One Hundred Years after Tomorrow: Brazilian Women's Fiction in the Twentieth Century

Tania Jamardo Faillace / Dorceli (1975)

Tania Jamardo Faillace Tania Jamardo Faillace was born in 1939 in Rio Grande do SuI, the southernmost state in Brazil. Her novel Adiio e Eva (1965) (Adam and Eve) retells the biblical tale from the point of view of Eve; and 0 35° Ano de Inis (1971) (Ines's 35th Year) contains several stories about women driven to madness and suicide. For the last few years, she has been working on a roman fleuve, entitled Beco da Velha (Old Woman's Alley), about prostitution in Rio Grande do SuI. Faillace's work as a journalist and political activist in Porto Alegre, the capital city of Rio Grande do SuI, brought her into close contact with the lower classes, whose poverty, frustration, and solitude are common themes in her fiction. She frequently writes about the difficulties children and adolescents encounter growing up in a world of drugs, crime, and sexual violence. Some of her most powerful and disturbing stories appear in Vinde a Mim os Pequeninos (1977) (Come unto Me the Little Ones), whose protagonists include abandoned children, teenage mothers , and gang youths. The story "Dorceli," first published in 1975, is included in that collection. 163 Dorceli (1975) A baby with black eyes. Every newborn has gray eyes. Dorceli was born with black eyes. The nurses said: "What a pretty little thing . . . she looks like an Indian." The mother wrapped Dorceli in the donated baby shawl and left the charity hospital for good. She continued to walk up one side and down the other in front of the public square. She watched the women go through the large iron gate. Only the women. They had told her.... But she, the mother, is too ashamed to go up to the line and ask: "Which of you here wants a baby?" So she says nothing, with Dorceli-who still has no name-rolled in the shawl they gave her, and she dreams someone is questioning her: "Don't you have anywhere to go, my child? So young and with a baby...." Crying, the mother will then say: "They threw me out of the house, I don't know what I'm going to do . . . ." Yes, that's what she should say. At nightfall, the mother went away. Dalva was her name. She was light-skinned with blue eyes. Dorceli's black eyes made her uncomfortable . Not even as a little girl did she imagine having a child like that. She used to rock her doll and say to herself: "Neusa Cristina." Neusa Cristina, pink and blond with several petticoats under her dress, patent leather shoes, and little dimples in a face with lowered eyes. "Such a well-behaved child!" But the Indian needed a name, of course. An Indian's name, a name with an "I"-Irani, Iraci, Jaci. ... "Dorceli." suggested the woman who lived in the room next to hers in the pensdo. Dorceli it was. Dorceli was howling from hunger. "I don't have any milk," Dalva said, as if to justify herself, and she didn't have any, either. Cow's milk gave Dorceli diarrhea and she almost died. The neighbor woman suggested rice water, and Dorceli was saved. She was wrinkled, with little dry legs, and her rump was full of creases-ugly. The woman who owned the house appeared: "Look, I don't want to be mean, unfeeling...." The mother picked up Dorceli, the cardboard 164 Dorceli 165 suitcase, and left again for the front of the hospital. Night fell once again, and she hadn't had the courage to speak to anyone, to offer them the Indian. When she next looked around, she was on a bus. Her sister's house. "You're back?" "Yes." Her sister took a peek at Dorceli, who was sleeping. Suddenly, Dorceli opened her black eyes. "Who's the father?" The mother shrugged her shoulders. "And now?" "I have to wait for her to grow a little, don't I? Besides, I'm not feeling so good." Her sister served supper: "Clair won't be back 'til later. I'll explain to him then." Dorceli whimpered. "She's sick, too, that's why I came back." Her sister picked up Dorceli and examined her for a long time: "She doesn't look like anybody." "So much the better." "Why didn't you do something about it, before?" "I was afraid," the mother confessed. "Nonsense, you just had to look for...