The Devil on Her Tongue (31 page)

“My son has a fine position,” Papa said, pouring himself and Espirito and me another cup from the jug. Bonifacio still hadn’t touched his. “Kipling’s isn’t large, but it has one of the best reputations in Funchal.”

I looked at Bonifacio. “I would like to see the wine lodge sometime. When can we go to Funchal?” I took another drink of the strong liqueur.

“I don’t know.” His tone was curt.

Papa shook his head, then stood and patted my shoulder. “Thank you, daughter,” he said. “I’ll go to bed now.”

Espirito rose, and the two men embraced briefly. “Goodbye, Papa. You have a full house now, so I’ll stay the night with Felipe Pestana. I have to get back to Funchal tomorrow, but I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

Papa murmured, “Yes, yes, son. Say hello to Olívia.” He went into his room and shut the door.

“He looks poorly. And this early to bed?” Espirito sat down again.

“If you cared so much about him, you would come more often,” Bonifacio said.

“I come as often as I can. You left Madeira, saying you’d never return, and didn’t even write to him. And you criticize me?”

Both men’s expressions were tight.

“I’ve been trying to help Papa’s stomach pain,” I said, “and I know he finds some relief with my medicines.”

“What medicines?” Espirito asked.

“I’m a
curandeira
.”

“Really? You’re a
curandeira
as well?” Espirito said, emphasizing
as well
. The warmth from the liqueur fled. “And how did you learn this skill?”

“From my mother,” I said, and turned to Cristiano. “You can go and play with the baby chicks before bedtime.”

He got up and went outside.

“So many surprises,” Espirito said, looking from me to Bonifacio. “You are both full of surprises.”

“I might say the same of you,” Bonifacio said.

I perched on the edge of my seat, expecting something to erupt any moment.

But then Espirito shook his head and said, “There’s nothing to be gained by this. The past cannot be undone. Look, if nothing else, Bonifacio, I’m glad you’re here for Papa. It’s clear he can’t manage on his own anymore.” He again took in the tidy room, his eyes resting on the fluttering curtains. He glanced at me and opened his mouth as if to say something more, but then closed it.

Bonifacio stared into his full cup.

“And so how has it been for you since I last saw you?” Espirito said into the silence, leaning forward and studying Bonifacio.

“Difficult, as you’d expect.”

“What does everyone think of you bringing a wife here?”

Bonifacio finally looked at Espirito. “What do you want to hear?” His hands were clenched on the table, and his cheeks a dull red.

But Espirito didn’t stop. “Papa is a tolerant man. One imagines that when a son enters the priesthood, he will always remain a priest, and not come home expecting things to be as they were before he left.” He stood. “Thank you for dinner, Diamantina. Good night, Bonifacio.”

Bonifacio didn’t reply.

Cristiano was sitting on the step, cradling a yellow chick. Through the open doorway I watched Espirito bend to put his hand on the boy’s head. “Goodbye, little man,” he said. “Remember what I told you about talking to the mice in the wash house.” Then he walked into the deepening evening, whistling, his arms swinging by his sides.

Bonifacio immediately rose and went into the bedroom with his Bible, closing the door. I waited until Espirito disappeared down the road before taking the dirty dishes to the wash house. When I was done, I told Cristiano to put the chick back with its mother and come inside.

I lit a candle as Cristiano got into bed, and when I pulled the coverlet over him, he turned on his side, clutching the cloth that had been his mother’s dress. Today with Espirito was the first time I had
seen him behave as any small boy might, smiling at Espirito’s story of the mice and eating his dinner with noisy enthusiasm.

Ever since Bonifacio had told me the terrible story of what had happened in Brazil, I had looked at the little boy differently. Where earlier I had felt only confusion about him and his behaviour, now I felt an ache when I watched him.

I didn’t want to feel this way, for when the time came for me to go, it would be hard to leave Cristiano.

O
n All Souls’ Day, the four of us walked down the slope to Nossa Senhora do Livramento. I carried a basket of flowers Cristiano and I had collected, at Papa’s request, for Telma’s grave.

After the Mass, we joined others in the cemetery as they celebrated their departed loved ones. We decorated Telma’s grave with the flowers, and Bonifacio closed his eyes.
“Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine,”
he prayed for the soul of his mother. His face was so calm, his expression so pious, that I knew he was again in his old life. Every time he attended Mass, he must long to be the one performing the sacred rites. He longed for the holy life as I longed for the ocean.

But he was no longer a priest, and I was no longer part of the rhythms of the sea. I thought of my own mother, sinking under the waves, and sent a message of love to her.

After we ate dinner that night, Papa held out a delicate gold chain adorned with a small medallion of the Holy Mother. “It was my Telma’s,” he said, putting it into my hand. “I wish you to wear it always, and as you wear it, you will be reminded to honour my son. Our son, Telma’s and mine.”

I looked down at the medallion.

“Put it on,” Papa urged, and I slipped it over my head. It rested on the front of my blouse, its slight weight touching the silver
talisman underneath. I glanced at Bonifacio. His jaw was tight and his face dark.

“Should it not have been Olívia’s? She was your first daughter-in-law,” he said to Papa.

“Don’t spoil it for your wife,” Papa said. “It’s not her fault.”

I wanted to ask Papa what he meant, but the air was thick with Bonifacio’s anger.

Apart from the daily early Mass, Bonifacio rarely left the yard. There was no work to be done on the vines during the cool months, and so apart from the daily chores of chopping wood or hauling water to the wash house or making minor repairs to the house and outbuildings, he sat on the step and read his Bible. Sometimes I felt him watching me as I crossed the yard or hung clothes on the bushes, but each time I glanced at him, his head was lowered over the page.

I heard him in the sitting room some nights, whispering the same prayer as he had in Funchal on the night we married, begging for help to be holy and chaste. I found the cat-o’-nine-tails in a sack under his bed the first time I washed the bedroom floor. Also in the sack was a shirt with strips of stiff goat hair sewn into it, and a belt with sharp metal studs on the inside of the leather.

During the fourth week I was in Curral das Freiras, I found Bonifacio’s shirt soaking, the water pink, in a tub behind the wash house. I knew then that he’d been wearing the belt with the studs, cinching it so tightly around his waist under his shirt that the sharp metal bit into his flesh and made it bleed, wanting to concentrate on the pain instead of the needs of his body.

I didn’t mention the bloodstained shirt, disturbed by the idea of Bonifacio’s fight against his vow of chastity. And yet again, I was glad for this vow. I couldn’t bear to think of him touching me.

To pass the time until I could leave, I learned to use the abundant chestnuts to make soup and pudding and cake, delighting Papa. I helped him in the garden, touching his arm when I heard birdsong.
Although he could no longer hear their voices, as I pointed to each bird, Papa told me its name. I realized I waited for him to smile at me and pat my arm or shoulder after each meal, saying, “Thank you, daughter.”

There was abundant plant life in the cool dampness of the valley. I visited Rafaela one morning, and she showed me her herb garden and described the use of the root and flower and seed of each plant I hadn’t known on Porto Santo. She was bringing up her granddaughter, close in age to Cristiano. I watched the little girl stand in front of Cristiano and hop on one leg. After a while he solemnly mimicked her, his tongue caught between his front teeth in concentration. Then they caught grasshoppers in their cupped hands, the little girl squealing, Cristiano silent.

He was usually at my side, helping me as best he could. I spoke to him as we worked, telling him whatever I was thinking about. I talked to him as I had once talked to my missing father. I worried about his desire to climb the steep cliffs, but there seemed no way to stop him; he refused to listen to my admonishments. I often climbed up to fetch him from a dangerous perch. And yet I understood his need to get closer to the sky. I also felt closed in, especially when the mountains caught the clouds and mist covered the valley.

One day, I found a safer path to climb, where the incline was firmer and there were roots and small trees to hold, and showed it to him. As we went upwards together, we came upon a wide, flat shelf of rock and sat there. I tried to whistle and call back the birds’ tunes: the rich, melodious song of the blackbird, the high-pitched call of the shy little firecrest, and the pleasant chattering of the blackcap. The first time Cristiano tried to mimic the firecrest, I laughed and clapped my hands, and he laughed with me.

I knew how clever he was. He learned anything I showed him almost immediately. Some evenings after dinner, I read aloud from one of my books. He sat closer and closer to me on the bench, and then let me put his finger under the words as I read them. Eventually I suspected he was beginning to understand the letters on the page.

His soft curls were growing back. At times, as I read to him, I ran my fingers over his hair, and he let me.

Every night, at the first tiny whimpers that signalled his nightmare, I went to him before he was on his feet. I whispered or sang in Dutch or Portuguese as I held him tightly, anything to wake him enough to release him from the terror before it took a firm hold on him.

His hot little body, pressed against mine each night as I soothed him, was the only human contact I had. I hadn’t known I’d feel so much for him. Each time I imagined leaving here, leaving him—and Papa—I was overcome with queasiness.

Espirito came back to Curral das Freiras a few weeks after his first visit. Anxiety arose in me when I saw him come into the yard.

Again Cristiano was delighted. He sat beside Espirito on the step as Espirito and Papa talked and drank
licor de castanha
while Bonifacio stayed in the bedroom with his Bible.

While preparing dinner, I heard Espirito’s laughter a number of times. He was drying his hands in the wash house as I carried a pot of soup across the yard.

“Diamantina,” he said, coming towards me, and I stopped, steam rising from the pot. He looked at his mother’s chain around my neck.

“Your father gave it to me,” I said, my chin lifted.

He nodded. “It’s good to see my mother’s Blessed Virgin. How is my father doing? He says he’s well, but he doesn’t look any better than the last time I was here.”

I waited a moment. “He’s not. Every day I give him what I can to take away the pain, but … but it’s not going to go away.” I shook my head. “He’s growing weaker all the time.”