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

for free, except on those rare occasions when tricks were played on her, clouding her judgment. Not out of avarice, but from necessity. In Laranjeiras, where she had come from to ply her trade in Itabuna, she had left four sisters, devout virgins, a crippled mother, and a father who worked other people’s land for his consolation of cachaça. All those and, in addition, two loony aunts—“my dearly beloved creatures,” she would weep with longing as she remembered them—all dependent on her, on the little money she would send each month by Aureliano Neves, the owner of the Casa Sergipana, first-class furniture, her parishioner on Saturdays.
    The youngest daughter, a flirtatious mulatto girl in full bloom, had given her cherry for free to the judge’s son, that son of a bitch, who after making a great fuss over her had kicked her out as soon as she’d been fucked, to the fury of her drunken but moralistic father, without even a good-bye. He’d promised to set her up in a house, all established, for alove affair. In some strange way she was grateful to him because when he’d popped her cherry he’d brought her good luck. The divine Glorinha went off to be a whore in cacao country, Glorinha Goldass, sought after. The fulsome pledges of the traveling salesman went in one ear and out the other, in spite of his elegant mustache and his hair that gleamed with brilliantine and was parted down the middle just like a pussy, the height of fashion. The dandy danced well, and Glorinha wasn’t far behind him in that. She adored waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, but the best of all was the maxixe.
    Interest on Jamil’s part was there right from the start when, rejoicing in the unexpected appearance of the ideal candidate, Ibrahim went straight to the business at hand. On that afternoon the person of his fellow countryman was still the center of attention, the object of conversation and speculation. Raduan Murad, a friend in common, a man of great aptitude, had proposed the name of Jamil, and he had regretted his absence. What had his name been proposed for? To solve a problem of interest for Ibrahim, but one that might be of equal interest for Jamil. He would like to lay it out if his countryman would care to listen and set a time and place. Right here and now was his answer. He didn’t have any time the following day, completely taken up with replenishing his stock and shipping out the merchandise. The mixture of vermouth and cognac had loosened the tongue of Adma’s afflicted father. All ears, out of natural prudence Jamil wasn’t showing any enthusiasm for the scheme at any time.
    Before even getting into the details of the tangled hodgepodge, Jamil declared he was quite satisfied with the place where he lived and did business. He had no intention of leaving it. He hadn’t grown wealthy yet, no, but if houses kept on being built his store for mule drivers would become an important business just as sure as two and two make four. Do you know Colonel Noberto de Faria? Just ask him and he’ll tell you so. If he let go of something that had cost him so much privation, effort, and sacrifice and that promised a wealthyfuture, it would have to be for an offer of something that was really worthwhile.
    At the start of the negotiations, Ibrahim offered him the position of manager, with a salary and a small share of the profits. He watered the proposal with some vermouth. Jamil laughed to his face with that great whiplike guffaw he used when he set prices for small farmers, hired hands, and gunmen in that cacao-growing last end of the earth. At that moment in the wrangle Glorinha Goldass got them even angrier as she went on praising Chico Lopes, a perfect gentleman—and he had such a nice way with words! The opposite of the two rude and ignorant Turks, who’d left her there all by herself. What in hell had Jamil come to the cabaret for in the first place? To have a good time, to get his thoughts far away from what was bugging him? Or was