The Devil on Her Tongue (55 page)

“Why do you cry?” Binta asked me now.

“I’m crying?” I asked, and reached up to touch my face. My fingers came away wet.

Candelária wailed lustily, her voice filling the room.

“You know how this sadness comes to some women after childbirth,” Binta said above the baby’s howls, “but you can’t let it hold you. Would some of your own medicine help this afterbirth sadness?”

“I have no more,” I whispered. I had plundered my medicines to assuage my grief over my father for those weeks before Candelária’s birth. I’d drunk my diluted powders to let myself drift above the bed with a sense of both weight and weightlessness, eventually falling into deep, dreamless sleeps. I had eaten all the opium, floating in a cloudy stream of colours and images that didn’t let in thoughts of my father’s death, or of the coming child. Oh, the child.

“It’s time to feed your baby,” Binta said, and put Candelária into my arms.

I held her loosely, watching her as she nursed, and wanted, with all my heart, to feel more than sorrow.

The next day, I heard voices outside the cottage. Candelária lay in her padded basket beside me on the bed.

I sat up at a quiet knock on the bedroom door. It opened, and Senhora da Silva looked in at me, smiling. “Diamantina? We have come to see the baby. May we come in?” She entered the bedroom without waiting for me to reply. Espirito followed, carrying Olívia,
whose elegant face had withered further. He gently set her on the chair near the bed.

“Are you all right?” he asked her, and she nodded.

The bedroom, although spacious, felt too crowded. I struggled to breathe evenly.

Senhora da Silva took my hands and kissed me on either cheek. “Bonifacio only informed us of the birth yesterday, when Espirito asked about you. When we learned she was almost two weeks old … well, we didn’t want you to think we weren’t pleased for you.” When she brushed back my hair, I realized what a dishevelled state I was in, but didn’t care. “You’re very pale,” she said. “And your eyes … do your eyes pain you?”

I nodded; they were sore from weeping.

“The birth was difficult?” she asked, compassion in her voice.

I turned my face, not wanting to see how Espirito and Olívia looked at me.

“We’re sorry, aren’t we, Olívia, that we weren’t told sooner,” Senhora da Silva said, and I heard Olívia’s quiet “Yes.”

I looked at her again. She was so much weaker since I’d seen her last. Espirito stood beside her, his hand on the back of the chair.

“May I hold her?” Senhora da Silva asked and, once more without waiting for my permission, reached into the basket and picked up the baby. “What name have you and Bonifacio chosen?”

Bonifacio hadn’t even told them what I’d named her. “Candelária.”

“She’s a beautiful child,” Senhora da Silva said. “She doesn’t have your colouring, but there’s something of you about the mouth and chin. Come and see her, Espirito. Does she look anything like your mother?”

“It’s hard to tell,” he said, coming to stand beside his mother-in-law.

“I don’t see anything of Bonifacio at all,” Senhora da Silva continued, studying her. She pulled away the warm blanket to look at the soft little wool gown Nini had made for her. Candelária stretched her legs, waving her bare feet in the air. “Oh,
meu bebê
, such long legs,” Senhora da Silva cooed, and Espirito took a step back.

“Excuse me,” he said abruptly, and left the room.

I stared after him, then glanced at Olívia.

“He wanted a child as much as I did,” she said. “And some days, under some circumstances, even …” She touched her lips with her gloved fingers. “Even on such a happy occasion as this, his grief surfaces unexpectedly.” Her face was white and damp, like plaster on a humid day.

“I’m sorry, Olívia.” I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for.

She looked towards the door, then back at me. “You needn’t apologize for having a child,” she said, and I dully watched as she held out her arms and Senhora da Silva placed Candelária in them.

As Olívia looked down at Candelária, she said, “A child is always a blessing. I will only see this little girl as a blessing.”

Senhora da Silva sat beside me and patted my hand. “It’s all right to cry, Diamantina. Cry for the wonder of God’s will and His mysterious ways.”

To my horror, my quiet crying turned to sobs. “My father died,” I said, too loudly, the words somehow shocking in the quiet room where the talk was of the baby and new life. I had no warning I would speak of my father. I covered my face with my hands.

Senhora da Silva cried out, “No!” and put her arms around me and rocked me. She made soft sounds of comfort, and I leaned against her and wept as if I had received the letter announcing my father’s death that very day.

“Olívia,” she said quietly, “take the baby to the sitting room.”

After a long while, listening to the slow beat of her heart against my face, my breathing calmed, and I could cry no more. Senhora da Silva wiped my face with her own lacy handkerchief, smelling of lavender. “Now,” she said softly, giving me the handkerchief. “We will mourn the loss of your father, but as we also celebrate the birth of your child, you must remember that he lives on through her.”

I hadn’t even thought of that simple, comforting notion, and nodded.

“What was your father’s name?”

“Arie. Arie ten Brink,” I said, his name stuttering in my throat.

“A Dutchman? Ah. Yes, of course. The hair and eyes. And yet your skin … it’s such a rich colour—from your mother?”

I nodded.

“And you loved your father very much,” she stated. “Is he buried on Porto Santo?”

“He sailed to Brazil a number of years ago. I was to go to him there, one day. But he died before …” I tried to take a deep breath, my chest heaving, and again Senhora da Silva held me.

“How will we mourn him, buried so far from here?” she asked. We sat in silence for a few moments. Then she said, “Perhaps you could inquire of Senhor Perez if you could put a marker in the graveyard at the chapel of Nossa Senhora das Uvas here on the quinta. It would be a place for you to pray and remember him, and find comfort, as we do when we visit the graves of our loved ones.”

I thought of the three stone markers—Dona Beatriz’s family—in the shady, fenced cemetery at the side of the pretty little chapel.

“And your mother? She is buried on Porto Santo?”

I thought of my mother floating away from me.

“You could put up a marker for her as well,” Senhora da Silva said.

I nodded.

“Does your little girl look like your mother? There’s a lovely shape to her eyes.”

I had forgotten the beautiful almond contour of my mother’s eyes. “Yes. Candelária’s eyes are shaped like my mother’s. Her eyes were green. Dark green.”

“We can’t always tell with a newborn. Perhaps Candelária’s eyes will be green too.”

I knew Senhora da Silva was trying to keep me talking, trying to keep me from falling back into my near-hysterical weeping.

“We will plan the baptism. I assume you and Bonifacio will wish Espirito and Olívia to be the godparents?”

I took a deep breath.

“And if you will allow it, I would like to be known as Avó to the baby.”

I stared at her, her damp handkerchief balled in my hand. “You wish Candelária to call you grandmother?”

“The poor child has no living grandparents. She isn’t our blood, but she is our son-in-law’s blood, and this is as close as we will come
to being grandparents. I have already asked Olívia and Espirito their opinion, and they do not disapprove. Would you speak to Bonifacio about it, and ask his permission?”

Poor Senhora. I was deceiving her as well. “Of course you shall be Avó. Bonifacio won’t care,” I said truthfully.

“And I wish you to call me by my given name, Luzia. It would bring us all closer, don’t you think?” she asked wistfully. “I’m not going to allow you to lie here alone, grieving. It’s terrible that you’ve had to bear this news with only Bonifacio to comfort you, and he’s …” She stopped, then straightened, smoothing her bodice over her ample bosom. “Well. Certainly he’s been some comfort.”

I hadn’t told Bonifacio about my father’s death.

“I’m going to visit you every day, until you are weary of me and tell me to stay away,” she said, smiling. “And I am going to spoil that sweet child, and maybe, if you’ll allow me, I’ll spoil you a little, as I spoil my own daughter. Every young woman needs a mother at the time she becomes a mother herself. You’ll see. Soon you’ll feel better,” she announced, with complete authority.

The next day, Luzia came, as promised, and took charge. She asked Binta to send Cristiano home, and I was surprised at how his presence helped to prod me from my darkness.

A few days later, Luzia brought Candelária a beautiful baptism gown of finest linen, gathered with bows and ribbons, and a handsome suit of clothes for Cristiano. The week following, I rose from my bed, and sat on the sofa while Luzia played cards with Cristiano as Candelária, bathed and fed, slept deeply in her basket beside me. I felt as though I were recovering from a terrible illness, one that had ravaged not just my body but also my spirit. Some days I still wept, but more and more time went by without morbid thoughts. Each day, Luzia stayed until Bonifacio returned from Funchal, and then she walked down to the yard, where Eduardo waited for her with a cart and ox to take her home.

When Candelária was five weeks old, we had a family baptism,
held in Our Lady of the Grapes with a priest from Funchal officiating. I knew that Bonifacio hadn’t given up the notion that Espirito was Candelária’s father, and he watched me more closely than ever whenever Espirito’s name was mentioned, or when he was in our presence.

Bonifacio stared at Espirito while he held Candelária, and a small thump of danger beat in my throat, standing in the chapel near the spot where Candelária had been conceived. Then Bonifacio studied Candelária as the priest anointed her. I saw only her small, tidy nose, the pursed pink lips, the smooth little eyebrows. He couldn’t see something I didn’t, could he? I didn’t like how he looked at her. I was surprised at the sudden wave of fierce protectiveness I felt for this tiny new being, something I’d never expected to feel.

Later, between Cristiano’s excitement at the sweets Luzia had brought for him, and the passing around of Candelária so everyone could admire her gown and the tiny gold cross Espirito and Olívia had given her as a baptism gift, I hoped that no one noticed that Bonifacio was the only person who did not hold Candelária.