The Abyss

by Lara Blunte

  “I had to undergo the humiliation of being pawed by a scoundrel, I had to defend myself, and you should have been outraged that any man should have behaved like that, and instead you believed him! You believed him because of a bracelet!" She stopped to let out an incredulous laugh. "I lost a bracelet and for that you left me alone in a new land, among servants who were kinder and more loving to me than you were. You told me that I would rot here, untouched, for the rest of my life when in my life I had never done a thing that I should be ashamed of, not a thing except one!"

  She stood softly shaking her head, "I refused to marry you, years ago. That was all I ever did, Gabriel. I said no to you because I was frightened, I was so frightened of hardship. My mother had spoken so much of it that she managed to scare me. And when we were on that ship going through cold, and heat, and hunger, and thirst there was a part of me that was glad! I was glad that I was going through such things, and surviving them, because they made me understand that there was no reason for me to be scared! There was no reason for me to have said no to you. All that time, all these years I might have been by you, building a life, because I found out that I had the strength to do it! I found out that there was no land wild and dangerous enough to keep me from your side!"

  Tears were now running down her face, and she wiped them with her fingers as if she did not mind them being there. Gabriel could not speak as she went on; there was a realization dawning in him which he could not, for the moment, acknowledge.

  "You told me here, on the day you condemned me, that a true love looked in the face of ugliness and did not waver,” she continued. “I looked at you in all the ugliness of your pride, your vindictiveness, your suspicion and I didn't waver. You looked at me when I was a silly girl with a silly mother in Lisbon and you didn't love me, you hated me. All you have done has been to revenge yourself on me for being young and foolish!"

  "No, no," he muttered, and added in a stronger voice. "That's not true!"

  "All I dreamt about," she continued as if he had not spoken, "when I was in Lisbon with those men coming after me was that I would meet you again somewhere. Sometimes I ran after someone in the street, thinking he was you. I wanted to tell you that I had not ever met anyone else I could love!" She started shaking her head more quickly. "But you have done nothing but torment me with how I betrayed you, and all the while I was innocent, and I was loving you. Yes, loving you through all the hardship, all the hatred, all the loneliness, your disdain, your frowns, your silences."

  He took her by the shoulders, "I only wanted to hear you swear it, I needed to hear it! Why could you not do that for me?”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and let out a sob. "It doesn't matter now. I don't think I can love you anymore!”

  Gabriel felt cold at her words, as if a gelid winter had in the space of a moment come to that hot place. She was telling him that she could not love him anymore, just as he understood with blinding clarity that she had always told the truth.

  “I know that love ought to survive all things,” Clara said, “but there is nothing of the man I once loved in you, not his face, not his name, not his sweetness ─ and none of his generosity, none of his heart. If I found out that you were an impostor, I don't think I would be surprised!"

  "I have never denied that I loved you!" he said, his hands falling to her arms to hold her more firmly. "You can't accuse me of that!"

  "What is love without tenderness? Without trust, without laughter? It's only a terrible prison, the burden you talked about! You lied, you won't open your heart to me. You would sooner and with much less fear face a bullet. This is no life, Gabriel," she added as she backed away from him. The tears were gone, and she looked calm, and strong. "I am done with it!"

  She started moving to the door, and he again held her back, this time by the wrist, feeling oddly ashamed to touch her.

  "Don't say that, Clara," he begged in a low voice.

  She stopped at the door and turned back to look at him. "I will go make sure those children are safe," she said. "And then I am going to leave you."

  "Clara, don't!" His face had gone pale. "Not in the worst moments did I think we should ever be apart. You never heard me say it! You cannot mean it!"

  "There is a difference between us, then," she said. "You want to be right, and I want to be happy. Come after me if you must, pull me by the hair, throw me from the horse, lock me up and kill me. But I need happiness, and you don't know how to have it!"

  She pulled her wrist free, opened the door and walked out─ and he knew that she meant what she had said, every word. She was leaving, and only his violence could keep her there, now that her love for him was gone.

  He walked the opposite way from her, knowing that he could no longer try to keep her with him by force. It was only because she had loved him that she had stayed, he realized now, not because she feared him. He felt his chest constrict as if all the air had left his lungs even as he walked outside to the warm wind.

  If she had never done anything at all, then he, who so craved justice, who for justice's sake had left a whole world behind, had done an unspeakable wrong to the woman he loved, and for love of him she had borne it.

  He kept walking in turmoil, pushing branches and leaves aside, his eyes on the ground: she had always told the truth, and he had exhausted her love for him with his accusations. He had tormented her with questions, with doubts about her virtue that would have been intolerable to an honorable woman, with anger that she had never deserved.

  When he raised his eyes, he saw that he was standing before her studio, as if he had meant to end up there. He looked at the sheets covering the windows, at the door: what had she been doing inside for so many days? Painting, Teté had said.

  The door was locked, so he put a hand over his stitches as he raised his foot and kicked it open. He walked into the darkness and started pulling the sheets from the windows. He saw the canvasses of some of her work on the ground; there was one of him, and he picked it up. It was his face as she had known it in Lisbon: his eyes were full of tenderness and humor, his nose was still straight, there was some arrogance in his bearing, and his mouth, he could see, was smiling yet ready to change into an expression of disapproval. The painting had been abandoned, as if she could not find that young man in her memory anymore.

  He turned to look at the large canvas on the easel, which was also covered with a sheet. It was as if Clara had been hiding what she had seen even from herself. This must have been what she had been painting on the days after he had thrown her on the ground in front of the servants, threatening to kill her in the heat of his passion: a woman who had never done anything wrong.

  It was difficult for him to approach the easel, but his hand hesitated only a moment before he reached out and pulled the sheet.

  And there, larger than reality, he was.

  She had painted him against a sky so stormy that the blackness in it seemed to move and increase as he looked. He was on his horse, holding the reins and a coiled whip. She had painted every tortured vein on his hands, his forearm, his temple, his neck. All of him was hard sinew, muscle and bones. Between his brows there was a deep vertical frown, and his eyes were an angry slate blue. His broken nose caught the light and made him look brutal, and the scar on his throat seemed raised, like a cobra about to strike.

  There, in front of him, was what he had been avoiding in the mirror for years, what she had finally seen: the thing he had become.

  Thirty-Six: Water

  Something terrible will happen, Clara had thought as she walked out of the house.

  The rain had stopped in the early morning, as suddenly as it had started. The day was blue and hot again, though all the foliage around her was bright green from the water that had fallen.

  But Clara could not think of anything except what might happen in Moema's house that day; she could not even think of Gabriel, of all the things she had told him, of the fact that she was leaving him.

  Now she must find o
ut if her dreadful suspicions were true. If Moema was going to do something terrible, she would do it today. She had said so.

  Clara had asked Celso to run and get Sugar for her, and he had left immediately. He always did what she asked, while Sebastião would have looked worried, for her, or for himself, or both. Celso had set off almost at a run, limping on his bad leg.

  Teté had gone to spy on Moema early that morning, and had taken Guelo with her so that she could send him back with information. As she stood on the lawn waiting for Sugar, Clara saw that Guelo was running towards the house from the bottom of the slope.

  "Guelo!” she called him. “What is it?"

  The boy stopped, drew breath and cupped his hand around his lips to shout back, but she could not hear what he was saying. She started to walk, then to run in his direction; he was still too far off for his voice to carry. Guelo tried to shout twice more, and still she could not hear him, until she finally made out the words, "She is leaving on the mule!"

  "The children?" she shouted as loudly as she could. "Did she take the children?"

  The boy nodded, still running towards her.

  "Oh, no!" Clara whispered.

  She heard the noise of hooves and saw that Celso was coming toward her on a horse, and that he was bringing Sugar by the reins. He stopped next to her and was going to dismount to help her, but she found the stirrup with one foot and leapt onto the saddle like a man, with her legs on either side of the filly. She started galloping toward Guelo, and Celso followed.

  When they got close to the boy, who was breathless from running, she asked, "Which way did they go?"

  Guelo lifted his arm, and pointed toward the river.

  "No, no, no!" she said under her breath.

  Clara urged Sugar forward and Celso followed her. She thought, even as she rushed ahead, that everything would now come together to help her avoid a tragedy. A strong, spirited servant was riding with her, and she could see what he might have been in his native land: a man of courage that horrible people had tried to tame and destroy. He rode alongside her with no fear of anything.

  When they arrived at the river she saw Teté waiting for them, pointing forward, "She went that way, sinhá. She has the children with her!"

  Clara kept riding, leaving Teté behind, though the girl followed on foot. It was difficult for her and Celso to make their way on horseback through the trees, but they covered ground as quickly as they could until, near the waterfall, she saw Moema's mule standing alone. She got down from Sugar and started to run.

  "No, she can't have done, she hasn't had the time!"Clara prayed.

  Then she saw the woman in her yellow dress ─ such a happy color, Clara thought for a split second. Moema took her eldest son, a boy about six years old, and threw him in the river, and she was about to do the same to the second boy. Clara screamed.

  "I will get him!" Celso shouted.

  Celso rode swiftly to enter the water ahead of the boy, and Clara saw that he might be able to catch him. She screamed, "Don't!" as Moema held the second child up.

  Moema did not even turn: she dropped the boy in the river, and Clara ran past her, and into the water.

  The river was strong and cold, and it pushed Clara forward with little control, but she fought, hanging on to stones and branches as she went. She could feel her hands being torn, her bones hitting the rocks, but she managed to swim a little in the shallow parts and let herself go in other places to make it to the boy, who had been caught by a tree trunk but whose head was already going under. She put her arm around him and brought him up, knowing that in another few seconds he would have drowned.

  "I have you, I have you!" she told the child, who spluttered and coughed.

  She managed to make her way to a large boulder and put her back against it, receiving the full force of the water on her chest and belly. The boy was safe with her, and Celso had caught the other one; but as she looked upstream she saw that Moema had entered the water with a basket in which she had the baby, and before Clara could beg her to stop, the river had thrown Moema down and carried her mercilessly, knocking her against the rocks. She passed by, too far to be reached though Clara extended a desperate hand. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded under her breasts as if the murder of her children were some sort of sacred ceremony for her. Her body was carried quickly past Celso to shatter against the rocks downstream, and both he and Clara had the same instinct, to cover the eyes of her children.

  Holding the middle boy, Clara now turned in despair, expecting the basket with the baby to rush by her, but she saw that a very thin branch had lodged itself far enough into the weaving to keep the basket still, in spite of the quick waters beneath it.

  It's a miracle, Clara thought. We have two boys, and the third can be saved!

  She did not think, then, that it would have been almost impossible for her to move up river to get the basket. She believed that the children would be saved, that in fact Moema had not had the heart to throw the baby in the water, that deep down she must have wanted him to live.

  They won't die! Clara thought furiously. She knew that, behind her, Celso was taking the other boy safely to land; she knew that Teté was coming; she knew that she had a boy with her, and it didn't matter that he was hanging from her neck, it didn't matter how quick the water was, or that there was the danger of being thrown against the rocks or down the waterfall like Moema, who must now be dead.

  She believed that those children would not be killed, though the devil had been on their mother’s side. She also knew that it was not enough to beg God, or any saint, that she was there to get them, and that she would. So, with a strength that her slender frame ought not to have, she began to crawl her way up to the basket.

  Thirty-Seven: Onslaught

  "Sinhô, the river is rising!"

  Gabriel turned around to look at Jiló, who was riding toward him from the stables. He had walked through the house to see if he could find Clara. He must not let her leave, but this time he would not order or force her to stay, he would beg her. There must be a tiny bit of love left in her, if she had been in his bed only two weeks before. There must be.

  He stopped in his tracks to look at Jiló, "What does that mean?" he asked.

  Jiló dismounted and pointed towards the hills, where the sky was dark, "It has been raining there a lot since yesterday. All that water is coming down and the river is starting to swell, it will overflow!"

  "Is there a danger to the plantations?" Gabriel asked, trying to understand what Jiló was saying.

  "No, sinhô ─ but Dona Clara went that way with Celso! Guelo says that Moema had gone to the river, and sinhá went after!"

  Gabriel looked toward the river and stepped forward, his face turning pale. "What does it mean, Jiló?" he asked again, fearing that he knew the answer.

  Jiló's face said it all, even before he spoke, "The water will come down and rush that way, it will carry everything, even the banks!"

  The patrão did not wait to hear anything else, he reached for the bridle of Jiló's horse and mounted, galloping toward the river.

  “Clara, Clara,” he said under his breath as he went, almost as if he were calling her.

  The horse sensed his urgency and sped towards the forest, and he was a more skillful rider than either Clara or Celso, so he found himself on the banks of the river soon enough. He glanced up at the hills and saw the river there swelling and roaring, climbing over the banks and taking trees and branches on its wake. It seemed far, but there would be only about ten minutes before it reached them. He rode even faster, and saw in the distance that Celso was reaching the bank with a child.

  "Celso!" he shouted.

  The African heard him and lifted his arm to point. Gabriel looked, and his heart almost stopped: there was Clara in the water, with a boy hanging around her neck, fighting against the rapids that threatened to carry her. She was trying to get a basket that was caught in a very thin branch.

  "Clara!" he cried, dismounting
and rushing into the river. It already ran so fast that it would have thrown a less strong man down.

  She looked over at him. If she stood there, the waters that were coming in a few minutes would swallow her. Terror gripped him and he started to hurry inside the river, his feet somehow finding a place between the large smooth pebbles and the rocks, "Clara! Come to me!" he shouted. "Come to me now!"

  She looked at him and shook her head, pointing at the basket, "The baby!"

  For heaven's sake, Gabriel thought. She cannot save the baby and survive. "

  "Think of the boy who is with you!" he shouted as he kept going toward her. The water was now at the height of his chest and he could feel his wound smarting, but he gave no thought to it.

  He was close to her now, stretching out his hand, "Clara, there is more water coming! Think of the boy!"

  "No, we are close! It's a baby, Gabriel, it's just a baby!"

  Gabriel had reached her, and he took the boy from her neck and put him around his own shoulders. "It's all right," Gabriel said to the child, not sure that it would be.

  He reached Clara just as she slipped and would have been carried, and grabbed her hand in a strong grip. She could not stand up, and he bent so that she could also put her arms around his neck.

  "I won't leave the baby!" she told him with a stubborn look.

  The boy began to cry, “It’s my brother!”

  "Of course it is,” Gabriel said, patting his hand. He told Clara, “I want you on the bank with him. A lot more water is coming!"

  Celso had left the eldest child in Teté's hands and told her to run away from the river, and once again on horseback he had crossed the river downstream where it was shallow, and was riding up to them on the other side.

  "We need to help Celso get the boy," Gabriel said. "I will hold you, you push him out."

  She nodded. Celso was soon with them, grabbing the strong vines of a tree that leaned over the water and reaching his arm out. Gabriel put his back against a stone as Clara had done and held her as she took the boy from him and pushed it forward through the water until Celso had taken his hand. Celso pulled him out of the water.