He didn’t always proceed at that slow, stiff pace. He could also move in a flurry of gestures, agile and quick-moving, and he was as natural in one mode as in the other. Also, he laughed aloud, whenever necessary: it was a forced but somehow infectious laugh, in which his cheeks, teeth, eyes, his whole face, his whole person, the whole world seemed to laugh with him. At serious moments, he was extremely serious.
He had lived with us as a dependent for many years; my father was still at the old plantation at Itaguaí,* and I had just been born. One day he turned up there offering his services as a homeopathic doctor; he carried a Manual and a portable dispensary.† There were fever epidemics around: José Dias cured the overseer and a female slave, and would not accept any payment. So my father suggested he should stay and live there with us, with a small stipend. José Dias refused, saying that it was his duty to bring health to the poor man’s hovel.
“Who’s preventing you going elsewhere? Go where you like, but come and live with us.”
“I’ll come back in three months.”
He came back in two weeks, accepted food and lodging with no other stipend, other than what they might be pleased to give him on festival days. When my father was elected deputy and came to Rio de Janeiro with the family, he came too, and had his room outside in the grounds. One day, when the fevers came back to Itaguaí, my father told him to go and attend to our slaves. José Dias at first said nothing; finally, with a sigh, he confessed that he was not a doctor. He had taken the title to help spread the new doctrine, and he hadn’t done it without a great deal of hard study; but his conscience didn’t allow him to take on any more patients.
“But you cured them the last time.”
“I believe so; it would be better however to say that I followed the remedies prescribed in the books. There, there lies the real truth, in the sight of God. I was a charlatan … No, don’t deny it; my motives may have been worthy—they were. Homeopathy is the truth, and I lied in the service of truth. But it’s time to set the record straight.”
He was not dismissed, as he requested at the time: my father could no longer do without him. He had the gift of making himself amenable and indispensable; when we wasn’t there, it was almost as if a member of the family were missing. When my father died, he was terribly distressed, so they told me: I don’t myself remember. My mother was very grateful to him, and didn’t allow him to leave his room in the garden. After the seventh-day mass, he went to take his leave of her.
“Stay with us, José Dias.”
“Madam, I obey.”
He had a small legacy in the will, a gilt-edged bond and a few words of praise. He copied these words out, framed them and hung them up in his room, above his bed. “This is the best bond,” he would often say. As time went on, he acquired a certain authority in the family: or at least, people would listen to what he had to say; he didn’t overdo it, and knew how to give his opinion submissively. When all’s said and done, he was a friend: I won’t say the best of friends, but then nothing’s perfect in this world. And don’t think he was naturally subservient; his respectful politeness was more the product of calculation than of his true character. His clothes lasted a long time; unlike people who soon wear out a new suit, he had his old ones brushed and smoothed, meticulously mended, buttoned, with the modest elegance of the poor. He was well-read, though in a disorganized fashion: enough to amuse us over dessert, or in the evenings, or to explain some strange phenomenon, talk of the effects of heat and cold, the poles and Robespierre. Often he would recount a journey he had made to Europe, and would confess that if it hadn’t been for us, he would have gone back; he had friends in Lisbon, but our family, he said, under God, was everything to him.
“Under God or above Him?” Uncle Cosme asked him one day.
“Under Him,” echoed José Dias, full of reverence.
And my mother, who was religious, was pleased to see that he put God in His proper place, and smiled her approval. José Dias nodded his head in thanks. My mother gave him small amounts of money from time to time. Uncle Cosme, who was a lawyer, entrusted him with the copying of legal documents.