the blanket. “Listen to me now, lad! Always do what you need to do. Always work hard. Be selfish if you have to be. And count on no one. No one!”
With that, he stood up and shuffled, barefoot, out of my room.
In the morning, Papa took me into his bedroom, stood me in front of his mirror, and taught me how to shave. He was calm and steady and made no reference to his speech the previous night.
When remembering him at this time in our lives, I sometimes think of Goya’s “Colossus.” Alone, seated under a crescent moon, his back to the viewer, the once-powerful giant turns around with a hopeful look, wanting to find a loved one waiting there to whom he can say a final farewell.
Our last trip upriver was at the end of the first week in January 1809. We were forced to stop going after that because the war against Napoleon in Spain was going poorly and the blue light of warning had been posted at all our borders.
Early March brought the arrival of General Soult’s twenty-five thousand French soldiers into Portugal, at our northeast fringe of mountains. After he took the town of Chaves, refugees began making their way to Porto. The poor carried their entire lives in wooden barrows.
Benjamin and I gave out bread and honey to these downtrodden creatures now forced to sleep in our squares and on our beaches. Seeing them filled him with awe, as he said they were the Old Testament made present. When I asked what he meant, he said, “They are the Israelites in exile, and they were each and every one of them present at Mt. Sinai for the giving of the Ten Commandments. Don’t you recall? You and I were there too!” Summoning me closer to him, he whispered in my ear, “Moses’s teachings are for each and every minute of existence, John. Each time we see how the Torah is reflected in our lives, we stand again at the foot of Mount Sinai.”
By the Twenty-Second of March, we received confirmation that Braga, thirty miles to the northeast, had been taken. Late that morning, Father announced that he had made plans for us to leave the city. Three carriages belonging to the Douro Wine Company would be leaving secretly at three in the morning from a tiny wharf at the far eastern edge of the city, just below the Bishop’s Seminary. Mother and I were to go, but Papa was to remain behind.
“It is time I fought,” he said. “If Porto falls, I shall join you upriver as soon as I can. Don’t worry, the French will not take me.”
“Papa, this is sheer madness. You must come with us. I’ll not allow you to stay.”
“Look who’s giving orders!” he joked.
Despite his sudden good humor, he looked exhausted and reeked of brandy. I didn’t trust him to care for himself in the state he was in. “Papa,” I said, “if you refuse to come with us, then I shall stay too and fight alongside you.”
“John, this is not a request. You shall wait for me upriver with your mother. I have not raised you these eighteen years to see you felled by a French bullet.”
Mama agreed as Papa embraced me. I tried to push him away, but he held me firm and kissed my cheek.
“Goodness, man, you might shave a little closer,” he moaned. “It’s still rough. The lassies will not like it.”
Before he let me go, he took a hard look at me, perhaps imagining what I’d look like as a grown man. “Please be patient, son,” he said apologetically. “We shall be apart for only a short while.” He reached into his fob pocket and took out his gold watch with the mother-of-pearl face. The chain had been the one used by the witch to shackle him when he was a toad. “Hold on to this for me,” he said, handing it to me. “I shall want it back soon.”
Then, as though embarrassed by his gesture of affection, he stood with his hands behind his back and stared out our window.
I accepted his gift gratefully, but it troubled me. I looked to my mother for support in continuing to encourage him to leave with us, but she was so lost within herself that she said nothing.
I spent the rest of the day in a state of gloom. After supper, I bid good-bye to the Olive Tree Sisters, who were remaining behind, as they refused to leave their art collection unguarded. “If you don’t come back soon, John, we’ll never let you look at another Goya!” Luna warned.
I also visited Benjamin with my father. His two sons had already left the city, but he had decided to stay put. “An apothecary is always needed after a battle,” he said, “so I am quite sure that the French will do me no great harm.”
Mother went to see Grandmother Rosa, to tell her that Father had reserved a place for her in our carriage, but the windows of her home were boarded up. Neighbors said that she had already left for Aveiro to stay with her sons.
Father, Mother, and I went to bed that night but scarcely slept, as we had to be awake at two o’clock. When Papa poked his head into my room to wake me, I said, “Are you sure you will not come with us? I’m so worried — I can’t think of anything else.”
“No, I can no longer let other men fight for me. Portugal is my home now. I’m too old to go back to England or Scotland.”
“You aren’t too old, Papa.”
“I’m fifty years of age, John.” He shook his head. “You have no idea how tired I am.”
“We all get tired, Papa. You work too hard, and you worry all the time. We could go to England and stay with Aunt Fiona for a time. I can find work there and you will be able to sit by our hearth and read. I shall support us all.”
“That is a generous offer, son, and if times were different I might even take you up on it, but I am too old to change. You will understand when you are my age.”
“But do you promise you will join us upriver?”
“John, life is unpredictable. These are promises I cannot make, even if I wanted to.”
“I’ll not leave unless you swear to join us.”
“Very well, I promise to join you and your mother upriver.”
He spoke too matter-of-factly for me to believe him. But before I could say any more, he pressed his lips passionately to mine, as though we were departing lovers. Then he clapped his hands together and said, “Now, get up and get dressed! In fifteen minutes we leave. There will be food in the carriages, even tea. I said that if there were no tea my son would turn into a Scottish monster of the lochs — a wrathful
I said good-bye to Fanny and Zebra, who would stay behind with Father, as they weren’t allowed in the carriages. I hugged them both and told them to take care of him. Fanny jumped up and stood on my shoulders just as she had on St. John’s Eve so many years before. Through my tears, I told them not to bark even once if they heard soldiers. By way of reply, they simply licked me. I felt as though I were leaving my heart behind with them.
Mother, Father, and I bustled out of the house into the cold and windy darkness. I was carrying my musket and Father his pistol. He began to softly sing “Barbara Allen.” I joined in, and we held hands as we walked.
Mother said nothing, though she glanced furtively at Papa — in grudging admiration, I think. She must have noticed that he and I had made an attempt toward reconciliation over the past weeks. I believed that she approved of this for me, but not for herself.
Then Papa hummed a tune I didn’t know. Being good at melodies, I was able later to scribble it out in notation and send this transcription to Healy’s Music Shop in London. I received a reply naming the song as “Now O Now I Needs Must,” by the Elizabethan composer John Dowland. I would hazard a guess that Mama knew this tune equally well and that Papa hummed it for her benefit, as a last attempt to win her forgiveness. The lyrics must have closely mirrored his feelings and his hopes for the future on this occasion:
