The Devil on Her Tongue (11 page)

“I want to go to Brazil, and you want to go to Brazil. It makes sense we should go together.”

“I should know where my father is before too long.”

“We’ll find him together,” he said.

I stopped and looked at Abílio. He put his arms around me and I felt his heart, beating against my breast.

I couldn’t eat any dinner. After we had come back to the beach, Abílio had asked me to come to his hut later, and I had said yes.

I knew why I was going, and what I would do. He had wanted us
to be together behind the dunes. I wanted it too—I had thought of it since the night he had whispered for me to stay—but I couldn’t allow it to happen until I prepared my body.

I knew the stories of the women who came to our hut. I understood the rhythms of life, and how a child started, and I would not let this happen to me. In the
latrina
I put a piece of sea sponge soaked in vinegar and wrapped in a piece of fine muslin as far up inside me as I could. I had tied it with a slender thread that would allow me to pull it out afterwards. The women of the beach couldn’t use the string for fear their husbands would notice. I didn’t care if Abílio noticed. I had no dreams of saving my purity for a husband. There would be no young man on Porto Santo for me other than Abílio Perez, who would take me away with him.

I
was trembling as I lay down on his pallet, the light of the fire and the candles on the table flickering over the ceiling. My breath was ragged with excitement, but there was also a drumming of panic in my throat. It was not only anxiety for the physical act, but a great fear for how my life was about to change. How I was going to be changed.

My teeth chattered as Abílio lay beside me and stroked my face. “It will be all right, Diamantina,” he said softly, then slowly pulled up my skirt, running his hands over my knees, my thighs. In the flickering light I saw his pupils pulse as he pushed my skirt to my waist. I fought not to cover myself with my hands, and my legs instinctively closed. He gently pushed them apart.

He leaned down then, as if to kiss me, and I waited, but his lips did not graze mine. His breath smelled of the sweet wine we had drunk before we lay together, but there was more. His body gave off another odour, a quick, dancing smell of excitement, something musky and unfamiliar.

As he outlined my lips with his index finger, he murmured, “You smell wild, of the salty sea and the clean wind. And of … what is it? What is your sweetness?”

He was taking in my scent as I took in his.

I didn’t answer, but when I saw his hands work at the lacing of his breeches, I turned my head away, too shy to look at him. Then he was again pushing apart my knees, which strained against his hands as if with a spirit of their own. “It’s all right, Diamantina,” he
whispered again, and I willed my knees to fall open as he lay on top of me. I put my hands around his back. And then his flesh burned against mine and there was a sudden stabbing pain. I sucked in my breath with the shock of it, my hands tightening on his back. I kept my eyes closed the entire time, waiting for the rhythmic waves of discomfort to be over. I listened to the quiet sounds Abílio made, almost like praying, and felt his cross swing against my ear with each of his slow thrusts. Suddenly he stopped with a quiet, almost helpless cry, and then his chest dropped against mine, although he didn’t allow his full weight to fall on me. I felt the scrape of his cheek, soft skin under sharp stubble.

I opened my eyes and he moved beside me, shifting so that his head lay on my breast. His eyes were closed, and I saw the length of his eyelashes against his cheeks. I put my hand into his hair and finally felt its soft thickness. I wanted him to tell me something, needed to know what he thought at this moment. What he thought of me. That he allowed me to see him so vulnerable filled me with a delicious sense of power. He breathed slowly and heavily, as if falling asleep. I waited.

He opened his eyes. “You were as sweet as you smell. I love a sweet new fruit.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“What’s this?” he asked, lifting the silver amulet and studying it.

“My father was born with the birth casing over his face,” I told him. “His mother kept it. Inside the silver is a piece of that caul, good fortune for sailors. It saved him from drowning.”

“If you believe that story,” he said. As he laced his breeches, I sat up, pulling down my skirt and straightening my blouse. The candles had burned low, and the fire was only glowing embers. He urged me down beside him again. “Don’t go. Stay the night.”

“I can’t. My mother …”

He sat up as I stood, trying to ignore the sudden weakness in my legs. He caught my hand and kissed the palm, and I again put my fingers through his hair. Then I left. He didn’t accompany me.

As I walked down the beach, fully lit by the moon, I was glad it was too late for anyone from the other huts to see me leave Abílio’s.
In front of my own hut I tucked my skirt up around my waist and waded into the sea to my knees, pulling out the slimy sponge and tossing it as far as I could into the waves. In the moonlight I saw, on my inner thighs, lines of dried blood, thin as if painted with grass strokes.

I let the cool water wash me, wanting to smell only of the sea when I went inside. But my mother lifted her head, studying me as I crossed the room to my pallet. I had to look away from her sharp gaze.

Later, as we lay in the darkness, she said, “Men do not always do what they promise, Diamantina.”

I said nothing, for I had no answer. I did not feel shame, but somehow I was sorry that she knew what I’d done.

It was raining heavily again the next morning as I ran up the beach on my way to the church. I had slept longer than usual, and Sister Amélia would be wondering where I was. But my steps slowed as I drew closer to Abílio’s hut. As if pushed by the stinging rain, I stopped in front of his door. Of course, I’d known I would stop. Otherwise why had I put in the sponge?

He opened it immediately, as though he’d been waiting. I stepped inside and he put his hand on the curve of my hip, brushing my wet hair from my cheeks.

“I shouldn’t have come,” I said, my words unconvincing even to me, my voice breathless from running, from the pleasure of being so near him, lust filling me with a surprising strength.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, and pressed against me.

“It isn’t right, what we did. We shouldn’t do it again, Abílio,” I said, feeling him already hard. I don’t know why I felt the need to say such words. Perhaps I wanted him to convince me there was nothing forbidden in being together.

His smile was easy, apparently boyish. But there was something behind it, something not boyish at all. Not easy. Rain drummed on the roof. He poured me a cup of warm water sweetened with honey. I drank a mouthful, and then touched my mouth to his. He
licked his lips, staring at me. He dipped his thumb into the cup and made the sign of the cross on my forehead with the warm, sweet water.

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
. Amen. Now you are baptized,” he said, with that same, slightly strange smile.

I slapped lightly at his hand, smiling back. “I don’t need to be baptized.”

“But now I can marry you,” he said, and I drew a sharp breath, my smile falling away. “Even without a dowry.” He took the cup from my hand and we moved together to his pallet.

Later, I pulled down my skirt, still damp from the rain, and searched on the pallet for the twine he’d pulled from the end of my braid.
Now I can marry you
, he’d said. “I’m so late for the kitchen. Sister Amélia will think I’m not coming.”

“Don’t go.”

“I have to.”

“Will you come to me when you’re done?”

Now I can marry you
. “Of course,” I said.

A few mornings later, after Abílio and I had spent an hour on his pallet, I sat combing my hair with my fingers. He stretched, yawning contentedly.

“I bought you some green ribbon. There, on the shelf.” He gestured to a length of shiny satin. “I thought it would be pretty with your hair,” he said, stopping my busy fingers. “I’ll walk into Vila Baleira with you. I’m expecting a letter from my uncle with news about a better position with him in Funchal. After a few months I’ll have made enough money for the passage to Brazil,” he said. As he spoke, he absently stroked my arm, running his fingers up and down my skin under my loose sleeve. “I can’t wait to leave this island for good. I’m not made for island life. I need more.”

I had waited, each day, for him to talk again about us marrying. I hadn’t told my mother, although I wanted to. I wanted her to know that she had no reason to be suspicious of Abílio.

“Your skin is so fine, Diamantina,” he said. “Portuguese women don’t have such fine skin.” He moved closer to the wall, making room for me, and I lay beside him again, pressing the full length of my body to his, my face against his neck.

“When will we marry, Abílio?” I whispered, needing to hear him speak to me of it as I pulled him on top of me. I wrapped my thighs around his hips, my feet over his lower back. As he unlaced his breeches, I arched to meet him and pressed my lips against his neck. His skin, under my tongue, tasted of salt.

Afterwards, we lay beside each other in silence. He hadn’t answered my question. But he held my hand, winding his fingers through mine, and pulled my head onto his shoulder. He would take me to Brazil. I would find my father. I didn’t know what I would do about my mother; she seemed weaker every day, and I couldn’t leave her like this. But I wouldn’t think about that right now. I wanted to savour my joy. I wanted to hold on to this feeling.

I hadn’t felt such comfort since my father left.

I thought of Abílio as I fell asleep, and he was in my thoughts when I awoke. Slowly, fine weather returned, and I was able to coax the garden to life, and once again caught rabbits and birds and scooped living creatures from the sea.

I went to work at the church, but could hardly wait to run back along the beach to Alílio’s hut. Sometimes we didn’t speak, and we never undressed, simply pushing our clothing out of the way. He never even took off his boots.