and pipes. Lips, noses, perfumes, mud, nasturtiums. The gramophone hummed, rain, whispers, tulle, a split nail. It was unexpected. What about the cousin, do you know when they’re leaving? Ahs, hoarseness, a spoon in a glass of anise liqueur. The dancing light of the candlestick projected onto the walls the shadows of dress trains and the cuts of double-breasted jackets, exaggerating profiles, hairdos, stretching necks, foreheads, hunching ladies, slimming men, elongating the piano, which, asleep in the middle of the drawing room, assumed whalelike dimensions on the wall. They alternated between dancing and laughing, drinking and smoking. They get to Coimbra on Sunday. After that I don’t know. Grapes, a load of gunpowder, and odd jobs. Somebody should toss them out on their ear. Lit by the fireplace, a banquet of branches and peacocks, twirls and smiles, mustaches and headpieces, toasts and rounds of applause was projected onto the wallpaper in a ball of lumbering, big-nosed, disheveled monsters. Bruma repeated the alphabet under his breath to stay awake and felt weakness take possession of his legs. Are there enough glasses? he thought, almost out loud. Leaning on the piano, two women were whispering about the young man in blue, pretending to discuss the polka. Bruma knew their names, he knew the guests all too well, but the commotion led him to a parallel gathering, in which the guests’ shadows conspired, in wisps, among the clinking of glasses and the spluttering murmur of the gramophone. They found the body in the fish market, a vagrant or something. But, wait, tell me, what did you see in him? It’s used a lot. And it’s from Paris. The rain on the apple trees, through the windows, the men’s guffaws, the asides, things said or unsaid, conveyed by mouths and eyes, behind fans and hats, mingled with the diffuse color, sifted by the flames, giving the shadows a coppery halo and a hellish hue to the cousins’ reception. Bruma stared at the portrait of the matriarch over the fireplace, trying to overcome the numbness that was traveling up his arms to his neck. But the white collar of the woman’s dress in the painting looked like it had been licked by the flames, and the flickering of shapes had brought everything to life, the candlesticks, the nasturtiums in the Chinese vase, the sofa, the frames, the tomes, the earthenware—or he had passed over to another side, from which not even his image in the large drawing room mirror, a withered old Black man with his starched col-lar and hair pomade, not even that relieved him of the im-pression that he had fallen asleep and the ball was a dream, the house, a drunken haze, and he, a being imagined by himself, a name in a book.

Doing his best to keep his mouth closed, having returned to his senses, the division was now empty. Just him in the mirror, bones and eyes, ready for a doleful ceremony, he didn’t know which. We got out of the carriage and, what do you know, we came face-to-face with Bento’s suspenders! But, tell me, is it ivory or gold? On the walls, shadows loomed, animated by the noise. Sleep framed the delirium of the gathering. In a painting come to life before Bruma’s eyes, amorphous shapes puffed on cigarette holders, women clattered their heels on the floor and spun around, while, far off, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a maid adjust her apron behind her back. He had been sent from the manor to the kingdom of sleep, and the drawing room had become the foggy hemisphere of his skull, and the guests, illegible notes in a vague reverie.

With his eyes open, the drawing room seemed distant. Another drink, cousin? I’m told six batches are coming from Lisbon next week. Horse, my ass! He can’t even handle a donkey. Bruma had fallen asleep standing. The guests looked at him as if they were about to say something, held out their arms, then changed their minds. The rain on the orchard lulled Bruma, whose body had relieved him of its weight. It was the house, the masters, deformed, diluted. Was it a ball or hell? A Saturday gathering or limbo? On the edge of his waking dream, Bruma saw himself in the mirror, with the two maids on either side, next to the drawing room doorframe, the only black piece on the checkerboard. And, far from himself, he felt so shallow, so nothing at all, such an insignificant detail in the party, that the tiredness to which he’d surrendered filled with darkness as he stared at the wallpaper. Perhaps it was just sleepiness that had suddenly made him miss himself. It was still the manor, people all around, but the only shadow on the damask branches was his, imprisoned among parrots and palm trees, a dirty old handkerchief, tossed into the sea from a ship’s railing. How far he was from his body, how he yearned for his life as if he hadn’t been the one who had lived it. I bought it in Ourém in the Moorish hat shop. Pretty, isn’t it? “Bruma! You may leave,” the magistrate told him. Bruma didn’t move. “Did you hear me? Bruma, wake up. That’s all for today.” The old man awoke suddenly, confused, and suppressed a yawn. A maid led him away by the arm. Groggy with sleep, stooping, Bruma retired to his quarters and lay down fully clothed not knowing if he’d just read the supplement with the latest installment of the novel, if he’d heard the master’s voice, if he’d dreamed the ball. The uncertainty woke him up. Lying on the bed, sleep left him. He stared at the watermark that was spreading across the ceiling, lit by the lamp. He thought he saw his own contours duplicated in the mold, impertinent daguerreotype. The darkness had accompanied him and come to avenge him, but it had come late. He was left with the rain singing on the grapevine. Of the monster ball, just an after-taste of stolen sleep. Of himself—and he touched his face, rubbed his eyes and his short hair—just the starch of his livery and clumpy pomade, which made his fingers sticky.

 

When Bruma returned to the cabin the following season, he didn’t find it. The fragile foundations had been destroyed by the rain and mixed with the earth in a pile of drenched cloths, assorted objects, and critters. He had to get lost to stumble on the place where he’d built it, but he set out not knowing this. Among the pine trees, a horse was grazing. Their eyes met, the horse gave a start and bolted out of sight. The slope was a pasture for lazy cattle, a deer or two, people even told stories of a large bear. Everything wandered about in those parts without a master, from the apple trees to the sheep, aimless men watched over by hawks. Lost, he found the clearing, after a morning of walking. The circle of rocks surrounding it had become scattered. Dead rats, goat droppings, food scraps, and used plates marred the blanket of yellow daisies that greeted him. The mountain bear hadn’t been there, he didn’t see a soul. But the cabin had been lashed by the wind and blown over, although no human had claimed it. He listened to the plane tree, whose maternal canopy stirred with sounds that were almost twinkles. The friendly green animal exchanged an amicable “good to see you” with him. Bruma was still young and there was time.

He dried the boards in the St. Martin’s summer. That November he roasted chestnuts over the campfire and ate them alone, sitting beside what was left of the cabin as he read. He felt well amidst the ruins, the chestnuts tasted of the future. After all, what mattered wasn’t what had gone to waste or the worthless things he’d brought from the manor, now mixed with the straw, dirty with lichen and mold, but the time of his own that every minute in the clearing represented. It hardly mattered, he thought, that he was still a drudge for all manner of jobs. Gazing at his outstretched legs on the pine needles, feeling the ground under his body, he owned his minutes, even if they were numbered.

A butterfly hovered at his shoulder and flitted off. Every-thing said hi to him and left. A drop of dew fell on Bruma’s head.

Hearing the starlings and owls on the other side of the stream, sensing the wind rising in the plane trees, knowing that he was alone, the dispossessed owner of the remains of a shelter that had never actually been his, he obeyed only the command that mystery has over mystery, although his mind flitted off to everyday details of the manor.

He cracked open the last chestnut. It was time to go back. He still needed to bathe and change his clothes. He had fled to the cabin like a youth off to see his sweetheart and now he would have to build the foundations again, redo the straw roof, wait for the rains to cease. He was far from the awning, his greatest ambition; he’d even sketched it.

He tore up a wet pillow, skewered it on a branch, and stuck it into the earth. He looked at the flag, which didn’t flap in the wind. What kingdom might that dirty, wet coat of arms belong to? He returned to his quarters, put on his livery, and reported to the kitchen, pretending to the maids that he was still half asleep.

Tuesday was the day to take the cook to the fish market. A flock of gulls swooped low, as if they were the ones hawking the fish. The fishwives were barefoot. Bruma, with his eyes to the ground, saw their fat ankles as tentacles. Following two steps behind the cook, a little stooped, he looked obliging and engrossed in thought. Other Black people accompanying cooks passed them. A Brazilian woman was carrying a basket of horse mackerel. She was always in the same place, leaning against the wall of the quay, and they’d never spoken. But her singing about how fresh the fish was carried him back to Bahia.

In silence, he blocked out the singing. All he wanted was to go home. The cook asked him to walk faster and deposited a bunch of turnip greens in his arms.

On the ground, next to the blood of the fish and the cook’s boots, the white hem of his livery painted a luminous line in the puddle. He looked at his boots, well buttoned. Clean hands, delicate even. The smell of the soap he’d washed with reached his nostrils. He always went about in uniform and didn’t go barefoot; he was a horse well shod and well read.

A few nights later, when everyone was asleep, he went to the cabin for the first time at night. The flag was on the ground, a wild boar or the like had been around. It was always like that. Something devoid of soul came and made a mess of his triumphs. But Bruma couldn’t sleep in his quarters. The cabin, which was taking shape, had sparked a fever in him. Lying on old newspapers, he settled in and, without realizing it, fell asleep under the open sky.

 

Between the knots in the thatching and the finishing touch of the twill awning he spent his youth. Ten years later, the cook had died, her daughter was engaged, the cabin was all he had left. He had decked it out with furniture made from bed legs, in addition to door handles, broken mirrors, stolen candles. Two curtains of old lace covered the windows. He rested on the straw bed leaning against a bundle of fluff from a kapok tree. At the entrance, he had planted mistle-toe and lavender and had placed the rocking chair where he read.

He wasn’t afraid that hunters would claim the cabin or that someone or something would come knock it down overnight.

In a decade, everything and nothing had happened. Rain had torn it down. Hail had fallen on it like knives. A fire on the mountainside had spread to the clearing and burned its second incarnation. A family of street performers had occupied it for a season and Bruma had been unable to get them to leave.

When the rain tore it down, Bruma read while sitting in puddles. When hail blasted it like gunpowder, Bruma read on the ice. When the hunters who had taken it left, Bruma read in the ruins and didn’t remember to feel sad. When a fire burned it down, Bruma read in the ashes. When street performers made it their abode, the footman read, sitting on a branch of the plane tree, and kept an eye on their comings and goings.

The cabin was on its fourth life, destroyed and rebuilt, conserving within it memories of its first knots and structure.

As time went by, either the masters knew of the cabin and turned a blind eye or Bruma pretended so well that they didn’t know about it. In the doorway beside the chair, where he read the adventures of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers in old editions of O Século do Rio de Janeiro that he’d brought with him from Bahia, a sailor’s cap hanging from a branch indicated a traveler’s refuge. Ravens came to him when he was reading. They landed on his legs and knees. Bruma gave a low whistle and the two ravens leaned their beaks toward his hand.

One of them sidled up almost as far as his stomach, the other one pecked at the first one’s wings.

The twilight on the ravens’ feathers fell across the page and Bruma closed the supplement. Out of nowhere, drawn to the sound of the melody he was crooning, a turtledove came and landed on his shoulder. The birds didn’t look at him, but merged with him in a single existence.

Bruma sang, whistled softly, ran the tips of his fingers over the ravens’ wings. Another appeared and then another.

The wind stopped. Old Bruma forgot about the birds.

He sang and breathed deeply and the birds sang and breathed deeply with him. They came attracted by the music, in search of nothing, offering emptiness. Bruma welcomed them like that, oblivious to the world.