Chapter 27
The glowing orbs of the oil lamps light our path as we move up the staircase.
Shadows usher us into the upstairs corridor, which is even dimmer than the first floor.
The air is silent and desolate. The darkness, the silence: All of it I am accustomed to.
They are almost comforting. But I wonder how it must all appear to my guest, the police inspector.
We cross the corridor in silence. He stands too close to me. I’ve never liked it when people stand too close to me.
I turn into my room first. I open the top drawer of the nightstand by my bed and withdraw the skeleton key. He raises the oil lamp so that it’s a palm’s width from my face and I can feel its heat on my cheeks. “What is this?”
“The key.”
His face hardens. Up until now, he did not believe the chambermaid’s account. He came here as a formality, maybe even felt irritated that his time was being wasted.
I suspect if he had believed her, he would not have come alone.
But now, seeing me holding up a key, he is thinking perhaps I am a madman, after all.
I find it enjoyable, the way the confidence drains from his face. Doubt flickers in his eyes.
“This way, please,” I say as I turn my back to him and glide into the corridor.
I feel him following closely behind me. He’s silent and on edge. At one point he jerks his head as though alarmed by a sudden noise, but I hear nothing. There is no one on this floor but the three of us.
When we reach the final door at the end of the corridor—her room—I stick the skeleton key into the keyhole and turn. The hinges groan and we step inside.
The air is always musty in this room no matter if I open the windows.
The dark orange of the setting sun streams in and faintly illuminates the bed at the center of the room, where she lies. She almost looks like she could be dead, and for a moment I wonder if maybe she is. Maybe I am a madman, and she has been dead this whole time.
She’s wearing her gray wool dress. Hair carefully combed.
The white blanket is pulled up to her shoulders, just one thin sheet, for the nights can get hot.
Her hands are as I left them last night, resting by her sides.
I always check for movement, and sometimes there is a slight shift, which gives me hope.
Doctor Amado said subtle movement could be a sign that she’s about to wake up.
She may wake up any moment, but she may also die any moment. That’s what he had said.
But she never shifts by much. Always lying on her back like a vampire in a coffin. I detest it.
I take my seat on the stool by the bed. “This is my mother. She is very ill.”
“Your mother?” He approaches tentatively, holding the lamp before him almost as a shield. As though afraid of Mother. People often are.
“Yellow fever. The condition deteriorated until she fell into a deep slumber from which she has not yet awoken.”
“A deep slumber?” he echoes. He leans in and looks down at her, frowning. Then presses a finger to her pulse.
A weighty silence falls as we both await confirmation that I didn’t murder her. I’m struck by an irrational fear that there will not be breath. Maybe she died this very afternoon.
There was a time when I feared what I would find when I came into her room.
During the day I listened for sounds of movement upstairs, footsteps against the floorboards, shuffling or coughing.
Any signs of life. But I never heard anything, not since Mother fell into the slumber. And each passing day my hope dwindles.
The officer looks reassured as he draws back his hand. I sigh in relief.
“She lives still, as you can see,” I say, “though barely; that is why I told you I live alone, because in a sense I do. But the doctor says she may yet awaken. Only he cannot say for certain.”
He looks uncomfortable. “So you are her caretaker?”
I nod.
“Have you no sisters? This is a daughter’s job.”
“I have no sisters.”
“So when the chambermaid saw you…”
“Caring for an unconscious person involves several tasks. Movements so the muscles don’t stiffen. Sponge baths. A nurse taught me how to do these things.”
“Why lock her in?”
“The lock is not to keep her in but to keep people out. I do not like the idea of a maid coming in to dust and sweep while Mother lays there. I told the chambermaid to stay out of this room, that there was no need to clean here. I didn’t tell her why, I suppose you’re going to say I should have.
But do you see, she must have disobeyed my order and tried the door.
Otherwise, how would she know that it was locked?
This goes to show how meddlesome the servants are. Mother was right—”
I catch myself and stop short.
“Right about what?”
“You know,” I say, “I was not the one who had the lock installed on the door. It was Mother herself who did so, years ago.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“She believed the servants were stealing her jewels and other belongings while she was out.”
“Were they?”
I shrug. I never really thought that they were.
She spoke often about the theft of the crown jewels some years back.
The jewels were eventually found in the house of palace servants, hidden in cans of butter.
If such valuable items could disappear from the royal palace of S?o Cristóv?o, if thieves were bold enough to steal from the empress herself, then what would stop our servants from robbing us?
I was only four at the time, but Mother repeated this story on a monthly basis, whenever she became convinced a chambermaid was stealing from her.
She would accuse the maid directly, a terrible row would ensue, and the girl would walk about with swollen eyes and glistening cheeks for days after.
The maids looked hurt but none ever spoke up, and neither did I.
As for Mother, installing the lock greatly pleased her.
You can never trust the servants, she would tell me.
And she was right, I see now. Were it not for that spying chambermaid, I wouldn’t be having this unpleasant conversation with this officer right now.
“I do not know,” I answer.
“So you never told the chambermaid about your mother’s existence in the house,” he says. “One day she sees a woman inside, when the door remains locked throughout the day. Surely you can’t blame her for finding it suspicious.”
A long silence stretches. “Is there anything else I can help you with, officer?”
His dark eyes narrow. “There is something else the chambermaid mentioned that I can’t quite make sense of.”
“What’s that?”
“She said you were speaking to her. Why speak to an unconscious person?”
I shift in my seat. The silence bears down on my pores.
Finally, I say: “Perhaps she was mistaken. Why should I be speaking with her?”
A crease forms between his brows, then he rises to his feet, drawing a handkerchief from his vest pocket and pressing it to his temples. “Are you able to provide paperwork to verify this woman is your mother? Identity card, birth certificate, and such.”
“Of course.”
He takes out a pen and notepad from his vest pocket. “I shall also need the name and address of the physician to verify the medical condition is as you described.”
“That won’t be a problem, senhor.”