The Abyss (13 page)

"Don't give me any tears," he said between gritted teeth. "Give me the truth. Are you dishonest? Have you been his mistress? Have you married me to cover your sins? Have you married me for my money?"

"I have not!"

"Swear it!"

She still looked indignant. "I shall not swear it. I should not have to do that, not if you know me."

"Who knows another person?" he asked, shaking his head. "Who is immune to being fooled and lied to, of being robbed and cheated? No man!"

Her face changed into a softer expression and she began to plead, "Gabriel, my darling, I beg of you, don't believe what a terrible man may have written to you! I despised him, I humiliated him and he is having his revenge. If I never married it is because I never loved anyone but you! Believe me!"

"I will believe it," he said, his face very still. "If you swear it."

"No, I shall not!" She almost stamped her foot in anger and frustration.

"You see," he went on. "There is one thing I know is real: your religious superstitions. We can have a happy life together and I will be at your feet begging your pardon if you swear by God that you have not been false, that you have not married me for money and to cover a scandal. Swear it."

"Gabriel, you know I cannot swear by God, I cannot swear by anything that is holy, it would be a deadly sin!"

He took her wrist and put her hand on his heart, "Then swear by me, swear by my life. I don't care. I am not afraid. Swear by me and this will all be over. Whatever I may think, I don't believe you would condemn me by lying."

She pulled her hand away, "Why are you doing this, why won't you believe me? I can't swear by you, I love you!"

He now grabbed her by the shoulders, so that she would look at his face. "You are so lovely, Clara. You smell so sweet. The Baron knows it..."

"No!"

"I wish I had never seen you. I wish to God you had never come here."

"No, no, don't say such things!” she said, horrified. “We swore to love each other, we swore to be true..."

Gabriel let go of her so suddenly she stumbled. "Then you did swear in vain. Did you not?"

He turned away from her again, as if he were done with her. Clara found that she could not even weep, she only waited for the words that started to be thrown like stones at her.

"I know what I swore to," he said. "I swore that it wasn't a beautiful face and body that I loved, but a person. I swore that I would see you slowly lose your figure, and the radiance that you have now, that I would be by your bedside even if you became hideous with disease. I swore that I would cherish all the marks on your body, made by each of our children. I thought that in you I would always see the woman I loved, and that with time you might still see the young man that I had been. I think that's the love which lasts forever."

"It is, and why would we not have it, if only..."

"If only you'd swear, to ease my mind," he said again, without turning.

"I will not swear, when I have done nothing wrong, when you are bringing a horrible calumny into our bedroom!” she said adamantly.

"You can't swear because you have been false!" he said. He again tried to control his rage and finally managed to say. "I have sworn to love you, and I will, I will love you even if such things have happened, but you need to confess to them 
now
."

It was her turn to sound calm. ''I shall not confess to an untruth."

He now faced her, and his eyes were dead. "Well, then we are in a predicament, aren't we?"

She was looking at him brazenly, in the face. "Why will you believe anyone but me?”

He could see pride leaping to her eyes, and he understood that she had always meant to reign over him. "We are married,” he said coldly, “And we will stay married. You wanted money, and you shall have plenty of it
."

"I don't want your money!" she said, flushing a deep red.

"Don’t you? Why not ─
there is money enough for everything now
."

"How dare you say this?" Her voice was now trembling with anger. "When you realize what you have done, you'll beg me to forgive you, and I never shall!"

"I shall not beg you for anything," he went on, "And I shall not touch you again. I shall watch you grow old, I shall tend to you, provide for you and honor you. What I deny you, I shall also deny myself."

"Are you mad?”

"You don't need to love me," he said. "I absolve you from that. And I absolve myself from loving you."

He started walking to the door and she held him back by the arm, "For heaven's sake, Gabriel, don't cross that door, don't! I am also proud and I am begging you now because I won't be able to beg you if you walk out: believe me! Don't believe a man you don't even know, look into my eyes, believe me!"

He turned his head towards her, "I have looked."

Pulling his arm out of her grip he kept walking to the door and through it, leaving his wife all alone.

Eighteen. Affection

It won't be as he says. He is angry now, and he has made me angry, but he will see the truth.

Clara repeated these words to herself as she sat in the bedroom in her riding dress. She felt as if a storm had blown through her, leaving her completely exhausted. She did not know what her next action should be, whether she ought to get up and change, as it was absurd to be in a riding dress if she was not going riding; or whether she should go looking for Gabriel to insist that she was the victim of calumny; or whether she should wait until someone came to her.

She was in a strange house, though it was her house by marriage. Yet her husband had just repudiated her because a malicious lie had been sent to him from abroad.

Was it still her house? Could she walk around freely?

She knew that there had never been another word between Gabriel and his father since the night he had left home with nothing but his mother's inheritance.

Would he do the same to her?

She shook her head, looked at the door and waited to hear his steps returning. Surely he would stop and think that this could not be true, that she could not be the liar that he thought she was, that she could not have hatched a plot to ensnare him. Surely he would come and beg her pardon.

Could he not see how much she loved him?

And then the sudden doubt assaulted her: did she love him? Would she keep loving him if he treated her like a whore? What did she love, if not the happiness that was possible between them, a happiness he had just forsworn?

The bracelet was lying on the ground, and she stooped to pick it up. Such a little thing, so easily lost, and all her qualities had disappeared because of it!

Her feet moved, as if they wanted to go somewhere, but she didn't know where. She could not again risk being told terrible things, it would only make her hate her own husband. Where was she going?

Do something simple, 
she told herself.

She stood up and moved to her dressing room, thinking that she would change into something else. She removed her hat and set it down, then the riding jacket, then she tried to remove her skirt and found that her fingers were trembling.

There was a knock at the door and she almost jumped out of her skin. "Who is it?" she asked.

"It's Teté,
 sinhá
!"

It was strange, but she was relieved that it wasn't Gabriel. She felt very tired, as if she were at the bottom of a well, when she had been full of energy even an hour before.

"Come in!"

The girl walked in with a smile, "
Sinhá
, do you need help? It was 
Mãe
 Lucia who told me not to come up before and help you, she said you might be sleeping..."

The girl was already walking around the room and picking up the discarded clothes to fold them.

"Yes!" Clara said. "Yes, can you help me undress?"

Teté walked toward her with a smile and started unbuttoning the skirt. Her shyness the day before must have been exaggerated, as now she seemed quite at ease. She was removing Clara's clothing and chatting all the while, and Clara found that if she concentrated on the chatter, she felt calmer.

"...
Sinhá
, you know that thing, what is that thing called, when something is the same as something else, but somewhere else, or someone else?"

Clara smiled in spite of herself, "Am I meant to guess?"

"Yes!" Teté said as she pulled Clara's skirt down. "At least, you know what I mean!"

"Give me an example!"

The girl straightened her back and with one hand flapping, she explained, "For example, that your maid in Rio and I have the same name!"

"A coincidence!"

"A 
concidiscence
!" Teté cried happily. "I thought about this yesterday, what a
 considence
 that your maid was Teresa and I am Teresa, except no one ever calls me that, not even my mother, who gave me the name, did. Everyone has always called me Teté!"

"And where is your mother?" Clara asked as the girl put her things away.

"My mother died," Teté said sadly. "She got a bad fever, they don't know if it was malaria or the ague."

"I am sorry."

"That's all right, she is with God and Jesus in heaven... What would you like to wear?"

Teté opened a large mahogany wardrobe, revealing her clothes. Doubt assaulted Clara once more. 
What should I wear, when my husband hates me, when he thinks I am a whore?

She felt the tears rising, but she would not cry. She must keep going.

"The black and white dress, please."

Teté's fingers wriggled in front of the dresses as she searched for the one that Clara meant. She pulled it out. "This one?"

Clara nodded. Teté took the dress and for a moment put it in front of herself, "Oh, it's so beautiful, oh, you'll look very nice!"

The girl was very artless, as Gabriel had said, and she made Clara smile. Teté helped into the gown and then sat her down to do her hair, which had been hastily tucked under the hat before, and now needed some dressing.

As the girl touched her head, Clara found that her eyes were closing. Teté kept chatting until she suddenly said, "
Ai, sinhá,
 you are very tired! You must lie down a little!"

Clara's eyes opened. "But I have just woken up!"

Teté was pulling her arm, "You are too tired from the trip!"

The girl kept pulling and Clara stood up. She wanted to protest and say that she needed to go downstairs, or out, but Teté took her back to the bedroom and sat down on the
chaise longue
and patted the place next to her.

"You need a 
cafuné
!" Teté said.

"A 
cafuné
?" Clara asked, sitting down.

Teté patted her own lap, and Clara understood that she must put her head on it, and somehow it seemed like a good idea. She did.

The girl began to run her fingers through her hair, parting it, pulling on it very softly. "This is 
cafuné
. It's the best thing!"

It felt wonderful. Clara tried to keep her eyes open and couldn't. She was so tired, so tired.

Teté kept chatting in a low voice, and Clara could see her  feet on the floor, clad in little black boots. The maid never stopped running her fingers through her hair.

"When you are tired, when you are worried, when you are napping and it's hot, or it's cold, the best thing is a 
cafuné
..." Teté was saying.

Clara did not even stay awake long enough to agree. She must have slept very deeply, because she felt someone shaking her by the shoulder and woke up to find that her head was no longer on Teté's lap, and that the girl was trying to wake her. She realized, as well, that she was still clutching the gold bracelet, and that brought her immediately to the present.

"
Sinhá,
 it's time for supper."

Clara was shocked to see that had slept through the afternoon, and twilight was coming.

"What time is it?" she asked

"Five o'clock!" Teté went behind her and efficiently put Clara's hair up in a chignon, which she secured with pins.

"And Dom Gabriel?"

"He is waiting downstairs."

At first, upon being woken up, Clara had felt hunger, but now she felt a pang of dread in her stomach. She had slept almost all day, not eaten, and now she must see Gabriel, who had left hating her that morning.

Teté was smoothing Clara's dress as if she were a doll. She almost felt like taking the girl's hand, so that she would walk in with her and face Gabriel. He could seem quite formidable when he was angry.

She looked at the bracelet again.

“Do you want me to fasten it for you?” Teté asked.

Impatient at herself for fearing Gabriel even for a moment, Clara thought that she ought to wear the bracelet, because she had nothing to hide and he should know it. But she saw that the fastening was broken.

“Oh, I can get it fixed,” Teté said, taking it from her hand. “Do you want me to?”

Her mistress nodded.

“I will ask Celso, he fixes things sometimes.”

Teté put the bracelet in her pocket, and let her know that she was ready for supper.

You're not a child!
 Clara told herself, and squaring her shoulders she went down alone. Teté stayed behind to put her things away, and prepare her bed. How would she even sleep, when she had napped so much?

She had not been on a full tour of the house, but she could see the light at the end of the corridor on the ground floor, to the right of the stairs: it was the dining room. It had a table for six people with only two settings across from each other; there was a linen towel with beautiful embroidery on it, fine hand-painted porcelain dishes, crystal glasses and shiny cutlery. Flowers that she had never seen before had been placed in silver vases near the two candelabra. The footmen, Sebastião with his crooked teeth and Celso with his thin legs, stood behind the table.

And then there was Gabriel, wearing a jacket and cravat as well as formal breeches. A nobleman who had been brought up as he had would dress for dinner, even in a home that was far away from everything. He inclined his head as she walked in and pulled out a chair for her. Once she sat down, he moved across the room to his chair.

Apart from this gesture of cold politeness he did not speak, but neither did his eyes shy away from hers. She dropped her gaze to the table with a frown, so as not to see how changed he was from that morning, when they had been lying entwined in bed, and he had called her 
meu bem.

Meu bem:
 a Brazilian expression for someone who was loved profoundly, who meant all that was good to the other.

He had called her that at the beginning of the day, and now he looked at her as if she were nothing, his eyes cold and transparent as blue glass. Could such things happen because of a man who had been spurned in Lisbon, whose feelings for her had not even been deep?

A shallow man had provoked a deep wound across the sea, and her life might be decided by that single action. She could not help being angry at Gabriel for believing the worst of her, and she would not beg him to believe her again.

The kitchen maids walked in with tray after tray, which they set on a side table. The footmen picked one each and moved to the table, offering them the food, which was beautifully arranged. Once more Gabriel inclined his head: she must help herself first. He was going to smother her with politeness.

The smell, which ought to be delicious, made her sick. She shook her head and raised one hand, thanking Sebastião. Gabriel frowned and motioned for Celso to go round with his tray, and the footmen switched places ─ but a simple dish of vegetables earned the same response. She shook her head and raised her hand in thanks again.

"Is the food not to your liking?" Gabriel asked.

"It is fine, but ─ I am not hungry."

Sebastião, his teeth showing in confusion, had taken up another tray with chicken, but Clara, clutching her napkin, only shook her head again.

"Will you not eat?" Gabriel asked.

"I am not hungry."

"I have been told you have not eaten all day."

"I am not hungry," she insisted.

Gabriel waved Celso away as well. "Take all the food back. We shall not eat."

The footmen rushed to obey. When they were alone, Clara lifted a face that now was distinctly mutinous to him. "I am not hungry. That doesn't mean you should not eat."

He replied calmly, "What you deny yourself shall also be denied to me. I told you that."

"You're absurd!"

"Perhaps."

"You..."

Her sentence was cut by Maninha, the cook, who walked in looking so aggrieved and anxious that Clara immediately felt repentant.

"Dona Clarinha
,
" Maninha said in a soft voice. "You don't like the food? What can I make for you?"

Behind her, at the door, a group of downcast faces watched her; practically every house servant was there, all of them worried. It was her first day in her new home, and she had not realized how much they would want to please her.

"On the contrary, Maninha," she said smiling. "It smells delicious! I felt a little queasy for a moment, but now I am fine. May I have the chicken?"

Sebastião rushed forward again and brought it to her with a huge smile. Maninha said that she must drink aniseed tea and bustled towards the kitchen to prepare it.

Lucia, who had come in, said to the other servants, "She is only tired, leave her alone for a moment."

A few minutes later Clara and Gabriel were silently eating, but she realized that she was not alone, that there were many people around them, people with the unexpected desire to care for her because she was the 
sinhá.