To avoid looking at him, I busy myself stacking the dishes, but when I glance in his direction, he is staring at me. Something about his look gives me a momentary chill, but I decide it’s just the deepening afternoon shadows obscuring his face. “Now that’s something else to like about you,” he says. “You’re dutiful. Look at how well you have cared for your father all these years.”
“As you said, it is my duty, and I should hardly be praised for it.”
“Amalia, look at me,” Diogo says, and I force myself to meet his eyes. “A man has a great deal of time to reflect when he’s at sea, and on this last voyage, I decided that the time has come for me to marry. It will help me rise at court, and I need someone to look after my interests when I’m away.”
“A man needs a wife,” I say, sounding dumb as an ox.
He doesn’t seem to hear. “You have a quick mind and I imagine you would be quite good at business.” He speaks as if he is checking a list. “You are quiet and gentle, and I want a peaceful home without conflict. And don’t you think it would be pleasant to be rich someday—perhaps tremendously so?”
Is he talking about marrying me?
“Amalia, if you are not opposed, I would like to ask your father for your hand.”
I feel disembodied, as if this day is happening to someone else and I am merely watching. “I—I can’t,” I sputter. “My father needs me and—” Attended now by palace servants, Papa wants to see me married before he dies, but he seems so frail and helpless, I can’t bear the thought of leaving him.
Diogo shrugs. “He could live with us, I suppose. I’ll be leaving in a few weeks, and you can tell me your decision when I come back if you prefer.”
I want to tell him I am speechless only because this is so unexpected, but he doesn’t seem eager for a reply. “Well,” he says, looking at the fading light outside. “I’m due at the tavern.” After he helps me to my feet, he touches my hand to his lips but does not take me in his arms or press me for a kiss. Perhaps, I think, a gentleman does not. I am no longer a silly girl expecting to be swept away by passion like the beauties in Amadis of Gaul.
“Send for me at the palace if you want me to pay a visit to your father.” Before I know it, I am staring at an open doorway wondering what just happened, as Diogo disappears down the street to meet his friends.
***
Terrible news from Sevilla pushes Diogo to the back of my mind. Two thousand people are dead of the bloody flux, among them Susana’s husband and baby. The convent where Luisa is now a postulant nun lost many sisters, but she was spared.
Susana is coming to Sintra with her six-year-old son Pablo and four-year-old daughter Ana Maria. Her letter is so cloying and full of self-pity I can barely read it, although Papa hangs on every word. I send word to Diogo that our house is in upheaval and I can’t answer him now, and for the next few weeks, I ride with heavy heart to Queluz on Saturdays, knowing that Susana will put her nose into my affairs when she arrives, and she won’t be fooled for a moment why I make these trips.
I picture retorting that my life is none of her business, that I’ve gotten along fine without her and won’t let her tell me what to do now, but I feel myself growing smaller, as if I already know I won’t be able to stand up to her abrasive ways. Maybe she’s changed, I tell myself, but I can’t imagine it.
I have bigger problems than Susana’s visit. When I look at my father huddled under a blanket even on warm days, the bones of his skull under his papery skin, I know that his body cannot support life much longer. After he is gone, I don’t know what I will do, since our house belongs to the crown and was provided in honor of his service, not mine. What then? Return with Susana and be under her command in her own home? I would have no place else to go. Our house was sold when we left, and the proceeds used to maintain Luisa in the convent. I don’t see any way out of marriage, but I am facing the prospect not with the honor of being chosen by a handsome and successful man, but with dread I can’t quite explain.
“How serious a Christian is this man?” Judah asks as we sit discussing my dilemma in his courtyard one Shabbat afternoon.
“He takes communion every week,” I say, “but he doesn’t seem to care.” Diogo’s conversation is never pious before or after church, and he is a step behind others in crossing himself, as if he has been thinking about something else. It doesn’t seem to bother him that I don’t go to confession and thus can’t take communion, since he probably would have said something if he thought I was endangering my immortal soul.
“I suppose I might be safe with him,” I say to Judah. “And he’s gone a lot.”
Judah frowns. “Men have ways of watching even when they’re not around. I must tell you, if he forbids you to come here, I would have to go along. A Christian commander bringing back treasure to Portugal would not be the one sent away if there were disharmony at court. After all, regardless of how friendly things may appear, deep down most Christians think even one Jew is too many.”
I try to smile but I can’t. “And I think there is one Jew too few.”
Judah’s eyes search mine. “You will be lucky to find a tolerant Christian husband, but that’s all you can hope for.”
I cover my face with my hands and weep, softly at first and then with abandon. “I feel forsaken,” I say, when I finally can speak.
He shakes his head. “Even the Hanged One said as much when he was on the cross. But God doesn’t have to do what we want. He doesn’t have to prove that he’s listening. Don’t forsake him, Amalia. That’s what you should be concerned about.”
The sound of a guitar being tuned drifts from the house. “It’s time to go in,” Judah says, heaving himself to his feet with a groan. “And in case you don’t realize it, the Holy One has never forsaken you. He gave you your mother. He knows you cannot serve him as you wish to, but your mother showed you how to do the best you can.”
He casts his eyes upward, taking in the trees, the birds, the sky. “When you feel her presence, you accept his continuing gift. Say the shema, say the blessings, even if only to yourself. Turn the ways you feel forced to dishonor him into praise that he continues to sustain you.”
He seems to know my question before I have a chance to ask it. “Ask your mother if you should marry Diogo,” he says. “Perhaps she will find a way to answer.”
***
Within a week of Susana’s arrival, my life is so noisy and chaotic that if my mother tries to speak to me, I don’t know how I will hear. Susana thinks it’s my fault Papa has grown so feeble, and she busies herself in the kitchen cooking what she says are the right foods, of which he has apparently had none since leaving Sevilla. She rearranges the house, moving a lamp from one side of a table to the other, as if where it sat was proof of a failure on my part and where she put it was a sign that finally things are being set right.
One afternoon, I get away to ride Chuva long and hard, and when I return, I find supper unprepared and Susana in a rage. “I fired the servants,” she says. “I need ones I can talk to.”
I’m not sure I have heard correctly. “How do they know they’re fired if you can’t talk to them?”
“I stood at the door and waved them out with an angry look.”
Her face turns purple as my snicker becomes a hearty laugh. “They’ll be back tomorrow,” I say. “Appreciative, I’m sure, of their afternoon off.”
“Well then, you fire them.”
“They’re assigned to us by the court,” I tell her. “Maybe you should learn to speak Portuguese.”
My pleasure at her distress is short-lived. “He won’t last a month,” she says coldly. The disdainful turn of her chin in the direction of Papa’s room chills me to the core. “Who knows what will happen to me then?” Susana adds. “I’m not going to bother learning that ugly language unless it’s worth the trouble.”
How old she seems, when she is only a few years my senior! Perhaps the downturned lines around her mouth and eyes come from having no sense of humor. I
’ve tried to get her to laugh or just offer up a smile that doesn’t seem self-righteous or predatory, but so far I haven’t succeeded.
I change the subject to another I’m sure will distress her. “Do you remember how we used to sing zemirot at our grandparents’ farm? Those were so much happier times.”
“Don’t speak of that!” she hisses, clapping her hands to get her children’s attention to order them outside. “Our family is not Jewish, and Mother did us no favor by acting as if we still were.”
The first few nights she was here, she had to help her children with even the simplest bedtime prayers, although she’s put on quite a show about her family’s piety. “They’ve had a great shock,” she explains, and perhaps that’s why they don’t seem to remember. They’re far too small to understand death. The older one asks when Papa will arrive and the younger one goes through the house looking for where her baby sister is taking a nap.
I remember what it is like to lose a parent, and my heart goes out to Pablo and Ana Maria. I want to hold them in my arms, but Susana stops me every time. “It’s best not to spoil them,” she says. “They’ll grow up expecting things to revolve around them.” She sniffs. “Rather like you did.”
“Me?” I burst out in incredulous laughter. “You were the one always telling Mama what to do.”
“It was for her own good, and Mama came to see it my way in the end.”
I open my mouth to retort that Mama just became better at disguise, but there’s no use in prolonging the argument. “I’m going riding,” I say, trying to hide the anger in my voice.
“Of course!” Her voice is like spilled vinegar behind me. “Leave me to deal with all this. When you’re married, Diogo won’t allow such selfishness.”
Diogo makes a point of being charming to Susana, and she is relentless in her efforts to use him to improve me. “You just don’t understand how lucky you are to have attracted such a man,” she says, making it clear she isn’t going to let me ruin everything by being myself.
I make a game of it now that Diogo is setting sail and she won’t be able to conspire with him. I lie with ease about how Diogo likes me to take Chuva out for long rides by myself, appreciates my hair unkempt, prefers exactly how I water the wine or trim a candlewick. She knows I’m making it up. If she were to say Diogo likes his new cloak, just to be contrary I would say he had sworn off wearing clothing altogether.
As I wait for the groom to finish saddling Chuva, anxiety sets in again. Susana may be right that I should put some effort into keeping him interested, but if Diogo doesn’t like me the way I am, isn’t it better if he loses interest?
Chuva is ready, and I mount her with the same flood of relief as always, shaking off my burdens as we leave Sintra behind.
By the time Diogo’s ships sail up the Tagus River and dock at Lisbon, I have resigned myself to his proposal. When he comes to visit, Papa is roused from what seems like a perpetual nap. Marry, I wonder. How do I sign that? I slide my fingers over the ring finger of my other hand, before pointing to myself and Diogo. Papa bursts into a smile. He beckons to us, joins our hands, and nods his head.
***
On the eve of my wedding, one day after my nineteenth birthday, I kneel in the confessional. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” I murmur. “It has been two months since my last confession.” It’s been so long I can’t even remember, but what does that matter when everything about my life feels like a lie?
I mumble through some bad thoughts I’ve had and mean things I’ve done and wait to be assigned my penance, but the priest wants to talk with me first. “You’ll be married tomorrow, Amalia,” he says. “You must remember to treat your vows with the respect God demands.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Man and woman are different creations, but God intended that they complement each other, and it is your responsibility to make sure there is harmony in your home.”
My heart is in the pit of my stomach. It feels as if he is talking about somebody else who will go off tomorrow to live in a strange house with a man she barely knows. I can’t do this, I think, and for a moment, I consider throwing myself at him, begging him to stop the wedding.
“Entering marriage without the intention of having children is a grave error in God’s eyes. Will you take this obligation seriously and raise your children in the one true faith?”
The tiny confessional booth closes in around me, and my mind goes blank. Then suddenly, my lips are moving. “It goes without saying, does it not?”
I feel a glow on my back, as if my mother is standing behind me. Judah was right that she would come, for she must have put in my head those clever words, neither lie nor truth, that satisfy the smug man behind the woven cane screen of the confessional and get me out of making a promise I hope I won’t have to keep.
She wants the marriage to happen. Why else would she be here helping me?
“I have a wedding to prepare for, Father. Please excuse me, but I must go.” I race through a penance of a few Pater Nosters and Ave Marias then take the town steps two at a time for home.
***
Papa is not strong enough to go to church and there will be no music, no mass, no crowd watching us exchange our vows. The house is filled with flowers, courtesy of Elizabeth and Beatriz, for our small ceremony at home. Wine, joints of meat, and platters of fowl and fish have been sent by Afonso’s regent, but his real gift is conferring on Diogo the title of Lord of Esposende in honor of his wedding. This gives him a tenth of all taxes collected on his new lands and the right to levy new ones to build a palace.
Every worry I had was put aside when my mother rescued me from the priest. I’m marrying a handsome sea commander, I remind myself, and a lord of the realm. Susana adjusts the wool velvet dress we ordered from the best tailor in Lisbon as I stand in my bedroom with my hair flowing in waves to my waist. It’s the only time, by tradition, that I will wear it this way, and Susana brushed and brushed until her arm ached.
I can tell that Diogo and Susana are disappointed that the day won’t be filled with important guests and entertainment, but I am shaking almost too hard to stand, and I am glad to need only to take the few steps from the bedroom.
Diogo has no family to speak of, having been orphaned young with no living siblings and raised by an uncle who is now dead. His only guest is another expedition commander, Lançarote de Freitas, a barrel-chested man about ten years older than Diogo, with a nose so bulbous Susana had to silence her children to keep them from asking what was wrong with his face.
The priest clears his throat and begins. “Do you, Amalia Riba, take Diogo Marques as your lawful husband?” he asks. I whisper that I do. After Diogo says his vows, the priest puts a cloth over our joined hands and blesses us. I’m married, I think, trying to believe it.
Diogo gives me the traditional kiss at the end of the ceremony, and then turns away. “So, Freitas,” he says, “you thought I would never do it! What do you think of me and my bride?” He kisses me again, but his lips are pulled into a hard line and our teeth click uncomfortably. Lançarote de Freitas’s expression is a mix I can make no sense of—curiosity, perhaps, or amusement. Or maybe, though it hardly seems possible, contempt.
***
Sunlight pours over the palace square in Sintra as the clouds momentarily clear. Though the muddy carriage wheels spoil the effect, the gilded coach waiting to take me to Diogo’s home in Lisbon glows like something out of a childhood story. I see a rainbow over the wooded hills in the direction of the city, and my heart soars. Surely these must be signs that everything will be all right.
I watch through the coach window as the men mount their horses and ride off ahead of us toward the city. Regent Pedro’s wife, the Countess of Urgell, has sent two of her ladies-in-waiting to be my escort, and my sister is coming as well. Susana prattles on with uncharacteristic cheerfulness in the coach. “I just hope all the riding hasn’t”—she searches for words—“ruined her.”
Lady Lionor’s
eyes flicker with concern. “You mount your horse astride?” she asks me.
“I’ve ridden that way since I was a little girl.”
“Oh dear,” Lady Violante says, looking down nervously. “Your maidenhead is a shield to prove you are a virgin.”
“I am a virgin.” I never knew I had some kind of shield between my legs, and I shift my weight to see if there is something hard and uncomfortable inside me I had failed to notice.
“Yes,” Lionor says, “but being jostled by a horse with your legs parted can break you open in a way that is not desirable.”
Break me open?
Violante puts out a hand to pat my knee. “Lionor,” she chides her friend, “don’t scare the poor girl.” She takes my hands in hers. “The countess was concerned that having no mother, perhaps you knew little of—womanly things—and that’s why she asked us to come with you today.”
What hasn’t Susana told me? She stares out the window to avoid meeting my eyes.
“You are aware of the marriage act, I assume?” Lionor’s eyebrows arch.
I nod my head. “It’s what—” I was going to say it’s what animals do in barnyards and pastures, but I think better of it. “It’s what a man does to a woman.”
“Yes,” Lionor says, “and you should expect the first time to be painful.” She touches the bridge of her nose. “Imagine your maidenhead as something hard, but not solid like bone. It must be broken for your husband to enter you, and that must happen for your marriage to be consummated.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I massage my nose, imagining what it would feel like to have something forced up it so hard it broke the top. “It’s not that bad, dear,” Violante says. “We all lived.” She smiles. “Although you will bleed.”
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