Yemanjá, Mistress of the Sea: A Story

by JORGE AMADO

1

NIGHT HAD closed in early. No one was expecting it, when it fell, heavy with clouds, upon the city. The lights on the wharf were still dark, and in the Lighthouse of the Stars, there was as yet no glow of little lamps brightening the glasses of rum. And many boats were still furrowing the waters of the sea when the wind brought the blackclouded night.

The men looked at one another in wonder. They gazed out over the blue ocean, as if asking where that night came from, unexpectedly, so much before its time. Yet it did come, heavy with clouds, preceded by the cold wind of dusk, like a fearful miracle darkening the sun.

Night arrived that evening with no music to greet it. The clear voice of the vesper bells did not echo through the city. On the wharf, no Negro had appeared with his guitar. No accordion greeted night from the prow of a boat. Not even the monotonous baticum of the candomblés and the macumbas had rolled down from the hills. Why, then, did night arrive, without waiting for its customary musical welcome, or the summons of the bells, or the cadence of guitars and accordions, or the mysterious playing of religious instruments? Why did it come thus, before its hour, outside its time?

That night was strange and anguished. The men were uneasy and the sailor drinking alone in the Lighthouse of the Stars ran toward his boat as if to save it from irretrievable disaster. And the woman on the tiny market wharf, waiting for the boat of her loved one, began to tremble, not with the icy wind or the frozen rain, but with a chill that came from her anxious heart, filled with the evil omen of the sudden night. The night that had arrived, heavy with clouds, brought by the wind, was the squall that sank ships and tossed men into the air. The storm was the false night.

The rain beat down furiously, washed the wharf clean, pounded the sand, lashed the ships lying offshore, stirred up the depths, and drove away all those who were waiting for the liner to dock.

Like an extravagant monster, a crane moved through the wind and the rain, loaded with bales. The waters beat like pitiless lashes upon the Negroes around the hold. The wind rushed swiftly, whistling, knocking things down, terrifying the women. The black shadow of the rain blinded the men. Only the black cranes were moving. A boat listed heavily and two men fell into the sea. One of them was young and strong. Perhaps he murmured a name in that last moment. It was surely not an oath, because it sounded gently through the storm.

The wind tore the sail from the boat and dragged it to the wharf like a tragic omen. The belly of the waters swelled, the waves dashed against the dike. The dories moved jerkily by the lumber wharf and the boatmen decided not to return that night to the little villages of the Recôncavo. The sail of the foundered sloop blew against, the breakwater, and the lights went out abruptly on all the boats. The women began to chant the prayer for the dead and the eyes of the men searched the sea.

Opposite his glass of rum, Rufino no longer smiled. In that storm Esmeralda would not come. The lights came on. But they were weak and flickering. The men who were waiting for the liner could distinguish nothing. They had entered the sheds and they could scarcely make out the shape of the crane and that of the loaders who slouched through the rain. But they could not see the hopedfor ship aboard which were friends, parents, brothers and sisters, lovers, perhaps. Nor the man who was weeping down there in third class. On the face of the man who was crossing the paths of the sea, in the third class of a ship that docked at twenty different ports, the rain mingled with the tears, and the memory of the lampposts of his village merged with the foggy lights of the stormy city.

Captain Manuel, the sailor who knew most about those waters, decided not to go out with his boat that night. Love is a pleasant thing on stormy nights, and the flesh of Maria Clara smells of the sea.

The lights of the old fort were dark. Also the lanterns on the boats. And then, of a sudden, the city too was dark. Even the cranes stopped, and the stevedores took refuge in the sheds.

Guma, seeing that darkness from his boat, the Lalianty grew fearful. His hand grasped the rudder and the boat veered to one side.

The wharf was deserted.

Only Livia, thin, with drenched hair that clung to her face, stayed facing the boat dock, looking at the angry waves. She heard the amorous cries of Maria Clara. But her thoughts and her eyes were on the sea. The wind shook her like a reed and the rain lashed her face, her legs, and her hands. But she stood still, her body thrust forward, peering into the darkness, hoping to discover the red lantern of the Valiant crossing through the storm, lighting up the starless night, announcing the arrival of Guma.

2

ABRUPTLY, and as rapidly as it came, the storm went off to other waters, sinking other ships.

The cries of Maria Clara were no longer sharp cries of pleasure and of pain, cries of a wounded animal, piercing the storm with an air of challenge. Now that through the city, through the wharf, through the sea, true night was spreading, the night of love and music, the night of stars and moonlight, love on the boat of Captain Manuel was sweet and tranquil. Maria Clara uttered sobs of stifled joy, almost a song. Livia turned her gaze for a moment, from the tranquil sea and heard her. Soon Guma would come; the Valiant would cross the bay and she would hold him in her dark arms, and they too would be making love.

Now the storm had ended and she was no longer afraid. Before long the glimmer of the boat’s red lantern would shine faintly on the dark sea.

Little waves slapped against the stones of the dike and the boats rocked gently. In the distance, the lights shone on the wet pavements of the city. Groups of men, no longer in a hurry or afraid, moved toward the great elevator.

A boat passes and its captain says good evening to Livia. Farther off, a group examines the sail of the foundered sloop. The sail, very white and torn, is near the wharf. Some of the men run to their dories to go in search of the bodies. But Livia thinks of Guma, who is still to arrive, and of the love that is waiting for her. She will be happier than Maria Clara, who did not wait and who was not afraid.

“Do you know who was drowned, Livia?”

Livia shuddered. But that sail is not the Valiant’s sail. The sail of his boat is bigger and would not tear that way. She turned and asked Rulino: “Who?”

“Raimundo and his son. They were drowned near the city. It was a wild storm.”

That night, thought Livia, Judith will have no love in her cabin, nor on her husband’s boat. Jacques, Raimundo’s son, is dead. She will go over there afterward, after Guma comes, after they have killed the saudade, after they have loved.

Rufino looks at the rising moon. “They have gone out to search for the bodies . . .”

“Does Judith know?”

“I’m going now to tell her . . .”

Livia looked at the Negro. He was gigantic and smelled of rum. He had certainly been drinking in the Lighthouse of the Stars. Why must he look at the full moon that rides skyward on the sea and brightens everything with a silver radiance?

Rufino does not move. From the old fort comes music. An accordion plays and they sing:

The night is for love . . .

A heavy, Negro voice. Rufino looks at the moon. Perhaps he too thinks that Judith will have no love that night. Nor ever any more, . . . Her man has died in the sea.

Come and love on the waters that shine beneath the moon. . .

The song will not console Judith. With a gesture, Rufino says: “Well, I’m going over there . . .”

“I’ll be there shortly . .

Rufino took a few steps, and then stopped.

“ It’s very sad . . . Hard to say . . . to say that he died . . .”

And he scratched his head. Livia became sad. Judith will never love again. Never again will she love on the sea at the hour when the moon shines. For her, night will not be for love, but for tears.

Rufino stretched out his hand. “Why don’t you come with me, Livia? You know how to say . . .”

But love is waiting for Livia. Guma will be coming soon on the Valiant; soon the red lantern will shine; soon the hour will come when their two bodies meet; soon he will sail across the mantle of light that the moon has spread upon the sea. Love is waiting for her. Livia cannot go. That day, after her fear, after the vision that filled her with anguish, of Guma drowning, Livia wants only love, she wants joy, she wants to be possessed. No. She cannot go to weep with Judith, who will never love again.

“I am watching to see if Guma comes, Rufino.”

Will the Negro think badly of her? But Guma can’t, be much longer. And she added, “I’ll come afterward . . .”

Ilufino waved his hand. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

Rufino took a few listless steps. He looked at the moon and began to listen to the man who was singing.

Come and love on the waters that shine beneath the moon . . .

Then he turned toward Livia. “Do you know that she is pregnant?”

“Judith?”

“Yes, she is.”

And he began to walk, staring at the moon. From the old fort they are singing:

The night is for love . . .

Maria Clara murmurs and laughs in the arms of her man. Livia starts out almost running, calling to Rufino, outlined faintly in the distance.

“I’m going with you . . .”

They walk along. Livia goes on watching the sea for a long time. Who can tell whether that lantern shining far off is not the Valiant’s lantern? . . .

3

JUDITH is a mulatto and her belly is big now under her misshapen percale dress. Everyone is silent. The Negro Rufino waves his hands, finding no place to put them, and looks at the others with frightened eyes. Livia is an image of pure consolation, her hands sheltering Judith’s head. Other people have come now to bring their sympathy, and they stand around the room, waiting for the bodies that the men went to search for in the sea. From where Judith lies come broken sobs, and Livia’s hands move with comforting gestures. Then Captain Manuel comes, and Maria Clara, with swollen eyes.

There is nothing left now to recall the storm. Maria Clara no longer sighs with love. Why, then, does Judith weep? Judith is a widow now, and the men are waiting for two bodies.

Gladly would the Negro Rufino flee to the joy of Esmeralda’s arms. He is oppressed by the sadness of the house, by Judith’s grief; he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he knows that he will suffer even more when the body arrives and Judith has her last, meeting with the man who loved her, who gave her a son, who possessed her body.

Livia is the one who is brave. And she is even more beautiful thus. Who wouldn’t like to marry her, to be wept for by her when he died in the sea? Livia is at that moment a sister to Judith. Surely she too would like to flee and go to wait for Guma at the edge of the wharf and spend a night beneath the stars.

Judith’s suffering distresses them all, and Maria Clara thinks that some day Manuel may be left in the sea, on a stormy night, and that Livia may give up waiting for Guma to bring her the news. She clutches the arm of Manuel, who asks, “AA hat’s the matter with you ? ”

But she is weeping and Manuel is silent. They have brought a bottle of rum. Livia leads Judith to the bedroom. Maria Clara goes with them, taking Livia’s place, and weeps with the widow, weeps for herself.

Livia returns to the other room. The men are talking now in low voices. They are discussing the storm, the fate of the father and son who died that night.

“The old fellow was a real man!” said one Negro. “He had courage enough for three.”

Someone uncorked the bottle of rum. Livia crossed through the group and looked out the door. She listened to the murmur of the calm sea, its unchanging, everyday murmur. Guma must arrive soon and will surely come to look for her at Judith’s house. Even across the blackness of the wharf she can make out. the sails of the boats. Suddenly the same fear strikes her that struck Maria Clara. What if they should come one night to bring her the news that Guma was at the bottom of the sea, and that the Valiant was wandering without course, without rudder, without guide? Then she knew how completely she was Judith’s sister, the sister of Maria Clara too, the sister of all the women of the sea, women with a common destiny: to wait on a stormy night for news of their husbands’ death.

From the bedroom comes the sound of Judith’s sobbing. She was left with child. Perhaps one day she will have to weep too for the death of that son in t he sea.

In a group in the outer room, a man says: “He saved five men . . . it was a terrible night. Many saw that night the mother of waters. Bairn undo . . .”

Judith goes on sobbing in the bedroom. It is the destiny of all of them. The men of the wharf have only one path in their lives: the path of the sea. They set out upon it because that is their destiny. The sea is the master of them all. From the sea come all their joys and all their sorrows, because the sea is a mystery that not even the most weatherbeaten sailors understand; not even those ancient skippers who no longer put to sea, who only mend sails and tell stories. Who has deciphered the mystery of the sea? From the sea come music, love, and death. Is it not, perhaps, upon the sea that the moon seems most beautiful? The sea is ever-changing. Like it, too, is life for men on the boats. Who among them ever spent his last years like landsmen who fondle grandchildren and unite the family for Sunday dinner? None of them walks with that firm tread of the landsmen. Each of them has someone in the depths of the sea: a son, a brother, an arm, a sunken boat, a sail torn to shreds by the storm.

But also, who among them cannot sing those songs of love in the nights by the wharf? Who among them cannot love violently and gently? Because each time they sing and each time they love may well be the last time. When they say good-by to their wives, they do not give quick kisses like landsmen starting out to work. They give long farewells; hands that wave as if they beckoned . . .

Livia looks at the men who are climbing the slope. They are in two groups. The lanterns give a phantasmagoric quality to this funeral procession. As if she felt their arrival, Judith redoubles her sobbing. It is enough to see the men with bared heads to know that they are bringing the bodies.

Father and son died in the storm. There is no question that one of them tried to save the other, and both perished in the sea. Away in the background, coming from the fort, coming from the wharf, coming from the boats, coming from some distant and indefinable place, an inspiriting music accompanies the bodies.

Sweet is death in the sea . . .

Livia sobs. She shelters Judith in her bosom, but she sobs too; she sobs with the certainty that her day will come, and Maria Clara’s, and the day for tdl of them.

The music comes to them across the wharf.

Sweet is death in the sea . . .

But at that moment not even the presence of Guma, who walks in the cortege and who found the bodies, can console the heart of Livia.

A distant music, from the old fort, perhaps, singing “Sweet is death in the sea,”bespeaks the fate of Judith’s husband.

The bodies are stretched out in the room; Judith weeping, kneeling next to her husband. The men around her. Maria Clara with the fear that one day her Manuel too may drown.

4

BUT WHY think of this, why think of death, of sadness, when love is waiting for her? Because now they are on the prow of the Valiant, Livia stretched out on the deck, under the furled sail, looking at her man quietly smoking his pipe. Why think of death, of men who struggle against the waves, when her man is there; saved from the storm, smoking a pipe which is the fairest star on that sea? And yet Livia is thinking. She is sad because he does not hold her close in his tattooed arms. And she is waiting for him with her hands beneath her head, her breasts showing under the blouse that the night breeze, now gentle, lifts and stirs. The boat also stirs gently.

Livia waits and the waiting makes her beautiful: she is the loveliest woman on the wharf or on any of the boats. No captain has a wife like Guma’s. Everyone says so, and they smile at her when they see her pass. They would like to hold her in their storm-toughened arms. But she belongs only to Guma. She married him in the church of Montserrat, where fishermen, boatmen, and masters of ships are married. Even the sailors that voyage distant seas, in enormous ships, come to get married in the church of Montserrat, their church, that clings to the hill and looks out to sea. She married Guma there and, since then, in the nights on the wharf, on their boat, in the rooms of the Lighthouse of the Stars, on the sand of the wharf, they have loved and linked their bodies upon the sea and beneath the moon.

And today, after she had waited for him so long in the midst of the storm; today when she desires him so much because she was so much afraid, Guma smokes without thinking of her. That is why she remembers Judith, who will never again be loved; for whom night will be always the hour of weeping. She remembers her: kneeling next to her man, looking at his face, that face that no longer moved, no longer smiled; a face that had slipped now beneath the waves, eyes that were now seeing Yemanjá, the mot her of waters.

Livia thinks angrily of Yemanjá. She is the mother of waters, the mistress of the sea, and therefore men who live upon the waves fear her and love her. Yemanjá. punishes. She never shows herself to men except when they die in the sea. Those who die in the storm are her favorites. And those who die to save others, those go with her, into the sea, like a ship, sailing to all the ports, crossing all the seas. To see the mother of waters, there are many who have thrown themselves smiling into the sea, and have appeared no more. They go to Yemanja. Can she be asleep with them all in the depths?

Livia thinks of her resentfully. At this hour she will be with the father and son who died in the storm, and they will be fighting oxer her, they who were so close together all their lives. Perhaps the father died trying to save the son. When Guma found the bodies, the old man s hand was grasping the shirt of the son. They died friends, and now — who knows?—perhaps because of Yemanja, the mistress of the sea, the woman that only the dead can look upon, they are fighting: Raimundo drawing his knife, which the men did not find in his belt and which he must have taken with him. They are struggling perhaps in the depths of the ocean to learn which of them is to sail with her to the cities on the other side of the earth.

Judith who weeps, Judith who carries a son in her belly, Judith who will end her days in cruel toil, Judith who will nexer love a man again must have been forgotten by now, because the mother of waters is blond and has long hair and is nude beneath the waves, scarcely covered by her long tresses which gleam faintly when the moon passes over the sea.

The landsmen — what do they know? — say that they are moonbeams on the sea. But the sailors, the masters of ships, the boatmen laugh at the ignorant landsmen. They know that it is the hair of the mother of waters who peers up to see the full moon. It is Yemanjá who comes to watch the moon. That is why men stand gazing at the silvered sea on moonlit nights. They know that the mother of waters is there.

The Negroes play guitars, accordions, dance the bataque and sing. It is the tribute that they pay to the mistress of the sea. Others smoke their pipes to light up the paths, so that Yemanjá can see her way. All love her and even forget their wives when the hair of the mother of waters is spread upon the sea.

And so Guma stands, looking at the silver curves of the water and hearing the music of the Negro who invites them to die, singing, “Sweet is death in the sea,” for the drowned will go to meet the mother of waters, the loveliest woman in the world. Guma stares at her hair, forgetting Livia, with her body stretched out, offering her breasts; Livia who waited so long for the hour of love; Livia who saw the storm destroying everything, sinking boats, killing men; Livia who was so much afraid . . . How she would like to hold him in her arms, to kiss his mouth and discover on it whether he was afraid when the lights darkened; to clasp him to her body and know if the sea had drenched him!

Nevertheless, he stands there, Livia forgotten, thinking only of Yemanjá, the mistress of the sea. Perhaps even envying the father and son who died in the storm and who now are seeing worlds that only sailors on great steamships know. Livia is filled with hatred, with a desire to weep, to leave the sea, to go far away.

A boat passes. Livia raises her head and turns to see it better.

They call to Guma, “Good evening, Guma!”

Guma waves his hand. “A good trip to you!”

Livia looks at him. Now that a cloud has hidden the moon and that Yemanjá has gone, Guma puts out his pipe and smiles. She crouches, joyful, feeling herself already in his arms.

“Where can that Negro be singing?” says Guma.

“I don’t know. Maybe in the fort.”

“Lovely music!”

“Poor Judith!”

Guma looks back at the sea.

“You’re right . . . Life is going to be hard for her! And with a son in her belly! . . .”

His face darkens, and he looks at Livia. She is lovely, lying there, offering herself. Her hands are not made for drudgery. If he should be left in the sea, she would have to belong to another man to go on living. Her hands are not made for drudgery. This thought fills him with deep anger. Livia’s breasts are showing under her blouse. All the men on the wharf desire her. All would like to possess her because she is the loveliest. And when it came his turn to go with Yemanjá? He would like to kill her as she lay there, so that she would never belong to another.

“And what if one day my boat should founder and I should be food for fishes?”

Her laughter was forced.

And once again the voice of the Negro pierces the night.

Sweet is death in the sea. . .

“Would you work to earn your living too? Or would you go off with another man?”

She began to cry with fear. She also fears that day when her man will be left at the bottom of the sea, never to return, that day when he will go with Yemanja, the mistress of the sea, the mother of waters, to roam the oceans and the land. She straightens up and her arms clasp Guma’s neck.

“Today I was afraid ... I waited for you at the edge of the wharf. It seemed to me that you would never come . . .”

But Guma came, Yes, he knew how anxiously Livia waited; how much she feared. He came to her arms, to her love.

A voice sings in the distance:

Sweet, oh sweet, is death in. the sea. . .

And now the hair of Yemanjá, mistress of the sea, no longer shines beneath the moon. What stopped the Negro’s music were the love sounds of Livia, the woman on the wharf that all men desire, and who now, on the prow of the Valiant, is loving her man, because she feared so much for him and is still so much afraid.

The winds of the storm are far away now. The waters from the clouds of the false night are falling on other ports. Yemanja will roam with other bodies through other lands. Now the sea is calm and pleasant. The sea is the friend of the masters of ships. Is the sea not their road, their street, their home? Is it not on the sea, on the prow of its boats, that they love and beget their sons?

Yes, Guma loves the sea and Livia loves it too. The sea is beautiful thus, in the blue night, endless blue, mirror of the stars, filled with the lanterns of boats, filled with the lanterns of embers in pipes, filled with murmurs of love. The sea is the friend, the pleasant friend, of all those who live on it.

And Livia smells the savor of the sea on Guma’s flesh.

The Valiant sways like a hammock.

Translated by Donald Walsh