Mama smiled at me then, the way she had when she’d come to my tarn for the first time, greatly moved by my permitting her an intimate knowledge of my world. Taking my hand, she touched my fingertips to her lips. “You know, John, I think Daniel wished to show the birdsellers how their cages rob dignity from everyone concerned – not simply from the birds.”
“That’s it – that’s it exactly, Mama!” I cried.
But a moment later I understood the depth of my failure. For the bird market would be up and flourishing next Tuesday as though nothing had happened.
“What’s wrong, son?” she asked.
When I explained, she said, “Nothing so evil can be brought to so swift an end. But you will have your victories.” She wagged her finger. “And without robbery, John – with words.”
“With what words?”
“You will convince them of their moral duty to free the birds – and not only that, but other things besides.”
“How do you know that, Mama?”
She squeezed my hand. “I know you. And I know what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it.”
*
After our dessert, Mama and I strolled through the city till after midnight. The evening was cool, and she draped her shawl over my shoulders. Several times strangers pointed to me and whispered, “There he is, there’s the child who is part bird….”
Pride shone in Mama’s eyes when she looked at me.
An elderly man with a crooked hand even patted my head and whispered to his wife, “They say this lad created a miracle today.”
At that, Mama led me away and fell into a brooding silence. When we reached home that night, she knelt beside me outside our front door and whispered, “You must never make a show of yourself. It is dangerous. You must be careful to whom you show your gifts.” She gripped me hard. “Remember to keep something for yourself. You have no need to always be so trusting. When in doubt, wait.”
Without giving me the chance to respond, she told me not to worry myself with her foolish chatter; she was simply missing my father. “I must be mad to talk to you like this,” she said, laughing. Turning the key in the lock, she sighed happily at finding our house just as we had left it.
Upstairs, Mama sat on my bed, and I laid my head in her lap. She combed my hair with her soft fingers and sang me “Barbara Allen”: In Scarlet town, where I was born …
At the tolling of one o’clock, she tucked me under the covers. I fell asleep with her playing me into the arms of Mozart on her pianoforte. Indeed, she must have played for many hours, for when I woke after dawn, I found her with her head resting on the piano lid, still in her clothes from the night before. A folded piece of paper had fallen on the floor. I picked it up and found two lines from Robert Burns’s “The Farewell” in my father’s handwriting:
With melting heart, and brimful eye,
I’ll mind you still, tho’ far away.
VII
My youthful affection for the United States was provided by Violeta, whose late clockmaker father had been born to Portuguese parents in Boston. She was the third-born of five children and the only daughter in the family. Now thirteen, she was the first in her family to wake and often the last to find sleep. She ate quicker than anyone I’d ever met, ran faster than all her brothers, and talked in rapid bursts. Her mother said that simply listening to her was enough to make her lose her wits.
Losing her father three years earlier had faded her already fragile appetite, paled her olive skin, and left her helpless to cope with persistent nightmares of falling into fire. It was feared that she would burn herself out like a candle and never see the sunrise of her twentieth year.
The goal on which she centered her hopes was to reach America. Her father had told her that the night sky there was a radiant blanket of stars spreading out across a darkness so black that it hurt the eyes and frightened the mind. Violeta loved the stars and the darkness.
It was Daniel who first embarked upon friendship with her. In fact, as I was being hustled away by my grandmother, he convinced the lass to allow him to accompany her to her cousin’s house on Rua do Almada, where she was to get some onions. Daniel told me that she squatted down and dug in the garden soil, unconcerned for the fate of her pretty shoes. Her lack of airs impressed him, and he found himself wholly charmed. As for her jade eyes, though he was unable to put his feelings into words and I am translating for him, their depth provoked in him speculations into who she was and who he might be now that they had met.
So enchanted was Daniel by the sight of Violeta digging in the dirt that he grew restless with pent-up energy. When he began jumping around, she turned to ask what silliness he was up to. “Shooing away flies,” he replied solemnly.
“Are you saying, young man, that flies are attracted to me?”
“No, no – they were attracted to … to … to …” he stammered.
He never added the word me to his sentence because Violeta touched her fingertip to his lips to silence him.
*
While Daniel was courting Violeta, Father returned from upriver. On his first afternoon at home, while I sat shivering with fear at the top of the stairs, Mother explained my activities at the bird market to him, softening the more morally dubious aspects of my conduct. Instead of stealing the birds, I had allowed them to choose a home for themselves. I cheered her ingenuity, though I knew Papa would see things differently.
To my astonishment, however, she concentrated her account of the past fortnight on the appearance of the necromancer. She became so emotional that Father begged her to sit and sip slowly at a glass of brandy. I was surprised by the fuss, because Mama and I had both heard that the villain had left Porto for Lisbon. I had all but forgotten his threats against me and my family.
Later that day, Papa gave me only a mild reprimand. He hoped that I had learned my lesson, which I dutifully said I had, though I secretly knew I would do it all over again if given half the chance.
*
That evening, after a visit from Luna and Graça Olive Tree, my parents – to my great delight – granted permission for me to take art lessons from them on Friday afternoons. On my request, Daniel was welcomed as well.
After one of our first lessons, Father accompanied Daniel and me to the lad’s home, where he poked his nose into every corner. The next day, a sturdy washerwoman arrived to scrub it free of mildew and filth. While she was working away, two painters came and gave all the walls, inside and out, a fresh coat of whitewash. A splendid mattress was delivered for Daniel’s bed that evening, and Mother bought him a new shirt and a pair of breeches.
My friend went pale with embarrassment on entering our home in his new clothes. Papa tousled his black hair, which was lice-free and growing back nicely, and hugged him to his chest. He bid me with his glance to say nothing about the lad’s sniffles of gratitude.
*
I can vouchsafe that Daniel and Violeta fell in love that summer of 1800, not that this pleased me at the time – quite the contrary. I was jealous of the silly faces they made at each other when they believed no one was looking. I hated their easy complicity, their kinship of secret purpose that excluded me. After all, I had only just met Daniel myself. And I already wished to be Violeta’s knightly protector, since I thought she was the most beautiful lass I had ever seen. Before resigning myself to my secondary role, I occasionally spoke cruelly to her and made her cry. She seemed unaware of how awed I was by her, how unsettled by her very presence.
At the end of July, a month after we had begun to meet every few days for our adventures, she came to my window one morning long before dawn and stood on the street tossing pebbles up at it. Bleary-eyed, I opened my mosquito screens and shutters. “Come down here, John,” she called plaintively.
In the years since, I have often laughed at my ludicrous nine-year-old Romeo to her Juliet on the street below. I cannot deny, however, that having her come to see me pleased me enormously. I wondered if Daniel knew where she was or i
f he would regard our tryst as a betrayal. A small evil part of me hoped he would.
“Please, John, come with me,” Violeta said softly when I opened the front door. “Let’s go away from the houses, so we can talk.”
It is amusing, I know, but I truly believed that she would seek to beg my forgiveness for coming between me and Daniel. I even thought she might confess that she suffered his companionship only for the opportunity to be near me.
We soon reached the end of the street and stood at the top of the Synagogue Stairs, which wind down toward the riverside district. “Look up,” she said.
A scarf of lights unfurled across the heavens, high above the cathedral perched on a hill to the east.
“It’s the Milky Way,” she explained. “Thousands of stars huddling together. And look there,” she added, pointing toward a bright one. “That’s the North Star. It’s the center of the sky.”
She told me how this celestial body is so perfectly nestled in the heavens that it remains in the same spot as the earth turns on its axis. Then she explained to me something of the constellations and planets. Stars, I discovered, were serious business to Violeta. She didn’t mention Daniel until we walked back to my house. “I want to tell you a secret,” she said. “But you must not reveal it to anyone – even Daniel.”
As I swore to keep silent forever, I felt as though we were about to cross a bridge together. I knew I would do anything for her.
“I want to follow the stars to America,” she declared. “I shall live in the land of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.”
“But why is it that Daniel cannot know that?”
“Because I shall really go. And no one, not even he, will stop me.”
“We would be heartbroken if you were to leave without us, you know.”
She stared into the sky and took a long breath. We sat together on the stoop of my house and she asked me to scratch her head. I hesitated, suspecting that Daniel would clout me if I agreed.
The softness of her hair in my hands made me tremble. We said nothing to each other for a long while and instead let the night noises speak to us of our newfound intimacy. Then she kissed my cheek. “For being my friend,” she said.
“When you go to America, I shall come too,” I promised. And though I wholeheartedly meant it at the time, I was to forget my pledge in the years to come. Like most children, I lived with both feet firmly planted in the present tense and tended to let even the most important conversations fade into the past. Perhaps that was a blessing.
*
On the first Saturday in October, Daniel disappeared. Violeta and I grew frantic because he had never been late for one of our weekend walks to the tarn before. We ran to his home, but found it empty and so decided to wait at my house.
After about half an hour, Daniel knocked at our door, out of breath.
“Where have you been?” Mama exclaimed. “We’ve been worried.”
“With Senhora Beatriz.”
The lad was bouncing with joy, so electric that he could not stand being touched. We tried in vain to sit him down and have him explain calmly what had transpired. Apparently, Senhora Beatriz had come to his house the day before and told him that there was a bedroom waiting for him at her house.
He beamed with joy as he told us that his new bed had been made with clean sheets. “Smooth as moss,” he declared while performing a jig of delight all around the kitchen.
“Oh, Daniel, I am so pleased for you,” Mama said. “I am sure you will both be very happy.”
I remember thinking, Let’s not rush into things…. For I could easily imagine his wildness causing havoc in his new home.
That evening, my mother confided in me that she had helped wear down Senhora Beatriz’s resistance, and though I should like to say that she was proved immediately right, and that Daniel’s new household became a refuge of calm and contentment, the truth is that he found living under his grandmother’s roof rather too confining. He passed their first couple of months together inventing ever new ways to provoke her. I particularly recall him once setting alight a pushcart of dried flowers in New Square.
Then one day in December, about two and a half months after moving in with her, having come home filthy from an adventure with me down by the river, he tracked dirt all over the house. On purpose, I am quite sure. Senhora Beatriz was equally certain of this, and she raised her hand to strike him for the very first time. But she found herself unable to do so. She collapsed onto her bed and sobbed instead.
Daniel had never seen a woman cry as though her lifeblood were flowing out of her. He vowed aloud to be kind to her, caressing her hair as she wept. And to his credit, he kept his word. He still had his mad adventures, of course, but never again did he do anything on purpose to embarrass or hurt her.
Indeed, he only made her cry once again. And then it was beyond his powers to avoid.
VIII
Fanny, my border collie, arrived one day in December of 1800 on a ship from Glasgow. I soon discovered that she was a kind and noble beast, except when engaged in the serious matter of eating. If disturbed from her bowl, Fanny barked. If further pestered, she would curl back her lip and bare her lethal incisors with a low growl. Upon a third inconvenience, she bit.
By the end of April of 1801, Fanny, Daniel, Violeta, and I were the best of friends. The dog was especially fond of Violeta and would, I think, have had a difficult time choosing whom to cast her lot with, me or her, if ever such an unhappy decision were necessary.
On our outings to the tarn, Violeta hardly ever walked with Daniel and me anymore, instead joining us there at midday, since her mother had an unparalleled knack for inventing endless morning errands. The lass always completed her tasks as quickly as possible and never once failed to join us, until the second Saturday of June, 1801, when we had been friends for nearly a year. By three in the afternoon, she still had not arrived. Daniel and I began our walk home in a dejected mood, pounding the pathway in worried silence. When we were about a third of the way to the city, at the edge of a thick woods, Fanny lifted up her ears and came to a halt, sniffing at the air, her black nostrils flaring. Creeping off into a scruffy copse of trees, she went nosing along through ferns and weeds.
“Good girl,” I called as I followed her. “Keep going.”
On reaching her, I spied an elderly hunter about fifty yards away. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” I said as we approached him. “But we are looking for a friend – a young lass.”
“I’ve seen no one.”
Fanny sniffed happily at the man’s shoes. He petted her head, then pointed his weapon toward a clearing far in the distance. “It may be of no help, but I did see a slipper over that way. By a large pine, just past an old stone wall.”
We thanked him and raced off. Sure enough, we found one of Violeta’s ribboned shoes by some rocks fallen from an ancient enclosure.
“Might he have hurt her?” I asked.
Daniel bit his lip and would not answer.
Near the road, I found Violeta’s beige linen dress lying crumpled on the ground, mottled with sunlight filtering through the canopy of a tall tree. A chill descended over me, like a great shadow. No, I whispered to myself. Please, no …
Fanny ran off and began whining at the base of a gentle slope. We found the girl there, lost to consciousness, lying on her side, her legs hidden by ferns. She was wearing only her petticoat, which was ripped at the side seam. Her beautiful hair was a tangled mess. Soil and leaves were smeared on her brow, cheeks, elbows, and legs, and blood covered her mouth.
I was trembling. I believed her death would kill me too. Tears flooded my eyes as I fell to my knees. “Violeta, please get up, you’re scaring me.”
Kneeling beside her, Daniel lifted her head carefully and called her name, but she would not wake up. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “What do we do, John? What do we do?” he cried.
Perhaps it was Daniel’s pleading, or even Fanny’s mad huffing at her face, but the lass st
arted to awaken. Daniel leaned over her with an expression of gratitude so full and deep that I would remember it all my life. The gentleness of his smile in that moment – intended to show Violeta that all would be well because they were together – has always symbolized to me the great truth of love. Caressing the nape of her neck, he said, “Violeta, what happened – what’s happened to you?”
She made no reply. “Don’t go back to sleep – please say something, we’re worried,” I said.
But she would not – or could not – speak.
I retrieved Violeta’s dress and covered her. So fragile and lovely was she to me in that moment that I made a solemn pact with myself: If she recovered, I would never again protest my secondary role in their lives.
She opened her hand to me now. In it she held a bloody molar.
I accepted her offering.
“What happened?” Daniel asked.
She rubbed her hand over her cheek and winced.
“We’ve got to get a physician,” Daniel observed in a rush, as though our need for assistance had only now occurred to him. “Violeta, you’ll have to see someone.”
“I’ll run to Porto,” I said.
“No, be still,” the girl begged.
She turned and hugged her arms around Fanny, seeming to sleep the slumber of fever for a time. Then, without warning, she breathed in sharply and held out her hand. “John, give me my tooth back.”
When I handed it to her, she gripped it in her fist.
“Who did this?” Daniel demanded, his face tight with anger. “Was it a hunter with a tattered jacket? We saw him. We know. And we know what he did.”
“No, two young bandits came after me to rob my jewelry,” she answered matter-of-factly. “I started running and fell. That’s all that happened.”
“Bandits who wouldn’t take your bracelet or rings are either blind or dimwitted,” I stated for the record.
“Nevertheless, John, that is exactly what took place,” she answered, plainly irritated.
“We don’t believe you!” Daniel shouted. “Violeta, who … who violated you?”
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