The Discovery of America by the Turks by Jorge Amado Read Free Book Online

youngish, a fresh and cozy cunt. Healthy principles, the foundations of family and society.
    “What if the one in question is a couple years older than you?” Raduan went on with his inquiry.
    “What’s that got to do with it, Professor? I never heard it said that age was a defect. It’s just no good if she’s been plowed. Covering a hole opened by someone else, that I won’t do. She’s got to be a virgin.”
    Raduan Murad paused to contemplate the young fellow, who was smiling and rubbing his hands together, excited over the direction the conversation was taking.
    “If you know someone, Professor, just give me her address and I’ll take care of the rest.”
    So why not? Adma was a rough deal, hard to swallow. Facing her called for decisiveness, courage, and the stomach of a camel. Tall, slim, muscular, doltish, Adib was like a dromedary. His youth and greed made him capable of chewing straw and finding it tasty, of standing up against an aging, sour old maid, busting her cherry with delight, raising her up into a frenzy, to beatitude, to peace with life. Well screwed, Adma would cease being a drag on humanity.
    Filthy conjectures. Raduan Murad kept them to himself. He waxed poetic and wise before announcing the name of the maid in need of a husband. Certain virginities are like wine, he declared in Arabic: They improve with the passage of time and little by little they become refined, purified, and are finally transformed into liqueurs, brandy, cognac. They change their state but preserve their quality. In the heights of his curiosity and interest, Adib declared that he preferred cognac to wine.
    “I know one, yes, my boy, someone who is a well of virtues, as pure as the Virgin Mary.”
    “Who is it, Professor? Come on. Tell me.”
    “Do you know Ibrahim Jafet? He was in here with me just a while ago.”
    “I know him, yes, sir.”
    “And do you know his daughters, too?”
    “Them, too. Each one prettier than the next.”
    “Except one.”
    “Hold on, Professor. I’m beginning to catch the drift. You want to talk about the wallflower, right?”
    “The one who marries her will become a partner in the store.…”
    What Raduan Murad and young Adib Barud discussed and decided that late Itabuna afternoon no one knew. A lot of things were said and commented on: gossip and tales, nothing more. Sante, for example, stated that when he got back from dinner he heard Adib’s final words, which, repeated to God and everyone else, became a kind of mantra.But how could he have understood them? For Sante himself had begun by telling those listening to him that they’d been talking in Turkish. The bar owner, a flathead from Sergipe, didn’t understand beans about the Arabic language, to him a complicated jawbreaker, indecipherable gabble.
    In any case, inscribed here as truthful is the phrase, attributed to Adib Barud, with which the session was adjourned:
    “Just leave it to me, Professor. You can tame a woman with a pat or with a whack. Or maybe with a little bit of both.”
    From him or from somebody else, whichever way it went, that affirmative was worthy of general acceptance and hearty approval. A surprising person, Adib Barud, the youngest son of Moamud and Ariza, both deceased. An orphan, he had educated himself haphazardly, an elegant, exquisite upbringing.

10
    It could be seen immediately that Jamil Bichara and Ibrahim Jafet were twin souls, made to understand and esteem each other. The meeting took place in the cabaret. Glorinha Goldass introduced them. It didn’t take her long to regret it. The two Turks, instead of devoting their time to her, began to gab, leaving her reduced to the ridiculous role of a deaf-mute, as though she were a piece of furniture. Wounded in her self-respect, she went off to dance with Chico Lopes, a traveling salesman given to the conquest of hookers. He’d been laying siege to Glorinha for some time without any success until then. The one in question didn’t give of herself