*
Daniel and I endeavored on numerous occasions over the next weeks to speak with Violeta at her stall, but whenever she saw us approaching, she seemed to choke as though she had swallowed poison. She would reveal nothing of her heart to us and would obviously have preferred to burrow down into the cobbles and bury herself rather than have to speak of her life.
As time went on, she grew more pale and drawn. Lice crawled freely over her bonnet, and I once spotted a red boil oozing pus on her wrist. Another time I saw what looked to be a burn on the palm of her hand.
The specific effects of her brutalized state on Daniel came as a surprise to me, likely owing to my youth; instead of conceiving a plan to kidnap her or blackmail her mother, as I might have expected, he began to inflict injury upon himself and others, frequently ending up in bloody fisticuffs with other boys and even with me. He hit me so hard once — as I was trying to drag him away from a young priest with whom he’d started a quarrel — that I awoke to find him sobbing over me and begging my forgiveness. “Look what I’ve done to you,” he wept.
He carried me all the way home. Cradled in his arms, I felt his strength enveloping me, as it had before our troubles began. I never told my parents what he’d done. I explained to Mama that I’d fallen off the cathedral wall while imitating a goose.
Soon, Daniel began to go to the taverns in the Ribeira district to beg gin, rum, and cachaça, a liquor made in Brazil from cane. When drunk he often called himself unworthy of Violeta. He cursed her at times as well, as damnable and selfish. This perplexed me, but I can see now that his behavior, born of despair, was aimed at confirming his vileness in his own eyes and those of others. Yet his actions only bound me to him closer than ever.
Then, one moonless night, just before dawn, the lass slipped out of her house and tossed her pebbles at my window. She welcomed me outside with an embrace that was more solid than I had any right to hope for. When she laughed at my fear for her, I knew she had returned to me.
She removed her bonnet and let me scratch her hair, which was stiff with new growth. We spoke little on that first visit. Sitting on our stoop, she pointed into the sky and had me identify constellations as though she were tutoring me for an exam.
She began to visit me once a fortnight. I often suggested that we sneak off to visit Daniel, but she would not hear of it. “He would just ask me to flee with him. And I cannot.”
“But why can’t you go?” I dared to ask once.
She shook her head. “You are too young to understand, John. I cannot just run away. My family needs my wages. It’s my fault that my uncle is no longer supporting us.”
When I said that wasn’t true, she replied, “John, I’m afraid there are people whose fate it is to remain unhappy. Perhaps wickedness makes some of us undeserving of a better life.”
“But what of America?” I asked. “You told me you would really go there and that no one could stop you. Why not now?”
Hushing me, she told me we might remain friends only if I never spoke of her misfortune. I didn’t understand why she wished this, but on her insistence I swore to it.
*
Violeta, Daniel, and I continued to live our lives largely independent of one another throughout that autumn of 1801. The lad was hardly ever at home, and I grew tired of trying to coax him from the taverns. Even on Saturdays he would often get drunk rather than come with me to Violeta’s stall. He abandoned our art lessons as well, though I still loved my studies with the Olive Tree Sisters every Friday afternoon.
This wretched time reached its zenith shortly after the return of Daniel’s adoptive father, in February of 1802, a bitterly cold and rainy month. I was now almost eleven years of age, fearful of Daniel’s wild mood swings, and disenchanted with bird calls and most everything else.
As for Violeta’s occasional nighttime visits, they served only to agitate me, for she refused to discuss her plight.
Daniel’s father had returned to Porto because his relations in Newfoundland with a woman of French and Ottawa Indian blood had borne one too many fruits. The solution for him had been easy — he simply signed on for the next vessel back to Portugal and left without a farewell. He was of the opinion that unwanted children make all explanations useless.
Daniel already knew this, of course.
Senhor Carlos — for that was the man’s name — insisted that Daniel move back to their house. And despite all of Senhora Beatriz’s pleas and bribes, he refused to sign over the parental rights that had been given him when he and his wife adopted the baby given up by Senhora Beatriz’s daughter. He even threatened to appeal to a judge if she continued to keep the lad from him, insinuating that her Jewish background would hardly weigh in her favor. Furthermore, he was determined to take Daniel away with him the next time he set out to sea.
I remember Senhora Beatriz coming to our house, carrying her small painting of her daughter, on the day Daniel left her home for good. When Mama left me alone with her to make some strong tea, she touched her crooked finger to her beloved daughter’s image and whispered, “We’ve lost him again, Teresa, we’ve lost our Daniel….” She looked up at me as though to beg forgiveness and shuddered. “What a fool I am, John. I thought I’d changed destiny — redeemed our betrayal of that boy. But women are powerless against cruelty once it has claimed a child’s life.”
*
Once, just after Daniel had moved his belongings to his old house, I saw him feign throwing a knife at his father’s back.
“I’d do it, but not even his death would set me free,” he told me.
Rather than attack him at that moment, he took up a wooden plate he’d been carving with the faces of wolves, foxes, and other forest creatures. After working away for a time, he showed it to me. None of the animals had eyes. It was chilling. When I asked for a closer look, he marched outside and hurled it in the river. Lifting his eyebrows like a rogue, he feigned a grin. He wished me to think it was just a game, but I knew better. I said, “You ought to have finished it at least — now they will never be able to see.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me to finish. All that I have known is over now.”
*
Daniel’s father didn’t want to maintain their house during what might be an absence of years, so two months after his arrival it was sold to a blacksmith from Vila do Conde, who was to move in on May the First. With the proceeds from the sale, Senhor Carlos bought Daniel a leather travel case, a knife of English steel, sheepskin gloves, a pair of fur-lined boots, and a woolen cape with a hood.
“Newfoundland freezes over as early as October,” he explained.
This was hardly an enticing prospect to a young man who had never in his short life even worn a thick coat, though Daniel claimed to be overjoyed at finally being able to earn a wage worthy of a man. He scoffed at the very idea of remaining in Porto after his father’s departure. He spoke of his grandmother as a burden and of Violeta as a waste of his time. Anyone unfamiliar with his theatrical gifts might have been convinced that he was grateful for this opportunity to travel.
I believe now that his acting was meant to keep us from discovering that there was nothing left in his well of spirit. So many times in the years since have I wished that I had tossed a rope down to him, because I could have; I was good with words and might very well have convinced him to defy his adoptive father. But I was blind to my own gifts and to many things around me — not unlike those creatures he had carved.
Daniel’s last day in Porto approached quickly. On April the Twenty-Seventh, four days before he was to depart, he and I took a somber walk to the marketplace in New Square to ask Violeta for a final meeting. We found her in a skeletal state, her once-beautiful eyes full of sorrow.
“I must … I must say good-bye soon,” Daniel said. His eyes were so heavy with unspoken emotion that I thought he might faint.
“Say it now, then,” she replied harshly, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“Come to my house
tonight after midnight, please, Violeta,” I said. “We shall have some cake I saved for you from my birthday celebration. Please, we miss you so much.”
She glanced at me witheringly and said, “Go home to your parents. I do not wish to see either of you ever again.”
We were speechless with despair. “Can the world really weigh so much, Violeta?” asked Daniel solemnly. “I ask myself that sometimes. And can we not help each other — you and I? Is that not what we are meant to do?” He smiled sweetly, as though to apologize for the seriousness of his words.
Violeta pressed her hand to her forehead, exhausted, stricken by his pain. “Go, Daniel. You have your life. Do not wait for me.”
“Are you sending me away?” He reached for her, but she turned away.
“Do not touch me,” she ordered. Then her voice softened. “Please, I could not bear it.”
She stared down at the ground. I felt time and the last vestiges of our innocence ending for the three of us. Daniel was pale with shock. He and I waited a moment, hoping she would look up. When she didn’t, we left. The lad’s face was hollow and despondent as we rushed away. Likely he was haunting his own barren life, imagining what would never be. Through my lonely tears, I begged him to talk to me, pleaded that we must not abandon Violeta. On hearing that, he proceeded to provoke a bitter quarrel with me, challenging me to come with him to the suggestively named Cucumber Tavern, a vile public house at the riverside that was a haunt for sailors, bandits, and scoundrels.
When we entered the tavern, several rough-looking men called out greetings to him and burst into laughter after asking my name and age, threatening to tell my mother on me. We sat at a table in the corner. Daniel produced a coin from his pocket and ordered himself a rum and myself a glass of cheap wine. Bent on destruction, he downed his dram in two gulps and bid me do the same with my wine.
Even though I took modest sips, I could fairly hear my down pillow calling my name. Daniel was busy gabbling on about setting out to sea with his father. His false enthusiasm irritated me. I was confused by all that had happened and enraged at everyone — at Daniel, Violeta, and myself, and all the adults in my life, so powerless to help us. To end his absurd chatter, I did the unforgivable — I told him that Violeta had secretly visited me late at night on occasion and that she had even told me she wished to go off to America without him.
“It’s only a fantasy,” he scoffed. “She told me all about how her father loved the night sky there.”
“No, she means it,” I insisted. “She made me promise not to tell you. But when you are gone at sea, she will leave Porto forever.”
His eyes filled with tears. I immediately regretted my rash confession and hurried to make amends. “Daniel,” I said, “Violeta is too troubled at the moment to know what she wants. I don’t think she’d ever leave without us. A lass so young could never go away alone, could she?”
His face went blank with hopelessness and too much rum. We ought to have simply left for my house and spoken to my parents. I was about to propose that we go there — and apologize, too, for pretending that I knew Violeta had always planned to go away without him — but a burly merchant with shiny black hair sauntered up to our table and challenged Daniel to walk on his hands all the way from one end of the room to the other. The gentleman then offered the lad a silver ten-tostão coin for his troubles, which Daniel snatched with a grunt. Soon the men had gathered round and had placed their bets. A healthy sum was at play — too much for even the youthful arms of my nimble friend. I knew that trouble had found us in this hidden place. I ought to have spoken up, but I said nothing.
Daniel was a gifted acrobat and could do all sorts of tumbles, flips, and flurries, but the rum had dulled his sense of balance. He started out well enough, stepping like a crab, his legs arching back over his head, his face reddening as though sunburned. I walked along beside him, urging him forward. The men were shouting and laughing.
But the lad’s left hand soon slipped and his right leg dangled too far over his back. Down he came with a dry thud. Men who had lost their bets jeered at him, calling him a donkey. The merchant who had paid for Daniel’s effort leaned over him, cleared his throat noisily, and spit a huge gob into his face. My friend wiped it away and rolled onto his belly, the crook of his arm over his eyes. I squatted next to him and begged him to leave. I felt his hot shame as my own and wished we had never come.
It was the proprietor who succeeded in rousing Daniel, giving him a kick on his bottom and then hoisting him up by his arm. He shoved the lad toward the door. Once outside, Daniel raced away from me. He ran with a curious lumbering gait, like a wounded animal. Before passing through the gate to reach the wharf, he turned back to me. Shaking his head, he smiled wistfully before running through the stone threshold.
I dashed after him and found him standing at the water’s edge on the mossy granite blocks, peering into the water, shading his eyes with the back of his hand.
My friend held up his hand and said, “No closer, John.”
I might have expected to see defeat or hopelessness in his eyes, even rage. Yet what was there was love. For me, I used to think. But if so, I now know it was only because I represented all he had ever done and wished for — all, too, he might have carved with his hands. Had a boy ever loved the hidden possibilities in our world as much as he?
He swept his hand straight down now, as though drawing a line between us. Then he recited his favorite rhyme: “Raptado, embrulhado,eentregado… kidnapped, wrapped, and delivered.”
He reached deep into his pocket and tossed me the coin that the raven-haired lout in the tavern had offered him to walk on his hands. “You are the owner of all that is mine, including my masks,” he said.
I assumed he meant that I would inherit his things when he went to sea with his father. I wanted to beg him to come home with me. My parents and I would find a way to help him. But without warning he reached to his chest as though pierced by a bullet. “I’ve been shot,” he said.
At first I was stunned, my senses dulled by wine. Then I understood that he was acting, pretending to have been wounded in battle.
Daniel limped along the edge of the slick stones, his hands clutched over his heart. Then he teetered, tilting away from land. Squeezing his eyes tight, as though resigned to the inevitable, he fell into the muddy water.
What was he thinking as he tumbled down? I cannot say for sure. I only know that when I imagine myself in his place, I sometimes feel the seamless wash of relief flowing through me as I enter the water.
I waited, expecting him to surface wearing an exuberant smile. I recalled the kingfisher we’d seen on our first day at the tarn, who had disappeared under the water only to emerge with wings flapping, a tiny fish caught in its beak. I shouted his name, then ran to where he had toppled off the edge. I thought I saw his hands reaching toward me, then receding and disappearing altogether, like a dream withdrawing beyond the recall of memory. Two sailors were standing nearby, pointing toward the water where he had fallen.
“Help me!” I shouted to them. “Please help me.”
They didn’t move or call back to me, so I slipped out of my shoes and dived in after him.
I was a strong swimmer. My father had made sure of that. I pierced the water with the arrow of my hands and swam down. The water was freezing, and fish jostled around me, battering against my face. Yet all I could think of was finding Daniel and getting him to the surface. I had to apologize — to tell him that the only thing I knew with certainty about Violeta was that she loved him.
The water was surprisingly shallow — no more than ten feet. When I came close to the bottom, I twisted in a circle. I could make out what looked like an iron wheel planted in the riverbed, but the water was thick with mud from upriver and the current was fierce. It was tugging me away. It must have already carried Daniel a good ways downriver.
I surfaced for breath and heard a man shout, “What do you think you’re doing?” but I paid him no heed. Other p
eople called out to me, but since none of them had Daniel’s voice, I swam twenty strokes to the west, then flipped my legs up and dived down, reaching forward with my hands and pulling the water behind me with the most powerful strokes I had ever managed. Then I saw him, his hair swirling above his head like seaweed, his arms floating limply. I darted down for him and grabbed an arm. I tugged once, but he seemed to pull back. I tugged again and felt the weight of his resistance. He was alive! Yet his eyes, open, were staring neither at me nor at anything else. I was fully empty of air by now and was forced to surface. I took two quick breaths, then gulped a third deep down into my lungs, positive that I could rescue him. This time I threw my arms around his waist and locked my hands behind his back. Help me, goddamn it! I wanted to shout. I kicked and tugged for all I was worth. But he would not — or could not — help me.
I have no idea how long I stayed underwater trying to pull Daniel up, but I vowed not to surface until I got his head above the waterline. I closed my eyes and kicked madly with my feet, but may Daniel, Senhora Beatriz, and Violeta forgive me, I soon grew dizzy. About three feet from the surface, my arms gave out. He fell away from me, swallowed whole by the greedy river. Now I was forced to struggle for my own life. The water was very dark and I could no longer tell which way was up and which was down.
Then I heard my father’s voice shouting my name. I closed my eyes again so that I might hear him better. But he spoke no more. I felt myself being pulled down.
After a few moments of complete blackness, I felt something brush against my hand. An instant later, light flooded my eyes. I was above the water. I heard jangling voices like scattered coins. “Good lad!” a man shouted.
There was a rope in my hands and I was gulping down air. A man reached for me and lifted me out of the water.
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