Barnacle Love

by Anthony De Sa

  “Pray with conviction! Close your eyes,” he’d whisper before reaching over Manuel’s shoulder and placing his glasses at the base of Nossa Senhora’s bare feet, her chipped toes magnified through them. But Manuel couldn’t. He wanted her to move her eyes. He wanted her to see. He wanted to reach up, take hold of the priest’s glasses, and perch them on her thin nose. Then he wanted her to weep, flood the rectory until they were both submerged in a lake of salted tears. Manuel thought he could hold his breath, grasp his trusted grouper Big Lips’ dorsal fin, and surge through the waves and out the church door. Padre Carlos would be caught in the swirl and drown. She never wept. The room remained dry. Padre Carlos was still there, standing behind him, close enough that Manuel could feel the heat of him. Manuel kept his sweaty palms close together, elbows placed on the soft pad. He wouldn’t look back when Padre Carlos’s breathing became deep and rhythmic, when he moaned; he just squished his hands and fingers together even harder until his nails surged to a paler shade of white. Manuel would gaze up at Nossa Senhora and imagine Big Lips swimming in the air, circling her head before disappearing. The moaning would fade just before the obligatory five “Our Father”s. Padre Carlos would reach over Manuel’s shoulder and offer his trembling hand and garnet ring to kiss. “Those who serve me, serve God.”

  Manuel would run home, struggle to catch his breath along the uneven road. “It’s all right—he’s not hurting me,” he’d repeat to himself. Once home he would move to his room with an inconspicuous gait and lock the door. Big Lips would pop out of his head. The gentle giant would open and close his balloon-like mouth, fanning him with his transparent fins. It lasted three years and Manuel’s mother never knew.

  … Listen to me well

  you Promised Land,

  if you love me

  I will be your most faithful slave.

  I will turn from my past

  to jump in your fire.

  I bear the map of the dreams

  I lost …

  They revel in the noise against the evening sky. The moon lights the sails of the moored White Fleet, proud soldiers in the still harbor. Mateus says it isn’t safe in St. John’s. He tells Manuel the commander and his men are probing. Manuel had been the first man the commander lost at sea. Mateus says the commander never believed he had drowned; thinks it was all a ruse to escape Portugal and his military obligation. He will not allow any subterfuge to take seed, germinate in the hearts and minds of those he has been charged with. Mateus assures Manuel that if found, the commander will most certainly force his return.

  Head down, Manuel follows the remains of the once glorious carpet of petals. It is now nothing more than a crushed layer of confetti. The lines of the path are blurred to the many who dance and drink. Others curl up in doorways to sleep, while in one archway he steps near the steady hum that emanates from a straddling pair. It is a carnival. The fadistas weave in and out of homes, balconies, and bars, singing their sorry attempts in falsetto. Some try to duel in fado before erupting in laughter. But it is the faithful ones with the candles, holding their small flames of hope as they crawl up the street on their bloodied knees, who guide Manuel, under the gates and up to the large oak doors that guard those within.

  It is midnight and the thick walls of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist dull the noise outside. It is gloomy inside. He chooses to sit underneath a painting of Salome offering King Herod John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Small pools of light are cast from the ascending rows of prayer votives that have been pushed against the wall. There are people here, kneeling and praying, breathing in the smell of melting wax, lemon wood polish, and stale mums. Unlike Manuel, they are not waiting for the priest.

  When Manuel was eight, he was summoned by Padre Carlos one last time. The priest stood in front of the altar as Manuel walked up to him. He reached into the money basket set on the altar. He offered a coin. When Manuel didn’t take it, he reached for Manuel’s balled fist and tried to peel his fingers open. He held Manuel’s hand tight. He slipped the coin into Manuel’s pocket. He was about to say something but Manuel wouldn’t let him. Manuel turned before the priest uttered any words and walked back up the aisle. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lint-covered coin, dropped it into the holy water at the church entrance, and wiped his hand across his pants. Manuel remembers hearing the sound of the coin hitting the crystal bottom before he punched open the heavy wooden doors, pushed his way out onto the worn steps of the church, into the warm air.

  An hour has passed. Manuel’s eyes move from the ornate relief that glorifies the ceiling to Nossa Senhora de Fátima’s blank expression in the dim light. The candles lit at her feet cast shadows that slash her features, elongate her nose, and bring one brow to a point.

  “Nossa Senhora, please show me what is right.” He is surprised by his own whisper.

  He waits, but nothing. The church is warm. He turns to leave. Mateus said he would mail his letters. The boat leaves at one in the morning and then onto a train that will take him to a place many of them go, Montreal or Toronto. Mateus has written it all down. Manuel is about to cross himself, bends his knee slightly to genuflect, but then turns to walk down the aisle.

  “Bless you, my son.” His cassock flicks Manuel’s shin as the black shape whirs by him.

  “Padre Carlos!”

  He turns. He is small. Not how Manuel remembers him.

  “What is it, filho?”

  “I’m not your son.”

  Padre Carlos tilts his head in distant recognition; he’s trying to place the young man before him.

  “I’m Manuel … Manuel Rebelo of Lomba da Maia.” His eyes widen. “You used to say, ‘Those who serve me … serve God.’”

  Manuel’s fists are hard, his knuckles white. The restraint in his voice is slipping away. Although Padre Carlos is his focus, he can see a flurry of people getting up from the pews, shifting away from them. Manuel surges toward the old priest. Bewildered, Padre Carlos shrivels and moves back. He raises his ringed finger to his mouth. “Shhh,” he sounds.

  Manuel catches the sparkle of red and the pleading in the priest’s face. He hears some squeals, cries of “Policia! Meu deus, Policia!”

  “I was a boy!” he yells. The echo comes back to him three, four, five times.

  Padre Carlos stumbles backward, moves like a scurrying crab. He hits the base that supports Nossa Senhora de Fátima. The flames flicker, she teeters. Crouched beneath her, he cowers and makes the sign of the cross. His glasses askew, Manuel sees the whites of his eyes. He came to hurt him but the priest is so small. In a remarkable instant the anger and grief of his past leave him, only to be replaced by his fado, and the burning flame, which once had warmed him when he thought of home, is extinguished.

  Manuel turns to leave then looks back. To steady himself, raise himself from the floor, Padre Carlos grabs on to the posts that provide temporary footing for the statue. She leans dangerously, rocks to right herself again, and then falls onto the base. There are cries of horror and wails of disbelief. Her head comes off cleanly and rolls down the aisle, chasing Manuel. He stops it under his foot. Her crown is flattened on one side. Her eyes stare at Manuel but they do not see. Maybe she will cry now …

  Say good-bye to the sea, say good-bye

  Though the heavens may open

  And smile onto the place I was born,

  filled with the things I know.

  I will not come back from the sea.

  Do not weep, do not cry—

  only sing for my dream and …

  pray for me.

  MADE OF ME

  IT WAS HER TURN TO GO. They all sat in Manuel’s living room. His sister kept staring at the money that would pay for her flight piled on the coffee table. She alone sobbed in the silent room. Georgina brushed past Manuel and his brother Jose to sit beside her sister-in-law Candida.

  “It will be okay, Candida. Acalmar. Shhhhh,” Georgina whispered as she dabbed a tissue across Candida’s upper lip and wi
th her other hand caressed her back in large circles.

  “But I don’t want to go. I’ve made a life for myself here, far away from her hateful voice.”

  Her brothers sat on the crushed-velvet couch with their heads between their knees, staring at the carpet. Jose got up and left the room.

  “Manuel, please—you didn’t see the way she left me.” She clutched her older brother’s sleeve, twisted his cuff and the hair on his forearm. Manuel did not wince, just remained fixed, his expression betraying nothing. Georgina urged Manuel with her not-so-subtle facial expressions—to soothe, to console. Nothing.

  “You were here—you didn’t see.” Candida choked on her words, wiped her nose with her sleeve. Manuel dragged his fingers across his son’s jumble of blond hair. In silence, he offered the boy his hand and they left the women alone in the room.

  Manuel passed by his brother Jose, who sat at the kitchen dinette drinking a beer. Manuel moved to the sink and smiled as he helped Antonio to sit atop the counter. Manuel knew his son—the boy he had named after the father he himself barely knew—would need his guidance to grow into a proper man, the kind of man that would thrive in this land he had made his home.

  Manuel raised a bottle of Molson’s Export Ale to his lips. The blue ship with all those sails on the label always reminded him of the place his family came from, of the Portuguese with their proud tradition of shipbuilding and exploration. “Jose, what exactly—” Manuel stopped, not because he didn’t know what to ask but because he was afraid the question would lead him to a place he was quite content to leave alone. “What happened to Candida? You were there, you saw it.”

  “Estupida. She was so stupid, that girl, sometimes,” Jose said.

  Jose recounted the story, how Candida had found a used lipstick under a church pew, how she always had ideas of being a movie star, the kind that filled the smoky screens, always doing her hair in crimped waves when their mother just wanted her to get the house in order, to wash the dishes or sweep.

  “It happened shortly after you left; soon after we thought you were … dead, at sea. Mãe was distraught and …”

  Manuel looked over at his six-year-old son to see if the words his brother had spoken had entered the boy’s head. He thought for an instant that it might be best to ask his son to leave, but chose not to. It was important to know things; knowledge was a kind of protection. Parents had an obligation to teach, he thought. Antonio just sat on the counter, prodding the dead fish in the sink with a straw.

  “Candida was so caught up in her silly fantasy that, I guess, she lost track of all time, ran home, and forgot to wipe her lips clean. She sat at the dinner table and smiled, her lips as dark as black cherries.”

  Manuel scraped his knife quickly against the scales of the fish, sparkles flicking into the air. He smiled at Antonio’s joy as the boy picked some scales from Manuel’s stubble and hair. Antonio’s gentleness aroused a fervent love for his son. But, it also frightened Manuel; his son was too meek, too full of his mother’s milk to live out his promise. Manuel pointed the tip of the knife into the white belly of the fish, punctured it, and slit the fish up to the gills to clean its insides. Antonio grimaced, tucked his chin into his shoulder every time Manuel’s fingers dug in and tore out the innards.

  Jose continued his story—how Maria Theresa da Conceição Rebelo had stood behind her daughter Candida and stroked her hair, hummed a song she was fond of singing to them when they were small, before their father died. But then the humming faded, her fingers curled and tangled themselves in Candida’s hair. She lifted her off the chair by her hair, and smeared the red lipstick across her chin and up to her ears. “‘Puta! Eu não quero putas nesta casa.’” Candida’s eyes were wide like a frightened horse’s; she was snorting, trying to breathe through her mother’s strong hands. “Remember those hands, Manuel?”

  Manuel looked at his own hands, his strong fists covered in blood. He slammed the fish and knife into the sink. His brother turned his beer bottle, quarter turns, tearing at the label, the blue navio.

  “And there she lay, beaten and alone on the dirt road, thrown out for a harlot at sixteen.”

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” Antonio whispered.

  “No.” He offered his son the next fish and tried to place the knife in his hand. “Fish have little brains, filho, so small they can’t even feel.”

  “Your hands, I mean.” Antonio’s soft eyes looked up at his father. Manuel did not respond. His son’s stare had moved to the blood-soaked tea towel. Some of the fish were still twitching, their red gills fanning on the sides of their heads.

  “They want their guts back,” Antonio mumbled. He jumped down from the counter and ran down the hall.

  That summer they gathered for her funeral—even though she wasn’t dead yet. The phone call had traveled under the deep green Atlantic, sped along countless wires and nodes before it tumbled into 55 Palmerston Avenue with a crackled, “Manuel?”

  “Yello,” Manuel answered in his most proper tone.

  “Manuel, is that you? Can you hear me? She says she wants to see you before she dies.”

  Manuel placed the receiver against his chest to muffle the staticky voice. He had been dreading this call.

  “Manuel, please come. She’s not ready. She’s close but—”

  Candida had only been there a week when she called. Within days, Manuel had secured the tickets. He had intended for his brother Jose and his sister Albina to return with him, but couldn’t afford the fares. He had pleaded with the travel agent to allow his children to sit on their laps, freeing two seats. The agent continued to process the passports as if his request was ridiculous.

  He had come home and moved behind Georgina as she washed the dishes. He fanned the tickets in front of her face, then placed them on the counter next to the sink. Georgina said nothing. She continued to wash, her hands searching in the water. She didn’t bother to rinse the dishes, just placed the suds-covered plates to dry on the rack and moved to their bedroom. Manuel followed. Not once did she look at him as she pulled her slip and skirts from the chest of drawers and whipped them on top of the bed. Words could not bridge the hesitation in Manuel and the awkward fear his wife had of returning. He had reassured her that they would never go back. But Manuel had convinced himself that this might be the opportunity to show everyone, especially his mother, that everything he had sacrificed to make a life for himself in Canada had been worth it.

  Manuel sat beside Antonio on the plane, watched with pride as his son looked out the small window, convinced that the white flecks in the ocean were migrating whales shooting water through their blowholes or, even better, sharks.

  “They’re not sharks, stupid,” Terezinha said. She was ten, and still upset that her mother had allowed her to bring only Thumbelina and not her Easy-Bake oven. Oh, filha, it’s too big, hadn’t been a good enough answer. Terezinha had stomped her feet and hadn’t stopped sulking since. Manuel placed a hand on her head and turned it to face forward as he pushed her down into her seat. He loved both his children but he saw his daughter’s spirit as a bent nail, something that needed to be hammered straight before it could be used. His wife shared the same concern but reassured Manuel that it was a kind of moxie that would serve her well; manners and etiquette didn’t necessarily get girls very far. In Canada, women could show their strength and independence and even be rewarded in life.

  The road to the village—there was still only one—snaked its way along the coast, hugging the cliffs so closely that if Manuel held his arm out the window he could scrape his fingertips across the damp rock wall. Large balls of pink and blue hydrangeas lined the road like weeds. Manuel remembered going out early in the morning during the Festa de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, his town’s patron saint, to cull their large heads and pluck their flake-like petals into linen potato sacks. The streets needed to be decorated.

  Manuel smiled when every so often the children were startled by the sudden pounding on the roof of the taxi—the
gush of natural spring water falling from fissures in the rock above. He watched as Antonio pressed his face into a red balloon and squished it against the car window to make the world outside turn pink. Manuel couldn’t drag his eyes away from his son as he practiced the few Portuguese phrases he had been taught—bom dia, obrigado, and olá!—repeated them over and over into the balloon. The droning sound made Manuel’s ears itch and he was reminded of his own anxiety.

  As if sensing Manuel’s irritation, Antonio, dressed in his new blue suit, moved to his mother’s lap and rode her knee’s nervous bounce. Manuel knew that his mother, if she was still well enough, would see her grandson and recognize his greatness. He looked at Terezinha, a cotton ball in her First Communion dress. Just before leaving, her mother had cut her fine hair short, trimmed neatly around the lip of a bowl. Manuel had been angry but his wife had responded, “She’s my daughter, she needed a haircut.” Terezinha sat up front with the taxi driver. She wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. Every once in a while Georgina would reach over the seat to tug at Terezinha’s ear when she was asking the driver too many questions.

  Georgina wasn’t the one his mother would have chosen for her son. Before the wedding, blood had been shed and hateful words exchanged, words that even Manuel had never dared to ask about. Manuel knew when it was best to stand back and leave things alone.

  “Okay?” Manuel asked.

  Georgina didn’t answer for a while. Only when he turned away did she respond. “She better not bring up the past. Or else—”

  Manuel reached over and folded her hand into his.

  He felt like a boy again as he gulped in the air that rushed past his face through the open window. Antonio mimicked his father by sticking his face out the window, but his mother pulled him back in by the scruff of his neck, careful not to crumple the crease in his collar, and tried to straighten his unruly hair. Every so often Terezinha would turn around and roll her eyes; she couldn’t sit still and began to tap her doll’s head rhythmically against the window. Manuel tried to reach over and hold her in place. She wriggled for a while. Manuel knew that the rolling green hills against the azure sea held nothing for his daughter; she wanted people with names—she had heard about them all and she wanted to see if they were as real in person.