Chapter 4
Ygnacio
Days find a pattern. Minerva wears new clothes that Senora Encarnación approves of and learns how to use a stove rather than an open fire.
She learns the daily ritual of apothecary cures and herbs and medicines.
She learns that if she turns the left handle on the claw-footed tub, thanks to chispa, nearly boiling water gushes forth.
She learns to make spiced chocolate and bring it to Senora Encarnación in the drawing room in the mornings.
She learns the particularities of Senora Encarnación’s speech and which words she prefers Minerva to use.
More portraits of the del Valle family hang on the walls of the drawing room. Each morning, Senora Encarnación glares at these over the rim of her delicate chocolate cup, muttering weaklings and turncoats.
Whatever they are, they never once set foot in Casa Azafrán. They never write, nor send flowers, nor indicate in any way that Senora Encarnación is alive at all.
Minerva learns the sweeps and tilts of Senora Encarnación’s moods.
In the morning, these are dictated by the paper.
If la senora reads a critique of el Presidente or of his failure to deliver a promised reform, she laughs—no, it is a cackle, truly a cackle, almost animalistic in its pure pleasure.
If the paper praises the Capital’s nascent democracy and the newfound power of its citizens, she will click her tongue and let her mother-of-pearl reading glasses perch low on her thin nose.
She will mutter all sorts of words Minerva never knew until arriving at Casa Azafrán: liberals, riffraff, mixed-bloods.
The last of these, she learns, is Senora Encarnación’s preferred way of referring to residents of the Capital like el Presidente, those with black hair and skin that turns deep in the sun—that is, like Minerva, and the entire population of Minerva’s slum.
Minerva memorizes the rhythm of life on Calle Jacaranda.
On market days, serving girls depart the other houses with baskets and purses full of their employers’ copper and walk in the same direction as her, shopping for the same things, bobbing their heads in gratitude to the fruit sellers and butchers.
She learns, like them, to become invisible, walking a half step behind the women who rule the Calle Jacaranda houses on their way to the social clubs.
The social clubs are painted white and named after famous old families of the Viceroyalty. Senora Encarnación goes to Palacio Monterrey on Tuesdays to smell roses and drink frothy chocolate in porcelain cups; on Thursdays, she lunches with friends at Palacio Yglesias.
“The del Valle club was far grander than this,” Senora Encarnación muses as they rest beneath the shade of the palms. Each week, she calls a new detail to Minerva’s attention: the trees were greener; the birds-of-paradise were taller, and never fell victim to mites.
The whitewash on the walls never faded. She sighs. “Qué lastima.”
It is but one more item on the litany of things the del Valles lost when the Viceroy fell.
Senora Encarnación once had a social group much larger than this anemic clutch of crones that gather at Palacio Yglesias.
Together, they are four, these dour empresses of yesteryear who complain of the changing times, who mourn grandsons being elected to Parliament and the expansion of the elite university to allow the middle classes to attend.
Minerva ignores Senora Encarnación’s politics.
She cannot question that she is safe now, and that la senora is to thank for this.
Each night before bed, Senora Encarnación thanks her for staying when all others have abandoned her—and every morning, she grouses at the day’s paper about mixed-blood politicians.
Minerva knows precisely what her brothers would think.
Armando would hate the old woman, she muses as she watches the club women sip chocolate in the shade of the palms. Sometimes, her mouth twitches, amused, at the thought of how Arnulfo’s face would contort when one of Senora Encarnación’s friends calls el Presidente a windbag.
But the smile dies quickly.
Even as her life grows comfortable, predictable, even pleasant, the memory that her brothers left her never seeps away—it lives in her bones like a rot, a long-nursed wound that will not heal.
Now, each night, her belly is full and her hair is freshly washed by water heated by chispa.
Now, no longer distracted by the urgency of hunger or the swiftly moving storm of Papá’s moods, her mind drifts.
In the honey glow of the chispa lamp, she looks into the mirror Senora Encarnación gave her.
She sees Armando’s brows, dark and furrowed like a pair of militant caterpillars.
If she smooths her mouth, she catches a hint of Arnulfo—but it is not her mouth’s nature to be glib and smiling like his.
Most often, her heart stumbles when she sees Arnulfo’s ears in her own.
These are tilted outward just enough to be unattractive and are exactly like his.
She has not heard a single thing from her brothers since they left.
They could be dead for all she knows. They could be working for el Presidente or they could be university students or miners or beggars.
It doesn’t matter where they are or what they would think of her new employer.
What matters is that they left, and she saved herself.
So she smooths her skirts and listens to Senora Encarnación and her friends with an even smoother face.
Senora Encarnación gave her a chest full of dresses to wear and has forbidden her from putting on “that rag” that she appeared on the doorstep of Casa Azafrán wearing.
It sits at the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed, brooding.
A reminder that retribution, if it ever found her, would be swift and merciless.
The fear of being found is a kitchen smell tangled in her hair that refuses to be washed away.
Senora Encarnación teases her for it.
“Always looking over your shoulder,” la senora chides. “Did you drop something, senorita? Did you forget something?”
Minerva tries to have Armando’s resolve. She certainly does not have Arnulfo’s wiliness, and perhaps never will.
The only gift Minerva has is fear.
Coward, she chants to herself every time Senora Encarnación catches her with her eyes on the road behind them. Gutless. Mouse.
What she does not realize is that fear is a powerful tool. A dangerous one, too—its edges are slick and sharp, able to slice through the stoutest courage and strongest men. It will serve Minerva well in la Casa de las Gardenias.
Alas, she is not there yet. We must be patient, though it is not in my nature to be so. Minerva has yet to meet that ancient house and its monsters. Yet to taste the nightmare of my domain.
For a few weeks longer, she lives in peace at 18 Calle Jacaranda.
When Senora Encarnación sleeps during the siesta, Minerva tidies the kitchen, letting the warm water from the brass faucet splash over her hands.
Then she steps into the garden. She sits on a marble bench nestled among sharp-plumed birds-of-paradise, its legs carved into blooming gardenias.
She turns her face to the sun. She listens to the hummingbirds.
To bees. Behind high walls, drenched in sunlight, this garden is where she is safe.
Outside, fear is her constant suitor.
She is right to be attentive to fear’s advances.
Minerva prefers Palacio Yglesias. High stucco walls blaze brilliantly white in spring sunshine; its entrance is a small, dark wooden door, thick as a tree trunk and guarded by attendants in formal livery.
Once inside, shaded from the sun by thick palm fronds, she does not feel like she has to constantly watch the door. The walls watch for her.
But it is Tuesday, and the tap of Senora Encarnación’s cane leads them to Palacio Monterrey.
This club is a white villa in the center of what is now a public park.
Low hedges of pink and white roses fragrance the air.
The tables and chairs are made of wrought iron and painted the color of summer clouds, their filigree as delicate as spun sugar.
Servers in matching livery bring delicate desserts and chocolates to patrons sitting beneath their parasols.
“She should have simply said nothing at all. Not told me she was on her deathbed with a cough,” Senora Encarnación mutters as she arrays playing pieces on the table. The friend she was meant to play Mice and Hounds with has canceled due to illness.
The tiles of the table’s surface are arranged to look like a blossoming flower.
Alternating pale pink and ivory match the decor of Palacio Monterrey; jade mimics leaves, giving it the overall appearance of a peony.
The playing pieces are dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jet for the opposing sides.
“It reeks of mortality,” Senora Encarnación scoffs, glaring at the empty chair opposite her. The pieces click on tiles as she lays them out as if to play regardless. “How gauche.”
The appeal of Palacio Monterrey lies in how exposed it is. Citizens who use the public park can see over the rosebushes. From their manicured garden, the patrons of Palacio Monterrey can be admired and envied by the public.
Minerva hates it.
She is right to.
For it is when she sits next to Senora Encarnación and lifts the parasol over her employer’s gray hair that he appears. His bowlegged saunter is ingrained in her mind, like a mouse knows the footfall of a cat.
Papá.
He ignores the questions of liveried waiters and breaks through their cluster.
Senora Encarnación is speaking. Minerva’s ears fill with humming, a swarm of agitated bees.
“Minerva?” Faintly, Minerva hears the old woman repeat her name. Distantly, the sensation of a powdered, wrinkled hand resting on hers. “Are you well?”
The patterns she has walked for weeks streak through her mind. Who saw her in the market? What whispers flew from ear to ear, from Calle Jacaranda to the slums?