Guardian of the Dawn, page 38
*
The next few days were all storms between Wadi and Ana, in part because my cousin got drunk on feni every evening after supper. She cried out sometimes in the middle of the night, begging help from God, so that I knew he was thrashing her. I’d guess that he was beginning to understand that this marriage would be no happier than his one to Sofia. Or maybe it had just occurred to him that Ana was not my sister and would never be.
One night, the young bride snuck into my bedroom to ask me to protect her. She told me that Wadi was in the garden drinking.
“Is he beating you?” I asked urgently, feigning fear for her safety.
She kneeled beside me, showing me bruises on her arms. “Yes, but it’s not that. It’s that he wants to have a child so badly that he pushes himself on me. And when I resist …”
Her confession surprised me. “I … I don’t know what to say,” I stammered. “He’s obviously very troubled. It’s not like him.”
“He thinks if I get pregnant, our marriage could never be annulled. So every night he forces me …” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know it’s my duty, Ti. I know I should want it. But I can’t … I can’t seem to think or feel what I ought to.”
“Ana, I may have a solution – a way to appease both Wadi and your father.”
“I’ll do anything!” she said fervently. “I can’t go on much longer. I didn’t expect marriage to … to be like this. Sometimes he seems no different from my father.”
She began to sob. I held her until she could smile when I wiped her eyes with my thumbs.
“I’ve spoken to Gonçalo and he is willing to ask your father to forgive you,” I told her gently. “If the boy is successful in this effort, then everything is sure to improve between you and Wadi. When your father accepts the marriage, your husband won’t feel as urgent a need to produce a child. Relations will calm between you.”
Ana’s pretty face brightened. “I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re everything Wadi told me you were.”
“There’s only one small problem … Gonçalo wants you to talk to him – in secret, of course. You must tell no one. Certainly not Wadi, or all will be lost. You can’t tell him anything, even if he beats you. Ana, can you be that strong?”
Her eyes flashed. “Yes, I can do it.”
“In the meantime, I’ll also have a word with Wadi to calm him down.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you! You’ve been so wonderful to me.”
“Thank you, but listen, Ana – Gonçalo wants you to apologize to him and to ask him yourself for this favor. And I have to say, I think he’s right to make this demand.”
“I understand. When does he want to see me?”
“Give me a few days to set things up. And another thing – I have to warn you that Gonçalo still loves you. But he doesn’t want to see you hurt, even if it means giving you up.”
“He was always a good friend.” She kissed my cheek. “Just like you, Tiger.”
I got dressed and went down to Wadi. “You’d best be careful with Ana,” I told him. “I ran into her father, and he told me that she’d visited him the other day. She begged him to ask Gonçalo to forgive her. Senhor Dias chased her out of his house. He was very hard on her. So she must be really suffering right now.”
“She asked her father to give a message to Gonçalo?”
“Only to say she bitterly regrets betraying him. At least, that was what her father told me, though I don’t trust him, of course. Come to think of it, maybe she didn’t even go to him. Maybe he’s lying. Still, treating her too roughly may drive her away. Suffering makes young girls fickle, Wadi. They are not like men – not like you and me.”
Wadi grew pensive, and that night, I heard neither shouting nor sobbing coming from their bedroom.
I stole Ana’s moonstone headscarf from her chest the next morning and confirmed it had been my sister’s – the micrographic lotus flower was faded but still visible. I went immediately to Sarah’s house and gave it to her, elucidating a bit more of my plan when she questioned me. She passed it on to Gonçalo that evening, explaining that Ana wished him to keep it as a token of her regret for having hurt him so deeply. Sarah told the boy that he was to wear the scarf as a cravat at the next Mass, as a signal that he had not wavered in his desire to speak with Ana. Gonçalo understood from me that his meeting with the girl was to discuss their possible reconciliation.
On Sunday, I told Ana not to come to the cathedral with us, but to wait at home and feign a slight fever. I explained that I’d yet to work out one detail with Gonçalo; in truth, I didn’t wish to risk a scene in public that might have put the final stage of my plan in jeopardy.
It was all too simple to point Gonçalo out to my aunt before Mass and to suggest that I’d seen his cravat somewhere before. She took care of the rest.
“I’ll kill him!” Wadi snarled to me after his mother had taken him aside. He turned furiously toward Gonçalo, but I stepped in front of him.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I whispered. “It’s a common fabric. Even my sister had a scarf that was similar, though it had a black fringe, as I recall.”
I said that, of course, to give Wadi an alibi.
“I think I remember it,” he said, his acting capable.
I looked away quickly to hide my revulsion. It astonishes me to this day that my cousin was not embarrassed at having given something that Sofia loved to Ana. Maybe, like many men, he discounted the importance of such keepsakes.
Whatever the case, Wadi raced right home. I followed close behind him. He took the stairs two at a time to his bedroom and threw open the door. Ana sat sewing the hem of one of her dresses.
“Where is it?” he demanded.
“Where’s what?”
I reached the doorway at that moment. Ana was holding her hands up in front of her face, no doubt fearing he would strike her.
“The headscarf I gave you as a gift. The white one.”
“I seem to have lost it.”
His laughter was contemptuous. “Lost it where?”
“If I knew that, Francisco Xavier, I would have found it by now.”
“Whore!” He lunged to slap her face, but she ducked in time and his hand struck her shoulder. She tumbled off her chair and banged her head hard against the wall.
“Enough!” I shouted, grabbing Wadi.
“I’ve been faithful to you, Francisco,” Ana moaned from the floor.
“You lying whore!”
I tugged on his arm. “Shut up!” I said. “Can’t you see this must all be just some misunderstanding?”
“Get away from me!” he shouted, throwing me off.
He stood over Ana, who was sobbing, and unsheathed his knife. Squatting next to her, he put it to her throat. She held her breath, trembling. I was afraid to move.
Ana closed her eyes, praying for life.
This is it – this is the gift I give my sister, I thought.
Seconds later, Wadi surprised me. He threw his blade to the floor. He stood up and hung his head, then looked back at me helplessly. He must have smelled the air catching on fire around him; soon he was on his back, writhing and foaming.
Wadi was too weak to confront his wife again that day, and before bed I convinced him to do nothing more. “Let me investigate how Gonçalo got the scarf,” I urged him. “If you let your jealousy feed upon itself, if you act rashly now, your marriage will end before it’s even begun,” I added.
“Be quick about it,” he snapped back, his anger beginning to seethe again.
Exhausted from his fit, he fell asleep early. I went to see Sarah, to make certain she’d be home the next day to receive Ana. Back at Wadi’s house, I took the girl into our garden, where Aunt Maria couldn’t hear us. I asked if she still had the key to the house where she used to meet Wadi.
Ana nodded, too afraid to voice an answer.
“Good. Then tomorrow afternoon, you are to go there. Gonçalo will be waiting for you nearby. He will knock at the door twice, then once more.”
“At what time?”
“First, you must go to my friend Sarah’s house around midday. She’s invited you to eat with her. I don’t want you here if Wadi comes home to take siesta. He’s very observant and may see your secret in your eyes. At the tolling of nones you must be all the way across the city, at the rendezvous house, so set out early. You’ll have an hour to speak to Gonçalo. I’ll make sure Wadi goes back to work if he does come home. Rush back here after your meeting. Tell no one where you were or who you saw.”
Ana clasped my hands and brought them to her lips.
“If Wadi sees you, we’re both going to have problems,” I warned her. “I’m not sure he trusts even me anymore.”
Late that night, after drawing a map for Gonçalo, I snuck out of the house and, using the key to his gate that the young man had given me, entered the grounds of his estate. His bedroom was upstairs, at the back of the manor house, and by throwing pebbles at the shutters I was able to rouse him from sleep. He dashed down to me in his bare feet.
“Ana will come to you tomorrow afternoon at the stroke of nones, at the house where Francisco Xavier always met her.” I handed him the map I’d drawn, with the location circled. “Be there then. You’ll have an hour to speak with her. After that, she must get back home so that Wadi doesn’t suspect anything. You must make sure that – ”
“But what if she’s not there?”
“She’ll be there. Just go to the door and knock twice, then once more.”
“If this works, I’ll owe you everything,” he said, gripping my hand.
“If this works, you’ll owe me nothing.” I bowed graciously. “The gift is always in the deed itself.” For good measure, I added from Luke 38: “‘Give and gifts will be given you.’”
I caught only glimpses of sleep that night. All that had happened in my life kept tumbling through my mind. I didn’t think once of Gonçalo’s safety, or even Ana’s.
I dreamt of an ocean that had turned to glass – and of a blazing sun reflected in its surface. In the morning, I left for work before the others were up. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.
As soon as we arrived home for siesta, I handed Wadi a large glass of feni.
“To help you nap,” I told him.
An hour later, when I roused him from sleep, he was still a little drunk. I helped him wash his face and told him that I had just spoken to a friend of Gonçalo’s.
“When?”
“While you slept. Gonçalo wants you to meet him at the house where you were intimate with Ana.”
“Today?”
“Yes, a few minutes after nones. You mustn’t go there any earlier.”
“What’s he want?”
“I’m not sure. It seems he interpreted Ana’s gift of her headscarf as encouragement, though I don’t think she meant it that way. He’ll only tell you what he wants when you see him. But listen – he’ll have people watching you, and if you leave earlier, he won’t meet you there. And you have to come alone,” I added dramatically, “which is why … why I’m worried this may be a trap.”
“A trap?”
“I don’t trust him. Bring your knife. He may do something crazy to try to avenge Ana’s honor. He may think that if he kills you, he won’t be punished. After all, his father is rich and powerful. So if you see any men with him, anyone at all, get out of there quickly. I’ll be waiting nearby to help you. I won’t let myself be seen. Wadi, listen …” I took his shoulder and gripped it tightly. “Even if he’s alone, he may try to attack you when you least expect it, so be careful – though I’m certain you’ll come out of any fair fight the winner.”
As we waited for the tolling of nones, Wadi paced. He refused more feni, but I didn’t think it necessary; he was already a hawk ready to swoop down on its prey.
When the bells of the cathedral struck, we were off. Having reminded my cousin that he was going to be watched and that I’d need to remain hidden if I was to do him any good, I insisted that I take a different route across the city. I hid a drawstring bag with Nupi’s bangles and a few keepsakes under my cape, knowing I’d be unable to remain in Goa after this, whatever the outcome. I ran all the way there as though I were flying. I felt like a god, far above everything around me.
When I reached the house, all was quiet. Ana and Gonçalo must have already been inside. Likely they were arguing in hushed voices, Ana declaring she had absolutely no intention of having her marriage annulled, Gonçalo denying what I’d promised her – that he’d agreed to ask her father to forgive her. Though maybe the two saw that there could be some benefit in forming a secret alliance and were cautiously discussing how best to proceed. It was even possible, I suppose, that the girl realized she was no longer in love with Wadi. It was one thing to meet a man surreptitiously for lovemaking, quite another to share his life and be disowned for it.
Did they see my handwriting in their destiny? From my hiding place, I could hear Ana saying disappointedly, “And yet Tiago seemed such a friend to me …”
Wadi came rushing up as though not to be fooled with. He pounded at the door twice, then several more times. It eased open. From my position, I couldn’t see who stood in the entranceway, but when he reached out to grab an arm, I glimpsed Ana’s profile for just an instant. I feared he might pull her outside, but he thrust his way in instead.
Did Gonçalo call down to ask who it was? Did Wadi see the boy’s face – lit with fear perhaps – at the top of the stairs?
When I crept to the door I could already hear shouting. Then a scream from Ana. Then silence.
My mind seemed to float outside my body. I’ve no idea how long I stood there, fighting my dizziness. I knocked on the door feebly, then called Wadi’s name once, then again, louder. I heard footsteps, slow and heavy, coming toward me.
When he met me at the door he was carrying his knife in one hand and my sister’s scarf in the other. He was drenched with blood, as though he’d bathed in it. There was a streak even across his lips. His eyes were glazed. He looked like a blind man.
“I’ve killed her,” he said numbly.
“Don’t move!” I told him.
I pushed inside and closed the door behind us. Upstairs, miraculously, Gonçalo was still alive. The boy was crawling on his belly toward the window. I crouched next to him. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. What gave him life was spilling dark and hot onto the wooden floor. He couldn’t speak, although there must have been much he wanted to say about a life that would never now be lived. A horrid choking sound was all that came out. I believed he was trying to speak my name.
As Wadi had said, Ana was dead. She lay on her back, one arm pinned behind her, her dress soaked with all that had seeped from the vicious stab wounds in her neck and chest, her head bent at an impossible angle, her eyes gazing at nothing. A boot was gripped in her hands. She must have held on to Wadi’s leg with all her strength, desperately trying to tug him away from Gonçalo.
“I’ll get help,” I told the boy, though I knew it was too late.
Wadi was still standing at the bottom of the stairs. I saw now that his right foot was bare. He gazed up at me, puzzled, as if he didn’t even understand how he’d gotten here.
“Ana still has your boot,” I told him. “Come up and take it from her.”
Upstairs, he found he hadn’t the courage to pry it from the dead girl’s hands.
“Why did she have to betray me?” he moaned, his head in his hands. “I loved her.”
He fell against me, but I pushed him off.
“It’s me,” I told him, shaking him by the shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
“Ana wasn’t betraying you, I was. I stole her headscarf because it was my sister’s. And I gave it to Gonçalo. Ana came here only to try to convince him to ask her father for forgiveness – to accept you as her husband. She loved you. As did Sofia. As even I did – once, long ago. Now do you see what you’ve done? And what you’ve always done?”
He gazed at me in anguish. “But … but I had to protect my honor.”
“So you think there’s honor in murder?” I sneered.
I didn’t wait for his answer, and I didn’t offer him any further explanation; he was intelligent enough to figure out the precise shape and scope of my plot against him. Pushing him aside, I rushed from the house, wiping the blood from my hands on the packed dirt of the street. An Indian chimney sweep was standing nearby, his face black with coal dust.
“Get help!” I called to him. “Ana Dias has been murdered by Francisco Xavier Zarco. And the boy she was meant to marry is dying.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I considered heading to Benali to steal my son, but the village was inside Portuguese territory and it would be safer for me – at least for now – to cross the border into lands controlled by the Sultan of Bijapur. Later, when I had a plan, I could come back for Kama – and plead with Tejal to leave with us.
I walked south past the College of São Paulo and out the city gates. My escape was free of doubt and worry. My crime glowed in my mind, radiant as a myth or a dream, and as I walked, the moist sunlight and blue of the sky seemed to enter into me. If a person can fall – as well as rise – into a state of ecstasy, then I’d achieved it.
I found our farm in a state of complete disrepair. In the sitting room, clumps of bamboo and weeds as tall as a man grew out of mud swept inside by monsoon rains. Of the caretaker my uncle and aunt had employed, there was no sign.
The roof had given way over my bedroom, which seemed to be inhabited by at least one bearded monkey; the little creature raised its head as though I were a long-awaited enemy, its ageless eyes gleaming with wary anticipation, then dashed shrieking through the broken window when I stepped inside. In Papa’s room, I found that the drawing he’d hung on the wall behind his bed – of my mother shining like the sun inside a cavern of dark cloud – had been stolen. So, too, the sketches of her he’d always kept in his desk. His books were covered with mold. Sofia’s bed was gone, along with our statue of Shiva.
