The Crime of Father Amaro

by José Maria De Eça de Queirós

  ‘On this matter, ladies,’ Pinheiro was saying to the semicircle of women who sat there hanging on every word that fell from his golden lips, as with one hand he smoothed his poet’s hair, ‘on this matter, I am of the same opinion as Lamartine’ (he alternated between being of the same opinion of Lamartine and of Pelletan). ‘Like Lamartine, I say: a woman is like a shadow. If you run after her, she flees you; if you flee from her, she runs after you!’

  Someone said ‘Oh, very good!’ with great conviction, but there was one lady of generous proportions, the mother of four delightful angels all called Maria (as Pinheiro described them), who wanted an explanation, for she had never seen a shadow running away.

  Pinheiro set this out for her in scientific terms:

  ‘It’s very easy to observe, Dona Catarina. Go and stand on the beach when the sun is beginning to set, with your back to the heavenly object. If you walk forwards, in pursuit of your shadow, it will go ahead of you, fleeing you . . .’

  ‘Hm, recreational physics, most interesting,’ muttered the legal scribe in Amaro’s ear.

  But Amaro was not listening; that ‘brilliant stratagem’ was already racing around inside his imagination. When he went back to Leiria, he would treat Amélia as if she were a shadow, and run away from her in order to make her follow him. And there was the delicious result: three passionate, tear-stained pages.

  He turned up on Thursday, as he had said. Amélia was waiting for him on the terrace, where she had spent the morning watching the road through a pair of opera glasses. She ran to open the green door in the orchard wall.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ said Amaro, following her up onto the terrace.

  ‘Yes, I’m alone as it happens . . .’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘My godmother is asleep and Gertrudes has gone into town. I’ve been sitting here in the sun all morning.’

  Amaro went on into the house, without replying; he stopped by an open door, through which he could see a large canopied bed and next to it a couple of leather convent chairs.

  ‘Is this your room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He walked familiarly in, his hat in his hand.

  ‘It’s much better than your room in Rua da Misericórdia. Nice views too. Those must be the Morgado’s lands over there.’

  Amélia pushed the door to and, going straight over to him, eyes blazing, said:

  ‘Why didn’t you reply to my letter?’

  He laughed.

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk! Why didn’t you reply to mine? Who started it? You did. You say you don’t want to sin any more. Well, neither do I. It’s over.’

  ‘That’s not the point!’ she cried, pale with anger. ‘We have to think about the baby, about a wetnurse and about the baby’s clothes. You can’t just abandon me here.’

  Amaro grew serious and said in wounded tones:

  ‘Forgive me. I pride myself on being a gentleman. I will arrange all that before I go back to Vieira.’

  ‘You’re not going back to Vieira.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘I do. I don’t want you to.’

  She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, holding him, taking possession of him; and there, without even noticing that the door stood ajar, she once more abandoned herself to him as she used to.

  Two days later, Father Ferrão reappeared, having recovered from his attack of rheumatism. He told Amélia of the Morgado’s kindness to him, how every evening he had had a heated metal container of chicken and rice sent over to him. But his greatest debt was to João Eduardo, who had spent all his free time at his bedside, reading out loud to him, helping him turn in bed, staying up with him until one o’clock in the morning like a zealous nurse. What an excellent young man!

  And then, suddenly, taking both Amélia’s hands in his, he exclaimed:

  ‘Will you give me permission to tell him everything, to explain your situation, so that I can bring him to forgive you and to forget, so that we can finally bring about that marriage and make both of you happy?’

  Taken aback, she blushed and stammered:

  ‘It’s so sudden . . . I don’t know . . . I’ll have to think about it . . .’

  ‘Think about it, then. And may God enlighten you,’ said the old man fervently.

  That night Amaro was supposed to slip in through the orchard gate to which Amélia had given him the key. Unfortunately, they had forgotten about the tenant’s hunting dogs. As soon as Amaro set foot inside the orchard, the silence of the dark night was shattered by the wild barking of dogs, which sent Amaro racing down the road, his teeth chattering with terror.

  XXIII

  The following morning, as soon as he had opened his post, Amaro hurriedly sent for Dionísia. The good lady, however, was at the market and did not arrive until later, when he had returned from mass and was finishing his breakfast.

  Amaro wanted to know ‘at once and for certain’ when ‘things’ would happen.

  ‘The young lady’s happy event? In about two or three weeks’ time. Why, is something wrong?’

  There was. Amaro read to her in confidence a letter he had beside him.

  It was from the Canon, who wrote from Vieira saying ‘that São Joaneira had had her thirty sea baths and wanted to come back! I (he added) miss three or four baths a week just to eke out the time, because she knows that I won’t leave here without my fifty baths. I’m up to forty now, so you can see my problem. Besides, it’s starting to get really cold here now. A lot of people have left already. Let me know by return of post how things are with you.’ And in a postscript, he said: ‘Have you thought yet what to do with the “fruit of the union”?’

  ‘It will be in three weeks’ time, more or less,’ Dionísia reiterated.

  And Amaro wrote a reply to the Canon there and then, which Dionísia was to take to the post: ‘Things could be ready in three weeks. Whatever you do, don’t let her mother come back. Tell her that her daughter can’t write or come and join her because your good sister is still ill.’

  Crossing his legs, he said:

  ‘And now, Dionísia, what, as our Canon puts it, are we to do with “the fruit of the union”?’

  Dionísia opened her eyes wide in surprise.

  ‘I thought you had arranged all that, Father. I thought you were going to give the child to someone outside Leiria to bring up . . .’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Amaro broke in impatiently. ‘If the child is born alive, obviously we’ll have it adopted, somewhere outside the region . . . But that’s just it. Which wetnurse to choose? That is what I want you to arrange. It’s high time we did . . .’

  Dionísia looked extremely embarrassed. She had never liked recommending wetnurses. She knew a good, strong woman with plenty of milk, someone you could trust, but unfortunately, she had just been admitted to hospital. She knew another one too, she had even had dealings with her. She was Joana Carreira. But that wouldn’t be very convenient because she lived in Poiais itself, right near Ricoça.

  ‘What do you mean, it wouldn’t be convenient!’ exclaimed Amaro. ‘What does it matter if she lives nearby? Once the girl has recovered, they’ll all come back to Leiria and no one will ever mention Ricoça again.’

  But Dionísia was still pondering, slowly stroking her chin. She knew of another woman too, who lived near Barrosa, a good distance away. She brought up other people’s children at home, it was her job . . . but he wouldn’t want to use her . . .

  ‘Why? Is she weak or diseased or something?’

  Dionísia went over to Amaro and lowering her voice said:

  ‘I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, but it’s a well-known fact that she’s a “weaver of angels”.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A weaver of angels!’

  ‘What’s that? What does that mean?’ asked Amaro.

  Dionísia stammered out an explanation. It was a woman who took in other people’s babies. Without exception, the babies all died. One woman who had been not
orious for this had also worked as a weaver, and since all the babies she took in went straight to Heaven, that is where the name came from.

  ‘So the children always die?’

  ‘Always.’

  Amaro was walking slowly about the room, rolling a cigarette.

  ‘Tell me, Dionísia. Do the women kill them?’

  Dionísia said again that she did not want to accuse anyone. She had never actually seen anything. She did not know what went on in other people’s houses. But the children all died . . .

  ‘Who would hand over a child to a woman like that?’

  Dionísia smiled pityingly at the man’s innocence.

  ‘Oh, they hand them over in their dozens!’

  There was a silence. Amaro continued his pacing between the washbasin and the window, his head down.

  ‘But what does the woman get out of it if the children die?’ he asked suddenly. ‘She would lose her wages.’

  ‘They pay a year in advance, Father. That’s ten tostões a month, or less, depending on what they can afford . . .’

  Leaning against the window, Amaro was drumming slowly on the glass.

  ‘But what do the authorities do about it, Dionísia?’

  Dionísia shrugged and said nothing.

  Amaro sat down, yawning and stretching out his legs. Then he said:

  ‘Well, obviously the only thing to do is to talk to that wetnurse who lives near Ricoça, Joana Carreira. I’ll make the necessary arrangements . . .’

  Dionísia told him about the items for the layette that she had bought on his instructions and about a very cheap, second-hand cradle that she had seen in the carpenter’s shop; then, as she was about to take the letter to the post, Amaro stood up, laughing:

  ‘That business about the “weaver of angels” is just a story, isn’t it?’

  Dionísia was offended. He knew very well that she was not a woman to gossip. She had known the woman for more than four years, both to talk to and from seeing her nearly every week in town. Only last Saturday she had seen her coming out of a tavern. Had Amaro ever been to Barrosa?

  She waited for his reply and then continued:

  ‘Well, you know the entrance to the parish. There’s the remains of a wall, then a path leading downhill. At the bottom of that narrow path you’ll find a blocked-off well. Ahead, set back a bit, is a small house with a porch. That’s where she lives. Her name’s Carlota . . . Just to prove to you that I really do know her.’

  Amaro spent the whole day at home, pacing about his room, scattering the floor with cigarette ends. He had before him the dreadful task which, up until then, had seemed only a distant worry: getting rid of the child.

  It was a serious matter handing it over just like that to an unknown wetnurse in the village. The mother would, naturally, want to go and see the child all the time, the wetnurse might tell the neighbours. The child would come to be known in the parish as ‘the priest’s child’. Some envious person, who coveted the parish, could denounce him to the vicar general. Scandal, a sermon and an inquiry would follow, and if he were not suspended, he might, like poor Father Brito, be sent off into the mountains with the shepherds again. Ah, if only the child could be born dead! That would be a natural and permanent solution. And a blessing for the child too really. What fate could it expect in this harsh world? It would be an orphan, the ‘priest’s child’. Both he and the mother were poor. The child would grow up in poverty, an uncultivated, bleary-eyed vagrant, mucking out barns. Living from hand to mouth, it would come to know every aspect of the human inferno: days without bread, freezing cold nights, the brutality of taverns and, finally, prison. A pallet bed in life, a communal grave in death. But if it died, it would at once become a little angel welcomed by God into Paradise.

  And he continued pacing sadly up and down his room. It was a very appropriate name really, ‘weaver of angels’. For any woman who prepares a child for life with the milk from her breast is also preparing it for travails and for tears. Better to wring its neck and send it straight to blissful eternity. Look at him! What kind of a life had he had these past thirty years! A melancholy childhood with that old bore, the Marquesa de Alegros; then the house in Estrela with his fool of an uncle, the grocer; and then the years shut up in the seminary, the snowy winter in Feirão, and all the problems and sorrows he had experienced since moving to Leiria. If they had smashed his skull when he was born, he would now have two white wings and be singing in the eternal choirs.

  But there was no point in philosophising; he had to go to Poiais and talk to the wetnurse, to Joana Carreira.

  He went out and walked unhurriedly towards the road. By the bridge, however, he was suddenly seized by an idea, by the desire to go to Barrosa and see this ‘weaver of angels’. He would not speak to her; he would merely examine the house, see what the woman looked like and study the sinister aspect of the place. Besides, as a parish priest, as an ecclesiastical authority, he ought to know about this sinful trade that went on, lucrative and unpunished, just off the main road. He could even report it to the vicar general or to the secretary of the district government.

  He still had time, it was only four o’clock. On that warm, splendid afternoon, a ride would do him good. He did not hesitate; he went and rented a mare from the Cruz inn, and shortly afterwards, with a spur on his left foot, he was galloping off along the road to Barrosa.

  When he reached the narrow lane that Dionísia had described, he dismounted and continued on foot, leading the mare by the halter. It was a beautiful afternoon; high up in the blue sky, a large bird was tracing slow semicircles.

  At last, next to two chestnut trees in which the birds were still singing, he found the blocked-off well; ahead, on a flat plot of land, completely isolated, was the house with the porch; the setting sun was shining on the only window on that side of the house, touching it with fiery, golden light; and from the chimney a pale, thin plume of smoke rose up into the still air.

  A great sense of peace lay round about; on the hillside, dark with low pinetrees, he could see the gay, whitewashed walls of the little chapel of Barrosa.

  Amaro was trying to imagine what the ‘weaver of angels’ would look like; for some reason, he thought she would be very tall, with a tanned face and glittering, witch-like eyes.

  He tethered the mare to the gate and looked through the open door; it gave onto a kitchen with a large fireplace, and there was another door that opened onto the courtyard strewn with grass amongst which two piglets were foraging. White china glinted on the plate-rack above the chimney. Beside it hung large shiny copper pans that would not have looked out of place in a more opulent house. White sheets were piled up in an old cupboard, the door of which stood half-open, and a kind of light seemed to emanate from all that cleanliness, tidiness and good order.

  Amaro clapped loudly. A startled pigeon fluttered inside a wicker cage hanging from the wall. Then he called out:

  ‘Senhora Carlota!’

  A woman immediately appeared from one side of the courtyard, carrying a sieve in her hand. And to his surprise, Amaro saw a pleasant-looking woman of about forty, wearing a pair of exquisite earrings; she had an ample bosom, broad shoulders, a very white neck, and dark eyes that reminded him of Amélia’s eyes, or, rather, of São Joaneira’s much calmer gaze.

  Taken aback, he stammered:

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I think I’ve made a mistake. Is this Senhora Carlota’s house?’

  He was not mistaken, it was her; but convinced that the dreadful woman ‘who wove angels’ must be somewhere, crouched in some gloomy corner of the house, he asked again:

  ‘Do you live here alone?’

  The woman looked at him mistrustfully.

  ‘No, sir,’ she said at last. ‘I live here with my husband.’

  At precisely that moment, her husband emerged from the courtyard, and he was indeed a fearful sight: a dwarfish figure whose head, wrapped in a scarf, was sunk between his shoulders, and whose face was a shiny, waxen yellow; he had a s
parse, curly black beard and glowering, bloodshot eyes set deep in eyebrowless sockets, eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and drink.

  ‘Can we help you at all, sir?’ the man said, staying close to his wife’s skirts.

  Amaro went into the kitchen with them and told a garbled story which he hurriedly concocted as he talked. A relative of his was expecting a baby. The husband could not come in person to speak to them because he was ill. They needed a wetnurse to go to the house, and he had been told . . .

  ‘No, we don’t work outside the house, only here,’ said the dwarf, who still did not leave his wife’s skirts, looking warily at Amaro with his ghastly, bloodshot eyes.

  Ah, he had been misinformed, then. He was sorry, but what his relative needed was a wetnurse to live in.

  He went slowly over to his mare, then stopped and, buttoning up his overcoat, said:

  ‘But you do take in babies?’

  ‘Once we’ve come to an agreement,’ said the dwarf, who was following him.

  Amaro put his spur on his foot, gave a tug at the bridle and, still playing for time, walked round the horse.

  ‘The child would have to be brought here, I suppose.’

  The dwarf looked back and exchanged a look with the woman, who was still standing at the kitchen door.

  ‘We can come and get it if necessary,’ he said.

  Amaro patted the mare’s neck.

  ‘But if it was at night, with this cold, it would kill the child.’

  Then both of them, speaking at once, agreed that it would not do any harm. As long as the child was cared for and well wrapped up.

  Amaro got nimbly onto his horse, said goodbye and trotted back up the path.

  Amélia was beginning to feel afraid now. Day and night, all she thought of was the approaching time when she would feel the first birth pangs. She suffered more than in the first months; she felt dizzy and had strange cravings, all of which Dr Gouveia observed with some concern. Her nights were particularly bad, full of troubling nightmares. She no longer had religious hallucinations, which had ceased with that sudden appeasement of devout terror; she could not have felt less afraid of God than if she had been a canonised saint. Her fears were different now, she had dreams in which the birth was depicted in monstrous terms: now it was a terrifying creature that leaped from her womb, half-woman, half-goat; now it was an endless cobra that crawled out of her like a league-long tape measure, coiling round and round the room until it reached the ceiling; she would wake from these dreams in a state of nervous prostration.