The Abyss
Page 21
"Well, he can be damned, then!" Dona Clara had said upon hearing his message, and Lucia was much taken aback because she had never seen sinhá so angry, and had never heard her curse anyone, much less her husband.
Tarcisio mended physically in the week that followed, but Moema was not just trying to heal him; as she tended to him, poison continuously dripped out of her mouth and into his ear.
"You ought to look at yourself," she said, "to see what a puny man looks like. You went out so full of confidence, smelling like a whore going to market ─ look how you came back. You did not even touch him, and he beat you as if you were nothing, because that's what you are to him ─ and to her! Did she see you lying there helpless while he beat everything out of you? Ah, I wonder if she will ever ask for your help again!" Moema gave a sardonic laugh; the only thing that ever truly amused her was someone else's failure. "I wonder if that pretty lady will come to ask you to protect her now, a man who was beaten in front of her like a dog. And now you will be thrown out like a dog, in front of your children…"
She went on and on in this vein, crossing her arms and peering at him as if he were something pitiful; he sat under her insults, receiving them like lashes of a whip. He hung his head and listened, and sometimes he winced, but he did not have a meek look on his face.
And so two more things happened that were the result of seeds that had been planted: seeds of love in the big house, and seeds of hatred in Tarcisio's home.
On Monday, almost a week after the attempted escape, Clara received a visit which she could not ignore. She heard clapping at her door, and saw through the sheet at the window that it was Pai Bernardo.
Bernardo was the most respected person in all the estate; more respected than Lucia, than Tarcisio, perhaps more than Gabriel or Clara. He rarely chose to speak and when he did, everyone listened. Clara knew that he was going to say something important, so she walked out of the studio and sat on the bench before it, as Pai sat next to her.
"I think there has been enough madness now," he said in his calm, deep voice, leaning on the stick he used to push branches and vegetation aside when he walked. "I know white people are not well in the head, but I believe this has to stop, or someone will get hurt. You don't deserve that, and neither does your husband."
Clara frowned at this, wondering if Pai were going to ask her to beg Gabriel's pardon, which she would never do again; but she listened to him.
"Do you know how Dom Gabriel and I met? I found him in a river, where he had been thrown by friends, or at least partners, who cut his throat to keep the diamonds he had found."
She had not meant to react to anything he said, but she gasped and her hand went to her own throat. "No!" she cried.
Pai Bernardo nodded. "Yes, sinhá, his throat was cut by men he knew, who already had more than enough diamonds of their own. His friend was killed and left on the ground, he was thrown into the river and survived. This very nasty betrayal makes Dom Gabriel too ready to see evil in others, even when it isn't there."
He leaned forward on his stick and went on, "I am older than all of you, and I am looking at this from outside: I don't think there is any evil here. I don't think you ever betrayed him, I think you haven't even thought about it. I think you needed Tarcisio to help you get to a ship and out of here, because you were hurt."
"Gabriel won't believe it," she said almost bitterly. “He will always believe the worst of me.”
"So did you, of him, when Iara was brought here. She is not his daughter, she the child of a woman called Iaci and a Dutch sailor. He told me about both of them a long time ago. He was ashamed that he had abandoned the mother, because he couldn't love her, not as he loved you. He suspected that the way Iaci lived was a little reckless, and when he tried to find out if they were doing well he discovered that she had died, and that the child was in the hands of a stepfather who would have sold the little girl for money."
"Oh, no!"
Bernardo nodded, "Yes, Dona Clarinha, the world has such people. Poor little Iara could have ended up being passed from man to man, even while still a child."
Clara covered her cheeks with her hands, "That's not possible!"
"It is,” he said steadily. “It happens. And this is what Dom Gabriel could not stand. He knew that the girl was in danger, and though he could not love the mother, he did very much love the child."
Her face had gone pale, "I said horrible things to him, horrible!"
"He has said them to you too, I am sure. And this is what has to end. He loves you, sinhá."
She was now shaking her head, "He doesn't, Pai. He did once, but not now."
"Because of what happened to him, he is afraid to trust anyone. He is afraid of the hurt, and of the disappointment. He was making his way back to you..."
There was a tear going down Clara's face now, and she gave a laugh that was almost a sob, "Was he? He had a strange way of showing it!"
"The frames you found here, the flowers ─ they were not brought by me, but by him."
Clara turned to look at Pai Bernardo, her eyes widening. "What? That's not true, I thanked you for them, and you said nothing about that!"
"He asked me not to say. He didn't want you to know. He was waiting until he was ready, and enjoying leaving you presents in the meantime."
She stood up, her back to Bernardo, so full of contradictory emotions that she could hardly think. "Are you saying the truth? Was it all, all Gabriel?"
Turning, she saw that Bernardo was nodding, "It was all Dom Gabriel. All he ever does is for you! Now would that not be an extraordinary love, if only you started believing each other?"
He stood up and moved toward her, "Now I need to go find him and give him a little speech, about how all you do is for him, about how you would make the most terrible liar, and you have always told the truth. There are two people in love here who ought to be happy, and instead keep ramming their head against a wall. You need to stop listening to nonsense and start listening to each other. That's all."
Pai nodded and moved away at a steady pace, leaving Clara looking after him and mumbling, "But you might have told me before this!"
She started walking slowly towards the house: it was true, of course it was true! The frames had symbols only he would have known: the cross of the Order of Christ, the sprigs of lavender, the castles, the ships ─ all images of Portugal. The bouquets left on the windowsill had been lovely, but never obvious; the flowers had been chosen with a discerning eye, and there had been the addition of dry branches and leaves that only by a sophisticated taste would have made. All those gifts could only have been left to her by Gabriel.
It could only have been Gabriel, why did I not see it before?
Clara went toward the house, knowing that Pai was right, that she needed to bare her soul before her husband, to beg his pardon for not trusting him, to ask him once more to believe her, and not the words of anger she had pronounced.
She would go to the house and ask for Sugar, and she would ride to find him, and to say, "My darling, I love you, and have never loved anyone else. I know you love me! Let us be good to one another, we can be so happy!"
But Clara never had the time to get Sugar, or to find her husband and make her passionate plea, because at Tarcisio's house Moema had gone too far, as she had fully meant to go.
Had she been another sort of woman, she would have tried to pick up the pieces of their life, she would have helped Tarcisio heal and find new employment; she would have resented him for loving another woman and planning to run away with her, but the practical necessities of life would have imposed themselves. She would have put their marriage back on course for the sake of her children, and she would not have been the first woman in the world to do it, or the last.
But Moema was a different sort of person, one whose pride was her most treasured possession. She might have been a barefoot cabocla when Tarcisio met her, but she had always had her dignity, and this he could not and would never take away.
H
er pride now demanded a sacrifice; she had helped Tarcisio heal only to send him on to his own doom, and others'.
That Monday she spoke for so long in his ear that he eventually stood up from the table where he had been sitting and grabbed her by the throat. She felt his hand, ready to squeeze the life out of her and said, "Go ahead, kill a woman! Kill someone weaker than you, because you are afraid of a real man!"
It was such a simple sentence to say, and it might not have caused the desired effect, except that Moema knew Tarcisio, and knew that it would.
Just a quarter of an hour earlier the workers at the mill had seen Tarcisio coming toward them, and the look on his bruised face. They didn't notice the pistol in his hand until he raised his arm to point it at Gabriel, who faced him as if he were not afraid of dying.
Some of the men moved, trying to get to Tarcisio and throw him on the ground, or to take the pistol from him. But when they managed, it was too late.
Tarcisio had aimed and fired; the hot bullet had found a place in Gabriel's chest, and he had fallen.
And this is why Clara did not have the time to order Sugar to be brought, or to ride toward her husband and beg him to be happy with her: because just as she arrived in front of the house to ask for the filly, he was being brought to the house in a cart, unconscious, with a bullet in him.
Thirty-Three: Fever
Clara would not know later what took over her, but her mind stayed sharp, and she managed to not start crying over Gabriel's unconscious form once she realized that he was still alive.
Instead, she began to shout instructions: the workers who had brought him were to take him upstairs very carefully, water was to be heated and clean towels brought, and Jiló was to ride after the doctor, who had only just left the plantation.
She walked behind the men carrying Gabriel and saw the shocked faces of the servants, but she did not stop, and only said to Teté, "No crying, sinhô isn't dead!"
Once Gabriel was in bed, she took a pair of scissors that Lucia handed to her and cut his shirt open to reveal a hole in his upper chest, near his shoulder. Tarcisio, whom the workers were blaming in incoherent sentences, had probably aimed for Gabriel's heart and missed. No organs or arteries had been hit, but the bullet was still inside him, and needed to be taken out.
When the water came, Clara cleaned the wound as well as she dared and saw that it still bled, so she applied a folded cloth to it to keep him from losing more blood. It was only then that she really looked at his face: it was extremely pale, as if he were wearing his own death mask.
She could not stop to wring her hands and berate herself, for how could she have known that her attempt to leave would have resulted in tragedy? Gabriel's life was now in danger, and Tarcisio had been seized and taken into the custody of the town guards.
It was not the time to think of anything, she only sat by Gabriel, pressing a cloth over the wound, and called his name softly. After a while she saw that his eyes were moving behind closed lids and his lashes fluttered. He opened his eyes, at first staring straight up at the ceiling, then moving his head slightly to look at her.
"I'm not dead," he said, and suddenly laughed, wincing in pain at the same time. "How many damned lives will I have?"
"A lot of them, I hope," she said quietly.
"No, not so many..."
His eyes closed again. It was the loss of blood, she knew, that made him feel faint; the bullet must be taken out and the wound sewn quickly.
"Where is that doctor?" she asked
Dr. Pereira had thankfully not been too far away, and he made it to the house in a quarter of an hour. It felt like a lifetime to Clara, but he arrived, set down his bag, washed his hands and started looking at the wound.
"I have to take the bullet out," he told Clara. "And I have nothing to help him with the pain."
"Just do it."
They turned to find that Gabriel was awake again. He looked at them with a calm face, his eyes dark. He nodded once and repeated, "Do it."
The doctor washed his instruments and put them on a little table that Lucia moved next to the bed. "I'll need a needle and some strong thread."
Lucia ran out to get what the doctor had asked for, as he held a large scalpel and looked down at Gabriel, "Do you want to bite on something?"
Gabriel's eyes went to the scalpel and he gave another small laugh as he shook his head. Clara found herself sweating and couldn't look away as the scalpel cut Gabriel's flesh, so that the doctor could reach the bullet without the risk of pushing it in further. Though she winced, she saw that Gabriel lay with his eyes on the ceiling again, as if in a trance, and that he never made a sound. The doctor wiped the blood from the cut and they could now see the bullet; he picked up small tongs and started to pull it out.
Clara's hand took Gabriel's, and she felt his fingers closing around hers, firmly but not tightly. She looked again, and again he had not moved or made a sound. Only a tear had come out of his eye and run down the side of his face to show that he was in pain.
The doctor cleaned the wound as well as he could and Lucia handed him the needle with the thread, and he sewed it. This time Gabriel closed his eyes and lay still, though his hand still held Clara's. She felt that he was trying to comfort her.
Everything had been done quite quickly, and the doctor dressed the wound, showing Clara how she must clean and bind it, at least twice a day.
"You must look at it, to make sure it's not festering," he told her when he had finished and she walked out with him. "The danger now, and it's a very big danger, is that it might get infected. Make sure the dressings are changed and that the wound doesn't smell or look bad. The bullet didn't hit the bone and that is good, as there are no splinters inside."
He was turning to leave, but she held him by the arm, "Will he live, doctor?" she asked.
The doctor glanced inside the room, where Gabriel lay with his eyes closed, "He is very strong and very healthy, and the bullet did no great damage." He patted her hand. "He will develop a fever, if it's not too high and there is no infection then he should live. But watch him carefully."
"I will," she said.
"I'll be back in the evening to see how he is."
Clara returned to Gabriel's side, but he seemed to be sleeping now. She pulled a chair and sat by the bed, feeling his forehead. Oh, God, why did this have to happen? Let us be at peace, let us love each other.
She felt rebellious against God and the host of saints that she usually prayed to. Though she knew the world was a hard place for too many people, she felt that a lot of what had happened to them might have been avoided. I am so tired, she thought, and laid her cheek on the bed, still holding Gabriel's hand.
Would it not be an extraordinary love? Pai Bernardo had asked.
She closed her eyes and began to weep quietly. After a moment she felt his fingers on her face. "Don't cry," he said.
"No," she said softly. "I won't."
He went in and out of sleep, and developed a fever in the evening, but the doctor pronounced it not high enough to be a serious threat. Clara had taken a moment to wash and change, and had asked that all the bloody clothes and linen be taken away and burned.
As she walked back to Gabriel's room, she heard crying downstairs; it was Iara. She went halfway down the staircase and bent to look inside the drawing room, where Teté was sitting with the girl on her lap and Guelo next to her. Iara sobbed and called, "Papai! Papai!"
Clara kept going toward them, leaving Lucia with Gabriel for a moment.
"What is it?" she asked Teté.
"She wants to see her father."
Kneeling next to Iara, Clara brushed the hair away from her face. The girl's cheeks were covered in tears, and she wept as if her heart were breaking. Poor little girl, who had been taken to so many places and lost so many people.
"Papai is all right," Clara said.
"Não!" the girl sobbed.
"Do you want to see him?" Clara asked tenderly. "He is just sleeping."
Guelo nodded a few times, biting his lip. Clara repeated, as she went up the stairs with Iara, "Everything will be all right."
Lucia had been as efficient as ever, and the blood had been removed from the room. Gabriel now lay on clean sheets, wearing an open shirt, with a new dressing over his wound. Clara sat down in the chair, holding Iara on her lap.
"You see, he is only sleeping a little."
Iara at first only looked, and dared not touch Gabriel. Clara took her hand and put it on his hair, moving it a little. The girl kept her hand there, "Faz cafuné," she said.
Clara smiled, "Yes, do cafuné on papai. He likes it."
She caressed Gabriel's hair as well; it had been so long since she had been able to touch him. It felt good to have his hair between her fingers.
Iara had leaned forward and put her face next to his. "Papai? Sleeping?"
A slow smile appeared on his lips, "Just sleeping," he said.
She turned to smile at Clara, who smiled as well and nodded.
Gabriel slept deeply that night, and Iara would not consent to be taken away, so she stayed in Clara's lap, both of them in a large armchair that had been brought.
Clara held the girl to her, feeling her small body, her little bones, the wispy hair that was soft as feathers. How could she not have loved Iara? How could she have been so selfish?
Doubt was a terrible thing, to turn a good deed into a reason for hatred and quarrels. Her jealousy had been greater than her compassion for a creature who had already suffered, though she was so small, and Clara felt ashamed as she rocked Iara.
In the morning, Gabriel was still feverish but he ate fruit, drank tea and sat up so that his dressing could be changed. Clara marveled at his strength and control.
Iara then lay with her head on Gabriel's good shoulder and sucked her thumb; Guelo stared at him from the foot of the bed with anxiety in his eyes; Teté stood by the door miserably, as if she blamed herself