The Devil on Her Tongue Read online

  “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.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The 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.

  To my great sorrow, Benedita got loose from her tether and ate a patch of poisonous creeper. She died of bloat within a few hours. I said my thanks to her as I butchered her. Her stringy body offered little good flesh to eat, with no fat to moisten it. I boiled her bones for broth, regretting that there would be no more milk or cheese. I had tarred our fishing boat and Dog Star, but each time I took one of the boats a few metres from shore, it leaked alarmingly. I was reduced to wading up to my thighs i
n the rough, raging sea, dragging our hemp net. But the waves were too wild, and I caught nothing but a few squiggling sardines and tiny crabs.

  The ruined crops affected everyone on the island. The women still came to our hut for remedies but had nothing to offer in exchange for what we could give them from our depleted supply of medicines.

  Although I still had the few réis Father da Chagos gave me each week, more people in the parish needed help from the church. The food the island could no longer provide was brought in from Madeira, but prices were high. All Sister Amélia could put in my basket every few days was a very small round of bread.

  I used my last réis to buy a withered, blackening potato and two eggs, and my mother and I shared them. That evening we sat at the table in the chilled hut, and when it grew dark I lit the end of our last candle. By its feeble flicker my mother slowly stitched a rent in one of her skirts, and I tried to read. But I was cold and hungry, and I could think of little but the pain in my stomach.

  At a sudden tap on the door, we both jumped. Expecting it to be a woman looking for relief, I rose and opened the door. Abílio stood there, rain dripping from his hair, holding a large covered basket with one hand and under the other arm a stack of kindling and wood, kept dry by a canvas wrap. “I’ve brought you a few things from Madeira,” he said. I stepped back and he entered, ducking his head so as not to hit it on the low lintel.

  He greeted my mother respectfully as he set the basket on the table. “Please, eat.” He crouched in front of the fireplace and piled the kindling. I lifted out two loaves of bread and a big wedge of cheese. There were figs and dates, onions and carrots and sweet potatoes. A dried slab of beef, and a ring of sausage. Candles, and a flagon of oil and another of wine. As I set everything in front of my mother, I kept swallowing, my mouth full of saliva at the wonderful odours.

  Abílio coaxed the fire to life and there was a rush of warm air. The hut took on a cheery glow, the dark chill banished.

  “Please, senhora, Diamantina, please, eat. I heard, in Funchal, of the miseries here.”

  With tears of gratefulness, I looked from him to my mother, but she was watching Abílio watching me.

  I slept more deeply that night than I had in a long time, full with food and the thoughts of Abílio’s kindness. I brought back the memory of him asking me to stay with him. How I had wanted to.

  I awoke in weak sunlight. I rose and prepared a rich stew. I was not expected to work at the church, and all I could think about was Abílio’s face as he handed me the basket.

  When the stew was slowly simmering on the fire, I put my shawl over my head. “I’m going to return Abílio’s basket,” I said.

  My mother only nodded. I had expected her to say something about Abílio’s consideration, but she hadn’t.

  As I approached his hut, the door was shut. I had somehow imagined he would be waiting for me. As I stood, suddenly shy of knocking, the door opened.

  “I slept late,” he said.

  “I’ve brought your basket back.” I handed it to him. “And I also want to thank you, again, for all you did for us. I … I didn’t expect it. My mother is so grateful,” I said, not really lying. She had enjoyed the food as I had.

  “Madeira isn’t suffering like Porto Santo.” He reached up and brushed his hair from his eyes. I wondered if he had actually been with a girl or woman in Funchal this time. “It’s a different climate, in spite of only being a day’s sail south,” he said. He studied me. “You’ve grown so thin since I last saw you. It’s the slow season for my uncle — he doesn’t need me right now. I came back because I was worried about you. I’ll make sure you have enough to eat from now on.”

  His words created a weakening somewhere inside me.

  Over the next days, I saw Abílio frequently, either on the beach or when he brought supplies to our hut. Once it was a catch of long, black-skinned, razor-toothed scabbardfish, once a slab of goat meat and a dozen eggs, and another time a stack of dry wood. He would have purchased all but the fish from the Madeira packet.

  On the eighth day, I invited him to come to our hut for dinner. The three of us sat before a bright fire and ate the meal I’d prepared with the food he had given us. My mother answered the few questions he asked her about her garden, but otherwise didn’t speak. I was used to her silences, but in Abílio’s company I realized how withdrawn she appeared.

  He had brought a flask of Boal. My mother refused the wine, and I drank her share. As Abílio rose to leave, I took up my shawl. “I’ll walk with you,” I said. “The moon is full.” My mother made a sound, and I looked at her, but she was staring at the fire.

  “I apologize for my mother,” I said as we walked under the moon’s light. “That’s the way she is. She’s not used to a man in the hut anymore.”

  “My father remembered when she came to the island.”

  I stayed silent, not wanting him to know my mother had never spoken of her past to me.

  “Did she tell you my father was one of the men who rescued her after she was tossed into the sea by the Algerian ship?”

  “No.”

  “My father said none of the women would shelter her or even speak to her at first. They knew she was a slave but saw her strange beauty, and were afraid she would steal their men. And the men were afraid of her power.” He laughed. “But only weak men are afraid of a woman with her own power. A strong man likes it.” He stooped and picked up a shell. “I like a strong woman,” he said.

  My mother had been on a ship from North Africa. That explained her secret language, and why she looked unlike any other woman on Porto Santo. Just like my father, she had been thrown overboard. What was her crime? I stared at the cowrie he held.

  “Diamantina?” Abílio said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and we continued up the beach.

  “Did you mean it when you said you were going to sail to your father in Brazil?” he asked. “Or is it just a dream?”

  I couldn’t concentrate on his words. The wine had created a pleasant lightness in my head. It was sweet at the back of my throat. My mother was an Algerian slave. I carried African blood. It excited me. Abílio’s hand brushed mine, and I boldly took the cowrie from it, rubbing the shell’s smoothness against my cheek. It was good luck for a woman to find a cowrie, my mother told me. The shell was a symbol of womanhood and fertility.

  “Is going to Brazil just a dream?” Abílio repeated.

  “No. I told you I would go, and I will.”

  He laughed. “We should sail away together.”

  The lightness left my head, and I blinked. “Together?” I stopped, looking at him.

  His face was open, his eyes bright in the moonlight. “Brazil is the place to make a fortune, and quickly.” He picked up my hand and brought it to his lips. “Do you want to come to Brazil with me?” His lips touched the back of my hand.

  I was too startled to answer. I imagined that faraway country and my father waiting for me, his arms outstretched.

  Abílio shrugged. “Well, who knows?” he said. He let go of my hand and walked backwards down the sand towards his hut, his eyes on me. I was shaken by what he had told me about my mother, what he had said about going to Brazil, and by the brief touch of his lips on my hand.

  “Who knows, little bruxa,” he called, his voice floating on the still night air.

  Back home, I confronted my mother. “You were an Algerian slave? Abílio just told me.”

  She covered the smoking bowl with a plate and went to her bed. “Soon you will know my story,” she said. She turned on her side, away from me.

  I felt the same irritation as always at her wariness in answering my direct questions. “Mama!” My voice was loud in the hut, but she didn’t answer.

  I awoke the next morning to my mother burning herbs, waving the smoke about with a cluster of quail feathers. The smell was pungent. I imagined her over a fire somewhere in the north of Africa. I knew there was no point in questioning her. She onl
y spoke when she was ready to speak.

  I thought of Abílio’s face when he had said we could go to Brazil together, uncertain of his expression.

  When I came out of my hut, there he was, sitting on the stone that faced the sea, waiting for me.

  “Let’s go for a walk, up past the dunes.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want the others along the beach to see us walking together and start a chain of gossip.

  At one particularly sharp rise, he held out his hand to help me. I had been clambering over the dunes my whole life and needed no help, but his gesture moved me.

  He kept my hand in his as we walked.

  “Did you mean what you said last night, Abílio?” I asked. “About us going to Brazil together?”

  “I want to go to Brazil, and you want to go to Brazil. It makes sense we should go together.”

  “I should know where my father is before too long.”

  “We’ll find him together,” he said.

  I stopped and looked at Abílio. He put his arms around me and I felt his heart, beating against my breast.

  I couldn’t eat any dinner. After we had come back to the beach, Abílio had asked me to come to his hut later, and I had said yes.

  I knew why I was going, and what I would do. He had wanted us to be together behind the dunes. I wanted it too—I had thought of it since the night he had whispered for me to stay—but I couldn’t allow it to happen until I prepared my body.

  I knew the stories of the women who came to our hut. I understood the rhythms of life, and how a child started, and I would not let this happen to me. In the latrina I put a piece of sea sponge soaked in vinegar and wrapped in a piece of fine muslin as far up inside me as I could. I had tied it with a slender thread that would allow me to pull it out afterwards. The women of the beach couldn’t use the string for fear their husbands would notice. I didn’t care if Abílio noticed. I had no dreams of saving my purity for a husband. There would be no young man on Porto Santo for me other than Abílio Perez, who would take me away with him.