Tarnished Beauty

by Cecilia Samartin

  I didn’t speak to her the first day I saw her. I only managed to nod, and smile nervously before looking away. Even so, I remember precisely the way in which her hair reflected the sun like a dark glossy river and I followed its soft light until she disappeared into the crowd. By this time Tomas had found me and his voice implored me, much as a mother’s does when waking her child from a dream. “There’s a storm approaching,” he said. “And if we don’t take our lunch quickly and find lodging, it will surely catch us, and we’ll have no choice but to sleep in the rain like dogs.” Not getting a response, Tomas stood up on the step above mine so we were at eye level. “Do you hear me, Antonio? Or am I speaking to a deaf-mute as well as a fool?”

  “Don’t be cross with me, Tomas. I prefer your tender assurances to your admonitions.”

  He lowered his eyes briefly before fixing them back on to my face. “Look around you, Antonio. Look at this work of men inspired by God. Don’t you want to be part of this glory?”

  Again, I gazed up at the stones of the church that reached to the heavens, twisting as though from the human agony that yearns for divine understanding. And then all at once, I detected a mild breeze that had found its way into the square, as it meandered about the cafés and open windows above the marketplaces along the periphery of the square, carrying with it the aroma of roasting meat and onions.

  My stomach grumbled as I clasped Tomas’s shoulder, grateful for his friendship and perseverance. “Thank you, my brother. I will not fail, I promise you that. And I will discipline my mind and my body to strengthen itself against life’s temptations. Even the greatest of the saints were tempted, weren’t they? Even Santiago himself, I would think.”

  “They all were,” Tomas said, exhaling his relief. “And their temptations only served to humble them.”

  “We’re in good company then.”

  I decided that I would have nothing to do with the beautiful girl in the square, and hoped that she was perhaps an angel who’d alighted from a cloud, only to return to the paradise that had spawned her. At the very least, I suspected that with the throngs of pilgrims everywhere, and the great multitude of walking groups that had already formed their alliances, she wouldn’t turn up again. Perhaps she wasn’t even a pilgrim, but a local village girl taking a break from her daily routines in order to enjoy the diversion of a song.

  But as providence would have it, I soon learned that she was indeed a pilgrim. And it took little investigative work to learn that her name was Rosa and that she was traveling from the south of Spain with her mother, who, like everyone else, was praying for a miracle in Santiago. When I turned away from one group talking about the beauty traveling with her mother, I’d collide with yet another.

  It was rumored that they were gypsies and that the girl’s green eyes were a gift from a Nordic soldier who’d visited her mother years earlier. Others said she was a spirit, and not at all human, for they’d never seen a mere mortal with skin of such porcelain perfection. Several of the men surmised that if she were a gypsy, then perhaps they could pay her to dance for them, and that if they weren’t walking for a holy purpose they might consider paying her for something else.

  To my dismay, Rosa’s mother befriended Rodolfo when she lanced a nasty blister on his heel, and she and her daughter were invited by the ever grateful Basque giant to join our little group. It was then that Tomas took to watching me out of the corner of his eye, even as we followed the Najerilla River, passing through prime farmland that rivaled that of his family’s holdings. While vast stretches of vineyards flanked us on the right and left, he watched me with obvious concern, ignoring what would normally have prompted his animated commentary. The vineyards gave way to fields lined with countless rows of golden haystacks drying in the sun. We knelt and prayed at almost every cross that we encountered, and afterward placed a stone at its base. In some places there could be seen small hills, more like mounds, alongside the road. When we got closer, we could see that these hills were actually piles of stones that pilgrims over the ages had left as a testament to their journey.

  Days passed in this way, and I hardly spoke, and ate even less. Occasionally it rained, turning the dirt beneath our feet into a sticky quagmire, but still I walked the path more vigorously than anyone and was frequently leading our little band of pilgrims along its route. It wasn’t that I enjoyed leading so much, but at the front of the group I wasn’t tormented by the sight of Rosa. Even when gazing upon the back of her head under the mantle she wore, it was difficult for me to bear. While the rest of us walked, it seemed to me that she floated. When she gestured with a delicate arm out toward the fields to the left or right, pointing out to her mother something that caught her eye, it became the most sensuous of dances. She was taunting me with her grace, so it was better for me to walk ahead, leaving Tomas and Rosa and everyone else in the dust of my shoes.

  We were almost at Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where there was to be music and other festivities celebrating the miracle of the hanged innocent. The ancient legend told of a young man who’d been unjustly accused of stealing by a young lady he’d rebuffed. He was forthwith hanged, but came back to life when Santiago intervened. This intrigued me, as I felt a certain kinship with the hanged man’s misery. We were to begin walking at dawn so as to arrive by noon. Tomas chastised me as he arranged his sleeping blankets next to mine, and spoke to me in a brusque whisper. “You’ll make yourself ill if you continue in this fashion, Antonio.”

  “I’m as strong as a horse and I’m walking faster than anyone.”

  “Even a horse needs to eat and rest and pace himself. Don’t think that I don’t know what has possessed you, because I do.”

  I smiled. Tomas never failed to amuse me when he acted the seer, as he always appeared more worried than wise. I said nothing, but braced myself for his words, which I knew had been seething in his breast for almost a week.

  “It’s the girl with the green eyes and shy smile. I believe she’s been planted in our midst by the evil one in order to turn men’s thoughts away from their holy obligations and toward this unhealthy lust that plagues the foolish.”

  I spoke softly. “She did not ask to be blessed with such beauty. There’s no need to make her out to be the devil.”

  “And what is physical beauty but a mask that wears with time, only to reveal the humanity of us all? Some of us show our humanity earlier than others, that is all. Have you any idea what she thinks or if her temperament approaches the sweetness of her appearance? While her face is like that of an angel, her heart may be as foul as a demon’s.”

  I was silent as I considered Tomas’s argument, and had to admit that I didn’t even know the sound of her voice. She was, after all, human like the rest of us, with her faults and foibles. What’s more, she required rest and food, and the opportunity to exercise the crudest of bodily functions in order to live. My obsession had conjured up a creature who was not made from the organic substances I knew, but from the mysterious elements that gave light to the stars. Perhaps she was truly a hateful soul, as Tomas had said. It would stand to reason if she was, for if there were a balanced equation of justice in this life, it would demand that one so externally beautiful should be ugly by equal measure on the inside.

  Suddenly, I became ravenously hungry and proceeded to eat a healthy slice of cheese with bread and butter, and washed it all down with plenty of wine. That night I slept. I slept like a babe in his mother’s arms.

  14

  IT SEEMED TO JAMILET that all things conjured up in her mind had, like a Popsicle left on a warm sidewalk, melted away. Her stories had become nothing more than a sticky residue that offered her little nourishment or distraction. She missed them most during her walks home from work, when she anticipated seeing Eddie sitting out on Pearly’s porch. When they were still with her, they’d begin forming before she actually laid eyes on him, and they’d set the stage for anything that happened or didn’t happen between them. A flick of his head became a secret code for the
ir unspoken love, a flutter of his hands, a sign of their surreptitious surrender to passion. But after a few days, and then weeks, without her stories, Jamilet had to accept that they’d left her completely. Once or twice she tried to force the voices back to life, but the result was a strained and feeble sort of internal banter devoid of true emotion, and completely unsatisfying.

  She blamed the loss on Señor Peregrino. His story had the power to sustain itself in her mind over time, while her own stories had always vanished within seconds of their conclusion, only to be replenished by fresh, equally disposable tales. Now she thought about Antonio and Tomas and how it must be to walk twenty miles in one day, and how it must feel to be as beautiful as Rosa. It occurred to her that maybe Rosa was not so beautiful after all, but merely thought she was, the way Tía Carmen and Pearly did, and had made Antonio think so as well.

  Pondering this as intently as she was, she didn’t hear the hollow pounding of Pearly’s shoes as she crossed the street, nor did she notice Eddie waiting on the sidewalk for the traffic to clear so he could follow her. Moments later, Pearly’s fist slammed into Jamilet’s shoulder, forcing her to teeter on one foot before stumbling onto the neighbor’s property. She managed to recover her balance while staring into Pearly’s eyes—furious brown orbs glaring at her behind layers of mascara. Her face was contorting in many directions at once, while words sputtered out through her glossy purple lips. Her diatribe was interrupted only by the nuisance of having to flick away the strands of hair that kept sticking to her lips.

  Slowly, Jamilet started to make sense of the words swarming around her head like so many angry bees. It had something to do with Eddie. Pearly moved in and shoved Jamilet on the shoulder again, and Jamilet crossed her arms over her chest like a penitent about to be baptized. But she was finally able to make out one full sentence: “Stay the fuck away from him!” Then came the blow to her jaw. Jamilet’s head twisted around with uncanny speed, and the rest of her body followed. She staggered for a few seconds, arms out as though waking from a drunken dream, then crumpled to her knees onto the dirt. Heat flashed through her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She would have lost consciousness if not for the pain in her jaw, and the white light that hummed and swirled, filling all the spaces in her head. When her vision cleared, she saw Pearly’s thick shoes marching up and down the sidewalk, and her toes neatly painted and curled up like ten tiny little fists.

  Jamilet inhaled and was strangely comforted. The last time she was this near the earth, she was weeding the chili plants behind her house and creating stories for her own amusement. Any minute now, her mother would call for her to bring a pail of fresh water from the river before it got dark. She was remembering all of this while contemplating the fact that Pearly had not yet finished with her, and by the look of those shoes, which seemed to have been carved out with a crude ax, she realized exactly how the assault would end. Instinctively, she turned away to protect her face, but the blow never came.

  Another pair of shoes appeared—Carmen’s black Dr. Martens—and they were stepping all over Pearly’s clunkers. Carmen was twice as big as Pearly, and with her black hair all frizzed out, she looked like an angry bear protecting her young. She grabbed Pearly by the shoulder, then swung back her arm, as thick as a tree trunk, and swept it across Pearly’s face with ferocious strength. Pearly’s ankles twisted in their shoes and she screamed, but the blow muffled her voice, making her sound as though she’d swallowed her tongue.

  At that moment, Eddie appeared and threw his arms around Pearly so that she was unable to strike back. She struggled in his hold as purple lipstick mixed with saliva dribbled out of the corners of her mouth.

  Carmen stood back, breathing hard. “You keep that bitch away from my family!” she said to Eddie.

  Pearly screamed, “You keep that bitch away from my man!” She began to sob, and Eddie tightened his hold when it appeared she might struggle free. As they made their way back across the street, Carmen pulled Jamilet up by one arm and spoke low under her breath, but there was no mistaking the shame in her voice. “Don’t you know how to throw a punch, girl? What would you have done if I hadn’t come home early today?”

  Jamilet’s jaw ached, and her words slurred, as if she were drunk. “I don’t know. I never threw a punch before.”

  Carmen sighed, but said nothing else until they were in the house. Then she turned on Jamilet, looking as though she was going to finish what Pearly had started. “What you doing with that boy across the street?”

  “Nothing, Tía.”

  “You spend half your life looking for him out the window and his girlfriend wants to rip your head off, and you say nothing.” Carmen was perspiring heavily, and the moisture on her hairline created a tight little row of curls that reached from ear to ear. “Let me tell you something. There’s some people you don’t fuck with, and she’s one of them. I can’t keep saving your ass the way I did today, you understand me?”

  Jamilet dropped her head. “I’m sorry, Tía,” she mumbled.

  Carmen went to the refrigerator and was back in seconds with a beer in one hand and a dish towel filled with ice cubes in the other. She inspected Jamilet’s jaw and concluded that it wasn’t broken, then instructed her to keep ice on it for the next few hours.

  It was decided that due to the unusual events of the afternoon, Jamilet would be relieved from her cooking duties. Carmen went alone to Tina’s Tacos down the street and returned with their evening meal. The tacos were delicious, as always, but Jamilet was unable to swallow more than a couple of bites. Tears came to her eyes whenever she chewed.

  Señor Peregrino was at his desk when Jamilet entered his room. She welcomed the cool darkness of the place, and set the breakfast tray where she did when he was not in bed. She was careful to avoid making the slightest sound because she could see that he was quite absorbed by his papers.

  “I’d like you to inform the laundry that my shirts were not properly starched,” he said, not looking at her.

  Jamilet nodded her understanding and turned quickly to leave. She didn’t want to speak more than necessary, as the pain in her jaw was still intense and slightly affected her speech.

  “Do you know the difference between light and heavy starch?” Señor Peregrino asked, turning fully around in his chair to face her this time.

  “I’m sure I can find out, Señor,” Jamilet returned.

  “Yes, you do that.” He leaned back in his chair. “Wait,” he said, and he stood up to open the window wide. The light of day flooded in like a harsh and sudden tide, causing the room to glow. With the light filtering in from behind, and his white hair standing on end, Señor Peregrino looked as if he’d been transformed into an angel. Jamilet’s eyes opened wide at the sight of him. She’d never seen him so clearly, the long, chiseled nose and eyes as black as a raven’s.

  “Someone has struck you, hard,” he said.

  Jamilet touched the right side of her jaw. The swelling had not reduced as much as she’d hoped, but at least she was able to chew. “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” he asked, still glowing like an apparition.

  “No, I don’t think so…” Jamilet hesitated. There was no doubt that Señor Peregrino would insist on an explanation, and the thought of putting her recent agony into words caused her to waver a bit. She had hoped that if she didn’t speak about the incident, the memory of it would disappear with the swelling. “The girl across the street thinks I’m trying to steal her boyfriend,” Jamilet said. “She hit me when I wasn’t looking.”

  “She must be a big girl…strong,” he said, somewhat intrigued.

  “She’s bigger than me, but not bigger than my aunt. Tía Carmen set her straight.” Jamilet felt a sensational thrill at being able to recount this part of the story. “She was watching to see how things went and when she saw what was going to happen, she…well…she set her straight.” Jamilet touched her cheek again and allowed the shame of her defeat to silence her. It wasn’t ri
ght to borrow from her aunt’s glory. She looked back to Señor Peregrino expecting to see the shame she’d seen on Carmen’s and Eddie’s faces, but found instead a strange smile floating there, as incandescent as the light that surrounded them.

  Then he did something very strange—he laughed. She’d never heard him laugh before. It sounded like a rusty motor firing up for the first time in years, coughing out the dust of the ages before it could generate a spark. But eventually the thin wheezing in his chest grew into the loud and boisterous roar of laughter that caused the light around them to shimmer.

  “You are, aren’t you?” he asked, sitting down to catch his breath. His eyes danced, and his skin warmed with this breath of life, causing the tip of his nose and the curve of his forehead to glow a peachy rose.

  “I am what?” Jamilet asked. She too felt like laughing, but hesitated, knowing that the pain in her jaw would be excruciating.

  “You’re trying to steal the girl’s boyfriend. You want him for yourself.” Señor Peregrino reached for a handkerchief in his pocket and wiped his eyes, moist with glee. “I suggest you admit it to somebody. If you keep it to yourself it’ll only drive you mad, and bumps and bruises to the flesh are much more tolerable than the agony of the heart, I assure you.”

  Jamilet left the doorway and walked into the center of the room, standing in the circle of light as though she were on a stage, auditioning for this strange man who knew her without knowing her. The revelation felt like a deep, hot wound opening in her throat and filling with the disappointment and hope she’d labored so hard to ignore. She swallowed once, but was not able to keep silent. “I dream of being with him.”