Who She Is
Food vendor and enslaved woman of an old blind man, who works from dawn to night beside João Romão, for whom she is shop assistant, servant and lover, convinced that she is free. The freedom she believes in is a letter he forged, which only he knows how to read; the savings she had gathered for her manumission stayed with him. She appears little in the foreground, almost always at the stove, in the kitchen of the eatery or scaling fish at the door of the grocery, and the book leaves her for the last chapter, when the paper that kept her at his side becomes the instrument for removing her from there.
Trajectory
When her companion dies, João Romão offers himself as her confidant, keeps the savings, takes charge of everything she earns and moves in with her. Then he reads her the letter of freedom he forged, and she believes herself free, while her former master never finds out (chapter I).
a tal carta de liberdade era obra do próprio João Romão, e nem mesmo o selo, que ele entendeu de pespegar-lhe em cima, para dar à burla maior formalidade, representava despesa porque o esperto aproveitara uma estampilha já servida, that so-called letter of freedom was the work of João Romão himself, and even the seal, which he thought to slap on top to lend the hoax greater formality, cost him nothing, because the sharp man had used a stamp that had already been used
In the morning, the grocery and the eatery she runs with him fill with workers at the tenement (chapter III). On the Sunday when everyone dresses up, she stays at the stove (chapter VI).
a Bertoleza, sempre suja e tisnada, sempre sem domingo nem dia santo, lá estava ao fogão, mexendo as panelas e enchendo os pratos, Bertoleza, always dirty and soot-blackened, never having a Sunday or a holy day off, there she was at the stove, stirring the pots and filling the plates
When the shopkeeper remakes himself from the inside out, in fine clothes, dancing and newspapers, she gains nothing and grows ever more enslaved and sadder; lying down beside her, as she snores, he realizes she will be a burden in the marriage he is planning (chapter XIII).
João Romão subia e ela ficava cá embaixo, abandonada como uma cavalgadura de que já não precisamos para continuar a viagem., João Romão climbed up while she stayed down here, abandoned like a beast of burden we no longer need to finish the journey.
During Piedade's fight with Rita, she boils water in the kitchen to defend his property (chapter XVI). In the fire she fights the flames to exhaustion and falls asleep at five in the morning, the hour when he checks and hides Libório's bottles (chapter XVIII). When the construction begins, she smells other women on him and stops being his lover; Botelho advises the shopkeeper to ask for Zulmira's hand in marriage, and she weeps without being able to work (chapter XIX).
pouco a pouco deixara totalmente de ser a amante do vendeiro, para ficar sendo só uma sua escrava, little by little she had completely ceased to be the shopkeeper's lover, to become only his slave
She sleeps in a gap under the stairs, beneath his new room, and on the night João Romão comes down with a candle, she lifts her head with open eyes and makes him step back. Then she overhears his conversation with Botelho, walks into the room and demands to stay by his side and to have her share of what the two of them earned (chapter XXI).
Quem me comeu a carne tem de roer-me os ossos!, Whoever ate my flesh must gnaw my bones!
She lives on edge now, eats only what she herself prepares and sleeps with her door bolted (chapter XXII). When the son of her former master comes to fetch her with two soldiers, she is squatting in the kitchen, scaling fish for João Romão's supper; she recognizes the man and understands everything before they can arrest her (chapter XXIII).
adivinhou que tinha sido enganada; que a sua carta de alforria era uma mentira, e que o seu amante, não tendo coragem para matá-la, restituía-a ao cativeiro., she guessed that she had been deceived; that her letter of manumission was a lie, and that her lover, lacking the courage to kill her, was returning her to captivity.
With a kitchen knife in hand, she rips open her belly before the soldiers can take her, and dies there, while João Romão flees to the dark corner of the warehouse.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through her are Slavery, Social Class, Loyalty and Betrayal, and Work and Vocation. The symbol that accompanies her is the São Romão tenement, raised with her labor and her savings, which she serves without entering the new world the house becomes.
Bertoleza's condition is the fact João Romão keeps in chapter I and uses in chapter XXI: the letter he forged keeps her behind the counter without giving her freedom, and the paper of enslavement, which he knows well, returns her to her owner when she gets in the way. Between the false letter of chapter I and the true condition used in chapter XXI, the book places the same woman, who believes in one piece of paper and is returned to her owner by another.
The text sustains two readings of her silent resignation in chapters XIII and XIX: the fear of being left without shelter, or attachment to a man she adores, and her only long speech, the one in chapter XXI, mixes both. She claims what seems owed to her, the work paid with a place in the house, without realizing, or without wanting to realize, that the account has already been closed on the other side of the table; lucidity only arrives in the last chapter, in a flash.
Relationships
- João Romão: the companion who keeps her savings, reads her the false letter and returns her to captivity.
- Botelho: the parasite of the townhouse who advises the shopkeeper to ask for Zulmira and to arrange her way out.