pull her back to me with my devotion.
Sometime after dawn, I felt her hand twitch. She had stopped breathing. In trying to rouse her, I discovered more blood on the sheets. I shouted for Benjamin, but it was too late.
This, then, was the last lesson Francisca taught me: that I, John Zarco Stewart, had no magic at all. There were no songs of love powerful enough to defeat death. All of the most important things were beyond our control.
She may also have taught me one other thing: If there was a God, then He was what Benjamin referred to in Hebrew as
Grief …
My grief soon became a palace shrouded by perpetual night, where I had at my disposal a hundred rooms of despair, each crowded with visions of what was and what might have been. During the summer and autumn of 1822, and much of the next year as well, I paced its cold stone corridors, climbed its high staircases, and polished its statues of memory. During those first and most terrible weeks of loss, I blamed myself for never having loved her enough. In my madness, I ranted to the girls about their father’s selfishness, though they had no idea what I meant.
I sat sometimes holding the love letter from Joaquim to Lucia that had fluttered out of
My hair grew wild and I refused to shave. I ached to be held by her again. I often stared in my mirror and wondered how such an empty man as I could proceed alone into the future.
I regretted having done so few drawings of her. At times, I could no longer remember the shape of her eyes and the contours of her slender hands. I thought I would go insane not being able to bury my nose in her hair at night.
Luna Olive Tree, Senhora Beatriz, and other neighbors made condolence calls, bringing us bread and soup. Grandmother Rosa and many other women whom I’d never even met sat with the lasses at our hearth and whispered to them of the pain and worry of motherhood, warning them about the obligations of marriage and the duplicity of men, lamenting having had their youthful forms stolen by birthing. Strangers cleaned our chimney and patched the Lookout Tower. Secret Jews came to my shop and talked to me about the Mount of Olives.
For nearly a year, I did what was expected of me. I created enough jars, vases, and ewers to hold the waters of the Douro. My glazes were mixed with spite for those who were happy.
I looked after our daughters as best I could and saw to it that they continued their lessons. Esther refused to play her violin for two months and stayed in her bed until I absolutely insisted she get up. Graca caused me endless worry with her terrible insomnia, an affliction she had doubtless inherited from me. Then there were times when she metamorphosed into a bolt of lightning, eager to lash out at her sister and me.
I tried my best to be understanding and to console them both. I passed the greater part of each and every day in their company, but sometimes I fear I was of precious little true help to them. I began to understand more of why Mother had distanced herself from me after the death of both Midnight and Father. We were alike in so many ways, she and I, and for too long I simply lost all desire for conversation, could think of no subject worth my full attention, not even — I am sorry to say — the misery of my children.
Mama sent me long letters of encouragement thrice weekly for many months. She even overcame her fear of the memories hiding everywhere in our home to stay for an extended visit. Once, after putting the girls to bed, she took me aside and said, “I know it’s of little use to tell you this now, but I shall say it anyway. You were the best of husbands to Francisca, and I feel certain that she died without any regrets — without anything left unsaid. I do not think you could have given her a greater parting gift than that. When you meet again, there will be nothing you need to apologize for. And that, John, is a priceless blessing.”
Much had happened in the world beyond the borders of our provincial city since my marriage to Francisca, of course, including Napoleon’s death. But the vicissitudes of politics caused us little concern until almost a year after my wife’s burial, when the French army crossed the Pyrenees into Iberia to quash a Spanish rebellion in favor of liberal reform.
During a period of nightmares in which I imagined these troops continuing west to Porto and silencing our city again with their muskets and swords, I received a letter from New York. Holding it in my hands, I learned that the ink of the past had not dried so completely as I’d thought. Closing my eyes, I saw a lonely lass in a black bonnet tossing pebbles at my window.
Tears filled my eyes when I saw her handwriting. As though it were a triumph against all evil, I whispered to myself,
I actually received two letters from Violeta, the second arriving three days later, as it had been sent to me care of the Douro Wine Company and delivered by one of their couriers. Violeta explained that she had taken care to send two, as she didn’t know whether I was still living at the same address. The letters were identical save for one sentence.
She explained almost nothing of how she had reached New York, saying only that she had lived many years in Lisbon and England, then had been snatched up by good fortune and carried to America. She was living in a house near the southern tip of Manhattan Island. She wished me to know that many colorful birds came to her small garden. One of the most beautiful was blue and white, with a crest.
Her address was Number 73 John Street. She wrote that living on a street named after me always made her smile.
Toward the end of her letter, she said that many years earlier she had dreamed that Daniel had begged her to write to me. She apologized now for failing to heed his wishes, but she was at the time in no position to do so.
She hoped I was well, but as she had learned of my father’s death, she feared that her dream had been a harbinger of that terrible event. She sent best wishes to my mother, whom she would never forget for her many kindnesses to her.
She gave no explanation as to how she had learned of Father’s death, nor how she had discovered I was a tile-maker, nor even if she had learned of Francisca’s death, but she concluded her letter with an astonishing proposal:
In the letter sent directly to my home, she added as a postscript:
I didn’t know what to make of it. New York? It was preposterous. I could scarcely imagine making the journey to Lisbon, two hundred miles south.
I was glad that she had made a good life for herself, of course — it seemed such a blessing after all our misfortunes. But receiving her letters proved too much for my tattered nerves. Behind my locked door, afraid to let my daughters see me, I sobbed alone until dawn.
By May, the struggle in Portugal between forces favoring our recent constitutional reforms and those hoping for a return to an absolute monarchy had nearly reached the point of civil war. Then we learned that both our parliament and our constitution had been nullified by King Joao VI and his son Miguel, commander-in-chief of the army, with hundreds of subsequent arrests of their opponents across the country. These unfortunate prisoners favored Miguel’s older brother Pedro, a liberal reformer.
