Hunting Midnight

by Richard Zimler

  Frowning, she shook the tooth in the hollow of her hand to hear it rattle against her rings. Opening her palm, she mumbled a prayer and then threw it away.

  “Hey!” Daniel hollered. “What did you do that for?”

  “Let the mice have it. They cannot practice witchcraft on me.” She shivered. “Now, step away. I want to put on my dress.”

  “Come, Fanny,” I said to the dog, who looked up doubtfully at me.

  “No, leave her with me,” Violeta pleaded.

  Daniel and I skulked off. The lad was kicking the ground and mumbling curses to himself. “I’ll kill whoever did this to her!”

  “Did they … did they truly violate her?” I whispered.

  He sneered at me, plainly considering my question an affront to his intelligence. “We did nothing to prevent it. Nothing!”

  His pain and rage made me feel immensely useless, and I could not fathom how he could have known for certain what had come to pass. Likely he had discovered a telltale sign in her eyes that I had not detected. Or a mark of hidden significance on her body. I knew not what to look for, since I had no clear idea of what it meant to be violated. All I knew was that it was something abominable that happened to women and girls and an evil that could be broached in conversation only at the level of a shameful whisper.

  After she had dressed, Violeta allowed us to approach her once again. Avoiding Daniel’s eyes, she begged me to sneak her back into my house, for she could not be seen by her mother in such a state. There would be far too many questions asked.

  “Look at me – I’m standing here too!” Daniel snarled, shaking a fist at her.

  The lass gazed at the ground, her brow furrowed with worry.

  With a renewed gentleness, he asked quietly, “Do you hate me now?”

  Tears glazed her eyes as she forced herself to witness the hurt in his face. “No, Daniel, but I’m frightened. I cannot bear both your emotions and my own. I am not so strong. Not now. Have no expectations of me.”

  She would explain no further, and Daniel stopped questioning her after she allowed him to take her hand, which he brought to his lips only to have her snatch it away. We walked one on each side of her all the way home. I had taken a linen cape along with me and we covered her with it so no one along the city streets would notice her disheveled state.

  I entered my house alone at first. Thankfully, Mama and Papa were out. Behind the closed door of my room, the lass cleaned herself with my towel and brushed her hair. Her face went pale when she saw her reflection in my looking glass. In the cold dark depths of Daniel’s watchful gaze I sensed him plotting vengeance.

  “Now I must go,” she said.

  Daniel begged to be permitted to accompany her, but she refused, although she did wish to keep Fanny for a few days.

  Outside, I squatted to Fanny’s level. Kissing her on her snout, I told her that Violeta needed only gentleness from those around her. There was to be no snarling, lunatic pawing, mad licking, or suicidal crashing into furniture. I felt compelled to say these things not so much for the dog but to communicate my love for Violeta. She showed no particular interest in my concern for her, however. Calling Fanny to her side, she rushed away down the street as though fleeing a storm. Next to me, Daniel tossed a large stone in the air and caught it in his fist.

  *

  Vileta’s mother refused to open her door to Daniel and me over the next several days. I only saw our friend again five days later, when she returned Fanny. Mama was busy cutting bread, so it was I who opened our door to her knocks. Fanny immediately leapt into my arms, her tail wagging furiously. Violeta stood frozen in our doorway. I gasped when I finally looked at her, because her auburn tresses had been cut in a scraggly line just above her shoulders.

  “But, Violeta, what have they done to – ”

  She turned her back on me in mid-sentence and rushed away.

  I saw nothing more of her until over a week later, when I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of her pebbles against my window. There was a moon out, and I could see she wore a frilly bonnet, which was alarming because she had always refused to hide her hair.

  Sneaking out of the house, I ran to her.

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” she said, sobbing. “So sorry for everything. I have been very wicked. Forgive me, John.”

  “For what? I don’t understand. Violeta, what has happened?”

  She removed her bonnet. Someone must have again taken a rough shears to her, as her hair was now clipped just below her ears into a ragged mess. Nicks and scratches covered her neck.

  “Violeta, who is cutting your hair?”

  She shook her head and walked away without answering. I let her go thirty or so paces, then started to race after her, calling her name. When she started running, she proved herself too swift for me, but she stumbled near the jailhouse at the end of the street. When I caught hold of her, she shrieked and threw out a hand, catching me a fierce blow on the mouth and drawing blood.

  We were both so stunned that we simply stared at each other. Tasting salt in my mouth, I spit on the ground. She embraced me as she apologized, and I could feel the fragility of her thin bones. We sat down in the street together, not caring about the filth. “He used to come to me sometimes,” she told me, “and … and touch me – just touch me. But he did more to me that day in the woods. He’d followed me. He was drunk. And since then … He said if I told anyone he would kill me. I promised that I would not speak of it. But I did. I was wicked.”

  “Who was it – who hurt you?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Violeta, you must come with me to my parents. You must tell them.”

  “No.”

  I stood up and tried in vain to pull her to her feet.

  “Do you not trust me?” I asked.

  “Oh, John, I cannot trust anyone.”

  “You are lying. You do trust me or you would not have come to me.”

  “You don’t understand. You’re too young. Life … my life has become a locked room. I only wanted you to listen to me.” She sprang to her feet. “I’m sorry to have hurt you,” she said. She began to walk away, her head down.

  “There must be a way out,” I called after her.

  Though she made no reply, I believed those words of mine; I had yet to learn that we do not always receive keys to the rooms we inherit.

  *

  While searching for sleep that night, I foolishly decided to take matters into my own hands.

  The following Friday afternoon, after lessons with the Olive Tree Sisters, I went to Violeta’s home and called up to her window. Finally, to get rid of me, she agreed to meet me at the tarn the next day. I informed her that Daniel would not be able to join us. She was glad of that, she said, as she could not face him now that she was so ugly. She made me promise not to tell him anything of what she’d confided in me during our nighttime conversation. “It would only lead to trouble,” she said. “For him, for me, for everyone.”

  To ensure his absence, I walked to Senhora Beatriz’s house and told him that neither Violeta nor I would be able to go to the tarn the next day. I had decided, you see, to follow her alone and in secret. My expectation was that whoever had hurt her would try again. My very presence – and my eagerness to reveal his identity to the entire world – would be enough to frighten off the evil man for good.

  Yes, I was indeed that reckless with her well-being.

  As to why Violeta had agreed to join me, she undoubtedly wished our lives could go back to the way they’d been before. As I have had ample opportunity to learn in my life, a desire to return to a happier past can give us blind courage.

  *

  Violeta lived on the Rua das Ventainhas, a bumpy road on the far eastern edge of the city that sloped down toward the river. The next morning, Fanny and I hid behind the stone wall of a nearby barn. At just past the stroke of ten, she stepped out her door and rushed off along a route I had not anticipated. She was behaving with foresight, hoping t
o elude any pursuer through this change to her usual route.

  Fanny and I followed her from two hundred paces behind. I was quite sure that no one else was. But what neither of us had anticipated was that her enemy had left the city before her. There was but one possible route over the last mile to our destination, and it was there that he was waiting for us.

  IX

  A ramshackle old mill, overgrown with blackberry vines, used to stand alongside the country lane we walked on Saturdays. When this landmark came into sight, a man in a long dark coat emerged and stood in the road for a moment, then crossed to the other side and disappeared into a pine grove.

  I recognized him as her uncle, Tomás Gonçalves. He was bald and barrel-chested, and he walked with a stoop, as though an invisible weight were tied around his neck.

  It will sound preposterous now, but I believed then that we shared the intention of watching over Violeta from afar. I was infinitely gratified that an adult, and a large and powerful one at that, had had the exact same idea as me.

  Violeta, hidden from me around a curve in the road, was now approaching the place where she had been attacked two weeks earlier. I rushed on, and when I saw her next, she was walking as though on tiptoe into a thicket of gorse. She must have heard a noise, for she knelt by a bush to conceal herself.

  Then she jumped up and ran ahead. Tomás Gonçalves charged at her from the side, grabbing her arms just below her shoulders and shaking her violently.

  When she shrieked, Fanny raced off, barking. I followed, screaming Violeta’s name.

  By now the villain had ripped her bonnet off and gripped what was left of her hair, tugging her head back with such force that I feared her neck might break. To silence her, for she was now screaming Daniel’s name, he raised his other hand and struck her across the face.

  On seeing Fanny heading straight for him, he threw Violeta to the ground. When the dog reached them, she stood behind the lass, about ten feet from Tomás, making a furious racket. Violeta, her mouth bleeding, had managed to sit up. We looked at each other, stunned. Everything had gone wrong and we both knew it.

  “Run, John! Run!” she screamed suddenly, realizing that her uncle was about to try to throttle me, despite the threat of my border collie’s fangs.

  The last thing I remember was him charging toward me and wrapping a handkerchief around his fist. And a very loud noise.

  *

  I woke to my mother’s moist eyes. I had no idea where I was. My head was throbbing and my mouth was dry, as though I had swallowed sand.

  “Water,” I croaked. Mama lifted a cup to my lips.

  I am told that I fell back to sleep immediately, my last sip dribbling down my cheek to my pillow. When I woke again, I recalled having been in the forest, but the reason escaped me. Mama, who kept vigil in my room, explained that Violeta’s uncle had walloped me on the back of my head. I had fallen and lost consciousness. All this had happened the day before. My previous awakening had been twelve hours earlier.

  She had little faith in men of medicine, but Mama had allowed Dr. Silva to bleed me twice at my temples with leeches to prevent the accumulation of toxic fluids on my brain.

  “And Violeta?” I asked.

  “She’s safe, John. Do not worry.”

  Mama took my hand. She held it to her lips and kissed it, then folded it into a fist and gave it back to me, saying, “Keep that with you always.”

  Father stepped into the room and smiled down at me. “How is my wee man?”

  “My head feels all broken.”

  He sat down on my bed, leaned over, and kissed me on the lips. Then he took an amethyst stone he had brought back for me from upriver the week before and placed it on my chest.

  “You are a brave tyke. A kelpie of merit. But you disobeyed me again. You were to come and fetch me if you encountered trouble.”

  “Violeta made me promise not to tell anyone‚” I explained.

  He touched his fingers to my lips to quiet me and said, “I am not cross with you, but this might have ended tragically for all concerned. We have been very lucky.”

  “What happened to her uncle?”

  Papa said that the loud noise I had heard was a gunshot. The same hunter Daniel and I spoke to on the day Violeta was first attacked had heard Fanny’s barks and come running. When Tomás grabbed me and hit me, the hunter fired a shot above our heads. Then, while Tomás looked around to find the source of the gunfire, Fanny leapt at him. Her teeth ripped clean through his breeches and tore a chunk of flesh from his thigh.

  The hunter was still a long way off. He fired another shot aimed to do permanent damage this time, which came within inches of Tomás’s head. In fear for his life, he cursed Violeta and lumbered off.

  “The hunter carried you home,” Papa told me. “We are greatly indebted to him.”

  He added that if it had not been for the good stranger, I might have been awaiting burial at this moment. I could not comprehend that. I tried to imagine being dead. I stopped breathing and made my face go blank.

  “What are you doing, John?” Papa asked.

  “Just thinking about things. Where’s Violeta now?”

  “She is with her mother, resting.”

  “And does Daniel know what happened?”

  “Indeed he does. I went to his house to tell him.”

  “And where is Tomás Gonçalves?”

  “He is no longer a problem,” Papa replied, and would say no more.

  *

  Violeta visited me the next afternoon, her wan face framed by a hideous black bonnet, which she refused to remove despite my entreaties. Mama gasped on seeing her, then fell into a disquieting silence, clearly afraid of all that might spill from her if she were to begin to express her feelings. She served us tea and sat with us, gripping Violeta’s hand. After a time, Mama got up, kissed the lass on the cheek, and left us to ourselves. When I asked Violeta what punishment had been given her uncle Tomás, she informed me that she did not know. He had vanished from their home. Her mother refused to talk of him.

  Daniel must have been hiding on our street, waiting for Violeta to visit, for he knocked on our front door a few minutes later and was led to my room by Mama. It was the first time he had seen the lass since the day of her attack. His eyes were red with sleeplessness, his voice brittle. Lacking a vocabulary equal to his emotions, he grew impatient with himself and short-tempered with Violeta. Too troubled and fragile to understand that his harshness was only the result of frustration, she in turn withdrew into her own sadness. Mama joined us after a while, and her presence prevented them from attempting to voice their feelings.

  While serving Violeta tea, Mama asked if she might try to cut her hair in a pleasing shape. “I have been my husband’s barber since our wedding,” she said, smiling.

  Violeta unfastened her bonnet. Her hair had been shorn down to her scalp, which was covered with scabs, making her eyes appear to bulge. “Not even the most skillful barber would be of help to me now,” she said sorrowfully.

  I was so overwhelmed that I could not speak, and I looked at Mama to make things right. She had set her teacup on our table and reached a trembling hand to her chest. Fighting for breath, she said, “I shall still be able to help you, dear child.”

  Daniel, unable to restrain himself, demanded to know who had done this to her. In a clipped monotone, the lass explained that her mother refused to believe that her uncle had attacked her. She had ordered her eldest sons to bind Violeta’s arms behind her back and hold her down on her bed while she herself did the cutting.

  “I kicked and fought, but it was of no use. It never is.” Gazing down, she whispered that if her mother caught her in one additional “lie,” then her head would be shaved every week and she would be denied a bonnet. Everyone in Porto would see that she was an incurable liar. “My mother said next time she would cut off something that would never grow back.”

  “I’d like to kill your mother!” Daniel shouted.

  “What would s
he cut off?” I asked.

  “Hush, John!” Mama snapped. “Not another word from you.” There was fire in her eyes. “Listen to me, Violeta, you must never think for one moment they are right. You must remember that you are innocent.” She crouched by the lass and kissed her brow. “And you are still beautiful. They can never take that from you. Never!”

  “I am coming home with you today,” Daniel declared. “And I shall sleep at the foot of your bed.”

  “We shall leave for America as soon as we can!” I exclaimed.

  “Hush, both of you!” Mama ordered. “If your mother is not of a mind to believe you, Violeta, then how, in God’s name, does she think you were hurt on these two occasions?”

  “She says I am always falling because I’m so clumsy – that my evil disposition has left me unbalanced. And that my uncle would marry me were I not so awkward.”

  “You would marry a villain who has … who has done these things to you?” Daniel snarled. He took a step toward her and shook his fist. “Listen to me, you will marry no one!”

  “There is a great deal you do not understand,” said Violeta imploringly.

  “Dearest child …” said Mama, caressing her cheek.

  Violeta stilled her hand. “I must go. I’ve already stayed too long.” She stood up.

  “You cannot go!” I shouted. “I shall not let you go back to your home. Mama, tell her she can stay here with us. Tell her! Tell her now.”

  My mother did her best to calm me, saying that she would discuss these matters with Papa that very night, but it was all too much for me. I shouted like a banshee and cursed her as she led my friends away. Then I stumbled to the window and threw my shutters open, mortified by my powerlessness. I called after Violeta and Daniel, but that only made her race off, leaving the lad far behind.

  *

  Later that day my father told me what he had done to Violeta’s uncle Tomás. Two evenings previous, after I had been carried home by the good hunter, he commissioned two petty criminals to destroy each and every clock in Tomás’s shop. The next night, Papa hunted him down to the Willow Tavern, a foul establishment behind the San Francisco Church. He discovered the villain seated at a table fashioned from a barrel, trying to drink away his ruin with a half-empty bottle of gin and gabbling with two cronies guffawing like mules.