The Devil on Her Tongue (9 page)

His uncle came to the open door to lean against the frame, watching us as he dug in one ear with a piece of wet flannel.

“I don’t believe a few words uttered by Father da Chagos will change anything for me. And I don’t care. I am who I am,” I said, and turned and left.

“Diamantina,” Abílio called after me. “I’m sorry.”

That was the last time I saw Abílio for the next few months. His fishing boat remained on the beach, and the door and windows of the hut were tightly closed. I heard in town that he had gone to Madeira with his uncle. I wanted to ask if he was coming back, but didn’t want anyone to know I was interested.

As drought had ruined our summer, now the rainy season, usually the most temperate time of year, abundant with plant and animal life, was worse than usual. Day after day clouds blew in from the ocean, catching on the cliffs above the beach, opening to rain down torrents, and the world took on a sodden and dark heaviness.

My mother and I awoke shivering many mornings, our blankets smelling musty. Mildew grew on every surface, and the driftwood was perpetually damp. I couldn’t start a fire to cook or to dry out the hut. Within a few short weeks I feared that all our belongings would be ruined, including my beloved collection of foxed, warped books and passage charts.

Our roof started to leak. When the weather was the most arid, cracks opened in the clay, letting in air. In the winter rains the cracks usually closed and the clay absorbed the water, keeping us warm and dry. But our hut roofs, unlike those of terracotta tiles that graced the houses in town, only lasted a few seasons. I had helped my father mix new clay and slather it on the cracks the year before he left. Now I would have to do it on my own.

Waking into the sodden, stinking wetness of our home, my mother cleared her throat; a cough and sore throat had been plaguing her. “We could move up into the cliffs and stay in a cave until this rainy time has passed,” she said.

“A cave?” I said as I dressed for work. “Like animals?”

“The caves are dry,” she answered, coughing. We both knew a tea of sweet violet would help her, but without a fire I couldn’t boil water. “You were born in one.”

“You never told me that.”

“Even though I helped the women of the beach, when it was my time all of them were frightened to come to me, frightened that they
might help to birth another witch and be forever cursed. It was a night when the ocean turned into a dangerous beast, gnashing its teeth and roaring. The storm brought lightning and thunder such as I’ve never experienced. I had a premonition that the beast would wash over the beach and our hut would be swept away. I had to protect you, waiting so patiently to come to me. And so your father took me up the cliffs, with the wind howling and the trees bent to the ground. He knelt at my side as you came into the world.”

I watched her. Her face had a faraway look.

“And with your birth the world grew calm again. The beast retreated. The next morning I carried you back to the hut, which was still standing firm and strong. My premonition had been wrong. The beast hadn’t been looking for you after all. You were safe from it, Diamantina, and always will be.” The dark green of her eyes glistened with either tears or the pain of speaking with her sore throat.

I smiled at her, grateful for this memory of my birth. “I’ll ask Sister Amélia to let me bring home a flagon of hot water and I’ll mix you up a soothing drink,” I said. “But I won’t live in a cave. I’ll fix the roof.”

I wrapped a shawl over my head and ducked out the door. Water dripped from the edge of the roof as I went behind the hut and pulled out the ladder my father had made. The middle three rungs were rotted through. I would have to borrow one to climb onto the roof.

I walked up the beach in the still, grey air, looking at the fishing boats bobbing on the water. And then there he was: Abílio, coming up from the sea.

I tried to keep my breathing even, my face calm, although I wanted to run towards him. I wanted to demand,
Where have you been, and why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?
But he owed me nothing.

He was carrying a long, stout fishing pole with a dangerous hook on the end. He’d harpooned a good-sized tuna. He smiled his warm smile. “You’re looking very pretty today, Diamantina,” he said. I studied the rise and fall of the sea over his shoulder, remembering the last time he had called me pretty. “Your eyes are the colour of the silvery porpoise that swim alongside the ships.”

My cheeks were hot, and I didn’t take my gaze from the sea. “You were in Madeira?”

He nodded. “In Funchal Town, working for my uncle.”

I finally looked at him. “What’s it like?”

“It’s Madeira’s jewel, very fine, with wide streets and busy squares and tall buildings. All of Madeira is green and beautiful.”

I thought of the island’s misty outlines, which I could see from the point on a clear day.

“It’s not like this little island, Diamantina. In Funchal one sees people of many races. And so many there are learned and worldly.”

“I’ll go there someday soon. On my way to Brazil to join my father.”

He shifted the pole.

“Can I borrow your ladder?” I asked. “I have to fix our roof.”

He glanced at the sky. “It looks like we might have a brighter day tomorrow. I’ll come and help you.”

I felt a surge of something, perhaps just happiness. “All right,” I said, smiling, and we nodded at each other and then there was a moment of awkwardness. “I have to get to the church,” I added, as if he was preventing me from going.

The next afternoon, Abílio arrived with his ladder and a big wooden bucket. As he had predicted, the day was warmer, and at times a bright sun shone through the light clouds. I took our bucket and we went together up into the hills and collected clay. We hauled our buckets back to the beach and mixed the clay with sea water to make slurry. Abílio climbed up to the roof with one of the buckets and slathered the mixture over the cracks with his hands. When he needed the next bucket, I carried it up, taking the empty one back down. The sun came out brightly as we finished, guaranteeing the new clay would dry to permanence in a few hours.

We went into the sea and washed our hands and arms. He splashed me and I laughed, splashing him back. “We don’t have much, but I can offer you some fish broth and cheese,” I said.

“I have a honey cake at my place. Come and have some,” he said. I nodded as we waded out of the water. He carried the ladder and I grabbed his bucket.

We sat across from each other at his table and he cut thick slices of the
bolo de mel
. “I’ll be going back to Madeira again,” he said, handing me a slice. “I only came home to act as pallbearer for Gustavo Lopez’s brother’s funeral.”

A sudden darkness filled me. “Back to Funchal?”

“For just a while,” he said, but before I could feel relieved he added, “Like your father, I plan to go to Brazil to make my fortune.”

“Any day my father will be sending money, enough for me to buy passage. How much does it cost to go all the way to Brazil?”

“The cheapest passage is one hundred and sixty réis,” Abílio said, and I made a low sound, trying to imagine that amount of money. “So Arie reached Brazil?” he asked me.

“He lives in São Paulo,” I said with confidence, for what else could I think?

“How long has he been gone now?”

“Over a year.” Sixteen months. There had been sixteen round, fat moons hanging low over the water since he left. I had been almost fourteen, but not yet a woman when he walked away. Now I was well past fifteen. I told myself he was waiting to earn enough money to send with his first letter from Brazil. Maybe he was trying to earn enough for two passages, one for my mother and one for me, although even a single passage, at one hundred and sixty réis, sounded like an impossible amount to ever save.

“I liked Arie,” Abílio said, and I smiled warmly at him, thinking of the illustrations of compasses and spyglasses, of sextants and astrolabes in the books on navigation my father had left for me. I had often traced the sea routes he had told me about sailing with the Dutch East India Company. I thought of his decision to first explore the world when he was even younger than Abílio Perez.

Looking at him now, I thought that Abílio was like my father: curious, brave, wanting more than a safe and settled life. It was why my father had to leave me. And now Abílio would leave as well. “When will you go back to Funchal?”

He smiled back at me, a smile that carried the heat of today’s sun. “Tomorrow, Diamantina.”

My name, coming from his lips, sounded beautiful. Even though the cake was finished, I could smell it wafting from Abílio. I had long ago stopped leaning close to people, sniffing at them as I had when a child, but at this moment I wanted to be closer to Abílio, with his tantalizing scent of warm, sticky honey.

He ran his finger along the edge of the knife he’d used to cut the cake.

“My father told me many stories of life aboard ship: the cramped quarters, the ever-present threat of shipwreck, of disease and piracy,” I said. “But he also spoke of the glories of the water stretching farther than sight allowed, and the light of the stars at night. The wind that changed from the cut of a whetted knife to the breath of an angel.”

“Do you actually imagine you can go, Diamantina?”

“What do you mean? Of course I can go when I get the money for the passage.”

“A good Portuguese woman isn’t allowed to make a sea voyage on her own.” He cocked his head. “Then again, you’re not exactly a good Portuguese woman, are you?” His smile no longer carried the heat of the sun, but something cool and dangerous. He put down the knife and reached across the table and lifted my necklace, heavy with shells and smooth bits of coloured glass. “I’ve seen you sitting at the edge of the water, reading your books. Carrying your dead birds and rabbits home.” He gently pulled my necklace, and I leaned forward. “You are the oddest girl I’ve ever known,” he said, touching each piece of glass, and I felt as if the glass were my own skin, and his fingers warmed it. “No. I can’t call you a girl anymore. You’re a woman.”

I was unable to speak.

“And I’ve known many in Funchal. Both girls and women.” He gave a knowing smile that changed everything. There was a heaviness in my gut, as if I’d eaten a rotten quail egg. I pulled my necklace from Abílio’s fingers, with their scent of honey.

“Are you jealous, little
bruxa
?” he said, so softly I barely made out the words.

“Jealous of what?” My own voice was louder than necessary.

“That I’ve known many women?”

I stood and wrapped my shawl around my shoulders. “What you do with your life isn’t of any importance to me,” I said. “Thank you for your help with the roof. And for the cake.” I turned to leave, but he stood and caught my wrist.

“I’m sorry. I was only …”

I stared into his face. “Only what?”

“Trying to impress you.” He went from charming to infuriating and back again.

I looked at his fingers wrapped firmly around my wrist. I thought of the bruises on his knuckles after his father died.

“I’ll be gone tomorrow. Stay with me tonight.” Abílio’s voice was almost a whisper, his eyes wide and dark.

I swallowed, shocked and excited by his words, shaken at my own thoughts. I wanted to whisper back,
Yes, yes, I will stay
.

“No,” I said.

T
he inordinately rainy weather continued, although our roof no longer leaked. Abílio’s hut was again closed and shuttered, and I wondered if it was sunny in Madeira.

I thought of his whispered words, asking me to stay, and the way he looked at me the night before he left Porto Santo. I had never seen that look on a man’s face, but I knew it was desire. It filled me with my own.

The rain ruined the herbs and flowers in our garden, drowning their roots and putting blight on their leaves and stems, and my mother and I were unable to make any new powders. Both the birds and their eggs were fewer; perhaps the larger birds of prey were also suffering, and consuming more of the seabirds than usual. Some afternoons I would search for hours in the tall, wet grass, looking for the stone nests of the pipits and shearwaters, only to find them empty but for broken shells. Even the rabbits hid themselves deeply in their lairs, keeping dry. I sat for many long, wet hours without reward.