This is the story of a woman who committed a crime that humanity will not forgive. She refused to play the victim. Eva Rodrigues had every qualification for that sentence. She was a woman: a misfortune. She was Black: a misfortune. She was poor: a misfortune. And as if that were not enough, she was born from a difficult labor. She had cerebral palsy. She trembled constantly, spilled her food, walked with difficulty, clumsiness made flesh. The world had reserved one fate for Eva: to be a wretch. She might simply have held out her hand and asked for alms. And received looks of deep pity. In exchange for that coin, she would have given the donor not only the relief of charity, but another, secret gift: the guarantee that deformity, like madness, always belongs to someone else.
Eva rebelled. She decided she would not be a wretch. Let the world fend for itself. Let it find other victims to satisfy its hunger for the grotesque. This was Eva's crime. What they never forgave her for. Unable to stamp "wretch" on her forehead, they found another label to mark her with. How dare she, the deformed one, the handicapped one, the disabled one, refuse the hand of charity, sister of compassion and cousin of hypocrisy? How dare she, the abnormal one, look normal people in the eye as an equal? It seemed almost that the exposure of Eva's deformed body revealed something deformed in the other person's soul. That the display of her defect laid bare the hidden flaws of those who looked at her. How dare Eva, of all people, be imperfect in a world where fortunes are spent to make everyone equally perfect? How dare she be different in a world where having the same ideas is the only guarantee of safety? How dare she let the spirit triumph in a world of appearances?
Such presumption, Eva's presumption! What dangers Eva unleashed when she decided not to be a wretch. From victim, she became guilty.
But first we must tell how Eva rebelled, before revealing how she was punished. Eva doesn't know if it was the snickers that followed her, the imitations they made of her, or the demand that she stay hidden in a corner. Preferably in silence. She only knows that she decided not to submit. That she would reinvent her destiny. That she would reinvent herself.
Her first act of rebellion was to enroll in school. At nine years old, in the place where she was born, Restinga Seca, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. Her hands did not obey her—two disobedient limbs she could not control. Eva used all the strength she had to make her left hand hold her right hand steady. With one twisted hand pressed against the other, aching from the effort, Eva managed to write for the first time. The friction of her curved hand against the paper cut her fingers raw. Her first notebooks had bloodstained letters, wounded words.
Eva wrote her first notebooks in blood. In that moment, Eva discovered she was capable of rewriting her destiny. And for this first bold gesture, she received her first punishment immediately. Despite excellent grades, she was forced to repeat the year. The teacher could not accept, could not understand how Eva managed to write. Eva repeated the year and promised she would repeat it as many times as necessary until the teacher, the world, understood that she would never surrender. That she would have her way, even if it took them to exhaustion. That they could ask her for anything except the impossible. That they could ask her for anything except to stay in her place.
Eva learned early that independence is like quicksand. Territory to be conquered and reconquered day after day. At seventeen, standing before eight siblings and two illiterate parents, landless farmers, she let out a first cry: "Enough! Poor thing here, poor thing there, enough! If I spill food from my plate, let me spill it. If I drop things when I pick them up, let them drop. If I fall, let me get back up."
Eva moved to Porto Alegre. She found work as a housemaid and finished secondary school. Her hands were raw with wounds. Like her soul. But they no longer bled.
Eva enrolled in university, but she could not afford it. Twice she was denied a scholarship. She requested a transfer to a less expensive campus. Eva dreamed of becoming a teacher. She wanted to teach how to write with wounded hands. And how to turn those twisted hands into wings. But so many damaged souls stood between Eva and the world. The battle had barely begun, and it will probably never end.
She heard it all. How will you write on the blackboard shaking like that? How can you teach with such ugly handwriting? Don't you understand that you're just a disturbance? Don't you understand that between you and a normal girl they will always choose the normal one? Do you want to spend your life staring at your diploma on the wall? This is what one of her teachers said to her. This is what she had to hear at university. Just to understand that ignorance thrives where you least expect it. Eva, the physically disabled one, answered the spiritually disabled woman: "First, I will not give up. Second, life is a risk. Not just for me. For everyone."
It took Eva time to understand why her tremor threatened those confident beings so much. Why her fragility offended them so deeply. She was humiliated in every known way and in others invented just for her. First, they prevented her from doing her internship. Then she could do it only at a school for the disabled. Next, they decided she had to do it during the day, because they knew that was when she worked to support herself. Finally, because she would not give up, they did.
When Eva's name was called on graduation day, everyone stood up, shouted, applauded. She did not hear them. All her senses were concentrated on not falling. To cross that stage without stumbling was the metaphor of her life. Eva would not fall. Not there. And Eva did not fall.
At last she managed to enter a classroom as a teacher. She changed schools at least three times. And in each one something happened. When they discovered that Eva was not a wretch, that hiring her was not an act of charity, everything changed. When they discovered that Eva was capable, that they had to compete with her mind, not with her tremors, the attitude shifted. The initial pity transformed into hatred. Who does this handicapped woman think she is? This is what Eva heard with her own ears. And so Eva was expelled from the world she had barely managed to touch.
Eva did not surrender. And she will not surrender. In 1994 she took the exam to become an official at what was then the Court of Appeals. She thought that Justice, blindfolded, would not judge her by her deformity. She took the exams in a special room, as a handicapped person. She placed ninth. The appointment was officially published. But listen: Eva was rejected by the neurologist. Because her hands trembled, because she would spill coffee from the cup.
One signature was enough to close the chapter of a life. Eva sued. The public defender did not show up to the hearing, claiming he had not been notified. Eva pressed on. Today, the case is under review by the Federal Supreme Court. Eva has gone back to working as a housemaid.
Eva is a woman, Black, and poor. Her hands tremble. That they still accept. What they will not forgive is her refusal to be a wretch. What they will not forgive Eva for is that, being a woman, Black, poor, and physically disabled, she finished university. And in this country. Everything conspired against her, and despite it all, Eva dared to win her bet. For this they condemned her. Listen to Eva's words: "Every time they knock me down, I will get back up with more strength. I don't want to hear talk of defeat. Defeat was never in my plans. And wretched is whoever calls me that."
Life is lavish with paradoxes. Eva's is that they hate her because they cannot feel pity for her. And the world's paradox is that the worst deformities are invisible.
2019 © Eliane Brum - Published by special arrangement with Agência Literária Riff in conjunction with their duly appointed co-agent the Ella Sher Literary Agency -
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