The Devil on Her Tongue (74 page)

We passed a cemetery with the graves heaved up, the smell of raw earth and the putrefaction from the broken caskets so powerful I had to cover my nose with my arm. Bones and skulls lay about, and, horror of horrors, already the looters were at work, their greed more powerful than the reek of death and decay. Their faces covered with strips of cloth against the stench, men calmly picked through the decomposing flesh and bones and wormy rags to remove the jewels of the dead, pulling off cold, rotting fingers and ears to more easily remove the rings and ear bobs.

In contrast, priests knelt, giving absolution to the dying. As we walked out of Lisboa with those limping and bleeding, those half naked, those carrying dead children in their arms, the flames burned all around us, moving in red waves before my eyes, and the very air felt bloodstained.

T
he ground continued to shake in sudden small starts and fits, and at every tremor, cries of
“Terremoto!”
again filled the air. Cristiano was limping heavily. We passed a huge shaggy dog with blood on its fur, flies already gathering, bound to its master by a leather strap wrapped tightly around the dead man’s arm. The animal struggled and whimpered, maddened by the smells of blood and death around him. Cristiano stopped and pulled the leather strap free, untying it from the animal’s neck. The dog shook himself, sending droplets of blood flying, and then stood looking up at Cristiano. I touched his arm, and we started again, the dog following.

As we passed a marker along the road to Alcántara, I turned once to look back at Lisboa, and could see only a cloud of dust and smoke too vast to describe. A man came towards us. Everyone else was walking out of Lisboa, but he walked towards it. I grabbed his arm. “Convento Teresa de Jesus,” I said. “Have you passed it? Does it still stand?”

One of the man’s ears had been torn from his head. The wound was thickly scabbed. He looked at me, using a strip of rag to polish a silver button he held.

“Is it standing?” I asked again, but he kept polishing the button.

He held it in front of my face. “Have you seen a button like this?” he asked, and then said, “Teresa de Jesus? Rubble. Nothing but rubble. If you find my button, will you let me know?”

“Don’t listen, Diamantina,” Cristiano said, pulling on my arm as I stood, one hand over my mouth. “He’s lost his mind. We have to keep going.”

Outside the convent, filthy water littered with unspeakable debris swirled against the grey walls. Although parts of the main building still stood firm, there was obvious damage to the roof. A jumble of stone and tile was spilled along one entire side. I waded through the ankle-high water to the door, and put up my fist to pound on it, but at the first touch it swung open. I went inside and saw a novice, wandering the empty corridor.

“Where are the children?” I asked her. “The children from the orphanage.”

The novice looked at me, blinking tearfully. She was perhaps a little older than Cristiano. Her head scarf was torn and marked with something oily, and there was a gash on the back of her hand. Her bottom lip trembled.

I grabbed her arm and shook it.

She looked down at my hand, streaked with ash, nails broken and rimmed with blood, and then up at me with something like surprise.

“Where is my child? Her name is Candelária. She is almost five, and in the orphanage.” I shook her arm a second time, and then a third, and finally she flinched.

“We were all in the church, for the All Saints’ Day Mass,” the girl said, “but the smallest girls were in the chapter house beside it, because they—”

“Were they hurt?” I cried now, my voice hoarse with smoke and fear.

“I don’t know … the Abbess … she’s dead, and I don’t know …” She stared at me as if waiting for me to tell her what to do. I knew she was suffering from shock, and I tried to speak more calmly.

“Can you take me to the youngest girls?” I asked, and she nodded.

She turned and started down the hallway, but then stopped and looked at me. “The Abbess is dead,” she repeated. “Others are dead. None of us know what to do.”

“It will be all right,” I encouraged, trying to keep her moving.

She opened a door, and as I pushed her aside and went in, at first
I only saw little girls lying on the hard stone floor. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead. A few sisters moved between them. Then I grew aware of sobbing and wailing, and the overpowering smell of urine and blood and vomit. Some of the children had parts of their heads or bodies wrapped in gauzy linen, and still blood seeped through. Others lay unmoving. The light was strangely bright, and I looked up at the pale, desolate sky through the hole in the roof.

I walked among the children. They all looked alike, in their filthy brown tunics and white blouses, all with dark hair. I stooped and looked into the faces of little girls, some with eyes wide and terrified and in pain, others with eyes closed and too still. One lay on her back, staring at that white sky with the unmistakable gaze of death, and I bent and closed her lids with my palm.

And then there she was, on her side with her back to the room. How could I have thought I wouldn’t recognize her? Of course I knew my daughter’s hair, her back, the way she liked to draw up her top leg and stretch out the bottom one. I spoke her name, and when she didn’t move, I dropped to my knees and put my hand on her shoulder. It tensed, and I let out a long cry and she sat up, and turned, and the look on her face … I cannot describe it without weeping.

She flung herself against me and I held her, weeping into her soft hair while her small, busy fingers combed through my tangles, and she said, “Mama, Mama, it’s all right, don’t cry. I knew you were coming for me. I knew you would come,” she kept saying, comforting me—her comforting me—until I could no longer kneel but stood and picked her up as I had when she was smaller. Now her long legs dangled against me. She had, in the last year, grown too tall to be carried easily, but on this day she was light in my arms as I carried her out of the rubble and away from the weeping and praying, out into the air, where Cristiano waited, the big dog sitting beside him.

It was growing dark by the time we finally arrived on the outskirts of Santa Maria de Belém, because where else were we to go? I heard, as we walked, that the area had not been badly affected. All along
the way there was debris from the waves, splintered timber from broken boats and occasionally a larger vessel grounded. Worse was what the water had carried from Lisboa, and I often pressed Candelária’s face against my skirt or urged Cristiano to pick her up and hide her face against his shoulder as we passed corpses, some already being feasted upon by vultures and stray dogs. Carts bumped along the road, carrying the bodies of the dead or those who still breathed.

The open spaces around the parish were filled with crowds of people. Braziers and torches had been lit to show the way. Already priests and nuns were handing out bread and blankets. I turned again to look at Lisboa. The whole city was ablaze, the flames reflected in the eyes of those who watched in silent grief. The earth still trembled, and at each tremor there were muted, weary cries.

Candelária was too pale, and Cristiano’s face was fixed in exhaustion as he slowly hobbled to a patch of grass with Candelária. The dog followed, then sat and licked one paw.

“We’ll stay here tonight, and tomorrow we will go to Dona Beatriz.” I couldn’t remember how to get to her home, or how much farther it was; I only knew we couldn’t go on. I left the children and got blankets and bread and flagons of water. We lay under the night sky, and within moments both Candelária and Cristiano slept. I was between them, Candelária held against one side and Cristiano’s back curled against the other, and although my body was desperate for rest, my mind would not be stilled.

All around us, people cried and coughed and prayed. The night breeze brought the smell of charred flesh, and I inhaled the ash of those who only that morning had lived and breathed, who knew desires and dreams. The dog lay at my feet, and at one point I sat up and held on to his stinking, matted fur, as though he anchored me to the tilting earth.

And I did finally sleep, and dreamed of strangers whispering to me, their voices rising and falling in the heavy, death-filled air.

I opened my eyes to light streaming down, another bright, sunny day, as yesterday had begun. Candelária and Cristiano slept on, and I touched their faces, their hair, marvelling that we had all survived.

And then I stood and looked towards Lisboa. It still burned, its fires fanned by a strong northeast wind.

The dog had gone.

I was relieved to see that the buildings of Santa Maria de Belém were still standing. Some showed cracks, and glass littered the ground from broken windows, but on the whole the parish had survived the earthquake.

Unlike the frenzied chaos of Lisboa, here there was still order. We went slowly through the wide streets, Candelária beside me, clinging to my skirt. Cristiano leaned on a gnarled stick, and I remembered how he had once held my skirt in Curral das Freiras as my daughter did today. With the help of strangers, I found Dona Beatriz’s home.

Samuel opened the door when I pulled on the cord. Before I could speak, his eyes widened and he tried to shut the door. I struck my palms against it and pushed back. “Wait,” I said. “Samuel, wait. It’s me, Senhora Rivaldo. Diamantina, and Cristiano. And Candelária,” I said. “Look, it’s Candelária.”

The elderly man stood back, nervous and uncertain. “I’m sorry, Senhora Rivaldo. I’m not to allow anyone in.”

“Please get Dona Beatriz,” I demanded.

“She’s at the chapel of Santa Ana, handing out bread to those in need.”

“Is Senhor Perez here?”

He shook his head.

I gripped Candelária’s hand tighter. “Samuel,” I said, “please. Look at us. We’ve come all the way from Lisboa. You know I’m a friend.”

He looked at Candelária for a moment longer, then stood aside to let us pass.

C
ristiano had been shown to one bedroom, and Candelária and I to another. Warm water was brought for us to bathe. I dressed Candelária in her pale blue gown, and she held her rag doll as I brushed her clean, wet hair.

“Make sure you put on your boots,” I told her. “You can’t run about in bare feet. This is not the quinta—it’s a fancy house.” I turned her to face me. “Do you understand? You must always wear your boots while we’re here.”