My Sister's Hand in Mine (43 page)

She stopped still in the street and looked up at the sky.
“Jesu Maria!”
she said. “Don't let me say such things about my own daughter.” She clutched at Consuelo's arm.

“Come, come. Let us hurry. My feet ache. What an ugly city this is!”

Consuelo began to whimper. The word “assassin” had affected her painfully. Although she had no very clear idea of an assassin in her mind, she knew it to be a gross insult and contrary to all usage when applied to a young lady of breeding. It so frightened her that her mother had used such a word in connection with her that she actually felt a little sick to her stomach.

“No, mamá, no!” she cried. “Don't say that I am an assassin. Don't!” Her hands were beginning to shake, and already the tears were filling her eyes. Her mother hugged her and they stood for a moment locked in each other's arms.

Maria, the servant, was standing near the fountain looking into it when Consuelo and her mother arrived at the pension. The traveler and Señorita Córdoba were seated together having a chat.

“Doesn't love interest you?” the traveler was asking her.

“No … no…” answered Señorita Córdoba. “City life, business, the theater.…” She sounded somewhat halfhearted about the theater.

“Well, that's funny,” said the traveler. “In my country most young girls are interested in love. There are some, of course, who are interested in having a career, either business or the stage. But I've heard tell that even these women deep down in their hearts want a home and everything that goes with it.”

“So?” said Señorita Córdoba.

“Well, yes,” said the traveler. “Deep down in your heart, don't you always hope the right man will come along some day?”

“No … no … no.… Do you?” she said absentmindedly.

“Who, me? No.”

“No?”

She was the most preoccupied woman he had ever spoken with.

“Look, señoras,” said Maria to Consuelo and her mother. “Look what is floating around in the fountain! What is it?”

Consuelo bent over the basin and fished around a bit. Presently she pulled out her mother's pink corset.

“Why, mamá,” she said. “It's your corset.”

Señora Ramirez examined the wet corset. It was covered with muck from the bottom of the fountain. She went over to a chair and sat down in it, burying her face in her hands. She rocked back and forth and sobbed very softly. Señora Espinoza came out of her room.

“Lilina, my sister, threw it into the fountain,” Consuelo announced to all present.

Señora Espinoza looked at the corset.

“It can be fixed. It can be fixed,” she said, walking over to Señora Ramirez and putting her arms around her.

“Look, my friend. My dear little friend, why don't you go to bed and get some sleep? Tomorrow you can think about getting it cleaned.”

“How can we stand it? Oh, how can we stand it?” Señora Ramirez asked imploringly, her beautiful eyes filled with sorrow. “Sometimes,” she said in a trembling voice, “I have no more strength than a sparrow. I would like to send my children to the four winds and sleep and sleep and sleep.”

Consuelo, hearing this, said in a gentle tone: “Why don't you do so, mamá?”

“They are like two daggers in my heart, you see?” continued her mother.

“No, they are not,” said Señora Espinoza. “They are flowers that brighten your life.” She removed her glasses and polished them on her blouse.

“Daggers in my heart,” repeated Señora Ramirez.

“Have some hot soup,” urged Señora Espinoza. “Maria will make you some—a gift from me—and then you can go to bed and forget all about this.”

“No, I think I will just sit here, thank you.”

“Mamá is going to have one of her fits,” said Consuelo to the servant. “She does sometimes. She gets just like a child instead of getting angry, and she doesn't worry about what she is eating or when she goes to sleep, but she just sits in a chair or goes walking and her face looks very different from the way it looks at other times.” The servant nodded, and Consuelo went in to bed.

“I have French blood,” Señora Ramirez was saying to Señora Espinoza. “I am very delicate for that reason—too delicate for my husband.”

Señora Espinoza seemed worried by the confession of her friend. She had no interest in gossip or in what people had to say about their lives. To Señora Ramirez she was like a man, and she often had dreams about her in which she became a man.

The traveler was highly amused.

“I'll be damned!” he said. “All this because of an old corset. Some people have nothing to think about in this world. It's funny, though, funny as a barrel of monkeys.”

To Señorita Córdoba it was not funny. “It's too bad,” she said. “Very much too bad that the corset was spoiled. What are you doing here in this country?”

“I'm buying textiles. At least, I was, and now I'm just taking a little vacation here until the next boat leaves for the United States. I kind of miss my family and I'm anxious to get back. I don't see what you're supposed to get out of traveling.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Surely you do,” said Señorita Córdoba politely. “Now if you will excuse me I am going inside to do a little drawing. I must not forget how in this peasant land.”

“What are you, an artist?” he asked.

“I draw dresses.” She disappeared.

“Oh, God!” thought the traveler after she had left. “Here I am, left alone, and I'm not sleepy yet. This empty patio is so barren and so uninteresting, and as far as Señorita Córdoba is concerned, she's an iceberg. I like her neck though. She has a neck like a swan, so long and white and slender, the kind of neck you dream about girls having. But she's more like a virgin than a swan.” He turned around and noticed that Señora Ramirez was still sitting in her chair. He picked up his own chair and carried it over next to hers.

“Do you mind?” he asked. “I see that you've decided to take a little night air. It isn't a bad idea. I don't feel like going to bed much either.”

“No,” she said. “I don't want to go to bed. I will sit here. I like to sit out at night, if I am warmly enough dressed, and look up at the stars.”

“Yes, it's a great source of peace,” the traveler said. “People don't do enough of it these days.”

“Would you not like very much to go to Italy?” Señora Ramirez asked him. “The fruit trees and the flowers will be wonderful there at night.”

“Well, you've got enough fruit and flowers here, I should say. What do you want to go to Italy for? I'll bet there isn't as much variety in the fruit there as here.”

“No? Do you have many flowers in your country?”

The traveler was not able to decide.

“I would like really,” continued Señora Ramirez, “to be somewhere else—in your country or in Italy. I would like to be somewhere where the life is beautiful. I care very much whether life is beautiful or ugly. People who live here don't care very much. Because they do not think.” She touched her finger to her forehead. “I love beautiful things: beautiful houses, beautiful gardens, beautiful songs. When I was a young girl I was truly wild with happiness—doing and thinking and running in and out. I was so happy that my mother was afraid I would fall and break my leg or have some kind of accident. She was a very religious woman, but when I was a young girl I could not remember to think about such a thing. I was up always every morning before anybody except the Indians, and every morning I would go to market with them to buy food for all the houses. For many years I was doing this. Even when I was very little. It was very easy for me to do anything. I loved to learn English. I had a professor and I used to get on my knees in front of my father that the professor would stay longer with me every day. I was walking in the parks when my sisters were sleeping. My eyes were so big.” She made a circle with two fingers. “And shiny like two diamonds, I was so excited all the time.” She churned the air with her clenched fist. “Like this,” she said. “Like a storm. My sisters called me wild Sofía. At the same time they were calling me wild Sofia, I was in love with my uncle, Aldo Torres. He never came much to the house before, but I heard my mother say that he had no more money and we would feed him. We were very rich and getting richer every year. I felt very sorry for him and was thinking about him all the time. We fell in love with each other and were kissing and hugging each other when nobody was there who could see us. I would have lived with him in a grass hut. He married a woman who had a little money, who also loved him very much. When he was married he got fat and started joking a lot with my father. I was glad for him that he was richer but pretty sad for myself. Then my sister Juanita, the oldest, married a very rich man. We were all very happy about her and there was a very big wedding.”

“You must have been brokenhearted, though, about your uncle Aldo Torres going off with someone else, when you had befriended him so much when he was poor.”

“Oh, I liked him very much,” she said. Her memory seemed suddenly to have failed her and she did not appear to be interested in speaking any longer of the past. The traveler felt disturbed.

“I would love to travel,” she continued, “very, very much, and I think it would be very nice to have the life of an actress, without children. You know it is my nature to love men and kissing.”

“Well,” said the traveler, “nobody gets as much kissing as they would like to get. Most people are frustrated. You'd be surprised at the number of people in my country who are frustrated and good-looking at the same time.”

She turned her face toward his. The one little light bulb shed just enough light to enable him to see into her beautiful eyes. The tears were still wet on her lashes and they magnified her eyes to such an extent that they appeared to be almost twice their normal size. While she was looking at him she caught her breath.

“Oh, my darling man,” she said to him suddenly. “I don't want to be separated from you. Let's go where I can hold you in my arms.” The traveler was feeling excited. She had taken hold of his hand and was crushing it very hard.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked stupidly.

“Into your bed.” She closed her eyes and waited for him to answer.

“All right. Are you sure?”

She nodded her head vigorously.

“This,” he said to himself, “is undoubtedly one of those things that you don't want to remember next morning. I'll want to shake it off like a dog shaking water off its back. But what can I do? It's too far along now. I'll be going home soon and the whole thing will be just a soap bubble among many other soap bubbles.”

He was beginning to feel inspired and he could not understand it, because he had not been drinking.

“A soap bubble among many other soap bubbles,” he repeated to himself. His inner life was undefined but well controlled as a rule. Together they went into his room.

“Ah,” said Señora Ramirez after he had closed the door behind them, “this makes me happy.”

She fell onto the bed sideways, like a beaten person. Her feet stuck out into the air, and her heavy breathing filled the room. He realized that he had never before seen a person behave in this manner unless sodden with alcohol, and he did not know what to do. According to all his standards and the standards of his friends she was not a pleasant thing to lie beside.

She was unfastening her dress at the neck. The brooch with which she pinned her collar together she stuck into the pillow behind her.

“So much fat,” she said. “So much fat.” She was smiling at him very tenderly. This for some reason excited him, and he took off his own clothing and got into bed beside her. He was as cold as a clam and very bony, but being a truly passionate woman she did not notice any of that.

“Do you really want to go through with this?” he said to her, for he was incapable of finding new words for a situation that was certainly unlike any other he had ever experienced. She fell upon him and felt his face and his neck with feverish excitement.

“Dear God!” she said. “Dear God!” They were in the very act of making love. “I have lived twenty years for this moment and I cannot think that heaven itself could be more wonderful.”

The traveler hardly listened to this remark. His face was hidden in the pillow and he was feeling the pangs of guilt in the very midst of his pleasure. When it was all over she said to him: “That is all I want to do ever.” She patted his hands and smiled at him.

“Are you happy, too?” she asked him.

“Yes, indeed,” he said. He got off the bed and went out into the patio.

“She was certainly in a bad way,” he thought. “It was almost like death itself.” He didn't want to think any further. He stayed outside near the fountain as long as possible. When he returned she was up in front of the bureau trying to arrange her hair.

“I'm ashamed of the way I look,” she said. “I don't look the way I feel.” She laughed and he told her that she looked perfectly all right. She drew him down onto the bed again. “Don't send me back to my room,” she said. “I love to be here with you, my sweetheart.”

The dawn was breaking when the traveler awakened next morning. Señora Ramirez was still beside him, sleeping very soundly. Her arm was flung over the pillow behind her head.

“Lordy,” said the traveler to himself. “I'd better get her out of here.” He shook her as hard as he could.

“Mrs. Ramirez,” he said. “Mrs. Ramirez, wake up. Wake up!” When she finally did wake up, she looked frightened to death. She turned and stared at him blankly for a little while. Before he noticed any change in her expression, her hand was already moving over his body.

“Mrs. Ramirez,” he said. “I'm worried that perhaps your daughters will get up and raise a hullabaloo. You know, start whining for you, or something like that. Your place is probably in there.”