The following day, the whole town was talking about the arrival of the new parish priest, and everyone knew that he had brought with him a tin trunk, that he was tall and thin, and that he addressed Canon Dias as ‘Master’.
São Joaneira’s closest friends, Dona Maria da Assunção and the Gansoso sisters, had all gone to her house first thing in the morning ‘to get all the details . . .’ It was nine o’clock; Amaro had already gone out with Canon Dias. São Joaneira, looking radiant and full of self-importance, received them at the top of the stairs, still in her morning garb, with her sleeves rolled up, and she immediately launched into an animated account of the priest’s arrival, his exquisite manners, what he had said . . .
‘Just come downstairs with me and you can see for yourselves.’
She showed them Amaro’s room, the tin trunk, the shelf she had put up for his books.
‘Oh, very nice,’ said the old ladies, ‘very nice indeed,’ as they walked slowly about the room as respectfully as if they were in church.
‘Lovely overcoat!’ remarked Dona Joaquina Gansoso, stroking the edging of the coat where it hung on the stand. ‘I bet that cost a pretty penny.’
‘And he’s got very good quality underwear!’ said São Joaneira, lifting the lid of the trunk.
The group of old ladies peered in admiringly.
‘I’m so pleased that he’s a young man,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção piously.
‘Oh, yes, so am I,’ said Dona Joaquina Gansoso authoritatively. ‘Being in the middle of your confession and seeing the dewdrop on the priest’s nose after he’s taken a pinch of snuff, the way you did with Raposo, was just awful! It’s enough to make an unbeliever of you! And as for that brute José Miguéis . . . No, give me a young man every time!’
São Joaneira went on to show them Amaro’s other marvels – a crucifix still wrapped up in a sheet of old newspaper and an album of photographs, the first of which showed the Pope blessing the Christian world. They all went into ecstasies over this.
‘Oh, isn’t he a love,’ they said.
As they left, they all kissed São Joaneira fervently and congratulated her because, by having the new parish priest as lodger, she had taken on an almost ecclesiastical authority.
‘Come back tonight,’ she called down from the top of the stairs.
‘Oh, we will!’ called back Dona Maria da Assunção, who was already at the street door, doing up her cape. ‘Then we can have a good look at him!’
Libaninho, the most active male devotee of the church in Leiria, arrived at midday. He ran up the stairs, calling out in his high voice:
‘São Joaneira!’
‘Come up, Libaninho, come up,’ she said from her seat by the window, where she was sitting sewing.
‘So the new parish priest has come, has he?’ asked Libaninho as his fat, lemon-yellow face and gleaming bald pate appeared round the dining-room door; then he minced over to her, swaying his hips.
‘So what’s he like, then? Does he seem nice?’
São Joaneira launched again into her glorification of Amaro: his youth, his pious air, the whiteness of his teeth . . .
‘Bless him!’ Libaninho said, almost drooling with devout tenderness. But he couldn’t stay, he had to get back to the office. ‘Goodbye, my dear, goodbye!’ And he patted São Joaneira’s shoulder with one plump hand. ‘You’re looking lovelier each day, you know. And I said that Hail Mary for you yesterday, just as you asked me to, so don’t say I never think of you.’
The maid had come into the room.
‘Hello, Ruça! Oh, dear, you are thin. Try praying to Our Lady Mother of Mankind!’ And glimpsing Amélia through the half-open door of her room: ‘Don’t you look a picture, Amélia! You’re the girl to show me the path to salvation all right!’
Then off he bustled, loudly clearing his throat, and scuttled down the stairs, trilling:
‘Bye now, girls! Bye!’
‘Libaninho, are you coming tonight?’
‘Oh, I can’t, my dear, I can’t!’ And his voice almost broke with sadness. ‘Tomorrow is St Barbara’s day. I have six Our Fathers to say.’
Amaro had gone to visit the precentor with Canon Dias and had given him a letter of recommendation from the Conde de Ribamar.
‘Oh, I knew the Count well,’ said the precentor. ‘We met in ’46, in Oporto. We’re old friends. I was the priest at Santo Ildefonso, oh, years ago now.’
And leaning back in his old damask armchair, he spoke with satisfaction of his life: he told anecdotes about the Junta, discussed the men of the time, imitated their voices (this was one of his specialities), their tics, their eccentricities, especially Manuel Passos, whom he described strolling in the Praça Nova, in a long, grey overcoat and a broad-brimmed hat, declaring: ‘Courage, fellow patriots! Xavier won’t give in!’
The ecclesiastical gentlemen of the cathedral chapter roared with laughter. There was an atmosphere of great cordiality. Amaro left feeling very pleased.
Afterwards, he dined at Canon Dias’ house, and they went for a stroll together along the road to Marrazes. A soft, tenuous light spread over the countryside; on the hills, in the blue air, there was a sense of repose, of sweet tranquillity; whitish smoke rose up from the hamlets, and one could hear the melancholy sound of bells as the animals wended their way back to the farms. Amaro paused by the bridge and, looking around at the pleasant landscape, he said:
‘I think I’ll get on very well here!’
‘Superbly I should say,’ said the Canon, taking a pinch of snuff.
It was eight o’clock by the time they reached São Joaneira’s house.
All her old friends were gathered in the dining room. Amélia was sitting sewing beside the oil lamp.
Dona Maria da Assunção had dressed in her Sunday black silk; she was wearing a reddish-blonde wig covered in ornamental black lace; her bony, mittened hands, which lay solemnly on her lap, glittered with rings; a thick gold chain made of filigree hung from the brooch at her neck down to her waist. She was sitting very stiff and erect, her head slightly tilted, her gold-rimmed spectacles perched on her rather equine nose; she had a large, hairy mole on her chin, and whenever she spoke of religious feelings or of miracles she would make an odd movement with her neck and then open her mouth in a silent smile that revealed enormous, greenish teeth, like wedges hammered into her gums. She was a wealthy widow and suffered from chronic catarrh.
‘This is our new parish priest, Dona Maria,’ São Joaneira said.
Dona Maria rose to her feet and, much moved, performed a shallow curtsey with just a slight movement of her hips.
‘And these are the Misses Gansoso of whom I’m sure you’ve heard,’ said São Joaneira to Amaro.
Amaro bowed shyly. There were two Gansoso sisters. They were thought to be wealthy, but often took in lodgers. The older sister, Dona Joaquina Gansoso, was a scrawny woman with a very large, elongated head, lively eyes, turned-up nose and thin lips. Wrapped in her shawl, sitting very upright, her arms folded, she talked incessantly in a shrill, domineering voice and was always full of opinions. She spoke disparagingly of men and devoted herself entirely to the Church.
Her sister, Dona Ana, was extremely deaf. She never spoke and would sit with eyes downcast, her hands in her lap, calmly twiddling her thumbs. She was a stout woman and always wore the same black dress with yellow stripes, edged at the neck with ermine; she dozed all evening and only occasionally made her presence felt with a sudden heavy sigh. It was said that she nursed a fatal passion for the post master. Everyone pitied her, but admired her skill in cutting up paper to make boxes for sweets.
Dona Josefa, Canon Dias’ sister, was also there. Her nickname was ‘the dried chestnut’. She was a shrivelled, hunched creature, with a sibilant voice and wrinkled skin the colour of cider; twitching with nervous rage, her little eyes ever ablaze with anger, she lived in a perpetual state of irritation, full to the brim with bile. She was much feared. Dr Godinho referred to her mischievously as Leiria’s Central Station of gossip.
‘Did you go for a long walk, Father?’ she immediately asked, drawing herself up very straight.
‘We went almost to the end of the Marrazes road,’ said Canon Dias, sitting down heavily behind São Joaneira.
‘It’s so pretty there, don’t you think, Father?’ said Dona Joaquina Gansoso.
‘Oh, very.’
They spoke of the lovely countryside around Leiria, of the excellent views; Dona Josefa particularly enjoyed the riverside walk; she had even heard tell that there was nothing to compare with it in Lisbon itself. Dona Joaquina Gansoso preferred the Church of the Incarnation up the hill.
‘You get a wonderful view from there.’
Amélia said, smiling:
‘I really love that part near the bridge, under the willows.’ And biting through the thread with which she was sewing, she added: ‘It’s so sad.’
Amaro looked at her then for the first time. She was wearing a blue dress that fitted closely over her lovely bosom; her plump, white throat emerged from a turn-down collar; her white teeth gleamed between fresh, red lips; and it seemed to Amaro that a fine down created a soft, subtle shadow at the corners of her mouth.
There was a brief silence. Canon Dias’ eyelids were already growing heavy, his mouth beginning to gape.
‘What can have happened to Father Brito?’ asked Dona Joaquina Gansoso.
‘The poor man’s probably got a migraine,’ remarked Dona Maria da Assunção pityingly.
A young man standing by the sideboard said:
‘I saw him out riding today, heading for Barrosa.’
‘Well, frankly,’ said the Canon’s sister, Dona Josefa Dias, sourly, ‘it’s a miracle you noticed.’
‘Why do you say that, Senhora?’ he said, getting up and going over to the old ladies.
He was tall and dressed all in black; standing out against the white skin of his regular, rather weary features was a short, very dark moustache, whose drooping ends he was in the habit of chewing.
‘“Why?” he asks!’ exclaimed Dona Josefa Dias. ‘You never even take off your hat to him!’
‘Me?’
‘He told me so himself,’ she said in a cutting voice, then added: ‘Father, Senhor João Eduardo here needs setting on the right path.’ And she gave a malicious laugh.
‘I don’t happen to think I’m on the wrong path,’ João Eduardo said, laughing, his hands in his pockets. And he kept glancing over at Amélia.
‘Oh, very funny!’ said Dona Joaquina Gansoso. ‘Well, you’re certainly not going to get into Heaven after what you said this evening about the Holy Woman of Arregaça!’
‘Really!’ roared the Canon’s sister, turning on João Eduardo. ‘And what did you have to say about her, pray? You don’t perhaps think she’s an impostor, do you?’
‘Oh, good heavens!’ said Dona Maria da Assunção, clutching her hands and staring at João Eduardo in pious horror. ‘Did he say that? Good heavens!’
‘No,’ said the Canon gravely; he had woken up and was unfurling his red handkerchief. ‘João Eduardo would never say such a thing.’
Amaro asked:
‘Who is the Holy Woman of Arregaçã?’
‘You mean you haven’t heard of her, Father?’ exclaimed an astonished Dona Maria da Assunção.
‘You must have,’ declared Dona Josefa Dias firmly. ‘They say the newspapers in Lisbon are full of it.’
‘It certainly is a pretty extraordinary case,’ said the Canon in a low voice.
São Joaneira interrupted her knitting, took off her spectacles and said:
‘Oh, Father, you just can’t imagine! It’s the miracle of miracles!’
‘Oh, it is, it is!’ they all agreed.
There was a moment of devout silence.
‘But what is it?’ asked Amaro, filled with curiosity.
‘You see, Father,’ began Dona Joaquina Gansoso, straightening her shawl and speaking in solemn tones, ‘the Holy Woman lives in a neighbouring parish and has spent the last twenty years in bed . . .’
‘Twenty-five,’ Dona Maria da Assunção corrected her quietly, tapping her on the arm with her fan.
‘Twenty-five? I heard the precentor say it was twenty.’
‘No, it’s twenty-five,’ affirmed São Joaneira, ‘twenty-five.’
And the Canon agreed, nodding gravely.
‘She’s completely paralysed, Father,’ the Canon’s sister said, eager to join in. ‘And she looks like a ghost! Her arms are this thin,’ and she held up her little finger, ‘and to hear her speak you have to put your ear right up against her mouth.’
‘It’s only by the grace of God that she’s still here,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção mournfully. ‘Poor woman! It makes you think . . .’
Amongst the old women an emotion-filled silence fell. João Eduardo, who was standing behind them, hands in pockets, was smiling and chewing his moustache. He said:
‘According to the doctors, Father, she suffers from some sort of nervous disease.’
The irreverence of this remark caused a scandal amongst the devotees, and Dona Maria da Assunção took the precautionary measure of making the sign of the cross.
‘Merciful God!’ boomed Dona Josefa Dias, ‘You may say that in front of anyone else, but not in front of me. I consider it an insult.’
‘He might be struck down by a thunderbolt,’ muttered a terrified Dona Maria da Assunção.
‘Absolutely’ exclaimed Dona Josefa Dias, ‘you are a man without religion and with no respect for holy things.’ Then turning to Amélia, she said sourly: ‘I certainly wouldn’t want him to marry a daughter of mine!’
Amélia reddened, and João Eduardo, who also turned red, bowed sarcastically and said:
‘I am merely repeating what the doctors say. As for the rest, believe me, I have absolutely no ambitions to marry anyone in your family. Not even you, Dona Josefa!’
The Canon gave an embarrassed laugh.
‘How dare you!’ she spluttered.
‘But what does the Holy Woman do?’ asked Father Amaro, trying to restore peace.
‘Everything, Father,’ said Dona Joaquina Gansoso. ‘She never leaves her bed and she has prayers for every occasion; anyone she prays for receives the grace of Our Lord; people only have to touch her and they are cured. And when she takes communion, she starts to rise up until she’s floating in the air, with her eyes lifted up to heaven; it’s quite alarming really.’
But at that moment, a voice at the door called out:
‘Hello, everybody! What’s all this then?’
The voice belonged to an extremely tall, sallow youth with sunken cheeks, a brush of tangled hair and a Quixotic moustache; when he laughed, he looked as if he had a shadow in his mouth because he had lost nearly all his front teeth; and there was a lingering look of sentimentality in his sunken eyes, which were surrounded by dark circles. He was carrying a guitar.
‘So how are you?’ everyone asked.
‘Pretty bad,’ he said glumly, sitting down. ‘I’ve still got pains in my chest and a slight cough.’
‘The cod liver oil didn’t help then?’
‘No,’ he said disconsolately.
‘A trip to Madeira, that’s what you need,’ said Dona Joaquina Gansoso authoritatively.
He laughed with sudden hilarity.
‘A trip to Madeira? That’s a good one! You’re a real card, Dona Joaquina! A poor clerk earning eighteen vinténs a day, with a wife and four children to keep, going on a trip to Madeira!’
‘And how is Joanita?’
‘Not too bad, poor thing. She’s got her health, thank God! She’s nice and plump and always has a good appetite. It’s my two youngest who are ill, and to make matters worse, the maid just took to her bed too. All one can do is have patience!’ He shrugged.
Then turning to São Joaneira and patting her knee, he said:
‘And how’s our Mother Abbess today?’
Everyone laughed, and Dona Joaquina Gansoso explained to Amaro that the young man, Artur Couceiro, was most amusing and had a beautiful singing voice. He was the best singer of popular songs in Leiria.
At that point, Ruça came in with the tea, and São Joaneira, holding the teapot high above the cups to pour, was saying:
‘Come along, ladies, come along. This is really excellent tea. I bought it in Sousa’s shop . . .’
And Artur offered around the sugar with his usual joke:
‘Salt anyone?’
The old ladies took small sips from their saucers, carefully selected a slice of buttered toast and sat down, chewing thoughtfully; and because of the risk of staining from dripping butter and tea, they prudently placed their handkerchiefs on their laps.
‘Would you like a cake, Father?’ asked Amélia, holding out the plate to him. ‘They’re fresh today from Encarnação.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Have a piece of angel cake.’
‘Well, if it’s angel cake, I will,’ he said, beaming. And as he picked up the slice with the tips of his fingers, he looked up at her.
Artur usually sang for them after tea. On the piano, a candle illuminated the sheet music, and as soon as Ruça had cleared away the tea things, Amélia sat down and ran her fingers over the yellow keys.
‘So what is it to be today?’ asked Artur.
Everyone shouted out their requests:
“The Warrior”, “The Wedding at the Graveside”, “The Unbeliever”, “Never more”!
From his corner, Canon Dias said dully:
‘Couceiro, give us “Naughty Uncle Cosme”!
The women all cried out reprovingly:
‘Honestly! Really, Canon! What an idea!’
And Dona Joaquina Gansoso declared:
‘Certainly not! Give us something with real feeling so that Father Amaro can get an idea of your singing.’
‘Yes, yes,’ they all cried, ‘something with real feeling, Artur!’
Artur cleared his throat, adopted a look of great sorrow and sang dolefully:
Farewell, my angel, I leave without you!
It was ‘The Farewell’, a song from the romantic days of 1851. It spoke of a final goodbye, in a wood, on a pale autumn afternoon; then, the solitary reprobate, who had inspired a fateful love, wandered, with windswept hair, by the sea; there was a forgotten grave in a distant valley, over which pale virgins wept in the moonlight.
‘Lovely, absolutely lovely,’ they all murmured.
Artur was singing tenderly, his gaze abstracted; however, in the intervals, while the piano played on, he would smile at those around him and in his shadowy mouth one could see the remains of rotten teeth. Carried away by that morbid, sentimental melody, Father Amaro was standing by the window, smoking and studying Amélia: the light traced a luminous line around her delicate profile; he could see the harmonious curve of her breast; and he watched the gentle rise and fall of her long-lashed lids as her eyes went back and forth from the music to the keyboard. João Eduardo, standing beside her, was turning the pages for her.
But Artur, one hand on his chest, the other raised in the air, in a gesture of utter desolation, was singing the final verse:
And from this wretched life I will one day
Find rest in the darkness of the grave!
‘Bravo! Bravo!’ they all exclaimed.
And Canon Dias said quietly to Amaro:
‘No one can touch him when it comes to love songs.’ Then he yawned loudly. ‘You know, that squid we had for lunch has been repeating on me all evening.’
But it was time for a game of lotto. Everyone chose their usual cards, and Dona Josefa Dias, her greedy eyes glinting, was already rattling the big bag of numbers.
‘Sit down here, Father,’ said Amélia.
It was a seat next to her. He hesitated, but the others had all moved up to make room, and so he sat down, blushing slightly and shyly adjusting his clerical collar.
A heavy silence fell; then, in a calm voice, the Canon began drawing the numbers. Dona Ana Gansoso was dozing in her corner, snoring quietly.
The light from the lamp fell directly on the table, so that all their heads were in darkness; and the bright light falling on the dark cloth emphasised the cards blackened with use and the bony, claw-like hands of the old ladies, fiddling with their glass counters. On the open piano the candle was burning down with a tall, straight flame.
The Canon growled out the numbers, using the venerable, traditional calls:
‘Number one, all alone, thirty-three, all the threes . . .’
‘I need twenty-one,’ said a voice.
‘I’ve got thirty-three,’ gloated someone else.
And the Canon’s sister said urgently:
‘Mix the numbers up, brother, go on!’
‘And bring me that forty-seven, even if you have to drag it out of there,’ said Artur Couceiro, his head resting on his hands.
In the end, the Canon won. And Amélia, looking round the room, said:
‘Aren’t you playing, João Eduardo? Where are you?’
João Eduardo emerged from behind the curtain at the window.
‘Have a card, go on, play.’
‘And you might as well collect everyone’s money while you’re on your feet,’ said São Joaneira. ‘You can be the banker!’
João Eduardo went round with a saucer. There were ten réis missing when he had finished.
‘I’ve put my money in!’ everyone exclaimed excitedly.
It turned out to be the Canon’s sister who had not touched her little pile of coins. Bowing, João Eduardo said:
‘I don’t believe Dona Josefa has put her money in yet.’
‘Me?’ she shouted, furious. ‘Well, really! I was the first. Honestly! I put in two five-réis coins. The cheek of the man!’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Oh, well, it must have been me then. There we are.’ And he muttered to himself: ‘Hypocritical old thief!’
And the Canon’s sister was meanwhile whispering to Dona Maria da Assunção:
‘He wanted to see if he could get away with it, the rascal. No fear of God, that’s his problem.’
‘The only person who isn’t happy is Father Amaro,’ they observed.
Amaro smiled. He was tired and distracted; sometimes he even forgot to mark his card, and Amélia would say to him, touching his elbow:
‘You haven’t marked your card, Father.’
They had both had a three, and she had beaten him; now they both needed a thirty-six in order to win.
Everyone in the group noticed.
‘Now let’s see if they both win together,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção, gazing at them adoringly.
But thirty-six was not called; other people had other blanks to fill; Amélia was afraid that the winner would be Dona Joaquina Gansoso, who kept fidgeting on her chair, demanding a forty-eight. Amaro was laughing, drawn in despite himself.
The Canon drew out the numbers with mischievous slowness.
‘Oh come on, Canon, faster!’ they kept telling him.
Amélia, leaning over her card, her eyes shining, murmured:
‘I’d give anything for the thirty-six to be called.’
‘Really? Well, there it is . . . number thirty-six!’ said the Canon.
‘We won!’ she cried triumphantly, and picking up Amaro’s card and hers, she showed them to the others, proud and very flushed, so that they could check the cards.
‘God bless you both,’ said the Canon jovially, emptying out the saucerful of coins in front of them.
‘It’s like a miracle,’ said Dona Maria da Assunção piously.
But it had struck eleven o’clock, and after that final triumph, the old ladies began putting on their shawls again. Amélia sat down at the piano, quietly playing a polka. João Eduardo went over to her and said in a low voice:
‘Well, congratulations on winning at lotto with the parish priest. Such excitement!’ And before she could reply, he said an abrupt ‘goodnight’, haughtily wrapping his cloak around him.
Ruça lit the way. The old ladies, well wrapped up, went down the stairs, bleating out their ‘goodnights’. Artur was strumming his guitar and softly singing ‘The Unbeliever’.
Amaro went to his room and began reading his breviary, but he grew distracted, thinking about the old ladies, Artur’s rotten teeth and, above all, Amélia’s profile. As he sat on the edge of the bed, his breviary open, staring at the lamp, he could see her hair, her small hands with their rather dark fingers bearing the marks of needle-pricks, the charming down on her upper lip . . .
His head felt heavy after lunch at the Canon’s and after the monotonous game of lotto, and he felt thirsty too after the squid they had eaten and the port they had drunk. He wanted some water, but there was none in his room. He remembered then that in the dining room there was a jug containing good, cool water from the Morenal spring. He put on his slippers, picked up the candlestick and went slowly up the stairs. There was a light on in the room, but the door curtain was drawn: he lifted it, but immediately stepped back with a sharp intake of breath. He had caught a glimpse of Amélia in a white petticoat, unfastening her corset; she was standing by the lamp, and the short sleeves and low neckline of her blouse revealed her white arms and her delicious bosom. She uttered a cry and ran into her room.
Amaro stood stock still, beads of sweat on his forehead. They might think he had done this on purpose. Indignant words would doubtless emerge from behind the curtain, which was still swaying angrily.
But Amélia’s voice asked calmly from within:
‘What did you want, Father?’
‘I just came up to get some water . . .’ he stammered.
‘That Ruça, honestly! She’s so forgetful. I’m sorry, Father, really I am. There’s a water jug just by the table. Have you found it?’
‘Yes, yes, I have.’
He went back down the stairs carrying a full glass of water; his hand was shaking and water overflowed onto his fingers.
He went to bed without praying. Later that night, Amélia could hear nervous footsteps walking back and forth: it was Amaro, still in his slippers and with his cape around his shoulders, smoking and pacing excitedly up and down the room.