The Devil on Her Tongue

by Linda Holeman

  Quinta Isabella’s harvest of Malvasia Babosa had been successful. The day the grapes were pressed, Candelária and I watched the pickers hired by Espirito carry huge baskets of grapes to the lagar.

  There was room for four men to work in the rectangular wooden trough raised above the ground. In the centre was a huge hinged crossbeam balanced by a stone so heavy it must have been transported there by dozens of oxen. As the first group of four men climbed into the trough, two more strummed a slow, steady melody on small cítaras, and the workers, knee-deep in the grapes, lifted their legs high to step in rhythm. The mosto began flowing along a gutter, through a strainer and into a wide, low barrel. It was then dumped back into the lagar for the second treading. When the workers had extracted all they could with their feet, the stalks, skins and remaining pulp were raked into the centre of the trough and bound by thick rope. By the turning of the massive stone wheel, the crossbeam was slowly lowered onto the coiled rope of grape leavings, forcing out the liquid known as “wine of the rope.” By now the workers were covered in sweat and breathing heavily.

  The remaining grape skins and residue were put into clean water and strained, and the resulting refreshing drink was given to the pressers. One of them brought a hornful to Cristiano. He tasted it and licked his lips, and Candelária jumped up and down and said, “Me, me too,” and was also given a sip of the sweet grape juice.

  Then the pulpy debris still left in the lagar was cleaned out to be mixed into manure for fertilizer. Another quantity of grapes was dumped into the lagar, and the second group of men began the next pressing, giving the first men time to rest. The pressing went on through the day.

  That night, as I lay in bed, the music and rhythm of the treading remained a steady beat in my head. When I brought my hand to my face, I still smelled the sweetness of the pressed grapes. I thought of Espirito’s long, slender fingers on the baskets as he helped dump the grapes into the lagar in the pressing house with the ease of someone who seemed at home in every room he entered. As he worked, his face lost the stiffness that had been there since Olívia’s death, and he had, for a short while, looked like the old Espirito, full of life.

  The day after the last of our mosto had been transported to the lodge, we again held a Festa do Vinho on the quinta for the workers. Espirito, Eduardo and Luzia agreed to come to the small festa—one of their first social outings since Olívia’s death almost eight months earlier.

  There was a small replica of a lagar built long ago, Espirito said, for Martyn Kipling’s own daughters when they were children. He had Bonifacio help him carry it into the yard for Cristiano and Tiago and Candelária to tread a basket of less superior grapes we’d kept for them. They stomped and squashed and danced upon the grapes, laughing and splattering the juice, Candelária frequently falling into the pulpy mush.

  As we sat at the long table set up in the shady yard, eating and drinking wine and smiling at the children’s frolicking, a lone man walked up from the gates.

  It was Abílio.

  I tried to swallow my mouthful of food, but it caught in my throat.

  “That looks like Senhor Perez,” Bonifacio said, standing. “Espirito? Did you know he was coming to Madeira?”

  “No,” Espirito said, rising and walking to meet Abílio. I watched the two men shake hands, and then they came to the table.

  Abílio greeted us all, and then said, smiling, “It’s been too long since I’ve been back.” He wore fine leather breeches and a long frock coat. “Luckily,” he said, waving his hand at Espirito and Bonifacio, “I have reliable people to ensure that the business runs smoothly. And, of course,” he said, looking at me, “Senhora Rivaldo keeps my wife assured that all is well on the quinta.”

  “Dona Beatriz didn’t come with you?” Espirito asked.

  “She prefers to stay in Belém with our son, spending money on her grand new house,” Abílio said, his eyes still on me. “My wife tells me you and your husband have also been blessed.”

  My blood thrummed in my ears, and I looked at Bonifacio. When he remained silent, I pointed at Candelária, laughing with Cristiano and Tiago in the little lagar. “Our daughter,” I said flatly.

  Abílio glanced at her but was clearly uninterested in the children, and I took a deep breath.

  “May we offer you some wine?” Espirito asked.

  “I hope you’re not drinking too much of Kipling’s profits,” Abílio answered. Nobody knew what to say. In the awkward silence, he smiled again, the smile I knew so well, the one that attempted to disarm and beguile. “But no, thank you. Please. Continue to enjoy your festivities.”

  Espirito and Bonifacio sat down again.

  “I wish to check on the state of the house,” Abílio said. “When I start to bring prospective buyers to look at it sometime in the next year, I want it to fetch the highest price possible. I bid you all adieu,” he added, and bowed to us with an exaggerated flourish.

  As he walked towards the house, I asked, “Do you know anything about this, Espirito? Why is he talking of selling the house?”

  “According to Henry,” Espirito said, “Perez is still determined to sell the business—and he’s including the quinta. But Henry doesn’t think it will actually happen.”

  We sat in silence. Then Eduardo said, “It looks to me like you’re all glad his visits are infrequent.”

  For me, the afternoon was ruined, and I could no longer concentrate on the conversation.

  When Eduardo and Luzia and Espirito left, Bonifacio went to the cottage. I was still at the table, watching Candelária. The boys had gone to the stables, and Candelária was alone, content to squish about in the trough.

  I jumped as Abílio put his hand on my shoulder. He had come up behind me soundlessly, as Bonifacio often did now. I glanced towards the kitchen, and pulled away from his touch.

  “You’re quite the fine lady now, Diamantina,” he said. “Nothing left of that ragged young wife who trudged down from the mountains a few years ago.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Do you enjoy living off my riches?”

  “It was you who invited me to live here, and your wife who asked me to stay. I believe I work for what I receive.”

  “My wife speaks highly of you. If she only knew, Diamantina. If she only knew,” he repeated, smiling as though we shared a joke. “But who am I to turn down good fortune and argue with my wife’s choices? She spends money as though it will always be there. But I’m speaking to Duncan about him buying the whole operation. And I’ve come back to ready the house in order to get the highest profit.”

  Obviously, Abílio still didn’t know about the deed. Candelária climbed out of the lagar and ran to me, her dress wet and purple with grape juice, her bare feet stuck with bits of grape skin and seeds. She stopped, looking up at Abílio.

  “This is Senhor Perez, Candelária,” I said briskly. “Here, let me wipe off your feet.” I picked up a large napkin.

  Abílio looked down at Candelária. “Ah yes, the child. Well, you’re a pretty little girl. You remind me of your grandmother.”

  I looked at him sharply, glad no one else was around to hear such a casual remark, then lifted Candelária to my lap so I could clean her feet. “How long are you planning to be here?” I asked him. When he didn’t answer, I glanced up at him. He was staring at Candelária’s feet. “There,” I told her. “But your dress is so wet and dirty. I’ll take you home to change in a few minutes.”

  Candelária smiled at Abílio, and then turned and ran towards the kitchen.

  “How old is she?” Abílio asked. His face had coloured slightly. I had never seen quite this look.

  Before I answered his question, he said, pouring a glass of wine, “Have a glass with me.”

  “I have to go to the kitchen and talk to Nini about the dinner, and I need to change Candelária’s clothes,” I said, wanting to be away from him. I stood.

  “Stay. Only for a moment,” he said, gripping my wrist. I sat again, not wanting a
nyone to witness the intimate way he touched me. He let go of my wrist and poured wine into a second glass and pushed it towards me.

  I lifted it. He touched his glass to it. “What are we drinking to?” I asked him.

  “Old friends,” he said. “And vida. Life, and its unpredictability. Look at us, you and I, Diamantina, sitting here at Quinta Isabella, sharing a glass of Kipling’s wine. Do you not think that quite remarkable, given where we’ve come from?”

  I drank, but the wine held no sweetness.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  After dinner, I was in the kitchen helping Binta and Nini wash the dishes. The boys were climbing in the trees by the pressing house, and Candelária had been near my feet, playing with small cooking pots. Suddenly I heard her laugh, high and overexcited. I looked at the floor where she had been playing, but she was gone. I went to the doorway. Abílio was holding her by the hands and swinging her around.

  I went out. “Stop—she’ll be sick. She’s just eaten.” He stopped, as I’d asked, and set Candelária on the ground. Dizzy, she listed and then fell to one side, but he caught her before she landed. He picked her up, smoothing her hair from her forehead. “Do you like playing with Tio Abílio?” he asked, and she smiled, nodding. He kissed her cheek, and I stepped forward.

  “Put her down,” I said, and again he did as I asked. “Candelária, go back into the kitchen with Binta and Nini, and stay there.”

  She held up her arms to Abílio. “Again, Tio,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

  “Candelária. Go to the kitchen.” My voice was harsh, and she looked at me with her bottom lip extended. “Now,” I said.

  As she passed me, she waved at Abílio. “Adeus, Tio.”

  He waved back.

  Once she was out of earshot, I said, “Leave her alone. You’re not her uncle.”

  He stared at me in the falling dusk. “You’re correct. I’m not her uncle.”

  I turned to leave, but again he caught my wrist. “Come here,” he said, gesturing towards a bench under a lacy willow.

  “What do you want?”

  “To show you something.”

  He pulled me to the bench and I stood in front of him as he sat down and started unlacing his boots.

  “What are you doing?”

  He straightened. “I’m not Candelária’s uncle,” he said again. “I’m her father.”

  Hundreds of tiny black insects skittered in front of my eyes, and for a moment I was blind. I swallowed, blinking. “What are you talking about?” I said, when I could be sure of my voice. He was again bent over his boots. “She’s Bonifacio’s.”

  “Really? Are you certain?”

  “There’s no possibility. I only slept with you a few times—and always used my mixture to stop a child from starting. I slept with my husband every night, without the potion,” I lied. “Of course she’s his child.”

  Abílio looked at me again with a strange, sly expression. He pulled off one boot, then the other. He removed his stockings.

  He had a sixth toe on each foot.

  I closed my eyes.

  “You didn’t know about this, did you?” he asked. “It’s a Perez family trait. My father had six fingers on one hand. You never noticed?”

  I opened my eyes and slowly shook my head.

  “Leandro doesn’t carry it. But my daughter does. My daughter, little Candelária.”

  The earth seemed to be moving, and, like Candelária after her spinning, I took a step sideways, and then another, trying not to fall. Abílio caught me and lowered me to the bench. After what felt like a long time, watching him put his stockings and boots back on, I asked, “What will you do?”

  He stood, the last of the light streaming through the leaves casting dappled shadows across his face. “Do? Why, nothing. She means nothing more to me than any of the other children I have sired, scattered about the islands and mainland.”

  “You won’t speak of it to anyone?”

  Now he put his finger under my chin. “That’s up to you.”

  I pulled away from his touch. “What do you mean?”

  “Diamantina. Don’t be coy with me. It doesn’t suit you. After your husband is asleep, come to me in the house,” he said, as Binta came out of the kitchen with a tub of dirty water and threw it to one side. The water arced gracefully through the air before splashing onto the ground.

  She stared at us.

  “Have a pleasant evening, Senhora Rivaldo,” Abílio said, and then walked across the yard to the house.

  That night, when the quinta was in darkness, I got out of bed. I took my old gutting knife from a drawer and put it in my waistband.

  Without need of a candle on the familiar path, I slipped down the hill and into the big house. My bare feet didn’t make a sound on the thick rugs of the entrance hall. Light showed from under one of the closed doors. I put my ear to it and, hearing nothing, opened it.

  Abílio sat in front of a fire. He rose as I came into the room. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait too long.” He shook his head, smiling. “You never disappoint me, Diamantina. Come and have a drink with me.”

  I crossed the room and waited beside him until he had poured two glasses from a decanter. As he handed one to me, I flung out my arm and knocked it from his hand. In his moment of surprise as the glass crashed to the floor, I stepped against him, pulling out my knife and pressing it to his throat.

  He laughed, but his throat contracted as he swallowed. In the next instant he’d composed himself and wrapped one arm around me. As he reached for the knife with his other, I pressed the tip, hard, and his flesh opened like the belly of a fish and blood ran down the blade and caught in the hilt. I knew exactly where the important vein in the neck was, and I cut just to one side of it, a place that would bleed freely but not kill him.

  He froze.

  “Take your hands from me,” I said, and he dropped his arms to his sides.

  “Diamantina, there’s no reason for this. Surely you—”

  “I can move this knife, just the slightest, and you will bleed to death. So now be quiet and listen carefully. Never bother me, or my daughter, again. I will do my work in the adega, and we will live on the quinta. But you will never again demand that I come to you.” I pressed harder, and the blood came over the low hilt and onto my hand, and then trickled down to my wrist.

  There was a fine sheen of perspiration on Abílio’s forehead and upper lip. “You can’t threaten me like this, Diamantina. All I have to—”

  “I am threatening you. If you don’t like my terms, then tell Bonifacio about Candelária. Take off your boots and show him. He’ll quit. You’ll be without a head of the Counting House—an efficient and honest man, whom you know has benefited Kipling’s more than most would. You will lose me, and your wife and Henry Duncan will be most unhappy. We’ll move away from the quinta, and again, Dona Beatriz will wonder why, won’t she? You know we correspond regularly, that she awaits my reports on the state of the house and land. Would you like to tell her why Bonifacio and I left Kipling’s? Not that you would tell the truth, for you are so used to lies that they come more easily than truths, but don’t worry. I’ll do it. I’ll tell her that while she lay in bed recovering from childbirth, or mourning the death of her father, you forced yourself upon me, and I bore your child as a result. She won’t question me, Abílio, knowing the kind of man you are. Do you think she doesn’t write to me of your escapades with the whores of Lisboa and Oporto? So. Do you relish living with her fury at this? Do you not fear she might take things a step further in terms of how she views your role in the business?” I pressed even harder with the tip of the knife, and this time there was a spurt, and Abílio cried out in anger and alarm. I kept pressing. “Do you not, Abílio, fear that I could bring your life down to a level you can’t imagine?”

  “Diamantina, you’ve lost your mind.”

  “I’m very clear right now, Abílio, and I’ll say all I want to say. There was no way I could prove that you stole the o
il of fleabane from my medicine bag and put it into Martyn Kipling’s wine, but if I ever choose to tell Dona Beatriz that truth, she’ll believe it as well. Because she knows by now that you’re capable of doing anything to get what you want.”

  A log fell in the fireplace. Abílio’s blood continued to flow.

  “And you aren’t capable of doing anything to get what you want as well?” he said, against the knife. “Have I not told you, more than once, that we are alike?”

  At that, I grabbed his genitals and moved the knife, in one quick movement, from his throat to the front of his breeches. “I would suggest that if you want to keep bedding women, you do not bother me again.” I gripped tighter, the leather smooth against my palm, and his face contorted. As I pressed the blade against him, he stared at me. “Do you understand me, Abílio?”

  Of course, he could have grabbed my arm, taken a chance that he could overpower me before I had a chance to cut him. He could have grabbed the knife and slit my throat. And yet he didn’t. I recognized his expression now. It was admiration.

  I let him go and stepped back, the knife extended in front of me.

  “You’re still the hardened girl of the beach, still the daughter of a witch, aren’t you?”

  “I will always carry that girl within me. But now I’m also a woman of Funchal. I’m a mother and a healer and a blender of wine. I am many things. What I am not, Abílio, is afraid of you.”

  He pulled a large white handkerchief from his pocket. “If you were any other woman, your threats wouldn’t have lasted longer than a moment, and I would be fucking you right now. But we share a bond, Diamantina. We know each other. As you’ve pointed out, it will make my life easier not to worry about the business or the quinta or to put up with more harping from Beatriz. And so I’ll say and do nothing. For now.”

  I stared at him a moment longer, then turned and walked away, alert for any sudden movement behind me. At the door I stopped and looked back. He stood in front of the fireplace, watching me, while the handkerchief pressed against his neck bloomed crimson. “I don’t expect you to speak to me again while you’re here,” I said.