Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler Page A

our heads. Then, while Tomás looked around to find the source of the gunfire, Fanny leapt at him. Her teeth ripped clean through his breeches and tore a chunk of flesh from his thigh.
    The hunter was still a long way off. He fired another shot aimed to do permanent damage this time, which came within inches of Tomás’s head. In fear for his life, he cursed Violeta and lumbered off.
    “The hunter carried you home,” Papa told me. “We are greatly indebted to him.”
    He added that if it had not been for the good stranger, I might have been awaiting burial at this moment. I could not comprehend that. I tried to imagine being dead. I stopped breathing and made my face go blank.
    “What are you doing, John?” Papa asked.
    “Just thinking about things. Where’s Violeta now?”
    “She is with her mother, resting.”
    “And does Daniel know what happened?”
    “Indeed he does. I went to his house to tell him.”
    “And where is Tomás Gonçalves?”
    “He is no longer a problem,” Papa replied, and would say no more.
    *
    Violeta visited me the next afternoon, her wan face framed by a hideous black bonnet, which she refused to remove despite my entreaties. Mama gasped on seeing her, then fell into a disquieting silence, clearly afraid of all that might spill from her if she were to begin to express her feelings. She served us tea and sat with us, gripping Violeta’s hand. After a time, Mama got up,kissed the lass on the cheek, and left us to ourselves. When I asked Violeta what punishment had been given her uncle Tomás, she informed me that she did not know. He had vanished from their home. Her mother refused to talk of him.
    Daniel must have been hiding on our street, waiting for Violeta to visit, for he knocked on our front door a few minutes later and was led to my room by Mama. It was the first time he had seen the lass since the day of her attack. His eyes were red with sleeplessness, his voice brittle. Lacking a vocabulary equal to his emotions, he grew impatient with himself and short-tempered with Violeta. Too troubled and fragile to understand that his harshness was only the result of frustration, she in turn withdrew into her own sadness. Mama joined us after a while, and her presence prevented them from attempting to voice their feelings.
    While serving Violeta tea, Mama asked if she might try to cut her hair in a pleasing shape. “I have been my husband’s barber since our wedding,” she said, smiling.
    Violeta unfastened her bonnet. Her hair had been shorn down to her scalp, which was covered with scabs, making her eyes appear to bulge. “Not even the most skillful barber would be of help to me now,” she said sorrowfully.
    I was so overwhelmed that I could not speak, and I looked at Mama to make things right. She had set her teacup on our table and reached a trembling hand to her chest. Fighting for breath, she said, “I shall still be able to help you, dear child.”
    Daniel, unable to restrain himself, demanded to know who had done this to her. In a clipped monotone, the lass explained that her mother refused to believe that her uncle had attacked her. She had ordered her eldest sons to bind Violeta’s arms behind her back and hold her down on her bed while she herself did the cutting.
    “I kicked and fought, but it was of no use. It never is.” Gazing down, she whispered that if her mother caught her in one additional “lie,” then her head would be shaved every week and she would be denied a bonnet. Everyone in Porto would see that she was an incurable liar. “My mother said next time she would cut off something that would never grow back.”
    “I’d like to kill your mother!” Daniel shouted.
    “What would she cut off?” I asked.
    “Hush, John!” Mama snapped. “Not another word from you.” There was fire in her eyes. “Listen to me, Violeta, you must never think for one moment they are right. You must remember that you are innocent.” She crouched by the lass and kissed her