Hunting Midnight (24 page)

I knew then that I had underestimated Papa; he understood more about my kinship with Midnight than I had expected. I felt a single seed of affection for him growing anew in me.

“Papa, do you not miss him?”

“I miss him every day, John. But life … it is not what we might wish. We lose those we love, one after another. I have lost my parents and now I have lost Midnight. And your sadness, lad … It’s hard for your old father to bear. I do not appear downhearted to you now because I cannot indulge my emotions. I have a family to support. I have work to do, John. I must trudge on without allowing myself the luxury of despair.”

I wept at how badly I had misunderstood his actions. “I am sorry about saying I hate you … and blaming you too. I could never hate you.”

He rubbed his eyes. “John, I have grown to despise myself too. More deeply than I might ever have imagined. Perhaps more deeply even than you.”

I promised then to carry out my duties once again, but I cannot recall what he said; so unexpected was his admission of self-loathing, so uncharacteristic was it, that I could think of little else all afternoon.

So many things about my parents’ marriage throughout that winter and spring were to prove so disconcerting that I began to suspect Father and Mother might not have told me everything about Midnight’s death.

Unwilling to risk Mama’s fragile state of mind, I only
questioned
Papa. On several occasions I was reassured that my suspicions were totally unfounded.

It is a testament to human resilience that I was soon able to peel potatoes, pump water, build a fire, make purchases at the market, and perform all the other tasks expected of me. Mother, too, emerged again, this time for good. That she was able to take on all the duties expected of a wife and mother speaks greatly for her strength of spirit.

But I am fairly certain that she only imitated the spirited woman she once had been –
that
person had ceased to exist.

“It is our fate in this life to keep walking no matter what,” she told me.

Not even my renewed strength could bridge the gulf between the three of us. Papa never told me another Scottish story, nor crept up behind Mama to surprise her with a kiss, and his trips upriver were no longer regarded as hindrances to our happiness. Mama never tried to make Papa laugh or reprimanded me for taking the stairs two at a time, and I never asked either for their advice on choosing a profession.

It is now plain to me that once Father returned home alone, our destruction was inevitable. We had opportunities to alter the course of our destiny, but only if we had acted much earlier – if, for instance, I had made that fateful voyage to England with Father and Midnight. Had I gone, I am certain that I would have been able to prevent this tragedy. That is my most
punishing
regret. I can see the blood on my fingers even today.

In deference to Father’s request, Professor Raimundo and I recommenced lessons three months after Midnight’s death. I soon discovered, however, that I no longer had any patience for his pomposity.

In mid-April, I found the courage to broach the subject with my mother over supper. “I cannot bear Professor Raimundo any longer, Mama. I should like to give studying on my own a try.”

Having adopted a strategy of changing the subject whenever a decision needed to be reached, she replied, “Eat your soup.”

“I find him so tedious that I could cry at times. I’m sure he is impeding my progress.”

“John, you are nearly a man and you may do as you please,” she said matter-of-factly.

That’s when I said for the first time in many weeks, “I miss Midnight. I miss him every day.”

Mother would not look at me.

“Don’t you miss him greatly?” I inquired, leaning toward her in my eagerness. “Remember that first supper we had with him?
When he told us that Africa was memory. Do you recall how mad you and I thought he was?”

Without a word, she put down her spoon, stood up, and glided to the stairs. I called after her to apologize, but she refused to turn around.

I would not speak again of Midnight to either my mother or my father for another year.

I admit that I couldn’t understand why she would not talk to me of him, if even for a few secret minutes. I could not fathom how we had come to this.

It will seem absurd, but whenever we referred to that time of night when the minute and hour hands of a clock point straight up toward the heavens, we never again spoke of
midnight,
but only of twelve o’clock.

XXI

I
was to be sixteen years of age at the end of April and, having dismissed my tutor, I soon settled into a new and solitary pattern of study. I did little else requiring concentrated effort, the only exceptions being my lessons with the Olive Tree Sisters on Fridays, and my study of the Torah with Benjamin on Sunday afternoons.

Outside events soon dramatically altered our lives, however. It was Napoleon who impinged on the quiet independence of our city, just as he would on that of every town in Europe.

Britain’s only remaining allies on the Continent were Russia and Portugal, and so it was to our unfortunate outpost that the French Emperor now turned his attention.

Prince João, our Regent, was the head of our monarchy. In August of 1807 the French and Spanish ambassadors demanded that he declare war on England, give use of his fleet to French forces, confiscate goods from English vessels, and imprison all British subjects in his kingdom. While negotiations dragged on, the British citizens of Portugal were given valuable time to prepare for departure.

Father told Mother and me that we would not be fleeing Portugal. As subjects of the Portuguese crown, she and I would be safe under French occupation, and he had never
maintained
any direct commercial connection to His Majesty’s government or any British firm. He believed that his
employment
in the Douro Wine Company, the single most important mercantile enterprise in Porto, guaranteed him a measure of safety.

We argued with his logic, but he would not give in.

In truth, there seemed nothing for him to return to in Britain.
He had obviously decided that he would live or die, suffer a broken marriage or rebuild it, in Portugal.

Then, on October the Twentieth, the guillotine fell on the oldest of European alliances: Prince João declared war on Britain. But the surprise was to be on him – Napoleon and his Spanish lackeys had made plans to betray their treaty with Portugal and divide the country between them. A mixed French and Spanish army comprising eighteen thousand troops
commanded
by General Junot crossed our border at the end of October.

A convoy of ships was sent from England to collect the British wishing to flee Porto, where many of their families had lived for generations. William Warre, as British Consul, was the last to embark. As the ship set sail, he raised his fist to those of us left on shore, but Mama only frowned when I told her of his defiant gesture. “It’s easy for a man to preach courage when he runs no risk,” she said. She then told Father and me that we were to bury all of our valuables in the garden.

Having never experienced occupation before and having heard Professor Raimundo praise the French as honorable people, this seemed a laughable precaution. Unwilling to risk rankling her, however, I did as she asked. She and I wrapped her few rings and necklaces in linen towels, along with our silver, including her beloved menorah. We deposited them into tunnels that Father and I dug underneath the rosebushes.

Then we dug other pits more haphazardly, burying
knickknacks
of little or no value. Our reasoning was that the French would discover these swiftly and remove their nearly worthless contents, leaving undisturbed the more important hiding places.

“And the pianoforte,” I said, “how shall we hide it?”

Mama moaned.

“Don’t you worry, May, I shall take care of it.” Papa reached out to reassure her, but she yanked her arm free. In the end, we carried it up to his study, turned it over on its back, and buried it beneath books and papers.

Late that afternoon, when neither of my parents was at home, I also took the precaution of burying Midnight’s belongings, along with Daniel’s masks, his talisman, the jay we had carved
and given to Mother, and the tile of a triton that the Olive Tree Sisters had given me when I was only nine. I did this in secret, as I feared that my parents would say that these keepsakes were not of sufficient value for such precautions.

On the Twenty-Ninth of November, when French and Spanish troops were only a day’s ride from Lisbon, Prince João and the rest of the royal family, together with our ministers and much of our aristocracy, left for Brazil.

The news reached Porto that the royal family carried aboard their ships more than half of the coinage of Portugal. The miracle that day was that none of their vessels, thus loaded, plunged directly to the bottom of Lisbon Harbor.

We ought to have at least been able to bless the dreadful roads of the Portuguese countryside for slowing the progress of the enemy marching toward Lisbon. And yet we could not. The French officers and their mixed army were made so miserable by their tortuous advance that they compensated for it with pillaging and murder.

Once the soldiers reached their final destination and passed through the gates of the Portuguese capital on the Thirtieth of November, ecstatic crowds of Jacobins and Francophiles mobbed them, the women even tossing roses from balconies. After being toasted in the taverns and streets, they snoozed in the plazas and gardens, dreaming most likely of their loved ones back home. Asleep or not, these homesick, harassed, and murderous invaders were our new rulers.

XXII

T
hroughout the next seven months of occupation, all was reasonably calm in Porto. Our wine trade with England, though prohibited, continued unabated and guaranteed the city a small measure of financial security. Our ships made their way first to northern ports such as Rotterdam, where their cargo was loaded onto other vessels headed for Portsmouth and
Southampton
. Post failed to reach us from Britain, however, and so we received no direct news of our compatriots who had left months before.

My parents were too absorbed in their silent warfare to care. They hardly ever saw each other, since Papa spent most of his time at work. Of the two, he had changed the most since Midnight’s death. His hair was now closely cropped, gray at the sides and thinning on top. His cheeks were gaunt and his blue eyes, so radiant when I was young, were distinctly cold and distant.

I only once talked seriously with either of them about what had happened to our family. It was on my seventeenth birthday, and I woke up in a foul mood, intent on making life difficult for everyone. Father had told me three weeks earlier that the moment he was given permission to travel upriver again, I would be learning to survey lands, test soils, and plant vines. He had decided that I would earn my keep in the wine trade. Even though I planned to fight him, I recognized that I had better choose a profession swiftly. But I had no idea how I could put my love of art and books to profitable use.

As a special birthday treat, Mama made
rabanadas
for
breakfast
. Papa gave me a blue silk cravat that had belonged to his father. Then, as always, he escaped to his office.

As soon as he was out the door, I asked Mama, “Tell me the truth – do you hate Papa?”

She frowned in distaste. “Hate your father? Such odd ideas you have sometimes, John.”

“Mama, you never talk to him anymore. You used to play music for him. You used to smile at him secretly, when you thought no one was looking. Have you forgotten?”

“John, people change. We are not as young as we once were.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Listen, we’ve all made mistakes. I have … your father has. But I do not hate him.”

“What mistakes have you made?”

She looked at me as though I’d spoken a foreign language. “John, it may be your birthday, but you are still very young and I’ll not have you talk to me like that.”

“How was I talking to you?”

“Like a prosecutor. I am not on trial here, as far as I know.”

“Perhaps you ought to be. Perhaps a trial would be fitting for both of you.”

“That is quite enough.”

She was trembling, and though I was dreadfully ashamed of myself, I could not control my anger. I pictured Mother’s
pianoforte
, which at that moment seemed an extension of her most private self. I wanted to wound her there, where it hurt most. I picked up a plate. I imagined going upstairs and smashing it into the ebony wood, making deep gouges that could never be repaired.

I secretly wished for her hatred to scar me as well, which is probably why I lifted the plate over my head and brought it down over my skull. As I have had ample opportunity to learn, despondent people do desperate things.

Luckily, the plate didn’t do any serious damage. I felt for blood and looked at my hand – nothing. Mother turned and saw the shattered pieces of porcelain scattered over the floor.
Agitation
made her astonishingly unobservant, and she didn’t notice the pieces of pottery still in my hair, which is why she started to lecture me on my carelessness.

I interrupted her. “Damn it, Mother, can you not forgive him?”

“Do not raise your voice at me, John Zarco Stewart!”

“Can you not forgive Father? Answer me now or I shall break all the pottery in our house! Every damned windmill on every last plate. I promise you that.”

“You … you’re confusing me – like always. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mama, we both know that he ought to have protected Midnight. But he didn’t. And Midnight is dead. Father is alive. Can we not forgive him? I’ll try if you will.”

“John” – she frowned, shaking her head – “there is so much that you do not know….” She closed her eyes.

“Mama, tell me what you are thinking. I promise not to interrupt.”

She asked for my hand. “You always had beautiful fingers. Even as a baby.” She smiled wistfully. “When you were very tiny your hand was no bigger than a plum. And your fingers …” She looked at me tenderly and caressed my cheek, which she had not done for months. “Each of them was so delicate, so finely made … all perfectly formed.”

“Is there nothing you can say to me about Papa? Can you not forgive him?” I asked again.

She sighed with exhaustion. “It’s not a question of
forgiveness
. People grow older. You cannot expect us to feel about each other as we did when you were little.” She dropped my hand and stared ahead sadly. “No, he is not the same man I married, and I am surely not the same woman he courted. People change.”

“What you are saying, Mama, is that you do not love him anymore.”

She looked shocked. “John, what do you know about love?”

“As much as you do.”

She pursed her lips as though I were being absurd, which infuriated me. I pounded the table and shouted, “I loved
Midnight
and you loved Midnight. I loved Father and you loved Father. Not in the same way, I know, but are we so different from each other?”

“John, must we speak of these things?” she pleaded in
e
xasperation
.

“Yes. I have not spoken of Midnight for far too long. It is as though he never existed.”

“Perhaps it would be better if he never had. Or if he had remained in Africa.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Well, it surely would have been better for him, don’t you think?”

I was left speechless. It was the last time I would talk of him with either of my parents for many years.

The month of May arrived with a series of proclamations from the French general Junot, informing us what a loyal friend of Portugal he was and how delightful his reign would be. Then Napoleon made a fatal error. He took the Spanish royal family captive, handing their crown to his brother Joseph. The
courageous
people of Madrid rose up in revolt and sent the occupying army fleeing for the hills. News of this tremendous victory soon reached other cities and towns, provoking uprisings across Spain that soon decimated the French and had them wondering if a hasty retreat to Paris might not be in order for all their
battalions
.

This proved most fortunate for us, since a provisional
government
in the Galician city of Corunha soon ordered all Spanish troops to leave Porto. Not only that, but in a glorious show of solidarity, they also made all the French soldiers leave as well.

A provisional government headed by our elderly bishop, Dom António de Castro, was soon established in Porto. The British, who had been waiting for an opportunity to approach a friendly local authority, sent seventy ships to us, manned by ten thousand troops, including a thousand Portuguese soldiers previously regimented in England. Led by Sir Arthur Wellesley, who was later made Duke of Wellington, the first of these vessels cleared the sandbar guarding our river mouth on the morning of the Twenty-Fourth of July. Wellesley himself arrived on the H.M.S.
Crocodile,
a name that made me think of Midnight and his
stories. How excited he would have been to see a flotilla of
tall-masted
ships flying the Union Jack and sailing upriver to our wharf!

The British and Portuguese troops disembarked to great applause. I glimpsed Wellesley myself that day, seated atop a great white charger in Ribeira Square.

By the next day, however, most of these British soldiers were on their way to Figueira da Foz, halfway to Lisbon, where they planned to begin chasing the Gallic plague from Portugal.

Guarding Porto at this time was a militia of amateur soldiers outfitted with arms by the British. I trained with this reserve force and learned how to fire a musket and, to my surprise, found being a soldier quite to my liking. Through much practice, I became as good a shot as any of the other recruits, and I was praised by our sergeant for my swiftness in loading and firing. Happily for all concerned, however, I was not called upon to fight.

In his campaign to oust the French, Wellesley’s fleet reached Figueira da Foz on August the First, then marched toward Lisbon along the Atlantic coast. His troops quickly defeated the enemy at Roliça and Vimeiro – with such swiftness, in fact, and with so many hundreds of casualties, that rather than be further humiliated, the French rushed to sign the Convention of Sintra, by which they agreed to leave Portugal.

Thereafter, the fighting moved to Spain, where the combined British and Spanish forces hoped to push the French into their own territory and corral them there. The only problem was a numerical one: Napoleon himself crossed into Spain that November, leading no less than two hundred thousand troops. His objective was to throw all his power at these Iberian upstarts and subdue them once and for all. Though we in Portugal were free of fighting for the moment, we understood that the worst was yet to come.