The Devil on Her Tongue (66 page)

Luzia leaned back. Her face was slightly damp from the heat, as I knew mine was. “And is there something that would benefit your holy sisterhood?”

Another pause. The back of my dress was wet.

“We are always in need. We depend on the goodness of the parish to provide donations that allow us to make much-needed repairs to the convent. It is very old, one of the first on Madeira.”

“I see.” Luzia looked from the Madre to me, then back at the Madre. She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Perhaps Senhora Rivaldo and I could work together to provide a donation worthy of bringing Sister Amélia back to Funchal, and this holy place. Is this a possibility?”

The Madre laced her fingers together on the desk. “It would require an endowment worthy of such a breach of the rules. But should a wealthy patron provide us with a substantial donation, we might be able to consider your request.” She stood.

Luzia and I did the same. “Thank you, Madre,” she said, “for your time, and for your consideration.”

Once outside, Luzia turned to me. “So. There is a way. I can ask Eduardo—”

“No,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “You’ve done enough.”

“But surely you don’t have—”

Again I interrupted her. “You’ve done enough, Luzia. Thank you. I will manage the rest.”

“All right,” she said. “If you’re sure.” We walked down the street. “Espirito seems much happier,” she said unexpectedly. She stopped and looked at me. “You are different as well. Maybe, for the first time since I met you, you seem … happy with life. You smile a great deal now, a true smile, not one you think people want to see. Your whole face is alight.”

I looked down in a sudden panic.

“Diamantina,” she said, “look at me.” I raised my head. “I love you as a daughter, and I love Espirito as a son.” Her eyes were wet. “Sometimes, after great sadness, happiness pushes through in an unexpected way, like a flower between the stones of a city street. Some might say it doesn’t belong, and will step on it. I am not one to say this. I say it might survive, and I step around it.”

My face was burning, my chest rising and falling.

For Luzia, kindness was an instinct. “The happiness of those I love brings me comfort. Come, now. It’s been a good day.” She walked again, and I joined her, our footsteps ringing on the stones.

Candelária sang one of Binta’s songs as I weeded and trimmed the flowers around my parents’ gravestones. Her voice blended with the whir of the bees and the twittering of the birds as they caught the insects that emerged in abundance as the day cooled. She sat in the soft soil and drew with a small stick.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking of Luzia. She had made it clear she knew about me and Espirito, and yet she had not condemned us. She had found a way for me to bring Sister Amélia back to Funchal; I knew that I would do it as soon as harvest was over.

“Look at my pretty picture,” Candelária said, and I brushed the dirt from my hands and went to her. As I stared down at her drawing, I felt as though the air had been taken from me.

It was a replica of one of the marks that had been repeated on my mother’s torso: a curling fishtail with wavy lines over it. Candelária
had drawn it over and over, creating a pattern. It was unlike any I had on my own back. Candelária had often traced my marks with her fingers as I sat in my shift, brushing my hair.

“Did you see this drawing somewhere?”

“No. Just inside my eyes,” she said.

I smiled at her then, but knew it was time to teach her to hide her gift from Bonifacio.

I
t was the last day of the grape pressing on the quinta, and I arranged for our usual Festa do Vinho. I wore my best muslin gown, with its silver bodice and pewter-coloured skirt.

When Espirito stepped into the warm dust of the yard, Candelária ran to him and threw her arms around his legs, and he made the silly face that always made her laugh. I smiled, happy as always just to be in his presence, to have him near.

Eduardo and Luzia had not come; they were visiting friends in nearby Câmara de Lobos.

After the last pressing, the teams of men who had trod the grapes, their families and those of us from the quinta enjoyed our celebratory meal at long tables in the yard. I had helped Binta and Nini in the kitchen, preparing cuts of beef and pork and mounds of vegetables from the garden and fresh, savoury breads. Sitting together over dinner, Cristiano spoke English to Espirito, and Candelária switched back and forth between Portuguese and English as she chattered. Bonifacio was the only one unable to understand the conversation fully, and I suspected this was carefully orchestrated on Cristiano’s part.

As the sun lowered and the shrieking of the cicadas intensified, the musicians strummed their
cítaras
. Cristiano and Tiago turned handstands, showing off for the girls who had come to watch their fathers and brothers work in the
lagar
. Candelária had attached herself to one of the visiting girls, and was sitting on her lap as the older girl wove flowers through her hair. I glanced at Espirito. He was
watching the young people as well, but was clearly lost in thought.

Bonifacio, sitting beside me, accidentally knocked over a cup of burgundy wine, and it splattered my skirt, sticky and dark.

I jumped up, wiping it with a napkin. “I’ll have to soak this so it doesn’t stain,” I said, and left for the cottage. Partway there, I heard footsteps behind me.

It was Espirito. “Bonifacio’s gone to the pressing house with some of the men. I didn’t know when I’d next get the chance to be alone with you. Let’s go to the summer house.”

“Espirito,” I said, smiling, “you know we don’t have time to—”

“Please. I have something I want to tell you.”

My smile faded at his expression. “Is something wrong?”

“Come,” he said, and I followed him to the summer house.

Standing on the step, we looked out at the harbour. The flowering shrubs surrounding the open structure were especially strong in the evening, and I breathed in deeply, almost tasting their sweetness on my tongue.

“The water is merging with the horizon,” I said. “It must be raining heavily far out at sea.” I turned to him.

Instead of putting his arms around me as I expected, he picked up my hand. “I wanted to tell you first,” he said.

“Tell me …” I studied his face.

“I’m going to Brazil.”

I looked away from him, to the harbour, seeing the tiny twinkling lights of the anchored ships like stars upon the water in the falling darkness. “To make new contacts for Kipling’s? You’ll be away for more than a year, then?” I asked, trying to imagine not seeing him for so long.

“No,” he said, and I looked away from the distant lights, to his face.

“No to what?”

He hesitated. “I’m not coming back, Diamantina.”

“Not coming back?” I echoed. I hated the sound of my voice, accusatory and yet somehow desperate.

“It’s best if I start a new life.” He took a deep breath and pulled a paper from inside his jacket. “Abílio Perez has written. He sold Kipling’s to a Portuguese merchant in Oporto—Plácido Fernandez
Lajes. He’ll take it over in the next few months.” He held the letter out to me.

“He can’t,” I said after I’d read what Abílio had written. “Abílio can’t do this to Dona Beatriz. The winery and the quinta are hers forever. It’s written in the deed her father gave to her. Leandro will inherit everything. It can’t be sold.”

“Perez must have had her sign the deed over to him.”

“She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t, Espirito.” As I spoke, I realized I hadn’t had a letter from Dona Beatriz for the last few months. How long had it been? I’d been so caught up with Espirito that I’d thought of little else.

He shook his head. “I don’t know how Perez has done it, but it’s obvious Lajes is under the impression he’s bought everything. And this means life will change, Diamantina. Lajes will bring his own people into the winery. And … well, you can guess that Lajes won’t keep you on either. It’s because of Dona Beatriz—and Henry—that you were there. This man will never agree to a woman in his
adega
. The quinta is part of the sale …” He stopped. “I’ll speak to Henry about this. Perhaps he can find work for Bonifacio and you in his business. But that’s up to Henry—I can’t promise anything.”

My home. My work in the
adega
.

“I spoke to Henry only last week, while he was in Funchal. He’s as shocked as I am. He says Perez told him that Lajes isn’t interested in partnering with the altar wine operation. It will be over, and Henry’s business will suffer.”

“And so you … you’re going to work for him? For Henry?”

“I’ll start up a branch of his business in Rio de Janeiro.”

“But why can’t you stay here and work for him?”

“It’s not just the work, Diamantina. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with you in this half-life, knowing we can never truly be together. You’re my brother’s wife. There’s no future for us.”

“But …” I stared into his face, willing him to say,
Come with me. Bring the children and come with me and we’ll live together in Rio de Janeiro, where nobody knows us, or about Bonifacio
.

“You are married to my brother,” is what he said. “That will never change.” He looked over my head, towards the darkening sea.

My legs felt watery, and I sat on the nearest chair.

“The one good thing that will come out of this sale is that you will be done with Abílio Perez.”

I waited a few seconds. “What do you mean?”

“Won’t you be glad he’s out of your life?”

My mouth was suddenly dry.

“Any time Abílio Perez is mentioned, your face turns to stone. I understand your distaste—perhaps that’s too mild a word for it—for Perez.” He took the letter from me and put it back into his jacket.

I swallowed. “You understand my … What are you talking about?”

“I see the joy Candelária has brought you, though, and have thought that perhaps it was an unexpected blessing.”

“Candelária?” My voice faltered as I spoke my daughter’s name. “Why are you talking about Candelária?”

Espirito finally sat down across from me. “I always knew that Bonifacio couldn’t have fathered Candelária. That day when we came from Curral das Freiras, and I went out to look for him …” He stopped, raking back his hair with his fingers as if the memory still disturbed him. “When I found him … he told me why he was so ill. He told me what he’d done, and why he’d done it.”

I looked down at my fingers, spread on my stained skirt.

“And then, when I saw Candelária for the first time after she was born, saw her toes, I knew. I’d seen Perez’s feet at the harvest festival here before you came to Funchal. He was drunk and making a fool of himself in the
lagar
.”

I couldn’t look at him for a long time. Finally I raised my head. “Do you want to know how it happened?” I asked him, a challenge in my voice. “Do you want to know why I … why I did what I did?”

“At first I imagined that he’d forced himself on you. But the more I thought about it, I couldn’t believe that.”

I covered my eyes with my hand.

“Not a woman like you. If Perez had taken you against your will, you would have said something, done something. Told Bonifacio. He never would have worked for the pig had he known. And you wouldn’t have wanted to stay on the quinta.”

I dropped my hand. “I went to him of my own will. I did it to ensure Bonifacio got the position in the Counting House.” My voice was too loud, too fast. I was humiliated that Espirito had all along known the truth. “Because I wanted this life. This life, Espirito,” I said with a sweep of my arm. “I couldn’t count on Bonifacio, and I didn’t want to go back to Curral das Freiras. I wanted something more for myself. And so I took it, in the only way it was offered.” The last few words seemed to ring in the air around us.

In contrast to my voice, Espirito’s was soft. “Bonifacio knows that Candelária is Abílio’s, then?”

I felt a ridiculous smile hovering on my lips. “I didn’t tell him, because what you said was true: he wouldn’t have worked for Abílio, knowing.” I looked at the twinkling harbour lights again. Espirito had known all along. He knew what kind of woman I truly was.

“But he accepted her,” he said, and I looked from the lights back to him. “In that way, he has been a good man.”

“Is that how you see him?”

He didn’t answer, but then said, “You know why I can’t stay, Diamantina. It’s not a life for either of us. It’s not fair to Bonifacio, or to you or me. Nobody can win in this situation. Nobody.”

I was crying now. I stared at him, willing myself not to drop to my knees, not to throw my arms around him and beg.

“And I can’t … I won’t see you alone again before I leave.”

“What? Why?” My voice rose like a bird’s, warbling in the still evening air.

“I’ve made my decision to go. To be with you any longer …” I reached for him, but he rose and stepped out of my reach. “… would only weaken my resolve. It’s the only way I can do it. Try to understand. You have a life here, with Cristiano and Candelária. And a husband, such as he is. I have nothing here but my work.”