The Devil on Her Tongue (19 page)

That night, the pain was too great to allow me to sleep and too great to let me stay alert. I heard my mother speaking softly to me. When I slowly turned my head towards her bed, I saw a dark form sitting on the pallet that had been empty for the last three months. Was she waiting to take me into the next world?

I tried to call to her but could only whimper, and then I felt tin against my battered lips. I took in sips of cool water, and wondered how a spirit could satisfy my thirst.

I put out my hand, urging my mother to take it, take me with her, for I no longer wanted this life. But nothing touched my outstretched, trembling fingers, and again I let myself go towards the darkness.

I could see a band of dim morning light at the bottom of the shutter, and I knew I was still alive.

Rooi was asleep on my mother’s bed, snoring, his mouth open. I carefully touched my puffy lips, slowly moving my index finger to the inside of my mouth. I was relieved to feel the hardness of my front teeth. It took a long time before I could find the courage to pull myself into a sitting position. Involuntarily, I groaned, and Rooi closed his mouth and opened his eyes. As he came towards me, his white hair fanned out around his head in a frothy white cloud, he looked old and exhausted.

I cried without a sound, tears running from my good eye. I hated Rooi seeing my weakness.

He frowned, but I knew he was only worried and uncomfortable with my raw emotion. He poured more water into the cup and held it to my lips. “I have to go back to the inn,” he said. “I left it unlocked last night, when I heard you screaming. I’ll come back later. You best see to your face when you’re able. I’m no use with a needle.”

I caught his hand.
Don’t go
, I wanted to say.
What if he’s still out there, and comes for me again? Don’t leave me alone. I’m afraid
. But nothing would come out.

Rooi left.

A long while later, I gathered my resolve and then hoisted myself off the pallet, swaying. It was difficult to walk, and I knew I was badly torn. I couldn’t walk as far as the
latrina
outside and so lowered myself onto a pot, which filled with blood. Making my way to the shelf over the fireplace, I picked up my mirror. The deep gash in my eyebrow was crusty, and as I touched it, it reopened, releasing a stream of hot red blood. I could see the white of bone.

Faint, I lowered myself to the bench at the table. Sitting was almost unbearable. I held the edge of my skirt against my eyebrow to staunch the flow. When I had breathed deeply for long enough to regain some strength, I again rose to find my sewing pouch. Propping the mirror against the cup on the table, I cut away what I could of my eyebrow so no hairs would be sewn into the wound. Then I stitched the gash. My hand shook, and I had to stop each time my stomach heaved from the pain. The stitches were uneven and heavy. I still didn’t know whether I would have sight in the damaged eye.

I slowly fed the silent lovebirds; uncovered all night, their tiny world was thrown into confusion.

Rooi came later, as promised. He brought a bit of fish and a slab of bread and a flagon of wine, but I couldn’t open my split lips to eat. “That stinking bastard, he would have left you for dead,” he said, soaking a small piece of bread in the wine and gently working it into my mouth.

“Where,” I whispered, flinching as I tried to chew, “is he?”

“When I heard you screaming, I ran to you. Three of the men from the beach came to help as well. The four of us made sure he won’t be fucking anyone else for a while, cunt or ass, whore or cabin boy.”

I put my hand over my good eye in shame. Although I was used to the coarse language of the sailors, I had never heard Rooi speak like this. I thought of him and the fishermen—my neighbours—seeing me with my skirt up, spread-eagled in the sand. The soaked bread felt like a stone in my mouth. I thought of my father as a young boy, suffering the demands of a brutish pig as I had on the beach, and how he’d tried to save the cabin boy from the same fate. Suddenly I couldn’t remember what my father looked like, just the height, the bleached hair and pale blue eyes. In a panic, I looked back at Rooi, hoping his features would return my father’s to me.

“We beat him senseless and threw him into one of the skiffs. This morning he was taken back to his ship. You won’t see him again. Don’t you worry about him.”

I still couldn’t remember my father’s features. Again, tears rolled down one cheek.

“Is the pain terrible?” he asked, misinterpreting my reaction.

I lowered my hand and pushed the wet bread out into it with my tongue. “I’ll heal. Thank you, Rooi.” I could manage only the faintest of a hoarse whisper. “Thank you for saving me. For staying with me last night.” What was left of my voice faltered, and we sat in silence.

“You rest for a while,” he said finally. “Give yourself time to heal before you show your face again.”

I wanted my mother to fix me with her potions and her spells. I wanted the comfort of Sister Amélia’s words. And yet I was glad neither of them could see me now.

R
ooi came every day for the next three, bringing me food and wine.

“It’s not good for you here, Diamantina,” he said on the third day. “This …” He waved his hand in a vague direction. “This mess. What happened to you—it could happen again. Or worse.”

For me, worse could only mean death. Is that what Rooi meant?

“Word gets around in such a small place, my girl. Everyone knows about you and the sailor. I let you convince me you could handle the job. I enjoyed the extra profit you brought me. But I shouldn’t have allowed it. If your father knew what I’d let happen …” He poured himself a cup of wine and drained it. “And now, you don’t want …” Again he hesitated. It was odd for Rooi not to speak directly, not to say what was on his mind.

“I don’t want what?”

“A life with the sailors. If you’re at the inn every night, they’ll keep after you, break you down. What happened is your warning.” He poured himself another cup. “One night you’ll find it easier to take the money for something other than the dominoes, or to stop this from happening to you again.” For the second time he drained the cup in one long swallow.

I thought of what Abílio had said to me as he left, calling me a whore, and closed my good eye. So now even Rooi thought this might become my fate. And after my face had been so rearranged, it was possible the sailors wouldn’t even want me to sit with them and play dominoes. They played with me only to enjoy some time
with a woman who gave them the tiniest bit of what they’d been missing while at sea.

Was this my future, then—to become a scarred, half-blind whore?

“It’s not good for you here anymore,” Rooi repeated. “You shouldn’t come back to the inn. I can’t let you.”

“My father …” I started. “He said … He said he would send money, Rooi. So that I could go to him.”

Rooi shook his head. “What can I say, Diamantina? Your father was a good man, but maybe … Who knows what has happened to him? But you can’t spend your life waiting.” He made a sound in his throat. “I’ve got nothing but that cursed inn, Diamantina. It’s falling down around my ears, and I’m in debt to all my suppliers. If I could give you money to help you get away, I would.”

A few days later, when I opened my damaged eye, I saw a flash of light. By the next day I was able to make out the objects in the room, and soon my vision became clearer.

I picked up the mirror and studied myself. My nose hadn’t been broken, but there was a scabby cut across the bridge. My lips were still swollen and discoloured, my neck deeply bruised. And my eye … The lid was grotesquely puffy and crimson, and the clumsy black stitches in my brow were caked with dried blood. In spite of my frightening appearance, I knew I would heal, but alone in the silence, thinking of Rooi’s words, I was filled with a deep sense of dread.

Forcing myself to go outside, I made my way up the beach to see if I could find my box of dominoes. Each step was an effort, and I leaned on my old wracking pole for support. It was as if I had to teach myself how to walk, lifting each foot high, telling myself to set it down again. The people of the beach watched me pass; none spoke or waved to me.

And then I saw the box, caught in a patch of wet kelp. The lid was broken off, one side in splinters. This was where it had happened, then. I looked around, suddenly full of terror, as if the sailor might
still be nearby, waiting for me. I was on the stretch of beach between the huts and the wharf, alone as I had been that night. I was shocked at the fear that took hold of me.

My heart pounding, I turned. I saw a tile, and another, and then a third, stuck in the wet sand. I grabbed them up and walked back to my hut as quickly as I could. If I could have, I would have run. Once in my hut, I shut the door firmly. I pulled the table in front of it and sat on my pallet, looking at the tiles in my hand. These few tiles, cast into the sand, felt like what was left of my life, thrown into the air and then falling in a random pattern, scattered on the ground.

The immensity of my aloneness hit me with force in my darkening hut. As Rooi had said, I could no longer wait in hope for some word from my father. I felt small and brittle, easily broken.

Did I really think a flimsy wooden table would stop anyone from coming in? I didn’t sleep that night, but sat at the table and burned one candle after another, afraid of the dark as I had never been before.

The next morning, I pulled the table away from the door. As the sun rose over the calm water, I went to its edge and tossed the three tiles as far as I could. They were of no use to me.

Back in the hut, I tucked my fish-gutting knife into my waistband. I had stopped wearing it when I no longer needed to catch and kill my own food. If I had had it the night the sailor attacked me, I might have been able to fight him. I forced myself to think about him and what he’d done to me, and felt an anger that was new, and clean. Yes, if I’d had my knife, I would have killed him. I visualized slicing open his grizzled neck, warm blood spilling over my hands.

I will kill anyone who tries to hurt me
, I thought, resting my palm on the handle of my knife, and then I said it aloud. “I will kill anyone who tries to hurt me.” I vowed to do whatever I had to do to get away from Porto Santo.

I realized I was hungry. I went into the hills and found that my old skill hadn’t deserted me. I caught a rabbit and skinned it and
made a fire. I sat before the flames, cooking the flesh on a stick, the dried blood still on my hands. I imagined it was the sailor’s.

After I’d eaten, I buried the pelt and bones of the rabbit. I lay beside the dying fire and watched the stars pulse over me, and then I slept, unafraid as I hadn’t been since the attack.

Was it an hour later, or three? Something woke me, and I sat up straight. I felt as though I had been stroked, ever so slightly, by the cool milkiness of the moon. I knew then with certainty what I would do.