Winning the Game and Other Stories

the ship catrineta

I AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF AUNT OLYMPIA declaiming “The Ship Catrineta” in her grave and powerful contralto voice.

My soul I deny thee, O demon,

Thou serpent of land and of sea.

To God and His hosts it looks upward,

From body and torment to flee.

An angel descended from Heaven,

Delivered him safe to the lee.

The demon was rent by his fury

And peace again ruled o’er the sea.

Come ev’ning the ship Catrineta

Had landed, from Satan set free.

Then I remembered that today was my twenty-first birthday. All my aunts must be in the hall, waiting for me to wake up. “I’m awake,” I shouted. They came into my room. Aunt Helena was carrying an old, dusty book with a leather cover and gilded clasps. Aunt Regina was bringing a tray with my breakfast, and Aunt Julieta a basket with fresh fruit gathered from our orchard. Aunt Olympia had on the dress she wore in Molière’s École des Femmes.

“It’s all a lie,” Aunt Helena said. “The demon didn’t explode, and no angel saved the captain; the truth is all in the old ‘Ship’s Log’, written by our ancestor Manuel de Matos, which thou hast already read, and in this other book, ‘The Secret Decalogue of Uncle Jacinto’, which thou art to read for the first time today.”

In “The Secret Decalogue” my mission was defined. I was the only male in a family reduced, besides myself, to four unmarried and implacable women. The sun was coming through the window, and I could hear the birds singing in the garden. It was a beautiful morning. My aunts asked anxiously if I had chosen the girl. I answered yes.

“We’ll have a birthday party tonight. Bring her here, so we can meet her,” said Aunt Regina. My aunts have taken care of me since I was born. My mother died in childbirth and my father, my mother’s first cousin, committed suicide a month later.

I told my aunts that they would meet sweet Ermelinda Balsemão that night. Their faces beamed with satisfaction. Aunt Regina handed me “The Secret Decalogue of Uncle Jacinto” and they all solemnly left the room. Before beginning to read the Decalogue, I telephoned Ermê, as I called her, and asked if she’d like to have dinner with my aunts and me. She was happy to accept. Then I opened “The Secret Decalogue” and began to read the commandments of my mission: It is the inescapable obligation of every first-born male of our Family, above the laws of society, religion, and ethics …

My aunts dug their most extravagant formal dresses out of trunks and closets. Aunt Olympia was wearing her favorite clothing, which she saved for very special occasions, the dress she had worn the last time she played Phaedra. Dona Maria Nunes, our housekeeper, constructed enormous and elaborate hairdos for each of them; as was the custom in our family, none of the women had ever cut her hair. I stayed in my room, after reading the Decalogue, getting up from the bed now and then to look at the garden and the woods. It was a hard mission, one which my father had carried out, and my grandfather and great-grandfather and all the rest. I got my father out of my head right away. This wasn’t the right moment to think about him. I thought about my grandmother, who had been an anarchist and manufactured bombs in her basement without anyone suspecting. Aunt Regina liked to say that every bomb that exploded in the city between 1920 and 1960 had been made and thrown by Grandma. “Mom,” Aunt Julieta would say, “could not tolerate injustice, and that was her way of showing her disapproval; the ones who died were for the most part guilty, and the few innocents sacrificed were martyrs in a good cause.”

From my window, by the light of the full moon, I could see Ermê’s car, its top down, as it came slowly through the stone gate, climbed the hydrangea-lined road, and stopped in front of the beefwood tree that stood in the middle of the lawn. The cool evening breeze of May tossed her fine blonde hair. For an instant, Ermê seemed to hear the sound of the wind in the tree; then she looked toward the house, as if she knew I was observing her, and drew her scarf around her throat, pierced by a coldness that didn’t exist, except within herself. With an abrupt gesture she accelerated the car and, now resolute, drove toward the house. I went down to receive her.

“I’m afraid,” Ermê said. “I don’t know why, but I am. I think it’s this house, it’s very pretty but so gloomy!”

“What you’re afraid of is my aunts,” I said.

I took Ermê to the Small Parlor, where my aunts were waiting. They were most impressed with Ermê’s beauty and breeding and treated her with great affection. I saw at once that Ermê had won the approval of all. “It will be tonight,” I told Aunt Helena, “let the others know.” I wanted to finish my mission as soon as possible.

Aunt Helena told lively adventures of our relatives, who went back to the sixteenth century. “By obligation, all the first-born were, and are, artists and carnivores, and whenever possible they hunt, kill, and eat their prey. Vasco de Matos, one of our ancestors, even ate the foxes he hunted. Later, when he began to keep domestic animals, we ourselves would slaughter the lambs, rabbits, ducks, chickens, pigs, and even the calves and cows. We’re not like others,” said Aunt Helena, “who lack the courage to kill an animal or even see one killed, and want to savor it in innocence. In our family we’re conscious and responsible carnivores. Both in Portugal and in Brazil.”

“And we have eaten people,” said Aunt Julieta. “Our ancestor Manuel de Matos, was first mate on the Catrineta and ate one of the crewmen who was sacrificed to save the others from starving to death.”

“‘Hear now, ladies and gentlemen, an astonishing tale, of the ship Catrineta, which has much to tell …,’” I recited, imitating Aunt Olympia’s grandiloquent tone. All my aunts, with the exception of Olympia, burst out laughing. Ermê appeared to be taking it all in with curiosity.

Pointing at me with her long, white, bony finger, where the ring with our family coat of arms shone, Aunt Julieta said, “José has been trained since he was a little boy to be an artist and a carnivore.”

“An artist?” Ermê asked, as if the idea amused her.

“He is a Poet,” said Aunt Regina.

Ermê, who was majoring in literature, said she loved poetry—“later I’d like you to show me your poems”—and that the world truly needed poets. Aunt Julieta asked if she was familiar with the Portuguese “Book of Songs.” Ermê said she had read a few things in school, and that she took the poem to be an allegory of the struggle between Good and Evil, with the eventual triumph of the former, as is common in so many medieval homilies.

“Then thou believest that the angel saved the captain?” asked Aunt Julieta.

“That’s what is written, isn’t it? In any case, they’re just verses from the fanciful popular imagination,” said Ermê.

“Then thou dost not believe that an actual incident, similar to the poem, took place on the ship carrying Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho from here to Portugal in 1565?” asked Aunt Regina. Ermê smiled delicately without answering, as the young will do with old people whom they have no wish to displease.

Saying that they, she and her sisters, knew every novel of the sea that dealt with the Catrineta, Aunt Regina left the parlor, to return shortly with an armload of books. “This is Salvation of the Shipwreck by the Spanish poet Gonçalo Berceo; this is Cantigas de Santa María, by Alfonso el Sabio; this is the book by that poor man Teófilo Braga; this is the Carolina de Michaelis; this is an unfinished novel of the cycle, found in Asturias, with verses reproduced from the Portuguese originals. And this one, and this one, and this”—and Aunt Regina kept piling the books on the antique table in the middle of the Small Parlor—“all of them full of speculation, unfounded reasoning, humbug, and ignorance. We have the historical truth here in this book, the ‘Ship’s Log’ of our ancestor, Manuel de Matos, second in command on the ship that in 1565 took Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho from here to Portugal.”

After that we went to the table. But the subject had not yet been closed. It was as if Ermê’s silence encouraged my aunts to speak further about the subject. “In the poem, which balladeers took upon themselves to spread about, the captain is saved from death by an angel,” said Aunt Julieta. “The true story, which is in the Log kept by our ancestor, was never told, in order to protect Albuquerque Coelho’s name and reputation. Art thou enjoying the squid? It’s an old family recipe, and the wine is from our country residence in Vila Real,” said Aunt Regina. “The historian Narciso Azevedo, from Oporto, a relative of ours, though fortunately not by blood—he’s only married to our cousin Maria da Ajuda Fonseca, from Sabrosa—claims that during the voyage some crewmen came to Albuquerque Coelho with a petition asking authorization to eat several of their companions who had starved to death, and that Albuquerque Coelho adamantly refused, saying that while he lived he would not allow such a brutish desire to be satisfied. Now that’s all very well,” said Aunt Olympia, “but in reality what happened was quite different; the seamen who starved to death had been thrown into the sea, and Manuel de Matos saw that the entire crew, including Jorge Albuquerque Coelho, would all starve to death simultaneously. Speaking of which, this kid we’re eating we raised ourselves, dost thou like it?” Before Ermê could reply, Aunt Julieta went on: “The crew was called together by Manuel de Matos, our ancestor, and while Jorge Albuquerque Coelho absented himself, stretched out in the berth in his cabin, it was decided by majority vote—and I quote the very words of the Log, which I know by heart—to draw lots to see who would be killed. Lots were cast four times, and four crewmen were killed and eaten by the survivors. And when the Santo Antônio arrived in Lisbon, Albuquerque Coelho, who prided himself on his reputation as a Christian, a hero, and a disciplinarian, forbade any crewmen to speak of the affair. From what eventually came to light, the romantic Ship Catrineta was created. But the cruel and bloody truth is here in Manuel de Matos’s Log.”

The parlor seemed to darken, and an unexpected gust of cold air came in the window and ruffled the curtains. Dona Maria Nunes, who was serving, shrugged her shoulders, and for several instants a powerful, almost unbearable silence could be heard.

“This house is so large,” Ermê said. “Does anyone else live here?”

“Just us,” said Aunt Olympia. “We do everything ourselves, with Dona Maria Nunes’s help. We take care of the garden and orchard, clean and cook, wash and iron our clothes. That’s what keeps us busy and healthy.”

“Doesn’t José do anything?”

“He’s a Poet; he has a mission,” said Aunt Julieta, the Keeper of the Ring.

“And because he’s a poet he doesn’t eat? You didn’t touch your food,” Ermê said.

“I’m saving my hunger for later.”

When dinner was over, Aunt Helena asked Ermê if she was a religious person. My aunts, accompanied by Dona Maria Nunes, always prayed a novena after dinner in the small chapel in the house. Before they retired to the chapel—Ermê declined the invitation, which pleased me, for we could be alone—I kissed them aunt by aunt, as I always did. First Aunt Julieta—a thin, bony face with a long hooked nose, delicate lips like the drawing of the sorceress in my childhood fairy tale books, small and brilliant eyes, contrasting with the pallor of her face—till then I had not found out why she was Keeper of the Ring and I wanted to ask her, Why it is thou who wearest the Ring? but I felt I would know very soon. Aunt Olympia was dark with yellowed eyes, she kissed me with her heavy lips and wide mouth and her large nose and her well-pitched voice; for every feeling she had a corresponding mimicry, almost always expressed facially with glances, scowls, and grimaces. Aunt Regina looked at me with the small, clever, mistrusting eyes of a Pekingese puppy—she was perhaps the most intelligent of the four. Aunt Helena stood up when I went to her. She was the tallest of all, as well as the oldest and prettiest; she had a strong and noble face, like that of my grandmother Maria Clara, the bomb-throwing anarchist, and her sisters called her the archetype of the family; they said all the men of the family were good-looking like her, but the photo of Uncle Alberto, their other brother, younger than my father, who died of the plague in Africa while fighting beside the blacks, showed a figure of singular ugliness. Aunt Helena asked to have a word with me in private. We left the dining room and spoke for a few moments behind closed doors.

When I returned, my other aunts had already retired.

“It’s funny the way all of you talk. It’s ‘thou’ this, ‘thou’ that,” Ermê said.

“We use ‘you’ with the servants and unimportant people we don’t know,” I said. “It was that way in Portugal and continued in Brazil when the family came here.”

“But you don’t use ‘you’ with the housekeeper.”

“Dona Maria Nunes? But she’s like one of the family; she’s been in this house since the time of Grandmother Maria Clara, even before my father and my aunts were born. Dost thou know how old she is? Eighty-four.”

“She looks like a sailor, with her face all wrinkled and sunburned,” Ermê said. “She’s different from you, you’re so pale!”

“It’s so I can keep my poet’s face,” I said. “Let’s go to my favorite place in the house.”

Ermê looked at the shelves full of books. “I spend most of my time here,” I said. “Sometimes I sleep here on the sofa; it’s a kind of bedroom-library. It has a small bathroom off to the side.”

We were standing, so close our bodies were almost touching. Ermê wore no makeup on her face, her neck, her arms, but her skin shone with health. I kissed her. Her mouth was fresh and warm like mature wine.

“What about your aunts?” Ermê asked as I placed her on the sofa.

“They never come here. Don’t worry.” Her body had the firmness and scent of a tree of many fruits and flowers, the strength of an animal wild and free. I shall never be able to forget her.

“Why don’t you find a job and marry me?” Ermê asked. I laughed, for the only thing I knew how to do was write poems. And why work? I was quite rich and when my aunts died would be richer still. “I’m rich too but I plan to work,” Ermê said. “All right, let’s get married,” I said. I got dressed, left the library, and went to the pantry.

Without a word, Dona Maria Nunes handed me the bottle of champagne and two glasses. I took Ermê to the Small Parlor, pushed aside the books that still occupied the antique table, and placed the champagne and glasses on it. Ermê and I sat down, side by side.

I took from my pocket the black crystal flask that Aunt Helena had given me that night, and I recalled our conversation behind the door: I myself must choose and sacrifice the person I am to eat on my twenty-first year of life, isn’t that it? I asked. Yes, thou must kill her thyself; use no foolish euphemisms; thou wilt first kill her and then eat her, today, the day thou thyself hast chosen, and that is all, Aunt Helena replied. And when I said I did not want Ermê to suffer, Aunt Helena said: Do we ever make people suffer? And she gave me the black crystal flask decorated with wrought silver, explaining that it contained an extremely powerful poison, the smallest drop of which was enough to kill; as colorless, tasteless, and odorless as pure water, it would cause instant death—we have had this poison for centuries and it grows even stronger, like the pepper our ancestors brought from India.

“What a lovely bottle!” Ermê exclaimed.

“It’s a love potion,” I said, laughing.

“Really? Do you swear?” Ermê was laughing too.

“One small drop for you, one small drop for me,” I said, letting a drop fall into each glass. “We’re going to fall madly in love with each other.” I filled the glasses with champagne.

“I’m already madly in love with you,” Ermê said. With an elegant gesture she raised the glass to her lips and took a small sip. The glass fell from her hand onto the table and broke, and Ermê’s face fell against the fragments of crystal. Her eyes were still open as though she were lost in thought. She never even knew what happened to her.

My aunts came into the room, along with Dona Maria Nunes.

“We are proud of thee,” said Aunt Helena.

“Nothing will be wasted,” said Aunt Regina. “The bones will be ground up and given to the pigs, along with corn meal and cobs. We’ll make sausage from the intestines. The brains and the choice cuts thou shalt eat. Where dost thou wish to begin?”

“With the tenderest part,” I said.

From the window of my room I could see the beginning of daybreak. As commanded in the Decalogue, I donned my dress coat and awaited my summons.

At the great table in the Banquet Hall, which I had never in my life seen in use, my mission was fulfilled amid great pomp and circumstance. Every light of the immense chandelier was burning, making the black formal attire of my aunts and Dona Maria Nunes glow.

“We seasoned it very lightly in order not to spoil the taste. It’s almost raw. It’s a piece of rump, very tender,” said Aunt Helena. Ermê was slightly sweet like veal, but tastier.

As I swallowed the first mouthful, Aunt Julieta, who had been watching me attentively, seated like the others around the table, removed the Ring from her forefinger and placed it on mine.

“It was I who took it from thy father’s finger on the day he died, and kept it for today,” said Aunt Julieta. “Now art thou head of the family.”