Chapter 15 #3
As she circles the plaza, as aimless as a moth around a lamppost, she glances up to see a man looking at her with interest. She looks down quickly, abashed by his blunt gaze, but then she looks up again, intrigued. He smiles at her.
She ought to turn around and away from him, but she stares at the man.
She’s been warned her entire life about these sorts of situations.
Every year, during the festivities in honor of San Fidel de las Cumbres, when visitors abound in the streets of Puerco Ahogado, a few reckless girls take up with men.
Those shameless hussies are from the lower rungs of society, not from families with good names.
Despite everything that has happened—the erosion of her family’s status, her sister’s debasement—Perla remains an Inclán. She’s a lady, a dutiful daughter, and an upright citizen, but in this plaza people do not know her. She is a mere visitor, and the man is a stranger.
He walks toward her, his smile firm and wide, and then he pays her a compliment, then another.
Later, try as she might, she does not remember much of their conversation.
Not that it matters. There’s something false and feigned about this whole situation, like it’s a play.
She supposes that’s why she acquiesces to his company when he says he has a bottle of good brandy in his room: because it does not feel real.
How could it be? Perla would never deign to speak with a man she hasn’t been properly introduced to in one of the good houses of the city. A man who, by the looks of his shabby coat and scuffed shoes, must not amount to much.
Perla would certainly not allow the man to steer her away from the plaza, and she would not follow him.
Down a jumble of streets they go, to a house that has flowerpots at the windows, and up the stairs—quietly, he whispers something about a landlady—until they slip into a room where he pours the promised brandy, which turns out to be tequila instead. Cheap stuff. Horrible stuff.
If this were Perla, she would not drink a whole glass and then another, growing giddy and excited, nor would she let him strip her of her dress.
It’s not Perla who opens her legs for this man, it’s someone else, and thus, for a short amount of time, she can forget about herself.
She can erase her duties and her worries and her bitterness and cling to a warm, sweaty body, she can focus on whispers and grunts and a lumpy bed that whimpers under their combined weight.
She can wring as much pleasure as possible from the cramped room and from the strange man who has not bothered to tell her his name.
When she returns to Puerco Ahogado, Perla fears her family, her neighbors, will notice she has changed, that she’s not truly a lady. But her indiscretion is not revealed. The loss of her honor is concealed with an ease that seems almost obscene, and she discovers the full delight of duplicity.
She can be the good daughter and the sinful Jezebel. As long as she is careful, Perla can remain the unblemished dame while delighting in the escape that sex provides.
Thus, there are other men, faceless strangers when she visits the port, men she meets as she strolls around the plaza, and men she learns to find in the dives and bars of the city when she is dressed in a rough, simple dress, when she does not look the part of a lady at all.
In Puerco Ahogado they think highly of Miss Inclán, who endures the challenges life throws her with a proud bearing.
Yes, they think highly of her, and if Cándido is forceful when the time comes for certain debts to be repaid, if he pointedly carries a pistol when knocking at doors, if he shoves that pistol in people’s faces, then that is not Perla’s fault, is it?
How could Perla be bad, how could Perla be sinful, when she attends mass each week and does her father’s bidding? Perla, who is a model daughter. Perla, who is an Inclán, and everyone knows that the family has run into a few troubles, but what family hasn’t had its share of misery in recent years?
Thus, Perla walks through town with all the bearing of an empress, sure of her place in Puerco Ahogado.
—
Sometimes, when her niece sits across the table from Perla and looks at her, she thinks the girl knows everything.
Not only the awful truth of Encarnación’s death, but all of Perla’s secrets.
She feels the girl can see through her, that she can peel back skin and muscle and reveal the tortured architecture of her heart.
Sometimes those dark eyes fall upon Perla, and she wishes she could poke them out and set them on a porcelain dish so that they might not follow her accusingly across a room ever again.
Perla must look away from the girl, above her shoulder, past her. She must look away from her hypnotizing eyes, which are as dark and deep as Encarnación’s had been. The girl does not look like Perla’s sister, except sometimes she sees the resemblance in the eyes and shudders.
She knows.
But then the girl glances away and Perla realizes Inés does not know. No one knows. No one will ever suspect that there are two Perlas.
Perla sips her tea and brushes a hand against her hair, comforted by this notion.