The Devil on Her Tongue (79 page)

“But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t throw him into the water. If I were to do that, I would be part of this crime of taking the life of not
only a man, but a priest. And I am a servant of Christ,” he said, crossing himself. “And so I took him to the side steps of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, and left him there, so that he would have a burial proper for a Jesuit Father. I couldn’t bear to think of this man—a man of God—with no proper resting place. I knew the good Fathers at Mosteiro dos Jerónimos would care for him properly when they saw by his robe that he was a Jesuit.”

Dona Beatriz still hadn’t turned from the window.

“I worked all my life for your mother’s family, Dona Beatriz, and then I tried to carry out my duties for Dom Abílio. But I couldn’t do what he asked that night.”

Finally, Dona Beatriz turned and faced him. “Samuel. You did what you could. You tried to stop Abílio. And it was right to take Bonifacio to the church.”

Samuel looked at me. “I’m sorry, Senhora Rivaldo,” he said, lowering his head.

Dona Beatriz came to me. “Diamantina,” she said. Her face, in spite of its jerking dance, was soft with sympathy. “I’m sorry as well, truly sorry for what Abílio did to Bonifacio. I’m so, so sorry that because of Abílio, Bonifacio died alone, in such a terrible way, far from his home.” She put her arms around me then. “We have both lost our husbands.”

I left Dona Beatriz in the salon and went to Cristiano’s bedroom. I sat beside him and said that Bonifacio had unexpectedly met tragedy before he could leave for Brazil.

“Tragedy?” he repeated, and when I nodded, he said, “He’s dead?”

I looked into his face. “Yes.” How much to tell him—and to what end? In spite of his harsh feelings for Bonifacio, I didn’t want Cristiano to think of Bonifacio dying in such a horrible manner. But Cristiano didn’t ask me what happened. “Can we still live at Quinta Isabella?” he asked.

“I think so,” I told him. “Don’t worry about that now.”

We sat in silence for a while, and then I went to Candelária,
playing with her doll on the bed. I put Bonifacio’s pendant into her hands. “Candelária,” I said. “Papa went to God.”

She stared at me. “Not to Brazil?”

“He’s with God, in Heaven,” I said, then held my breath, waiting for her, as I had waited with Cristiano, to ask what had happened to him. But they had both seen so much death now.

She traced the starry sun with her fingertips. “Is Papa happy?” she whispered.

“I’m sure he’s happy.”

She nodded. “He always wanted to be with God. And he was good, so he will be in God’s Kingdom,” she stated, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Yes,” I said. “He only wanted to be with God, and now he is.”

The next morning was bright, the wind off the Tagus brisk, when Dona Beatriz, Cristiano, Candelária and I went to Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.

I left Candelária with Cristiano in the nave, and sought out the Monsignor. I spoke to him about the body of a Jesuit being left on the steps in the weeks preceding the earthquake.

“Yes. We did discover the body of a Jesuit Father on our steps. You are his family?” the man asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He was Father Bonifacio Rivaldo, a former missionary in Brazil. We have only now heard of his death, and that he was left here by … a friend.”

“I offer my deepest sympathy,” the Monsignor said. “There was no way to identify him, apart from his Jesuit robe. Because of his order, we arranged to have him taken to Igreja de São Roque, in Lisboa, to be interred. He was treated with great respect,” he added.

“São Roque is very lovely. It’s the oldest Jesuit church in Portugal,” Dona Beatriz said, squeezing my hand.

“I’m sorry to say that I haven’t yet heard if the church withstood the earthquake,” the Monsignor said. “I could dedicate a funeral Mass to Father Bonifacio here, if that would be of comfort.”

When I nodded, he said, “I will arrange it.”

As the four of us walked out of the church, we passed the mural at the front of the monastery. As a former sailors’ church, there were many engravings of sea life—sailing ships and anchors, patterns of knotted ropes, fish and sirens.

Candelária stopped in front of a
sereia
with long flowing hair and swishing tail, lips curved up in a smile. “This is a picture of Avó Shada,” she said, tracing the mermaid’s outline with her fingertips. I realized it was the depiction Candelária had repeatedly drawn in the earth when I put up the headstone for my mother, the image my mother had drawn on her own body: the forked tail and waves.

Was this my mother’s story, then, her myth? That she had become a mermaid when thrown from the Algerian ship, and washed up on the shores of Porto Santo, losing her tail to earthly legs? That she hadn’t wanted to go back into the water before she was ready to return to the depths whence she had come?

Candelária looked up at me with her shining dark eyes. “It looks like Avó Shada swimming in the water. She likes it there,” she added, and then kissed her fingertips and touched them to the long-haired siren, and we walked from the church, into the crisp, fresh-smelling November air.

T
he sweet smell of laurel and tamarisk filled the air as Candelária added more branches to the fire.

My daughter was past fourteen, and a woman now. We had come alone to Porto Santo, although Espirito had offered to sail with us from Funchal.

As dusk fell, we walked down the beach to Ponta da Calheta, where my hut had once stood. Later we would return to Vila Baleira and spend the night with Rooi and Palma. Rooi was losing his sight and becoming forgetful, but when we stepped into the inn earlier in the day, he spread his arms in welcome and reminded all that I am the Dutchman’s daughter. He charmed Candelária with stories of his long-ago life in Nederland, tales of snow and ice and skating on the canals, as my father had once charmed me.

Now the bonfire was high and bright. Barefoot, Candelária and I walked around it three times. I had always told her that when the time was right, I would bring her back to the place I grew up to mark her, as she had long begged, as my mother had marked me. I consented to three small images, and brought a small pot of powdered antimony and another of indigo, and a fine, sharp needle.

“I want the mermaid symbol for your mother, and the vines for you,” she said.

“And what mark do you choose for yourself, Candelária?”

“This,” she said, and with a stick, drew what looked to be a feather surrounded by stars into the sand. I didn’t ask her what it meant; it was hers to know. “Look at the moon,” she said now,
pointing at the rising orb above the water’s horizon. “It seems even brighter here than from the quinta.”

I watched the moon, knowing that its light shone through the cottage bedroom window onto Espirito and our son—Arie Vitorino Rivaldo—the little boy born to us as though a miracle only a few years ago.

I thought of the moon shining into one of the small servant homes at Quinta Isabella, where Cristiano and his new wife lived. I saw it glow into the gracious rooms of Eduardo and Luzia, who were Avô and Avó to our son as they were to Candelária.

When word had come, six years ago, that Abílio Perez had died in Oporto, ravaged by syphilis, Dona Beatriz and Henry married, and formally merged their families and their businesses into Kipling and Duncan. Now they spent their time between Lisboa and Quinta Isabella, with Leandro, at fifteen, working alongside Henry in preparation for one day carrying on the Madeira enterprise.

At the time of the merger of the wine lodges, Espirito and I had gone to Dona Beatriz and Henry and offered to buy the second Kipling
adega
. “We will pay what we can now,” I’d said, “and work to pay off the rest.”

Dona Beatriz and Henry accepted the offer, and Henry added, with a laugh, “With you and Espirito and Cristiano all working there now, you may as well rename it Rivaldo’s Wine Merchants.”

We did.

A wave washed over my feet, and I looked away from the moon and at my daughter. “This is where my mother found my father.”

“Right here?”

“At first she thought him a dead pirate.”

“Could he have been a pirate?” Candelária’s voice rose in excitement. “Maybe he—”

“No, you know he was a sailor,” I said, smiling, “thrown from his ship and miraculously surviving. But I’ve never told you that when he opened his eyes and saw my mother, he thought he had died, and she was an angel.” Another wave broke over our ankles, wetting our skirts. “I always liked that part of the story.” The moon was reflecting in my daughter’s eyes, and I felt my mother’s presence. “And
you know how she came to this beach, weaving through the water to the shore like a mermaid.”

She smiled back at me. “That’s my favourite part of the story.”

I took her hand. “My parents were both gifts from the sea.”

She nodded. “Make my marks now, Mama. It’s long past my time,” she said, pulling on my hand, and together we walked back to the fire, the flames pulsing into the warm night air as they whispered the memories of my mother’s past, and the secrets of my daughter’s future.

P
art of the challenge—and excitement—in writing fiction inspired by history is bringing the place and time alive in the pages so readers become immersed. Many people provided insight and guidance in furthering my understanding of life in Portugal and the Madeira Archipelago over two hundred and fifty years ago. Any errors are mine.

My thanks to the people of Porto Santo for your welcome and your openmindedness concerning the characters I created who might have lived on your island. On Madeira, thank you to the city of Funchal, with your fascinating chronicles of sea exploration and wine production. The knowledgeable guides at the Blandy Wine Lodge helped me envision the scenes for Kipling’s wine lodge. On mainland Portugal, thank you to Rui Carvalho at Vinihold in Vila Nova de Gaia for sharing your expertise on winemaking.

And thank you Lisbon, glorious Lisbon, for your passionate history and for nights of
fado
. Uncovering the stories of Lisbon’s 1755 earthquake and tsunami furthered my desire to write about this era.

My gratitude also goes to Albino Silva of Toronto for the use of your home in Ferragudo in the Algarve of Portugal. The first startling images for Diamantina’s story came into my mind as I stood on the windswept, most southwestern point of land at Cabo de San Vincente near Sagres.

Both inspiration and special insights came from
Madeira, the Island Vineyard
by Noel Cossart;
The Blandys of Madeira
by Marcus Binney;
Madeira: Of Islands and Women
by Susanna Hoe; Jose
Saramago’s
Baltasar and Blimunda; The Madness of Queen Maria
by Jennifer Roberts;
Letters of a Portuguese Nun
by Myriam Cyr; and
Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century
by Júnia Ferreira Furtado. I was enlightened by travelogues and old photos found in bookstores and museums in Lisbon and Belém, as well as in the Christopher Columbus Museum in Vila Baleira on Porto Santo. On Madeira, the Madeira Ethnographic Museum in Ribeira Brava and the Madeira Story Centre in Funchal were huge sources of information that helped me understand and visualize life in Funchal and in the island’s villages and quintas in the eighteenth century.

Thank you to my agent, Sarah Heller, for your support and encouragement. Thanks also to Camilla Ferrier and Jemma McDonagh at the Marsh Agency in London for ushering my work into the wider world.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Anne Collins, for her generosity and meticulous attention to detail in gently guiding this story onto the right paths. My appreciation also goes to the book’s copy editor, John Sweet; its brilliant designer, Terri Nimmo; its managing editor, Deirdre Molina; Michelle Roper, whose help chasing images was invaluable; my publicist, Shona Cook; and the rest of the team at Random House Canada, for their many and varied contributions.

As always, a huge thank you to my dear extended family and my understanding friends, for bearing with me during the writing times, tolerating and forgiving my silences and absences.