The Devil on Her Tongue (33 page)

“You have,” I said, pleased at his open, boyish smile, the smile I’d seen him give only to Cristiano. I went to the bedroom and took my medicine bag from the cupboard. I selected a twist of the ground petals of sweet violets I had brought with me from Porto Santo, as well as a small container of soothing lotion of aloe and eucalyptus. A candle glowed from Bonifacio’s side of the room, and I heard the sound of a page turning.

I went back to the sitting room. “Could you please give the aloe lotion to your mother-in-law, as a thank you for the nuts and fruit?” I asked, handing him the container. “And this is for Olívia. It’s to be diluted in tea to diminish coughs.” I gave him the paper twist.

He frowned slightly. “Do you know about Olívia?”

“Know about her?”

He waited.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I finally said. “But many people suffer from cough in the cooler months.”

“Thank you,” he said then, standing and putting on his coat. “
Boas festas
. I’ll see you all in the New Year.” As usual, he hugged Papa and Cristiano. He did not go to the bedroom door to call goodbye to Bonifacio.

When Papa and Cristiano went to bed, I stayed at the table among the dirty dishes and the dominoes, touching each tile, and thinking about Espirito and his smile. In that moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, Espirito could help me. Perhaps I could appeal to him and Olívia. Maybe they would help me get to my father. But I would have to go very slowly, and very carefully.

After the Mass for Epiphany in the first week of January, Father Monteiro came to me as I pulled Cristiano’s cap over his ears before the walk home in the damp wind.

“Diamantina,” he said, and something about the way he said my name made me frown.

“Yes, Father?”

“I have something for you. I’d like you to come into my office.”

I followed him, holding Cristiano’s hand. In the small room, the fireplace throwing a pleasant warmth, he pointed to a folded square of vellum, addressed to him, on his desk.

“It came to me from Porto Santo,” he said, “a letter from Father da Chagos, although written by Sister Amélia. She reports that Father da Chagos is very ill. He contracted a fever a month ago and hasn’t been able to fight it. He grows weaker daily. He’s no longer able to conduct Mass, and the Sister informed the Mother Church in Funchal. They have sent another priest to Nossa Senhora da Piedade. Father da Chagos wanted …” He stopped. “What’s in the package belongs to you,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “Father da Chagos has suffered a crisis of conscience, the Sister has written. He is certain he will not live much longer, and daily makes his confession and does his penance. He would like forgiveness from you so that he can meet death with a clear conscience.”

My trembling had begun as Father Monteiro spoke, and now it was as if all the air in the room had been sucked into the fireplace, and I couldn’t breathe. I took deep gulps, pressing my palms against my chest, feeling the frenzied ticking of my heart.

“Would you like to sit down, Diamantina? You’re very pale.”

“Thank you, Father Monteiro,” I said. “I would just like to go home now.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. He picked up the package and held it out to me. “The religious community of the Madeira archipelago is small. We all know each other. I would like to apologize on behalf of Father da Chagos.”

I took the package, then ran from the office and through the now-empty church, Cristiano at my heels. I ran all the way home. I don’t know why.

T
he hours until everyone slept felt like the longest I had known. I couldn’t bear to open the package until I knew I would not be interrupted, and could be completely alone.

I went into the sitting room, lighting a candle on the table. I sat with the package on my lap, feeling its sharp corners. And then I unfolded the vellum.

There were two pages. The first was addressed to me in an unknown hand. I looked at the second, and saw my name, and under it the name of Father da Chagos at Nossa Senhora da Piedade, in my father’s copperplate. The wax that had once sealed the letter was broken. Looking at my father’s script, so familiar and yet with an unusual shakiness, I was suddenly able to remember his face as clearly as if he stood before me. Holding the thin parchment, I imagined that once I unfolded it, his words would rise into the air like a sudden rush of startled butterflies, trembling with my father’s voice. Tears filled my eyes, and I put the letter to my nose, breathing deeply, hoping to be given a tiny memory of my father’s smell of tobacco. The paper only carried a faint odour of mildew and, almost imperceptibly, a trace of incense.

I set it on the table and first opened the letter in the unknown hand. In a fine, spidery script, Sister Amélia wrote:

I blinked, rereading the last paragraph. Sister Amélia’s writing was blotched with fallen ink, some spots round and some smeared. I saw her sitting at the table in the church kitchen in the flickering light of the candle, writing a letter for the first time in many, many years. I smelled the strong lampblack and pine of the ink, and her floury, comforting scent. I imagined her head, bare of her veil and wimple, and remembered the shape of her small ears.

I read on.

I put down her letter and sat for a long time before picking up my father’s. At last I opened it. It was dated eight months earlier.

I sat without moving until the candle hissed and went out, and then went to the bedroom, pulling open the sheets hiding Bonifacio’s bed. I looked down at him. He slept on his back, his mouth open. I looked at the crucifix over his bed, and wanted to take it down and strike him with it. I wanted to strike him until he lay bleeding.

It was my money in the cloth bag, whatever was left of the money my father had sent to me. I hadn’t wondered how a fallen priest had come into possession of such an amount, or perhaps I assumed Papa had given it to him. And what had he done with my father’s letters?

I would wait until morning, and then, in the bright light of day, demand answers.

I was sitting at the table holding the two letters when Bonifacio came out to go to early Mass. I hadn’t gone to bed.

He frowned at me. “Why are you up?”

I stood. “Come outside.”

“Don’t speak to me as if I’m a child.”

I walked towards the door. “I said to come outside,” I repeated, my voice low. I didn’t want to wake Cristiano. “Father Monteiro gave me something yesterday.”

Bonifacio looked at the letters in my hand.

“From my father,” I said, and at that he had the decency to look uncomfortable.

I went to the wash house, and he followed me. There I held the letters in front of his face. “One of these is from Sister Amélia in Vila Baleira, and the other is the last letter my father sent to me. I know that Father da Chagos gave you my other letters and my money.”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well?” I said.

“Well what?”

“I’m waiting for you to explain why you haven’t given me my father’s letters. Or my money. The money Father da Chagos gave you when we married. The money my father sent to me over the last few years.”

My rage built as I waited for him to speak.

“It became my money once we were married,” he said. “When Father da Chagos told me he held money for you—”

I held up my hand. “Stop! He told you before you married me? Father da Chagos told you there was money that was mine?”

“Every bride has a dowry,” he said.

My mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

“It’s mine now,” he said. “As in any marriage, the dowry is paid to the husband. I used it for your passage from Porto Santo to Funchal, and for the supplies I had to buy for you: boots and cloth, the dominoes you wanted. And my father had debts. I paid them off for him. It was the least I could do. He took me back, with the boy, without question.”

I was too stunned to speak. After a moment I said, “I want what is left of that money—the one hundred and seventy-six réis. Give it to me now.”

He shook his head. “As I said, the money is mine.”

I heard the slam of a door, and saw Cristiano on the step.

“The letters. Where are the letters?”

“I didn’t see the purpose of them.”

“And …”

“I burned them.”

“NO!” I screamed then, and lifted my hands to strike him, but he caught my wrists. His strength surprised me. “I hate you,” I shouted. “I hate you and I hate Father da Chagos, and I will never forgive either of you. Never!”

“Control yourself,” he said firmly. “You’re no longer a wild island girl. You’re a wife. It was your choice to marry me, and now you will obey me, as a wife must. Wipe your face and prepare breakfast.”

I hadn’t realized I was crying. “How dare you and Father da Chagos decide what’s best for me!”

“Never bring up this matter again. Everything will go on as before,” he said. He let go of my wrists and left.

I watched him walk towards the house, hating the slope of his shoulders, the back of his head, his measured gait. Cristiano jumped off the step and disappeared behind the house as Bonifacio approached.

Everything would
not
go on as before. In spite of my fury with both Father da Chagos and Bonifacio, and the deep sorrow at what I had missed in over four years since my father left, everything was now changed. I would write to my father, explaining what had happened. I would tell him about Mama’s death, and that I now lived on Madeira. I would ask him to please send more money—enough for two passages—to me, care of Kipling’s. I would tell him I would bring a little boy named Cristiano with me to Brazil.

I would ask Espirito to send the letter, and when my father wrote back, Espirito would bring his letter to me.

I would have to wait for a year or more for my letter to get to São Paulo and for my father to reply. And then, finally, I would go to him, and I would once again know his love.

I
wrote my letter using the back of a chart torn from one of my books.

“Give me a few réis,” I said to Bonifacio at dinner. “Please,” I emphasized, although with heavy sarcasm.

He looked up from his plate. “I said for you not to bring this up again.” His voice was too low for Papa to hear, but the old man watched us.

“I’ve written a letter to my father,” I said loudly, “and I need money to send it.”

“Is your father on Porto Santo?” Papa asked.