Novel excerpt: The Almadeira

If my life were one of my paintings, it would be a tiny fresco of a bowl of soup filled a sixth of the way up. Instead, I create decorative azulejo tiles for the church: Jesus performing miracles, heroic battles, and good deeds done. And while I paint, a witch burns at the stake in the name of God.

Behind a false wall in a little workshop in Lisbon, I stoop over my latest blasphemous piece, working shoulder to shoulder with my grandmother—my vovó. I lay yet another ruined tile down on the stack and grab a fresh white slab. Vovó’s paintbrush flicks, swoops, and sails. Mine jolts, snags, and smudges.

“That’s a lot of huffing for someone with so much work to do, Raffi,” she says, not taking her eyes off her own delicate handiwork.

“There wouldn’t be so much work if you didn’t take these extra commissions.” A spot of yellow paint weeps into the blue so that my animal design looks green and ill now. “Cherubs are easier to paint, safer. Hell—” 

“Don’t say that word.”

“—give me frescos of The Last Supper to paint. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Cats have too much goddamn . . . fur.” 

“Don’t say that word either. And definitely don’t say it in the same breath as The Last Supper!” She crosses herself three times.

Ever since the resident Moors inspired the idea, Lisbon’s been fanatic about azulejos: blue-and-white hand-painted tiles. They’re affixed to buildings’ exteriors, and usually churches, even in our rickety, oft-forgotten neighbourhood—the Alfama. So, as official painters to the crown, we’re quite busy. Today, we’re busy with other projects.

I blend the dry pigment with water to make a brilliant shade of yellow. The church only gives us yellow powder if we’re asked to sketch a halo for a cherub or a gold bangle for royalty. I can only afford to reserve two spoonfuls of that glass powder without the officials noticing.

Vovó lifts her tile-in-progress to the boarded-up window of the study, where it catches a shard of light coming from between the slats.

“My song shall spread wherever there are men. If wit and art will so much guide my pen,” she says.

I raise my eyebrow.

She grins. “Luís de Camões, Os Lusíadas, 1572.”

“I figured that proverb wasn’t yours.”

“Teenage grandsons would do well to paint inside the lines. . . . Now that proverb”—she holds her finger in the air—“that one’s mine.” 

I cast tile number four onto the discard pile, wincing as I waste our allotment of the church’s tiles. I can only claim that a few broke or cracked. 

This particular painting is another failed attempt at drawing a yellow, one-eyed owl with a green snake wrapped around its neck (surprisingly, not my specialty). “I don’t understand why we’re helping these, these . . .”

“Almadeiras. Use their names, Raffi. You might not believe in souls, but plenty of others do—and they need the soul spinners. We help them with their tiles because we can and because they’re in danger.” She moves to sweep my hair out of my eyes, but I pull back.

I beat the brush against my palm and a flick of green hits my nose. “People in danger put other people in danger.”

“I trust them,” she says.  

“Somehow, I don’t think the church’s inquisitors are going to care that you have such a pure, good-hearted belief in their enemies.”

“If you’re so afraid of being caught, then you’d do well to remember as paredes têm ouvidos—the walls have ears.”

We hunch back over our work. Three more spoiled paintings later (two from me, one from Vovó), I announce, “I need more tiles.” 

“Just be careful and quiet, querido.”

I nod, wipe my hands and face on my apron and leave it on my chair as I slip out from behind the false wall into the workroom and its obscured street-facing view. I squint at the daylight feebly making its way in, or as much as it can given the grime on the window and clutter up against it. Palettes, art supplies, and thick religious books with faux gold trim (on loan from the palace) greet me. 

I sift through the blank tiles on the table for usable ones and they shudder from reverberations. Footsteps strut up the two steps to the shop; they’re not the wedged sole of a fisherman’s boot, but a daintier shoe. The visitor raps twice on the door.

I get some purchase on the locks and creak the door open. I bow my head, even though the man in front of me isn’t a royal. “What can I do for you, Inspector?”

Inspector Duarte blusters past me and rifles through some sketches on the table. He’s a man with only one speed: deft. 

I shove the hinge-rusted door closed.

“Where’s your avó? I was hoping she’d have one of her commissions ready for the Holy Trinity Church.”

“She’s at home sick.”

“Not feeling well, again?”—he purses his lips—“That would explain the state of this . . . room.” 

Chipped ceramic tiles and a bowl of caked brushes line the sooty window sill, while a half-finished canvas of Jesus in a partial loincloth props itself in the far corner.

Duarte stifles a smile. “I’d like to see a fully clothed Son of God next time, hm?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, tidying a heap of brushes.

He winks and claps me on the back, “Good boy.”

I wrench the tired old door open for him.

“I’ll be back on Th—” he starts, but stops mid-sentence. “Boy, let me see your hand.”

My left hand is still on the doorknob, so I extend my right only. 

“The other one.”

As my left floats up toward him, my thumb flashes the faintest speck of green paint.

He grabs me by the wrist and gestures to his two henchmen on the street, then hoists my wrist higher so that I’m on tiptoe. 

The bumbling men enter and a few feeble coins jangle in their overalls. Duarte tosses me toward the thinner one who has a deep scar that runs from cheekbone to chin. 

“Arrest this boy on account of treason and plotting against the Inquisition.”

I struggle under the henchman’s calloused hands, palettes clattering to the ground. I bump into the loincloth Jesus and we both tumble. Duarte’s henchman clips me, hard, over the eye.

“I’ll trade you a speck of paint for an entire hand, Senhor Duarte,” a voice says from behind me.

Vovó’s hand is slick with viridian green paint that cascades onto the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip. 

“My grandson was covering for me,” she lies. “He doesn’t know anything about the movement. Spare him, in the name of God, and take me instead.”

Duarte’s upper lip snarls back. “God has no place in your mouth, old woman.” 

He rears back to avoid the growing pool of paint and nods to the second burlier henchman. 

“Take both of the traitors.”

Vovó mews into my hair, “Querido, I’m so sorry.” And even more quietly, through restrained, shuttered sobs, “Here, please, take,” and something drops into my pocket.

The henchmen pry us apart and her clawing fingers leave paint smears all down my shirt, which will draw suspicious glances later I’m sure.

Her wrists are so dainty they have to wrap two tight loops around each, digging the rope into her flesh. The other man heaves her off the ground and carts her away like she’s a half-empty sack of flour rather than the woman who taught me how to read and knead malassada dough.

All because of my thumb, my lousy thumb.