The Abyss (22 page)

Thirty-Two: A Seed of Love and a Seed of Destruction

In the estate, what was known during the next days was this: that Dona Clarinha had stayed in the chapel a long time, but that she had refused to pray, telling Teté that she was tired of begging anyone for anything, even Jesus, even God, even the Virgin or Saint Claire.

She sat stubbornly in the pew; Guelo put his head on her lap, and Teté a cheek on her shoulder, and they stayed like that for a while, until Dona Clarinha sent them out because they needed to eat, though she herself would not.

Maninha then came to try and tempt her with the dishes she loved, telling her that she only had to eat a little, but Clara still refused.

When Dom Gabriel was told that she would not eat, he asked for a good meal to be served to him and Iara, and said that the only thing that he needed his wife to know was that if she tried to run away again he would bring her back, and as to the rest he did not care.

By the evening what was being told at the servants' quarters was that Dom Gabriel had said that he hoped his wife would die, and that if she didn't he would kill her as soon as she stepped out of the chapel.

The servants could not help making the story bigger and bigger, as the lives of their betters always seemed so much more fascinating than their own ─though among them husbands and wives fought every day, and some men beat their women and others threatened to kill them.

They were also fascinated by the downfall of their foreman, a man whom none disliked, as he had been strict about their work but had never given himself airs, and was easy to know in his free time. They wondered if he had been having an affair with Dona Clara, but the house servants were adamant in the defense of their mistress, insisting that she had never been away from the house for long enough to carry on with anybody, and that she had simply been unable to stand the humiliation of having a natural child of Dom Gabriel's brought under her roof.

Tarcisio's house was the object of much curiosity, with workers and servants finding some reason to go by and peek inside. They came back saying that he was in bed with a face disfigured by bruises, and that Moema was tending to him.

"He saw the wrong side of 
sinhô
's fist!" the workers said, and they all thought that anyone would have done as much upon finding his woman going anywhere with another man; even the women felt that Dom Gabriel had been justified in what he had done.

Then Dona Clara left the chapel, after refusing food there for one day; she went straight to her studio, where she asked that a bed be brought, and that a bathtub be placed in the smaller room.

The thing she had most wanted was a glass box from her bedside table. Inside it she found the gold bracelet and asked Teté to fasten it on her wrist. Teté almost began weeping, because she could tell that the bracelet represented an act of defiance of some sort, but Clara insisted on wearing it.

"It's a gift from my father!" she said almost angrily.

She locked herself inside the studio for a week, and hung sheets on the windows so that no one could see what she was doing. A sad Teté ─the only person allowed in the studio ─ said that she was painting, but she would not show what, and that she did not talk much. She seemed obsessed with her canvas, would not be distracted from it, and had taken to muttering things under her breath.

Finally,
sinhá
called Lucia and told her to say only this to her husband: that nothing had happened between her and Tarcisio, as God was her witness, and as everyone in the estate could attest to, and that he should not leave the man without his work and his house because she had made the mistake of asking him to escort her to Paraty.

The response from Dom Gabriel was that Lucia should ask her mistress whether she did not get tired of always repeating the same story, because he got tired of hearing it.

He was not a man who usually cared what people said about him, and he did not care now, though in the past his natural discretion had made it impossible for people to know anything of his intimate life. There was a new level of unconcern in him and that frightened everyone: they all felt as if something terrible was about to happen.

"Well, he can be damned, then!" Dona Clara had said upon hearing his message, and Lucia was much taken aback because she had never seen 
sinhá 
so angry, and had never heard her curse anyone, much less her husband.

Tarcisio mended physically in the week that followed, but Moema was not just trying to heal him; as she tended to him, poison continuously dripped out of her mouth and into his ear.

"You ought to look at yourself," she said, "to see what a puny man looks like. You went out so full of confidence, smelling like a whore going to market ─ look how you came back. You did not even touch him, and he beat you as if you were nothing, because that's what you are to him ─ and to her! Did she see you lying there helpless while he beat everything out of you? Ah, I wonder if she will ever ask for your help again!" Moema gave a sardonic laugh; the only thing that ever truly amused her was someone else's failure. "I wonder if that pretty lady will come to ask you to protect her now, a man who was beaten in front of her like a dog. And now you will be thrown out like a dog, in front of your children…"

She went on and on in this vein, crossing her arms and peering at him as if he were something pitiful; he sat under her insults, receiving them like lashes of a whip. He hung his head and listened, and sometimes he winced,  but he did not have a meek look on his face. 

And so two more things happened that were the result of seeds that had been planted: seeds of love in the big house, and seeds of hatred in Tarcisio's home.

On Monday, almost a week after the attempted escape, Clara received a visit which she could not ignore. She heard clapping at her door, and saw through the sheet at the window that it was Pai Bernardo.

Bernardo was the most respected person in all the estate; more respected than Lucia, than Tarcisio, perhaps more than Gabriel or Clara. He rarely chose to speak and when he did, everyone listened. Clara knew that he was going to say something important, so she walked out of the studio and sat on the bench before it, as Pai sat next to her.

"I think there has been enough madness now," he said in his calm, deep voice, leaning on the stick he used to push branches and vegetation aside when he walked. "I know white people are not well in the head, but I believe this has to stop, or someone will get hurt. You don't deserve that, and neither does your husband."

Clara frowned at this, wondering if Pai were going to ask her to beg Gabriel's pardon, which she would never do again; but she listened to him.

"Do you know how Dom Gabriel and I met? I found him in a river, where he had been thrown by friends, or at least partners, who cut his throat to keep the diamonds he had found."

She had not meant to react to anything he said, but she gasped and her hand went to her own throat. "No!" she cried.

Pai Bernardo nodded. "Yes, 
sinhá
, his throat was cut by men he knew, who already had more than enough diamonds of their own. His friend was killed and left on the ground, he was thrown into the river and survived. This very nasty betrayal makes Dom Gabriel too ready to see evil in others, even when it isn't there."

He leaned forward on his stick and went on, "I am older than all of you, and I am looking at this from outside: I don't think there is any evil here. I don't think you ever betrayed him, I think you haven't even thought about it. I think you needed Tarcisio to help you get to a ship and out of here, because you were hurt."

"Gabriel won't believe it," she said almost bitterly. “He will always believe the worst of me.”

"So did you, of him, when Iara was brought here. She is not his daughter, she the child of a woman called Iaci and a Dutch sailor. He told me about both of them a long time ago. He was ashamed that he had abandoned the mother, because he couldn't love her, not as he loved you. He suspected that the way Iaci lived was a little reckless, and when he tried to find out if they were doing well he discovered that she had died, and that the child was in the hands of a stepfather who would have sold the little girl for money."

"Oh, no!"

Bernardo nodded, "Yes, Dona Clarinha, the world has such people. Poor little Iara could have ended up being passed from man to man, even while still a child."

Clara covered her cheeks with her hands, "That's not possible!"

"It is,” he said steadily. “It happens. And this is what Dom Gabriel could not stand. He knew that the girl was in danger, and though he could not love the mother, he did very much love the child."

Her face had gone pale, "I said horrible things to him, horrible!"

"He has said them to you too, I am sure. And this is what has to end. He loves you, 
sinhá
."

She was now shaking her head, "He doesn't, Pai. He did once, but not now."

"Because of what happened to him, he is afraid to trust anyone. He is afraid of the hurt, and of the disappointment. He was making his way back to you..."

There was a tear going down Clara's face now, and she gave a laugh that was almost a sob, "Was he? He had a strange way of showing it!"

"The frames you found here, the flowers ─ they were not brought by me, but by him."

Clara turned to look at Pai Bernardo, her eyes widening. "What? That's not true, I thanked you for them, and you said nothing about that!"

"He asked me not to say. He didn't want you to know. He was waiting until he was ready, and enjoying leaving you presents in the meantime."

She stood up, her back to Bernardo, so full of contradictory emotions that she could hardly think. "Are you saying the truth? Was it all, all Gabriel?"

Turning, she saw that Bernardo was nodding, "It was all Dom Gabriel. All he ever does is for you! Now would that not be an extraordinary love, if only you started believing each other?"

He stood up and moved toward her, "Now I need to go find him and give him a little speech, about how all you do is for him, about how you would make the most terrible liar, and you have always told the truth. There are two people in love here who ought to be happy, and instead keep ramming their head against a wall. You need to stop listening to nonsense and start listening to each other. That's all."

Pai nodded and moved away at a steady pace, leaving Clara looking after him and mumbling, "But you might have told me before this!"

She started walking slowly towards the house: it was true, of course it was true! The frames had symbols only he would have known: the cross of the Order of Christ, the sprigs of lavender, the castles, the ships ─ all images of Portugal.  The bouquets left on the windowsill had been lovely, but never obvious; the flowers had been chosen with a discerning eye, and there had been the addition of dry branches and leaves that only by a sophisticated taste would have made. All those gifts could only have been left to her by Gabriel.

It could only have been Gabriel, why did I not see it before?

Clara went toward the house, knowing that Pai was right, that she needed to bare her soul before her husband, to beg his pardon for not trusting him, to ask him once more to believe her, and not the words of anger she had pronounced.

She would go to the house and ask for Sugar, and she would ride to find him, and to say, "My darling,  I love you, and have never loved anyone else. I know you love me!  Let us be good to one another, we can be so happy!"

But Clara never had the time to get Sugar, or to find her husband and make her passionate plea, because at Tarcisio's house Moema had gone too far, as she had fully meant to go.

Had she been another sort of woman, she would have tried to pick up the pieces of their life, she would have helped Tarcisio heal and find new employment; she would have resented him for loving another woman and planning to run away with her, but the practical necessities of life would have imposed themselves. She would have put their marriage back on course for the sake of her children, and she would not have been the first woman in the world to do it, or the last.

But Moema was a different sort of person, one whose pride was her most treasured possession. She might have been a barefoot 
cabocla
 when Tarcisio met her, but she had always had her dignity, and this he could not and would never take away.

Her pride now demanded a sacrifice; she had helped Tarcisio heal only to send him on to his own doom, and others'.

That Monday she spoke for so long in his ear that he eventually stood up from the table where he had been sitting and grabbed her by the throat. She felt his hand, ready to squeeze the life out of her and said, "Go ahead, kill a woman! Kill someone weaker than you, because you are afraid of a real man!"

It was such a simple sentence to say, and it might not have caused the desired effect, except that Moema knew Tarcisio, and knew that it would.

Just a quarter of an hour earlier the workers at the mill had seen Tarcisio coming toward them, and the look on his bruised face. They didn't notice the pistol in his hand until he raised his arm to point it at Gabriel, who faced him as if he were not afraid of dying.

Some of the men moved, trying to get to Tarcisio and throw him on the ground, or to take the pistol from him. But when they managed, it was too late.