The Devil on Her Tongue (64 page)

And then I lay on my bed again and relived each moment, remembering the sensation of Espirito’s skin against mine and all that we had whispered to each other. And I felt myself coming apart, breaking into scraps of images, flashes of both urgency and timelessness.

I had felt a beauty within me as well as what I’d seen in the mirror. And suddenly, in the middle of that great swooping joy, I was filled with such a terrible loneliness that I wept, not only for the realization that this feeling was possible, but also out of the despair of knowing it would never fully be mine. As Bonifacio had said, in God’s eyes we were joined forever. Even if he returned to Brazil, I would still be his wife.

When I came out of the bedroom the next morning, leaving Candelária to put on her little frock, Bonifacio was sitting at the
table, sharpening a quill. An open pot of ink and a sheet of paper were in front of him.

I was surprised and disturbed that Bonifacio hadn’t left for work at his usual early hour. I felt so soft and open, the intimacy still so raw, that surely my sin was written on my face. I swallowed. “Cristiano’s already gone down for breakfast, I see,” I said. “Are you not going to work?”

“Yes. I will, later.”

“You’re writing a letter? Is it another to the Diocese?” I needed to act as though all was normal. My heart raced, and I hoped he didn’t see the quick rise and fall of my chest.

“Is it any concern of yours whom I write to?” he asked, and I turned and went back to the bedroom and tied the ribbon of Candelária’s frock. I glanced at Bonifacio as she and I came back into the sitting room. He set down his sharpening knife but didn’t dip the quill into the ink. He simply sat there, holding the quill over the pot in an odd, detached manner. “Do you not have a clean dress to wear?” he asked Candelária, and I saw the jam on her bodice, the grass stains on her skirt.

Never before had Bonifacio mentioned Candelária’s appearance.

She shrugged. “Will you come with us for breakfast, Papa?”

“Not today, Candelária,” he said, and we left him at the table, the quill still suspended, motionless, over the ink pot.

I
n a mere twenty-four hours, my life had changed so dramatically that I didn’t know myself. The night after I had been with Espirito, as I lay in my bed, I realized I was smiling. Smiling, alone, into the darkness.

I needed to see him, to be near him. There was no explicable reason for him to come to our cottage, and so the next afternoon I took Cristiano and Candelária and went into Funchal, telling the children we would have a treat in the square.

“Can we have a sweet cake?” Candelária asked.

“Yes, of course,” I said, distracted as we walked down São Rua Batista, knowing I would stop at Kipling’s, hoping to see Espirito.

“Two? Can we have two?”

“Don’t be greedy,” Cristiano said.

“I’m not greedy. I’m not, am I, Mama?” she said, and I looked down at her, realizing I was annoyed by her chattering.

I stopped. “You’re not greedy. You shall both have what you wish in the square.” I smiled. “Let’s stop and ask Bonifacio and Tio if they would like to come with us.”

“Espirito will probably come,” Cristiano said as he pulled open the door for us, staying in the open doorway of the Counting House. “He likes cake.”

“We’re going for cakes,” Candelária announced before we were in the room. “Cakes! Will you come, Papa? Where’s Tio? We want him to come too.”

Bonifacio sat at his desk in the empty room, a paper in front of
him. He wasn’t looking at it, but at the wall over his desk. He didn’t move.

“Papa? Where’s Tio?” Candelária said again.

Finally, Bonifacio pulled his gaze from the wall, staring at us as though he hadn’t heard us come in. “What?”

“Where is Tio Espirito?” Candelária demanded loudly, with a three-year-old’s impatience.

“I don’t know,” Bonifacio said.

“I’ll go look for him. He’s probably in the
adega
,” Cristiano called from the doorway, and ran off.

Candelária held my skirt as Bonifacio stared at us. His face was so white that his eyes appeared to be sunken coals. His lips were chalky.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Cakes, cakes!” Candelária said loudly.

At that, Bonifacio rose and came towards us, and Candelária fell silent and edged behind me. “What is the cause for celebration?” he asked.

“Celebration? There’s no celebration. I just brought the children into Funchal for a treat,” I said.

“Why are they deserving of a treat? What have they done to be rewarded?” Although he questioned me, he stared at Candelária, his tone dull.

I clicked my tongue. “I’m taking them to the square. Do you want to come or not?”

The door opened and Espirito came in. “I hear cakes are in order,” he said, lightly clapping his hands and smiling broadly. “Cristiano’s waiting outside.”

My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. He looked at me, and I couldn’t take my eyes from his.

Bonifacio turned, going back to his desk and looking down at the paper.

“Come with us, Tio,” Candelária said.

“All right,” Espirito answered, and put his hand on Candelária’s head. I glanced at Bonifacio’s back and then put my hand on top of Espirito’s, and he turned his hand to clasp mine. He squeezed it,
once. Desire swept through me with such force I gasped, immediately clearing my throat to disguise the sound, and Espirito let my hand go.

“Bonifacio,” I said as he left his desk, “are you coming—”

But he walked right past us, and out the door.

“Where’s he going?” Espirito said, then went to the open door. “Is he going home?”

I stood beside him, watching Bonifacio’s slow steps up the middle of the street towards the road leading out of town. His shoulders were bent. “He’s left his coat. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” I went to the desk, where his coat was draped over the back of his chair. As I put my hand on it to lift it, and have Cristiano take it to Bonifacio, I saw the paper he had left on the desk.

At the top was the Jesuit symbol of the flaming sun. In that instant I knew what had happened. I knew.

“Diamantina?” Espirito said as I stood at the desk, my eyes skimming the paper. “What is it?”

I looked up from the paper and across the room at him, unable to speak.

Espirito came with us to the square; I couldn’t disappoint the children.

I brought the letter with me, and silently watched as they ate their fill of cake. Then I asked Cristiano to take Candelária and walk in the square.

“We can feed the birds,” Candelária said, taking the last uneaten piece of her cake in one hand and holding Cristiano’s with the other.

“Now will you tell me?” Espirito asked when they’d run off. “Is it … does Bonifacio suspect? Has he said something to you?”

Suspect? Bonifacio had suspected me of illicit behaviour with Espirito since before I conceived Candelária. But Espirito didn’t know that.

“It’s not that,” I said.

I took the letter from the Superior of the Order of the Diocese
of Rio de Janeiro out of my bag and set it on the table. Espirito picked it up.

“Dear Senhor Rivaldo,”
he read.
“You write us to request to be reinstated into the Jesuit community.”
He stopped and looked up at me, then back to the letter.
“This, as you know, is a highly irregular circumstance. You left your mission and the priesthood without official review from the diocese. Because you were a devout brother, we have given your request due consideration. But doctrine does not permit your ordination vow to be reinstated, nor your marriage vow to be annulled, by simple written request
.

“We have informed the Cathedral parish in Lisboa that our decision is final. As for your marriage annulment, the Church requires written submission provided by the officiating Father of the marriage vows that this union was unconsummated
.

“You may serve Our Lord through prayer and penance. May God bless you and forgive you.”

Espirito hadn’t looked at me again, and was still studying the script. “Did you know that Bonifacio wanted to re-enter the priesthood?”

“Yes. I … I was hoping he would. He told me a year and a half ago. Some days the thought of him leaving was the only glimmer of light I could see for the rest of my life. But now …” I couldn’t stop my tears.

“Don’t cry,” he said, dropping the paper and reaching for me, but as I took my handkerchief from my bag, Cristiano brought Candelária back, sobbing.

She had fallen while chasing a bird, and now held out her palms. I bent over them, hiding my own tears, brushing the grit and dust off the slight abrasions with my handkerchief and then kissing each palm.

I stood then. “Let’s go home.”

“Will you be all right?” Espirito said quietly, and I nodded. “Send word when you want me to come to you. To the summer house,” he said, so only I could hear. And then he called a cart for us, and lifted Candelária in and helped me up.

As we rode home, Cristiano glanced at me frequently, and when Candelária started singing, he shushed her. As the cart let us out at
the quinta’s gates, he hoisted Candelária onto his back; she wrapped her arms around his neck. They went up the drive ahead of me and I remembered how Espirito had carried Cristiano out of Curral das Freiras on his back.

I had been full of excitement then, daring to picture a different life, an escape from the high mountains that had made me a prisoner.

Now I was once more a prisoner.

Bonifacio would never leave. I would have to guard my daughter against his influence, and spend every day of my life seeing his accusing face, his glower of disapproval, his own darkness within attempting to obliterate any light that I welcomed.

I heard him as I passed the chapel. I went in. He was prostrate, weeping and praying, as I had first seen him on the floor of the church in Vila Baleira.

“Bonifacio.”

His prayers stopped, but he didn’t rise.

“Here is your letter. I read it,” I told him, and dropped it onto the floor and left. In the short distance from the chapel to the cottage I knew that I would make my own happiness with Espirito. Bonifacio had always suspected me of immoral behaviour with his brother.

What had I to lose?

T
he summer house was our island, cut off from duty and responsibility. No one asked Espirito to account for his time, but I could only steal an afternoon here and there.

When I was with him, I felt surrounded by an aura of unreality. It wasn’t only the sharing of myself with a man who had a true and tender affection for me, and was not afraid to demonstrate it, but also because he opened something in me that allowed me to talk as I never had before. I felt as though nothing I said would shock or dismay him. He listened with a quick smile or with consternation, holding me closely, sometimes stroking my hair or my cheek as I disclosed the saddest memories. I told him about my life on Porto Santo both before and after my father’s departure. I talked of my mother’s teachings and her death, of Sister Amélia, of Rooi’s inn, and the sailor on the beach. I never mentioned Abílio. That was the only part of my life I did not want Espirito to know.

He spoke at length of his boyhood and his fond memories of his parents, and made me laugh with descriptions of his escapades. He filled my head with images of his visits to Lisboa. He was cautious in mentioning Olívia, and I knew he took such care out of sensitivity for my feelings.

I had never before known this, the easy talk that comes with an intimate relationship, and was astounded at the closeness that continued to grow with our disclosures. I felt comfort at knowing there was someone who carried my secrets, and who was not afraid of their weight. I had never known another person as
I knew him, and I trusted him never to hurt or disappoint me.

I gathered rosemary and made its perfume as my mother had, letting the herb sit in a jar filled with oil in a sunny window. I wore the oil freely, and my skin and hair and clothes always smelled of it. The warm afternoon air on the days we met was seductive, and we lay on the soft settees and fed each other fruits from the quinta’s garden, sated and drowsy after lovemaking in the heady, bee-filled air.