Counternarratives by John Keene Page A

D’Azevedo asked. He peered
around Dom Gaspar into the dark, open hallway.
    â€œThere has been an incident, my Lord—”
    â€œDom Gaspar, we are facing an imminent attack—”
    â€œâ€”at the slave quarters. Indeed I came to fetch you. . . .” D’Azevedo
noted how the light from the lantern Dom Gaspar brandished before him contorted the
deputy’s features into a mask of fright. The provost set down his quill and followed
his charge outside.
    During the time D’Azevedo had led the professed house, he had often
ventured near the shacks where the slaves made their homes, usually during the early
morning, usually to conduct a quick inspection to ensure that things were as they
should be. Not once had he noticed anything amiss. Nevertheless, as he now trod the
hard, hot soil trail behind Dom Gaspar, it was as if he were stepping into a
completely different world. Behind one of the shacks, straight ahead, he saw Padre
Pero, shirtless and wearing only a bandanna around his neck, soiled work britches,
and shoeless, dressed in the manner of a slave himself, holding a black woman by her
neck, her wrists bound behind her back. Her wild hair cascaded about her narrow
shoulders, covering her face, down almost to the waist of the gossamer linen frock
that stopped just above her ankles, which D’Azevedo could see were also bound
tightly with rope. She was slender, slight almost, and appeared to be standing only
because Pero held her up. Before her, up to her knees, rose a pile of wood, and
beside it several urns, smelling of palm oil, and several long coils of rope.
D’Azevedo tried to piece all these clues together but they made no sense. It was
only then that he noticed that there were only two other adult male slaves present,
also apparently bound by their wrists, behind Padre Pero. Three, he realized,
instead of the eight that should have been there, though little Filhinho stood
almost within the prodigious beard of Padre Barbosa Pires, who wore only his cassock
and no doublet, he grasped that the other child, who had served his students and
whom he had seen quite recently, also was missing.
    â€œPadre Pero, for heaven’s mercy,” he called out to the older priest, who
maintained his tight grip on the slavewoman’s neck, “what is the source of this
commotion?”
    Pero released his grip on the slavewoman, and raised his other hand, in
which he held a large hunting knife. “These creatures were going to burn us all to
ashes in preparation for the heathens’ arrival, led by this beast, isn’t that
right?” He cuffed the woman hard on the side of her head, knocking her to the
ground. One of the black men stumbled forward to assist her, but Pero brandished the
knife and the man froze. The fallen woman struggled to her knees, before Pero pushed
her back down with his foot, holding her there. “I have a mind to take care of it
myself right now.”
    â€œPadre Pero,” D’Azevedo said again, “in the name of Our Father, and the
Holy Bible, and the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, and the Captaincy of
this Province, and in my capacity as the Provost and head of this Professed House of
the Second Order of the Discalced Brothers of the Holy Ghost, I command you to
desist. If this person, these persons, have been engaged in any mischief, such as a
plot to harm this house, especially at this fraught moment, we will address it
according to the laws and rules already set down.” D’Azevedo took two steps toward
the woman, who continued to writhe about until she rose to kneel, and then was again
standing.
    As D’Azevedo asked, “Can someone tell me whence this African woman
came?” Pero reached out and yanked the curtain of hair from her head, revealing the
slave João Baptista, whom, D’Azevedo could see, was also gagged. Lacking words to
express his astonishment, D’Azevedo staggered backward, until