The Devil on Her Tongue (69 page)

It was difficult to say goodbye to Rooi the next morning, but I promised to send him a sketch of Candelária.

At the back gate of the church, Sister Amélia waited for me with a large basket and the birds in their cage. Her cheeks were flushed, and as I took the basket of her few belongings and we walked out through the gate, she gripped my arm, her bare feet suddenly faltering.

“What is it, Sister Amélia?” I asked. The colour had left her cheeks, and her skin was now dough-coloured.

“Everything feels … it feels too big.”

“The square?” I looked at the small area.

“Not just the square.” She fought to catch her breath. “The sky. The sea. Everything.”

I led her to a bench, and we sat for a few moments. When she could breathe normally again, she said, “I’ve dreamed of walking
more than my daily counted steps and seeing more than a tiny slice of sky the whole time I’ve been inside the church. And now …” She smiled. “I couldn’t sleep last night. The idea of being with the other Sisters, and the beautiful gardens of the convent—of it being real, and not just my dreams … it feels as though I’ve been truly touched by God’s hand.”

We had a good following wind, and anchored in Funchal by late afternoon. I went with Sister Amélia to the gates of the convent. She set down the birdcage and reached for the bell cord, hesitating for just a moment, and then turned. “I won’t be able to ever do this again,” she said, as she put her arms around me and I returned her embrace.

She wiped her eyes and pulled the cord.

A nun slid back the grille on the heavy wooden door. “Is it really you, Sister Amélia?” she asked after a moment. “There have been a few whispers, but none of us knew if it was true.”

“Yes, Sister Gabriella. I’ve returned.”

The grille slid closed and the door opened. “Welcome back, Sister.” The two women gazed at each other for a moment, their eyes showing their pleasure.

Sister Amélia said, “This is Diamantina. She brought me from Porto Santo.”

As she picked up the birdcage, Sister Gabriella looked at the lovebirds and said, “They will enjoy living in the garden. And we will all enjoy them as well.”

“You will come for the yearly visits?” Sister Amélia asked me. “We will only be able to speak through the grille—”

Sister Gabriella cleared her throat. “Monthly. We are allowed monthly visits now.”

Sister Amélia shook her head as if this were another wonder.

“Of course I’ll come,” I said. “Every month. I can’t wait for you to meet Candelária,” I told her, and then watched as she went into the cloisters of Catarina of the Cross.

As I walked up the hill to Quinta Isabella, I felt peaceful for the first time since Espirito had told me he was leaving.

I had loved Espirito, and he me. To have been loved and given love in return was more than many ever knew. I had been able to bring some measure of happiness to Sister Amélia. I had my own small sum of money from my work in the
adega
, more than enough to buy passage to Lisboa to see Dona Beatriz. I didn’t know what I would find, but I was confident that once I spoke to her I might be able to put together a bright new life on Madeira. Maybe Henry Duncan would hire me—and Cristiano—to work for him.

As for Bonifacio … I would try to teach myself patience. With Espirito gone, perhaps he would be less suspicious of everything I did. As Candelária grew older, I would explain to her that the things Papa said were not to concern her.

More than anything, as I approached the quinta, I was looking forward to holding Candelária, feeling her little arms around my neck, smelling her sweet child’s scent.

And so, yes, I told myself, I would forge happiness out of life, even without Espirito.

Ah, life. What lessons you set before us, so that we will never forget to be humble.

“Y
ou’re back, Diamantina,” Nini said, smiling. She and Binta and Raimundo were sitting in the kitchen, empty plates in front of them. “Cristiano has eaten, and he and Tiago have gone to town. Sit down, and I’ll get you some dinner.”

I looked around. “Where is Candelária?”

Binta and Nini stared at me. Raimundo shook his head.

“What is it? Where is she?” I slowly set my bag at my feet.

“But …” Binta looked at Nini and back at me. “Bonifacio said …”

“Said what?” My voice was sharp.

“He came to us only an hour after he took you to the waterfront. He told us you’d changed your mind and wanted to take Candelária with you. He said he had to go to Lisboa, but first he would take her to you on the ship,” Binta said, blinking rapidly. “Candelária was so excited.”

The kitchen was too hot. “You let her go with him?” I heard my voice, shrill. “Why? Why did you let her go?”

“He’s her father. How could I stop him? And why would I?” Binta said.

A terrible fear came over me, and then whiteness.

“If she isn’t with you”—Nini’s voice came from far away, as though through water, and I was pushed down, onto a bench— “where is she?”

There was the hard smoothness of tin at my lips, and then water in my mouth. I swallowed. As the whiteness edged away, I said, “He took her.”

“Bonifacio took her? He took her with him to Lisboa?” Raimundo asked.

A name was nudging at the back of my mind. I would remember it.

“To Lisboa?” Binta repeated.

“A convent. He took her to a convent.” I stood, my legs shaky. I straightened and wiped my forehead with my palm. “Raimundo, take me to Funchal in a cart. I need to buy my passage to Lisboa right now. For tomorrow.”

“It’s too late. The ticketing is closed. When it opens in the morning—”

“The morning?” I cried, my voice loud. “I can’t wait until morning.” I walked around and around the kitchen, then stopped, suddenly remembering Candelária’s anxiety about me leaving.
Something scares me. It’s not the ship, Mama, not the ship
.

“I’ll take you first thing, Diamantina,” Raimundo told me.

At the kind, worried expression on his face, I grabbed my bag and ran out of the kitchen, through the yard and up the path to the cottage. I slammed the door, my back against it as if keeping out some danger, and dropped my bag with a thud. I went into my bedroom and opened the wardrobe. All her clothing was still there, the small dresses and shifts and stockings and her extra boots. Then I knelt at Candelária’s wooden chest and pulled everything out, scattering the toys on the floor. I didn’t know what I was searching for. I picked up a rag doll—her favourite doll—and pressed it against myself, looking around with jerky, panicked movements. A folded letter sat on my dresser. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed it, and unfolded the parchment with trembling fingers.

It was unsigned. The black ink gleamed. I saw the thin loops of each letter in Bonifacio’s familiar crabbed style. I saw my hand, with my wedding ring, holding the paper. I dropped it, and it fell to the floor in a slow, delicate flutter. Before me I saw Candelária, her pointed chin and arched brows. A little sylph, a slender, graceful child. I thought of how she looked at the world around her in wonder, with my mother’s eyes. I thought of Sister Amélia as we crossed from Porto Santo to Madeira, and how her wimple prevented her from seeing anything other than what was directly in front of her.

The blood drained from my head as it had in the kitchen, and I had to take long, deep breaths. I put my hands on the dresser and looked at myself in the mirror over it. The woman who stared back was not familiar. She was older, her face rigid. Frozen, like the ice my father had described when I was a child.

Convento Teresa de Jesus. That was the name Bonifacio had once spoken. “Convento Teresa de Jesus,” I whispered to that stricken, frozen face.

I was still in the travelling clothes I’d worn for my voyage to Porto Santo when I stood before the clerk at the ticketing office the next morning. I had lain on the bed fully dressed but hadn’t slept, waiting for the light. I heard Cristiano come in shortly after dark but couldn’t bear to see him, couldn’t bear to utter the terrible thing that had happened.

I would tell him when I had the strength, tell him that instead of taking him to Brazil, as he’d threatened, Bonifacio had taken Candelária away.

“A ticket to Lisboa. Senhora Rivaldo,” the clerk confirmed as he wrote, yawning, and then asked, “And who is your travelling companion?”

When I didn’t answer, he peered at me. “Senhora? Whom do you travel with?”

“I go alone.”

He shook his head. “I cannot sell passage to a woman travelling alone to Lisboa. It’s against our policy. You can have anyone accompany you—servant, relative, it matters not—but you cannot go alone,” he repeated. “You must go with another woman, or a male of at least twelve years.”

“Fine. Fine,” I said, taking more réis from my bag. “Give me the second passage.”

“And the name?”

“Cristiano Rivaldo.”

“A relation,” he stated.

“Yes.”

“Age?”

“Thirteen.”

He painstakingly wrote. “Passage for two adults on the
Bom Jesus
, leaving in two days’ time.”

“You have nothing for today, or tomorrow?”

“Two days’ time,” the clerk repeated, and pushed the tickets across the counter.