The Abyss (11 page)

"But do you feel..." Clara began.

"I do feel!"  Paula laughed. "How can you listen to your mother? You and Gabriel were made for love! Enjoy, Clara! Enjoy with all your heart, all your soul and the whole of your body!"

Clara went home musing on what Paula, whom she knew to be a good Catholic, had said. Would God give them such a feeling it they were not meant to enjoy it? Did she not feel boundlessly connected to Gabriel now? Was she not full of desire for him?

She was throwing off her bonnet as she ran into his study. He stood up from his chair and she rushed to him, and began kissing him with passion.

"You won't hear 
no
 from me anymore," she promised.

He laughed and then he lifted her, and took her to their room, locking the door. She helped him undress her, but when he started taking off her chemise she crossed her arms over her breasts, "My mother said not to be naked..."

"Your mother needs to get out of our bedroom," he said, and feeling no more need to be patient, he ripped the chemise off her body.

His eyes were burning at the sight of her as he placed her on the bed. This time she would not have been able to say no anymore, he was like strength itself taking her, and his body felt hot and hard against hers.

He made her want him. It was his fault.

Fifteen. Doubt

There followed a week during which the newly married couple could hardly be found out of each other’s arms. Clara had discovered, safely with her husband, an entire world that she had not even suspected could exist, and Gabriel had finally found love where he also sought pleasure.

When, after ten days, Clara felt comfortable enough to be naked in front of him, Gabriel put two fists in front of his lips in the form of a trumpet and blew triumphant music, then waved to invisible crowds like a conqueror.

"You are determined to be proud of yourself," she laughed.

He rolled over to look down at her, and smiled as he combed locks of her hair with his fingers. “No, I am just very happy to be married,” he said in a low voice.

She smiled, “I am very happy to be married to
you
! I thought…”

A cloud passed over her face and she held him to her as if afraid that he might disappear. Now that she knew what took place in a marriage bed, she also knew how different it would have been if her husband had not been Gabriel.

“It will never happen,” he said.

“What?”

“What you are thinking. We will never lose each other now.”

“I loved you before,” she said. “But now it feels…complete. I understand when they say that husband and wife are one flesh.”

He laughed,” I like your flesh better than mine, but I am glad you have been converted.”

“I could see by your secret smiles that you had something to teach me!”

“Hardly anything!”

She threw him a threatening look, “Do not say anything about an ‘eager pupil’!”

He only raised his eyebrows at her, which led to some wrestling, a great deal of laughter, and more lovemaking.

"We will leave tomorrow to our land,” he told her afterwards. “It won't be a very comfortable trip, the roads are disgraceful. But I hope you like it when you get there."

"I shall like any place where you are!"

"I hope you will always remember what you are saying now," he told her with a half smile.

"I shall. Though..." she bit her lip, sighed, then continued, "Though Gabriel, I do have a worry!"

"What is it, my sweet?"

"Well...it is that something bad must have happened to you that you will not talk about. That scar, and the fact that you refuse to even step into church…”

“I did step into one, to marry you.”

“
Meu amor
, you know what I mean…” She crept closer to him and looked into his eyes. “I know that it cannot have been easy, to be thrown out by your father…”

There was a silence and then he said, "I was glad.”

“No, Gabriel,” she said, shaking her head. “No one is ever glad of such a thing! Mother, father, brother, sister, these are not just words!”

“I like husband and wife better,” he replied. “They mean something to me.”

“That makes me happy, my darling, but you must not forget your family. You cannot tell me it doesn’t hurt…”

“I always knew there was such a possibility,” he interrupted her. “That I would one day leave because of a strong disagreement with my father. We did not see eye to eye very often, and I knew that if I defied him on a point important to him, such as my marriage, I would have to leave. I consider that it has been for the best. I am my own person now, and have made my own way. If I did it for anyone, it was for you. I always hoped we would meet again.”

Clara could not help smiling, because she knew that he felt as she did, that they had always been meant to be together. But his broken nose, which made his face more attractive and yet more difficult to know, the scar on his neck and his physical strength spoke of hardship and effort, and of something else that still darkened his eyes. She knew that he would not speak of it because he wanted to protect her from some terrible truth, though she had seen harsh realities as well, since they had known each other in Lisbon. Yet she did not believe, as he seemed to, that the terrible things were greater than the good ones.

"I understand that you think badly of the world,” she said tenderly. “And I understand there must be reasons for it. You told me you could not act with an open heart anymore, but I hope─"

He turned on his side, and now they were face to face, "Mine is open to you," he said. "And that's all I want. When we have children, it will be open to them too. If they aren't awful."

She started to giggle, he started to kiss her, and the subject was abandoned, though not forgotten.

In the afternoon, as Clara was getting ready to go to her parents' house to say goodbye, Gabriel received Assis, who cared for the financial side of his business in Rio. He was a mulatto clerk of about thirty-five; he had studied in Lisbon, sent there by his Portuguese father, and had come to Gabriel with unimpeachable credentials.

They sat looking at the accounts together, how much money had been made that month, how much the crops and animals should yield that quarter, how much was to be reinvested in the land, and how much needed to be put aside. Gabriel gave instructions for him to prepare the same sum he monthly contributed to Prince John's expenses, and for the purchase of ten slaves who must be set free and then offered paid work in his farm. Any mothers with children should be the first to be bought, with their husbands if they were alive.

Gabriel hardly thought he would free all the slaves in Brazil, when ships full of them arrived almost every day, but a few lives rescued each month from an unthinkable yoke might yet make some sort of difference.

"On that subject..." Assis took out a letter from his leather folder and sat looking at it, clearing his throat as if he found it hard to continue.

"What is it? Say it!" Gabriel ordered, frowning.

Assis cleared his throat again, and pushed his glasses back with one finger, then managed to raise his eyes to Gabriel.

"I have not known what to do with this," he said, indicating the letter. "But I feel that there has been a great breach of your privacy, and that you should know."

He handed the envelope to Gabriel and added, "I found out yesterday that my assistant had been approached by a third party, and was selling information about you. He had left this letter under his blotting paper."

Gabriel took the envelope, scowling, "From whom?"

Assis motioned toward the letter, "I think it best if you read it. If you allow me, I shall walk outside."

The clerk stood up, nodded politely and walked out toward the garden. Gabriel opened the letter, expecting some rival to be after details of what he did or what he would do next.

He read,

"Dear Mr. Simões,

You must understand the position in which my daughter finds herself..."

Gabriel had begun to go pale, looking at the uneven handwriting. He hardly had to see the signature to realize it was from Juliana. He kept reading, his face more drained of color at every word.

"She can hardly ask these things, which we must know. An alliance was already attempted by Dom Gabriel when he knew himself to be a penniless man, and we cannot risk falling for a trick twice!

Since Dom Gabriel himself will not freely inform us of the exact nature of his wealth, my daughter must know all amounts to the last coin. She can only truly agree to this marriage when we know that she can enjoy the comfort to which she is used.

She has several proposals before her, and can only decide when we have a detailed list of Dom Gabriel's holdings. He is in a rented house in Rio de Janeiro! He might well be using what money he has to create the fiction of wealth, and lure us into a regrettable union.

Furthermore my daughter would know if he has slaves, and how many?

If he does not have slaves, as some Europeans refuse to, then what is the quantity that he is paying his freed servants, and how many servants are there?

All these things will influence the well-being and happiness of a tender girl, and all must be known. We also require proof. My daughter will not betroth herself before she knows!..."

The letter went on in the same detestable vein, repeating accusations against his character, his possible bad intentions, the lies he was supposed to have told in Lisbon. There were questions probing into his business and private life:
"Are you paying any woman's expenses on his behalf?"

He felt as if a hole had been made in him, and he were being emptied of all life. When Assis returned he only asked, "Did the man give the information that was requested?"

"I am afraid so. To the last coin. I must apologize..."

Gabriel shook his head, "There is no need. I am glad he did."

"I...I am sorry that ─ "

"You don't have to be sorry."

"Perhaps your wife did not know..."

"We will talk no more of it.  I think you know that in future any such correspondence or any attempted contact by my wife's family must also be immediately reported to me."

Assis nodded, "Of course."

He took his hat, nodded again and left.

The thoughts in Gabriel's head were many, and followed upon each other's heels without order. Clara could not have known what Juliana was doing. That woman was impossible to repress, and her suspiciousness, vulgarity and greed difficult to control.

Clara had crossed a room to him with such joy and love in her face; she could not know what her mother had done.

But then, Juliana's manner had become obsequious and servile after she had found out exactly how rich he was. Could Clara have had something to do with it? After going through privation, had she become greedier?

He believed that she would have asked him if he could afford to be married now, and she would have believed whatever he said. She would not deal in subterfuge. She could not be a person so different than she seemed.

But then that sentence, 
My daughter must know...

Would Clara worry about how much money he lost by not exploiting miserable human beings? She could not, she would not.

It had been that terrible mother!

He was a different man when he walked into the drawing room, and Clara saw it at once; it had always been difficult for him to dissemble.

"What it is, my love? Is there bad news?"

Gabriel realized that he was clutching the letter, and put it in his pocket.

"Nothing very serious," he said.

He stopped to look at her so closely that she asked again, her face showing distress, "But Gabriel, what is it?"

He managed a smile and kissed her hand. He did not want to kiss her lips or her cheek at that moment.

"It is truly nothing!" he assured her.

She must have thought it was some business matter, and that it was better not to insist. He went to get dressed so that they could go to her parents' house.

I shall have to look at that woman,
 Gabriel thought on the way.

When they arrived and Juliana came forward, her arms extended theatrically, for the first time he saw something of her daughter in her. It was not in the shape of the eyes or mouth, which in Clara were so lovely and in Juliana so badly drawn and harsh, but there was a look behind the eyes, or their color, or a gesture around the mouth and chin. They were mother and daughter.

Pedro was taking him by the arm toward the study so they could talk and the two women could say their goodbyes.

Gabriel hardly listened to what his father-in-law was saying; he heard only enough to be able to give the right response, and make some general remarks. He thought that at least the man in front of him was not a monster of greed; he had a normal amount of it, and concern for his daughter. He might be weak and unable to control the woman he had married, but Pedro had no great malice in him.

Finally Gabriel thought that he had given enough time for the two women to say goodbye, and he wanted to leave and not see Juliana again, perhaps not ever; certainly not in a long time. He needed to go home with his wife and observe her, and understand if she had been capable of such cold calculation and, above all, of such lack of faith in him.

She has faith in a God that has remained invisible, but not in me, 
he thought bitterly. 
I would have achieved anything to be with her, and she has no faith in me!

On the way to get Clara he thought again that it was Juliana who had been behind that letter; Clara could never have thought or asked such things. But as he approached the drawing room he heard his wife’s voice, coming loud and clear from inside, "There will be enough money for everything now!" and then he heard her laugh.

It was the same laugh as when she had told him, in Lisbon, 
"But I cannot marry you now!"

He stood transfixed in the corridor. 
There would be enough money for everything: 
the words and the triumphant laugh of a conspirator to another.

Pedro was coming his way, "Where are the two ladies? If you let them, they will chat all afternoon, and you will not rest enough before leaving tomorrow!"