Chapter 4 #2
His shadow falls on the table, accompanied by the smells of aguardiente and slum smoke.
“You must come home at once.” His voice cracks like the snap of a belt.
He says more, but she cannot hear it. Her heart slams against her sternum, over and over again, desperate to escape.
He seizes her by the arm and wrenches her to her feet.
When Arnulfo and Armando disappeared, Papá’s anger rocked through the house like a runaway boulder.
It smashed into the largest target it could find: Minerva.
It struck her shoulders with both hands, sending her back into the doorway.
Her spine hit the wall first. Her neck snapped back, her skull struck the wall.
She crumpled to the floor like a cast-off shirt.
She stayed there, arms raised against the next strike, for nearly half an hour.
She is still waiting for it to fall.
“Senorita, do you know this man?” Senora Encarnación asks.
Minerva’s palms are hot and wet.
Lie, Arnulfo whispers. Be firm, Armando commands.
Or she will lose the comfort of Casa Azafrán.
The spill of hot water from brass taps. The hummingbirds’ streaks of color in the garden.
Afternoons of peace surrounded by vines and the rich fragrance of warmed earth and blooming gardenias.
When the word forms on her lips, she flings it out as fast as she can, before she loses the will:
“No.”
Papá’s face darkens. “Soy su padre,” he thunders. “Ven, chamaca,” he repeats, and pulls her arm.
She braces her feet on the stones of the terrace. His grip tightens. She resists.
She is a bird in a cage, flinging itself against the bars, frantic with terror. But the taste of one word begets another. She looks over Papá’s shoulder and focuses on a tree in the park beyond, on its small pink blossoms, tender and new.
She locks her legs.
She speaks as loudly as she can, as much like Senora Encarnación as she can: “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken. My father is dead.”
“?Basta, mentirosa!”
Senora Encarnación clicks her tongue twice. She is standing now, and leans close to Minerva’s ear as she takes her free hand.
“He must be confused, the poor man,” she says in an exaggerated stage whisper. “Do you think he is ill?”
Minerva keeps her vision full of pink blossoms. She yanks her arm out of Papá’s grasp. “He must be, senora,” she agrees.
“Someone ought to take him away,” Senora Encarnación says, raising her voice so that the servers can hear. With a sharp click, her walking stick strikes the ground between Minerva and her papá. A barrier between them.
The voices of other patrons rise.
“Unacceptable! If he is not removed this instant, I will take my business to Palacio González.”
“He is certainly not a member of this club.”
“Waiter! Rid us of this intruder.”
A flock of waiters descends and seizes Papá. Arms fly; voices crack back and forth like forks of lightning, but the storm is quelled. He is wrestled to the entrance of Palacio Monterrey and beyond, to the park.
Then, as suddenly as it descended, it vanishes. The skies clear. Birdsong lilts in the trees overhead. Soft voices and the polite clink of cutlery on plates rise around Minerva.
“Minerva.” Senora Encarnación’s voice brings her back from pink blossoms. The old woman tugs at her hand. “Let go.”
Minerva is holding la senora’s hand so tightly the del Valle rings are digging into her palm.
She releases it immediately. Her own brown fingers are bloodless, lined with pale marks from gripping so hard.
“I’m so sorry, senora.”
Senora Encarnación does not draw away. Instead, she pats Minerva’s hand and looks into her face.
“Help me sit, Minerva,” she says.
Minerva knows the old woman’s eyesight is failing.
Without her reading glasses, she cannot distinguish the letters of the daily paper’s headline or the club menu.
There are many things she does not care to notice, because she thinks them beneath her status to think about—dusting, laundry, replacing the kitchen’s chipped dark blue glass goblets.
But when she meets Minerva’s eyes, Minerva knows that Senora Encarnación has seen everything she needed to know. About Papá. About Minerva.
After settling into her chair, Senora Encarnación speaks.
“I don’t know about you, but I need chocolate,” she says.
“I find strange men very distressing.” She leans back in her chair and taps her cane imperiously.
“Waiter! A chocolate for me and for my maid. Make sure hers is extra hot, you understand? I expect nothing but the finest service and have been waiting for at least ten minutes!”
In the flurry of sí, senoras and steaming chocolate, as the owner of Palacio Monterrey descends with genteel apologies and complimentary sweet breads flavored with saffron and anise, Minerva feels a piece of her heart detach itself from its high, hardened walls and go out to the old woman.