The Widow's War

In the parlor of her house on the Ladeira da Glória, Carrie sits at her writing desk trying to deal with the mound of correspondence that has piled up since she last had the energy to sort through it. She is wearing an old green cotton dress this morning because green was the color her father liked her in best. Papa would never have wanted her to put on mourning for him. He hadn’t even dressed her in black when her mother died—an act that had scandalized Rio’s entire English-speaking community.

“To wear black in the tropics is a mark of either insanity or idiocy,” he’d said, but now she thinks he simply could not bear to be reminded of his own grief every time he looked at her.

In the garden beyond the open double doors, the fountain is playing over the ceramic rims of its bowls, each note of dripping water growing lower as it progresses. The air is filled with the scent of jasmine and the raucous cries of a band of monkeys who are once again harvesting the papayas before Carrie’s gardener can get to them. In the past, she would have strolled out onto the patio to watch them feed. They are the tiny, amusing sort of monkeys who look like furry-faced squirrels. She spent her childhood longing to keep one as a pet but Papa would never let her.

“What about orchids?” she retorted once, when she was ten and in a combative mood and still determined to make him pay for leaving her in Kentucky after her mother died. There weren’t many fathers who would have tolerated that kind of backtalk from a ten-year-old, but Papa merely laughed.

Carrie cannot help thinking about her father this morning because every time she looks toward the garden she can see the spot where she buried him. There is a newly planted tree where his grave was, its trunk covered with the vivid purples of Sophronitella violacea, the delicate whites of Brassavola reginae, and an incomparable bunch of Crytopodium parviflorum, bursting forth in cream and burnt umber. She has had his body re-interred in the English cemetery after a proper funeral and used some of her newfound wealth to buy him a marble headstone carved with stone orchids, but these living orchids are his real memorial, and she can sense his presence in them even though he now lies next to her mother and the little sister and brothers who died before they ever really lived.

She turns away from the sight of the garden and picks up another black-edged condolence card. Brazil is too full of death, she thinks. The tropics are merciless. They have killed everyone I love except perhaps—

She stops herself from bringing this thought to its logical conclusion, grabs the letter opener, and slits the end of the envelope. The question of William’s whereabouts is keeping her from properly mourning her father. There may be worse things than being perpetually suspended between hope and fear, but at the moment the only one she can think of is knowing for certain William is dead.

She’s changed since the morning she woke up in the Casa de Misericórdia to find herself lying next to a row of empty beds. For the first time since she was a homesick child of six, she wants to leave Brazil. She has no ties in Rio. She has already bought the land the quilombo stands on, deeded it to the community, and set up a fund to pay the former owners ongoing bribes. Most of the girls she went to school with are married women, and she no longer feels particularly close to any of them. She is not attached to this house. If she wanted to, she could put it in the hands of an agent, pack her bags, and buy herself passage on the next ship bound for an American port. But where would she go when she got there? Her grandparents are no longer alive, and the idea of living in Mitchellville with Aunt Josephine sets her teeth on edge.

Fire ants in a box, she thinks, that’s what Aunt Jo and I would be if we lived together. We’d be fighting from morning to night. Not to mention that she owns her cook, her maid, and the old man who drives her carriage, none of whom she is about to free. Kentucky is a slave state and I’ve already lived too long among slavers. I don’t have any friends or relatives in the north. I suppose I could go to Massachusetts and join the abolitionist movement, but a few months after I arrive—

A few months after she arrives, her baby will be born. She no longer doubts she is carrying William’s child. You do not miss your menses, have your breasts swell up like bladders, and feel as if you can’t keep down dry toast in the morning if you are not going to have a baby. Most of her former schoolmates are so ignorant they won’t know they’re with child until their mothers tell them, but thanks to her parents, she has known the basic facts since she was seven, although—and this makes her smile—neither Mama nor Papa ever mentioned that the process of getting in a family way was pleasurable.

She forces the thought out of her mind and turns back to her correspondence. The card in front of her is from a Mrs. Alice Montjoy, wife of a British coffee merchant. She studies Mrs. Montjoy’s flowery protestations of sympathy with growing annoyance. She cannot recall meeting the woman and is fairly certain Mrs. Montjoy never knew her “dear, departed father.”

The bank has not been discreet. News of Carrie’s wealth has spread through the city faster than tidings of the California gold strike. She’s surprised it hasn’t made the front page of The Rio Sentinel.

Picking up her pen, she writes Mrs. Montjoy a brief, polite note, blots it with sand, and puts it aside. When she looks back at the pile of correspondence, she is seized by a desire to slam her writing desk shut and go out for a walk along the beach. Every mother of every eligible bachelor in Rio has sent her a card expressing sympathy on the occasion of her father’s death. She stares at the pile, thinking that it is quite an assemblage of fine, convent-trained handwriting. What would those same eager mamas think if they knew the heiress they were pursuing was with child? The British and American mamas would cut her dead, but the Brazilian mamas might continue the hunt. Brazilians are more forgiving about such things, and the money would be a great compensation. Perhaps she should just marry some Brazilian from a good family and give her baby a father.

The thought chokes her. Dropping her head on the pile of envelopes, she begins to cry. I feel a hundred years old, she thinks. Older than Mae Seja; old and ugly and exhausted and terribly sad. I know I’ll never love anyone as much as I love William, and I don’t want to raise our child with anyone but him.

None of this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be looking forward to her wedding day. Her dress is still hanging in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. She needs to tell the maid to get rid of it. She can’t bear to think of it hanging there. If William shows up, she’ll buy another.

The crying sends her into a flurry of hiccups that jar her back to the job at hand. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she retrieves a kerchief from her pocket, blows her nose, and soldiers on with the task of replying to the condolence cards. She is crying too often these days, and she suspects it has something to do with being with child. Not, she thinks grimly, that she doesn’t have good reason to cry, but it isn’t like her to fall apart like this.

Around two, she stops working and retires to the dining room to eat a bowl of soup, some stewed chicken, and a plate of sliced fruit. Then she goes back to the parlor. She’s just getting to the bottom of the pile of condolences when the maid comes in bearing a visiting card.

“Please tell him I’m not at home.” She has no desire to trade banalities with yet another man in hunt of a fortune. Besides there is only one card on the tray, which means her visitor has not followed the usual practice of coming with his mother or some other female relatives. Recently a male caller leaped at her under the mistaken impression that smothering her with unwanted kisses was the path to her heart. He had left humiliated and gasping for breath after she thumped him in the chest with the book of romantic poetry he had brought her. Word must have gotten out, because until this afternoon she has not had any more unchaperoned suitors. Still, the incident has made her wonder if it’s been a mistake not to wear black.

In the time that elapses before the stranger enters the parlor, Carrie allows herself to hope. Perhaps he’s bringing a message from William explaining his absence. She examines the calling card and discovers her visitor is Deacon Presgrove and that he’s in the import/ export business.

The parlor door opens and a man enters: tall, broad-shouldered, impossibly familiar. Springing to her feet with a muffled cry of joy, Carrie takes a few steps toward him, then suddenly checks herself. This is not William, only a man who looks something like him. He has the same long, straight nose and high cheekbones, but his hair and moustache are black, not brown; he is a good five years older than William, and there are other things about him—the way he stands, the way he holds himself, the shape of his chin . . . Sick with disappointment, she sits down.

Mr. Presgrove places his hat on a side table and puts a medium-sized package wrapped in brown paper next to it. She notices he is wearing mourning. At the sight of the black band on his arm, she experiences dread so great it is all she can do to keep herself from ordering him to leave immediately. She doesn’t care what kind of news he has come to deliver. She doesn’t want to hear it.

I mustn’t jump to conclusions. This has nothing to do with William. One of Mr. Presgrove’s relatives has died, so naturally he’s in mourning. In a moment he’ll state his business, and I’ll find that it has something to do with orchids, or it will be a plea for me to contribute to a charity, or he’ll have just arrived in Rio bearing a letter from Aunt Jo complaining that I never write to her . . .

She notices that his eyes are green and catlike. Later she will recall a subtle sense of being stalked, but at the time, the sensation passes so quickly she hardly registers it.

How could I have ever mistaken him for William? William has brown eyes. Yet for a few seconds, seeing this man was like seeing a ghost. She banishes the thought from her mind and forces herself to think of nothing at all. For a few seconds, she succeeds. Then Mr. Presgrove speaks.