“Father Bonifacio was here with the little girl, Senhorita Candelária,” Samuel said.
“When he asked for the money,” I said.
Samuel’s lips were dry. “Yes. And Dom Abílio said to him, ‘I don’t owe you anything more than I owe any of those who work for me. You will be paid at the final sale of the company, not before.’ But Father Bonifacio said, ‘No, I need it now,’ and again Dom Abílio refused. The Father said, ‘I will go then, to Estoril, and tell your wife what you’re doing.’ They had talked about you, Dona Beatriz, when Father Bonifacio asked where you were and Dom Abílio told him you visited your aunt.”
“Go on,” Dona Beatriz said.
“Father Bonifacio spoke of a paper, a paper that said Dom Abílio would never be allowed to sell Kipling’s. That it belonged to you, Dona Beatriz, and that the paper would stop Dom Abílio. Father Bonifacio then spoke of you, Senhora Rivaldo, of his wife Diamantina, and I didn’t understand how a Father could have a wife. But he said that you told him about this paper.
“At this, Dom Abílio laughed, and said to the Father, ‘You would believe anything your wife tells you?’ And then he said …” Samuel stopped, looking at me. “I’m sorry, Senhora Rivaldo. I cannot repeat what Dom Abílio said about you. It made the Father very angry, and he denied the accusations about you. And then … I don’t understand this part, Dona Beatriz. Dom Abílio took off his boots, and his stockings. I thought it must be because of his misery with the gout, but for him to remove his boots in the presence of a guest … a Father especially.” Samuel raised his eyebrows. “And he didn’t tell me to bring him the footbath. Instead, he showed his feet to Father Bonifacio.”
Dona Beatriz was staring at Samuel, her face pale and fixed except for the twitch at the side of her mouth.
“What happened then, Samuel?” I asked.
“Dom Abílio said to the Father, ‘Look at my feet and tell me you don’t think your wife is …’ ” Again he stopped. “Once more he spoke harsh words about you, Senhora Rivaldo, and then he said to the Father, ‘So now you know the truth.’
“Father Bonifacio grew even angrier. ‘I thought she was my brother’s child,’ he kept saying. ‘I accused my brother, and lost all those years with him,’ the Father said. Then he again asked Dom Abílio for money, and when he was again refused, he said he would nevertheless go to you, Dona Beatriz, and tell you what Dom Abílio was doing.”
Samuel ran his hand over his face. “And then the Father turned to leave.” Samuel looked at a side table holding bottles and heavy crystal decanters. “Dom Abílio told him that he wouldn’t allow him to go to you, Dona Beatriz, but the Father kept going towards the door, and Dom Abílio … struck him.” Samuel swallowed and gestured at the decanters, filled with ruby and amber and mahogany spirits. “He struck him down,” Samuel repeated, looking from Dona Beatriz to me. “A Jesuit Father,” he finally said, in almost a whisper.
We sat in silence. And then Dona Beatriz said, “You must tell us what happened after that, Samuel.”
Samuel’s next sentences came out in a rush. “Father Bonifacio was on the floor, lying in the wine. He looked up at me, confused by the blow. He lifted one hand. ‘Help me,’ he said, and I went to him. But Dom Abílio shouted, ‘No, leave him.’ ” Samuel took a white scrap of cloth from his pocket and touched his forehead, his upper lip, his neck. “And then … it becomes worse, Dona Beatriz, Senhora Rivaldo. I don’t know how to tell you.”
“It’s all right,” Dona Beatriz said softly.
Samuel clenched his fists and beat them lightly upon his thighs. “Dom Abílio went to Father Bonifacio, and … and pressed his bare foot onto his throat. Father Bonifacio put his hands around Dom Abílio’s leg and tried to push him away, but he was already weak. There was so much blood spreading from under his head. I tried to pull Dom Abílio away. He still held the decanter, and he swung it at me, hitting me in the face.”
I remembered meeting Samuel the first day I arrived. His swollen eye and bruised cheekbone.
“I fell. As I struggled to rise, Dom Abílio pressed, harder and harder, on Father Bonifacio’s throat. I finally was able to stand, but Father Bonifacio’s face was growing dark as he choked, and his tongue … The blood was still coming from the back of his head, making a puddle with the wine under him, and then … he lay still.” Samuel’s eyes were wet, and he continued to pound his own thighs as if trying to drive away the image in his head.
I saw it too, and heard Bonifacio, choking and gasping as he died, with Candelária outside in the garden.
And then there was a rustle of silk, and Dona Beatriz was at the window, her back straight as she stared at the greenery.
“Dom Abílio said he had to get rid of the little girl quickly, and would take her to the convent.” Samuel wiped his eyes with the scrap of cloth. “The blood was there,” he said, pointing at the carpet. “I cleaned it, but I know it’s still there. I’ll always know it’s there. I stayed with Father … with the body of Father Bonifacio, until Dom Abílio returned from the convent. We left the salon, and he locked the door from the outside so none of the servants would come in, and when it was dark, and the other servants asleep, he came to get me. We wrapped Father Bonifacio in a blanket and together carried him out to the carriage house and put him in the small carriage. Dom Abílio told me to take the body to the Tagus and throw it in. I put a horse in the traces and wrapped burlap around its feet, so as not to make any noise as I left the carriage house. Then I went, slowly and quietly, to the river.” He rubbed his face with trembling fingers.
“But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t throw him into the water. If I were to do that, I would be part of this crime of taking the life of not only a man, but a priest. And I am a servant of Christ,” he said, crossing himself. “And so I took him to the side steps of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, and left him there, so that he would have a burial proper for a Jesuit Father. I couldn’t bear to think of this man—a man of God—with no proper resting place. I knew the good Fathers at Mosteiro dos Jerónimos would care for him properly when they saw by his robe that he was a Jesuit.”
Dona Beatriz still hadn’t turned from the window.
“I worked all my life for your mother’s family, Dona Beatriz, and then I tried to carry out my duties for Dom Abílio. But I couldn’t do what he asked that night.”
Finally, Dona Beatriz turned and faced him. “Samuel. You did what you could. You tried to stop Abílio. And it was right to take Bonifacio to the church.”
Samuel looked at me. “I’m sorry, Senhora Rivaldo,” he said, lowering his head.
Dona Beatriz came to me. “Diamantina,” she said. Her face, in spite of its jerking dance, was soft with sympathy. “I’m sorry as well, truly sorry for what Abílio did to Bonifacio. I’m so, so sorry that because of Abílio, Bonifacio died alone, in such a terrible way, far from his home.” She put her arms around me then. “We have both lost our husbands.”
I left Dona Beatriz in the salon and went to Cristiano’s bedroom. I sat beside him and said that Bonifacio had unexpectedly met tragedy before he could leave for Brazil.
“Tragedy?” he repeated, and when I nodded, he said, “He’s dead?”
I looked into his face. “Yes.” How much to tell him—and to what end? In spite of his harsh feelings for Bonifacio, I didn’t want Cristiano to think of Bonifacio dying in such a horrible manner. But Cristiano didn’t ask me what happened. “Can we still live at Quinta Isabella?” he asked.
“I think so,” I told him. “Don’t worry about that now.”
We sat in silence for a while, and then I went to Candelária, playing with her doll on the bed. I put Bonifacio’s pendant into her hands. “Candelária,” I said. “Papa went to God.”
She stared at me. “Not to Brazil?”
“He’s with God, in Heaven,” I said, then held my breath, waiting for her, as I had waited with Cristiano, to ask what had happened to him. But they had both seen so much death now.
She traced the starry sun with her fingertips. “Is Papa happy?” she whispered.
“I’m sure he’s happy.”
She nodded. “He always wanted to be with God. And he was good, so he will be in God’s Kingdom,” she stated, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Yes,” I said. “He only wanted to be with God, and now he is.”
The next morning was bright, the wind off the Tagus brisk, when Dona Beatriz, Cristiano, Candelária and I went to Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.
I left Candelária with Cristiano in the nave, and sought out the Monsignor. I spoke to him about the body of a Jesuit being left on the steps in the weeks preceding the earthquake.
“Yes. We did discover the body of a Jesuit Father on our steps. You are his family?” the man asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He was Father Bonifacio Rivaldo, a former missionary in Brazil. We have only now heard of his death, and that he was left here by … a friend.”
“I offer my deepest sympathy,” the Monsignor said. “There was no way to identify him, apart from his Jesuit robe. Because of his order, we arranged to have him taken to Igreja de São Roque, in Lisboa, to be interred. He was treated with great respect,” he added.
“São Roque is very lovely. It’s the oldest Jesuit church in Portugal,” Dona Beatriz said, squeezing my hand.
“I’m sorry to say that I haven’t yet heard if the church withstood the earthquake,” the Monsignor said. “I could dedicate a funeral Mass to Father Bonifacio here, if that would be of comfort.”
When I nodded, he said, “I will arrange it.”
As the four of us walked out of the church, we passed the mural at the front of the monastery. As a former sailors’ church, there were many engravings of sea life—sailing ships and anchors, patterns of knotted ropes, fish and sirens.
Candelária stopped in front of a sereia with long flowing hair and swishing tail, lips curved up in a smile. “This is a picture of Avó Shada,” she said, tracing the mermaid’s outline with her fingertips. I realized it was the depiction Candelária had repeatedly drawn in the earth when I put up the headstone for my mother, the image my mother had drawn on her own body: the forked tail and waves.
Was this my mother’s story, then, her myth? That she had become a mermaid when thrown from the Algerian ship, and washed up on the shores of Porto Santo, losing her tail to earthly legs? That she hadn’t wanted to go back into the water before she was ready to return to the depths whence she had come?
Candelária looked up at me with her shining dark eyes. “It looks like Avó Shada swimming in the water. She likes it there,” she added, and then kissed her fingertips and touched them to the long-haired siren, and we walked from the church, into the crisp, fresh-smelling November air.