The Devil on Her Tongue (38 page)

It seemed I had barely fallen asleep when I woke with a start. Bonifacio stood at the foot of my bed. Had he said my name?

I moved Cristiano closer to the wall and sat up. I couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, and reached for the flint and candle. As the light flared, the candle cast shadows into the deep hollows under his eyes. He went to his own bed and sat down slowly, cautiously, as if unsure of the distance between his body and the bed.

“Are you all right?” I whispered, not wanting to wake Cristiano.

When he didn’t answer, I wrapped my shawl around myself and sat on the edge of my bed.

He looked at me, his hands hanging between his legs as though defeated.

“You know about your father,” I said.

“Father Monteiro told me.”

“I’m so sorry, Bonifacio.”

He sat for the next few moments with that same odd lack of expression. Then he nodded. “It’s my final punishment.”

“Still? It’s about you and your punishment?” I said, trying harder than ever to hold back my anger. Would he show no grief for the loss of his father or remorse that he hadn’t been here when he died?

“How long has my brother been living with you?”

“He and Olívia came for the funeral. He’s been waiting for you.”

He said nothing more, lying down in that same slow, careful manner, turning on his side to face the wall. I looked at his back for a moment, then blew out the candle.

I
was awake before Cristiano.

Bonifacio had left the sheets open, and when Cristiano awoke, he stared at Bonifacio asleep across from us, then got up and went outside. I thought he had gone to use the
latrina
, but when he didn’t return, I went looking for him. I found him hidden in the long sweet bracken behind the kitchen. He held one of the new chicks in both hands, touching his cheek to the downy little body.

“It will be all right, Cristiano. Espirito’s here,” I said, but he turned his face from me in the old, sadly familiar way, and then put his head in my lap, still gently cradling the little chick. It peeped quietly, and I stroked Cristiano’s soft curls. Eventually he sat up and I rose, intending to get some eggs for breakfast, but noticed the garden gate open. It was always shut. I went towards it, and stopped in shock.

Every plant had been ripped out. Root vegetables were pulled up and tossed aside. I was sickened at the image of Bonifacio, with only the moon for light, destroying what had been Papa’s pride. Was it his anger at his father’s death, or at himself for not being present? I shut the gate and went back to the house.

Espirito’s door was still closed, but Bonifacio sat at the table. In the daylight his hair, long and unwashed, showed streaks of grey, and that, along with his disturbing thinness, made me realize how much he looked like his father. He held a piece of bread, studying it.

“Why did you destroy your father’s garden?”

“Isn’t it strange how one loses the desire to eat after a certain length of time?” he said, ignoring my question. “God always shows what is needed. He provides the answers.”

I took a deep breath and held it, but couldn’t remain quiet. “God doesn’t always provide, Bonifacio,” I said, snatching the bread from him, throwing it onto the floor, my voice louder than I had intended. “Did He provide for Vovo and Cristiano? Did He provide for me, on Porto Santo?”

Bonifacio slowly leaned over and picked up the bread and set it on the table. All of this seemed to take an endless time. I heard my pulse beating in my ears, and I wanted to sweep the bread onto the floor again. Instead, I stood in front of him, my hands clenched at my sides.

“He sent you salvation,” Bonifacio said. “I was directed to you, through Him.” He rose slowly, as if in pain. “I’m going to the Good Friday Mass.”

Espirito came out of the bedroom after Bonifacio had gone. “I just heard my brother.”

“He came home in the night, and now he’s gone to Mass. But … he tore up the garden.”

“He tore up the garden? Why?”

I shrugged.

“His temper …” Espirito shook his head. “Did he eat anything?”

I looked at the bread on the table. “No.”

“The fasting has made him unpredictable. He’ll be better once he starts to eat again. Are you and Cristiano coming to Mass?”

“No.”

Cristiano was off picking eucalyptus leaves for me when I saw Espirito and Bonifacio return from Church. Bonifacio sat on a stump near the woodpile. It was as though he was broken, all life gone from him. Surely, as Espirito had said, it was the result of the fasting. And yet there seemed something more. Both last night and
this morning he had looked at me with the same haunted expression Cristiano wore in the aftermath of his nightmare.

I watched the brothers from the doorway, too far away to hear their words. Bonifacio frequently shook his head. Finally I went out to them.

“I’m offering Bonifacio a plan,” Espirito said as I approached. “A possibility for a future.”

Bonifacio shrugged, clearly uninterested.

“If it doesn’t work out, the three of you will live with us,” Espirito said, glancing at me. “You know you have no option but to leave here,” he added, looking back at his brother.

“How could you ever expect me to agree to live with you and Olívia?” Bonifacio said. “Are you mad?”

“What is the plan?” I asked.

“Martyn Kipling recently lost his manager of the Counting House,” Espirito said, looking from me to Bonifacio, “and must fill the position. It’s generously paid, and others have already applied, but I’ll put your name forward, Bonifacio. Should you win the post, it could offer a life for you and Diamantina and Cristiano in Funchal.”

“You think life here is not good enough for me? For them?”

“Bonifacio, you’re talking nonsense. Soon the
senhorio
will reclaim his property as Papa agreed. Besides, are you so happy here that you refuse to look elsewhere?”

Bonifacio stared at him. “Happy? What does that have to do with anything? I’m carrying out my duties to feed my wife and the child. I am doing God’s will.”

“How do you intend to support them?”

“God will show me the way,” Bonifacio said, and I clenched my hands so tightly that my nails bit into my palms.

“Maybe He is using me as His instrument. Maybe it’s through me that the way will be shown,” Espirito said, a dangerous quality creeping into his voice.

Bonifacio looked at him. “You consider yourself a messenger of God?” His tone was harsher than Espirito’s.

“I’m simply trying to make you see sense!” Espirito stared at Bonifacio with an anger I hadn’t seen before. “This appears to
be your only opportunity. Is it really such a difficult decision?”

When Bonifacio still didn’t respond, I asked Espirito, “Is Bonifacio suited for the position?”

“It requires someone who has a fine script and a quick mathematical ability, both of which Bonifacio is blessed with.”

I stared at my husband. He sat as if awaiting a beating. I imagined his small leather whip in my hand, and me striking his back as I had so often heard him strike himself. At this moment I wanted to do something—anything—to shake him from his lethargy. “Have there been many come to ask about the position?”

“Yes, but Senhor Kipling is quite particular and is taking his time.”

We both looked at Bonifacio. His eyes were on his hands, upturned in his lap. He said, “I don’t want to go to Funchal. This is my home. Maybe someone would hire me on here. I could work on another’s vines. Diamantina could help the wife with the house and children.”

Espirito made a sound of disgust. “You would be content to be a slave to some other man, and let your wife be a servant?”

Bonifacio stared at his hands.

“Bonifacio, be a man,” Espirito said, and at that Bonifacio rose, colour in his cheeks—the first colour in his face since he returned.

“You have no right to tell me what it takes to be a man,” he said. “No right!”

The brothers faced each other.

“So it’s to be like this, Bonifacio? You would allow your wife and the child you have taken into your care to suffer, because you want to suffer? Is that God’s will, or yours?”

Bonifacio picked up a piece of split wood and held it aloft. “I should have done this sooner.”

“Put that down,” Espirito said.

Bonifacio swung, and I cried out, but Espirito easily avoided the blow. He stepped forward and wrenched the stick from his brother and threw it to the ground. “You shame yourself, Bonifacio.”

Bonifacio looked into Espirito’s face and then turned and went into the house.

“I’ll go and speak to him,” I said.

“No, not when he’s like this.”

“Now or later—what difference does it make?” I hurried into the house.

Bonifacio again sat slumped over the table.

“If you can just think about it,” I said. “We could rent a room to start, and maybe later we could—”

“Who do you imagine yourself to be?” he interrupted. “After only a few months away from your mud hut on Porto Santo, you’re dreaming of a life you were never meant for, and can never have.”

“With what you might earn, should you be hired at Kipling’s,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even, “more, surely, than we need for our daily lives, you could do so much good. You could donate more to the Church and to the needy. By your own hard work you could improve the lives of so many more than by staying here.”

There was a subtle change in his expression, and this encouraged me. “You took Cristiano from Brazil in order to provide him with a better life. Wouldn’t it be a better life for him in Funchal?”

After a moment, he said, slowly, “I thought, when I brought him from Brazil, that when he was of age he could enter the seminary.”

“Cristiano a priest?”

“Why not?” He frowned. “Why shouldn’t he devote his life to God? Doesn’t he have a great deal to be thankful for?”

“Does he?”

“He was the child of a slave, and would have lived the life of a slave,” he said. “I took him from that. I took him with the hope of making him into a man who would live a holy life in the service of Our Father. Perhaps he could be a missionary, as I was.”

“Perhaps. Yes, perhaps Cristiano could enter the seminary in Funchal.” I would agree with anything Bonifacio suggested, if it would persuade him to come to Funchal.

Suddenly he put his head to one side, his eyes narrowing at me. “But isn’t this all about what
you
want, Diamantina? Don’t try and act as though it’s Cristiano who needs and wants more. You have the devil on your tongue,” he said. “
People can tame animals, birds, reptiles and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison
. So say the Scriptures.”

I stood very still.

“You want too much. You take too much,” he said. “Haven’t you taken enough from me?”

“What have I taken from you?”

He got up and came to me, grimacing as he leaned close. His breath was sour, not just the odour of an empty stomach but something more. He grabbed my wrist, wrenching it painfully, and I cried out. As suddenly as he’d taken my wrist, he let it go, and went outside.

I took a deep breath and went into the yard. Cristiano was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen. I stood beside Espirito, watching Bonifacio walk down the hill towards the church.

It was dinnertime when Bonifacio returned. I went to him in the wash house.

“I spent this holy day in prayer and confession and penance, and God supplied me with an answer,” Bonifacio said, rubbing his hair with a flannel. “I’ll do as my brother has suggested, and see about the position at Kipling’s.”

“I’m glad to hear of this, Bonifacio,” I said.

He lowered the wet flannel. “If it is God’s will, so be it. If not, we’ll live as I said, working for others.” He stepped close and took my wrist, the one he had bruised earlier, and I winced. “One thing we will not do is take my younger brother’s charity.” He dropped my wrist and shoved me aside as he reached for another flannel. “Ever.”