I remember Senhora Beatriz coming to our house, carrying her small painting of her daughter, on the day Daniel left her home for good. When Mama left me alone with her to make some strong tea, she touched her crooked finger to her beloved daughter’s image and whispered, “We’ve lost him again, Teresa, we’ve lost our Daniel….” She looked up at me as though to beg forgiveness and shuddered. “What a fool I am, John. I thought I’d changed destiny — redeemed our betrayal of that boy. But women are powerless against cruelty once it has claimed a child’s life.”
Once, just after Daniel had moved his belongings to his old house, I saw him feign throwing a knife at his father’s back.
“I’d do it, but not even his death would set me free,” he told me.
Rather than attack him at that moment, he took up a wooden plate he’d been carving with the faces of wolves, foxes, and other forest creatures. After working away for a time, he showed it to me. None of the animals had eyes. It was chilling. When I asked for a closer look, he marched outside and hurled it in the river. Lifting his eyebrows like a rogue, he feigned a grin. He wished me to think it was just a game, but I knew better. I said, “You ought to have finished it at least — now they will never be able to see.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me to finish. All that I have known is over now.”
Daniel’s father didn’t want to maintain their house during what might be an absence of years, so two months after his arrival it was sold to a blacksmith from Vila do Conde, who was to move in on May the First. With the proceeds from the sale, Senhor Carlos bought Daniel a leather travel case, a knife of English steel, sheepskin gloves, a pair of fur-lined boots, and a woolen cape with a hood.
“Newfoundland freezes over as early as October,” he explained.
This was hardly an enticing prospect to a young man who had never in his short life even worn a thick coat, though Daniel claimed to be overjoyed at finally being able to earn a wage worthy of a man. He scoffed at the very idea of remaining in Porto after his father’s departure. He spoke of his grandmother as a burden and of Violeta as a waste of his time. Anyone unfamiliar with his theatrical gifts might have been convinced that he was grateful for this opportunity to travel.
I believe now that his acting was meant to keep us from discovering that there was nothing left in his well of spirit. So many times in the years since have I wished that I had tossed a rope down to him, because I could have; I was good with words and might very well have convinced him to defy his adoptive father. But I was blind to my own gifts and to many things around me — not unlike those creatures he had carved.
Daniel’s last day in Porto approached quickly. On April the Twenty-Seventh, four days before he was to depart, he and I took a somber walk to the marketplace in New Square to ask Violeta for a final meeting. We found her in a skeletal state, her once-beautiful eyes full of sorrow.
“I must … I must say good-bye soon,” Daniel said. His eyes were so heavy with unspoken emotion that I thought he might faint.
“Say it now, then,” she replied harshly, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“Come to my house tonight after midnight, please, Violeta,” I said. “We shall have some cake I saved for you from my birthday celebration. Please, we miss you so much.”
She glanced at me witheringly and said, “Go home to your parents. I do not wish to see either of you ever again.”
We were speechless with despair. “Can the world really weigh so much, Violeta?” asked Daniel solemnly. “I ask myself that sometimes. And can we not help each other — you and I? Is that not what we are meant to do?” He smiled sweetly, as though to apologize for the seriousness of his words.
Violeta pressed her hand to her forehead, exhausted, stricken by his pain. “Go, Daniel. You have your life. Do not wait for me.”
“Are you sending me away?” He reached for her, but she turned away.
“Do not touch me,” she ordered. Then her voice softened. “Please, I could not bear it.”
She stared down at the ground. I felt time and the last vestiges of our innocence ending for the three of us. Daniel was pale with shock. He and I waited a moment, hoping she would look up. When she didn’t, we left. The lad’s face was hollow and despondent as we rushed away. Likely he was haunting his own barren life, imagining what would never be. Through my lonely tears, I begged him to talk to me, pleaded that we must not abandon Violeta. On hearing that, he proceeded to provoke a bitter quarrel with me, challenging me to come with him to the suggestively named Cucumber Tavern, a vile public house at the riverside that was a haunt for sailors, bandits, and scoundrels.
When we entered the tavern, several rough-looking men called out greetings to him and burst into laughter after asking my name and age, threatening to tell my mother on me. We sat at a table in the corner. Daniel produced a coin from his pocket and ordered himself a rum and myself a glass of cheap wine. Bent on destruction, he downed his dram in two gulps and bid me do the same with my wine.
Even though I took modest sips, I could fairly hear my down pillow calling my name. Daniel was busy gabbling on about setting out to sea with his father. His false enthusiasm irritated me. I was confused by all that had happened and enraged at everyone — at Daniel, Violeta, and myself, and all the adults in my life, so powerless to help us. To end his absurd chatter, I did the unforgivable — I told him that Violeta had secretly visited me late at night on occasion and that she had even told me she wished to go off to America without him.
“It’s only a fantasy,” he scoffed. “She told me all about how her father loved the night sky there.”
“No, she means it,” I insisted. “She made me promise not to tell you. But when you are gone at sea, she will leave Porto forever.”
His eyes filled with tears. I immediately regretted my rash confession and hurried to make amends. “Daniel,” I said, “Violeta is too troubled at the moment to know what she wants. I don’t think she’d ever leave without us. A lass so young could never go away alone, could she?”
His face went blank with hopelessness and too much rum. We ought to have simply left for my house and spoken to my parents. I was about to propose that we go there — and apologize, too, for pretending that I knew Violeta had always planned to go away without him — but a burly merchant with shiny black hair sauntered up to our table and challenged Daniel to walk on his hands all the way from one end of the room to the other. The gentleman then offered the lad a silver ten
Daniel was a gifted acrobat and could do all sorts of tumbles, flips, and flurries, but the rum had dulled his sense of balance. He started out well enough, stepping like a crab, his legs arching back over his head, his face reddening as though sunburned. I walked along beside him, urging him forward. The men were shouting and laughing.
But the lad’s left hand soon slipped and his right leg dangled too far over his back. Down he came with a dry thud. Men who had lost their bets jeered at him, calling him a donkey. The merchant who had paid for Daniel’s effort leaned over him, cleared his throat noisily, and spit a huge gob into his face. My friend wiped it away and rolled onto his belly, the crook of his arm over his eyes. I squatted next to him and begged him to leave. I felt his hot shame as my own and wished we had never come.
It was the proprietor who succeeded in rousing Daniel, giving him a kick on his bottom and then hoisting him up by his arm. He shoved the lad toward the door. Once outside, Daniel raced away from me. He ran with a curious lumbering gait, like a wounded animal. Before passing through the gate to reach the wharf, he turned back to me. Shaking his head, he smiled wistfully before running through the stone threshold.
I dashed after him and found him standing at the water’s edge on the mossy granite blocks, peering into the water, shading his eyes with the back of his hand.
My friend held up his hand and said, “No closer, John.”
I might have expected to see defeat or hopelessness in his eyes, even rage. Yet what was there was love. For me, I used to think. But if so, I now know it was only because I represented all he had ever done and wished for — all, too, he might have carved with his hands. Had a boy ever loved the hidden possibilities in our world as much as he?
He swept his hand straight down now, as though drawing a line between us. Then he recited his favorite
