Saudade by Suneeta Peres da Costa

Author:Suneeta Peres da Costa [Costa, Suneeta Peres da]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transit Books
Published: 2019-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

8

ON THE MORNING OF MY CRISMA my mother braided my hair with moringa from the garden. She stood back after plaiting the buds into my hair and, congratulating herself on the work of art which I, lace dress, lace veil, and wearer of her well-tended blossoms had become, said see what a pretty girl I could be. The more often she said such things, the more I resented my sex and the awkward complications of my body. I looked with envy at boys my age, kicking footballs, able to go out late and return whenever they pleased, and swearing in the street. If I were a boy, I believed, I might escape all that those blossoms and my mother’s words seemed to prefigure…In her bedroom, my mother opened the lid of her old jewellery box. With its evocative scent of sandal and patchouli, it had once held such a charm, yet now I looked upon the contents with a heavy sense of duty, as a dowry I wished to forsake. She presented me with a gold crucifix; her own mother had given the same to her on the day of her Crisma, she told me, and turned the pendant over to show me the devanagari signature of the old goldsmith from Goa, before fastening the chain round my neck…We took polaroids in the garden and Ifigênia gifted me a scapular that had a picture of Santa Teresa of Avila on one side and the Virgin Mary on the other. At the last moment, we found Crio unable to stand properly. In the months before, we had begun to see him bringing up his food. We carried him to his favourite spot – some old, fragrant coffee sacks in the kitchen – and he keened plaintively. Papá said he would soon have to be put down and my mother and I both cried. Then she reapplied her kohl and composed herself, creating a face to present to the world. On the way to the cathedral, the hair pins with which the stems of the moringa had been affixed to my hair came loose. When I put my hand to my head to secure them, the blossoms fell out. The Crisma dress was too tight; I had grown a lot since the time I had been measured for it, and my feet hurt in the taut leather of the new shoes, though they were one size larger than I needed when we bought them. My arms and legs, suddenly ungainly and long – and nearly as obstreperous as my senses – seemed to pull me in all directions. I had not eaten anything that morning and, during the prayers that were said and the long reading from the Acts of the Apostles, I grew impatient. The priest read: ‘And when the day of the Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place… And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

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