The Abyss

by Lara Blunte

  "Can you?" Clara wondered.

  She saw a flash of pride in Tarcisio's eyes: he did not want her to think that he might be afraid of Gabriel. Men and their manliness, she thought. They thought anything an insult, and yet believed that women should stand by meekly while they filled their houses with children by their mistresses. They thought that women had no honor.

  She had not, in the past three days, been able to look at Gabriel's daughter. The more he coddled Iara, the more he walked around with her in his arms, showing her things, kissing her hair, holding her hand as she ran on the lawn, the angrier and more hurt his wife felt.

  How sweet would those moments be if she had been their child; how terrible they were when she was another woman's.

  Clara only managed to keep calm because of the lie that she had told him; because now he could feel some pain too at the horrible words that she had been driven to say. Resentment and misery clouded her judgment, and she walked back to the house, having agreed to meet Tarcisio in the woods on Tuesday morning, after Gabriel had left for the sugar mill.

  It would finally become apparent to Gabriel, Clara thought, that he had done what she could not bear. It ought to become clear to him how patiently she had waited, only to receive a knife in her heart. If he came to her in Rio she would ask him to believe her, she would confess that she had lied out of jealousy, and she would tell him that she was not willing to live estranged from him anymore.

  If he did not come, then she would stay with her parents like an old maid for the rest of her life. She would have to bear whatever Juliana would choose to say, but at that moment, when she had forgotten a little what her mother was like, that decision seemed like the lesser evil.

  She walked back to the house with her head down, frowning at the ground as she thought these things, and when she was already on the gravel she saw Teté with Iara. She would have walked past them, but the little girl had plucked a flower with one hand, while in the other she held a piece of coconut cake. Iara turned with the flower, stretched it out to Clara and took a few wobbly steps in her direction.

  "Toma," she said in her baby voice. Take it. "Pra ti!" For you.

  The quick glance that Clara shot at Iara almost stopped her in her tracks. The poor little thing had halted with her flower and her cake and stood with hurt eyes, still displaying her offering.

  "Toma?" Iara said again, a little more uncertainly.

  Clara rushed into the house and up the stairs, cursing herself for weeping, but her heart could not help breaking a little at the natural affection the little girl felt for others, at her confusion when her gift was rejected.

  It's not her fault, Clara thought, closing the door. It's not the poor baby's fault. It’s Gabriel’s!

  Tarcisio's feelings were a great contrast to hers as he walked home from their meeting. At every step he felt a greater elation, almost as if he had just been told that by some miracle the world now belonged to him.

  She hates him, Tarcisio thought. She wants to leave him!

  This was the exact opposite of what he had thought during the Botada, when Clara had seemed to be madly in love with her husband, and he with her. Dom Gabriel had felt too confident, he had brought his bastard child home and now Dona Clara hated him as much as she had loved him before.

  The foreman could not do Dom Gabriel the injustice of saying that he was a bad employer, or an unfair man; yet men who were often impeccably honest in their public life might still be monsters in private.

  Was he not a liar now? Did he not have to hide from Moema the desire and even the passion that he felt for another woman? But was it not Moema's fault, and Dom Gabriel's, for refusing to seek happiness, for being grim and impossible to love?

  He would help Clara ─ for he could not think of her as "Dona Clara" anymore. She would go to Rio and he would eventually meet her there, when he had unraveled his own knots, when he had finally left Moema but kept his children. He would keep his children, because he loved them more than their mother did, because they would be happier with him.

  With him and Clara.

  Thirty-One: Sanctuary

  Tuesday arrived and Moema watched Tarcisio with her usual distrust. He was once again taking pains over how he looked, and speaking of having to do errands in the city almost the whole day.

  When she asked him what errands he was evasive, things I must do, he told her. When she requested that he bring a list of items back ─ not because she wanted them, but because she suspected that he was lying ─ he frowned and told her that he would have no time to do any of what she needed, that there were other important things he must do.

  Moema always expected treachery; she knew it was the way of the world, and she had heard of the trouble that had begun at the big house with the child's arrival. She understood that Dona Clara had finally reached a breaking point, and that she was leaving and taking Tarcisio with her.

  Tarcisio clearly meant to have what was pleasant and easy, an affair with a beautiful lady who belonged to a higher sphere of life than him. He had always been vain, and now he thought he could have a woman as white as snow for his mistress, and discard his cabocla, whose body was disfigured by the birth of his three children.

  Moema watched him go and went to saddle her mule, reflecting that she was going to move slowly so that Tarcisio and Clara had time to meet. She rode in no hurry to the plantation, asking a few times where Dom Gabriel was. Finally she saw him by the mill, and dismounted.

  He turned toward her with a frown on his face. He did not like her, and she did not care. She stood next to him, her face serious.

  "What do you want?" he asked abruptly.

  He thought that he did not need to be polite to her, because she was just a cabocla, just the woman who lived with his foreman, and now she was glad that she had such terrible news for him, for Clara, for Tarcisio. She would never have denied herself the pleasure of telling him what she knew, and of watching his face as she said it.

  "Your wife has run away with your foreman," she said.

  He became utterly still, his eyes boring into hers, and she stared back at him calmly. This is what revenge feels like, she thought, it feels good, it feels better than anything. It feels like certainty.

  "What did you say?" the proud man asked through stiff lips.

  She tried to keep the triumph out of her eyes, and failed. "Your wife is riding through the river with Tarcisio. She has left, and taken him."

  "You are a spiteful liar," he said quietly.

  "Go to the house and ask for her, then!"

  As he leapt onto his saddle she knew, even before he turned, that he was not going to the house because he already believed her. He was going after the pair of traitors.

  Laughter escaped her as he urged his horse toward the river and away from the house. It was possible that he would kill Tarcisio; she half hoped he would kill them both, and be hanged.

  Gabriel could not move fast enough; he leaned forward over the horse and did not even slow down once he was in the forest, though on another day he would never risk hurting an animal by making it ride so quickly on uneven ground.

  Clara rode with a heavy heart, and many backward glances and sighs. She was leaving a place that she loved, in spite of the difficulties that had existed in her marriage. She still loved the land, the estate, and the people in it.

  Teté had cried more tears than would fit in an ocean since the night before, though the plan had been hers. She had become suddenly afraid and told Clara, "Sinhá, maybe it's better if you don't go. Stay, sinhá, things will get better. Sinhô loves you!"

  "No, Teté. I have endured everything that I could, and now I will go to my father's house."

  She had left pretending to go for a ride, and her eyes were moist as she waved to Sebastião, who waved back with his toothy grin and gentle eyes, to Celso, whose frown lifted as she passed; she waved to Maninha who was at the window in the kitchen, and her heart almost burst when she saw the expectation that she would return writ
ten on Guelo's face.

  "Don't go!" Teté had said again, holding on to her arm.

  It was hardest for Clara to be parted from Teté, her friend at all hours, but she shook her head, whispered, "We will see each other again," and left.

  Now she tried to keep up a conversation with Tarcisio, who rode easily next to her, a rifle stuck in front of his saddle, a pistol tucked in his waistband and a knife strapped to his thigh. Was the path really so dangerous? She knew there were no Indians there anymore, they had been forced to leave by the relentless advance of the white landowners, but there were jaguars and probably outlaws.

  She smiled and nodded as Tarcisio talked, hardly knowing what he was saying, thinking only that she was leaving the only man she would ever love, and that he might never come after her. As she looked ahead, however, she heard a loud noise like an explosion and saw Tarcisio almost fly off his horse.

  Sugar neighed and pawed the ground in fright, moving her neck from side to side, but Clara managed to keep her from bolting; when she looked up, she saw Tarcisio's horse galloping away without him. She turned and saw the foreman on the ground, where he had painfully landed, and a man standing over him. It was Gabriel, who had pulled Tarcisio off the horse with his whip.

  He dropped the whip with murder on his face, and lifted the stunned foreman by his shirt.

  "No!" Clara shouted, turning Sugar around.

  But Gabriel was already raining violent blows on Tarcisio's face.

  Clara jumped off Sugar, running toward them. "You'll kill him!"

  She tried to get hold of her husband's arm and felt his strength for the brief moment she held it. She was then pushed away and fell with a thud, tumbling backward down a slope toward the water. She managed to keep herself from falling into the river by putting her hands out and digging her fingers into the earth as she slid.

  And still she could hear the sickening blows that now sounded as if Gabriel were pummeling something wet; she knew that it was Tarcisio's face, covered in blood. She climbed up towards them, digging her hands and feet into the slope and crying, "Stop, you'll kill him!"

  She was now at the same level as the two men, and she saw with horror that Tarcisio's eyes were two bloody slits, and that more blood was spurting from gashes in his face.

  "Stop!" she shrieked.

  Tarcisio was unconscious, so Gabriel let go of him and turned to Clara. She felt that she was facing an animal worse than any she might have encountered on her way.

  "You’re begging for him?" he asked in a low, dangerous tone.

  Before she could say anything, he reached a bloodied hand and grabbed her by the neck, telling her with fury, "Don't talk. Be quiet, be quiet!"

  She did not know how, but he was suddenly on his horse and had placed her before him. With one hand he held her wrists together, and with the other the reins, which he turned towards the house. As they rode home, they passed Moema on her mule. She was going toward Tarcisio, her face inscrutable, and did not glance at them.

  Clara sobbed with frustration and concern for the man who had tried to help her. She understood now what a foolish plan it had been; she ought to have known that Gabriel could become a savage, not because he had ever acted like one, but because he had sometimes looked as though he was trying not to.

  When they got to the house, the servants came running out, having seen their master ride over the well-kept lawn. They saw the unhappy Dona Clara pulled from the saddle and onto the ground, then forced to her feet and dragged toward the chapel by Dom Gabriel.

  "He is going to kill her!" Teté cried, trying to run after them, only to be stopped by Lucia.

  The two footmen moved with the intention of helping Clara, but Gabriel turned toward them, "Stay away!” he shouted. “She is my wife!”

  Sebastião fell back and Celso took a few moments longer to stand down, but all of them ─Maninha and the kitchen maids, the gardener, even the coachman ─ all who had wanted to move forward and help their mistress now stood rooted to the spot as Gabriel kept on pulling Clara by the arm toward the chapel.

  Once he got there he pushed the door open so violently that it slammed against the wall and threw her before the altar. He was now straddling her, his booted feet on either side of her body, as he said with barely contained fury, "Stay here. Stay here because I might have just enough respect for this place to not kill you while you're in it!"

  She raised herself by her hands and shouted, "Kill me, then, kill me! I won't live with you!"

  There was a shrill scream: it was Teté who had broken loose from Lucia's grip and stood at the door of the chapel. Overcoming her fear of Gabriel, she ducked under his arm and put herself between husband and wife.

  Gabriel straightened his back, looking at the defiant woman and the frightened servant on the ground. Teté's devotion now infuriated him, and he started to walk backward as if afraid of himself. "Stay here, I am telling you. Stay here until I can bear to see you."

  He walked out with hell in his eyes. Guelo ran past him toward the chapel. Celso had been waiting, prepared to try and save Dona Clara. "To work, all of you," Gabriel bellowed. "I haven't killed her yet!"

  They ran or scurried, all except Celso and Lucia, who stood at the entrance of the house, distress on her face. Iara was wandering aimlessly on the gravel and suddenly broke into sobs. Gabriel picked her up as he passed, "It's all right," he soothed her. "It's all right."

  As he went by Lucia, she said in a low voice, "I am sure she did not mean..."

  "I haven't asked you," Gabriel said forcefully, and it was the first harsh thing he had ever said to her.

  He climbed the steps of the house with the little girl in his arms and Lucia stood looking towards the chapel and shaking her head. "Ah, God," she muttered. "They don't deserve this!"

  Thirty-Two: A Seed of Love and a Seed of Destruction

  In the estate, what was known during the next days was this: that Dona Clarinha had stayed in the chapel a long time, but that she had refused to pray, telling Teté that she was tired of begging anyone for anything, even Jesus, even God, even the Virgin or Saint Claire.

  She sat stubbornly in the pew; Guelo put his head on her lap, and Teté a cheek on her shoulder, and they stayed like that for a while, until Dona Clarinha sent them out because they needed to eat, though she herself would not.

  Maninha then came to try and tempt her with the dishes she loved, telling her that she only had to eat a little, but Clara still refused.

  When Dom Gabriel was told that she would not eat, he asked for a good meal to be served to him and Iara, and said that the only thing that he needed his wife to know was that if she tried to run away again he would bring her back, and as to the rest he did not care.

  By the evening what was being told at the servants' quarters was that Dom Gabriel had said that he hoped his wife would die, and that if she didn't he would kill her as soon as she stepped out of the chapel.

  The servants could not help making the story bigger and bigger, as the lives of their betters always seemed so much more fascinating than their own ─though among them husbands and wives fought every day, and some men beat their women and others threatened to kill them.

  They were also fascinated by the downfall of their foreman, a man whom none disliked, as he had been strict about their work but had never given himself airs, and was easy to know in his free time. They wondered if he had been having an affair with Dona Clara, but the house servants were adamant in the defense of their mistress, insisting that she had never been away from the house for long enough to carry on with anybody, and that she had simply been unable to stand the humiliation of having a natural child of Dom Gabriel's brought under her roof.

  Tarcisio's house was the object of much curiosity, with workers and servants finding some reason to go by and peek inside. They came back saying that he was in bed with a face disfigured by bruises, and that Moema was tending to him.

  "He saw the wrong side of sinhô's fist!" the workers said, and they all
thought that anyone would have done as much upon finding his woman going anywhere with another man; even the women felt that Dom Gabriel had been justified in what he had done.

  Then Dona Clara left the chapel, after refusing food there for one day; she went straight to her studio, where she asked that a bed be brought, and that a bathtub be placed in the smaller room.

  The thing she had most wanted was a glass box from her bedside table. Inside it she found the gold bracelet and asked Teté to fasten it on her wrist. Teté almost began weeping, because she could tell that the bracelet represented an act of defiance of some sort, but Clara insisted on wearing it.

  "It's a gift from my father!" she said almost angrily.

  She locked herself inside the studio for a week, and hung sheets on the windows so that no one could see what she was doing. A sad Teté ─the only person allowed in the studio ─ said that she was painting, but she would not show what, and that she did not talk much. She seemed obsessed with her canvas, would not be distracted from it, and had taken to muttering things under her breath.

  Finally, sinhá called Lucia and told her to say only this to her husband: that nothing had happened between her and Tarcisio, as God was her witness, and as everyone in the estate could attest to, and that he should not leave the man without his work and his house because she had made the mistake of asking him to escort her to Paraty.

  The response from Dom Gabriel was that Lucia should ask her mistress whether she did not get tired of always repeating the same story, because he got tired of hearing it.

  He was not a man who usually cared what people said about him, and he did not care now, though in the past his natural discretion had made it impossible for people to know anything of his intimate life. There was a new level of unconcern in him and that frightened everyone: they all felt as if something terrible was about to happen.