The Devil on Her Tongue (65 page)

Bonifacio’s name never came to either of our lips.

It was Easter of 1755, and the da Silvas invited us for dinner.

I walked to their home with Candelária and Cristiano; Bonifacio said he would rather attend the Easter evening Mass, even though we had already gone to the morning service.

As Eduardo and Luzia and Espirito greeted us at the door, I felt that Luzia, standing so close as I kissed Espirito on each cheek in what I hoped appeared a sisterly fashion, would hear the pounding of my heart. He squeezed my waist with one hand before I stepped away, and I glanced in Luzia’s direction. But she was too caught up in the children, hugging them and exclaiming over their new Easter clothing.

It felt like a game—hiding our feelings for each other—that was both uncomfortable and exciting.

After we had eaten and while Espirito accompanied Eduardo on his usual walk to smoke his pipe, Luzia and I sat in the salon.

“Can I play with your jewels, Avó?” Candelária asked. It was one of her favourite pastimes when we visited. Luzia brought out the velvet box, and Candelária happily picked through the sparkling pieces, trying on rings and bracelets. She took the filmy black lace shawl Luzia had taken from her shoulders and set on the settee, and draped it over her head. “Look at me,” she said, her face solemn, a string of beads wrapped around her clasped fingers. “I’m a nun.”

We had watched a procession of nuns in the Easter Mass in church that morning. “You are a very pretty little nun for only four years old,” Luzia said.

“Nuns can’t be pretty,” Candelária announced gravely, pulling off the shawl.

“Why ever not?” Luzia asked.

“They are brides of Christ. Papa says a bride of Christ is the best thing for a girl to be, but he says if she’s pretty, she won’t be a good bride, because she’ll think more about herself than God.” She slid from the settee to join Cristiano, who was arranging Eduardo’s old metal soldiers in neat rows on the carpet in front of the fireplace.

I shook my head as I rearranged the jewellery in its box. “Bonifacio fills her head with strange thoughts.”

Luzia fingered her shawl and looked from Candelária to me. “You still haven’t had a reply from Sister Amélia?”

A few months earlier, as we walked together past Convento Catarina of the Cross, I had told Luzia about being friends with Sister Amélia on Porto Santo. “But she’s a Carmelite, if she’s from Catarina of the Cross,” Luzia had said. “How could you see her and speak to her?”

I had bent to fuss with Candelária’s hair as she sat in the small wheeled cart I was pulling. “Vila Baleira is very small. The rules are not as stringent as in Funchal Town. I write to her regularly, although I haven’t heard from her.”

Sister Amélia had told me, when I left, that she wouldn’t be allowed to receive letters, but that had been when Father da Chagos was alive. I hoped the new priest would take pity on her and pass on my letters. I often thought of her in the kitchen and her narrow cell, and hoped she still had the lovebirds to keep her company.

Now, as we sat in the salon, I told Luzia, “No. There’s been nothing. I’ve thought of going to Porto Santo, to see for myself if she’s all right. What if she’s ill, or perhaps … perhaps has even died, and I don’t know. She’s so alone, Luzia.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “We’ll go together to the Convento Catarina of the Cross, and speak to the Madre Superiora.”

Espirito and Eduardo returned, and now joined Candelária and Cristiano on the carpet to stage a mock battle with the metal soldiers. Watching them, Luzia shook her head.

“It does my heart good to see such a happy family gathering,” she said, and a flush of guilt ran through me. “I know Olívia watches from above and smiles her approval today.”

I went to the open window and looked out, unable to face Luzia at that moment. I wanted to grow wings and fly into the scudding clouds that blew over the sea. I didn’t deserve to be in the presence of this dear woman, unsuspecting of the shadowy truths in that sunlit room.

That evening, as I opened the bedroom door to see if Candelária had readied herself for bed as I’d asked, she looked up, startled, and tried to hide something under her blanket.

“Please show me what you have, Candelária.”

She slowly pulled out a Mass card with a picture of Saint Francis and handed it to me.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, sitting on her bed.

She shrugged, picking at the edge of the blanket.

I took her hand. Her palm was damp. “Candelária? I asked you where you got it.”

“Papa gave it to me.”

“For Easter?”

“No. He always gives them to me. He tells me who the Saint is, and what we must pray to him or her for. But I can’t always remember, Mama.” She rubbed her eyes. “I like the way Papa’s face looks when I remember, but when I can’t … I’m afraid that God will be angry with me when I can’t remember.”

“Papa has given many of these to you?”

She looked down, but in the instant before she lowered her gaze I saw something verging on panic. “Candelária? I want you to tell me.”

She slid off her bed and went to the little chest holding her playthings. She took out a handful of Mass cards and solemnly gave them to me. “Papa said it was our secret. But I don’t like the secret, Mama.” Her mouth trembled.

I sat in silence, looking down at the stack of cards, not wanting her to see the anger on my face. But it was difficult to hide my emotions from her.

“Are you mad at me, Mama? Is it a sin because I’ve told you the secret?” She got back onto the bed. “Papa says I must talk to God before I do anything I think is wrong, and wait for His answer, but …” Now the tears spilled from her eyes.

“But what, darling?” I said, setting down the cards and wiping her face.

“He doesn’t answer me. Papa always says if I’m a very good girl with only good thoughts, I’ll hear God’s voice, but if I’m evil, I won’t. He keeps asking me what God has told me, and if God has a message for him. He said I am a messenger from God, and I must tell him whatever God tells me. But I don’t hear His voice, Mama, even though I listen hard with my eyes closed so tight that sometimes they hurt.” Her smooth little brow furrowed. “Does it mean I’m evil?”

My poor child. “No. You’re not evil at all. Not one bit. You’re a very, very good girl.” And then I couldn’t speak any further, my own throat too heavy with the struggle not to weep. “Lie down,” I said, and covered her. “I’ll ask Papa not to give you any more prayer cards, all right? You go to sleep now, and think of the nice time we had at Avó’s today.”

She nodded, and I stayed with her until she slept.

I went to the sitting room. Bonifacio was at the table, whittling. I had never seen him do this before. As I came nearer, I saw he was whittling a cross from a soft piece of wood, whispering a prayer along with the steady rasp of the blade.

“What are you doing to her?” I demanded, throwing the prayer cards onto the table in front of him. “You’re frightening her. She’s only four years old.”

He slowly set the knife and the half-carved cross on the table amongst the cards. “Do you think I can look at her without seeing her as the child of an evil union?” he said. “She carries your blood, the blood of a fallen woman. She has said things to me that indicate she is possessed. And I have taken it upon myself, as a man of God,
to help her remain in a state of grace, and teach her to cast out sin with prayer.”

I stood in front of him, arms crossed. “She’s not possessed,” I whispered harshly, leaning towards him. “She’s clever. She’s just a clever little girl.”

In spite of my confident words, I had felt a chill when he spoke, wondering what Candelária had said, what unknowing comment—part of my mother’s legacy—she had made. But I would never admit that to Bonifacio.

“You should commit yourself to joining the inquisitors in Lisboa,” I said. “You would surely be the first to light the flame under the feet of those accused of heresy. You find great pleasure in feeling you are so far above others in your fervour. But I know better. Never forget that, Bonifacio. I know what happened in Tejuco, and what kind of man you really are. You strive to drive out what you see as evil around you, but we both know it was—is—inside you.”

His face flushed, and his eyes were too bright, as though he was fevered. “There
is
evil here, on the quinta, and in your daughter. And as I cannot carry out holy duties with the heathens of Brazil, I will carry them out here. I will cleanse this place of its evil.”

“What evil? What are you talking about?” I knew what he didn’t: that I had slept with Abílio here, that Abílio had killed Martyn Kipling, and had raped me. Those were evil doings, yes. But in spite of that, I felt the quinta to be a place of love. In spite of the pain Abílio Perez had caused here, I felt so much love: love for my daughter and for Cristiano, love for Espirito, love for the kind Binta and Nini and Raimundo, love for the beauty of the fields and forests and flowers.

“I will work with her as long as I can,” Bonifacio told me, “but there is a convent—Convento Teresa de Jesus—in Lisboa. It has a high reputation. They take very young girls, in order to start their religious training before they have seen and heard too much immorality.”

I blinked, staring at him. “My daughter? She’s not going to a convent, not at any age. So stop filling her head with any more thoughts that upset and confuse her. I won’t let you.”

In a sudden, unexpected move, he rose. As his chair tipped over, I backed away.

“Be very careful, Diamantina, about telling me what to do,” he said, picking up the half-formed cross. There was spittle on his lips. He made the sign of the cross in front of me with that rough piece of wood. “You tread a narrow path.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.” He sat down and picked up the knife. “I think you do,” he repeated, and then bent his head over the wood and slowly, carefully, worked on it.

A
few days later, I left Candelária with Binta and met Luzia in Funchal, as we had planned. Together, we went to Catarina of the Cross.

“The Sister’s name is Amélia Rodrigues de Bragança,” Luzia said to the Madre Superiora, glancing at me, and I nodded. “She has been on Porto Santo for possibly ten years or more. She has done her penance, surely. We are here to see if there is a possibility of her being returned to her home convent.”

“I remember her,” the Madre said. She rose and pulled a rope that hung by the door. A young Sister appeared, and they spoke quietly. The Madre came back to the desk, sat and folded her hands on it. She appeared to be waiting, and we did the same.

The Sister returned with a thick book, set it on the desk and stood to one side. The Madre opened it in the middle. She turned the pages with great slowness, and the Sister leaned forward. I realized that the old Madre Superiora was no longer able to read the tiny script, and the young Sister acted as her eyes.

At a small sound from the Sister, the Madre lifted her hand from the page. The Sister ran her finger down it. I strained to see what was written, but the book was upside down for me, and the writing faded.

The young nun tapped her finger against a line, then spoke into the Madre’s ear, so low that again I couldn’t hear.

The older woman nodded, and the Sister left. “Yes. Sister Amélia is indeed on Porto Santo. At Nossa Senhora da Piedade,” she said.

I had to clamp my lips shut so I didn’t utter a sound of impatience. Hadn’t Luzia just told her that?

“There is no indication here,” the Madre said, touching the open page, “that the penance could be ended. She will remain there.”

I breathed in through my nose, deeply, and looked at Luzia.

“Madre,” she said, leaning forward. “Perhaps on the mainland, the decisions of the Church are irreversible. But here, on the islands, surely the rules can be loosened.”

The Madre Superiora frowned. “Rules are rules.”

Luzia smiled. “Is there any … offering that can be made? Something that could benefit the convent?”

In the hot, still air of the room, I waited. Finally, the Madre Superiora spoke. “Occasionally, very occasionally, we can reverse a decision if it would benefit the holy sisterhood.”