Chapter 43
I watch the flickering candle on the mantel, its long narrow flame licking at the air.
I’m in my room, restless. My thoughts are racing.
Strange Madalena’s dramatic laughter echoes in my mind and reminds me of Joaquina.
She sat across from me at dinner and stared right through me.
I didn’t exist. Her smile seems more joyful than Mother’s.
Why? What does she have to be so happy about?
She seems happy enough believing that I am my father. If I were not here at all—if it was just her and Lobo and the servants—she would be plenty happy.
Happier than if she remembered, maybe.
Lobo said her mind reverted back to an easier, less turbulent time. Why did that bother me so? The feeling tugs at me, a dull ache.
A less turbulent time…A time before me.
Is that why her mind erased the memories? To give Mother a second chance at happiness?
I sit up, suddenly wide-awake and feverish.
What if when Mother finally remembers me and the forgotten years, she feels worse? Like waking up from a lovely dream, only to be crushed by the weight of reality?
What if it wasn’t simply the accident that ruined her life but me—choosing to keep me instead of giving me away to the orphanage like her family wanted?
I take the candle and step out into the corridor. I go into Mother’s room, expecting that by some miracle Joaquina will be there, sitting at the vanity, brushing her hair. Tucking hibiscus petals behind her ear. Glancing over her shoulder at me with flushed cheeks and eyes full of adoration.
Joaquina cared for me. Her feelings were real. I tried so hard to be rid of her, I didn’t really believe I ever would be.
The room is encrusted in deep shadows and cobwebs. But the lavender-rose perfume scent lingers. I spin around. I cross the corridor, descend the stairs, and step through the kitchen. I knock on the door of her quarters.
Nothing. There is no response. Of course there isn’t, but a small part of me had imagined Joaquina was still down here. Waiting for me.
I open the door and find the small room empty. Her little cot is made up. Her favorite clay coffee cup sits on the nightstand, with caked bits of dry coffee on the bottom. Her butterfly metal hair clip sits next to it.
Gone without a trace.
The next morning at breakfast, Strange Madalena quizzes me about the fazenda’s former owners.
I have no idea about them since that was way before I was born.
When I tell her I don’t know, she seems incredulous and antagonistic, then announces she’s leaving early.
My anxiety spikes, and I beg her to reconsider.
I can see her softening as I sit beside her and hold her hand.
This time I am not foolish enough to think she’s seeing me.
It’s Strange Madalena and she’s seeing my father, with love in her eyes.
I feel like an impostor, like I’m impersonating my father, but I can’t let her leave. She has nowhere to go.
I must speak with Lobo urgently. What will we do if she asks to go home again, if her memories do not return?
I sit in the drawing room, on my third glass of cognac, tapping the cigarette ash into the tray.
Joaquina once played the broken piano for me.
She does not know how to play, and was only pressing keys at random, and most of the keys made no sound at all because the piano is broken, like the mill, like everything else in this house.
But I enjoyed it when she pretend-played.
She was delightful, amusing. Wearing a dress far too lovely for her, like a lady in a novel.
I even took some photos of her playing the piano in this very drawing room.
If Lobo paid her to leave, perhaps I can still prevail upon her to return.
Just then, as though by divine will, Mother hovers beside me. She has that gravity about her, a sharpness to her gaze that makes me think that although it’s Strange Madalena, Mother is not far off.
I ask her how she’s feeling. I stand, then, not knowing why I stood, I kiss her hand. She glances meaningfully at the bottle of cognac and asks me how my afternoon was.
I want to pry her lids open so she sees me in front of her.
I scour my brain for something that will remind her without shocking her. Some detail about the past, specific and meaningful, yet subtle.
“I added a new lie to the box of lies,” I tell her.
The little box of lies. Yesterday, when she asked me whether someone has been sleeping in her room recently, I could not think of a way to avoid lying. But afterward, I wrote the lie on a little piece of paper and slipped it into the wooden box.
Her expression is blank and uncomprehending. “Is that some sort of riddle?” she asks, voice taut and foreign.
It crushes me. Even the little box of lies doesn’t mean anything to this person who stands before me…Mother is buried so deep, I don’t know how to bring her out. What will it take to pull Mother out of Strange Madalena?
I go to the window, reeling. I know I can no longer scheme, because I can no longer think clearly. The alcohol has dulled my thoughts too much.
“Leandro, is everything all right?” Strange Madalena stands beside me. Her polite aura is suffocating.
“I’m invisible,” I say, watching my own reflection in the window.
It doesn’t matter what I say or do, she is not seeing me. I am this glass window. She sees through me to something else, someone more interesting. Someone her mind didn’t see fit to erase.
Is she like this because of how close to death she came? All because of my neglect?
“It’s my fault,” I mutter.
“What is?”
“Everything.”
“Leandro,” Strange Madalena says. Her voice sounds firm, but it’s still Strange Madalena. “Did a woman use to live here with you? Did she die here?”
I look at her. It’s almost as if Strange Madalena is becoming aware of Mother. Can she sense Mother’s presence in the house, even as she can’t consciously comprehend it? The thought makes my head spin and suddenly the whole room is spinning. I drink more to steady my nerves, and it works.
“I just want to be seen…” I start. I want a glimmer of recognition, if only for a moment. “…Just once before the end.”
“What end?” Strange Madalena says.
I ignore her. In the distance, a carriage crosses the gates. A cloud of red dust swirls around it as the horse’s canter slows to a trot. The sound of it faraway.
I slip away from Strange Madalena and go outside. I intercept Doctor Lobo on the front steps. I want to speak with him alone.
“Leandro,” he says. “Is something the matter?”
“She’s still not seeing me.”
“It’s only been a few hours. Have you been drinking?”
“She didn’t even remember the little box of lies.”
“The what?”
“Did you pay her off?”
A crease appears between his brows. Then, when he realizes I am not talking about Mother, his jaw squares. I see the glint of disapproval in his eyes.
“I’m not saying her name. I’m not even thinking about her…How did you persuade her to leave?”
A shadow crosses his face. “Come smoke with me for a moment.”
We lean against the railing on the veranda, facing the woodlands beyond the gates.
Night makes its ascent, and the crisp moon is a pale silver above us.
I imagine that Mother watches us from inside the house, wondering, appraising.
Mother’s gaze is relentless. I see the hazy outline of her figure against the window, peeking from the lace curtains.
But through the eyes of Strange Madalena, she will make sense of nothing.
“I know you cared for the girl,” he says, after taking the first drag.
“She was lively, young, beautiful. I know you probably even miss her now. That’s natural.
But you must not forget how much she tormented you.
How miserable you were after your relationship became intimate.
How desperate you were to be rid of her. ”
Light rain starts to fall. Just sporadic drops on my arms, but possibly a signal of angrier skies to come later.
“You were an unhappy man if I ever saw one. You were embroiled in sin and despair and could not get out of it. You wrote to me begging for my help.”
“Yes…Yes, you are right.”
He gives me a look that makes me ashamed of myself.
“I’m not going to visit her or anything,” I say.
“Don’t you see the real reason you are missing her now is simply because you are distraught and lonely? Your mother isn’t quite herself yet, so you are upset. If Joaquina were here, she would likely take advantage of your sorrow.”
I rub my face. “That night…” I start, tentative, “I heard terrible noises. I know it was the purging of the spirits, but at times, it almost sounded like—”
“This voice in your head that makes you miss her, do you think that is coming from God or Satan?” He pauses to let the words sink in.
I sigh. I often feel that no matter what I do, I will end up in Hell. That sin is so difficult to avoid, and perhaps I am not strong enough to do it.
“It’s time to let go of her now. Do you think you can do that?”