Page 53 of An Immaculate Deception

I knew she would not like it. She always wanted to make herself more beautiful. Prettier dresses, flowers in her hair, shimmering paint on her face. She doesn’t understand the point was not to enhance her beauty, because the photographs were never about that. They are about capturing her beauty. Her beauty is fragile, ephemeral, and the light needs to hit just so. When everything around her is mundane, that’s when her beauty shines through.

“It’s…it’s art,” I manage.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

She sinks onto the bed and crosses her arms over her chest. Lips pressed tight in a pout. She stares hard at the wall in front of her.

I sit beside her. If she were really incensed, she would have left. Still, she refuses to meet my eyes. From up close her hair is so lush and velvety. The lines of anger between her brows seem at odds with the softness of her skin. I wish she could understand what I see in her.

“There’s an old tale of a poet who journeys to the underworld,” I say.

She looks at me sideways.

“There he encounters a woman called Beatrice. He can never look at her directly because her beauty is so divine and incandescent. He cannot face her head-on, you see. She’s too divine and he is too earthly. He only catches glimpses of her.”

“Is that…?” She rounds to stare at me, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. The anger melts off her face. Her arms uncross. There’s the hint of a smile on her lips, but she won’t allow herself to smile, not before my eyes. The sudden closeness between us is like rain on a scorching hot day. It’s a new, strange feeling.

“It’s like how you cannot stare directly at the sun,” I say, feeling unsteady. “It shines too bright.”

She leans forward and presses her lips to mine.

Who will be next? Will you marry a prostitute? Will you court a beggar? Shall you look for the future mother of your children under the Boa Vista bridge?

I rock slightly back and forth on the stool. The air in the senzala feels humid and damp. Water drips in slow drops from somewhere along the low ceiling. A few days ago I spent hours searching for the source of the leak, but could not find it. I hear the dripping sound every five seconds, ceaselessly.

I warned you, yet you did not listen to me. Sinful thought always leads to sinful action.

“I felt so inspired when I took her photos. It felt as divine inspiration—”

Listen to yourself. The seductive words Satan whispers in your ears. Do not mistake rationalizations for truth. The real purpose of these photo sessions is to nurse your lust. You sit there and you watch her, craving and desiring. Then you convince yourself that you’re experiencing divine inspiration!

Could it be? I think of the rush of inspiration I felt when I photographed her…Was that all just lust?

The kiss felt good, like a wave of something new and wonderful. I did not expect it, did not know what to do. Her soft hands brushed my shoulders and the back of my neck, and the feeling was outside the bounds of everything I thought I knew. The world, no, the universe itself, became more expansive and vaster than I could have imagined. Like my life could be different. She and I could discover this new path together. It felt pure and right and whole.

Could that have been the allure of Satan? Merely the trappings of sin and lust?

She is no Beatrice. She is a vile temptress who sees your weaknesses and your innocence. Was it not her who initiated the kiss? Any decent woman would not have agreed to be her employer’s private model. She has the devil in her skin.

The devil in her skin…I try to conjure Joaquina’s grating voice, her demands and impulsive requests. I try to remind myself how irritated I had felt earlier today. Yet the quarrel feels so distant now, so unimportant, almost like it never happened. Everything prior to our kiss feels like a lifetime ago. All I can recall now is the sweetness of our embrace. It is so vivid.

I don’t want to believe it. Sweet, willful Joaquina, with her tender eyes and her reckless abandon—has the devil in her skin?

Mother’s pressure weighs on me even with her eyes shut. Eyes, lids, lips, always shut, hands that never move. Yet her voice rings clear as the church bells in town.

Well? Mother says. What are you going to do about her?

32

Joaquina sits at Mother’s vanity again, humming and smiling at herself in the mirror while putting on jewels. Her knuckles glitter with gemstones and she already has an evening dress on. I detect lavender-rose perfume as I enter the room, and a sickening feeling coils in my gut.

I do not know if I can get rid of her, as Mother demands. She has such a hold on me.

That is the work of Satan.

“Shall we go downstairs to the drawing room for the photos?” she asks lightly. “Maria das Dores has already left for the day.”

I stand still. Conflicting emotions pull me apart in opposite directions. I wonder what Joaquina will do if I never move again, if I stand here like a boulder, uncomprehending, transfixed for eternity.