Song of the Sea Maid

by Rebecca Mascull

  18

  When I have seen my fill of it all, I turn away, somehow disgusted by my complicity as observer of the horror. I trudge back to the hotel. One end of it has collapsed, but the lobby is intact, as are many of the rooms. There is no one inside. I collect my bag, cross the yard at the back to find the kitchen and fill the bag with bread, fruit and cheese from the cupboards. There is a well in the yard outside and I bring up a bucket of water to wash my face and try to get some of the dust out of my hair. The water runs red and then black with the blood and the muck. I fill my water bottle, drink it down, then fill it again before going back inside to search through the rooms for women’s clothes I can change into. I find a suitably sensible dress and stockings to fit my frame. I find hairpins and a cap and tie back my damp hair. I locate a pair of shoes, too big for me, but they will do. All the while I am aware that I am stealing, but in the aftermath of this disaster it is as if there are no rules or laws or culture any more; the world has come to an end and started anew. The owners of this food, these clothes, these pins are most likely dead. If not, I believe they would not begrudge me a little help, as I hope I would not them if our positions were reversed.

  I find a downstairs room that does not appear to have a current resident, hide my bag under the bed, lie down and I am asleep before I know it. I am found hours later in darkness by Mrs Dewar, the owner of the establishment. Her face is smudged with black from the ubiquitous smoke and her hair somewhat dishevelled, yet other than that she appears unhurt and quite bright.

  ‘Why, Miss Price. I am astonished to see you here! Are you well?’

  I clasp both her hands in mine. ‘I am so glad to see you, Mrs Dewar!’ To see a living person, and a known face, a friendly face, is unutterably moving to me, and my voice catches in my throat and whimpers a little.

  ‘Oh, my dear. There, there now. Don’t fret. Oh, your head, it has been wounded! Oh, my dear!’

  ‘I must tell you that I borrowed some food from the kitchen and this dress from another room,’ I confess. ‘I will pay for all of it, I assure you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t fuss yourself on that account, my dear. Let me fetch something for that head of yours. Besides, we have just this minute come back from the city where we went to find our family and friends after the first quake and already there is terrible lawlessness on the streets down there, enough to make your hair curl. There is looting and raping and, oh, dreadful things. You stay here with us, miss. Safer up here on the hill. The troublemakers are too idle to walk all the way up here. Oh, Miss Price. The sights I have seen today, the people suffering. And the city is utterly racked. How will we manage? What will our livelihood be? Even though Mr Dewar says the tourists will come to see the ruins, like they do in Pompeii and Herculaneum. They will flock to see it, he says. But food, and firewood and supplies. Who will supply us, Miss Price? I fear for our future, I really do. Now, I said I wouldn’t do this. I must steel myself. No, my dear. I am not the one with an injured head. Let me help you. Stay there. I won’t be a moment.’

  As I await her return, I can hear Mr Dewar and an assortment of English-speaking guests traipsing in from outside, sharing stories of damage, destruction and death. Mrs Dewar dresses my head and makes it sting, fusses over me somewhat and asks if I would like to stay on in this room, for which I thank her. I accompany her to the kitchen, keen to be useful. There are no servants here. I help make tea for everyone and prepare food. The men are outside burying the dead. Mrs Dewar tells me several guests were leaving the hotel this morning for a day trip when the quake started. Those were the crushed coaches I saw outside. She says all the hotel ser-vants rushed away to find their relatives and they have not seen them since. Somehow she must get word to the families of the deceased guests, but no ships are permitted to leave the Tagus – to prevent deserters or looters leaving with their bounty – so what will happen to the postal service? As we work, it is comforting to listen to her babble on, yet periodically I find tears running down my cheeks, though I feel no emotion. I see the same happens with Mrs Dewar and at times we glance at each other and shake our heads in disbelief.

  Say I, ‘I was in London for the earthquake in 1750. It was nothing like this. Nothing. And what a fuss they made then.’

  ‘This was like something from the pages of the Old Testament,’ says Mrs Dewar. ‘It will always be remembered.’

  That first evening I spend with the Dewars and the few other surviving guests before the fire in the sitting room. It is cold at night here in Lisbon and I think of all those out there shivering under the empty skies, homeless, half-dressed, injured, hungry and thirsty. But I hug myself and stay put, as I have no more strength for strangers this night and have come to know that self-preservation is the strongest force extant. I tell my stories of what I have seen and the other guests tell theirs. One had been buried under rubble for hours until he found a way out, almost choked to death by powdered lime he can still taste in his mouth. An Irish guest had been in his office in the Baixa, ran outside at the first tremor and lost his brother in the mêlée; he has not found him yet, though he scoured the ruins until the fires came. I hear that thousands are homeless and all the canvas and wood has been burned up in the fires so nobody can make any shelters. Some noblemen have been opening up their mansion gardens to the destitute and handing out refreshments, cloaks and blankets and the royal family are camping in makeshift tents in the grounds of the palace. A Scottish lady had seen a few half-hearted soldiers appear in the street and tell some looters to clear off in the name of the King but were met with mockery and missiles, whereupon they retreated and nothing of the law has been seen since. Another guest had been over two hundred yards from the river-front yet had found himself up to the waist in water when the great wave came and was only saved by grasping hold of a flagpole.

  We speak of how there seemed no pattern to rescue or death, that some had been killed by water or saved by it, or safe in basements where others had been crushed by them – no rules to learn from if there were ever a next time. Mr Dewar tells of the scenes in the main piazzas, like the grand square the Rossio, where thousands had rushed after the first quake to create a scene of mania resembling the final judgement day, numberless souls dying and wailing, and the survivors in their religious fervour were seen to smite their breasts and beat their faces until their cheeks were swollen and bruised hideously. The churches had been full as it is All Saints’ Day and thus thousands of worshippers were killed as church towers and steeples fell down by the dozen and crushed them; even so there seemed to be priests everywhere shouting at people to repent of their sins and performing absolution for hundreds of crazed followers, ranging around with groups of dazed zealots forcibly baptising those who are not Catholics, harassing the dying – and I remembered the canon who came at me with his cross and thought I had dreamed it, but I think it must have been real. He is dead now, buried under that house. His God did not save him.

  Everyone starts at the sound of an explosion coming from the city. We rush outside to hear two more, and Mr Dewar conjectures it must be fire reaching the gunpowder stores on the waterfront. We all stand on the grass and watch the fires burning in zigzags across the scene and listen to the punctuated cries of women and children. I fear I will not sleep tonight. I fear nightmares. The flames light the sky and turn it almost daytime, cinders float on the air and fall down like drizzle, and the tremors continue, more gentle now, but constant, three or four an hour all this evening. I expect it to continue well into the night, as if the earth shudders at its rage and somewhat regrets it. Nobody speaks more – there is nothing left to say – and, one by one, we slink off to bed, though my prophecy is proven and I lie awake until dawn.

  In the morning, I help to prepare breakfast as the servants have not returned and perhaps never will. At around nine o’clock, we see there are boats coming up the Tagus to rescue survivors from the flames. We watch but soon I cannot bear to see it, for the chaos ensuing on the waterfront as people fight to get aboard
is too horrible. Mr Dewar points out that the fire is spreading from the Customs House and has caught the stacks of timber, now billowing out smoke horrendously and making the people scatter and scream. I turn away – shaken, sick-hearted and ridden with guilt at the constant sounds of terror – and sit inside alone until luncheon, writing a long letter to Mr Woods and the Applebees, attempting to describe this catastrophe as best I can, though I omit the ghastliest details to spare them. They are heart-wrenching sights I dearly wish I had never seen, thus I have no desire to inflict them on my friends. I assure them I am well and very lucky to be so. I cannot finish the letter at first though, for I come to the part where I am to state my immediate plans and honestly cannot end the sentence. If the Prospect arrives as planned at the end of January, then I will return home on it, of course. But what until then? I cannot stay here. What of Peniche? Will it have been as damaged as Lisbon? Earthquakes cover hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles, they say. Peniche is but a few hours from here, and, for the first time, a personal chill ripples through my flesh as I think of Horacio, and Pilar and Dona da Seda. And the Berlengas. What damage could the tidal wave have caused there? Then I remember my coach, crushed with my bag secured to it. I had forgotten it utterly. It is as if everything before the moment of the first tremor has been wiped clean from my mind.

  I find Mrs Dewar and ask her about my belongings. She arranges for her husband to take their mule – which survived by escaping to a wood nearby and returning dusty yet unharmed a day later – to find my coach and see if he can retrieve them. I ought to offer to accompany him, but I cannot bear to see the ruins of those streets again. He returns later that afternoon with a grim countenance and a bare-backed mule.

  ‘All gone, Miss Price. I am sorry. Looks as if it were all looted. There have been no burials up yonder and the stench in the streets is awful, just awful.’

  I thank him for his pains and consider my position. I have the clothes I stand up in, stolen from a dead guest. I have a small bag and a water bottle. I have access to my benefactor’s money in a bank down in the city, which may have burned to the ground or been flooded. I have my precious notebook, filled with drawings of my cave. Thank heavens I saved it from the wreck. Thank heavens I have that at least. And the rest of my belongings are in Peniche, as well as a strongbox in Dona da Seda’s cupboard, with the last of my Portuguese money therein. All damaged, destroyed perhaps; and my landlady and friends, will they be well? I must go back there, as soon as I can get passage. I must see for myself.

  I have to wait for almost a week before transport can be found. Just finding food is hard enough, as the price of bread and other staples has inflated to ridiculous proportions. Luckily the Dewars were well stocked with supplies before the disaster, but these will not last in excess of a few days more. And within a day of the quake there have been soldiers on the roads out of Lisbon stopping labourers and other workers from deserting the city, as they are needed for construction. Mr Dewar has found me a Portuguese merchant friend of his who is returning up the coast to his family; they know not if he has survived, so he is keen to get up there. He will drop me at Peniche free of charge. I take a tearful leave of the Dewars, and thank them for their kindness and assure them I will see them again soon. Mrs Dewar agrees to post my letter to Mr Woods – which I finished with a summation of my immediate plans to return to Peniche – if and when the ships start to leave the Tagus again.

  The merchant collects me at dawn in a clean yet basic horse and cart. He is not talkative and informs me only that we will not be stopping on the way for any reason, as he has heard Barbary pirates are massing off Cascais (three miles down the coast) and will invade the city within days for the purpose of capturing Christian slaves for the markets in North Africa. I have heard enough extreme rumours these past days – such as cannibalism rife in the city – to ignore most of them. I do not argue, but make sure I bring plenty of victuals and I use the chamber pot in my room before we leave, in case the journey is long. The day’s trip takes us fourteen hours. The roads are often blocked and we have to manoeuvre round countless obstacles. At least many of the corpses have now been removed. We see squads of soldiers commandeering the locals to bury those not yet accorded that right. I am surprised to see how many buildings have been left standing after the disaster, though I would say half are gone. All the way along the coast road the homeless appear from encampments made from carpets, sailcloth and any other found fabrics strung over vines, poles, ropes and tree branches, cooking over small fires, roasting what look like rats or doves or other wild food. To see the environs of Peniche and the sparkling sea gladdens my heart and I find myself praying – to a God from whom I now feel wholly disconnected, as if from a family feud – that my friends will be thriving here.

  The merchant wishes me well and I alight, walking the final stretch to my goal in the twilight. There is certainly damage here, crumpled houses and huts, yet not nearly as bad as Lisbon. Dona da Seda’s guest-house is standing and complete, thankfully. But what of the lady? I knock on the door and upon receiving no answer, try it to find it open and I call out. I hear a weak reply from her sitting room and enter. I find her sitting with her leg sheathed in bandages upon a stool. Her face when I enter is a picture. I have never seen her smile so, or smile at all, since I first met her. She is so pleased to see me alive, well and returned. Everything she has heard from Lisbon has been bad news. She knows they brought the soldiers from the Berlengas fort, as well as those from Peniche, and sent them up to Lisbon to keep law and order. We talk for a long while about our experiences. She was out in the town when the quake began and some masonry fell on her leg. The doctor says it will heal but she must rest it. I vow to take care of her, though she says her daughter and son-in-law do come by to bring her food. I was not even aware she had family here! We have not spoken more than a few sentences these past months. The same could be said of Mrs Dewar and certainly her husband. It is curious how a disaster brings folk together. I ask Dona da Seda for news of Horacio and Pilar – have they lost their boat, is their home intact? – but she has heard nothing of them, confined to her house. I resolve to find my friends and see if their livelihood and hearth have survived, but on the morrow, as it is night-time by now. We sup together and swap our grisly stories. I sleep fitfully that night and dream of the Gaivota and Pilar’s fish stews she would sometimes bring me at my hut. And of mermaids.

  At first light, I walk down to the sea past the house where the ladies of lace are usually found, yet it is shut up today. The beach I arrive at in shock. There are no boats to be seen, unless in pieces. Driftwood and dead fish besmirch the shore. There is no sign of Horacio’s rowing boat or the Gaivota further out. And I do not know where my friends reside. I double back and return to the lace house, knock at the door and wait. I hear there is movement inside, and a kind of moaning, a deep low sound, most distressing. Then the door opens and one of the older lace ladies stands before me, her face a picture of desolation. She does not speak, simply looks at me. I ask her in Portuguese about Horacio and his wife Pilar. Is Pilar here? Or is it possible for her to direct me to their house? She seems unable to speak and another woman comes to the door, her daughter it must be as she calls her Mother and ushers her to sit down. She says, ‘We are suffering. We have lost husbands, brothers, sisters. About fifty altogether. And all our fishing boats. Many rushed to the beach to escape the falling houses, but then the wave came and drowned everyone on the sand. The bodies were swept out to sea. We cannot even bury our dead. Horacio and Pilar were there. They are lost too. They are dead. So many are dead. We cannot help you. I am sorry.’

  She turns from me and closes the door. My good friends are drowned, their bodies lost to the sea. I pace slowly back to the guest-house to find Dona da Seda asleep in her chair. I go to my room and sit on the bed. I close my eyes. My mind is like a shattered mirror. Shards of memory – cruel and happy – fall in a jagged heap. I believe my mind is broken. I cannot fathom how to mend it. Each rationa
l thought I attempt is swamped by brutal visions of what I have seen and what I know.

  My good friends, washed out to sea. Their fear when the wave came, trying to flee perhaps, their feet slipping in the soft sand, but too late, too late. The roaring of the wave as it crashed ashore, the screams of the people who thought they were safe on the open sand. My friends: loyal sailor Horacio, the bonny boat he manoeuvred so well; his hat over his face as he slept in the sunshine; his humorous look as I would appear barefoot at the boat sometimes with a fish for his lunch, caught on my coral garden ventures; and kind, attentive Pilar, her mop and broom and dusters; the thoughtful gift of the stool for my hut, which stands now in the corner of this room, brought back from the beloved island; her wrinkled fingers poring over my notebook, her haunting stories of the mermaids of Minorca.