by Lara Blunte
“You should not thank me," Gabriel said. "Clara understood what Moema was going to do. She was the one who went to save the children."
"Yes...Yes, I have been told. But I know that you almost died a second time, so that they would all be safe. I know that you now can't see."
Gabriel was nodding. "I am content that things should be as they are. Your children are safe, and we are doing our best so that they do not remember too much of what happened. I am sorry about Moema..."
"I am not sorry," Tarcisio said in a strangled voice. "She was worse than a devil, to do such a thing. My children will be happier without their mother than with her."
Gabriel could not disagree, and there was not much more to be said. He took a deep breath. "I don't know how innocent your interest in Dona Clara was. But I was wrong to fall on you like I did. I now understand what comes out of violence, and it's never anything good."
"I know that as well," Tarcisio said in a low voice.
“With any luck we will both remember the lesson.” Gabriel stood up, "Don’t be afraid to come and find us when you are out, and get your boys. Clara would be sad to see them go to anyone but their father."
He turned and tapped the cane to find his way to the door. He heard the shackles as Tarcisio stood up.
"Dom Gabriel?"
Gabriel stopped. "Yes?"
He could hear Tarcisio breathing in strong emotion, until he managed to say, "If there is anything like an angel on earth, it is your wife."
He had called Clara his wife, reminding him of his good fortune. Gabriel nodded. "I know," he said, and smiled.
When he walked outside, he felt what a good thing it was to be alive, and free from demons.
Epilogue. A Secret
Clara was in her husband's arms, under the big old tree in front of their house, and she could not stop smiling.
She was thinking that his embrace was the best place in the world to be, then wondering whether with the years, with habit, she could ever forget that feeling. Then she thought that she was still unable to have a drink of water without being thankful for it, because she had wanted nothing as desperately during the two months she was at sea.
Well, she had been deprived of her husband for longer than that, and she had almost lost him three times, once to her own fears, and twice to death. She therefore could not believe that he would ever seem any less essential than a drink of water to her. She would always, she knew, close her eyes even as she did now, and feel his heart beating under her cheek, his arms around her, and be thankful from the bottom of her soul that he was there.
It was a moment all the sweeter to her, because she had understood through all her troubles that she was also strong, as he was. She had not, like her husband, stopped believing in a divine force, but now she knew that she needed to find it in herself, and not always be asking for things like a child.
When she thought of their estate, she could not help reflecting that it would not mean as much to her without the people who lived there: Teté, Lucia, Celso, Sebastião, Jiló, Maninha, Pai Bernardo, Iara, Guelo, the boys, and even Tarcisio.
She felt that she would become the matriarch of a family who lived in a big house, in a vast country, and she would always want the land to be generous to all who lived there, for decades, even for centuries. She knew that her husband wanted the same thing. This feeling, as she stood with him, made her profoundly happy.
"Why are you smiling?"
It was Iara’s voice, and Clara opened her eyes to see the little girl staring up at her, looking sweet as coconut candy in her little pink dress, wearing a ribbon that Teté had insisted on tying to her hair, though it would be lost as she played.
"Because of you!" Clara said, and lunged to pick her up.
Iara shrieked with delight at being thrown up high, but she was soon set down, and ran back towards the boys. Clara looked up and saw that Teté was watching her from the other side of the lawn with a smile that showed all her teeth.
Ai, Teté! Clara thought, remembering how, as soon as everything settled, the girl had not only regained her usual joy, but had begun making urgent plans for the birth of sinhô and sinhá’s child. Give us a little while, Clara thought, laughing. I need to enjoy my husband. I need him all for me.
Lucia had come to the door and looked at Teté, then at Clara, so the sinhá turned her back and hid her smile. Soon Gabriel had put his arms around her again. He had very good instincts; he always seemed to find things and never needed much help, and never showed anger or impatience at being blind. She sighed because he had the most beautiful eyes in the world, and yet he couldn't see through them.
"So what was it that you were going to beg for?" he asked.
"I was going to say that we should be very, very happy now..." she began, smoothing his shirt front.
"Yes?" His smile was ironic; he knew she was going to say something that he would not necessarily like.
"And that you ought to make the happiness complete by writing to your father!"
"Oh!" he exclaimed, his eyebrows lifting.
"Yes, my love," she said, turning her face up to his.
"That adorable look you have now is lost on me, you know?" he smiled.
"It's not!"
"And, also, as a blind man I find it rather hard to keep my writing within the page. I don't know what my father would make of such a letter..."
"Be as amusing as you want, but you know you should write to him. You know it. Of course I will help you."
"Oh God, my darling, how many people must I love from now on?" he stopped and his face showed distress. "Not your mother too?"
Clara could not help giggling. "Well, she will have to come and visit one day!"
"What if I write the letter, and you do not speak of this dreadful event for a while? For a year?"
She laughed again, "All right!”
"I would tell you to go to her, and remember what it's like, except that I can't spare you for a second."
“No, I won’t have you sparing me! Not for a long, long time!”
The children had erupted in loud laughter, and Iara called, “Mãe!”
The little girl had decided to call her mother, and that made Clara’s smile even brighter. She slipped out of her husband's arms, planning to soon return. "I will help you later!" she told him as she ran towards the lawn.
"I cannot wait!" he called after her.
Gabriel thought he would go to Bernardo in a while, to smoke and talk, or be silent, but now he sat on the bench under the tree, and could not help composing a letter in his head as he twirled his cane. He would write:
"Father,
I write seeking your pardon.
I ask you to pardon a son who, in his pride, did not try to make amends with you all these years. I do not know whether you would have accepted my apology, but I know I ought to have tried.
I also know you must have suffered to have our homeland invaded and humiliated, and your way of life changed. I know that it cannot be easy for you to witness how low we have fallen, and be powerless to help it.
Just as a man suffers to see his country torn from him, so should a father and son suffer to lose each other. I do not wish to return there, for I have made a life here, but I do hope that our homeland will be our own again, and that I again may be your son, as soon as you will allow it.
Now I have children, and should there be a rift between them and me, I would suffer. I have been taught the happiness that forgiveness grants to the one who extends it, and to the one who accepts it.
I sincerely ask you to forgive me.
Yet what I can never regret, father, is the love that led me to leave your roof. I cannot explain what it was that I saw in the girl that Clara was then, and you may have thought that it was a silly passion for a beautiful creature, but I knew it was not. In this I was right. She is so much more than I can ever tell you.
Father, I hope for your forgiveness, but if you embrace me, you must also embrace my wife, and in her
you will meet a woman that is as beautiful as the day. It would be impossible for you to meet her and not love her; no one ever has.
We have children now, a strange little family, and we will have more. I hope you will one day see your grandchildren, born in this wild and beautiful land that we love, and that is Brazil.
I hope so with all my heart."
Gabriel would probably write a letter like that, eventually, but now he just sat under an old tree. There should be no more secrets between Clara and him, but he had a secret: he had begun to see.
At first, a few days before, there had just been a movement in the darkness as he stared with eyes wide open; then there had been shapes, then rays of light. He did not want to say anything yet, as he was afraid that he might not completely heal, and he would not want Clara to have hope and for it to be dashed. He felt as though he were almost cheating by keeping quiet and letting her think him a hero of some kind. However, that was the inconvenience of loving someone as much as he loved his wife, and knowing it: he would always put her feelings before his own.
The doctor had told him that blows to the head might provoke a swelling that led to temporary blindness, and perhaps that was all it was. He might not deserve such a blessing, but would it not be a fine thing?
Now he looked at the garden and saw the light reflected in Clara's white dress as she moved after the children. He heard her laughter, and theirs.
"Swing me!" Iara begged.
He could tell that Clara had bent to get Iara, and that she was turning with the child in her arms.
"Be careful, sinhá," Teté shouted.
“Cuidado!” Guelo also cried.
Gabriel smiled as the luminous white spot turned and turned. It was his beautiful, his loving, his remarkable wife. His heart had been closed for a long time, and he had been angry and afraid; but he finally understood everything that she was, and it was a world of good to him.
One thing I know, Gabriel thought, that I was blind, but now I see.
THE END
*Attention: bonus below *
Other books by Lara Blunte on Amazon:
True Born: the story of a bastard son of an Earl in 1760
The Last Earl: suspense and love entwine in a tale about the 19th Earl of Halford in 1856
This Hell of Mine: the story of James Hayburn and his forbidden love for Lady Ashley Aguirre in 1947
Coming in June 2016:
The African: Roberta’s marriage ends on the day of her wedding. She leaves a faithless man only to meet a doctor with a cause in Uganda. Both are wary of love, but they find it hard to stay away from each other.
Thank you for reading The Abyss
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*Attention: bonus below *
BONUS!
Sign up at my website www.larablunte.com and receive a free copy of To Be King, the Winner of the Wattys Award 2015!
Here is what readers have said:
“I love this book. This is the second time I've read it.”
“Oh my god! This story just brought tears to my eyes. It's an incredible book!”
“This is sooooo beautiful it hurts.”
‘Truly heartbreakingly beautiful. Thank you.”
“Finished this story in a few hours because I was so intrigued. You had me crying after a few chapters, and there are few stories that have made me care so much for the characters in such a short amount of time. They were loveable and funny (Tameas, I'm looking at you), the pacing was really good, and the overall development was wonderful. I'll definitely go back and re-read this many times because this is just THAT good.”
