“Don’t you worry, May, I shall take care of it.” Papa reached out to reassure her, but she yanked her arm free. In the end, we carried it up to his study, turned it over on its back, and buried it beneath books and papers.
Late that afternoon, when neither of my parents was at home, I also took the precaution of burying Midnight’s belongings, along with Daniel’s masks, his talisman, the jay we had carved and given to Mother, and the tile of a triton that the Olive Tree Sisters had given me when I was only nine. I did this in secret, as I feared that my parents would say that these keepsakes were not of sufficient value for such precautions.
On the Twenty-Ninth of November, when French and Spanish troops were only a day’s ride from Lisbon, Prince Joao and the rest of the royal family, together with our ministers and much of our aristocracy, left for Brazil.
The news reached Porto that the royal family carried aboard their ships more than half of the coinage of Portugal. The miracle that day was that none of their vessels, thus loaded, plunged directly to the bottom of Lisbon Harbor.
We ought to have at least been able to bless the dreadful roads of the Portuguese countryside for slowing the progress of the enemy marching toward Lisbon. And yet we could not. The French officers and their mixed army were made so miserable by their tortuous advance that they compensated for it with pillaging and murder.
Once the soldiers reached their final destination and passed through the gates of the Portuguese capital on the Thirtieth of November, ecstatic crowds of Jacobins and Francophiles mobbed them, the women even tossing roses from balconies. After being toasted in the taverns and streets, they snoozed in the plazas and gardens, dreaming most likely of their loved ones back home. Asleep or not, these homesick, harassed, and murderous invaders were our new rulers.
XXII
Throughout the next seven months of occupation, all was reasonably calm in Porto. Our wine trade with England, though prohibited, continued unabated and guaranteed the city a small measure of financial security. Our ships made their way first to northern ports such as Rotterdam, where their cargo was loaded onto other vessels headed for Portsmouth and Southampton. Post failed to reach us from Britain, however, and so we received no direct news of our compatriots who had left months before.
My parents were too absorbed in their silent warfare to care. They hardly ever saw each other, since Papa spent most of his time at work. Of the two, he had changed the most since Midnight’s death. His hair was now closely cropped, gray at the sides and thinning on top. His cheeks were gaunt and his blue eyes, so radiant when I was young, were distinctly cold and distant.
I only once talked seriously with either of them about what had happened to our family. It was on my seventeenth birthday, and I woke up in a foul mood, intent on making life difficult for everyone. Father had told me three weeks earlier that the moment he was given permission to travel upriver again, I would be learning to survey lands, test soils, and plant vines. He had decided that I would earn my keep in the wine trade. Even though I planned to fight him, I recognized that I had better choose a profession swiftly. But I had no idea how I could put my love of art and books to profitable use.
As a special birthday treat, Mama made
As soon as he was out the door, I asked Mama, “Tell me the truth — do you hate Papa?”
She frowned in distaste. “Hate your father? Such odd ideas you have sometimes, John.”
“Mama, you never talk to him anymore. You used to play music for him. You used to smile at him secretly, when you thought no one was looking. Have you forgotten?”
“John, people change. We are not as young as we once were.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Listen, we’ve all made mistakes. I have … your father has. But I do not hate him.”
“What mistakes have you made?”
She looked at me as though I’d spoken a foreign language. “John, it may be your birthday, but you are still very young and I’ll not have you talk to me like that.”
“How was I talking to you?”
“Like a prosecutor. I am not on trial here, as far as I know.”
“Perhaps you ought to be. Perhaps a trial would be fitting for both of you.”
“That is quite enough.”
She was trembling, and though I was dreadfully ashamed of myself, I could not control my anger. I pictured Mother’s pianoforte, which at that moment seemed an extension of her most private self. I wanted to wound her there, where it hurt most. I picked up a plate. I imagined going upstairs and smashing it into the ebony wood, making deep gouges that could never be repaired.
I secretly wished for her hatred to scar me as well, which is probably why I lifted the plate over my head and brought it down over my skull. As I have had ample opportunity to learn, despondent people do desperate things.
Luckily, the plate didn’t do any serious damage. I felt for blood and looked at my hand — nothing. Mother turned and saw the shattered pieces of porcelain scattered over the floor. Agitation made her astonishingly unobservant, and she didn’t notice the pieces of pottery still in my hair, which is why she started to lecture me on my carelessness.
I interrupted her. “Damn it, Mother, can you not forgive him?”
“Do not raise your voice at me, John Zarco Stewart!”
“Can you not forgive Father? Answer me now or I shall break all the pottery in our house! Every damned windmill on every last plate. I promise you that.”
“You … you’re confusing me — like always. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mama, we both know that he ought to have protected Midnight. But he didn’t. And Midnight is dead. Father is alive. Can we not forgive him? I’ll try if you will.”
“John” — she frowned, shaking her head — “there is so much that you do not know….” She closed her eyes.
“Mama, tell me what you are thinking. I promise not to interrupt.”
She asked for my hand. “You always had beautiful fingers. Even as a baby.” She smiled wistfully. “When you were very tiny your hand was no bigger than a plum. And your fingers …” She looked at me tenderly and caressed my cheek, which she had not done for months. “Each of them was so delicate, so finely made … all perfectly formed.”
“Is there nothing you can say to me about Papa? Can you not forgive him?” I asked again.
She sighed with exhaustion. “It’s not a question of forgiveness. People grow older. You cannot expect us to feel about each other as we did when you were little.” She dropped my hand and stared ahead sadly. “No, he is not the same man I married, and I am surely not the same woman he courted. People change.”
“What you are saying, Mama, is that you do not love him anymore.”
She looked shocked. “John, what do you know about love?”
“As much as you do.”
She pursed her lips as though I were being absurd, which infuriated me. I pounded the table and shouted, “I loved Midnight and you loved Midnight. I loved Father and you loved Father. Not in the same way, I know, but are we so different from each other?”
“John, must we speak of these things?” she pleaded in exasperation.
“Yes. I have not spoken of Midnight for far too long. It is as though he never existed.”
“Perhaps it would be better if he never had. Or if he had remained in Africa.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Well, it surely would have been better for him, don’t you think?”
