Page 35 of Magic Lessons

“We weren’t expecting you,” Maria said to reproach him, worrying over the state he was in. Usually he cared about his appearance, but now his clothes were in disrepair and hung on his frame. He’d lost a good deal of weight, and some of his strength was gone. Still he was the handsome man whose stories Maria could listen to again and again. His dark hair was tied back with a leather band and his boots hadn’t been cleaned for months. Maria, too, was not at her best. “I’m not at all prepared.” She had dirt from the garden under her fingernails and her hair was in knots.

Samuel’s fever was raging, and he was still a man who either said too much or said nothing at all. When they went inside, he immediately felt at home, a comfort he experienced only when he visited New York. But it was all too much on this day. Samuel found he needed to take a moment to sit and catch his breath before greeting anyone properly.

“What do we have here?” Abraham Dias said, his voice trembling. There was a handsome man with dark eyes who seemed exhausted and wore a familiar black coat. “You look like my son.”

“He should,” Maria assured the old man. “That’s exactly who he is.”

Samuel gathered his strength and went to embrace his father. The two men were not afraid to show their raw emotions when they were together. They had seen and done terrible things and had worked side by side for a lifetime, until Abraham could no longer stand upright for more than a few minutes at a time without the pain in his back and legs overwhelming him. Age had come upon him quickly, like a thief, and an injury he’d suffered when they first took their ship from a royal merchant and renamed it the Queen Esther, had worsened with the years so that he limped and could no longer walk very far. On this day, neither man could stand for long. Abraham could deal with his own failing body, but to see his son in such bad health caused him to weep.

“It’s that damn fever,” Abraham declared. “It won’t leave you alone.” He turned to Maria, frustrated. “I thought you had cured him!”

“I cure him every time. That is the only way to treat this disease. Some things return no matter what, and we must deal with it when it does.”

“I’m fine,” Samuel insisted. “I can stay in the barn.”

But Maria insisted he must take the chamber being saved for Faith’s return. Samuel was mortified that she had to help him up the stairs, and yet he wondered if perhaps he had willed the illness to return, if he wanted nothing more than to have her arms around him, despite the price. Everything inside of him hurt, as if his bones were made of glass once more. A single touch was agony, and yet he yearned for Maria’s embrace, for glass could burn as well as break. Once in bed, he moaned and turned his face to the wall. He hated to show his weakness; all the same he hadn’t enough strength to take off his boots.

“You should have come home before this,” Maria told him. “I can tell you’ve been ill for a while.”

Abraham had a right to fault her, but breakbone was a tricky disease that lurked inside a person’s body. You chased it away, only to have it return unexpectedly. Samuel found he was comforted by Faith’s belongings that were stored in this room, the blanket with the blue stitching, the poppet doll he had made.

“There it is,” he said, happy to spy the doll. “You’ve kept it safe.”

“Of course I have,” Maria answered. “Didn’t you tell me I must?”

She went to collect the dried Tawa-tawa leaves that were stored in her herb cabinet so that she might fix a pot of the curative tea, and when she returned, Samuel was already asleep. He was talking as he dreamed, this time about the burning of his mother. The prisoners had been dressed in sackcloth, with dragons and flames painted upon their shirts and hats; they had ropes around their necks, and were forced to carry rosary beads and green and yellow candles. Dias was haunted by the shocking scene he had witnessed as a boy, and in his dreams he often revisited the square where it had occurred. The smoke that arose from the burning bodies was bloody and bitter. He could hear his mother’s voice ringing through a crowd of a thousand. Maria removed his boots and slipped into bed beside him so that she might hold a cold, wet cloth to his head. She reached under his shirt to find that he was burning, his heart red-hot.

“Don’t leave me,” he said, convinced it was she who was the true remedy, not the bitter tea she insisted he drink or the broth she made for him out of fish bones to keep him strong.

At first, Maria thought he was speaking to his mother in his dreams, until he embraced her and called her by her name. This was what happened every time he was home. If she kissed him once, she would not stop. It was wrong, and she knew it. It was dangerous as well. She spoke both to him and to the curse. “Don’t say any more, and do not speak of love, this is not love, this is something else, it’s my life twined together with yours. You are only home because you are ill, not because you look at me the way you do. You must go away as soon as you can, far across the sea, where you will be safe. This is a dream, it isn’t real, it won’t affect you. I will never be yours.”

Samuel Dias tore at his clothes, and Maria helped him. He was burning and so was she. The broth on the bedside table would wait. The world could wait as well. Outside, rain had begun to fall. Maiden Lane was silent and green, but nothing outside this chamber mattered. Soon the quilt began to burn and they tossed it away. The city had grown so small it only included one room. Samuel kept his eyes open so that he could see Maria at all times. The world was her and her alone. He remembered the way she had leapt from the gallows, her eyes meeting his as he waited in the trees with his heart in his mouth, praying the rope was frayed properly so that the jute would split apart. The world ended and began when it did.

Do you know how much I wanted you, still want you, will always want you?

In the small bed, in the room under the eaves, she told him he must not love her. “If you want to live,” Maria said, “you must stay away from me. That’s why I always tell you to leave.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“You’re very annoying, it’s true.”

They both laughed.

“As are you,” he said, his arms around her.

He was convinced what they did didn’t matter. He was ruined already. What sort of curse could be worse than the way he’d been cursed on that burning day in Portugal? Let his life be over if it must be, let the last thing he see be the rain on the window glass, the white plaster walls, Maria’s black hair falling over her shoulders, the line of daybreak over Manhattan, a sky that was the purest cobalt-blue, the blue of heaven, which, no matter what they might wish or what they might do, signified the end of a night of love.

The old man knew about them. He often didn’t remember what year it was, or what country he was in, but certain things were unmistakable and unforgettable. The sounds of love, for instance, were obvious. He heard them at night, and was glad that his son could find pleasure in this cruel world. Now Maria was late to breakfast, and Abraham chuckled to think of the reason. He was sitting at the table, having managed to get himself down the stairs. The black dog and he were both waiting to be fed. They were patient even though the hour for breakfast had long passed and their stomachs grumbled. On most days, Maria was awake long before the old man rose from bed, while the morning was still dark. But today the sun had been up for hours, and the old man and the wolf were still waiting.

When Maria finally came downstairs she was wearing her black dress, neatly buttoned. She had taken the time to comb the tangles from her hair and she had washed her face with black soap. She looked refreshed even though she’d barely slept.

“I thought I heard something last night,” Abraham said when Maria finally came downstairs. “Very late, when people should be asleep.”

“You heard nothing,” Maria insisted as she boiled water for Abraham’s tea. Abraham Dias liked his tea strong, with a slice of lemon when Maria managed to find one of those precious citrus fruits at the market stands.

“I know what I heard. Maybe now he’ll stay.” The old man always had bread and butter in the morning, which Maria set before him. Keeper was fed a portion of meat and bones.

“He won’t.”