The Devil on Her Tongue (50 page)

In the cottage, my bedroom walls were white, the curtain fluttering over the open window also white. I had never slept in a room so filled with light. The morning sun shone through the window in slashes of buttery yellow. From my bed, I could see the blue, cloudless sky, and hear the soft cry of a mourning dove. There was the scent of heliotrope and juniper. From outside my door, in the sitting room, came the muted sound of wood hitting wood. Cristiano was playing with a set of blocks Tiago had lent him.

I imagined Cristiano building up the blocks, one on top of the other, his movements cautious as he added the final pieces to his tower, and then his smile when they tumbled to the floor. I should have risen long ago and taken him to the kitchen for his breakfast. He wouldn’t come and bother me for it; he had uncanny patience for a child.

Bonifacio would have left, as usual, with the rising of the sun, to be at his desk in the Counting House before the lodge opened. He liked to be there early, to set up his quills and ink and run his fingers over the smooth ledger pages. It had been two weeks since I had gone to help Espirito, two weeks since that first warning in the
adega
.

I could no longer fool myself. It was time to do what must be done. I rose and went out to Cristiano, running my hand over his soft hair. I told him to go by himself to the kitchen for breakfast, then stay and play with Tiago for the morning.

When he had gone, I concocted a tea from the bitter leaves of rue and mixed it with tansy. I carefully added only the tiniest pinch of the ground seed from the lethal yew. I would have to drink the infusion throughout this day, and the next and the next. I was careful with my measurements, knowing the danger of the combination of herbs. I thought of poor Martyn Kipling, and his rapid, painful death. It would take three to four days of nausea and cramping before the actual bleeding began. The sponge and vinegar weren’t infallible. I had always known that.

For the next few days, I spent much of my time on my bed with a bucket on the floor beside me, watching the curtains lift and sway.

I told Bonifacio I had influenza, and asked that he tell Binta to let Cristiano stay with her. Binta and Nini were quiet and helpful; one of them brought me a tray a few times a day, although I was unable to eat anything.

On the fourth day, more severe cramping gripped me, and I waited hopefully for the blood and tissue to pass from my body. Nothing appeared. By the sixth day, I couldn’t bear the illness without the hoped-for results, knowing it was a danger to my own life to continue to take the herbs. The child was as tenacious and stubborn as its father. It would not be shifted from its hold on me.

I’d conceived from the rape in the chapel at the beginning of May.

I walked through the small, tidy graveyard with its three headstones. I ran my fingers over the names of Beatriz’s family—her father Martyn, her mother Isabella and her sister Inêz—and wished the forming child gone. Birds sang quietly, and a breeze blew up. I was faint suddenly, and put my hand onto the headstone of Beatriz’s mother. The stone was cool, somehow comforting. I thought of my own mother, refusing to perform the act with the hook. She would
help with herbal infusions, but not the hook. Too many women bled to death that way, she had said, or suffered agonies from the damage for years after.

And yet it was my only recourse now: the long, cruel hook, scraping out what grew inside me.

I slowly walked back to the cottage and sat on the veranda. Cristiano came home with Tiago, and I watched them play with little round stones, rolling them into small depressions they’d hollowed in the dirt.

Tomorrow. I would do it tomorrow.

I prepared the hook and took it into the
latrina
of the cottage.

I lifted my skirt and began to insert it. As I slowly pushed it higher, I felt the first nudge of pain. I pushed further. Now my legs trembled, and although I was not afraid of pain, I stopped. I thought of myself dying here, on the floor, in my own blood.

Who would find me but Cristiano, when he came in with Tiago in a few hours, chattering and laughing? Would seeing me in that state bring back his terrible visions? He only rarely had the nightmare now.

I imagined what it would do to him should I not withstand this assault. What would happen to him, left alone with Bonifacio?

Holding my breath, I carefully withdrew the hook. I sank to the floor, my face in my hands.

After a long while, I rose and washed my hands and face and put away the hook. I had no interest in this child; it was Abílio’s bastard. But if I was forced to carry and give birth to it, the only way I could continue my life at the quinta while waiting to leave was by persuading Bonifacio that the child was his. It seemed an insurmountable task. And yet I had to make it work. If I couldn’t, he would turn me out. I would be disgraced and destitute.

That evening, when Bonifacio returned from Funchal, I had a plate of
cabra
and a pitcher of wine, covered with a cloth to keep away the flies, sitting in the middle of the table.

“Why are we not eating in the kitchen?” Bonifacio asked, lifting the cloth and leaning forward to smell the contents of the pitcher. “It smells like Kipling’s finest Boal.”

“It is. I took it from the big house. Dona Beatriz gave me permission to occasionally help myself to a bottle of wine.” It wasn’t true, but there were dozens of bottles in a wine cupboard in the dining room. I had gone in while Binta and Nini were dusting, and felt no guilt in taking it. “And it’s just this once, for a special occasion.”

“What occasion is that?”

“We have never properly celebrated our new lives,” I said. “So I thought we could toast to the good luck that has come to us.”

“Life is not about luck. It is God’s will, coupled with hard work.”

“Yes,” I said pleasantly. “You’re right. But I had Nini make
cabra
. I know it’s your favourite.”

He still stood, looking unconvinced. “Where’s Cristiano?”

“He asked to stay with Tiago tonight.” It was I who had asked Binta to keep Cristiano. “Come, Bonifacio. Think of how God’s grace has shone upon you. You no longer have to carry the burden of the fallen priest as you did every time you went to church in Curral das Freiras. You can use the quinta’s chapel whenever you like, and go to any cathedral you choose in Funchal. You have a fine new position in Kipling’s Counting House, and we have this beautiful home. If ever there was a time to be a little carefree, it’s now, Bonifacio. It’s a cause for celebration, this new life God has blessed us with.”

I hated myself, but it was all of our futures at stake: Bonifacio’s, mine, Cristiano’s. And that of the tiny child unfolding inside me.

“I suppose so,” he said at last, and sat down.

I served him the tender goat in tomatoes and herbs, pouring him a glass of the Boal. “You’re not having any?” he said, looking at my empty glass.

“I will, after I’ve eaten a bit,” I said, watching him taste the wine. “Since I was ill, my stomach isn’t back to normal.”

He swallowed another mouthful. “Full flavoured and sweet, but it’s got an odd aftertaste.”

I smiled, raising a forkful of the
cabra
to my lips.

By the time he’d finished his second glass, Bonifacio set down his fork and ran his hand over his eyes. “Are you all right, Bonifacio?”

He didn’t answer, frowning down at his plate. When he looked up, his pupils were large. I’d made an infusion of valerian oil and mixed in the ground seed of the poppy, creating a heavy sleeping potion that I’d stirred into the Boal.

“I’m suddenly so weary,” he said, rising, putting one hand on the table to steady himself.

“Maybe you’re sickening with what I had,” I said. “You should go to bed.”

He stood there a moment longer, as if slightly dazed, then went to his room.

I waited as long as I could. Dusk was turning to darkness. When I heard him snoring, I went into his bedroom and looked down at him. He was sprawled across the bed on his back, still fully dressed. “Bonifacio?” I whispered, and then said loudly, “Bonifacio!” His snores continued.

I went to my own room and put on my nightdress. I fetched the tiny container of blood I had collected after killing a chicken behind the kitchen that morning. Back in Bonifacio’s room, I sat beside him on the bed and started to undress him. His snores had stopped, and he was breathing slowly and deeply. I hoped the drugs would keep him asleep through most of the night, but I couldn’t be totally certain of the effects, as I’d never made this particular concoction. I could only believe that when he woke up next to me in bed, the spot of chicken blood on the sheet evidence of my lost virginity, he would accept what I eventually told him about the child.

He worked in the Counting House; he would not be fooled easily by a too-early baby. I would eat lightly, try to keep the baby small, so that it appeared premature when I gave birth.

I fully knew it was a flimsy plan, but it was the only one left to me.

I unlaced the top of his shirt and worked his arms out of it, pulling it over his head. He was in such a deep slumber that his limbs were deadened, and hard to manoeuvre. His shoulders were narrow, his chest a little concave. I took off his boots and his stockings, and then
unlaced the leather thongs of his breeches and carefully, slowly, worked them down over his hips. For that first instant all appeared normal, but suddenly, when I realized what I was seeing, my own breath trembled in my ears.

He had been castrated.

I sat back, my hands over my mouth.

The jagged scar was still an angry pink, crossed with rough, clumsy stitching lines.

I remembered his return to Curral das Freiras after Lent, so ghostly and emaciated. I remembered Espirito bringing him to the house on Rua São Batista our first night in Funchal, and the English physician attending to him.

The few bites of
cabra
I had eaten came back up my throat, and I had to close my eyes and keep swallowing. The castration had been his punishment for wanting me. This was what he felt was necessary to ensure he was not lured into sin by me.

Such was my horror and pity that I dropped down beside him, my head on his shoulder, my arm across his chest. I softly wept for him then.

After a while, I sat up and slowly dressed him again. Holding the vial of chicken blood, I stood looking down at him, filled with deep sorrow for what this man thought he had to do to remain true to his God. For the first time, I felt something almost like tenderness for him. I stoked his hair, and then leaned down and kissed his forehead.

He stirred, blinking and opening his eyes. They were unfocused, and I knew he was in a strange dream. “Sleep now, Bonifacio,” I whispered. “Sleep.”