When the Owl Cries Part 26

"Have them made in Guadalajara."

"But you know how long that takes? That takes forever." The way she hit the last word piqued him, but he said nothing.

"I'll be glad to get away from that new cook. She puts oil in all our food. Look how she prepared the chayotes last week! Did you ever taste the like!"

She turned back to her embroidery, but thought:

He's putting on boots to go somewhere, he's always going somewhere.

Maybe I did say I wouldn't leave. Maybe I did say that Caterina needed me. He never speaks of her ... he doesn't miss her.

Suddenly, she asked: "Why didn't you come here when you were wounded?"

"I was closer to Palma Sola."

"I think you're always closer," she said.

Astonished, he stopped dressing, stopped b.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt. With a great effort, he made himself continue, his fingers working uncertainly.

"Give her up, Raul. Get her out of our lives. You owe it to me and Vicente."

Somehow he managed the last b.u.t.ton and thought: I've got to think clearly. He crossed the room to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Would it help us now, Angelina? There's Estelle, you know...."

She lowered her eyes.

"Estelle," she said, wanting to keep the word to herself.

He felt her tremble.

Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, I'll see Estelle. You and your stinking boots. What can you know about delicacy? Keep your von Humboldt. I'll keep my friend. Once you would have accompanied me to Guadalajara, but now you send me with a servant.

Silent, he went out, pitying her small face, pitying himself, Caterina, Vicente--everyone.

When he had clumped out, she closed the door, locked it, removed her robe, went naked to the wardrobe and unboxed her fox fur, a reddish-gold pelt. With it on, she appraised her body: quite, quite pretty, she told herself. Parading in front of her mirror, she swayed from side to side, dancing the length of the room and then back again to face the mirror. Quite, quite pretty. All of a sudden, her ecstasy faded and she tossed her fur on the bed and flopped beside it. Hunger pervaded her. Closing her lids, flat on her back, she saw the Degollado Theater in Guadalajara, saw Maria and Estelle, Estelle in pale green moire, her blond hair glistening....

On the stage, the dancers performed jotas; the flamenco, dressed in black, a red sash bleeding round his waist, put her into a trance.

Estelle whispered to her ... then....

So many barren days went into life at Petaca. No Vicente to love, no Caterina, no woman her age or kind. Children, yes, but anonymous. No plays, no musicals, no burlesques. In the convent of Ursula, on Calle Lopez Cotilla, she had had a girl friend (it seemed yesterday and not years ago) who had slept with her. They had lain together, without clothes, night after night. n.o.body had ever found out. Where was she?

Where was Renee? What had happened to her? Would anyone in Guadalajara ever have news of her?

Dear Maria, I'll come ... I wasn't going to come but now I'll come ...

I'll stay with you, then stay with Estelle. I'll have fresh pineapple and oranges ... we'll have dulces ... we'll have nieves ... only a few children will miss me here and maybe the chapel organ. Yes, yes, I heard the organ say, one night, as the candle burnt low, she's nice, she's really quite nice. Am I quite nice? I'm quite pretty. Estelle says I am.

Sighing, she rose and sat at her dressing table and began plucking her brows. Each hair, as she pulled it, made her wince. She rubbed herself with cream, dressed and descended to the living room, pretending, as she walked, that this home was the home of a Guadalajara family and that she was a guest.

It irked her to find Caterina's smiling photo, in its velvet-gold frame, on the desk. Momentarily bewildered, she dusted it and laid it face down. Taking stationery out of the drawer, she wrote Maria, writing fast, in a nervous spidery scrawl.

"Dear Maria,

"I am glad I can come to you. Raul says I can join you in a few days.

I'll try to be real discreet so you can keep me a long time. You must phone Isabel and arrange fittings for me; I have to have so many dresses in black.

"I'm glad the remodeling is done. I know it is pretty...."

A tropical cloud had gathered as she dressed and now, as she wrote, the rain lashed, hitting the lagoon side of the house. She was glad Raul had had men fix the living room roof; he was riding in the rain, she realized. She did not care. Probably Manuel was holding an umbrella over him. Raul had learned to look after himself long ago, he and his Negro. Putting down her pen, she went to the veranda windows, her elegant black swis.h.i.+ng. But she was barefooted. More peasant than many peasants, she liked the tongue of tiles licking her soles, the hairiness of oriental rugs, the feel of the mountain lion before the fireplace.

Her old-fas.h.i.+oned dress was low cut, with sleeves three-quarter; in the V of her throat, above her boy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, dangled a diamond cross of her mother's. She had braided her hair into a coronet, glossy, perfumed, perfect.

Returning to her desk, hearing the rain, feeling the nakedness of her feet, the nakedness of herself under the dress, she swayed on her chair. As thunder rumbled, she recalled fragments of a poem by Felipe Clavo, a pa.s.sionate outcry: he had expressed what it was to be manacled by tropical isolation where "white b.u.t.terflies made love to protruding lianas." Clavo's lines had the sway of a hammock.

Clavo had said: "Love between women is superior to love between men and women--it asks so little." At the Degollado, Clavo had read his poetry but she could not remember him or what he had read; she had been too young.

The woman's poet, some called him.

That didn't matter.

Only loneliness, only love mattered.

"Caterina, do you mind the storm?" she asked, the huskiness of her voice softer than usual. "I guess you don't mind the rain. I guess none of us mind the rain when our day comes. No thunder reaches us...."

Taking her pen, she completed her letter to Maria and then wrote Estelle Milan. A streak of lightning blazed. In Guadalajara, when it rained, a carriage whisked them to the theater; they laughed as they b.u.mped over cobbles; after the theater, they had supper at the Copa de Leche: Cota, Lorenzo, Cordero, Gouz, Aguirre, Milan. In spite of the storm, she had rejoined her friends: a s.h.i.+ver ran through her because they were so real, so close.

Chavela lit candles on the desk, on the mantelpiece and in wall brackets.

"It's gotten dark so fast," she complained. "What a rain! Do you want me to light the kerosene lamp?"

"Later," Angelina said. "Bring me my cup of coffee."

"I'll bring it right away."

Angelina poured at the desk, mixing her particular concoction of strong coffee and hot milk, pouring the milk from a diminutive Turkish pot of bra.s.s. As she drank, she heard Gabriel coming in. She liked Storni and rose to welcome him.

Slipping off his poncho, spreading it over the back of a chair, he kissed her hand and brought a chair close to the desk. Because of the damp, he limped heavily. His robe smelled of dried straw; noticing the smell, she held up her handkerchief and said:

"The coffee's just right. I'll ring for a cup."

"Hot coffee--on an evening like this! Where's Raul?" He was navely captivated by her perfume and her old-fas.h.i.+oned dress.

"Raul's gone to see about a dam that cracked in the quake."

"We'll need all the water we can save, before our dry season ends," he said.

She hid her feet under her skirt and played with the diamond cross at her throat.

"I'm leaving for Guadalajara ... Maria's house is done. Gabriel, it'll be so good to get away. I'll have Vicente come when school is out in Colima."