The Abyss (25 page)

And there, larger than reality, he was.

 She had painted him against a sky so stormy that the blackness in it seemed to move and increase as he looked. He was on his horse, holding the reins and a coiled whip. She had painted every tortured vein on his hands, his forearm, his temple, his neck. All of him was hard sinew, muscle and bones. Between his brows there was a deep vertical frown, and his eyes were an angry slate blue. His broken nose caught the light and made him look brutal, and the scar on his throat seemed raised, like a cobra about to strike.

There, in front of him, was what he had been avoiding in the mirror for years, what she had finally seen: the thing he had become.

Thirty-Six: Water

Something terrible will happen, Clara had thought as she walked out of the house.

The rain had stopped in the early morning, as suddenly as it had started. The day was blue and hot again, though all the foliage around her was bright green from the water that had fallen.

But Clara could not think of anything except what might happen in Moema's house that day; she could not even think of Gabriel, of all the things she had told him, of the fact that she was leaving him.

Now she must find out if her dreadful suspicions were true. If Moema was going to do something terrible, she would do it today. She had said so.

Clara had asked Celso to run and get Sugar for her, and he had left immediately. He always did what she asked, while Sebastião would have looked worried, for her, or for himself, or both. Celso had set off almost at a run, limping on his bad leg.

Teté had gone to spy on Moema early that morning, and had taken Guelo with her so that she could send him back with information. As she stood on the lawn waiting for Sugar, Clara saw that Guelo was running towards the house from the bottom of the slope.

"Guelo!” she called him. “What is it?"

The boy stopped, drew breath and cupped his hand around his lips to shout back, but she could not hear what he was saying. She started to walk, then to run in his direction; he was still too far off for his voice to carry. Guelo tried to shout twice more, and still she could not hear him, until she finally made out the words, "She is leaving on the mule!"

"The children?" she shouted as loudly as she could. "Did she take the children?"

The boy nodded, still running towards her.

"Oh, no!" Clara whispered.

She heard the noise of hooves and saw that Celso was  coming toward her on a horse, and that he was bringing Sugar by the reins. He stopped next to her and was going to dismount to help her, but she found the stirrup with one foot and leapt onto the saddle like a man, with her legs on either side of the filly. She started galloping toward Guelo, and Celso followed.

When they got close to the boy, who was breathless from running, she asked, "Which way did they go?"

Guelo lifted his arm, and pointed toward the river.

"No, no, no!" she said under her breath.

Clara urged Sugar forward and Celso followed her. She thought, even as she rushed ahead, that everything would now come together to help her avoid a tragedy. A strong, spirited servant was riding with her, and she could see what he might have been in his native land: a man of courage that horrible people had tried to tame and destroy. He rode alongside her with no fear of anything.

When they arrived at the river she saw Teté waiting for them, pointing forward, "She went that way, 
sinhá
. She has the children with her!"

Clara kept riding, leaving Teté behind, though the girl followed on foot. It was difficult for her and Celso to make their way on horseback through the trees, but they covered ground as quickly as they could until, near the waterfall, she saw Moema's mule standing alone. She got down from Sugar and started to run.

"No, she can't have done, she hasn't had the time!"Clara prayed.

Then she saw the woman in her yellow dress ─ such a happy color, Clara thought for a split second. Moema took her eldest son, a boy about six years old, and threw him in the river, and she was about to do the same to the second boy. Clara screamed.

"I will get him!" Celso shouted.

Celso rode swiftly to enter the water ahead of the boy, and Clara saw that he might be able to catch him. She screamed, "Don't!" as Moema held the second child up.

Moema did not even turn: she dropped the boy in the river, and Clara ran past her, and into the water.

The river was strong and cold, and it pushed Clara forward with little control, but she fought, hanging on to stones and branches as she went. She could feel her hands being torn, her bones hitting the rocks, but she managed to swim a little in the shallow parts and let herself go in other places to make it to the boy,  who had been caught by a tree trunk but whose head was already going under. She put her arm around him and brought him up, knowing that in another few seconds he would have drowned.

"I have you, I have you!" she told the child, who spluttered and coughed.

She managed to make her way to a large boulder and put her back against it, receiving the full force of the water on her chest and belly. The boy was safe with her, and Celso had caught the other one; but as she looked upstream she saw that Moema had entered the water with a basket in which she had the baby, and before Clara could beg her to stop, the river had thrown Moema down and carried her mercilessly, knocking her against the rocks. She passed by, too far to be reached though Clara extended a desperate hand. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded under her breasts as if the murder of her children were some sort of sacred ceremony for her. Her body was carried quickly past Celso to shatter against the rocks downstream, and both he and Clara had the same instinct, to cover the eyes of her children.

Holding the middle boy, Clara now turned in despair, expecting the basket with the baby to rush by her, but she saw that a very thin branch had lodged itself far enough into the weaving to keep the basket still, in spite of the quick waters beneath it.

It's a miracle
, Clara thought. 
We have two boys, and the third can be saved!

She did not think, then, that it would have been almost impossible for her to move up river to get the basket. She believed that the children would be saved, that in fact Moema had not had the heart to throw the baby in the water, that deep down she must have wanted him to live.

They won't die! 
Clara thought furiously. She knew that, behind her, Celso was taking the other boy safely to land; she knew that Teté was coming; she knew that she had a boy with her, and it didn't matter that he was hanging from her neck, it didn't matter how quick the water was, or that there was the danger of being thrown against the rocks or down the waterfall like Moema, who must now be dead.

She believed that those children would not be killed, though the devil had been on their mother’s side. She also knew that it was not enough to beg God, or any saint, that she was there to get them, and that she would. So, with a strength that her slender frame ought not to have, she began to crawl her way up to the basket.

Thirty-Seven: Onslaught

"
Sinhô
, the river is rising!"

Gabriel turned around to look at Jiló, who was riding toward him from the stables. He had walked through the house to see if he could find Clara. He must not let her leave, but this time he would not order or force her to stay, he would beg her. There must be a tiny bit of love left in her, if she had been in his bed only two weeks before. 
There must be.

He stopped in his tracks to look at Jiló, "What does that mean?" he asked.

Jiló dismounted and pointed towards the hills, where the sky was dark, "It has been raining there a lot since yesterday. All that water is coming down and the river is starting to swell, it will overflow!"

"Is there a danger to the plantations?" Gabriel asked, trying to understand what Jiló was saying.

"No
, sinhô
 ─ but Dona Clara went that way with Celso! Guelo says that Moema had gone to the river, and 
sinhá
 went after!"

Gabriel looked toward the river and stepped forward, his face turning pale. "What does it mean, Jiló?" he asked again, fearing that he knew the answer.

Jiló's face said it all, even before he spoke, "The water will come down and rush that way, it will carry everything, even the banks!"

The
patrão
did not wait to hear anything else, he reached for the bridle of Jiló's horse and mounted, galloping toward the river.

“Clara, Clara,” he said under his breath as he went, almost as if he were calling her.

The horse sensed his urgency and sped towards the forest, and he was a more skillful rider than either Clara or Celso, so he found himself on the banks of the river soon enough. He glanced up at the hills and saw the river  there swelling and roaring, climbing over the banks and taking trees and branches on its wake. It seemed far, but there would be only about ten minutes before it reached them. He rode even faster, and saw in the distance that Celso was reaching the bank with a child.

"Celso!" he shouted.

The African heard him and lifted his arm to point. Gabriel looked, and his heart almost stopped: there was Clara in the water, with a boy hanging around her neck, fighting against the rapids that threatened to carry her. She was trying to get a basket that was caught in a very thin branch.

"Clara!" he cried, dismounting and rushing into the river. It already ran so fast that it would have thrown a less strong man down.

She looked over at him. If she stood there, the waters that were coming in a few minutes would swallow her. Terror gripped him and he started to hurry inside the river, his feet somehow finding a place between the large smooth pebbles and the rocks, "Clara! Come to me!" he shouted. "Come to me now!"

She looked at him and shook her head, pointing at the basket, "The baby!"

For heaven's sake,
 Gabriel thought. 
She cannot save the baby and survive.
 "

"Think of the boy who is with you!" he shouted as he kept going toward her. The water was now at the height of his chest and he could feel his wound smarting, but he gave no thought to it.

He was close to her now, stretching out his hand, "Clara, there is more water coming! Think of the boy!"

"No, we are close! It's a baby, Gabriel, it's just a baby!"

Gabriel had reached her, and he took the boy from her neck and put him around his own shoulders. "It's all right," Gabriel said to the child, not sure that it would be.

He reached Clara just as she slipped and would have been carried, and grabbed her hand in a strong grip. She could not stand up, and he bent so that she could also put her arms around his neck.

"I won't leave the baby!" she told him with a stubborn look.

The boy began to cry, “It’s my brother!”

"Of course it is,” Gabriel said, patting his hand. He told Clara, “I want you on the bank with him. A lot more water is coming!"

Celso had left the eldest child in Teté's hands and told her to run away from the river, and once again on horseback he had crossed the river downstream where it was shallow, and was riding up to them on the other side.

"We need to help Celso get the boy," Gabriel said. "I will hold you, you push him out."

She nodded. Celso was soon with them, grabbing the strong vines of a tree that leaned over the water and reaching his arm out. Gabriel put his back against a stone as Clara had done and held her as she took the boy from him and pushed it forward through the water until Celso had taken his hand. Celso pulled him out of the water.

"Help 
sinhá
!" Gabriel cried.

Celso put the boy behind him on land and reached out again, but Clara shrank back. "No, the basket!" she cried.

"I will get it, but you must get out. I can’t worry about you and the baby! Get out and get the boy off the banks. The water that's coming will destroy everything!"

Clara looked at him terror, "No, I can’t leave you!"

Have you not told me you will?
he thought. But he still had a very brief moment to kiss her lips. 
"Minha vida,
" he said. "Please go to Celso. I won't let this child die, but I need you to be safe."

“Promise me you can get out!” she begged, still holding on to him.

“I promise!”

He had called her
my life
and she meant life to him, she always had. He saw Celso help her out as well, and she looked back at him from the bank, as he turned to face the rapids. It took all the power he had to push forward, and he knew that his wound was being torn open, and that he was not as strong as he should have been.

Yet he was strong enough if he tried, and he defied the rapids like a bull, pushing with his wide chest and strong legs under the water until he could touch the basket. He saw that it was a miracle that it should have been caught on such a weak twig; at any moment it might have broken and the baby would have been crushed against the rocks.

"Here you are," Gabriel said to the child, who smiled serenely at him. "I will get you out!"

He could hear the roaring waters approach, and he knew that he only had a moment. It took his last strength, to turn and hold the basket steadily, and move it towards Celso, who had found another tree closer to him and reached out as far as he could.

"Take him!" Gabriel cried.

Celso's hand had almost reached the basket and Gabriel pushed it further. The footman finally had the boy.

 Gabriel would have followed, but the effort of leaning forward had displaced the soil under him. His foot was now stuck between two rocks. The water was coming, he could feel the spray: it smelled of mud, as the river demolished the banks on its way.

 
Just don't live near a river,
 Heinrich had said years before, in Bahia. Gabriel suddenly remembered the old slave who had told him he was like the angry Ogun, the African god of war. He had never left the offerings to him under a big old tree as she had advised him.  

Clara stopped scampering up the slope when she realized that he was not following, “Gabriel! Gabriel!"

"Climb!" Gabriel shouted at her. He could see the water already; there would be no time for him, though he just then managed to free his foot.

"Gabriel!" she screamed above the roaring.

He heard the despair in his wife's voice and knew that she had lied once in her life, when she had said that day that she no longer loved him. But that was all that he had time to think, before he was caught in the irresistible onslaught of the river.