The Bewitching Braid

... LAST WORDS

... LAST WORDS On the eve of my departure to Portugal, where I was going to complete my studies, I ran into Adozindo by chance, sitting on a bench in the Sao Francisco Garden, in frontof the main entrance to the Santa Rosa de Lima College. He was waiting for his elder daughter who was still at her piano lesson. I had been doing the rounds bidding farewell to friends and was soaked in sweat after so much hurrying here and there. Adozindo was much older than I was, but we knew each other because, during the War of the Pacific, I had been his younger son's teacher at primary school. Being a conscientious father he would appear at school and ask how the little fellow was doing in his work and in his behaviour. The answer was always the same. He was doing well, and there was nothing to worry about with regard to his motivation or discipline. I walked over to him. The war was over, the seas were open and free, and I was going to fulfil my dream of a university education. He congratulated me warmly and wished me well. I sat down beside him and we talked. I knew his story because I had heard it repeated countless times among the many tales of scandal in Macao. In looks and physique he was still perfect. He was a man who had won the war, taking advantage of a unique moment, taking the helm of his father's agency and joining it to the one of which he was a partner, to supply the famished city with foodstuffs.One or two white streaks of hair on his temples lent his face a certain distinction and without a doubt helped to justify the continuing use of his nickname, Handsome Adozindo. Suddenly, my companion fell silent, his eyes fixed on something. I followed the direction of his gaze and noticed a young proletarian Chinese girl, in the flower of her twenty years, walking hurriedly along, her clogs clacking loudly. Aware that she was being watched, she stiffened proudly, raising her chin, and ignoring us completely. While there was nothing particularly striking about her face,she had a long ink-black braid, neatly tied, its thick knots artfully plaited. This type of hairstyle was no longer very common, destroyed by the war and the winds of modernization. But this girl exhibited it with pride, certain of the effect it produced, and was one of the last defenders of that fashion. THE฀BEWITCHING฀BRAID฀19 5฀ 'What a beautiful braid!' I exclaimed. Adozindo burst out laughing and then sighed. 'Take care, lad. That's not just any braid. It's a bewitching braid. The fountain of desire, it seduces us, invites us to caress it, to plunge our hands into it. It has the power to hold us and after that we can no longer escape. I know it.' He continued, absorbed in his contemplation of the braid as it got further away, dancing to the swaying rhythm of the girl's hips. It was getting late. I got up, we embraced and I left to go about my business. I returned eight years later. The City of the Name of God remained structurally intact, without the skyscrapers and motorcars of today. But one thing disappointed and saddened me. Chinese women of all social positions wore their hair either straight or curly, in accordance with western hairstyles. Nowhere did I catch a glimpse of a bewitching braid, shaking rhythmically like a serpent of temptation. — Written after a stroll through Cheok Chai Un on a sunlit morning ...