Chapter 5
Theirs might have been a noble house once—her aunt liked to talk about an ancestor of the Incláns who had been hidalgo of somewhere or another, about that uncle of theirs who’d been a monsignor—but nowadays it was a relic going to seed.
Missing tiles, cracks in the walls, and velvet draperies that smelled like mothballs.
This monument to decay was the house they inhabited.
She knew the same could be said of the houses of many of the other respected people of Veracruz, from Xalapa to Xico.
Puerco Ahogado was no exception. Many sad casonas were falling apart.
Not two blocks from them, the Galindo house, which had been a marvel a hundred years before, was now half a wreck, and its only inhabitant, Mr. Godofredo Galindo, was a hermit, hard of hearing, who spooked children when he chanced to walk around the block.
Several notable families had been left with a pittance of an inheritance and their precious well-honed manners to get by after the fires of the Revolution died down.
But the “gente bien” did not dispense with their pride, even if they’d pawned their grandmothers’ rings.
The Incláns at least still had a house. The home of the Zorrilla sisters had long since been sold to pay debts; the professor had never had a proper house.
Also, despite the stubborn mold that tended to gather at the windowsills on the second floor and a couple of broken shutters, the maid and the houseboy worked hard to keep the place tidy so that flashes of magnificence remained.
The grandest of all the rooms in the Inclán house was Aunt Perla’s bedroom, which had once belonged to Grandfather Osorio.
The bathroom was, naturally, equally grand.
It had been decorated not with the usual blue-and-white azulejos that one might find in kitchens or bathrooms, but with dark green tiles.
A couple were missing, but the damage present in the other bathrooms had been stalled, perhaps because this one had never been rented out.
The freestanding claw-foot bathtub was so large two people might fit in it, but then the bathroom was vast, almost cavernous. The steam inside made the space appear larger, since it was hard to see the contours of the room.
Inés carefully made her way toward the bathtub, where her aunt was half submerged, with her head thrown back.
She placed the silver tray by the side of the bathtub, atop a table that had been painted a soft green color that her aunt said was called eau de Nil.
It sounded romantic, the name. When her aunt was young, everything Parisian had been the rage.
“Will you have your sherry now, or should I hand you a towel first?” Inés asked. “And do you want your cigarette after your drink?”
“Hand me the robe and dry my hair.”
Inés obeyed and plucked the robe from the hook. Her aunt wrapped herself in it, then she sat in a wicker chair.
Inés carefully rubbed her hair with a towel, massaging the scalp. Aunt Perla spoke rapturously about hot baths, claiming they preserved a woman’s youthful complexion, but Inés hated the vapor swirling around her, the warmth tickling at her skin.
Her aunt made a lazy gesture with her right hand and Inés handed her the slender glass that sat atop the tray. Sherry had made Inés grimace the one time she took a sip, but her aunt downed the drink with ease. She motioned again to Inés and Inés poured her a second glass.
Inés was parting her aunt’s hair when Perla spoke. “I was disappointed with your behavior earlier today. It’s not becoming of a young lady,” she said. Her voice was passionless, yet even more bothersome for that reason.
“What behavior?”
“Smiling at Bartolo, encouraging him to speak to you. In my day a woman had to keep her eyes down and her voice low. You laughed loudly. He’ll think you’re flirting with him, and we both know it’s hopeless. You must take care of me until I pass away. There’ll be no wedding for you, not now.”
Inés ran the wide-tooth comb through her aunt’s damp hair with a frown. She’d heard that litany since she was a girl. How the youngest daughter in the family must take care of the elders, and since Inés was the only girl available, this obligation would fall upon her shoulders.
“It’s your duty, and it’s the best course, anyway. Otherwise, you might end up like your mother. May she rest in peace. There are wolves out there, Inés, ready to devour you. Don’t encourage that boy. Hand me my cigarette.”
She ought to have simply handed Perla the cigarette and lit it for her, let her rant for a little while, but Inés was offended by the accusation. “I’m not encouraging him. He barely spoke to me all evening.”
“Don’t attempt those lies with me. I saw you giggling at him.”
“Maybe he said something funny.”
“Bartolo’s mother would not let him marry you. She thinks Gertrudis would make a good daughter-in-law. They’d never let a bastard join the family.”
She pulled the comb hard and Perla yelped in pain. “It’s tangled,” Inés said blandly.
Her aunt snatched the comb away from her hand and stood up, turning to face Inés. Both women stared at each other. Finally, Inés dropped her gaze, looking at the floor.
“I’ll remind you what happened with Salvador.
I’ll remind you about your previous impudence, and why I’m quick to censure you.
You’re lucky you’re allowed free room and board in this house.
This is a noble house, a proper house, and we are proper people.
Now, no more encouraging that young man. Do you understand?”
She did not answer. Her aunt stretched out her hand and tipped Inés’s chin, forcing her to look up.
“I do,” she muttered.
“I’ve told you many times: if you are patient and obey our family’s rules, you’ll be rewarded one day.”
Perla sat back down in her chair and put her hand over her eyes. Inés walked out of the bathroom quietly, taking the tray with her. Down in the kitchen she made herself a cup of tea and opened a window, looking out at the garden.
Her aunt was correct about Bartolo. Inés did not want him, but if she had, it would have ended in disappointment. Her father had not bothered to give Inés a surname. On her birth certificate her mother had written Inés Inclán, her father’s surname pointedly missing because he was a married man.
They’d made fun of Inés for this reason when she was a child, all those snide children chittering about her.
Even the schoolteacher had smirked when she looked at Inés the first day of class and wondered, in a loud voice, if she’d sprouted from the ground like a cabbage that she did not have two surnames.
Bartolo’s family wouldn’t want to print wedding banns announcing to the world that he was marrying a bastard, Inés Inclán, the fatherless shame of the Incláns.
Even before her aunt went blabbering to Sarita Novo and told her—and therefore the entire town—that Salvador had seduced her, they looked at her with cautious eyes.
Besides, she had nothing to offer, nothing but herself, and that was not enough. At least, not when other girls in town had parents who owned a butcher shop, like Gertrudis.
She didn’t care about Bartolo. He was a silly boy. But she detested the idea of withering inside this house, which was what her aunt wanted. If only she might save enough cash to move to the city.
In her mind, Inés counted the money she possessed. The count came awfully short. She’d never be able to leave. She’d be mummified within these walls.
She remembered her grandfather and the way he used to slam his cane against the floor to attract attention, and she pictured Perla doing the same thing to her when she was an old woman.
And when Perla died, what then? Inés would have the house.
That crumbling, dark, desiccated house was the “reward” her aunt dangled before Inés.
She did not want it. It was a mausoleum, a palace for the dead.
Her thoughts flew back to Salvador, to those few moments of happiness that she’d enjoyed at his side. The secretive kisses, the late nights of muffled lovemaking. Aunt Perla ruined that for her. Aunt Perla wouldn’t allow Inés even the smallest comfort.
She clutched the teacup with both hands. She had the mad desire to crush it, to make her hands bleed against sharp ceramic shards. She finished her tea and washed the cup.
—
In the morning Perla took Ulises out for a walk, to show him the town square. To parade him, like a trophy won at the fair. To have the townspeople gawk in admiration at the stranger. Cándido would be peeved, no doubt.
Meanwhile, Inés went to Ulises’s room to change the sheets. Fresh linens every two days, her aunt had said. Their lodgers got fresh linens every week, but Ulises was special. She stripped the sheets from the bed and contemplated the room.
His cologne and his shaving implements sat upon the vanity, sparkling in the morning sun.
Again, she wondered about this man who’d waltzed into their guesthouse with pricey trinkets and beautiful clothes.
She remembered that Cándido wanted information on him.
Not that she needed to humor him. She could simply pocket his money.
But Professor Nepomuceno was wrong. She wasn’t Aphrodite or Athena. Inés was Pandora, wishing to peek into the box, and she was curious about the newcomer. She opened a drawer, looking at the shirts Ulises had folded and placed there, approving of the tailoring and the fine details on display.
His matching luggage, tucked in a corner, was of excellent quality.
He wasn’t a boy dragging a suitcase with a broken handle, like Salvador had been the day he walked into the guesthouse.
Where did he come from? It seemed to her Ulises could only be a fiction, a man who had emerged from a movie reel, this Errol Flynn look-alike, this stranger who could share the screen with Joan Fontaine and Susana Guízar.