A MEETING IN THE HEREAFTER

For those who don't know Ponta Delgada, I should explain that the city's highest natural point is the Mãe de Deus Hill. Should one stand by the church at the top, one is likely to see most of the city, all the way from Santa Clara to the west, to the Pranchinha section to the east, as well as into the areas of both Fajãs to the north. Beyond those points, again on the east, there's the Serra de Água da Pau, a series of mountains that in my youth were part of our wondering whether it was going to rain that day. We generally guessed rain, which was usually correct given the typical Azorean weather. The Mãe de Deus Hill rises steeply from all sides, and the church atop of it can be reached from the both Rua do Peru on the south, after a tiring walk up the Rua da Ladeira, as well as from Rua da Mãe de Deus on the north after a considerably shorter walk uphill.

When I was a boy, most of the houses from the top of the hill to the Rua da Mãe de Deus were inhabited by prostitutes, even though where one got to that street the area turned quite respectable. In fact, north of that point, across the way, one could see some of the finer gardens in the city. I don't know why the church was built atop the hill. But, then, in spite of economic difficulties that have often dominated Portuguese territories, it's almost in the nature of people who trace their roots to Iberia to build something honoring their religious feelings in places generally difficult to reach. That once built those places have little use, except as landmarks, or tourist attractions, is often beside the point. The Mãe de Deus Church seemed one of those efforts, since  São Pedro's church was nearby towards the ocean and, if my memory serves me right, it was the local parish church where Mass and all other rites were performed regularly. I don't recall the Mãe de Deus Church being used very often. In fact, although there were many times when other children and I would try its doors, we never found it open.

One other interesting aspect of the hill was a Cape Verdean family who lived atop of the hill's south side.  Everyone of its members was as black as coal and spoke with a different accent from ours - not like the Gregórios who lived in my Parish, and who were a mixed group. Sr. Gregório was also from the Cape Verde. His wife, however, was from local poor, peasant, and white stock. I don't recall the name of the first family. Suffice it to say that, amongst their several children, they had a retarded son who was a curiosity to the rest of the kids who, while on the way home from the Feliciano de Castilho School, would often venture up the hill all the way to the to the top, coming down via the other side. I was one of them.

The retarded boy would sit at the open door of his house watching the passing scene, which, for the most part, was somewhat monotonous. People just didn't go up the hill if they could avoid it - unless they were school kids with lots of energy looking for something to do. The boy would smile as we approached, his white teeth shining brightly between his black lips. Most of us were forbidden by our parents from crossing over to the north side of the hill. We hardly ever obeyed. Besides, José Virgílio, who was a year or two older than we, had dared us to look at the whores as they enticed whatever men were looking for action. At the time most were soldiers from the various batallions that the Salazar government had sent to the island from the Portuguese mainland. It was also José Virgílio who convinced us to know the black boy's anatomy somewhat better. "Oh, you should see it, fellows," he once told us. "An incredible prick, it is. Black as coal. You'll never forget it. And it's easy. All we need to do is ask him to expose it when his mother is inside the house, back in the kitchen."

Thus began the occasional visits at the black boy's door and the chance of occasionally seeing his penis. We would laugh and comment on it as we went beyond the hilltop to the north slope, past the whorehouses, and then down on to the Rua da Mãe de Deus. The boy's penis was not any larger than ours, but it was black - very black. 

Thanks to that occasional adventure I also became acquainted with another interesting part of the city - the "English Cemetery". Although we were children, death was no stranger to us. Hardly anyone existed who had not witnessed it firsthand. Grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, were constantly dying. Those who died in the city would be buried at São Joaquim. Those from my village at Canada das Silvas, on the extreme east end of São Roque and the west end of Livramento. I knew that area well. My maternal grandfather had one of the largest properties nearby and I would often spend time there. In fact, sometimes my cousin António and I would follow funeral processions and, like everyone else present, delight in throwing dirt at the caskets after they had been lowered. But, in spite of that cemetery experience, we never knew any English who had died, although judging by the fact that there were graves in their cemetery, they must have done so at one time or other. To most of us, however, although we admired the way the "English Cemetery" was kept, we would often refer to it sarcastically. The "English Cemetery" was where Catholics sinners would be buried, we would sometimes joke, even though we knew no Catholic buried there while knowing many, many sinners all around us. At least we were told they were sinners. The whores were sinners who would definitely burn in Hell, the drunks were sinners, the men who beat their wives when they were drunk were sinners, the people who would not go to church, staying outside while the Mass was going on, were sinners. In some villages, in fact, women who curled their hair "imitating negroes against God's will", or used occasional make up, were sinnners. We had more sinners on São Miguel of my day than one could shake a stick at. 

And all those sinners would go to Hell, perhaps to keep the whores in business, I suppose. Few would ever make it into Heaven, and only those who died as tiny children and who hadn't yet had a chance to sin, or were borderline souls, would ever probably make it to Heaven after a semi eternity in Purgatory. Furthermore, although we didn't know anyone who had ever been to those places, we all had a vision of what they looked like and were only too ready to describe them. And when we couldn't do so, the ultra religious, or the clergy, would help us figure them out. There were even locations where many of us believed ghosts from Purgatory, still in the roaming stage of their plight, were likely to appear on certain nights - not to scare us, but to remind us that there was life hereafter. In São Roque, for example, there was a small alley, ("Canada do Terreiro"), between the Rua do Terreiro and the rocky shore down below where several ghosts had reputedly appeared to passersby - generally in windy nights when the roar of the ocean against the rocks down below could be heard as if the sea were rolling towards the alley. Many people even reported having heard ghosts sing. There were even those who, having heard of King Sebastião, who had died in North Africa in 1578, claimed that he still lived around a rock formation that adjoined the island from whence he would eventually emerge to reclaim his Portuguese crown. 

I still remember when my mother and I, while on the way home from my maternal grandfather's, would walk by the "Canada"  looking straight ahead, should we pass it in the dark of night. A woman and a child could be vulnerable "prey" to someone doing the Devil's work, even though no one had ever been attacked. On the other hand, I also remember adult bravery as more than one person walked to the parish church at night to attend whatever function was going on at the time. That's when they, as well as the children, would look into the "Canada" and affirm that perhaps - just perhaps - the ghost stories were just pure fabrications.

I never knew anyone, who had ever seen a ghost outside the "English Cemetery". Perhaps English souls just didn't come back. I must confess, however, that one night when I was about thirteen I put on a ghost interpretation that scared the Hell out of three women. At the time I was a student at the Liceu Antero de Quental, in Ponta Delgada. I would leave for school from my house at Praia dos Santos at around eight in the morning, carrying both my books and lunch. My house was too far for me to come home at midday, which meant that I would stay through the regular schedule and also the tutorial late afternoon and evening classes that would keep students needing additional help around the school until eight at night. In the winter, eight o'clock was quite dark and, since the Azores suffer from all types of cloudcover, many village people would retire early. I lived just outside the city where the streets were muddy and unlit at night. The houses, which were generally built of stone and and a mixture of clay and powdered limestone, were bunched together, lining both sides of the road. On my stretch of street, which was part of the southern east-west road, many houses had electricity, although many still used kerosene lamps. It was generally people who lived in the latter who went to bed early for obvious reasons. Even if they had had books to read, it would not have done them much good. Most were illiterate.

It would take me slightly over one hour to get home at night - and sometimes there were nights when everything east of the Pranchinha section was quite dark. Often I would walk home more by instinct than by knowing where I was putting my feet. One night, as I passed by one of the houses, I noticed a slit between the window shutters of a street-level bedroom where  three women normally slept. Furthermore, I heard one of them say, her voice almost screaming as she cried, "I saw him, I saw him. He was standing right there smiling at me."

"Mother of God," I heard another say, her cry followed by a third voice asking: "Tell us, dear Dad, what do you want from us?"

The question was repeated several times by the other women. At which point I shouted with as deep a voice as I could muster. "I want grapes, my daughters. Grapes."

I heard a scream from the inside mixed with shouts for God's Mother's help. Naturally, once I had completed my joke, I ran as fast as I could, losing myself in the darkeness of the road. It wasn't until I got home and reflected on the incident, that I realized that it was January. At the time no one in the Azores had ever seen a fresh edible grape between September and August of the following year. That the father had asked for that fruit out of the season, however, was nothing out of the ordinary. The old man had passed into the hereafter and, as such, he had the right to anything he wanted - at any time. It was up to the living to provide it, and, if they couldn't, they just had to live with their sin. Perhaps when they met on the other side they would explain why they had been unable to accomodate his request. They would have lots of time for that - an eternity, in fact. Whether he'd be puzzled by the explanation, no one knows. But it would prove to him at least that they did think of him often in January during the many years while he was gone.

Manuel L. Ponte
mlp@fclass.net

October 12, 1998