The Widow Betrayed

The Widow

Betrayed

I didn’t ask for any of this

to happen in this order.

-- Stephen Falk

“I think,” said Judy, amid the clopping of horse hooves and crunch of the wagon wheels on the road, “that my Dad loved my Mom more than she loved him.”

We were making good time on the new section of McKinley Highway, approaching the Portuguese Quarter,

Judy was driving us home in the buckboard wagon after the Mira Flores dam incident. Sam was riding shotgun and I was half-dozing in the wagon’s bed. It had been a long day.

“You knew them both, Sam,” she continued, “what do you -- ”

“Twelve Gauge,” I interrupted. “He wants to be called Twelve Gauge from now on.”

“Oh,” said Judy. “Okay, Twelve Gauge. What do you think?”

“You may be right,” answered Sam carefully. I didn’t blame him: it sounded like some sort of trap question.

“I don’t know. With our parents,” theorized Twelve Gauge, “it was the other way around.”

“Marriages are always slanted,” theorized Judy. “That’s what I think. It’s never exactly even.”

Copyright @ 2023 Tom Durwood. All rights reserved.

She sweet-talked the horses, those hard workers who expected and deserved her warm voice and constant attention. She jostled the reins, just to let them know she was with them.    

 “Love,” Judy concluded. “It’s all so sad. Makes you think.”

“It makes you think,” said Twelve Gauge. “Everything makes you think -- ”

Just then, Johnny Hayes, one the head Inspectors, emerged onto the road and flagged us down, weaving frantically.           

“Gunny! Thank God it’s you!”

Johnny was wearing his fogger gear, hood back. He waved us over.

“Got ourselves a hoarder,” was what he said. “Cain’t let go.”

He climbed in and we rode through a little grove and into the center of Vizinhanca, the Portagee village. At Johnny’s direction, we turned down one of the side streets, to where the road opened to a three-story farmhouse, in the French style, with gabled roofs and a circular drive.  

“This is one you may regret, Gunny,” said big Folly Mockerson, the Quartermaster, who had been roped into the drama.   

“She’s hoarding all kinds of garbage in there.” Folly showed me the paperwork.  

“ICC violations!” added Johnny, gesturing towards a dozen waiting foggers. “All kinds!”

“The boys cain’t use force to remove her,” Folly explained. “It’s in the charter.” 

“But you can,” added Johnny.

“Let us do our job!” shouted one of the foggers.

I smoothed back my hair, straightened the collar of my khaki uniform shirt, and put on my hat.

I moved towards the porch of the house, where I saw a group of women gathered, sitting on hammocks and wicker chairs.

“That’s a shot-gun on her lap,” warned Johnny. He spat on the ground for emphasis. “Looks like one of those old Sharps ...”    

“Besides, she’s Joao Martim’s sister,” Folly added. “He swears by her.”

“That don’t cut no ice with me,” says I.

“Maybe it should -- ” warned Folly.

Martim was the Portagee Borough chief. He called the shots for all the village’s domestic matters, as well as the work crews.

“Where’s Martim now?” I asked.

“The whole Lisbon crew is down in the Gatun,” said Folly. “They’ll be back Friday.”

“We can’t wait!” insisted Johnny. “Her hoarding has attracted all kinds of vermin in there. Bad things festering.”

I took off my hat and stepped onto the porch.

Simao, one of the Portuguese elders, stepped out of the crowd and walked with me, so he could translate. I knew him from the Borough councils.

“Her name is Ines,” he said, in a low voice. “Perhaps not the most popular woman in our ward …”

We climbed the stairs to the porch.

“Howdy, Miss Ines.” I bowed. “I’m Gunny Sergeant Gray Stott.”

“I know who you are,” she replied, in thickly accented English. “I knew your Father.”

She was seated on the edge of a hammock. I could see the bulky form of a sawed-off Sharps on her lap, one of those old-time, heavy squirrel guns, half-covered by a shawl. Four neighbor-women sat around her on white wicker seats. I couldn’t tell what they thought of the proceedings.   

“Boa noite,” Miss Ines said politely.

She nodded for me to come ahead.  

As I approached, I could see through the windows into a living room crammed with junk. Newspapers and magazines were stacked in leaning box- towers. I caught a glimpse of the hallway, and the kitchen beyond, and saw empty tin cans and bags of garbage. I could smell rotted fish, and coffee, and a whiff of tobacco. All the lights were on: Johnny and his fumigation team must have been in the middle of executing a sweep of the borough when they came across this treasure.

“What is it, ma’am” I asked her, as Simao translated. “How can I help us all get through this?”

She listened gravely to Simao. She sat upright and cleared her throat and spoke, with feeling, and at length.

“My late husband loved to read the newspaper,” Simao said (speaking for her). “These, these objects I am saving, they are for him. His favorite things. They cannot be touched.”

The widow rocked slightly in her porch seat.  Her hand moved, so as to grip the gun more effectively. I pretended not to notice.

“What, like a tribute?” asked Twelve Gauge, who had ignored my order to stay back. “That’s a hell of a thing -- ”

“Gustavo,” explained Simao, “was a handsome man. Well-liked. Their love was … was of the highest order, she says. She keeps all his favorite things, his foods, his papers, close by. To honor him.”

One of her friends sniffled, another began to cry.

“I am truly sorry for your loss, ma’am,” said I. “My Daddy passed some time ago.” Simao translated my words.

“Yes,” she replied. “I know that.”  

“Today, this house is a hazard to the families of Aldeia,” I told her, using the second, more local name for her village.

“Your neighbors’ children will die of fever. From this.”

The widow pulled a bonnet from under the shotgun. She spoke slowly, the bonnet turning in her hands. Simao seemed upset by what she said, and he interrupted her twice. She calmly continued speaking, nodding for him to translate.  

The widow Gustavo turned to face me.

I recognized that look: Nothing left to lose.

“She says that Gustavo brought her to life,” said Simao. “He was all she had in this world. A girl like her, she says – plain-looking – she had no dowry, no mystery about herself. No suitors came to call. He saved her from a life of loneliness.”

The widow interjected, adding more, setting up a stir among the neighbor women. 

“Don’t matter,” I announced.

I held up my hand.

I had made up my mind.

“The past is dead and gone, ma’am,” I told Miss Ines.

“Leave it be.”

She remained unmoved.

I opened one of the windows to the living room and reached through. I grabbed a newspaper.

I rolled it into a torch.

I took out a matchbook and held it up.

Murmurs and shouts of protest rose along the porch seats and out among the onlookers, who now filled the lawn.

“I’m going to count to three.” I told the widow Ines. “Then I’m gonna burn this house down. You’d best use that gun now, lady, or step out.”

An outburst of rapidly-talking voices cascaded into the evening air –

“Back off!” said Folly.  

“Do it, Gray!” cried Johnny.

Both Judy and Sam stepped up onto the porch, Sam at my 3 o’clock, ready to back me, howsoever the cat jumped.

“They’ll hate you for it -- ” Simao shouted.

“They can get in line,” I replied.

“One ...” I counted.

“Gunny knows what he’s doing,” said Sam calmly.

“Two.” I yanked out a match --

The widow Ines pulled the heavy gun up --

“Esperar!” cried one of the neighbor-women. 

She leapt between me and the Widow. 

“Por favor, Ines!”

“Esperar,” said the neighbor-woman. “Momentito.”

She handed something to Simao, accompanied by a rapid-fire narrative. 

Simao held it up for all to see. He lowered it.

It was a packet of letters, colored letters, some with envelopes. He untied the ribbon and gingerly removed the top letter. Lavender.

He gave the rest of the packet to the widow.

Quiet settled over the scene. Letters were passed among the neighbor women.

“E hora de ela saber,” the neighbor stated.

For a long interval, there was only the sound of shuffling papers.

“These are … letters of a most intimate sort,” explained Simao. “Between Gustavo and another woman. This lady’s daughter, Leonor.”

Several of the women clucked with disapproval.

The widow’s features had gone pale, and fallen apart.  Her lips were pursed thin. Faced with this proof of Gustavo’s betrayal …    

The women passed letters back and forth. Sharp disapproval mixed with warm expressions of sympathy for Ines. Simao did not need to translate.

The widow Ines looked at me and nodded. The look in her eyes was so wild, so sad.

Johnny Hayes and a trio of foggers began to climb the porch.

She lay the shotgun on the floor.  

The full force of the ICC’s Legion of Hygiene swarmed into the home.            

“Where is the girl Leonor now?” I asked Simao, to the side.

“Apparently Martim paid for her to return to Portugal,” he told me. “Martim didn’t want to see his sister hurt. There may have been … the birth of a child involved …” Simao’s voice trailed off.

We could hear the loud sounds of the stamping of feet on floorboards within, as the foggers moved furniture, shouting instructions to one another, clouds issuing from their hoses.

The widow’s friends ushered her off the porch, so the plenithium would not burn her lungs.

We stepped down the porch’s near side, winding our way through the onlookers and foggers.

I wrote notes in my pad, for the report. Murph would want to know as much I wanted to tell him.

We crossed the gravel drive towards the wagon.   

Twelve Gauge clapped his hand on my shoulder. Judy’s hand followed. 

“Love,” said Judy. “It’s a helluva thing …”

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