Maria Helena refused to let Filipa go on holiday with Renata. Her justification was that she’d need extra help with the guests, which Filipa thought preposterous given that most of the rooms in the guest house had been vacant for months and the three or four remaining full-time boarders were readying to leave. The restaurant, meanwhile, had been shut for two years after closing ‘temporarily’ for renovations. Their argument became unusually heated, until Filipa backed down and bit her tongue; such quarrels led nowhere and only jeopardised her future plans. Business certainly wasn’t good, but whenever Filipa made suggestions they were dismissed out of hand, as if any attempt at improving the Brisa Guest House was an attack on the family’s mental well-being.
Filipa owed her initial understanding of the hotel trade to Maria Helena’s former husband, Ramos. He’d managed the guest house for a number of years and just watching him work and interact with the guests had been enough to give Filipa the bug and make her want to pursue hospitality as a career. She’d liked Ramos and even imagined him being her real father, but she ended up liking Maria Helena more, despite her unstable nature. She was the best of Filipa’s five foster mothers. None of them had abused her in any way, but they’d all said more or less the same thing when they’d first met her: ‘Filipa, from now on I’m going to be your mum.’ Then they’d looked her up and down, which hadn’t taken long, and added: ‘Well, your foster mum anyway. If you like, you can call me auntie.’
Not one of them had told her to call them mum, which Filipa would have been happy to do, though she never sought to force the issue. In the end she found it more natural to call them by their first names, as she had done with Jerónimo. That was different, though, she’d called him Jerónimo because it was the loveliest name in the world, while dad was too short and lacked charm. It was a child’s word. She hadn’t been able to make baby sounds when she was little and by the time she started talking she was a big girl ready to say big words. All words were lovely, except Maninha. That was why she’d drawn Maninha’s face with torn-out eyes. Well, one of the reasons.
‘They didn’t want me to call them mum because I obviously didn’t look like a daughter to them,’ Filipa had said to Renata with a laugh.
In the few years in which the guest house prospered under Ramos, Filipa had always been welcome to help out on reception or in the storeroom. What she liked best was meeting people, talking to the guests and having them tell her how pretty and clever she was, but it was in the storeroom, while tidying up the shelves and rearranging boxes, that she began to dream of running her own hotel, the sort she saw on TV. She was always talking about her future hotel and it was no surprise when she chose to study hospitality and finished every term with top marks. At least someone in the family seemed to have made the right choices.
Maria Helena repeated to Filipa all the reasons why she couldn’t go to camp with Renata. Filipa’s mind wandered and she thought about her foster mother’s parenting style: all the ridiculous things she’d been denied when Maria Helena was in a bad mood; how easy she’d had it when Maria Helena wanted her out of the way. Eventually Filipa yielded and raised her voice, not quite to a yell but loud enough to bring an end to the argument: fine, she said, she wouldn’t go away with Renata, but in a few months she’d turn eighteen and after that nobody could tell her what to do, not Maria Helena and not even Diegues, who managed her trust fund. She’d overstepped the mark, but Renata said she’d been right to and that it was high time she stopped pretending.
‘What do you mean pretending?’
‘You’re always pretending and hiding things. If you’ve changed your tune now then you must have got tired of keeping up the act.’
‘That’s not true, I just don’t think people have any right to control me. Maybe I am tired of it, but it’s no act.’
A few days later, Maria Helena came to see Filipa in her bedroom to talk. Her foster mother looked worn out. She’d lately taken to dressing impeccably and her appearance had drawn a string of compliments, but now she showed a troubled expression and pursed her lips, spoiling the beauty of her forty-years-young face, her golden age, as she liked to say.
Watching her wrinkles appear and disappear, Filipa marvelled at the way Maria Helena’s face could metamorphose into any given emotion, from abandoned wife to selfless single-mother to bashful bride to understanding foster mum. It was something of a revelation to Filipa. She’d spent eight years living with Maria Helena without noticing how easily she switched between playing the victim and the accused, without noticing how light her hair was and how pretty her nose was. Her eyes were dark brown and shallow, but this Filipa knew well.
Looking back Filipa wondered what feelings she’d had for Maria Helena when they’d lived together? And what about Maria Helena, had she ever really known Filipa?
Jerónimo’s stories had always been about a dark-skinned girl with light brown eyes, curly black hair and thin fingers. He also said that the girl bit her lips until they were purple and that her eyeballs would shrink to the size of pinheads when she was angry. It had taken years for Filipa to recognise herself as the girl in his stories, but when she did, she realised that Jerónimo, her father or whoever he was, even if he wasn’t anybody to her, had known her inside out. Maria Helena, and all the foster mothers before her, had probably not even known the length of her fingernails.
Jerónimo had long fingernails that he cut with a penknife or bit when he was nervous. If he was especially anxious he’d even chew and swallow them. Filipa couldn’t remember what he did when he was happy, because in her memories he was never really content. No, that wasn’t true. He’d been different the day she spoke for the first time. He’d hugged her and buried his face in her mess of hair and she’d felt his big body shaking. He must have been happy then. It was a shame he’d been hidden from view.
Maria Helena stopped crying but remained tense, as if something greater than her had somehow been brought under control, perhaps by a miracle, certainly not by her own volition. Then she began to talk about wanting to build a family, the happiness she hoped for, the good times that lay ahead.
Filipa didn’t bother listening. She was used to hearing about Maria Helena’s projects. Her foster mother had a habit of announcing sweeping changes that never materialised, which led to foul moods that only lifted when a new idea came along, a new idea for a new routine.
After splitting up with Ramos, Maria Helena fell into despair and accused him of every offence under the sun. Her gloom looked set to last forever, but actually soon passed and after just a few months she was reigniting old friendships, forging new ones and declaring her unhappiness to be officially over. She also neglected the guest house even more than before, as if by ruining the business she was destroying any lasting reminders of Ramos. ‘When the last of the full-time boarders leaves, the guest house will go bust,’ Filipa thought, powerless to do anything about it. She couldn’t help but remember something Ramos had said: ‘This guest house was bought with your grandfather’s money, but it’s registered in your name. It’ll make you rich one day, you’ll see!’
It hadn’t made her rich and there seemed little prospect of it doing so now. Maria Helena was telling her that she was leaving the guest house because she’d met the man of her dreams.
Filipa wasn’t sure what to make of this, but as her foster mother waxed lyrical about finding love again, Filipa considered her own plans and a smile played across her lips. If Maria Helena left, she could live on her own, just as she’d always wanted to. She’d be able to please herself, with no need to talk when she wanted to be quiet or to be quiet when she wanted to sing. Living on her own, with her college course about to finish and the guest house to sell if necessary. It wouldn’t fetch much, but she wouldn’t need much because she’d be totally free.
In the excitement of the moment, she realised she hadn’t been listening to what Maria Helena was saying. She tried to make amends by smiling and asking about the wedding date.
‘So you don’t mind if your sister stays with you then? Oh God bless you, Filipa, you’re such a good daughter.’
‘You mean while you’re on your honeymoon? Of course not. Bia’s welcome to stay whenever she likes.’
‘No, you misunderstand me. I mean for a bit longer than that. A year or so. No more than a year, maybe not even that.’
At first Filipa couldn’t believe her ears: Look after Bia for a whole year? No chance! She had no desire to be in charge of anyone but herself. She got on fine with Bia, her semi-sister, as they called each other jokingly, but she didn’t want the responsibility of being her guardian, not when she was only just gaining her own independence. Maria Helena would have to find another solution. Perhaps the girl could go and live with her aunt, undoubtedly more suited to motherhood than Filipa. Or why not give her over to Ramos? He was her father after all, it was his duty. Filipa was not even related to them, she was under no such obligation.
Filipa went over to a chest of drawers and started to rearrange clothes that were already perfectly tidy, her head bowed, her brow furrowed. Why was happiness never complete? If this had come just a few months later she’d have been eighteen, no longer part of the family and blissfully unaware of it all. Just three more months.
‘I don’t expect you to pay me back for everything I’ve done for you,’ said Maria Helena, ‘I’m just asking you for a little help. I’ve no one else to turn to. Ramos is far too irresponsible, he always was and now he’s proven it by abandoning his daughter to go and live with a tramp.’ Filipa switched off; she had no interest in hearing Maria Helena’s grounds for divorce again.
‘A year,’ she heard her foster mother say. ‘Just a year. Time passes slowly at your age, but it flies by at mine. Not only that, if you take a wrong turn there’s no going back to rectify things, what’s done is done. I’m trying to rebuild my life and it’s now or never for me.’ Her voice faltered, in accordance with the magnitude of her tragedy.
Filipa carried on moving things around in the drawer, messing up what she’d already tidied, imagining life without Maria Helena and with her own bedroom instead of one stuffed full of Bia’s things. Everything had looked so promising before the business of her sister had come up. Filipa liked the girl, there was no doubt the two of them got on well, but that didn’t mean she should drop everything to look after the poor little brat.
But the wedding was timely in some ways. Just married, Maria Helena would be too distracted to fuss over what her foster daughter should and shouldn’t do, or put pressure on her tutors to make her finish her course. Diegues, however, had always been adamant that Filipa should study and welcomed her chosen career path, which meant he would be unlikely to look favourably on it if she decided to quit.
Like all young people, Filipa was confident in her future success. She thought she’d made an inspired career choice because she’d grown up around hotels, indeed being placed with a family who ran a guest house had been the best thing that had happened to her in foster care. Bia was a blessing too, but while Filipa would have done anything to keep the guest house, she wouldn’t have sacrificed much for her semi-sister.
Filipa rarely mentioned the inheritance she’d received and didn’t interfere with how Maria Helena spent the allowance her grandfather’s estate sent. Whenever Diegues, who Ramos treated like a family friend, arranged to meet her, always in the most unlikely places, he’d ask her about her studies, her life, her general well-being, and she’d say everything was fine, just as Maria Helena would have done.
Filipa didn’t even care when she found out that Ramos was paid a wage for looking after her, but she hadn’t forgotten the conversation she’d overheard when her foster parents split up: ‘You’ve no cause for complaint,’ Ramos had told Maria Helena. ‘You’ll be sent more than enough money to take care of her, and once I’ve got myself sorted I’ll take her off your hands.’
In the end, tired of moving from one family to the next and lacking the energy to get to know yet another one, Filipa had opted to carry on living with Maria Helena instead of moving in with Ramos.
Ramos left and that was that, another link undone, another chapter closed. But whenever he came to the house, essentially to see Bia, he acted as if he and Filipa shared a great bond, showering her with affection and showing tremendous interest in her studies and future plans. Filipa would often refuse to answer him, pretending not to hear or to misunderstand, focusing instead on the presents he never failed to bring. She did love getting presents.
In Serrano, the midwife had sometimes given Filipa honey and herb sweets. Not directly, of course, but whenever she gave sweets to the other kids she made sure there was enough left over for Filipa. All the same, Filipa remained convinced that the midwife didn’t like her. The Madwoman of Serrano tried to reassure her that it was only because she hadn’t delivered her, the foreigner having gone into labour when no one was expecting it. This was the first time the midwife had been caught unawares and because she hadn’t helped Filipa receive her soul there was no connection between them, no sense of duty on the midwife’s part. The madgirl then turned towards the village and yelled, angrily, that the same thing had happened to her, that no one even knew where she came from. She then scanned the fields and skies, the mountain and the river, her eyes full of anguish, as if trying to locate somewhere she could call home.
Filipa and the young woman with no name and no mother developed a special friendship. Filipa was the only person who wasn’t afraid of her and barely a day went by when the madgirl didn’t seek her out to play with or talk to, or sometimes to antagonise. Seen together they were just like any other pair of happy or unhappy children. The madgirl defended Filipa from the other kids too, often appearing out of nowhere to rescue her at the critical moment. One lazy afternoon, with her friend asleep on the riverbank, Filipa was amusing herself by skimming stones across the water when she became distracted, slipped and fell. Unable to cry out, mute as she was, she thought she was going to die, but her friend leapt into the water and dragged her to safety. Back on dry land, frightened and distressed, the madgirl slapped Filipa and pulled her hair, saying she didn’t know how to swim either and if the current had been stronger they would both have drowned. Once she got her breath back, she added that they’d nearly gone to join Gremiana and went on to tell Filipa the story of the girl the Serrano men had thrown in the river, out of fear and aggression, terrified she’d reveal their innermost secret.
‘The worst thing,’the madgirl said, changing the subject as if Gremiana hadn’t just been at the forefront of their thoughts, ‘is how pleased everyone in the village would have been if we’d drowned, especially the midwife, who can’t see into our eyes and souls.’
Not everyone, Filipa thought. Jerónimo would have been devastated.
‘She’s so desperate to remarry she’d palm her daughter off on the first person she sees?’ said Renata, showing no sympathy for Maria Helena and backing her friend’s firm stance. Renata also supported Filipa’s plan to quit college and take over the guest house. The more Filipa had thought about it, the more she’d become convinced that she already had enough training and that what she lacked in experience she’d make up for in enthusiasm. She was determined to save the guest house from the ruin her foster mother had condemned it to. She’d made up her mind.
There was another reason to want to stop studying, but it was a vague feeling and not strong enough to take root. Why had there been a Maria Helena in her life? Or a Ramos for that matter, a man who had occasionally acted like a father, other times like an uncle, but most of the time had neglected to be anything at all?
She’d been careful not to get too attached to any of Ramos’ different personas. She’d focused on just living with him, as she’d done with everyone else, never showing him her private side. This was one of the reasons she was considered reserved and aloof by some, though not her college friends.
Her train of thought led her back to the time she’d heard Maria Helena tell a friend that her foster child had been the only perk of her marriage. ‘I’ve hit the jackpot there,’ she’d said, the words gushing out of her mouth, only to freeze in shock when Filipa appeared and asked her what she meant. Maria Helena had quickly regained her composure, saying Filipa had misheard and telling her off for eavesdropping. The scolding was a blessing in a way, for it had stopped Filipa dwelling on the fact that she was considered a commodity.
Whenever Filipa thought about Bia she felt her heart grow lighter, as if it might fly away. In the end she decided her semi-sister could stay and live with her, not out of loyalty to Maria Helena, but out of solidarity to the girl. It wasn’t Filipa’s job to help her foster mother fend off a mid-life crisis, but she did understand what it was like to be rejected as a child. Ramos had too big an ego to do anything to make his ex-wife’s life easier, and too much of the wastrel about him to be relied upon to do anything for anyone.
After the divorce it suited Maria Helena to project herself as a strong woman and an irreproachable mother, with no thought for her own needs, prepared to make any sacrifice for her daughter. Bia resented this deception and it opened a wound in her heart that was too often aggravated to heal. Maria Helena couldn’t see that setting such elevated standards for herself would only come back to haunt her when her priorities changed, which they duly did. She abandoned the doting mother act and, in an about-turn so brazen few would have managed to pull it off, she became a fierce advocate for a mother’s right to lead her own life and not be solely defined by her children. As Bia saw it, her mother had simply committed the same betrayal as her father. With the harshness of a nine-year-old, Bia took the insults she’d heard her mother hurl at Ramos and threw them back at her.
Maria Helena adopted a disconsolate tone when talking about her new marriage and her right to offload her daughter at an age when the girl still needed a mother. She looked to Filipa for back up, but Filipa refused to play the game. Lies, she thought, should only be employed in desperate situations.
‘And what about me?’ Maria Helena would ask ‘What will I do when you two girls leave home? Oh yes, you’ll both leave one day, happy as clams while I’m left on my own, hung out to dry like a salted cod.’ She pursed her lips as she said this and fiddled with her yellow belt, envying her girls their future happiness.
The word cod reminded Filipa of the codfish and green corn recipe she’d come up with to win a cooking prize at school. She tried to remember where she’d put the certificate with the recipe on it, while Maria Helena wittered on about how much she loved her two girls. It was a pathetic, almost comical performance, which moved Filipa not in the slightest. Sick of her foster mother’s attempts at emotional manipulation, Filipa began thinking about how tiresome mothers were. Tiresome and false.
‘What would all the mothers in the world be like if they hadn’t been driven mad by falseness?’ she wondered, imagining the woman who was supposed to be her mother, Fernanda, the muddle-headed foreigner. Then she thought of the Madwoman of Serrano. What did the three of them have in common?
Filipa had made her decision. If it was the wrong one, there would be time to rectify it later. That morning Bia had climbed into bed with her and snuggled up close, warming Filipa’s heart and encouraging her to make her decision from there. Filipa had stroked her semi-sister’s hair and smiled.
‘How do you rectify the mistakes you make in life?’ Filipa wondered as she stood in her kitchen fifteen years later. She’d made plenty of mistakes, but had no regrets and no serious physical or mental scars. In every home she’d been in she’d encountered the same quarrels, problems and resentments, the same lack of affection. The Serranoans hadn’t shouted out their hatred, but the mood had always been tense. It was as if their anger and apathy had been internalised, hidden by unknown forces that lurked in the fog that covered the mountain top and came down into the village twice a day, clinging to everyone and everything. Serrano might just as well have been named Valley of the Fog, Misty Valley or Hazy River. Filipa played around with the words while she stared at the cooker, a different packet in each hand, unsure which one to put in the pan, distracted by the dance of the flames, her eternal passion, her eternal terror. She tried to picture her foster mother’s face, but couldn’t complete the sketch in her mind. Other images, or fragments of images, came more easily:
Yellow marigolds on tables and the last rays of afternoon sun, the dining room decked out especially for the wedding, the guests bathed in a spectrum of light that ranged from pale yellow to violet; a sudden sense of discomfort, echoes of the previous day’s funeral ceremonies for the passengers who’d died when a truck came off Devil’s Bridge, an event that had overshadowed the build-up to her foster mother’s second marriage; apprehension about her own pending freedom, the realisation that the first part of life’s journey had come to an end and that it would now take another turn, one marked by the absence of her foster mother, and all the other foster parents she’d known over the years; an unfamiliar fear that took hold of her entire body and left her mouth dry, making her feel weak and look around for someone to come and whisper in her ear that it was all over, that it was just a nightmare; a powerful sense of not wanting Maria Helena’s goodbye hug to ever end, of hoping someone else might appear to hold her tight; thoughts of the Madwoman of Serrano.
It was fifteen years since she’d struck out on her own. Some days it felt as if a century had passed, but at other times the images were so vivid and the issues so unresolved that it seemed like only yesterday.
‘What a cold December!’ she muttered to herself as she added a few spoonfuls of boiling water to the juices oozing out of the turkey.
When Maria Helena’s sister saw her niece at the wedding she was charmed. She invited Bia to go and live with her and the girl gratefully accepted. What could have been going through Bia’s head? She clung to her aunt like a leech, forgetting that just a few days ago she’d had her heart set on living with her semi-sister. Filipa considered the power grown-ups have over children. She’d always been afraid of grown-ups as a child.
Grown-ups had robbed her of Jerónimo and his name. Ramos had told her that her grandmother had insisted she use the San Martin family name to receive her inheritance, a demand that had evidently pleased everyone or no one, for the subject was never broached in front of her. As she grew older and weighed up what she knew of her life, she saw this strange requirement as a subtle way of telling her to forget about her father, to assume she didn’t have one. Whenever she’d asked about her name, she’d been told a convoluted story involving saints, pledges and promises, so she’d stopped asking. Another truth postponed for another day.