The Abyss

by Lara Blunte

  Eleven. A Changed Face

  "O banho, sinhá!"

  The maid, Teresa, was calling to let her know that her bath was ready. Her mistress had become sinhá, a distortion of senhora, or madam; all servants seemed to use sinhá or sinhô for their masters in Brazil.

  Clara, who had been napping for two hours, got up and stretched like a cat.

  She had never taken as many baths as she had since arriving in Rio. A confluence of climate and cultures had made the Brazilians mad for them. They would take one a day a lot of the time, in spite of the difficulty of getting water in great amounts to their houses. The slaves, ever ready to make money, did not mind carrying the heavy containers in rickety carts or on their backs to different houses. It must be a wonderful business for them.

  It was now July and winter in the southern hemisphere, but the days could still be quite warm, with blue skies that looked almost like cerulean paint.

  Teresa was a cafuzo, part black and part Indian, and the native Indians were particularly obsessed with body cleanliness. It was true that it was very pleasant to sit in tepid and even cold water in the heat: it seemed to keep one fresh for the rest of the day.

  Clara's clothes were also often washed, to Juliana's despair, as she believed that the servants would ruin their best dresses by scrubbing and wringing them, or leaving them in the water to soak. Every time she saw Teresa or the washerwoman go into the bedrooms, Juliana would follow to see what they were taking to wash.

  "Not that!" she would scream. "You can't wash silk like that!"

  Teresa would sometimes wave her hand in front of her nose, frowning, and say, "Europeans!"

  "Do we really smell that bad to you?" Clara asked, amused.

  Teresa nodded and repeated the gesture, though she would never have dared make it to Juliana.

  Clara became used to baths every day and to washing her hair often. Teresa would put orange blossom or rose petals in the water, and she would emerge wonderfully clean and fresh. It was true as well that the more she washed, the more she could smell others.

  Today they were going to an evening of music at Quinta da Boa Vista, at the prince's invitation. The prince did not often entertain, apart from the ceremony of beija-mão, or hand-kissing, a medieval custom preserved by Portugal's monarchy during which Prince John would sit for hours receiving subjects who wanted to ask for something. He lived apart from his wife, as she had too many times conspired against him in favor of Spain, and he tended to participate in special masses and religious processions rather than balls.

  Perhaps the constant beija-mãos, with their endless line of petitioners ─Brazilians, Portuguese, slaves, freedmen, Indians─exhausted him. And then there were his political allies, the British, coming to dictate policies now that Portugal was in French hands and needed them. Finally, there was the need to modernize a country that had become home to the prince and his court. For too long Brazil had only served to fill Lisbon's treasury with hardly any return; he needed to liberalize some of the things he had once forbidden.

  There was much to do indeed, as a lot of the comforts of civilization were lacking in Rio. Houses were already going up in the best spots of the city, the ports had been opened and roads were being improved; the prince must be tired with so much to attend to, and had never been fond of society in the first place. Therefore Clara was glad of the opportunity to wear a beautiful dress and perhaps even dance a little, as musical evenings were rare.

  It would also be an opportunity for her to see how the court was faring, and whether there were new arrivals. There had been an unprecedented influx of British citizens to Brazil, and other foreigners had also begun to disembark in the country. It would be interesting to have conversations other than the price of a bull or pig, which was what the rich local farmers liked to talk about; it would be good to find out about the latest books and trends of thought in Europe from people who had just disembarked.

  For now, her only friend was Paula, a Brazilian woman her age who was already married and had three children, but who was so pretty, amusing and generous that Clara always exchanged visits with her.

  Paula had been with Clara only that morning, sporting the turban that was all the rage in Rio, and that never failed to make Clara laugh.

  "Why do you laugh, Clarinha?" Paula had asked her the first time in her languid Brazilian accent, stretching out the vowels and softening the consonants.

  "I can't tell you," Clara had said, burying her face on a cushion.

  Paula was already joining her in laughter, "But you must, you must! I won't be angry!"

  Clara could not imagine Paula angry. "All right then," Clara said, raising a red face. "It's that...everyone here thinks that when the princess and others came off our ships wearing turbans, it was the fashion in Europe, and the women here cut their hair and started wearing turbans..."

  "Is it not the fashion?"

  "They shaved their hair because they were infested with lice!" Clara laughed. "And then they wrapped anything on their heads!"

  Paula threw her head back and laughed merrily at this for a while, but then looked at herself in the mirror and patted her turban, "Mas estou bonita de qualquer modo!" But I look pretty anyway!

  "That is true!" Clara said, putting an arm around her friend’s waist, "I just don't manage to be fashionable, when I know how it started!"

  "Let's not tell anyone," Paula conspired. "Now I shall be the one laughing, when I think of the lice!"

  That night Clara waited patiently as Teresa did her hair; she was thankful that her maid should be so stubborn, for she was not used to dressing a lady's hair in the European fashion and had to frown over a print of the empress Maria Ludovika of Austria for a while to understand what she should be doing.

  Then Clara put on a dress that was dark red with sheer black organza over it, and carefully embroidered sleeves and neckline. She had never had the occasion to wear it in Lisbon, and it must be woefully out of date in Europe, but here it would do. Dangling opal earrings completed her toilette, and she looked magnificent.

  When she walked out putting on her long white gloves and met her parents at the front door, they both smiled appreciatively. Juliana even kissed her, as she had used to do years before. "You will dazzle everyone," she told her daughter.

  They went off in a hired carriage, as they could not afford one for themselves, or horses ─ at least not yet. Clara enjoyed the ride and the song of the night creatures on the way, until they arrived at the farm and crossed the gates toward the house.

  Music was already playing through open windows, and the whole of the prince's residence was lit by candles. Clara recognized the tune in the air and hummed it happily. She had as much desire for amusement as any young woman her age, though lately she had found it in solitude, and in simple pleasures.

  Inside there were already many people going round the room that had been reserved for entertaining, a room not nearly as spacious as the ones in the palaces of Lisbon. The prince was presently adding to the house, but for now the musicians were squeezed into one corner, doing their best to be heard above the loud chatter and laughter of the Brazilians.

  Clara followed her parents to greet the prince, who nowadays looked sadder and more tired than he ever had.

  They talked a little to members of the court and Clara scanned the room, wondering if there would be dancing and, if so, who might be her partners.

  There was a taller form on the other side of the dance floor. She felt a pang looking at the man's straight back and short brown hair, thinking that he might have been Gabriel. It always gave her a start to see anyone who, out of the corner of her eyes, might have been him and then turned out to be someone quite different. This man had turned his head to one side, as if feeling that he was being watched. He had a handsome profile, with a nose whose bridge might have been broken and yet remained fine, an elegant cheek and a clean jaw above his high collar.

  As if he could feel that he was being watched, he turned his head a
nd looked straight at her with intense blue eyes.

  "Gabriel!" Clara cried out loud.

  Her parents stopped speaking to look at her.

  "Oh, yes," said the Count of Barbacena, with whom they were standing. "There is Almada de Castro. I forgot you even knew him. He goes by his mother's name now, Maia. The quarrel with his father, I suppose..."

  Clara hardly heard what the count was saying. The whole room was whirling and everyone in it had become blurry, except for the man who had fully turned to watch her. She heard the deformed sound of the violin, and saw that there was a clear path across a room to the person looking her with a different face than she had known.

  She did not realize that she was moving, and only heard her mother sharply call her name from very far away. She was moving across the floor and her eyes never left his. When she reached him she held out her hand and it hung in the air, empty for moment, until she felt the warmth of his.

  "Gabriel!" she said softly.

  He bowed over her hand, and then let it go, "Clara," he said, and it was his voice.

  It was his face too, though his nose had clearly been broken, which gave him a virile look without making him look coarse. He seemed taller, and he was much stronger, with a deep chest, broad shoulders, and muscular legs beneath his white breeches. His eyes were bluer against his tanned face, and there was something more guarded in their expression.

  It was Gabriel, yet it wasn't. He had left Lisbon a youth of twenty-four, and this was a man of almost thirty. She thought he looked more handsome than ever.

  "You are here!" she said.

  She knew that she must be smiling, because she had begged every saint in the pantheon to let her see him again, and there he was.

  "Yes," he said. "I have been here a while."

  He was different, and when she had thought of meeting him she had known he would be, because of the way they had parted. But it was impossible, in a crowded room, to explain the complex feelings that four years before had made her refuse his proposal.

  Yet, as she looked at this new man before her, she knew that she loved him with the renewed passion one might feel for something profoundly dear that had been lost, perhaps never to be seen again, and was now found.

  "How..." she asked, barely breathing. "How have you been?"

  Gabriel had thrown glances behind her, and Clara became aware of the room once more, of people who had seen her cross the floor to talk to a man and were curiously watching, of her mother, who must be all shades of purple.

  Still, he was looking at her now, the music was loud enough to cover their conversation, and she was not ashamed to have come to greet him.

  "I have been well, and you?"

  He is so polite, she thought.

  "Well. As you see, we had to run away. At least you came of your own will."

  "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, I chose to come."

  "Have you been here all his time?"

  "Four years," he replied.

  "And... " She could only think of things she would ask a stranger and suddenly it struck her that Gabriel was a stranger to her now. "And do you like your life here?"

  "I do. I have no plans to go anywhere else."

  She could feel her face going red as she inquired, because she must, "Do you have a family?"

  He looked at her for a moment, and it seemed that his eyes were scanning her face. She started to feel faint, waiting for him to grasp one of the beautiful Brazilians who were around him by the hand and say, "Yes this is my wife."

  How would she have the strength then to walk back to her parents, or remain standing on legs that were already shaking? She had found strength for so many things, but she was not sure she could bear this, to see him only to know that she had lost him.

  "No, I have no family," he said. “I did not get married.”

  She could not hide her feelings from him, but she managed to cover her lips with her fan so that he wouldn't see her smile of joy. What a foolish thing to be longing for a man! What a puny thing, and yet she could not help it.

  His eyes looked more like the eyes of old as he suddenly said, "I won't ask you to dance, I haven't danced in too long. But I am glad to see you again."

  Her own eyes did fly up at this, and there was all the hope in the world in them, and there was humility too, and the desire for his forgiveness. Was he not standing there, impeccably dressed, apparently successful, having achieved what he had set out to do? And she had not trusted him, though she had ended up suffering privations anyway.

  "You look different," she said. "But it is still you."

  There was a sad half smile from him at this. What had he been through? How had he broken his nose and become so strong, like an oak tree, or something impossible to cut down?

  "I hope," she found herself saying. "I hope you come to visit us?"

  It was not proper for her to ask, but he had been insulted the last time he had gone to their house, and he must be invited. His gaze swept beyond her, to her mother, she suspected, the woman who had shrieked at him in her house.

  She must not stand talking to him for so long, so she gave him her hand and bowed her head, turning away, and walked back to her family.

  "The count has told us that he is immensely rich now," Juliana said in a loud whisper as soon as Clara joined them. "He has a very big farm not too far away. I wonder if he deals in slaves..."

  "No!" Clara cried. "He never would!"

  Her mother shrugged and said, "He looks different. But his clothes are expensive. I wonder how much money he has, exactly."

  "Don’t," Clara begged.

  "I am just saying that now you might get what you want," Juliana said. "Now you might…"

  "Don’t!” her daughter cried again, glaring at her.

  "It's not the place!" Pedro begged both of them.

  Clara did not dance with Gabriel that night; neither of them danced. They exchanged looks across the room and didn't speak again, but Clara had asked her father to invite Gabriel to their house and Pedro, a man who found no difficulty in being humble, did so. He went to congratulate Gabriel on his good fortune and apologized for the last time he had been a visitor.

  "We would all like to see you, if you have the time to come," Pedro said.

  Gabriel inclined his head, "Thank you."

  That was all he said, and the two words gave no indication of whether he would go. A man so proud, Clara thought, might never again enter the house of a woman who had spurned him, of a mother who had screamed at him to leave.

  At home she put on her nightgown, locked herself in her room and lit so many candles at her altar that she might, after all, provoke the fire she had said she would set.

  "Holy Mother, I beg you, I beg you! Allow him to see my heart! Allow him to see how much I have loved him and longed for him all this time. I beg you! Holy Virgin, there is no one in the world for me but him!"

  The soft face of the Virgin looking down at her was inscrutable, and gave no more promise that her hopes would be fulfilled than Gabriel's had.

  Twelve. Alive

  Gabriel had floated down the river with a gash on his neck that had missed his artery. The waters carried him quickly, smashing him against rocks, but by a miracle his head sustained no injury.

  Hundreds of feet later, he had hit the fallen trunk of a tree in shallow water and was caught in its branches. He was unconscious by this time, and did not hear how three travelers who had been watering their mules spotted him.

  "It's a man, there!"

  "Is he dead?"

  "Can we get him?"

  The men, one cabloco and two freed slaves, wandered the mountains taking goods between villages for a small profit, without suspecting that a fortune lay so near them on the bed of the river. They had been able to fish Gabriel out and had brought him to the bank of the river, where they ascertained that he was alive. The gash on his throat was not deep, but it needed to be sewn, and one of them, a black man named Bernardo, did it with a needle and common
thread.

  Gabriel had regained consciousness as Bernardo was tending to him, and had tried to move, but had been kept still with soothing words.

  "We are helping you! We won't kill you!" Bernardo said calmly.

  The other men had left, because they had places to be, and Bernardo stayed behind to help him. He set Gabriel’s shoulder, and improvised a cast for a broken wrist. There was not much to be done about his nose.

  It was fortunate that those were the most serious injuries Gabriel had sustained; it was fortunate that Bernardo was used to accidents and could help him.

  “That’s my job,” Bernardo told him calmly. “I mend broken things.”

  There were also deep cuts on Gabriel’s legs and arms, the worst of which were cleaned and bound.

  He had lost a good amount of blood and was weak, and Bernardo camped there and fed him. After three days there was no reason for them not to keep traveling, as food was scarce where they were.

  Though Gabriel had emergency gold coins sewn into the waistband of his breeches, he decided not to pay Bernardo, since he feared that if the man knew that he had money or diamonds, he might turn from good Samaritan into a murderer. He claimed that he had been crossing towards Salvador to see his woman, and then had been robbed and almost killed.

  His savior had taken him to the nearest village on the road away from Salvador. Dantas and D'Angelo would always travel toward the city, so they were unlikely to get further into "the wilderness" as they called it.

  The village where Bernardo left him was tiny and sleepy, but he managed to get accommodation and food at a humble house. As he sat looking at the fire outside, he reflected that all that he had supposed might happen ─ the treachery and greed of his countrymen, the need for hidden emergency funds ─ had happened.