Chapter 14
I make up my mind to leave this evening.
I do not know whether there is a reasonable explanation for what I’ve seen, but at any rate I am not recovering well here.
This house makes me ill. Leandro, in his current state, makes me ill.
I do not know how I will face Mother, but it is clear that no proposal will come of this retreat, no matter how long I stay.
Once I am home I can get my bearings and think more clearly about the situation.
If I confide in Eloisa and my sister, I may be able to determine if my fears are warranted or if I am jumping to premature conclusions.
The idea that Leandro kidnapped a woman and held her prisoner is quite far-fetched. But even so…
I have neither carriage nor horse of my own nor the faintest idea how to get home from here.
I remember Leandro mentioning once that the Santa Tereza is in the interior of the province, a thirty-minute ride into town.
I need either Leandro’s or Doctor Lobo’s permission and assistance to leave. I cannot do it on my own.
I head downstairs for dinner once the clock strikes six.
I find Leandro sitting alone in the parlor.
The dinner table is made up with fine china and crystal glassware.
A cream-colored linen cloth has been starched and ironed, replacing the oilcloth one used during the day, and a flower vase sits at the center.
The food is not yet served, but the wall clock indicates it’s nearly time for dinner.
Long candles flicker on the table and mantelpiece.
Leandro doesn’t notice me as I approach. He has a burning cigarette in one hand and a glass of liquor in the other. Only when I stand right next to him does he look up at me, almost startled. He stands abruptly and asks me how I’m feeling. Then he takes my hand and kisses it gently.
“How was your afternoon?” I ask, noting the bottle of cognac and the overflowing ashtray.
“I…” He starts and stops, as though there’s something stuck in his throat. It is then that I notice the glassy, unfocused quality of his eyes. His forehead is damp and his hair messy. His shirt is untucked. Beside him sits a glass with ice cubes next to a half-empty bottle.
“I added a new lie to the box of lies,” he says.
I start to laugh, thinking he’s joking, then I stop.
“Is that some sort of a riddle?” I smile politely.
His features contort, then he grabs the glass and tips it back. He stands and goes to the window. When he passes me, I catch a whiff of alcohol. He is drunk.
He’s smoking by the window now, juggling the cigarette and the drink in one hand.
Has something happened since this afternoon?
He cannot possibly have just started drinking, given his state now.
He must have started hours ago. If so, what prompted it?
His mental state has declined from earlier, and that sets my heart on edge.
I fear how he will react when I propose to depart early. Best to wait for Doctor Lobo to arrive.
“Leandro…” I move to stand beside him. “Is everything all right?”
He’s gazing out the window so intently that I look for something he might be seeing beyond the glass. But I only see the driveway, the yard, and the stable. The groundskeeper is hacking away at weeds in the distance. Macaws circle the low-lying clouds on the horizon. There’s nothing of note.
Leandro’s eyes may be looking out, but his gaze is turned inward.
“I’m invisible,” he mutters, then takes another sip of his drink.
“I don’t understand.”
He doesn’t look at me and I wonder if he even heard me. If he’s even speaking to me at all.
It’s the hour of waning sunlight just before dusk, the hazy twilight when the sky is a dull gray-blue. And while I can still see what’s beyond the window, I can also see a faint reflection on the glass. Leandro’s own reflection is barely visible, but it’s there.
Leandro is staring ahead, but I’m not at all sure what he’s seeing in the screen of his mind.
There’s a schism between us that’s been there since the accident.
There’s a line between his brows, a poignant look in his eyes.
It’s like sometimes I talk and he doesn’t hear me.
His reflection in the window is an unblinking figure in the shape of a man.
Unlike the real Leandro, his reflection seems to be looking at me.
“It’s my fault,” he says to the window.
“What is?”
“Everything.”
There’s so much pain in his eyes now. What is he talking about? What terrible thing happened here to make him feel this way?
“Who are you talking to?” I say.
He doesn’t look at me.
I am certain of one thing now: Whoever he is thinking about, it’s someone from his past. Maybe it is the foul woman.
The presence I’ve felt in this fazenda all along.
I saw her in the room, I smelled her in the sheets.
The lavender-rose perfume. The jewels. The singing bird box.
There is so much left of her in this house.
She’s in the walls, in the windows, in the air, in the mold, in the shadows.
I can almost see her in Leandro’s glassy eyes now.
Is she who he’s seeing in the window?
The chaise longue in the senzala. The cold, dark, damp, dungeon-like senzala. It’s his fault, he says. What did he do?
“Leandro…” I start, edging closer to him. “Did a woman use to live here with you?”
He looks at me, finally. There is a light in his eyes, a flash of presence, as though he’s seeing me. As though I’m finally speaking a language he can understand.
I know I’m right. He said that he’s been here for only six months, but what if he lied about that? Maybe six months ago is when she died.
“Did she die here?” I ask.
He regards me. He is present, understanding. My question broke through to him, and I sense that I am on the right track, that perhaps I will finally have an answer.
Just then, trotting horses usher a carriage into the driveway. Doctor Lobo has arrived. Heavens, Doctor Lobo, not now. I’m so close to having a breakthrough with Leandro.
“I just want to be seen…” Leandro says, once again focused on the window. “Just once before the end.”
A cold feeling grips my bones. “What end?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Leandro,” I press. “What do you mean by ‘the end’?”
There comes a loud knock at the door, three in a row. Leandro startles, steps around me, and heads to the foyer.
Leandro sits beside me at dinner, mute and dead eyed. He’s too drunk to maintain a conversation anyway, I suppose. He put only a sliver of steak on his plate and a meager portion of farofa. He reminds me of the inscription at the entrance of Hell in the Inferno: Abandon all hope, ye who enter.
I’m still rattled by his disturbing words. All this talk about the end. There’s a dark cloud around him. Is it just the alcohol that caused his mental state to deteriorate so much since this afternoon? Or is something else going on?
The end. God, is he planning to do something terrible? In the middle ring of the seventh circle of Hell, souls guilty of committing suicide inhabit trees and are fed upon by harpies. They destroyed their physical bodies in life, and thus in Hell they lack bodies of their own.
I shudder. I must not jump to conclusions. I try to conjure memories of us at the S?o Jo?o festival, and even before that, the day we spent at the circus, how happy Leandro was then. Surely he’s not thinking of doing anything so dire.
Doctor Lobo, either oblivious to or unconcerned about Leandro’s mental state, carries on with his grandiose manner.
Passes the salt, pours pepper over the carne de sol.
And did I tell you about the marvelous cafés in Vienna?
Oh, thank you very much, I shall have some more macaxeira.
How I love Maria das Dores’s boiled yucca, have you tried some?
“You’re barely eating, Leandro.” I motion to his plate with only a sliver of steak and a small portion of farofa on it.
Leandro side-eyes me, then spoons a small serving of yucca onto his plate without a word.
I sense he is only doing it to silence me.
He could be so much nicer about it. He is so entirely unpleasant with me, as though I’ve done something to upset him, when this whole time he is the one who’s been upsetting me, lacking the minimum grace owed to a guest, let alone one’s beloved.
“You know what they say,” Doctor Lobo begins with a smile, “one must eat breakfast as a king, lunch as a prince, and dinner as a beggar. That is the secret to preventing nighttime indigestion.”
“I suppose.” I shrug. His disregard for Leandro’s nonsense is truly remarkable.
If I were to voice my misgivings about Leandro again, Doctor Lobo would dismiss them.
(It’s only been two days, trauma is very hard on the nerves, and after all, you’re not yourself yet, either.
How have your emotional fluctuations been of late?)
He infuriates me, this doctor, yet also charms me at the same time. When he turns his piercing gaze in my direction, I feel strangely healed. Not only healed, but whole. I feel beautiful.
I look away from him. I must avoid these feelings, for they lead to the place of no return. The gray whirlwinds of the second circle of Hell fill my mind, Francesca and her lover, Paolo, spinning uncontrollably for all of eternity.
I turn my attention to Leandro, with whom I have the opposite problem.
He used to charm me, and now he does not.
His hand rests on the table beside his plate, so pale and fragile.
So unlike Doctor Lobo’s strong hands. It stirs up an uncanny feeling within me.
I’m suddenly seized by a strong mix of emotions, a suffocating desire to at once love and punish him, and I seize his wrist.
He whips his head around to face me.
“Those who wreak strife upon others in life”—I fix my eyes on his—“simmer in a river of blood at the bank of the alpine crag, in the upper ring of the seventh circle of Hell. They stew in a shore of boiling vermilion, these shades. So take care how you tread in this world, Leandro.”
The table falls silent. I’m still holding Leandro’s wrist.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Leandro says.
His tone is flat, devoid of any trace of anger, but his eyes bore into mine and a ripple of defiant pleasure shoots through me.
Then the heavy feeling lifts, and I let go of his hand.
My cheeks burn with shame for the way I spoke to him, for the way he spoke to me, for the secret pleasure I took in the interaction, and because I know Doctor Lobo will tsk-tsk me.
A textbook case of hysteria, he’ll say. Mother would chastise me for it as well.
(How can you speak to him that way? He’ll never marry you now.)
But I’m not wrong to admonish him. Leandro’s sullen demeanor, his inebriation, his lack of attention to his guests, his lies about renovations, all of it is wayward, and that is assuming him innocent of the other, more significant transgressions that may have occurred.
It all cannot go unacknowledged. It is about justice, and punishment is an essential part of God’s love. Leandro should know better.
“I’ve decided to return home after dinner,” I announce, softening my tone.
Now is as good a time as any. “I truly thank you for your kindness in opening this wonderful home to me, but I am feeling much better.” I repeat the same lie I told before.
“And Mother must be worried sick.” I turn to Doctor Lobo.
“I was thinking you could give me a ride home, Doctor?”
Both men stop chewing. Leandro stares at me as though I’ve announced I will murder everyone tonight. Doctor Lobo’s expression is inscrutable. In the background, the seconds tick on the wall clock.
I have this peculiar feeling that maybe they don’t want me to leave.
“Why, of course, Madalena,” Doctor Lobo says. “If this is your wish, I can give you a ride home.” He resumes cutting his steak.
Relief washes over me. I was expecting more resistance, and am pleasantly surprised the doctor agreed so easily. But Leandro looks pale.
Dessert arrives. Doce de leite flan, pooled in a sweet sugar glaze, and a fruit cake with a white layer of frosting, raisins, citrus, and the smell of molasses. Delicate small porcelain plates with floral details, little spoons that glimmer in the candlelight.
Leandro looks somehow even more distraught than before I announced I was leaving, and I almost feel sorry for him.
Have I given offense? He has not tried to prevent my leaving.
I do not know what he is thinking, if he loathes me or not, if I should loathe him or not, but I am leaving tonight. I have had enough.
Doctor Lobo licks his lips. “Madalena? Would you like some flan or fruit cake?”
I regard the fruit cake, dressed up in raisins, served for consumption. For satisfaction. Then it hits me: There is something the foul woman left behind. Something concrete, which Leandro keeps against all odds.