Chapter 32
Joaquina sits at Mother’s vanity again, humming and smiling at herself in the mirror while putting on jewels. Her knuckles glitter with gemstones and she already has an evening dress on. I detect lavender-rose perfume as I enter the room, and a sickening feeling coils in my gut.
I do not know if I can get rid of her, as Mother demands. She has such a hold on me.
That is the work of Satan.
“Shall we go downstairs to the drawing room for the photos?” she asks lightly. “Maria das Dores has already left for the day.”
I stand still. Conflicting emotions pull me apart in opposite directions. I wonder what Joaquina will do if I never move again, if I stand here like a boulder, uncomprehending, transfixed for eternity.
She gets to her feet. “I noticed a funny thing earlier while getting dressed…” She pauses before the dresser and opens the small wooden box that sits atop it, next to the cylinder music box. It’s a rosewood trinket box with mother-of-pearl on the lid.
“What is this?” she asks.
“Don’t—”
Too late. She has already opened it and is now inspecting its contents: dozens of tiny folded notes. She opens one of them and it’s only about a quarter of a full sheet of paper. There is a child’s handwriting on it, a single sentence. She peers at it, head tilted to the side.
Dread curls up inside me. No one’s ever read these notes other than me and Mother. They’re not meant for anyone else.
Servants are such prying little things.
“It’s nothing,” I reply. “Just little notes I wrote for Mother as a child.”
Put it in the box, Mother would say when she caught me telling a lie. Even accidental lies and lies of omission. I would then write the lie on a little piece of paper, fold it, and tuck it into the box. Mother called it “the box,” but I call it “the little box of lies.”
Even a tearful apology didn’t feel quite complete until I had sealed it by putting the lie into the little box of lies. Only then did I feel a sense of atonement. It appeased Mother as well. The confession must be in writing, she would say, or else it doesn’t count.
I haven’t opened the little box of lies in years. I am an adult now, so I don’t lie to Mother anymore.
Joaquina squints at the little note.
“Dear Mama,” she recites in a mock-childish voice, “last night I wet my sheets. Please don’t punish me!
” Her laugh echoes through the room, jarring and cruel.
Then I remember that Joaquina is illiterate; she is only pretending to read it.
Those are not the words in the note…She is inventing words just like she invents music when she pretends to play the broken piano.
Like a child, always playing make-believe.
She drops the note back into the box without bothering to refold it, face brimming with glee.
A hot, aching pressure digs into my skull. What kind of a man allows himself to be ridiculed by his own servants?
“Oh, don’t look so serious,” Joaquina says. “I’m only joking.”
“I think it’s best if you go.”
“What?”
I pause. But the words have a life of their own. “It’s time to end our photography sessions. And your employment here as well. There is no need to finish cleaning. I will post your final payment tomorrow.”
All traces of amusement vanish from her face.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Is this because of my joke just now?”
“No.”
“Is it because of yesterday?”
Yesterday…The kiss. I don’t answer.
“But I thought you liked it.”
“It does not matter if I liked it. What matters is that it is wrong for us to engage in such a way.”
“But you said I am Bea…”
“Beatrice.”
“That I shine so bright you can’t bear to look at me directly.”
“It wasn’t poetry. It was only lust.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Lust?”
“Yes.”
She seems to have no response to this, so I leave the room. While I cross the corridor, no sound comes from Mother’s room. When I reach my own room, I still don’t hear anything. Why isn’t she leaving?
Then I hear her footsteps, light and rushed. She appears at my door with ruby-red lips. I don’t know why she’s still here. She steps toward me. A wordless warning rings in my ears, like a buzz.
She takes my hand in hers, and they are warm. I catch a whiff of lavender rose.
“Then let us take just a few more photos,” she says, voice soft and cajoling. The smile on her lips is not entirely convincing.
I raise one brow. “Why?”
“As a goodbye measure. Just a handful. What’s the harm in it?”
What’s the harm in it—she said the same thing about putting on Mother’s clothes that very first time.
I find no grounds on which to deny this strange request, so I acquiesce. But deep down I sense a trap.
I go to get the camera ready with a share of misgivings.
Yet it is no doubt easier to go along with just a few more photos than to quarrel.
On my way back to Mother’s room I hear the tune from the cylinder music box, then the sound of a bottle opening and liquid pouring into glass.
This all seems excessive. Does she really think she’s going to change my mind with these antics?
Alcohol, music, perfume. I almost feel sorry for her.
I also don’t understand. Judging from her disdain, her condescension, the way she laughed at me, she cannot really admire me at all.
So why bother with these efforts? She must only be doing this for the job, though the pay is meager, and she seems not to care much for her maid duties.
Satan seeks to corrupt, that is the end in itself.
It won’t work.
When I return to the room I nearly drop the camera. Joaquina sits with her long hair down over her shoulders, still as a painting, wearing nothing but a petticoat underskirt with eyelet embroidery. Hands languid on the armrests. The top half of her body is exposed.
Her lips curl and she tilts her head as if striking her first pose.
“What are you doing?” I say when I find my voice.
“Posing for the photos.”
“You’re indecent.”
I try to turn around so as not to look at her, but I cannot.
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“I can’t photograph you like that.”
“I think you can.”
I stare, stunned that a woman would speak to a man this way.
Mother was right about women nowadays lacking decency and propriety.
Joaquina laughs again, filling the room with triumph and derision.
She is mistaken if she thinks I am going to photograph her in this state.
I would then have her indecency captured forevermore.
I could always look at it at any point in time.
Even if she was dismissed and I never saw her again, I would have this fragment of sin captured and within reach.
My shock melts into something else. The edges of my mind soften.
Despite being a wicked beast, she is beautiful.
The gold of her skin gleams against the plumeria petals and the hazel of her hair.
I think her beauty makes her feel entitled to cruelty.
She laughs because she knows my true feelings, my nature.
The image of her before me is so precious and ephemeral, I might never see her again—I must not let it fade.
I must capture it.
I already have the camera in hand anyway.