Pernambuco in May
Not a leaf stirs in the rubbery looking trees.
The Skipper’s shirt is wilted and he’s dripping at the knees.
Whistle a breeze!
Brown girls move along on slithery dry feet,
Selling sticky sweets;
And brown men squat asleep in the hot street—
In all the hot streets—
With their shins in their hands and chins on their knees.
Whistle a breeze!
Narrow dark doors stand open here and there,
Inviting mates and masters in from the glare,
Through high dark stores to dusky cool bars,
Smelling of green limes and oily cigars,
Of bitters and pale rum and white anisette
And the slow blue smoke of a brown cigarette.
Whistle a drink!
“What will you have, Sir? Just name your fancy!
“Gin and green coconut?—called a ‘Miss Nancy.’
“A long lime-squash, Sir, laced with white rum?—
“Known in these parts as a ‘Skippers’ Kingdom Come.’”
In Tucker’s dusky bar we give noon the slip:
But the more we cool our necks the more we drip-drip,
Dripping at the shoulders and wilting at the knees.
Whistle a breeze!
While I blow smoke of a fat green cigar,
The Skipper sings a ditty of a sailor and a star—
Of how a sailor’s sweetie a sailor’s star should be....
One more “Miss Nancy” will be enough for me!
The harbour and city of Pernambuco are behind a reef. The reef is topped by a brick wall built long ago, when the port was a possession of Holland, by workmen who knew their trade of raising barriers against the sea. But the rollers of three hundred years have knocked a few holes in the good Dutch brickwork through which spray bursts upon the opaque green (and shark infested) waters of the harbour like the smoke of great guns and with a booming as of guns. I was there in May, which is not the best time to visit Pernambuco.
