THE COLOR OF MARBLE
NOVEMBRO 11TH, 1854…
FOG OF SÃO MARTINHO; First fog of the winter, said to carry the voices of dead ancestors to judge your love that day…
The town is singing outside. She's inside, alone...
Inês Carvalho, 34 years of age. High cheekbones like the edge of Cruz Alta...her skin, pale, just the way marble is pale...
Eyes are Verde-Sintra too, moss-on-stone, but ringed dark because she hadn't slept in months. Her lips, small, unsmiling and bitten raw on the left. Avó says that's where lies come out.
Her long fingers, unpolished, nails cut short. Knuckles are red from cold. One scar across her right palm...the Oak tree gave it to her when she was 17 and carved T onto the bark. The tree healed, she didn't. Still on her middle finger was a Signet, Carvalho Oak, silver. She twists it when she lies. Tonight she's not lying, so it was still. She used it an hour ago to press wax onto a letter. The wax is black and dried. In the letter, ink is black. Pen is Tristão's. He left it when a Serra took him...or the war. Same thing.
Alfazema, crushed in her hair, salt from Cabo da Roca, ink from the letter she wrote and didn't send. She smelled like a library that survived a flood. Black, thick, pulled into a low bun. They were damp. She stood at the namoradeira window and the fog touched her.
Her feet is bare. The stone floor is iced. She likes the pain. Says it keeps her honest. Toenails are clean, unpainted. And blue veins runs over her feet like a river on a map.
She leaves the dinning room. No footsteps, bare feet on the stone...
Inês Carvalho covered in goosebumps on her bed is dressed in Black silk, long sleeves, high collar. No zipper. Dark green silk embroidery with her family's Oak tree. Every leaf a stitch. Tristão's name was there once...
The pen fits in her palm, I + T carved. The last letter gouged out.
' Menina ' the fog says. No voice. Just pressure, like the air before a storm. ' You answered '
She closed her eyes. The crespões stopped chiming. On the nightstand, the travesseiro seats. No knife. No hands. Just cracks, sugar falling like snow.
Half for her. Half for what came back.
She opened her eyes, watching the fog cover the floor. It moved like it was thinking. It reached the bedposts… Climbed.
Her breathing, slowed, counting, Avó taught her
' breathe in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8 ' .
Her hands, rested on her stomach.
It all began on the night of the 28th of December, it was a peak night
Their love was still very young….
AMOR DE VERÃO…STILL TRUE, STILL ARROGANT…
Flowers arches, sardines, basil plants with poems. Tristão dares her to carve their initials in convento dos capuchos. Sap is rising, spring vows last longer…
Tristão got sardine grease on his thumb and basil behind his ear. He hands her the knife. The cork is warm. Inês turns to the cork, stretching her arm with the carving knife in her right hand, she pressed the knife against the cork. Tristão moves closer behind her and taking her hand in his, they wrote their initials together I + T…
The tree bled and both lovers had smiles on their faces…just then a squirrel ran past Inês' feet. She shrieked in fear and the knife gave her a cut.
' Aw! That hurts…' Inês said… her eyes, glittering with the image of the moon and stars as she looked at Tristão while holding her bleeding hand… he took her hand in his warm hands and smiled
' Let me take a look Amor ' he said, in the most charming of ways. Looking at her eyes, straight into the depths of her soul, he placed her injured hand in his mouth and sucked the blood oozing out gently. Inês tried to free her hand from him.
' Tris! Stop! That's not proper…eeww '
But Tristão, he held on even stronger and not taking his glare away from her face, he spoke with his deep voice, now husky…almost like a whisper.
' Amor, nothing of you will ever be disgusting to me…' still smiling, he looked even deeper into her eyes as if he was searching for something….' I love you '
Then he made a vow…
' Se te perder que a Serra me leve… If I ever lose you, let Serra take me …'
Above them, the Serra pulled a cloud over the moon like a hood…she heard.
Both lovers were still eyes locked, soul intertwined and shared the same heart rhythm. Their faces were so close, they respired the same air. Tristão meant every single word of his vow even though he was just eighteen, he loved her. Inês on the other hand had her doubts…not that she wanted to…but if felt safer to. Anything but hope. Tristão Neves, one of the most handsome young men around in Sintra at that time, gentle, elegant, charming and the son to Neves Baltasar, one of the most renowned physician in the whole of Portugal and neighboring countries. How possibly could he love her like he claimed he did? She was just an orphan, with no nobility running through her veins, she only lived off her late grandfather's little inheritance together with her avó.
Inês, was what you'd call little, sweet, cute and mischievous. She had innocence plastered on her face like honey… but the whole of Sintra knew her…
At seventeen, made of Sintra-light and salt. You could put her on an azulejo and the tile would blush...
Her skin, Branco-Sintra. Not white like paper. White like mármore de Estremoz after rain-pale with blue veins at the temples where she thinks too hard. Fog kisses her and doesn’t leave marks. Sun tries and fails. She burns, then goes pale again, like the mountain wants her kept. Her eyes, bait-colored. Not brown. Not green. Ash. The color of the Tagus when it’s thinking about the sea. Grey when she’s lying, green when she’s near Cruz Alta, glittering silver only on December 28 when the basil blooms. Small pupils. Avó always says that, it's because a Serra lives in her head and doesn’t need much light.
Her eyebrows, straight, dark, not plucked. Like two strokes of cork ink. They don’t arch. They judge.
Her nose, small, straight, tip tilted up 2mm just enough to smell the sea from Cabo da Roca when the wind’s right. Freckles across the bridge, but only seven, She counted. Avó says seven is for saudade.
Small lips. Not thin, not full. Unripe cherry. Pale pink because she bites them when she’s not supposed to talk. The lower one fuller by a breath.
Her chin, Pointed, stubborn. Inês Carvalho's ring would leave a mark if you pressed it there. Tiny ears, but she can hear the radio switch on three rooms away.
Her hair, black, but not espanhol black. Sintra black, blue in the shade, like a crow’s wing under the full moon. Thick, waist-long, waves because the fog combs it at night. She never cuts it. “A Serra mede o amor pelo cabelo ” avó said. “ The Serra measures love by hair.”
Seventeen and all edges. Collarbones like namoradeira handles. Wrists you could circle with avó’s rosary. But she’s strong, carries buckets from Lagoa Azul for the basil, walks Serra trails barefoot when the cobbles burn tourists. Her long fingers, ink on the right middle one because she writes letters she won’t send. Nails short, clean, no polish. One scar on the right palm
Her feet, always cold. Mármore floors see to that. Second toe longer than the first “pé grego,” avó calls it. Means she’s descended from queens or sailors.
It doesn't seem like she walks, but glides, not on purpose. She keeps her head down when the fog’s thick not from shyness. So a Serra can’t read her eyes.
When she laughs, you don’t hear it first. You see it in her shoulders. Then it comes, low, like water over Pedra de Alvidrar. She only laughs for real on December 28. Other days, she smiles with her mouth closed.
If you see her, you’d understand why 18-year-old Tristão said “Se te perder, que a Serra me leve” and meant it.
Avó always said sternly each time Inês brought trouble. ' You're the only child of your late parents and my only heritage. How did you turn out to be so miserable?! ' but Inês never gave an ear to what her avó ever said…she did her mind anyway.
' If you get yourself into one more trouble, I'll marry you off to an old man ' her avó always threatened her and the curses that usually come after. Which seemed to be the only line avó knew or had practiced…or was she deliberately saying the same words? Why? Did she still love her? Inês pondered these questions, well, once in a while. These threats of avó came to be after the “little trick” she pulled on her thirteenth birthday.
JULHO 6TH, 1833…
Parabens Salgados…
It was still the Blue hour, the Serra de Sintra exhales. Thick , cool fog rolls down from Cruz Alta. You can't see 10 feet ahead. It muffled sound so the whole town feels like it's holding it's breath. The temperature was about ~16°C. The mármore de estremoz floors in the old houses were ice on bare feet. It wasn't dark, not day even. Everything was blue-gray. The azulejos on outdoor walls were beaded with dew.
Street lamps, still on, glowing in the mist like little moons.
The town wakes up, the mist burns off. Sun hits. Cruz Alta gets golden while the streets below are still shadow cool. By 8am the sky was pure blue.
Inês was still under her blanket, she held her pillow quite tightly as she slept peacefully.
8:30am…
Thirteen. Inês was supposed to be queen today. Instead she got tap, tap, tap on the shoulder at 8:30 sharp. No “ parabéns”. No kiss. Just avó's voice, already moka-pot angry
“ Acorda, menina. Já são oito. O dia não espera porque fazes anos.” Wake up, girl. It’s eight thirty. The day doesn’t wait because it’s your birthday.
Inês rolled over. Eyes shut. Lifted one shoulder. Let it drop. The other didn’t bother.
A birthday shrug.
The tapping stopped. Worse than yelling.
' Shrugs são para quem não tem boca nem respeito,' avó said, leaving.
' Café está na mesa. Se acordares.' Shrugs are for people with no mouth and no respect. Coffee’s on the table. If you wake up.
That pissed her off.
Thirteen .No “minha neta”. No cake. Just chores and cold azulejos.
Fine. Avó wanted her awake? Inês would be awake. And avó would regret it.
8:43am. Kitchen empty. Avó at the namoradeira, back turned, watering geraniums. Spectacles on. Voices murmuring on the radio.
On the counter two bicas steaming. The blue azulejo sugar bowl, the salt cellar. Identical twin, except for “SAL” in avó’s shaky biro writing.
Inês didn’t blink. Thirteen years of “ menina, acorda” in her wrists. She swapped them. Sugar where salt should be. Salt where sugar should be. Pushed avó’s cup forward. Three heaping spoons of “sugar” on top.
Then she sat. Sipped her own bica. Hummed parabéns through her teeth. Off-key. On purpose.
8:51am…
Avó came in, wiped her hands on the apron. Didn’t look. Muscle memory took the “sugar” and dumped another spoon in. Stirred. Lifted the cup like it was holy.
Sip.
The noise she made wasn’t Portuguese. Wasn’t human. It was Cruz Alta fog choking on a travesseiro. Spectacles fogged instantly. She spat back into the mármore de Estremoz. Coffee shrapnel everywhere.
Silence.
Then slap. Slap. Slap. Her bare hand on the counter. Three times.
“ Inês Maria Imaculada da Conceição.”
Full baptism name. All three. Avó never used the middle ones unless someone was about to die or do dishes for a month.
“ Menina, tu sabes o que fizeste?“ Girl, do you know what you did?
Inês didn’t flinch. She shrugged... Both shoulders to her ears. Palms up. “Sei lá. Achei que aniversários eram para quem acorda. Não para quem adormece o café.”_ Dunno. Thought birthdays were for people who wake up. Not for people who put the coffee to sleep
' SAL? ' Avó grabbed the cellar, now full of sugar. Then the bowl, full of salt. “Puseste SAL no meu café no dia em que te carreguei nove meses?!” SALT? You put SALT in my coffee on the day I carried you for nine months?!
“ Não me carregaste,” Inês said, finally weaponizing her mouth. “A minha mãe carregou. Tu deste-me a escova de dentes para os azulejos da casa de banho.” You didn’t carry me. My mom did. You gave me the toothbrush for the bathroom tiles.
' Since you like salt, you’ll salt the cod for Sunday. Today. Cold water. And then the bathroom. All of it. With your tongue if necessary, birthday girl. '
'She yanked the namoradeira windows wide. 8:55am. All of Sintra was awake now
' Ó VIZINHANÇA! A ANIVERSARIANTE DEU-ME ÁGUA DO MAR NO CAFÉ! DIZ QUE É AMOR DE NETA! ' OH NEIGHBORHOOD! THE BIRTHDAY GIRL GAVE ME SEA WATER IN MY COFFEE! SAYS IT’S A GRANDDAUGHTER’S LOVE! '
Ten minutes later, Inês was at the sink, bacalhau in ice water, fingers numb, when something slid onto the counter. Rabanada. Real. Hot. Cinnamon. One candle, crooked. Thirteen didn’t fit, so avó picked one.
Avó didn’t look at her. Put the spectacles back on. Tasted a new bica twice before drinking.
' Next time, girl, put salt in yours too. Half a prank is a coward’s prank. And blow out the candle before I remember, I hate wasting gas. The next time you pull such a stunt, I'll marry you off to an old man! '
She left on one slipper, one bare foot. The kitchen smelled like coffee, sea water, cinnamon, and a birthday truce nobody signed.
Inês was full of mischief, was it when she deliberately put avó spectacles in the cake batter and had it baked? Or when she was fourteen and avó instructed her never to pay visit to the well but she did anyway. Or when she losed all the knitted shawls avó made for the winter. Inês' mischief didn't end in her house, it went farther into Sintra.
Was it when she was fifteen and collected money from Simão Duarte, the tax collector in avó's name? Or when she collected beetles and infested avó Graça's flower shop, because she called her a wild bush?
It was one mischief to the other..and each time she was taken to the constables, she always found a lie to cover up and each time she found herself lying, she bit her lower lip, the left side and twists her signet ring on her right middle finger…
Only avó knew when Inês told or is telling a lie…with that still, Inês Carvalho was one of Sintra's finest. Though no mother wanted her associating with their children, she grew up alone without friends…and so, disturbing her avó was her only means of fun and she did it whole heartedly.
Winter was quick approaching and Inês was now sixteen years of age. She became more beautiful than ever, but no real man ever approached her, except the oldies who flirt with her or the hoodlums….or the good for nothings?
Avó had told her occasionally that she'd end up alone or in a bad marriage. She often said that good manners was far best than a honey skin face and silver eyes with black long hair.
Avó would say to Inês each time she got back from the constable's office
“Oh Inês Maria Immaculata da Conceição, park that body of yours here and open your ears, which are cleaner than your conscience today.
A pretty girl with no manners is like Pena Palace with a broken roof from far away even the English tourists take pictures, but when November rain comes and the mountain dumps water, nobody wants to stay inside.
Drip drip drip on the linen bed, bucket in the middle of the room, and mold eating the silks. Beauty without upbringing is a cracked tile, cold gets in, neighbors get in, gossip gets in, and husbands get out. Because a man may marry a washed face, but he won’t marry a dirty mouth and a hand full of salt for someone else’s coffee.
A man puts up with a mother-in-law, puts up with poverty, even puts up with Benfica losing, but he won’t put up with a girl who thinks mischief fills a belly and insults make a bed. Good manners, girl, are olive oil in the frying pan without it even the freshest egg sticks, burns, stinks, and nobody eats it. You can have sea-eyes and Saint Anthony’s-night hair, but if your tongue’s only good for seasoning disaster, you’ll end up an aunt. And an aunt in Sintra lives with cats, fog, and back pain, listening to the Barcelos rooster crow alone. Want to be a queen? Learn to be a person first.
Inês rolled her eyes and said
“ Oh. Mass is over, avó? Can I go light a candle for my rotten soul now or are you still calling more saints?
Look, thanks for the lesson on roofs and frying pans. Seriously. I’ll write it in my diary right now.
But since we’re talking husbands, did you marry avô because of his good manners, or because he knew to shut up when you were yelling at the neighbors at seven in the morning? Because, by family history, the only olive oil that never ran out in this house was on your tongue, avó.
And if I end up an aunt? Great. More cats, fewer men complaining about salt in their coffee. Honestly, sounds like a better plan than yours.
Want to be a queen, you say? I just want a decent coffee and five minutes without a sermon. You can keep the pots and the husband. I’ll take the broken roof. At least the wind gets in and doesn’t suffocate me.
Done. Can I go clean the azulejos now, Your Majesty of Cruz Alta? Or is there still the part where you tell me not even a Moorish Enchanted Maiden wants me? ”
She left…
Avó was left heartbroken…
How did Inês became this way…yes she lost her parents at a young age but she had been there for her…she gave her a mother's love and brought her up well just like she raised her mother, her mother didn't turn out bad…why Inês? She thought….
Inês went to bed but her eyes were struck open like wild fire, sleep deserted her. She closed her eyes severally hoping sleep would eventually come, but it didn't, she felt really not good about the way she spoke to her avó.
Still in her thoughts, the wind blew her window open and suddenly it became windy in her room…but she didn't move an inch, she only stared as if she were paralyzed…
The wind left…and Inês wept….
The next morning….
9:14am…
The curtains were up. Inês was at the sink. Scrubbing the frying pan way harder than it needs. Avó sits at the table, darning a dishcloth that isn’t torn. Neither looks at the other. The cat’s gone even he knows this is private.
Inês still scrubbing the frying pan spoke
' Avó… sorry. '
Avó’s needle pauses. But resumes.
Inês continued…
'Sorry about the mouth… Mine… It woke up dirtier yesterday than this frying pan today.
She continued to scrub. Metal on metal. Loud.
' You said beauty without manners is a broken tile. Today I was the whole house falling down. I spoke to you like you were… I don’t know. Like you were the pot that burned the milk yesterday. And you’re not a pot. You’re the person who cleans the pot when I burn it. '
She drops the sponge. Turns. Hands soapy, face worse
' I was rude. I talked back, threw words, rolled my eyes like I had the right. I don’t. You scold me, but you scold me because you care. And I treated you like you were the neighbor who yells first at seven in the morning.
Avó sets down the dishcloth down and finally looked at her.
Inês spoke further
' Good manners are olive oil, you said. Yesterday I talked without any oil at all. I was a dry frying pan hissing, spitting grease everywhere. And you’re the one who got burned.'
Inês wipes her hands on her apron and looks at the floor.
' I'm so sorry for not having manners. Sorry for thinking being 17 gives me permission to disrespect the person who raised me. It doesn’t. The face can be washed, but if the mouth is dirty, it’s no use. You’re right. '
Silence. Just the drip of the tap Inês forgot to close.
Inês said small, almost to herself
' And sorry for being ashamed to say this without scrubbing a pan. But there. I said it.'
Avó stands. Walks to the sink. Takes the frying pan from Inês’s hands. Inspects it and nods once.
Avó, still looking at the pan
'It’s clean. '
Inês blinks.
Avó puts the pan on the rack. Dries her hands on the apron. Then, without looking at Inês, she reaches up and tucks a loose strand of Inês’s hair behind her ear. Avó, now muttering to the cupboard
' After ten you can go back to being a broken roof. But from nine to ten… you speak to me properly. Deal? '
Inês felt her throat tight, she manages a nod
' Deal, avó. '
' Then come on. The cake’s in the oven. I turned it on at eight. But I didn’t tell you… because I wanted to see how far that dirty mouth of yours would go before I gave you sweets. '
Inês’s head snaps up. Avó’s already walking to the oven.
Inês spoke in her laugh
' You’re worse than me, avó '
Avó walked to the oven and opened it. The smell of pão-de-ló hits the kitchen and then, the whole house
' You learned it from someone, Maria Imaculada da Conceição '
Avó spoke softly with a smile on her face.
Both women had their breakfast with smiles on their faces and avó was joyed, she hadn't felt this way in a long time and she kept stealing glances at Inês…
Inês spoke out
' You could pinch me to know if you're dreaming avó….quit staring at me like that…you're making me a bit uncomfortable '
Avó only smiled at her
'What do you mean, let's not talk about marriage? '
' Avó, I'm too young, besides, you said yourself that no man would look at me twice….'
' Oh please Inês, don't be a cry baby. I can feel it…you're changed and I have no doubt you'd remain this way…the Serra heard my prayers Menina. You're very beautiful child…so getting a man wouldn't be a hassle…'
' Alright alright avó…I've heard you… I have to get going. The rehearsals for the drama on festa da Imaculada Conceição '
She quickly cleared the table and washed the dishes.
She left hastily and said as she closed the door
' I'll be back before you know it. Chau avó!!! '
