The Devil on Her Tongue (68 page)

“She can see them the next time she comes.”

She nodded and took a sip of her drink. “Why are you sad, Mama?”

I put my head to one side and tried to smile. “Do you think I’m sad?”

“Is it because of your friend?” she asked, and my attempted smile disappeared. Could she mean Espirito? But she would call him Tio, not my friend.

“Which friend, Candelária?”

“Your friend who wants to come home. The one with the birds in the pretty cage,” she said, and on this bright and sunny day I felt as though a chilled breeze had swept down from the hillsides, or up from the sea. “Can we go to the waterfront and look at the ships?” she asked then, finishing her citron, her little mind skipping about in its usual rush.

“Yes. Let’s go to the waterfront,” I said.

We watched the unfurling sails of a caravel filling with the wind. I looked at the other ships anchored out on the water, wondering which of them would sail to Brazil.

I knew I would never be on one of them and, as I watched the restless sea, understood that today I had been given a test. Bonifacio so often spoke of tests. Today had been a test of my ability to sacrifice.

I had known Espirito’s love, and until a few hours ago had imagined I could not live happily without it. Today, in the convent, I had lost my chance of knowing it again.

But it had been my choice. I had long understood the repercussions of choice.

I told Bonifacio that I planned to go to Porto Santo to bring Sister Amélia back to Funchal.

“When will you go?” he asked, too quickly. Was it eagerness? I waited for him to ask why I had made this decision, or how I had accomplished it. He did not.

“On Tuesday, and I’ll return Thursday. Binta and Nini will care for Candelária, and Cristiano can stay with them as well. I’m also planning to go to Lisboa soon.” I had made this decision on the walk back to the quinta.

Now he studied me. “Lisboa? Why?”

“I want to see Dona Beatriz.”

“Why don’t you write to her?”

“I must see for myself that she’s all right. Dona Beatriz has a deed from her father. She owns everything. I can’t imagine why or how she would have allowed Abílio to sell it. I don’t trust him.”

“You call him Abílio now?” After another heartbeat he asked, “Why don’t you trust Senhor Perez?”

“I’ve heard too many stories about him. Surely you’ve heard them too, at Kipling’s.”

“I don’t listen to stories.”

“Bonifacio, aren’t you concerned about our future?” My voice
rose in exasperation. “Once Kipling’s is sold to Senhor Lajes, you won’t be employed in the Counting House. I won’t work in the
adega
, and we won’t have a home. Doesn’t all of this disturb you in the least?”

The clock ticked, slower and slower; I had forgotten to wind it the night before.

“We will talk about all of this when you return from Porto Santo,” he said.

I felt a warning beat in my chest. It wasn’t just my distress over Espirito leaving, or my thoughts of returning to Porto Santo, or our uncertain future. There was something else, something I couldn’t identify. For one mad instant I thought of burning wormwood, and looking for the answer in its smoke, as my mother had done. As I had done the night I made my decision to marry Bonifacio.

The clock gave one final tick, and stopped.

Candelária was distraught when I told her that I was going to Porto Santo the next day. “It’s only for three days and two nights, Candelária.”

“Can I come with you tomorrow? Please, Mama. Don’t leave me.”

“No,
minha querida
. It will be a long day of sailing, then a day to do what I must, and then another long day to sail back. I’ll take you another time.”

“I don’t want to stay here.”

“You’ll be with Binta and Nini. You like staying with them.”

She wept then, and said, “I feel bad.”

“Does your stomach hurt? Or your head?”

“No. Something else. Something scares me.”

I talked reassuringly of the shortness of the voyage, the calmness of the weather, the strength of the ship, trying to calm whatever troubled her.

Candelária shook her head, her cheeks still wet. “It’s not the ship, Mama,” she said, but then said nothing more.

I dried her face and comforted her as much as I could, then stayed with her until she fell asleep.

I was relieved that she didn’t cry as she said goodbye to me in the kitchen the next morning. Nini was distracting her by having her help with the bread, twisting dough into elaborate shapes.

I
t was too late to go to Nossa Senhora da Piedade when I arrived at the long landing wharf in Vila Baleira.

I was counting on staying in the one small inn off Palm Square that had rooms to rent for the occasional visitor to the island. I walked up the jetty. Rooi’s was still there, but looked much different than when I had left. There were flowers blooming in the window boxes, the shutters were freshly painted and the stones at the front door swept. A neatly lettered sign boasted a dining room. I was excited at the idea of seeing Rooi and finding out how life had treated him for the last six years. And wanted him to see how life had treated me.

I wore my best dress and shoes, and a hat in the latest style from Lisboa. A plump dark-skinned woman with her hair in an elaborate wrap of colourful fabric came through the back door as I entered through the front. She looked at me in an inquiring fashion. “Is Rooi here?” I asked, setting my bag on the floor and looking around.

The front and back doors were open to create a pleasant cross breeze, and the big room was decorated with matching tables and chairs. The tables had tidy embroidered cloths, and a small container of flowers sat on each one. It was gracious and pretty, nothing like the filthy, stinking inn where I had spent my younger years, playing dominoes and pretending to drink the wine.

She nodded. “He’s in the back room. I’ll go and get him,” she said, in heavily accented Portuguese.

In a few moments, he followed her into the dining room. “When Palma told me there was a tall yellow-haired woman here,” he said, coming towards me and taking my hands, “I could only hope. This is Palma, my wife, from the Canaries.”

I tried not to show my surprise. Rooi, at his advanced age, finally marrying. Or maybe he’d long been married to Palma but had only brought her back to Porto Santo after I’d left.

“Look at you,” he went on, squeezing my hands tightly before letting go. “My own Diamantina, grown into such a fine woman. What brings you back to Porto Santo after all these years?”

“I’m here to take Sister Amélia to her convent in Funchal. I’ve brought you something.” I took three bottles from my bag.

He lifted each of them with an appreciative whistle. “Kipling’s?”

“I’m … I was affiliated with them.”

“You still do a little blending?” he asked, winking, and when I nodded, he said, “I can see you’ve made a good life. I’m not surprised. Nothing the Dutchman’s daughter does should surprise me.”

“I have a daughter now: Candelária. Coming close to five years old and quick as a fox. Like my father used to call me.
Klein vos
,” I said, smiling.

“You must bring her here, so I can meet her,” Rooi said. “Like you, my fortunes have changed.” He put his hand on Palma’s shoulder and with the other gestured at the dining room. “I collected on an old debt in the Canaries, and with Palma’s influence—and her cooking—I have been able to enjoy a different life.”

We ate dinner together, Rooi and Palma and I, a dinner Palma had prepared with unknown and wonderful spices. I told Rooi about my father, and a little about my life since I’d left Porto Santo. Rooi and Palma insisted I stay with them. Palma led me to the upstairs room Rooi had formerly used to store his pipes of wine, and where I had occasionally run to escape a drunken sailor, or simply to get away from the chaos of the inn for a few moments. Now it was quiet and clean, with a comfortable bed and a wide window that opened to the star-studded sky over the ocean.

The next day, I crossed the square and saw the same palm and dragon trees, the same benches with men sitting on them, what looked like the same dogs sleeping in the shade. The square was smaller than I remembered it. If anyone recognized me, they gave no indication.

I spoke to the young Father at the church, and gave him the sealed scroll. He read it, nodding gravely when I told him I would take Sister Amélia with me on the packet the next morning. I thought briefly that he would be annoyed at this news, knowing he would be forced to bring in local women to take over her duties, but he smiled. “Good,” he said. “It’s a lonely life for her here.”

Sister Amélia dropped the small copper pan she was holding and put her hands to her cheeks when I stood in the kitchen doorway. “Is it really you, Diamantina?” she cried out after the clang of the pan hitting the stone floor receded. I went to her and hugged her, and she held me tightly.

As we stepped back and looked at each other, I heard familiar sounds. “They’re still alive?” I asked, and she nodded. I thought of Candelária’s vision.

“Since you left, they have brought me daily companionship and happiness,” she said, and together we went into her tiny cell to look at Zarco and Blanca, their cage hanging in the open window. “They remind me, always, of you. It is good to have something to care for.”

I smiled at the familiar little green lovebirds with their red heads, and then at her.

“I never imagined I would see you again,” she said. “Your letters have brought me such joy.”

“You received them?”

“The young priest is kind. Although it is against the rules, he gave me each as it arrived. I’ve kept them all, and I read them often. I saw your life in Funchal as you described it, and I remembered so much of my own life there. But the Father could not allow me to write back to you. If his indiscretion had ever been discovered, it would go badly for him. I was grateful you didn’t give up, and kept writing.”

I took Sister Amélia’s hands. “I worried so much about you. I went to the Madre Superiora of Catarina of the Cross, and she
decided that you had served your penance. She’s given written permission for you to leave, and—”

Sister Amélia cried out, dropping to her knees, still gripping my hands.

“—and I’ve already passed it on to the Father. We will leave tomorrow morning.”

At that, she kissed my hands, tears streaming from her eyes, while the birds sang of their love.

After I left Sister Amélia, I carried my boots and walked down the beach to Ponta da Calheta. Along the way I picked up a rusted belt buckle as it washed against my bare foot, then a knobby whelk, and finally a foreign coin encrusted with tiny barnacles. I took them with me to the end of the beach, holding them as I sat on the rock I knew so well, watching the waves. After a time I left the sea’s offerings on the rock and walked back to Vila Baleira, never looking behind me.