The Devil on Her Tongue (62 page)

“I am threatening you. If you don’t like my terms, then tell Bonifacio about Candelária. Take off your boots and show him. He’ll quit. You’ll be without a head of the Counting House—an efficient and honest man, whom you know has benefited Kipling’s more than most would. You will lose me, and your wife and Henry Duncan will be most unhappy. We’ll move away from the quinta, and again, Dona Beatriz will wonder why, won’t she? You know we correspond regularly, that she awaits my reports on the state of the house and land. Would you like to tell her why Bonifacio and I left Kipling’s? Not that you would tell the truth, for you are so used to lies that they come more easily than truths, but don’t worry. I’ll do it. I’ll tell her that while she lay in bed recovering from childbirth, or mourning the death of her father, you forced yourself upon me, and I bore your child as a result. She won’t question me, Abílio, knowing the kind of man you are. Do you think she doesn’t write to me of your escapades with the whores of Lisboa and Oporto? So. Do you relish living with her fury at this? Do you not fear she might take things a step further in terms of how she views your role in the business?” I pressed even harder with the tip of the knife, and this time there was a spurt, and Abílio cried out in anger and alarm. I kept pressing. “Do you not, Abílio, fear that I could bring your life down to a level you can’t imagine?”

“Diamantina, you’ve lost your mind.”

“I’m very clear right now, Abílio, and I’ll say all I want to say. There was no way I could prove that you stole the oil of fleabane from my medicine bag and put it into Martyn Kipling’s wine, but if I ever choose to tell Dona Beatriz that truth, she’ll believe it as well. Because she knows by now that you’re capable of doing anything to get what you want.”

A log fell in the fireplace. Abílio’s blood continued to flow.

“And you aren’t capable of doing anything to get what you want as well?” he said, against the knife. “Have I not told you, more than once, that we are alike?”

At that, I grabbed his genitals and moved the knife, in one quick movement, from his throat to the front of his breeches. “I would suggest that if you want to keep bedding women, you do not bother me again.” I gripped tighter, the leather smooth against my palm, and his face contorted. As I pressed the blade against him, he stared at me. “Do you understand me, Abílio?”

Of course, he could have grabbed my arm, taken a chance that he could overpower me before I had a chance to cut him. He could have grabbed the knife and slit
my
throat. And yet he didn’t. I recognized his expression now. It was admiration.

I let him go and stepped back, the knife extended in front of me.

“You’re still the hardened girl of the beach, still the daughter of a witch, aren’t you?”

“I will always carry that girl within me. But now I’m also a woman of Funchal. I’m a mother and a healer and a blender of wine. I am many things. What I am not, Abílio, is afraid of you.”

He pulled a large white handkerchief from his pocket. “If you were any other woman, your threats wouldn’t have lasted longer than a moment, and I would be fucking you right now. But we share a bond, Diamantina. We know each other. As you’ve pointed out, it will make my life easier not to worry about the business or the quinta or to put up with more harping from Beatriz. And so I’ll say and do nothing. For now.”

I stared at him a moment longer, then turned and walked away, alert for any sudden movement behind me. At the door I stopped and looked back. He stood in front of the fireplace, watching me,
while the handkerchief pressed against his neck bloomed crimson. “I don’t expect you to speak to me again while you’re here,” I said.

Instead of going back to the cottage, I slipped through the woods to the summer house, feeling so shaken that I had to sit on its step. I stared at the blanket of stars over the water, clouds moving in front of the moon.

I could do nothing more about Abílio’s discovery. I hoped what he had said was true: it would not benefit him in any way to disclose that he was Candelária’s father. I also knew the depth of his deviousness. Should it ever be to his advantage to use this irrefutable fact, he wouldn’t hesitate. And if that time came, I would have to be ready to stop him.

I
lived in a state of jumpiness until Abílio had decided what repairs and changes he would one day make to the house, and then left. I saw him occasionally over those few days, but only across the yard or disappearing down the road. When I finally heard from Binta that he had left Madeira, the heaviness that had made breathing difficult lifted.

When the next letter came from Dona Beatriz a month later, talking of her life in the usual way, and asking the normal questions, I felt further relief.

And yet I knew that from now on I could never completely let my guard down. Not where Abílio Perez was concerned.

Bonifacio grew ever more vigilant in his prayers over Candelária. He also grew thinner, and his face took on the haunted look he had when he’d returned from the mountains in Curral das Freiras after Lent. It frightened me. I suspected his anxiety and lack of appetite were caused by waiting to hear from Rio de Janeiro.

I waited anxiously as well during this time. Whenever I was enjoying myself in some small, simple activity—sitting at the table in the kitchen talking to Nini or Binta after dinner, or playing a noisy game of tag with Candelária in the sitting room, or laughing with Cristiano over a game of dominoes on a Sunday—Bonifacio stared at me as if I were engaged in some wrongdoing.

As the winter passed and spring came, Tiago was apprenticed to a tanner in Funchal. Cristiano continued to help Raimundo with the horses and with repairs around the quinta, but missed his friend.

“Tiago is a bit older than you,” I told him. “But it’s almost time for you to begin an apprenticeship as well.”

He looked at me, very still.

“I’ve thought that you could learn the work of the
adega
, like Espirito and me.” I planned to speak to Espirito about this: by the time of this year’s upcoming harvest, Cristiano could be helpful in many small ways, running up and down the steps of the hot storage room, chalking the barrels with the year and rankings, and delivering messages as needed.

Something I didn’t recognize passed over his face. “I could work in the
adega
? I’ll … I’ll always be here?”

I understood then. “Yes. You’ll always be here. I told you that. You don’t have to worry about what you heard Bonifacio say last summer. You’re not leaving. Your home will always be with me, and with Candelária.”

He smiled then. “Can I tell Tiago about my apprenticeship tonight?”

“Just wait until I make sure it’s all right with Espirito. But I’m sure it will be,” I said, and he smiled at me then, and I realized I hadn’t seen his dimple for a while.

That evening, both children asleep, I asked Bonifacio when he expected to hear from Rio de Janeiro.

“It hasn’t been a full year since I wrote, not enough time for the issue to have been resolved and the letter of my acceptance to come back.”

I nodded, hoping my face was unreadable.

I looked forward, more and more, to time spent with Espirito when I took the children to visit Eduardo and Luzia. It had been a year and a half since Olívia’s death, and Espirito was the man he had once been, and now often laughed at something Cristiano or Candelária said. I had missed his laugh.

Espirito had welcomed the idea of Cristiano apprenticing, and so I took him with me to the wine lodge during my third harvest. As always, I was proud of his ability to learn quickly and to carry out duties with maturity. Some of those steamy late summer and early autumn days, Espirito and Cristiano and I would leave the
adega
and walk down Rua São Batista to the square. There we ate a meal at one of the wooden tables set up under the arching trees. We always politely asked Bonifacio if he would care to join us, and each time I held my breath, not wanting him to come, and was always relieved when he said no, he was too busy to waste time.

One afternoon, Espirito dropped his fork onto the stones at our feet, and as he bent to retrieve it, I saw a small birthmark on the back of his neck, under his tied-back hair. It was a burgundy stain small as the nail of my last finger, and shaped like a leaf, tapering on one end. In one sudden, unexpected instant, I wanted to kiss that tiny imperfection.

Our hands touched as we passed each other dishes—had they always? I began to wonder whether he let his fingers linger even a moment longer than necessary. Was I creating this phantom intimacy, or had he begun to look at me in a different way?

At the end of one long, hot day in the
adega
, I sent Cristiano home; I could see he was flagging. “Tell Binta I’ll be there soon to fetch Candelária,” I said. “I just want to finish the last weighing of this
mosto
with Espirito.”

When Espirito and I were done, I sank onto a bench in the courtyard and smiled at him. “That’s it for this year, then. It feels good, having it all done. It’s been another successful harvest.”

“Your third.”

I nodded. “The first when Candelária wasn’t yet two years old. She’ll be four on her next birthday.”

He sat beside me, close enough for our arms to touch if I allowed mine to move just slightly. I felt alive, full of energy in spite of working in the heat all day. I turned my head and looked at him, and he looked at me, and there was a knowingness in his eyes that made something leap inside me, an ache of possibility.

But then he stood. “You should get home. You must be hungry.”

I nodded.

“Cristiano shows promise,” he said. “He’s a hard worker.”

I licked my lips. “Could we have a glass of wine to celebrate this season’s last day in the
adega
?”

He looked at me a moment too long. “Luzia will have kept dinner for me. Shall I call you a cart?”

Embarrassed, I turned and started across the courtyard. “No. I’ll walk home.”

He called after me, “You’ve forgotten your pay packet.” He had given it to me when I arrived that morning, but I’d left it on the table of the blending room.

“I’ll come for it tomorrow,” I called over my shoulder, feeling somehow humiliated.