Chapter 17
Perla had worn her mourning clothes as diligently and proudly as a knight might display his shield and armor. She’d kept the mirrors covered with a thin black cloth for a whole year after her father’s funeral and held the necessary masses in his honor on the anniversary of his death.
She’d hated this mourning. It seemed to Perla that her entire life had been made of black dresses and sorrow. Crespón de luto, first for her brother, then her sister, then her mother, and finally her father. She was like a colorless moth that bats its wings against a shuttered window.
But she’d worn the mourning clothes quietly and patiently, awaiting the delight of color. Color had arrived now. Pink skirts and pale green blouses and the beautiful blue dress that Inés had sewn for her.
The festival of San Fidel de las Cumbres was the biggest celebration of the year, and the opening night on Friday would afford Perla the chance to show herself to the town in her utmost glory.
The town waited for this weekend the whole year, for this moment of joy, and Perla had waited longer than anyone else. But here it was, finally, the morning of the festival.
The guesthouse was a chaos of voices and people. The place was full to the brim, and she knew the maid, the houseboy, and the cook were all busy tending to the guests. Sitting in her bath, enjoying the warmth of the water, Perla closed her eyes.
This year she could grant herself the luxury of leisure. She’d told Inés to handle the arrival of the guests while she bathed. Ulises had been deputized to attend his wife. He combed her hair carefully.
“Does Inés know to be back at home by nine o’clock tonight?” she asked, eyes closed, head thrown back. “Someone needs to be in the house to open and close the front door for the guests, and Estrella will complain if she doesn’t have a turn to listen to the music.”
“They both know. Inés will head to the town square early with us, then come back here so Estrella can head out. And tomorrow it’ll be Rita and Fito’s turn to trade places.
You might hand everyone keys to the door, and then we wouldn’t have to have this coming and going, you know?
And a curfew, on top of that, seems silly. ”
“Guests that pay by the day never have keys. Everyone is used to doing things this way and I don’t see a reason to change our practices.
All the decent houses uphold curfews and have people minding the front door, otherwise you’ll have drunkards stumbling in at three in the morning.
It’s better if they sleep off their hangovers far from here.
It’s an important festival and people can become too enthusiastic. ”
“I bet. You’d think Tito Guízar is coming to play, the way everyone is excited.”
Ulises sounded like he wanted to laugh. She supposed the festival must seem a trifle compared to the amusements the city might provide, but for the people of Puerco Ahogado it was legendary.
“The water has cooled,” Perla said, and motioned to her husband.
Ulises offered her a towel and she dried herself quickly and efficiently, then dressed herself in her embroidered robe.
Puerco Ahogado knew only rain and drizzle, yet that day it had been blazing hot without a hint of moisture. Her room was uncomfortably warm. Ulises had placed her glass of sherry by the wicker chair, along with a cigarette. She sat down and raised the glass to her lips. Her throat felt parched.
It was still early. When night fell, the fireworks would light up the sky and the vendors would finish setting up their stands.
Food and candy and games of target shooting would command the attention of the rabble, while a band would play in the wrought-iron gazebo.
Perla, who belonged to one of the notable families of Puerco Ahogado, who was, despite the trials and tribulations of the Incláns, still a proper lady, could not be expected to spend the night on her feet, lining up to play games of chance or throwing darts at balloons.
Therefore, she had reserved a table at the café, as she did every year.
All the best people of Puerco Ahogado had tables and could watch the festivities this way.
On this occasion, their table would have a white card with the surnames Inclán Arnao de Linares written on it.
When Perla took her seat, wearing the exquisite blue dress, all eyes in the café would turn toward her.
Her pulse accelerated at the thought and she handed Ulises her glass that he might refill it.
Her husband was wearing a sleeveless white undershirt.
Perspiration dotted his forehead, and his hair was uncombed.
Later he’d dress in a perfectly pressed suit but right that instant he looked unflatteringly low-class.
She was about to ask him to throw on his robe for the sake of decency and good manners, but she was distracted by a noise.
She heard, muffled and distant, the loud voices of Inés and Fito, and the resounding clang of a pot falling against the floor. Then the incessant barking of the dog.
“Whatever are they doing downstairs?” she asked.
“Last time I looked they were trying to cook supper for the guests,” he said, and handed her the glass back.
On busy festival weekends Perla had her dinner at the café, but of course the guests would want a bite before heading to the town square.
She glanced at the clock atop her dresser.
It was still much too early to dress, and she continued sipping her sherry while she contemplated her father’s portrait, hanging above the desk.
She’d covered it with a thin piece of black cloth for a year, supposedly as a sign of mourning, but also to hide his face.
She didn’t mind looking at it anymore, but for a while she’d been afraid of his steely eyes.
You’re dead, you’re finally dead, she thought.
They were all dead. Her whole family. She was the one left, her and Inés. She had an impulse to summon the girl, to make sure she was still in the house, that she had not vanished and left her alone among tired ghosts.
The heat was stifling, it was trapped inside the house, and no number of open windows could chase it away.
She asked Ulises to fan her with one of her mother’s old lace fans that was cracked at the handle.
An exquisite fan, tarnished by the yellowing ivory handle.
But she liked these old things, these stale reminders of magnificence.
Inés had asked her once why they couldn’t remodel the house now that Perla’s father had passed away.
She did not understand that fashions quickly fade; she did not appreciate the well-made furniture in the rooms, or the fine china safely tucked inside a cabinet.
Perla respected traditions, she respected the house and accepted that it belonged to another time, but those démodé fashions conveyed more depth.
In matters of clothing, though, she had longed for color and modernity.
A spark of the new in this stately old house.
Just like Ulises was a spark of something different, offering his luster to her.
“Fito tells me there’ll be much dancing tonight,” Ulises said. “The men in town dress in their best clothes and dance around.”
“Yes, some of that, and the young people will dance together. Music and dancing for three straight nights, and on the third night they’ll walk the statue of San Fidel around the town square, and he will vanquish evil for another year.”
“Fito says all unmarried girls have to dance with yellow ribbons in their hair.”
“Not all. I never danced. My father would not allow it.”
“What a pity. I think you’d have looked very sweet with ribbons in your hair.”
Perla was a creature keenly capable of taking offense, and she listened for any note of derision in his voice. Hearing none, she was pleased.
“My father thought it was vulgar. None of the girls from good families would dance back then, none of the ladies,” she said proudly.
“But Inés is going dancing tonight,” he said, and frowned. “I heard her telling Fito she’ll wear her dancing shoes.”
“Inés dances. But then again, Inés is not really an Inclán, and not really a lady.”
“Surely one can be a lady who dances.”
“Not her. She made a fool of herself the year my father died,” Perla said sharply. “After Salvador, one could never call her a lady.”
“Who was that?”
“A boy who stayed at the guesthouse.”
“How did she make a fool of herself?”
“She was unwise with him, and then he left town and left her behind. My father was livid when he learned about the affair.”
She looked up at the portrait. Why must she think about her father now? He had been on her mind all day. Disinterring the past, scrutinizing the years of mourning and the offenses committed against her. The echo of her father’s voice lingered in her ears.
It was probably because it was the first year she’d be at the festival out of mourning, no longer in blacks or grays. No longer the spinster.
“He wanted to beat her with his cane,” Perla mused, unable to stop herself from thinking about the past. About the dead. About her father in his last moments when he stared at her, his eyes…they became her sister’s eyes.
She had downed another glass and handed it to Ulises. “I’m terribly thirsty,” she said.
“You want more sherry?”
“Yes.”
He refilled her glass and carefully handed it to her, looking at her with a concerned expression that irritated Perla. “It’s very hot. There’s nothing to do on a hot day like this but drink sherry. My mother always said so, it cools the blood. I wish I could rub ice against my neck.”
“If only we had a refrigerator,” he replied.
“We don’t.”
“You could buy one.”
“What a waste, when we can send Fito or Rita to fetch ice.”
“Refrigerators come in handy.”
“I bet you want an electric coffee maker, like Inés asked for last summer. She saw it in a magazine. That is what a maid is for. To make you a good cup of coffee.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” she muttered.