The Devil on Her Tongue (6 page)

The shopkeepers wouldn’t let me put any food or supplies on what was once my father’s
rol
. They would accept nothing from me but coins, and after four months the réis my father had left were gone. But I was able to keep us from going hungry.

As well as the food I was given by the women I helped, I could throw a net and gather the creatures from the sea, and I could trap. Long ago I had learned to walk as silently as my mother. I could sit without moving for an endless time, even slowing my breath so that my chest did not rise and fall as I inhaled or exhaled, and in this way I became invisible to the creatures of Porto Santo.

I knew where the seabirds built their nests in the pebbles and scrub at the base of the cliffs and sat, patiently, for hours. I become a gnarled tree, a rock, a petrified sand sculpture. Sometimes my hair was ruffled by the beat of wings as a bird descended to her nest. And then in one deft movement I threw my net over her just as she was settling, and picked up the fluttering, panicked creature, holding her wings through the netting, my thumbs against her warm head, calming her. I stroked that small knob of skull and then broke the neck with one quick twist.

I sat beside the aromatic shrubs and brambles on Pico do Facho where rabbits hid from the circling buzzards and kestrels. When I detected one of the creatures, I reached through the thorns with a single quick movement. Pulling out the wriggling animal, holding it tightly with one hand, I sliced the slender beating throat with my gutting knife so quickly the rabbit had little time for fear.

I always felt sorrow for the death of the innocent creature and, holding the limp body of the bird or rabbit aloft, I thanked it for feeding my mother and me.

I also sometimes crept along the high dunes and settled myself into the grasses and sand, wearing my invisibility, and watched Abílio help his father with their nets or cutting up the catch.

One afternoon as I searched along the bottom of a high, towering cliff for nests, looking to snare a bird for our supper, I heard plaintive cries from above. I shaded my eyes and squinted into the brilliant sun, but could see nothing. I climbed up on my hands and knees to find a nanny goat stranded on a narrow ledge. She must have slipped down from the rocks above. On my knees, I was able to tie my sling around her neck and tug and coax her down the slippery rock. My own bare feet slid in the scree as I pulled her, her front hooves wide apart, her head up, bleating in fear. When we were at the bottom, I recognized the marking on her back: she belonged to the Fontinhas, who lived at the far northeast end of the island, Pico Branco. They were a prosperous family with a large herd of goats, and Senhora Fontinha sold her milk and butter and cream in the market every Tuesday. This nanny must have broken from the pen and come all the way across the island. I reasoned that one goat would not make a difference to the Fontinhas, but she would to my mother and to me. I cut away the painted fur with my gutting knife and then, using my sling as a halter, led her down to the beach. Abílio rose from the bench outside his hut, putting down the net he was repairing to walk with me.

“You’ve bought a goat, Diamantina? Where did you get that much money?”

I said nothing.

He ran his hand over the newly cut patch on her back. “Did you steal her?”

“I don’t steal.”

“Really? But you couldn’t have bought her,” he repeated.

I tugged harder on the sling, and the goat’s feet scrambled in the sand.

“You do what you like, don’t you, Diamantina?” He crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head to one side. “Being a heathen, and with no fear of either the confessional or God’s wrath, it appears you have no sense of right and wrong.”

I stopped, looking into his face. “I know the difference between right and wrong. Do you, Abílio?” He both angered and intrigued me. “Keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“Enjoy your fresh milk, then,” he called after me as I broke into a run, pulling the goat behind me, bleating and complaining.

At our hut, I tied her securely to a rock with a length of tarred rope.

My mother came out of the hut and held the goat’s head in her hands.

“I found her,” I said.

My mother stared into the goat’s face as it tossed its head, trying to pull away from her grip. But after a few moments it grew very still, and finally the wide-set, ochre eyes closed. “She tells me she called you to her,” she said, raising her eyes to mine. “As you were a blessing to her, now she will be a blessing to us.” She stroked the goat’s nose, and the yellow eyes opened again.

“Then we will call her Benedita,” I said.

I still talked to my father as I wandered the hills or the beach, telling him whatever was on my mind, thinking of small stories that would amuse him. Grief sat heavily in me. Although my mother was not unkind, it was not her nature to speak of frivolous matters, or smile fondly at me, as my father had.

I knew there would not be a letter from him for a long time. It could take five to six months for a ship to sail from Funchal to Brazil, longer if storms blew the ship off course. By the time he was settled and his letter made the return trip, it would be a year and more.

And yet, like a miracle, Father da Chagos stopped me as I crossed the square one afternoon only five months after my father had left. “I have something for you.” He held out a folded square.

My breath caught in my throat. “A letter from my father? But how could it come already?” I smiled at him as I took it, but my smile faded at the broken wax seal. “You opened it?”

“I cannot read your father’s language,” he said, then turned.

I watched the priest walk away, trying to feel angry with him for attempting to read what my father had written to me. I stared at the paper and told myself to wait, to take it home and read it aloud with my mother. But I was too excited. Standing in the middle of the square, I unfolded it.

“My dearest Diamantina,”
I read, and at the sight of his familiar hand a small cry escaped my lips. I heard his voice, and the extent to which I missed him struck me, fresh and painful.

I ran all the way down the beach to read the letter to my mother. She listened, burning wormwood and watching the smoke. “You will not leave here with your father’s help,” she finally said, and I slammed my hands onto the table.

“Why can’t you let me be happy about the letter?”

She put a cover over the smoking bowl. “It’s your choice to be
happy or not. And you will leave Porto Santo. But you shouldn’t wait for Arie to make it possible.”

I made an angry sound in my throat, turning from her. Before I put the letter between the pages of one of the bound collections of sea charts my father had left for me, I kissed it.

Because my woman’s time had coincided closely with my father’s departure, it was as though my girlhood had disappeared with him. When I was little, the other girls had stared at me when I walked through town with him. Now I watched them walking with their arms linked, chirping and twittering like flocks of busy birds, accompanied by their mothers or aunts or grandmothers. They had dowries and would marry, their partners chosen by their parents from among the island boys. The girls and their husbands would make homes and have children. Sometimes I stood at the edge of a celebrating crowd outside the church and studied the young brides, knowing I would never be such a one.

And yet I liked my differences. Being taller than all of the other girls gave me the feeling that I was also more capable. I liked that I did not wear my skirt so tightly cinched at the waist or hide the fair sheen of my hair so carefully under a kerchief. I was glad the jewellery I made for myself from what I found washed up on the beach was so much more abundant and eyecatching than the simple crosses the girls wore around their necks. I was glad I did not have to cover my head with a piece of lace and put on shoes and spend a sunny morning kneeling for Mass. I walked with long, sure strides, swinging my arms, telling myself I had more freedom than the other girls would ever know.

But without my father to share my thoughts, I sometimes could not convince myself of the benefits of my freedom. At times a blackness came over me. That summer, as was usual on the nights of the religious festivals, the square was filled with flowers and strung with fluttering white flags bearing the red Order of Christ. The good ladies of the parish prepared huge feasts, and the men
brought out their stringed instruments and tambourines. And on these nights I allowed myself moments of disappointment and sorrow. My father had taken me to these
arraiais
, and even though we were not accepted in the church community, after the Mass and procession we were allowed to partake in the festivities.

My mother never accompanied us. She cared little about being part of the larger picture of the island.