With his job in the district government, they could afford a little house and a maid. Why shouldn’t she be happy at last? He wasn’t a man to go to taverns, nor was he idle. She was sure that she would prevail and impose on him her tastes and devotions. And it would be pleasant to go to mass on Sunday in her best clothes, with her husband by her side, greeted by everyone, and to be able to go out walking with her baby resplendent in lace bonnet and fringed shawl. Who knows, perhaps the affection she lavished on her little one and the comfort with which she surrounded her husband would serve to make Heaven and Our Lady soften towards her! Ah, she would do anything to achieve that, to have again that friend in Heaven, her beloved Virgin, friend and confidante, always ready to ease her pain, to deliver her from misfortune, busily preparing for her a bright and cosy corner in Paradise.
She spent hours over her sewing thinking such thoughts, even on her way to the sexton’s house; there, having spent a moment with Totó, who was very quiet now, worn down by the slow fever, she would go up to the sexton’s bedroom where her first question to Amaro was always:
‘Any news?’
He would frown and mumble:
‘Dionísia’s still looking . . . Why, are you in a hurry?’
‘Of course I’m in a hurry,’ she would reply gravely, ‘after all, I’m the one who will be shamed.’
He said nothing then, but there was as much hatred as there was love in the kisses he gave to that woman who resigned herself so easily to sleeping with another man.
His jealousy had been growing ever since she had come to accept that odious marriage. Now that she no longer wept, he was beginning to grow angry at her lack of tears, and privately it drove him to despair that she did not prefer shame with him to rehabilitation with another man. It would not have been so bad if she had continued to protest and sob loudly; that would have been genuine proof of her love, in which, in his vanity, he would delightedly bathe; but her acceptance of the clerk with no show of repugnance, no horrified gestures, seemed to him tantamount to betrayal. He began to suspect that, deep down, she did not mind. João Eduardo was, after all, a man; he had a fine moustache and the strength of his twenty-six years. She would experience the same delirious pleasure in João Eduardo’s arms as she had in his. If the clerk had been a rheumaticky old man, she would not be so resigned to her fate. Then, to avenge himself, to ‘spoil the arrangement’, he hoped that João Eduardo would not turn up; and often when Dionísia came to report to him on her findings, he would say with a little smile:
‘Don’t worry. He’s obviously not going to turn up. Just leave it. It’s not worth wearing yourself out . . .’
But Dionísia was made of sterner stuff and, one night, she arrived to say triumphantly that she was on the man’s trail. She had seen Gustavo, the typographer, going into Osório’s tavern. She would go and talk to him the next day and then she would know everything.
That was a bitter moment for Amaro. Now that the marriage for which he had so longed in those first terrifying hours seemed certain, he felt it to be the greatest catastrophe of his life.
He would lose Amélia for ever! By one of those malign twists in which Providence takes such delight, the man whom he had driven out, whom he had suppressed, was coming to take his woman away from him quite legitimately. And it enraged him to think that João Eduardo would hold her in his arms, that she would give João Eduardo the same fiery kisses that once she had given to him, and cry out ‘Oh, João!’ as now she murmured ‘Oh, Amaro!’ But the marriage was inevitable; everyone wanted it, Amélia, the Canon, even Dionísia in her venal zeal.
What use was it to him to be a man with blood in his veins and with a healthy body full of strong passions? He had to say goodbye to the girl, to see her go off arm in arm with the Other, with her husband, to their house where they would play with the child, his child. And he would stand helplessly by and watch the destruction of his happiness, trying to smile; he would go back to living alone, eternally alone, re-reading the breviary. If only he still lived in the days when one could get rid of a man by denouncing him as a heretic! If only the world could go back two hundred years; then Senhor João Eduardo would know what it meant to humiliate a priest and marry Miss Amélia.
And in his excitable, feverish state, that absurd idea took such a powerful hold on his imagination that he had a vivid dream which he often laughingly recounted to the ladies. He was in a narrow street seared by a burning sun; a rabble of people were pressed against the great studded doors of the houses on either side; on balconies, ornately dressed noblemen twirled their moustaches; beneath the folds of mantillas, eyes burned with holy fervour. And the procession of the auto-da-fé came slowly down the street, accompanied by an enormous hubbub and the clamour of the neighbouring bells all tolling the death knell. At the front went the half-naked flagellants, white hoods covering their faces, whipping themselves and howling out the Miserere, their backs caked in blood; on a donkey rode João Eduardo, stupid with terror, his legs dangling, his white shirt daubed with fiery devils, and on his chest a sign on which was written – HERETIC; behind came a terrifying servant of the Holy Office furiously goading the donkey on; nearby, a priest, holding a crucifix on high, was bellowing at him to repent. And he, Amaro, was walking beside him singing the Requiem, his breviary open in one hand, while with the other he blessed the old ladies, his friends in Rua da Misericórdia, who all knelt to kiss his alb. Sometimes he would look back to enjoy the melancholy spectacle, and then he would see the long line of members of the Fraternity of Noblemen: here a pot-bellied, apoplectic fellow, there someone with the face of a mystic and a fierce moustache and fiery eyes; each one bore a lighted torch in one hand and, in the other, a hat whose black plume hung down to the ground. The helmets of the harquebusiers glittered brightly; the starving features of the rabble were contorted with devout rage; and the cortège wound along the twisting streets, to the loud accompaniment of plainsong and fanatical cries, the thunderous ringing of the bells and the clink of weaponry, which, together, created a horror that filled the entire city as they approached the brick platform on which the bundles of firewood were already lit.
He was terribly disappointed when, after the ecclesiastical glory of that dream, he was woken early by the maid bringing him hot water for his morning shave.
This was the day when they were expecting to find out where João Eduardo was and to write him the letter. He had arranged to meet Amélia at eleven, and the first thing he said to her, as he bad-temperedly pushed open the door, was:
‘They’ve found him, or, rather, they’ve found his best friend, the typographer, who knows where the creature is . . .’
Amélia who was feeling utterly discouraged and terrified, exclaimed:
‘At least this torment will be over.’
Amaro gave a bitter laugh.
‘So you’re pleased, are you?
‘What do you expect after the fear I’ve been living in . . .’
Amaro made a gesture of despair and impatience. Fear! What hypocrisy! Fear of what? Why her mother would let her do anything. What she really wanted was to get married. She wanted someone else. She no longer liked their bit of fun in the morning, so quickly over . . . She wanted to have it in comfort at home. Did she imagine she could deceive him, a man of thirty with four years of experience of the confessional? He could see through her. She was just like all the others, she wanted a change of man.
She did not reply, she merely turned very pale. And Amaro, furious at her silence, said:
‘You see, you say nothing. What could you say? It’s the honest truth! After all my sacrifices . . . after all I’ve suffered for you, someone else turns up, and off you go!’
She got up, stamping her foot in despair.
‘You were the one who wanted it like this, Amaro!’
‘No wonder! You don’t imagine I would ruin myself for you, do you? Of course I wanted it.’ And looking loftily down on her, making her feel all the scorn of a very upright soul. ‘But yo
u don’t even attempt to hide your happiness, your eagerness to go to him. You’re a whore, that’s what you are!’
Without a word, white as a sheet, she picked up her shawl to leave.
In desperation, Amaro grabbed her violently by the arm.
‘Where are you going? Look at me. You’re a whore I say. You can’t wait to sleep with him.’
‘Yes, you’re right, I can’t!’ she said.
Amaro lost all control then and slapped her hard.
‘Don’t kill me!’ she cried. ‘It’s your child!’
He stood before her, confused and trembling: at that word, at the idea of his child, he was filled by pity and desperate love; and hurling himself on her, in a crushing embrace, as if wanting to bury her in his own breast, to absorb her entirely into himself, he showered her face and hair with furious, painful kisses.
‘Oh, forgive me, Amélia, forgive me! I must be mad!’
She was sobbing hysterically, and they spent the whole of that morning in the sexton’s room in a delirium of love to which that sense of maternity, binding them together like a sacrament, lent an added tenderness, a constantly renewed desire, which threw them ever more eagerly into each other’s arms.
They forgot the time, and Amélia only leapt from the bed when she heard the sound of Esguelhas’ crutch down below in the kitchen.
While she was hurriedly getting dressed in front of the fragment of mirror on the wall, Amaro stood looking at her sadly, watching her running the comb through her hair, a sight that soon he would never see again, and he gave a deep sigh and said sweetly:
‘Our good times together are nearly over, Amélia. That’s how you want it. But do sometimes think of these wonderful mornings together . . .’
‘Oh, don’t say that!’ she said, her eyes filling with tears.
And suddenly throwing her arms around his neck, with the old passion of their happy times together, she murmured:
‘I will always be yours. Even after I am married.’
Amaro grasped her hands passionately:
‘Do you swear?’
‘I swear.’
‘On the sacred host?’
‘I swear on the sacred host, I swear by Our Lady!’
‘Whenever you can?’
‘Yes!’
‘Oh, Amélia, oh, my love! I would not exchange you for a queen!’
She went downstairs. As he straightened the sheets, Amaro heard her talking calmly to Esguelhas, and he thought to himself what a wonderful girl she was, capable of deceiving the Devil himself, and what a dance she would lead that fool of a clerk.
That ‘pact’, as Father Amaro called it, became so binding between them that they even calmly discussed the details. They considered the marriage to the clerk as one of society’s necessary impositions which suffocate independent souls, but from which nature escapes through the smallest crack, like some irreducible gas. Before Our Lord, Amélia’s true husband was Father Amaro; he was the husband of her soul, for whom she would reserve her best kisses, her inner obedience and her will; the other man would have, at most, her cadaver. Sometimes they even began drawing up the sly plan by which they would correspond secretly and meet in hidden places.
Amélia was, as she had been during the first weeks, afire with passion. Given the certainty that, in a few weeks’ time, the marriage would make everything ‘white as snow’, her moods had vanished, even her fear of Heaven’s vengeance had died away. The slap Amaro had given her had been like the flick of a whip that rouses a lazy, idling horse; and her passion, trembling and neighing loudly, was once more carrying her along with all the impetus of a headlong chase.
Amaro was overjoyed. Sometimes, it is true, he still felt bothered by the idea of that other man spending his days and nights with her, but, on the other hand, what compensations! All the dangers would magically disappear and sensation would only be increased. The terrible responsibilities of seduction were over and the woman became even more desirable.
He now urged Dionísia to complete her tedious search. But the good woman, doubtless in the hope of earning more by the multiplicity of her efforts, could not find the typographer, the famous Gustavo who, like one of those dwarves in novels of chivalry, held the secret of the marvellous tower wherein lived the enchanted prince.
‘Oh, dear Lord!’ said the Canon. ‘Things are beginning to look very bad. She’s been searching for the rascal for nearly two months now! There’s no shortage of clerks. Get her another one!’
Then, one night, when the Canon had dropped in to have a rest at Father Amaro’s house, Dionísia appeared and exclaimed from the door of the dining room where the two priests were sitting drinking their coffee:
‘Ah, there you are!’
‘What’s happened, Dionísia?’
She, however, was in no hurry; she even sat down, with the gentlemen’s permission, because she was so exhausted. The Canon could not imagine the things she had had to do . . . That wretched typographer reminded her of the story she had been told as a child of a deer that was always within sight, but which the galloping hunters never reached. It had been just like that. But, anyway, she had finally found him . . . and he’d been a bit tipsy too.
‘Get to the point, woman!’ bawled the Canon.
‘Well, here it is,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’
The two priests looked at her, mystified.
‘What do you mean “nothing”!?’
‘Nothing. The man has gone to Brazil.’
Gustavo had received two letters from João Eduardo: in the first, in which he gave his address, near Poço do Borratém, he announced his decision to go to Brazil; in the second, he told him that he had moved, but did not give him his new address, declaring that he would be embarking for Rio on the next steamship; he did not say whether he had any money or what he intended to do there. Everything was very vague and mysterious. Since that letter, a month ago, he had not written again, and the typographer had concluded that he must, at that very moment, be on the high seas. ‘We must, nevertheless, avenge him!’ he had said to Dionísia.
The Canon, dumbstruck, was slowly stirring his coffee.
‘What do you think of that, Master?’ said Amaro, looking very white.
‘Unbelievable.’
‘May the Devil take women and throw them all into Hell!’ Amaro said darkly.
‘Amen to that,’ replied the Canon gravely.
XX
How Amélia wept when she heard the news! Her honour, her peace of mind, so many combined joys, all lost and plunged into the mists of the sea, en route to Brazil!
Those were the worst weeks of her life. She went to Father Amaro, bathed in tears, asking him every day what she should do.
Amaro, disheartened and bewildered, went to the Canon, who said sadly:
‘We’ve done all we can. We just have to hold on. You should never have got involved.’
And Amaro would go back to Amélia with feeble consolations:
‘We’ll sort something out; we have to put our hopes in God.’
It was a fine moment to be counting on God, when He, outraged, was continually heaping miseries upon her! Such indecision in a man and in a priest, who should have had the ability and the strength to save her, made her feel desperate; her tender feelings for him vanished like water into sand, and what remained was a confused feeling in which hatred glimmered beneath her continuing desire.
As the weeks went by, their meetings at the sexton’s house became less and less frequent. Amaro did not mind; those lovely mornings in Esguelhas’ bedroom were always spoiled now by complaints; every kiss came with a trail of tears; and this so wore him down that he too felt like burying his face in the mattress and weeping out his sorrows.
Basically, he accused her of exaggerating her difficulties and of communicating her quite disproportionate fear to him. Another more sensible woman would not make such a fuss. But what could one expect from an hysterical religious fanatic who was all nerves, all fear, all emotion. There was no d
oubt about it, the whole business had been ‘utter folly’.
Amélia felt the same. Fancy never even having considered that this could happen to her! Honestly! As a woman, she had run foolishly towards love, convinced that she would escape, and only now that she felt the child inside her did the tears and fears and laments begin. Her life was utterly wretched; during the day she had to control herself in front of her mother, apply herself to her sewing, have conversations and pretend to be happy. At night, her overwrought imagination tormented her with an incessant phantasmagoria of punishments, in this world and the next: poverty, neglect, the scorn of honest people and the flames of Purgatory.
Then an unexpected event occurred that provided a diversion from the anxiety that was fast turning into a morbid habit. One night, the Canon’s maid appeared, all out of breath, to say that Dona Josefa was at death’s door.
The evening before, the excellent lady had felt a pain in her side, but had insisted on going to Our Lady of the Incarnation to say her rosary; she had returned home terrified, in more pain and with a touch of fever; and that afternoon, when Dr Gouveia had called, he had diagnosed acute pneumonia.
São Joaneira immediately rushed over and installed herself there as nurse. For weeks, the Canon’s quiet house was abuzz with tearful devotions: her friends, when not visiting churches to make promises and pleas to their favourite saints, were in near permanent residence, tiptoeing like ghosts in and out of the patient’s room, lighting lamps beneath images, tormenting Dr Gouveia with silly questions. At night, in the living room, with the oil lamp turned down, there was a constant mournful muttering in corners; and when tea was served, each bite of a biscuit would be followed by sighs and by tears furtively wiped away . . .
The Crime of Father Amaro Page 38
