The Seven Sisters

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘I love you, my Bel,’ he said, as he stroked her hair tenderly. ‘And I am here if you need me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied as she clung to him. ‘Thank you.’

  As June turned to July, Bel returned home from an afternoon working on the soapstone mosaic at the Igreja da Glória to be informed by Loen that her father was waiting for her in the drawing room.

  ‘How does he seem?’ she asked Loen as she removed her hat and handed it to her.

  ‘He appears to have lost some weight,’ said Loen cautiously. ‘But you must see for yourself.’

  Taking a deep breath, Bel opened the door to the drawing room and saw her father pacing the room. He turned as she walked in, and Bel saw that Antonio had indeed shed some pounds. But more than that, his handsome face was gaunt and tiny trails of lines had etched themselves onto his skin. His black wavy hair, which had previously contained only a sprinkling of silver around the temples, was now almost uniformly grey. Bel felt he had aged ten years since she had last set eyes upon him.

  ‘Princesa,’ he said, walking towards her and embracing her. ‘It seems so long since we last saw each other.’

  ‘Yes, it must be three months or so,’ Bel agreed.

  ‘Of course, you are a married woman with your own life now, and have no time for your old Pai,’ he joked lamely.

  ‘I have been at the house visiting Mãe many times in the past few weeks,’ countered Bel. ‘You have never been there. It seems it is you who is unavailable, Pai.’

  ‘Yes, I agree, I have been busy. As I’m sure your father-in-law has told you, the coffee business is very difficult at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to see you today at least. Please’ – Bel gestured to a chair – ‘sit down and I will send for some refreshments.’

  ‘No, I don’t need anything,’ said Antonio, sitting down as his daughter had requested. ‘Izabela, what is wrong with your mother? On Sunday, she spent most of the day in bed. She said she had a migraine, as she has said many times before in the past few months.’

  ‘Pai, I . . .’

  ‘She’s ill again, isn’t she? I noticed over breakfast this morning that her skin has a terrible colour to it and that she ate nothing.’

  Bel stared at her father for a while. ‘Pai, you’re saying that you haven’t seen these signs before now?’

  ‘I have been so busy at the office that often I leave before your mother rises and am not home until after she is in bed. But yes . . .’ Antonio hung his head. ‘Perhaps I should have seen, but didn’t wish to. So,’ he said with a sigh of despairing resignation, ‘do you know how sick she is?’

  ‘Yes, Pai. I do.’

  ‘Is it . . . ? Is it . . . ?’ Antonio couldn’t bring himself to utter the words.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Bel confirmed.

  Antonio stood up and hit his temple with his palm in anguish. ‘Meu Deus! Of course I should have seen! What kind of man am I? What kind of husband am I to my wife?’

  ‘Pai, I understand that you feel guilty, but Mãe was determined that she must not worry you, given that you have so many problems at the office. She has played her part in this too.’

  ‘As if work matters compared to the health of my wife! She must truly believe that I am a monster for her to have hidden what she has from me! Why have you not said anything to me before, Izabela?’ he shouted, rounding on her angrily.

  ‘Because I promised Mãe I would not,’ Bel replied firmly. ‘She was adamant she didn’t wish you to know until you had to.’

  ‘Well, at least now I do,’ said Antonio, rallying a little. ‘We can find the best doctors, surgeons, whatever she needs to recover.’

  ‘As I said, Mãe has seen her doctor and I was there with her. He told me there was no hope. I’m sorry, Pai, but you must finally face the truth.’

  Antonio stared at her as a mixture of expressions – from disbelief, to anger, to devastation – crossed his features.

  ‘You are telling me she is dying?’ he managed to whisper eventually.

  ‘Yes. I am so very sorry.’

  Antonio slumped into a chair, put his head in his hands and began to weep noisily. ‘No, no . . . not my Carla, please, not my Carla.’

  Bel stood up and went to comfort him. She put an arm around his hunched shoulders as they shook with emotion.

  ‘To think that she has carried this burden alone for all this time and didn’t trust me enough to tell me.’

  ‘Pai, I swear to you that even if she had, nothing could have been done,’ Bel reiterated. ‘It is Mãe’s wish that she is not put through any further treatment. She says she is at peace, has accepted it and I believe her. Please,’ Bel entreated, ‘for her sake, you must respect her wishes. You have finally seen for yourself how sick she is. Now all she needs is love and support from both of us.’

  Antonio’s shoulders sagged suddenly as all his energy left him. Despite her horror that it had taken him so long to notice her mother’s deteriorating health, she felt a wave of sympathy for him.

  He looked up at her, the pain evident in his eyes. ‘What-ever you or she may think, she is everything to me and I simply can’t imagine a life without her.’

  Bel watched helplessly as he stood up, turned and left the room.

  40

  ‘What’s wrong with you these days?’ slurred Gustavo as Bel emerged from the bathroom in her nightgown. ‘You hardly say a word over dinner any longer. And you rarely speak to me when we are alone.’ He eyed her as she climbed into bed next to him.

  It had been a week since Antonio had appeared at the Casa and left devastated by the dreadful news. Bel had visited her mother the following day, and had found Antonio sitting in a chair at her bedside, holding her hand and weeping silently.

  Carla had given her daughter a wan smile as she’d entered and indicated her husband. ‘I’ve told him to go to the office, that there’s nothing he can do for me that Gabriela can’t. But he refuses and continues to cluck around me like a mother hen.’

  Bel had seen that, despite her words, Carla was comforted and gratified by Antonio’s presence. And from the dreadful way her mother had looked that afternoon, Bel knew it was just in time. When her father had finally been persuaded to leave them alone and go off to the office for a few hours, Carla had spoken quietly to Bel.

  ‘Now that he knows, I would like to tell you of what I wish to do in the time I have left . . .’

  Since then, Bel had been plucking up the courage to tell Gustavo where her mother would like to spend her final days. For of course, Bel must accompany her, and she knew her absence wouldn’t please her husband.

  She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed and looked at him, taking in his red eyes and the enlarged, drink-sodden pupils. ‘Gustavo,’ she began, ‘my mother is dying.’

  ‘What?’ He turned his head towards her. ‘This is the first that I’ve heard about it. How long have you known?’

  ‘A few weeks, but my mother insisted that I tell no one.’

  ‘Not even your husband?’

  ‘Not until she’d told her own, no.’

  ‘I see. The cancer is back, I presume?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long does she have left?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not long . . .’ Bel’s voice quavered with emotion at his coldness. She steeled herself to ask Gustavo what she needed to. ‘She has requested that she be taken to the mountains to spend her last days at her beloved fazenda. Gustavo, would you let me accompany her?’

  He stared at her with glazed eyes. ‘How long for?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be weeks, or perhaps, God willing, two months.’

  ‘Would you be back by the beginning of the season?’

  ‘I . . .’ It was impossible for Bel to put a timescale on the final time she would spend with her mother merely to suit her husband. ‘I would think so, yes,’ she managed.

  ‘Well, I can hardly say no, can I? But of course, I would prefer you here by my side. Especially as there
seems to be no heir so far, and this will delay the production of one further. My mother is getting most perturbed that you seem infertile,’ he said cruelly.

  ‘I apologise.’ Bel lowered her eyes, wanting to retort that the situation was hardly her fault. It was at least two months since Gustavo had managed to successfully make love to her, although she accepted that he probably couldn’t remember the full extent of his ineptitude.

  ‘We will try tonight,’ he said, grabbing her suddenly and throwing her back onto the bed. With one movement, he was on top of her and clumsily pulling her nightgown up, then she felt his hardness poking and prodding to find where it needed to be, but failing to hit its target. His mouth descended on hers and she felt him moving against her, as though he thought he was inside her. As usual, she felt Gustavo’s weight fall more heavily on top of her as he finally moaned with relief before rolling off her. Bel felt the stickiness already congealing on her thighs and looked at him with a mixture of revulsion and pity.

  ‘Perhaps tonight we will finally have made a child,’ he said, before his breath was consumed by drunken snores.

  Bel stood up and went to the bathroom to clean Gustavo from her skin. How he could possibly believe that the apology which had been their coupling could result in the miracle of a baby, Bel did not dare to question. Any slight aptitude he had once shown as a lover was lost – along with his memory of such events – in the mire of drunkenness.

  However, she thought, as she made her way back to the bedroom, if what she had just endured was the price for leaving Rio to be with her mother until the end, then she was content to have paid it.

  The following morning, Bel left Gustavo sleeping and went down for breakfast. Both Luiza and Maurício were at the table.

  ‘Good morning, Izabela,’ said Luiza.

  ‘Good morning, Luiza,’ Bel replied politely as she sat down.

  ‘Gustavo is not joining us?’

  ‘He will be down very soon, I’m sure,’ said Bel, wondering at her need to protect her husband from his mother.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  Every morning, this was the beginning and end of the conversation, the rest of breakfast only punctuated by the odd grunt of pleasure or disapproval emanating from behind Maurício’s newspaper.

  ‘Luiza, I must tell you that my mother is extremely unwell,’ said Bel as she stirred her coffee. ‘In fact, it is very doubtful she will live to see another summer.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that, Izabela,’ replied Luiza, a subtle raise of an eyebrow her only physical reaction to the news. ‘This is very sudden. Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Sadly, yes. I’ve known for some time, but my mother wished me to say nothing to anyone until she had to. That time has now come and she has requested that she spends her last days at our fazenda. Which, as you know, is five hours’ journey from here. She has asked me to go with her and help nurse her to . . . the end. I spoke to Gustavo last night and he has agreed that I should go.’

  ‘Really?’ Luiza’s thin lips puckered in displeasure. ‘That is indeed generous of him. For exactly how long will you be away?’ she asked, voicing the same question as her son.

  ‘I . . .’ Bel could feel the tears beginning to rise in her eyes.

  ‘Surely, my dear, for as long as it takes,’ said a sudden voice from over his newspaper. Maurício gave her a nod of sympathy. ‘Please send my best wishes to your dear mother.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bel whispered, feeling touched by her father-in-law’s sudden show of empathy and support. She took out a handkerchief and surreptitiously dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps you can at least say when you will leave?’ Luiza demanded of her.

  ‘At the end of this week,’ Bel confirmed. ‘My father will accompany us and stay for a few days, but then, of course, he must return to his office in Rio.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maurício gravely. ‘I can understand that things must be difficult for him at the moment. They are difficult for us all.’

  Two afternoons later, as Bel sat at a table with the other women in the Igreja da Glória sticking the small triangles of soapstone onto the mesh netting, she thought how the hours she spent in the cool church had provided her with much-needed moments of quiet contemplation. The women – even though they were women and well practised at chatter amongst themselves – did not speak more than they needed to, simply concentrating instead on their joint task. There was a mutual feeling of harmony and peace.

  Heloise, the friend she had once used as an alibi when she’d visited Laurent, was sitting next to her at the trestle table. Bel noticed she was busy writing something on the back of her soapstone triangle. Bel leant over and studied it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I am writing down the names of my family. And also that of my sweetheart. Then they will be up on Corcovado Mountain and part of the Cristo forever. Many of the women do this, Izabela.’

  ‘What a beautiful idea,’ sighed Bel, looking sadly at the names of Heloise’s mother, her father, her brothers and sisters . . . and then the name of her sweetheart. Bel looked down at her own tile – just about to be covered in glue – and knew that one precious member of her family would not be on this earth for much longer, and would never see the Cristo finished. Her eyes filled with involuntary tears.

  ‘When you are done with it, may I borrow your pen?’ she asked Heloise.

  ‘Of course.’

  When Heloise handed the pen to her, Bel wrote out the name of her beloved mother, then her father and then her own name. Her pen hovered below the names, but try as she might, she could not bring herself to write the name of her husband.

  Testing the ink to see if it was dry, Bel applied the thick glue to the tile and placed it on the netting. As she did so, the woman in charge told them it was time for their break, and she watched as the other volunteers stood up from the trestle benches. Instinctively, she grabbed a soapstone triangle from the pile in the centre of the table and secreted it surreptitiously in her small handbag, which lay at her feet under the table. Standing up, she made her way over to the group of women who were drinking coffee at the back of the church.

  Refusing the cup of coffee offered to her by the maid, she turned to the woman in charge.

  ‘Senhora, forgive me, but I’m afraid I must leave now.’

  ‘Of course. The committee is only grateful for any help you can offer, Senhora Aires Cabral. Please write your name down on the rota as usual, to tell us when you are free to come back.’

  ‘Senhora, that will not be possible for some time, I’m afraid. My mother is seriously ill and I must be there for her in her final days,’ Bel explained.

  ‘I understand. Please accept my sympathy.’ The woman reached out a hand to touch her shoulder.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Bel left the church and hurried to Jorge, who was waiting for her in the car outside. Climbing into the back, she directed him to Madame Duchaine’s in Ipanema.

  Fifteen minutes later they arrived, and she asked him to return for her at six o’clock. She walked towards the front door of the salon and pretended to press the bell, until, with her head surreptitiously cocked to the left, she saw Jorge move the car off along the road. She waited on the doorstep for two or three minutes before leaving it, and then hurried as fast as she could along the street to Laurent’s apartment.

  Today, given it was the last time she would see him for perhaps two months, she did not wish to waste any time discussing new-season gowns with her dressmaker. She knew her actions would mean there was no alibi for her lost hours, but as Bel mounted the many steps to Laurent’s apartment, for the first time, neither did she care.

  ‘Chérie, you are so pale! Come in quickly and let me make you something to drink,’ Laurent said as she arrived at his front door, panting from exertion and shaky with nerves. She allowed him to lead her inside and sit her down.

  ‘Water, please,’ she murmured, feeling s
uddenly faint. As Laurent went to fetch some, Bel lowered her head onto her knees to try and relieve the dizziness.

  ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘No . . . I will be fine,’ she said as she took the water from him and drank it quickly.

  ‘Bel, what has happened?’ He sat down next to her and took her hands in his.

  ‘I . . . have something to tell you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My mother has asked to go to our farm in the mountains for her final days and I must go with her,’ she blurted out. Then as all the tension of the past few weeks gathered within her, she began to sob. ‘I’m sorry, Laurent, but I have no choice. My mother needs me. I hope you can forgive me and understand why I must leave Rio for a time.’

  ‘Bel, what do you take me for? Of course you must go to be with your mother. Why did you think I would be angry?’ he asked her gently.

  ‘Because . . . because you’ve told me you’re only in Rio for me and now I’m leaving.’ She looked at him despairingly.

  ‘Well, it is not ideal, I agree. But if you want to know the truth, the fact that you will no longer be sharing a bed with your husband, even if I am unable to set eyes on you for a while, is actually preferable,’ he comforted her. ‘I can feel for that time at least that you are truly mine. Surely we can write? I can send letters to the farm, perhaps addressed to your maid?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Bel as she blew her nose on a handkerchief he passed her. ‘Forgive me, Laurent, but Gustavo and Luiza were so cold when I told them that I thought you would be too,’ she confessed.

  ‘I’ll refrain from comment on your husband and mother-in-law, but I can assure you there is only sympathy for you in my heart. Besides’ – his eyes twinkled suddenly and a smile came to his lips – ‘I have the luscious Alessandra Silveira to keep me company until you come back.’

  ‘Laurent—’

  ‘Izabela, you know I am only teasing you. She might be attractive to look at from the outside, but she has the personality of the rock I am fashioning her from,’ he chuckled.