AMONG THE PEOPLE who came to our house to pay their respects in the weeks and months after the death of my mother was the Countess Lorena de Braganza. She was twenty, barely five years older than me, and only a passing acquaintance of our family, yet she stroked my papa’s arm as if she were his closest friend, and purred sympathy into his ear.
At first I paid her little heed, for I was concentrating on business of my own. I had discovered a purpose, a special mission of charity to undertake. I thought that if I could find the beggar boy’s mother and rescue her from poverty, then I could be like my own mama and thus be near her even though we were parted. I saw myself now as an angel of mercy and hoped that it would expiate my wrongdoing and relieve some of the guilt I felt over the beggarman’s death.
I knew that I would have to go into the poorer areas of the town, and for that I must have an escort. I did not ask Ramón Salazar. I didn’t think he would agree. In any case his visits to my home lately often coincided with those of Lorena de Braganza when his attention was distracted by her conversation and witty remarks and there was no opportunity for me to speak to him privately for any length of time.
I decided to ask help from Garci, our farm manager. I was confident that he would assist me: from when I was small, he could refuse me nothing. He and his wife, Serafina, had never been blessed with children of their own, and they doted on me, so I could beg him for anything and he complied with my wishes. Therefore I was taken aback when I outlined my proposal to him and he shook his head,
‘No, Zarita. I won’t go with you into the slums of the town. We cannot have another incident where your father has to deliver quick justice to control thieving and violence.’
‘Justice!’ I exclaimed. ‘That wasn’t justice, Garci. You cannot mean you condone what my papa did in hanging the beggar without trial!’
‘I wasn’t there,’ Garci replied slowly. ‘As you know, I was at the horse fair in Barqua.’ He looked at me severely. ‘And that’s the main reason why you were able to leave this house accompanied only by Ramón Salazar. Had I been here, I wouldn’t have opened the compound gate for you to go to the streets of the old port without more of an armed escort, and a female companion.’
I shifted uncomfortably. Garci had guessed that I’d taken advantage of the turmoil in the house that day: my papa and Ardelia and Serafina, our housekeeper, had been occupied with Mama, and I’d managed to slip out with only Ramón as escort.
‘So, as I didn’t witness the situation myself,’ he went on, ‘I will not judge your father’s actions. He is a rigorous man.’ He paused. ‘And now that your mother has passed away, who is there to remind him that mercy is a God-given virtue?’
Garci had mentioned my mother and I saw his weak spot. ‘Mama would have wished this,’ I told him. ‘She would have been horrified by the beggar’s death and would have made sure that his wife was cared for.’
A few moments elapsed before Garci replied. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘Your mama would have done as you say. I will go with you and look for this poor woman.’
Garci understood that Papa was not to know of our expedition, so we waited until one afternoon when he was absent from home visiting the Countess Lorena’s father’s house in the nearby hills. I had the sense to dress very plainly, wearing neither fine clothes nor jewels and covering my hair and face completely. Yet before we even reached the outer barriadas of the town Garci wished to turn back. ‘These slums are no place for any decent person,’ he told me.
‘Yet there must be good people who live here,’ I said. ‘Or do you think poverty makes one indecent?’
This was one of my mama’s sayings: she would defend her almsgiving to my papa when he declared that, in his opinion, the poor brought misfortune upon themselves. Garci didn’t reply; just made a clicking noise with his tongue to show his disapproval.
‘I am performing an act of charity,’ I added in order to appease him, and then I reminded him, ‘My mama would have approved.’
‘Ah, your mama,’ Garci said. ‘She was the kindest of women.’ He sighed, and I knew that there were tears in his eyes.
After this he became more amenable to knocking on doors to enquire the whereabouts of any ill woman who might be on her own now, but had previously had a husband and a boy looking after her. However, we could find no trace of the woman. A great number of doors remained shut against us, and the people who did open up were hostile and suspicious. Finally Garci stopped in the middle of the street.
‘It’s hopeless,’ he said. ‘The beggar’s wife could be in any room in this warren of buildings, too sick to rise up to answer our knock.’
There was an old woman sitting on a doorstep. I went over and knelt in front of her. ‘Mother,’ I said.
She looked at me with the milky white eyes of the very old. ‘I have no daughter,’ she replied. ‘I had three fine sons, but they went to war and I never saw them again.’
‘I call you Mother because I have none of my own,’ I told her softly. The old woman reached out a gnarled hand and touched mine. I asked her if she knew of anyone who might be the woman we were looking for.
‘I know of no such person,’ she said.
In despair I sat back on my heels. Then I felt in my purse and took out a coin and gave it to her. She hid it in a fold of her clothes, and I wondered how many days’ bread that would give her.
As I stood up, the old woman raised her head and said, ‘There may be one who will help you. There is a man, a doctor, who lives in the house at the far end of the street. He goes to those who are sick but have no money.’
I walked quickly to the house she’d indicated. But when we drew near to the door, Garci hung back.
‘This is the house of a Jew,’ he said, and he blessed himself.
‘It is the house of a doctor who might be able to help us,’ I replied.
A man opened the front door and stood in the entrance. ‘Why do you stand in the street staring at my home?’
Garci put his hand on my arm to guide me away. The man seemed amused by this and made to go back inside. I spoke up briskly. ‘I’m looking for a woman, a particular sick woman.’ I described all I knew of the beggar’s wife.
‘I may know this person,’ he said. ‘Some days ago I was called by a neighbour to attend to a woman whom she’d heard was gravely ill. The neighbour told me that the woman’s husband had been executed and her son had disappeared and not returned home, so she had no one to look after her.’
I pulled out my purse and thrust it at him. ‘You can have any money you need to buy her medicine and pay for your time in curing her.’
He tilted his head on one side and surveyed me. ‘Is this an act of mercy, or of a guilty conscience?’ he asked quietly.
Behind my veil my face flushed in shame and I could not reply. Had he heard the story of how the beggar had died? Did he recognize me as the daughter of the magistrate?
‘No matter’ – he seemed to come to a decision – ‘I will take you to her.’
The woman lay on a pallet of straw in a room on an upper floor of a house two streets away. When we entered, something scuttled away in the far corner, and she stirred and cried out.
The doctor bent over her and spoke to her rapidly in a language unknown to me. By the door Garci blessed himself again.
The doctor raised her up and helped her drink some liquid from a bottle he’d brought with him. Then she sank back down on the makeshift bed, her body not much more than a bundle of bones.
‘Does she know you?’ the doctor asked me.
I shook my head.
‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ he said. ‘She’s too far gone to recognize anyone.’ He pulled the blanket about her and then ushered us outside.
Again I offered him my purse.
‘The woman is dying,’ he said. ‘I cannot cure her. No one can. The good neighbour brings her some thin soup and water each day for she can eat nothing else, and I come every evening and give her enough opiate to ease her pain for the night.’ He raised his eyes and stared at my own behind my veil. ‘Keep your money and spend it where it might help the living.’ He glanced up and down the street. His implication was obvious.
When he left us, I turned and spoke to Garci. ‘We must take her out of here, away from the vermin in this building.’
‘If you move her she will die,’ Garci said.
‘She will die anyway. Let us help her die in better conditions than this.’
‘We cannot bring her to your house!’ Garci was aghast.
I knew this. My papa wouldn’t suffer such an intrusion.
‘No,’ I said, ‘we’ll take her to a peaceful place where she will be cared for with love.’
So it was in the convent hospital of my aunt Beatriz that I helped nurse the beggar’s wife during the last weeks of her life.