The Devil on Her Tongue (51 page)

When he came out of his bedroom the next morning, he rubbed his face with his hands. “I feel unwell.”

I had tossed through the night, terribly disturbed by Bonifacio’s self-inflicted mutilation and that it had killed my final, desperate hope. This baby would destroy my future, and leave me homeless and destitute. Bonifacio would send me away, back to Porto Santo,
for where else could I go? I would never again see Cristiano. I would not receive the expected letter from my father—it would not be forwarded to me after I had been cast out in shame.

I would have to write to my father again from Porto Santo. It would be another year of waiting, with a child and no charity from anyone. Would I be forced to live in a cave, as my mother had once spoken of?

“You drank the whole pitcher of wine,” I said, turning so he wouldn’t see my face as I wound the clock. How quickly I had started to rely on it for the rhythm of my days. A strange thing, I often thought now, that I’d lived without need of a clock for more than eighteen years, and now glanced at it frequently throughout the day. “Usually you just enjoy a glass or two. Then again, that blend of Boal was of a particularly high quality.”

“I do remember drinking one glass, but …” He stopped.

I turned back to him, running my hands down my skirt. “Or, as I said last night, you may be sickening with what I had last week. Are you well enough to go to work?”

He took his jacket off the peg by the door. “The walk down to Funchal should clear my head.”

I
tried twice again to rid myself of the child, but both times came to consciousness on the floor of the
latrina
, the wadded cotton still in my mouth, the hook still in me. But not deep enough. I could not drive that sharp end far enough to dislodge what grew there without fainting from the pain. As unflinching as I was in my decision, my body betrayed me.

I spent many afternoons in the summer house, looking at the sea, knowing my days were numbered and there was nothing I could do but wait.

By the middle of my fourth month, Binta and Nini guessed at my condition, but assumed it was a happy occasion. Why wouldn’t they? Wasn’t I playing the part of a respectable married woman?

I did not venture into Funchal, not wanting to see Espirito. No invitations came from the house on Rua São Batista, and I was relieved.

As I began my fifth month, and felt the quickening of the child as I ran my hands over my newly rounded belly, hidden from Bonifacio beneath loose blouses and voluminous aprons, I tried to think of how I would survive when he cast me out.

The day I knew I could hide no longer was a Friday, dark and rainy. Although it was only early September, a sudden cool rain had blown in from the sea. Leaving Cristiano in the sitting room with his playthings, I had wrapped a shawl over my head and walked
into the field behind our cottage. On my way back, I stopped on a slight rise and looked down upon the quinta. Although the summer house was hidden by high trees, the rest of the buildings—the big estate house, the stables and pressing house and kitchen and wash house, the chapel, and my home—were all visible in the mist. I gazed at their outlines in the rain and knew that after today I might never see them again. I felt this world I had never imagined to be mine now slipping from my grasp.

The thought of telling Bonifacio made me so sick that I sat down in the tall, drenched grass and took deep breaths, my face wet with both rain and tears.

Once home, I changed into dry clothing. Bonifacio came in from work. We went down the path and ate dinner in the kitchen with the others. It appeared to be like every other night. Back in the cottage, I stayed with Cristiano in his room until he was asleep, fearing for him and his future as I feared for mine. I put my gutting knife into my waistband. And then I came back to the sitting room. It was still raining.

Bonifacio sat by the fire, staring into its flames.

“Bonifacio, I must speak to you.”

He glanced at me. “I’m weary, Diamantina. There was a problem with one of the shipments today, and all the paperwork had to be redone. Can it wait until morning?”

“No. It’s … it’s of utmost importance.” I sat across from him, my hands clasped to hide their trembling. Outside, the clouds roiled and churned, and I felt a dark cloud above us, one that would, within the next few moments, burst open and rain down all manner of despair.

Bonifacio looked from my face to my hands, then back to my face. “What’s wrong?”

He asked quietly, with a certain sense of concern, and in that instant I knew I would cry, even though I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t. That I would remain calm and focused, and speak in an ordinary voice, and accept Bonifacio’s reaction, however terrible.
I deserved it fully. And yet somehow the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, softer in the firelight than in harsh sunlight, started a sob in my throat. I would cry because I was about to tell him that I was a low woman. I had betrayed and deceived him in the worst way, and had no excuse except that I’d done it to help myself.

I put my hands over my face and wept.

He reached out and touched my hands, and I lowered them and looked at him. “Are you ill in some way, Diamantina?”

I took a deep breath, and wiped my eyes with my arm, and looked into his face. “I am with child.” I had to say it in one quick breath, one four-word sentence, or I wouldn’t be able to speak at all.

It appeared, for those first few seconds, that Bonifacio hadn’t heard me, or was still waiting, patiently, for me to speak. And then, slowly, his expression changed. I didn’t blink or look away. I faced him, sitting in front of the dying fire. The flames cast light upon my husband’s features, and as I watched him, he aged.

And then he sighed, heavily and deeply. He placed his hands together, as if about to pray, lowering his gaze, and then touched his lips to his fingertips. It wasn’t the reaction I had expected, nor was what he said next. “You will leave me, then?”

“Leave you?”

“You wish to be with this man, so go to him.” He was still looking downwards. “Leave Cristiano, take your things, and go. I shouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps I’m not.”

I stood. It sounded as though Bonifacio was giving me a choice. “Bonifacio, I don’t want to leave. I … the man … it’s—he’s not what I want.”

At this, his body grew rigid. He spread his hands on his thighs, the fingers flexing and relaxing, flexing and relaxing in an odd rhythm. “But it’s clear you did want him.
For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and smoother than oil is her speech; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword
,” he murmured.

“What?”

He looked up at me, his fury barely concealed now, and I drew in a deep breath, moving behind the settee. I had been waiting for this. He stood.
“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own
lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

I backed away, my hand on my knife as I glanced behind, measuring the distance to the door.

“Get out of here. Get out!” he shouted. “Sinner! Jezebel! Get out of my sight. You sicken me. Leave!” he shouted. Such was his look that I feared for my life.

I turned and fled, leaving the door swinging behind me.

I ran down the path, the wind lashing the trees. After a few minutes I had to stop, pressing a hand into the ache in my side. I looked behind me, but the wind in the trees made too much noise for me to hear whether Bonifacio was coming after me.

I envisioned running down to the yard and pounding on Binta’s door, or Nini’s or Raimundo’s. Surely they could shelter me from Bonifacio’s wrath. But as I approached the chapel, I was unable to run any more. I had not gone into it since the day Abílio had taken me on its floor. It could no longer be a place for comfort or contemplation. But now, gasping, my feet sliding on the wet gravel, I stumbled inside and shut the door, my back against it, trying to catch my breath.

After what felt like a long while, I slid down until I was sitting on the wooden floor. I was shaking violently with both cold and fear. Then I lay on my side, cradling my belly.

Bonifacio hadn’t come after me. I would wait here until morning’s first light, and then go down to the yard and tell Binta and Nini and Raimundo that my husband had cast me out. I would ask to stay with one of them just until I knew what to do.

I rose and went to the front and lit a candle with the flint always there. The Holy Mother’s face came into view. I went to my knees and clasped my hands.

“What have I done, Mother?” I whispered, looking up at her. “What have I done? Can you help me?”

With no warning, the door was flung open with a crash, and I leapt to my feet so quickly that for a dizzying second it was as
though two Bonifacios stood there, soaking wet. I blinked, seeing the branches behind him swaying and bending in the wind as though wildly dancing to an unheard melody. He had the appearance of one truly mad, his hair plastered against his forehead and his eyes wild. I took my knife from my waistband as he stepped inside. He slammed the door with such force that the small building shook, and in that instant his eyes widened as he looked behind me.

“No!” he shouted, lunging forward, and I lifted my knife above my head. But there was a thud, and he stopped, his expression stricken.

As I followed his gaze, I realized he hadn’t been coming for me, but trying to catch Our Lady of the Grapes. The slamming of the door had shaken her from her niche. She lay on the floor, the hand holding the grapes broken at the wrist.

Bonifacio dropped to his knees in front of her, praying in Latin. He murmured the same sentences over and over; I didn’t recognize them from the prayers during Mass.

I watched him as I stepped back towards the door.

But before I reached it, Bonifacio raised his head and got to his feet and tenderly lifted the small statue, setting it back in its niche. He picked up the hand with the grapes.

“It can be repaired,” he said quietly. He kissed the hand and set it beside the statue. “I will repair it tomorrow.”

He looked at me then, his face contorted with grief. “It is a sign,” he said. “The Lord has not yet forgiven me. Again he has set an obstacle in my path. I thought marrying you might help me in my quest for redemption. And maybe someday I will find it. But this”—he waved in the direction of Our Lady of the Grapes—“this is evidence of the work—the repairing of my soul—that still lies ahead. I understand that the work must involve allowing you to bear this bastard child.” He put his face into his hands. “And me accepting it.” His voice was muffled.

I stood without moving, my back against the door.

“Go back to the house,” he said, lifting his face and looking at me. “And put away your knife. You don’t have to fear me.”

I realized I still held the knife aloft, ready to strike. Would I have
driven it into him, maimed or even killed him in order to protect myself? I remembered my promise on the cliffs of Porto Santo.