The Devil on Her Tongue (54 page)

She glanced over her shoulder at me, then left the baby and took a thick pad of cotton folded over fleece and pressed it between my
legs. “We have to stop the bleeding right away, Diamantina,” she said, turning back to the child.

“Is it alive?” I whispered.

“Yes. You have a daughter. But her colour isn’t good, and she’s having trouble breathing. God will decide whether to take her or leave her with us,” she said, and at that moment there was a snuffling sound, and then a thin wail.

Gracinha crossed herself with one bloody hand. “Listen, Diamantina. God has shown us His compassion.”

“A daughter,” I repeated.

The child cried more lustily, and after Gracinha had put her into the padded basket, she threaded a needle and came to me. She put the wood between my teeth again. “I will do what I can to repair the damage. Courage,” she said, “and pray, Diamantina. Pray to God to keep you on earth.”

I went in and out of consciousness as she stitched. Finally I was aware that Gracinha was holding a cup to my lips. “Drink this, Diamantina,” she urged. “You’ve lost so much blood, and will be weak for some time. And your body underwent great trauma. I can’t say with certainty, but I suspect you won’t carry another child.” I stared at her in the lamplight. “It appears it is not your time to leave the earth yet, thank the Father and the Blessed Virgin.” She crossed herself.

I wanted to thank her, for it was she who had saved the baby and me, but was too weak to speak.

She patted my hand. “You must treasure this child. She may be your only one.”

I was so tired, so spent, that tears rolled down towards my ears.

“Now, now, I spoke too quickly. You may heal after all. One never knows God’s will. He may reward you generously. You and Bonifacio may have seven or eight more. Perhaps all boys.” She smiled encouragingly, but I turned my head on the pillow.

I wasn’t crying over what she’d said. I was crying from sheer exhaustion, from the pain in my body, and, listening to the baby’s wails, from the knowledge that for the rest of my life, every time I looked into the face of my child, she would remind me of the man who’d made me hate myself.

A weak morning sun filled the room. I was in a fresh nightdress, and the bedding was clean, smelling of the wind. Gracinha had piled pillows behind me, and helped me lean against them.

“Thank you,” I said. “I would never have believed I would have had such difficulty.”

“Every birth is different, and we can never predict,” she said. The baby had been silent for a while, but now was making small mewling sounds. Gracinha brought her to me and set her in my arms.

I stared down at her. Her skin was pale and looked rich, like pearl. Her head was downy with dark hair. Her eyes, murky and dark, were open. She looked somehow weary, or worried. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her—sorry for her gruelling journey, and sorry for how she had come to be. Sorry that I didn’t love her, and for what lay ahead for both of us.

Gracinha folded back the end of the blanket. “Look, Diamantina. A tiny imperfection. An extra toe, attached to the fifth on her right foot.”

I stared down at the six tiny toes. Each had a minuscule nail, no bigger than a sliver of almond.

“Thank the Lord it is such a small defect. Nothing that will affect her life,” she said, and I quietly echoed,
Yes, nothing that will affect her life
.

“A pretty baby, is she not?” Gracinha said, as if trying to make up for the extra toe. “Her colour has calmed, and she is delicate, like her mother. Nice full lips.”

I thought of Leandro. Had he looked anything like this? I suddenly remembered his long eyelashes. His lips. Other than that, I couldn’t tell if he and my daughter would resemble each other.

“I’ll fetch the father now,” she said, smiling. I looked from the baby to Gracinha, but said nothing.

She came back alone. “Your husband went to Funchal, Binta told me. To work.” She frowned, shaking her head. “I have never known a new father to leave before knowing the outcome. Before even knowing if his wife …”

“It’s all right,” I said, perhaps too quickly.

Gracinha stayed with me for the day. I slept on and off, and fed the baby when she wailed. “You can’t rise for at least a week,” Gracinha told me as she prepared to leave that night. She lit the candle on the small table beside my bed. “I’ll tell Binta and Nini to care for you, and I’ll come by every day until I know you are recovering as you should.”

Bonifacio’s footsteps sounded in the sitting room.

“Here he is,” Gracinha said. “The proud papa.” She went to the bedroom door. “Come and see your beautiful daughter.”

He stood in the doorway.

“Thank you, Gracinha, for everything,” I said. “Please, go home to your own family. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When she’d left, Bonifacio came into the room. All day I’d been trying to ready myself for whatever he would say to me.

He stood beside the bed and looked down at me. “Is she normal?”

Did he think the child would be a gargoyle, a two-headed monster, something inhuman that announced my sin to whoever looked upon her? Punishment for my immoral behaviour?

“Yes,” I said. “She’s normal.” I couldn’t be bothered to speak of the tiny extra toe. I looked up at him. “Would you like to have Telma as one of her names?” I had thought of this as I lay waiting for him. Perhaps it would soften his feelings towards the child.

He flinched. “After my mother? She was a good, God-fearing woman. Do you think I would put a curse on her memory by calling this abomination after her?”

“Abomination, Bonifacio?” I said in the same quiet voice, and
pulled back the cover so he could see the child, with her tender skin and tiny curled fingers. “She’s not to be blamed. Don’t denigrate her because of my sin.”

He sat in the chair beside my bed. “Choose any name to your liking. But not my mother’s,” he said, still looking at her.

“Candelária,” I said after a strained silence. “Her name will be Candelária Rosemaria.” Through the long hours of labour, I had focused on the flame of the candle beside the bed. As my body rose and fell with the pain’s rhythms, I stared at the flame, willing it to hold still at the height of the pain, and then flicker as the grip of it weakened.

“Candelária,” he repeated slowly.

“And Rosemaria for my mother.”

He hadn’t known my mother’s name, neither Estra, as she was called on Porto Santo, nor Shada, as she had been named at birth.
Shada
means sweet fragrance, she had said. And every time I smelled rosemary, I thought of her.

Bonifacio took the baby from my arms, surprising me. In that instant I missed her comforting weight, her small, tired face. As he held her, I could see him as he must once have held infants over the baptismal font. He touched her cheek with his knuckle, as if tenderly nudging a sleeping ladybird, then made the sign of the cross on her forehead with his thumb. I saw the trembling beat on the top of her skull. When he looked up at me, his eyes were wet and filled with sorrow. In that moment I saw a shadow of what Olívia must have seen in him so long ago, when he was younger and softer, not yet so damaged.

He drew a long, shaky breath, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s all a mistake,” he said in a hushed voice.

“The baby?”

“Yes, her. Everything. Leaving the priesthood, taking Cristiano from his home and all he knew. Coming back and finding that my brother …” He stopped. “Marrying you. It’s all led to bewildering chaos for me, emotionally and spiritually. I will admit that I was wrong to leave you alone with my father during Lent. I have been wrong about many things.”

I looked at the sleeping baby. Her lips stretched into something that could have been a smile, or perhaps a grimace, and a spasm crossed over her face. She stretched and yawned, putting one tiny hand against her ear.

He set her back in my arms, then knelt and prayed. He prayed for the soul of the child, and for my soul, and that the evil surrounding us would be lifted. I closed my eyes and turned my face from him, not wanting to hear his pleas for mercy, not now, and not ever.

When he was finally gone, I held my little girl close. She could not be assigned guilt for her being. I would have to find a way to feel something for her beyond responsibility. She had no one in the world but me, and I would have to find a way to love her.

“C
ome, Cristiano,” I said when the boy came with Binta for the first time to see me. He approached the bed cautiously. I put my free arm around him and hugged him, but instead of looking at the baby, he looked at me.

“I was afraid, Sister,” he said.

“But it’s all right. You can see that everything is all right,” I said.

The baby sneezed. He jumped at the unexpected sound, then smiled at her. “But Sister?” he said, his smile disappearing. “Don’t have another baby.”

I remained in bed while my body healed, and Binta and Nini cared for me with gentleness and affection. Cristiano came to see me every day, although at night he stayed with Binta and Tiago.

I could not find any joy in my child, since every time I looked at her, I saw Abílio. My thoughts swirled around me like heavy, dark clouds as Madeira’s winter sunshine flooded over my bed.

I was inordinately weary, even though I slept too much. I tensed each time the baby cried, and during the dark of night felt guilty for being angry when her cries awoke me every few hours.

“You should get up, Diamantina,” Binta said to me after ten days. “You’ll only grow weaker if you don’t move.”

I looked away from her kind face, towards the window.

“A number of women have come to the quinta’s gates to seek your
help. You are needed.” She was holding Candelária as the baby fussed, hungry. “This little one needs you. I’m happy to keep Cristiano with me, but he needs you, too. This is his home. Here, with you and Bonifacio.”

Bonifacio had come to my room every day to pray over us. Each morning, when I heard his door open and his footsteps in the hall, my stomach tightened, hating that he thought he had a right to pray for my innocent child’s soul.