Hunting Midnight

by Richard Zimler

  Father marched up to the group and introduced himself as a Mr. Burns. “Sir, I have learned of your misfortune and I should like to interest you in a proposition,” he said.

  He explained to the men that he had acquired a watchmaking shop in Lisbon and was hoping to find a man of proper training to take charge. He suggested that a stroll outside might allow Gonçalves and himself to carry on their conversation in a more private manner. As there was no point in letting a bottle of gin go half empty, he purchased it for them.

  Violeta’s uncle limped along the streets, owing to the hunk of flesh that Fanny had happily ripped from his thigh. Papa strolled arm in arm with him, encouraging him to keep his lips moistened with drink. With the gin thus emptied, he steered the man off into a darkened alley, where he brought the glass bottle down squarely onto his head.

  Gonçalves collapsed to the cobbles but did not lose consciousness. He moaned piteously, “Everything is gone, all gone,” and began to weep.

  Papa now informed the man of his true identity, explaining that he had had his shop smashed to pieces for hurting me and Violeta. “And I will have you reduced to kindling as well, unless you leave for Lisbon now and never return. That is your only choice!”

  Gonçalves was nursing his bleeding head in his hands and struggling to stand back up.

  Papa squatted next to the limp wretch and held the glass spikes of the broken bottle to his face. “I shall put you on the next coach to Lisbon and even pay your way. But should you ever return to Porto, I shall take a bottle just like this one and twist it round your nose until you have neither nostrils nor mouth nor eyes.”

  At precisely twenty-one minutes past seven by my father’s watch, Tomás Gonçalves was gone forever from our city.

  *

  Without Gonçalves and the income provided by his shop, Violeta’s family was rendered destitute in a matter of weeks, and all of the children were forced to go to work. Violeta became a wick-cutter at a workshop just off the Rua dos Ingleses. Inside that cavernous factory she worked from dawn to dusk, and all her wages were given directly to her mother, so she had nary a farthing to her name.

  Saturdays and Sundays ought to have been her days of freedom and light, but as punishment for the “lies” that had lost her family its champion, her mother kept her imprisoned in their home. At times her ankle was even chained to her bed, I was told by Mama, who had witnessed this indignity herself. On these occasions she was made to embroider prayers on towels, for sale in the marketplace.

  Perhaps owing to my father’s partial responsibility for their poverty, Mama never failed during those first difficult weeks to carry carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables to Violeta’s home on Saturdays. In this way, she said, they might at least partake of a warm and wholesome soup. She was the one who kept Papa and me informed about the lass. And it was she who told me as well that Daniel and I were forever forbidden from paying a visit to her house, for her mother maintained that we’d been a ruinous influence on Violeta’s life. Even so, I later discovered that he stood below her window all night on several occasions, trying in vain to get her to appear at her shutters. He ended this practice when he was told by Violeta’s younger brother that their mother beat her every time he was spotted in their street.

  About ten weeks after her uncle’s disappearance, in September of 1801, Violeta’s mother even went so far as to call us curs who had spoiled her daughter’s innocence. The quarrel provoked by this assertion was to mark the end of Mama’s visits.

  Upon informing me of this conversation, Mama added that she had been told prior to her outburst that Violeta would soon be starting additional work. Every Saturday she would be selling – at a stall in New Square – the embroidered goods she and her mother were sewing.

  Mama gave thanks to heaven for this, since she saw it as our chance to help the lass. She encouraged Daniel and me to visit her there and offer her comfort. If anyone from her family was present, however, we were – under no circumstances – to allow ourselves to be seen by them. “If you take another risk with Violeta’s well-being, I shall never ever forgive either of you,” she warned us.

  *

  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 se
rved 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, e entregado … 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.