The House of Impossible Loves

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The House of Impossible Loves Page 6

by Cristina Lopez Barrio


  Suffocated by the severity of his cassock, the priest loosened his collar, revealing his scar. The sun was blinding, and the only stirring of the air came from his speech, as he sat on the stone bench under the chestnut tree, the cicadas trilling.

  “I’ll baptize my daughter when her father returns,” Clara said.

  Padre Imperio’s dark eyes turned fierce.

  “And when might that be?”

  “This fall, a few months from now.”

  “What if he doesn’t return? What makes you think he will?”

  “A promise.”

  “Men like him don’t keep promises, Clara. Your lover is never coming back.”

  “How dare you say that! Maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t ever come back, you and your sermons and your parables. The only thing that’s going to save me is seeing my revenge in the eyes of the man I still love.”

  The priest stood from the scalding bench, his scar a red hangman’s noose. The cicadas trilled even louder.

  “Go! I don’t want your salvation to distract me any longer!” Tears and reproach caught in Clara’s throat.

  Padre Imperio walked down the drive and mounted his mule.

  “Bernarda! Bernarda!” Clara yelled.

  The cook was plucking a hen when she heard her mistress call. She dropped the bird and ran into the yard.

  “Lady! Lady!”

  Padre Imperio’s silhouette moved away down the gravel road. The sun became a mirage, split by a flock of swallows.

  Bernarda wiped her bloody hands on her apron, chewed on her lip, and smiled.

  “Time for a shave, Bernarda!”

  The girl ran a hand over her face but found not a hair along her jawbone or under her chin.

  “I don’t care there’s nothing there! Bring the soap and razor.”

  When Bernarda returned, she sat on the bench where the priest had sat. Her mistress stood and shaved her clean face until Padre Imperio vanished into the woods.

  “He’ll be back,” Clara muttered, “just like that other one.” Then she soaped Bernarda’s face once more and began to tell her about Padre Imperio’s scar, as red as an island snake.

  Autumn fell, leaving behind a summer of breasts dripping with mother’s milk, the scent of shaving foam, and strolls through the yard. Padre Imperio came back to Scarlet Manor one October afternoon, handing the Laguna witch the Bible with the violet cover, now wrapped in brown paper. He did not ask to see Clara or send any message: this Bible, which no one in the house could read, was offered as an apology, a desire for baptism and reconciliation. The one who did not return was the Andalusian landowner. The beech leaves turned color and fell to the ground, slowly burying Clara’s heart. The bellowing stags returned, mating in the mountains, the sound of horns colliding. I’ll see him any moment, standing on the cobblestone drive, Clara thought. I’ll hear his Andalusian accent any minute. But more leaves fell, the stags grew tired of mating, foals gestated, Clara’s breasts filled and emptied as she fed her daughter, and the entrance to Scarlet Manor remained empty. The hunters returned with their catch of partridge and rabbit, their gunpowder, and their packs of hounds that peed on the fountain in late afternoon. Clara returned to the grove where she’d first made love, to the red earth of the riverbank, to the smell of rain on stiff leaves, to their names carved in a trunk. She went there so often that her skin began to smell of oak. The smoke in the chimneys returned; the fog of the dead, the biting wind, and sad bell tolls all returned as the leaves continued to fall. Only when the branches were bare, awaiting the first snow, did Clara demand that her mother cast a spell to make him return.

  “It won’t work,” the old woman warned.

  “If you want to live in this house, you’ll try.”

  A pot was placed on a stand in the fire, its black belly filled with forget-me-nots, sheep fat, spider legs, a sheaf of the Andalusian’s olive-oil-soaked letters, and dried jasmine, among other things. It simmered for an entire day and took hours to cool enough for Clara to drink. She called to him from her bowels, her liver, and her heart, but the potion rotted inside and he did not return.

  The first snowfall blanketed the town. Clara Laguna put on her negligees and Moorish pants, and the canopy danced once again to the rhythm of a revenge that only grew more frenzied the longer she waited. But first she took her daughter to the kitchen in search of Bernarda. She wore a satin dressing gown that left her sheer stockings and garters exposed.

  “Shave?” the cook grunted.

  Clara shook her head, handing her the girl.

  “Make sure she’s fed,” Clara ordered, “and keep her warm. If she dies, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  Bernarda stood staring at her, not saying a word. Clara’s dressing gown revealed a glimpse of one breast, and the cook imagined it in her mouth, smeared with garlic and tomato.

  “Answer!” her mistress demanded.

  Bernarda looked down at the baby, who had begun to cry and kick her in the ribs. She plugged the child’s mouth with a finger coated in chicken blood, and for the first time, Manuela Laguna tasted the sweetness of death.

  5

  THE FUTURE THE DAISIES foretold came true that winter of 1900. The yard at Scarlet Manor no longer obeyed the weather or the seasons and settled into eternal spring. Not only did the daisies flower, but so did the hydrangea and morning glories near the chestnut tree, the honeysuckle patch, and the rose garden with its multi-hued buds that opened as wide as a man’s hand. Even the vegetable garden was continually overgrown with legions of tomatoes, lettuce, and squash. Such prodigious fertility, which only increased over the years, gave them something to talk about in town. The old women on stools and their daughters while sewing or standing over pots suspected the reason was as wet as it was shameful: that yard was fertilized with semen. No one in town wanted to forget that Scarlet Manor had become the most famous, most opulent brothel in the entire province. The baritone at the shop where Clara bought her furniture was partly to thank. He sent customers and acquaintances who were passing through, some as elegant as the diplomat who celebrated his return from far-off lands by making love to the prostitute with the golden eyes. Between clients, Clara stood by the bedroom window and stared out at the cobblestone drive.

  Winter turned to spring, but it was all the same to Clara and her gardens. The daisies continued to sprout and the Andalusian failed to return. Next autumn, Clara told herself; of that I’m sure. And if not, then the snows will bring him, but I will see him before I die. It was then that she began to worry about her health. So as not to catch a chill that might become pneumonia, she often received clients wearing a wool chemise under her negligee.

  “Your newfound modesty will ruin our business,” her mother warned.

  “Let me throw the bones to see how long I have to live. I don’t want him to come back only to find my grave.”

  “I told you years ago, I saw in the ribs that he’s never coming back. You didn’t believe me then; what’s different now?”

  “This time we’re talking about my death.”

  “But it’s the same bones and the same witch’s eyesight!”

  “Read the bones and tell me if my death is near! Whether or not I believe you is up to me.”

  Spring light streamed in through the window. Clara sat cross-legged on the bed, opened the sack, and spilled the bones on the sheets as she thought of her Andalusian lover.

  “The skull tells me death is not ready for you yet,” the old woman predicted.

  “When? When will it come?”

  “You have many years of life left, but you won’t reach old age.”

  “Then he’ll be back before I’m as ugly and wrinkled as you.”

  The Laguna witch put the bones back into the sack and left the room. Clara brushed her hair as she stared out at the daisies.

  Death came instead for the Laguna witch late one night that spring. She had been reading the future and repairing a hymen in one of the noblemen’s homes. On her way back to
Scarlet Manor, she ventured out of the empty roadside ditch and onto the dark road itself and the sound of chirping crickets surged. Suddenly, a speeding cart ran right over her. A client found her on his way home after an amorous session and a serving of Bernarda’s stew. He lifted the old woman into the back of his cart, laying her down with his hoe, scythe, and shovel. The woman’s teeth were bloodstained, a trickle of pink spit running down her neck toward her heart. Her good eye was closed; her blind eye shone like a marble. Her crushed hands gripped her treasured sack. The cart was filled with wheat, millet, and flour.

  “Let go of the sack,” the man said.

  The old witch shook her head and sucked her lips. She tried to speak.

  “Don’t say a word. I’ll go get your daughter.” The man returned to Scarlet Manor.

  “Back for more?” Tomasa asked when he opened the door.

  “Tell the owner, tell Clara. Her mother’s in my cart, half-dead.”

  Tomasa found her mistress in the kitchen, eating a meal of potatoes and rabbit, recovering after a long night of revenge.

  “I think they’ve killed your mother,” Tomasa said.

  Clara ran a hand over her lips, wiping away a bit of gravy.

  “A bad weed never dies,” she murmured.

  Clara met the man in the clay-tiled entryway and followed him out to his cart. She was wearing a long satin dressing gown and a pair of Moorish pants. The wee hours were fresh, with crickets still chirping.

  “Madre?”

  The old woman’s head was resting on a bag of flour.

  “Church, church,” she croaked.

  “But what happened to her?”

  “Looks like she was hit by a cart,” the man replied.

  “Church,” the Laguna witch insisted.

  “I’ll take you.”

  Clara climbed into the cart and ripped the sack of bones from her mother’s hands.

  “Up and down these roads with this filthy cat! I knew it would kill you.”

  “No,” the old woman protested.

  The cart clattered over the stones that early morning.

  “Why does she want to go to the church? Shouldn’t we take her to the doctor or the apothecary?” the client asked.

  Wiping the spit from her lips with a broken hand, the witch muttered the word cursed followed by the word death.

  “Cursed women only go to church when they’re about to die.”

  Her mother nodded as bloody vomit filled her mouth behind her teeth.

  “Hurry!”

  The man snapped the reins. Flour inside the man’s cart puffed up into a pale cloud. The town’s cobblestone streets shined brilliantly with dew, and the sound of hooves echoed against the mildewed stone façades. The town square opened up before them, free of fog. The cart came to a halt in front of the church. Clara climbed out and banged away on the big wooden doors. She cried for Padre Imperio, cold splinters shredding her knuckles.

  The priest woke in his spartan room next to the sacristy. He was dreaming about Clara Laguna, salvation in her golden eyes, when he heard the voice in his dream, and banging on the door. Wearing the same gray pajamas he wore in his seminary days, he shuffled along in slippers one of his parishioners had given him, his hair disheveled, his sleep-filled eyes unfocused, his cassock hanging open in place of a robe, and his red scar vivid across his throat, and opened one door. The first rays of light shot in like a lance, followed by Clara in her harem clothes, and the man carrying the Laguna witch’s battered body.

  “She’s dying, Father, she’s dying!” Clara clapped her hands on the priest’s chest, the first time she had ever touched him. She snatched them back and formed two fists.

  Padre Imperio blushed.

  “Lay her on a pew, by the altar.”

  Spring air slipped through cracks in the windows. You could hear the Castilian caballeros rolling over in their graves.

  “What happened?”

  “I think she was hit by a cart. I found her on the side of the road as I was leaving . . .” The man stared down at the floor. “Forgive me, Father.”

  “No time for that now. Has she seen the doctor?”

  “No. She asked me to bring her here,” Clara replied.

  Padre Imperio knelt beside the dying woman and ran a hand over her hair. The woman opened her one good eye, murmuring the priest’s name. He brought his ear to her bloodstained lips, listened to her soft words. The priest buttoned his cassock, went to the sacristy, and returned a moment later with a stole around his neck and the tray of holy oils. He made the sign of the cross over the old woman’s face and gave her last rites. The smell of sorcery she had brought into the room disappeared, giving way to the aroma of blessed oil.

  Clara would never forget Padre Imperio’s hands tracing a cross in the air, his tenderness in anointing the oil, the faith on his tanned face, the devotion on his lips reciting words in Latin.

  “Come. She wants to tell you something.”

  When Clara’s mother saw her daughter’s face, she closed her eye. Clara leaned close to her lips and took her by the hand. The old woman whispered a few last words as her soul began to take flight. She squeezed Clara’s hand and died.

  Beyond the church windows, the sun stretched across the sky in tones of orange and gold.

  “She’s gone,” Clara said, resting a cheek on her mother’s chest.

  Padre Imperio stared, fascinated by her chestnut hair fanned out over her back, smooth in the sunlight, but he did not touch it.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, consoling her. “Your mother went in peace.”

  “I’m not afraid for her but for me.” Clara lifted her head. She was crying.

  “But you still have your daughter. Manuela, isn’t that right?”

  “She’s the cause of my misfortune. Her father would have returned if it weren’t for her.”

  “The sun’s up now,” the client interrupted. “I’d best get to work.”

  “Please take Clara home.”

  “Don’t ask me to do that, Padre. You must understand, I can’t, in broad daylight, and right through town? Look how she’s dressed,” the man protested, pointing to Clara’s Moorish pants visible under her dressing gown.

  “Go! I’ll walk home,” Clara said.

  The man hurried out of the church, climbed into his cart with its flour sacks now stained red, and left for his farm.

  Morning came to rest on the pew where the corpse lay; it came to rest in Padre Imperio’s eyes and in Clara’s tears. The priest removed his stole. Clara rose unsteadily to her feet.

  “Thank you.”

  “No need. I’m simply Christ’s servant.” He smiled.

  “I’ll be back to sit vigil.”

  “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

  “Yes, you know I can’t read, not even the Bible you sent. Come read it to me again soon. Goodbye, Padre.”

  “Wait. You can’t go out like that. I’ll loan you the charwoman’s clothes. They’re not very elegant, but at least you won’t be out in public in your nightdress.”

  The priest led Clara to a small broom closet where a rough skirt and white blouse were hanging on a hook.

  “Take your time,” he said, closing the door.

  Clara listened to his footsteps recede.

  A short while later she found Padre Imperio kneeling in the side chapel dedicated to Saint Pantolomina of the Flowers. He had covered the old woman’s corpse with a blanket and put on his priest’s collar.

  “I won’t bother you any longer. I’ll be on my way now.”

  Padre Imperio turned to look at Clara. The clothes were too big, but her hair was still loose, her eyes the same.

  “Wait. Take my mule. I’ll come for her another day.”

  Clara crossed the town square on Padre Imperio’s mule and continued down the narrow streets to the gravel road. A few townspeople spied her with her silk dressing gown and harem pants tucked under her arm, her hair loose. Before long the old women in black shawls all hea
rd how that vixen left the church on the priest’s mule, wearing his charwoman’s clothes, how the Laguna witch lay dead on a pew, run over by a cart. Before long they heard that this was not the priest’s first contact with that cursed family: his mule had been seen tied to the gate at Scarlet Manor on more than one occasion. The townspeople, who had adored him from the very first day, began to look at him with suspicion. After all, he was a man under that cassock, a young man just turned thirty. The rumors only intensified when the Laguna witch was buried in the cemetery of cypress trees and magpies one morning. Clara attended with the girls from Scarlet Manor, Padre Imperio officiating in Latin with his holy water. But not one local came, even though the old woman had read their futures in the bones of the cat, repaired their daughters’ hymens, and cured their evil eye for years. They wondered why that Laguna—who had never set foot in church until the hour of her death, a witch of all things—should be given a Christian burial. They wondered whether the daughter had asked, and the priest could not refuse. Padre Imperio, however, was simply complying with the deceased’s wishes. “Give me my last rites,” she had said, “then bury me in hallowed ground so I can rot in peace.”

  When earth covered the coffin, Padre Imperio offered Clara his sympathies. He took her hand and shook it. She felt her skin grow warm. They both blushed.

  “Don’t come back to Scarlet Manor, Padre. People talk in this town. I’ll have Bernarda bring your mule back tomorrow.”

  “Close your business. Bring your daughter to be baptized and come to church on Sundays.”

  “I already told you: I’m committed to my revenge, my abandonment.”

 

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