The Devil on Her Tongue (10 page)

To my great sorrow, Benedita got loose from her tether and ate a patch of poisonous creeper. She died of bloat within a few hours. I said my thanks to her as I butchered her. Her stringy body offered little good flesh to eat, with no fat to moisten it. I boiled her bones for broth, regretting that there would be no more milk or cheese. I had tarred our fishing boat and
Dog Star
, but each time I took one of the boats a few metres from shore, it leaked alarmingly. I was reduced to wading up to my thighs in the rough, raging sea,
dragging our hemp net. But the waves were too wild, and I caught nothing but a few squiggling sardines and tiny crabs.

The ruined crops affected everyone on the island. The women still came to our hut for remedies but had nothing to offer in exchange for what we could give them from our depleted supply of medicines.

Although I still had the few réis Father da Chagos gave me each week, more people in the parish needed help from the church. The food the island could no longer provide was brought in from Madeira, but prices were high. All Sister Amélia could put in my basket every few days was a very small round of bread.

I used my last réis to buy a withered, blackening potato and two eggs, and my mother and I shared them. That evening we sat at the table in the chilled hut, and when it grew dark I lit the end of our last candle. By its feeble flicker my mother slowly stitched a rent in one of her skirts, and I tried to read. But I was cold and hungry, and I could think of little but the pain in my stomach.

At a sudden tap on the door, we both jumped. Expecting it to be a woman looking for relief, I rose and opened the door. Abílio stood there, rain dripping from his hair, holding a large covered basket with one hand and under the other arm a stack of kindling and wood, kept dry by a canvas wrap. “I’ve brought you a few things from Madeira,” he said. I stepped back and he entered, ducking his head so as not to hit it on the low lintel.

He greeted my mother respectfully as he set the basket on the table. “Please, eat.” He crouched in front of the fireplace and piled the kindling. I lifted out two loaves of bread and a big wedge of cheese. There were figs and dates, onions and carrots and sweet potatoes. A dried slab of beef, and a ring of sausage. Candles, and a flagon of oil and another of wine. As I set everything in front of my mother, I kept swallowing, my mouth full of saliva at the wonderful odours.

Abílio coaxed the fire to life and there was a rush of warm air. The hut took on a cheery glow, the dark chill banished.

“Please, senhora, Diamantina, please, eat. I heard, in Funchal, of the miseries here.”

With tears of gratefulness, I looked from him to my mother, but she was watching Abílio watching me.

I slept more deeply that night than I had in a long time, full with food and the thoughts of Abílio’s kindness. I brought back the memory of him asking me to stay with him. How I had wanted to.

I awoke in weak sunlight. I rose and prepared a rich stew. I was not expected to work at the church, and all I could think about was Abílio’s face as he handed me the basket.

When the stew was slowly simmering on the fire, I put my shawl over my head. “I’m going to return Abílio’s basket,” I said.

My mother only nodded. I had expected her to say something about Abílio’s consideration, but she hadn’t.

As I approached his hut, the door was shut. I had somehow imagined he would be waiting for me. As I stood, suddenly shy of knocking, the door opened.

“I slept late,” he said.

“I’ve brought your basket back.” I handed it to him. “And I also want to thank you, again, for all you did for us. I … I didn’t expect it. My mother is so grateful,” I said, not really lying. She had enjoyed the food as I had.

“Madeira isn’t suffering like Porto Santo.” He reached up and brushed his hair from his eyes. I wondered if he had actually been with a girl or woman in Funchal this time. “It’s a different climate, in spite of only being a day’s sail south,” he said. He studied me. “You’ve grown so thin since I last saw you. It’s the slow season for my uncle — he doesn’t need me right now. I came back because I was worried about you. I’ll make sure you have enough to eat from now on.”

His words created a weakening somewhere inside me.

Over the next days, I saw Abílio frequently, either on the beach or when he brought supplies to our hut. Once it was a catch of long, black-skinned, razor-toothed scabbardfish, once a slab of goat meat and a dozen eggs, and another time a stack of dry wood. He would have purchased all but the fish from the Madeira packet.

On the eighth day, I invited him to come to our hut for dinner. The three of us sat before a bright fire and ate the meal I’d prepared with the food he had given us. My mother answered the few questions he asked her about her garden, but otherwise didn’t speak. I was used to her silences, but in Abílio’s company I realized how withdrawn she appeared.

He had brought a flask of Boal. My mother refused the wine, and I drank her share. As Abílio rose to leave, I took up my shawl. “I’ll walk with you,” I said. “The moon is full.” My mother made a sound, and I looked at her, but she was staring at the fire.

“I apologize for my mother,” I said as we walked under the moon’s light. “That’s the way she is. She’s not used to a man in the hut anymore.”

“My father remembered when she came to the island.”

I stayed silent, not wanting him to know my mother had never spoken of her past to me.

“Did she tell you my father was one of the men who rescued her after she was tossed into the sea by the Algerian ship?”

“No.”

“My father said none of the women would shelter her or even speak to her at first. They knew she was a slave but saw her strange beauty, and were afraid she would steal their men. And the men were afraid of her power.” He laughed. “But only weak men are afraid of a woman with her own power. A strong man likes it.” He stooped and picked up a shell. “I like a strong woman,” he said.

My mother had been on a ship from North Africa. That explained her secret language, and why she looked unlike any other woman
on Porto Santo. Just like my father, she had been thrown overboard. What was her crime? I stared at the cowrie he held.

“Diamantina?” Abílio said. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said, and we continued up the beach.

“Did you mean it when you said you were going to sail to your father in Brazil?” he asked. “Or is it just a dream?”

I couldn’t concentrate on his words. The wine had created a pleasant lightness in my head. It was sweet at the back of my throat. My mother was an Algerian slave. I carried African blood. It excited me. Abílio’s hand brushed mine, and I boldly took the cowrie from it, rubbing the shell’s smoothness against my cheek. It was good luck for a woman to find a cowrie, my mother told me. The shell was a symbol of womanhood and fertility.

“Is going to Brazil just a dream?” Abílio repeated.

“No. I told you I would go, and I will.”

He laughed. “We should sail away together.”

The lightness left my head, and I blinked. “Together?” I stopped, looking at him.

His face was open, his eyes bright in the moonlight. “Brazil is the place to make a fortune, and quickly.” He picked up my hand and brought it to his lips. “Do you want to come to Brazil with me?” His lips touched the back of my hand.

I was too startled to answer. I imagined that faraway country and my father waiting for me, his arms outstretched.

Abílio shrugged. “Well, who knows?” he said. He let go of my hand and walked backwards down the sand towards his hut, his eyes on me. I was shaken by what he had told me about my mother, what he had said about going to Brazil, and by the brief touch of his lips on my hand.

“Who knows, little
bruxa
,” he called, his voice floating on the still night air.

Back home, I confronted my mother. “You were an Algerian slave? Abílio just told me.”

She covered the smoking bowl with a plate and went to her bed. “Soon you will know my story,” she said. She turned on her side, away from me.

I felt the same irritation as always at her wariness in answering my direct questions. “Mama!” My voice was loud in the hut, but she didn’t answer.

I awoke the next morning to my mother burning herbs, waving the smoke about with a cluster of quail feathers. The smell was pungent. I imagined her over a fire somewhere in the north of Africa. I knew there was no point in questioning her. She only spoke when she was ready to speak.

I thought of Abílio’s face when he had said we could go to Brazil together, uncertain of his expression.

When I came out of my hut, there he was, sitting on the stone that faced the sea, waiting for me.

“Let’s go for a walk, up past the dunes.”

I nodded. I didn’t want the others along the beach to see us walking together and start a chain of gossip.

At one particularly sharp rise, he held out his hand to help me. I had been clambering over the dunes my whole life and needed no help, but his gesture moved me.

He kept my hand in his as we walked.

“Did you mean what you said last night, Abílio?” I asked. “About us going to Brazil together?”