In another corner of the attic stood a metallic object. It was only up close, under a cascade of cobwebs, that the ecclesiastical lines of a candelabrum could be discerned, one that had graced the parlor in Scarlet Manor when it was bursting with whores and opulence. Perhaps Manuela thought its holy provenance would not sully the honor of her home. She used to peel the rivers of wax as she waited, with neither courage nor panties, for her next client to arrive. Manuela had also kept her daughter’s crib. It sat among several pieces of furniture draped in mothball-smelling sheets. On the urine-stained wool mattress sat a child’s sewing basket, now a refuge for moths. On rainy days, water dripped a lullaby onto the crib.
That roof had leaked for more than a century. A builder once came from a neighboring town to repair it. It was a spring day, and the sun beat down on his back. He climbed onto the roof with his toolbox and began to belt out a saeta as he replaced the broken tiles. Clara Laguna, relieving herself on the daisy-strewn cobblestone drive, heard the builder singing his Andalusian folk song. For a moment she thought her mother’s spell had brought her lover back, though his voice must’ve grown rough over time. When she raised her eyes skyward to thank God, she realized her mistake and felt hate drip onto her calves. Clara reached for a stone and threw it at the builder’s head. He fell from the roof.
On orders from their mistress, three prostitutes buried his body under a rosebush, while Bernarda cleaned the blood-spattered porch. His toolbox was walled up in the attic. For weeks they waited for the Civil Guard to come asking after the dead man. Every woman in the house was warned to deny the builder had ever been to Scarlet Manor. Clara had also prepared certain exclusive services to help ensure that the authorities believed her. But no one ever came. Time and the fatigue of flesh caused them all to forget. They only ever remembered the builder on spring days, when the sun baked daisies on the drive and the hammering of little metallic voices could be heard in the second-floor bedrooms.
Late-afternoon sun slipped in through the small round window, illuminating a basket of treasures from the sea: conch shells, strings of algae, the skeletons of little fish. Once the light faded, a rush of fireflies filled the attic, like little golden soldiers celebrating victory in battle. This was the best time of day to visit the attic, the most picturesque of all. But Olvido could not go up there until midnight, when her mother was snoring off the splash of laudanum. Barefoot, carrying a candle, she climbed the rickety stairs. Though it was the first time she had ever been in that part of the house—her mother had always forbidden it—it was as if she knew the way. Guided by the breeze of the oak trees, she knew what she was looking for and where to find it. When she entered the attic, stars crowded against the small window.
Olvido walked over to the mountain of bedpans and set them on the floor, one by one. Every bedpan had the name of one of the prostitutes on the handle: Tomasa, Ludovica, Petri, Sebastiana . . . Olvido’s eyes misted over with a yellowish tinge. As she removed Petri’s bedpan from the pile, the others came tumbling down. A clamor of white porcelain buried her feet, but Olvido stood perfectly still. A small chest appeared with the name Clara engraved in bronze on the lid. Inside were the only possessions of her grandmother’s to survive the terror of respectability. Olvido lifted the lid, a puff from a woman’s grave caressing her face, and pulled out the undergarments Clara Laguna wore the day she gave herself to the Andalusian. They were stained from her first time. Olvido then pulled out an ornamental comb inlaid with silver, her grandmother’s favorite, and a leather-bound book. Her stomach cramped and she knew this last item was her destiny. She stroked the cover. A face appeared in the window, among the stars and misty moonlight. It was one of Clara’s clients: a bald diplomat with round, gold-rimmed glasses. Olvido opened the book to the first page, made of silk, and found a dedication: “For the most exotic pubis in the world. Forever yours, wherever I might be, my concubine, my Clara.” Olvido’s hands were as white as death. She flipped through a few pages, feeling daisies sprout between her thighs. She flipped through a few more. This book, written in a foreign language, contained drawings of a naked man and woman, exquisitely profiled in ocher ink, coming together again and again in different positions. The candle flame flickered. Olvido closed the book with a smile and pressed it to her belly. She replaced the pile of bedpans and returned to her room, her discovery hidden in the pleats of her nightdress.
Olvido dreamed of those drawings over the next few nights. When the day of their secret meeting in the oak grove arrived, she placed the book in Esteban’s hands as she glanced at him.
“Is it a present?” he asked.
“Not really; it’s not mine to give. It belongs to my grandmother Clara.”
“But she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you mean sometimes?” the boy insisted.
“I don’t know. Look at the book.”
“Is it about dead people?”
“No.”
“Is it poetry?”
“No.”
“Is it a novel?”
“Just look!”
Esteban read the title, written in Gothic print.
“Ka-ma Su-tra. Is it by Shakespeare?”
“I don’t know. Flip ahead a few pages.”
When Esteban came to the drawings, Olvido kissed him on the lips.
The two of them curled up in their bed of mud along the river’s edge. He caressed the scars on her back through her blouse, she his strong carpenter’s chest, until their passion defied winter and they were half-dressed, shivering with cold and with love, under Esteban’s coat. As the blood-red veil of dawn arrived, their bodies, exhausted by snow and inexperience, came together in the first position.
They practiced nine of the positions from January through the middle of March. They lit a fire underneath a giant oak and wrapped themselves in a blanket. They smelled each other, kissed to melt their frozen loins. The grass beneath them was dead and the river frozen, but their desire was like a chronic cold.
One afternoon, after they practiced position number ten, Esteban made a decision without talking to Olvido. He thought about it all day at work, amid sneezes and feverish chills. As the sun sank into the pines, he hung up his hammer and his saw; he washed his face and his armpits, wiping away any sawdust that might affect his image; he changed out of his dirty clothes, into a clean shirt inherited from his father and a new sweater knit by his mother, and he headed to Scarlet Manor. Along the way, he recalled the day Manuela Laguna invited him in to try that stew. He could taste the herbs that had tortured him afterward, could hear his father’s deep, aromatic voice begging him to run far, far away from that cursed house and the women who lived there. Esteban picked up a sharp rock, slipping it into his pocket.
Manuela Laguna was eviscerating a chicken at the big kitchen table when Esteban knocked on the front door.
“Good evening, señora.”
Her cotton gloves dripped blood.
“Do I know you, young man?” She studied his face.
“Yes, señora.” Blood splashed onto clay tiles. “A few years ago you invited me in to taste one of your stews. I’m the schoolmaster’s son.”
“I see that now. How could I forget those eyes? You’ve grown . . . But what do you want?”
“Well . . . Forgive the late hour . . .” Esteban stuttered, reaching into his pocket to grip the stone. “I just got off work, and I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand.”
Manuela narrowed her eyes.
“And what is your job?” A scarlet puddle oozed over the clay tile floor toward the boy. “Are you deaf?”
“I . . .” Esteban felt the rock in his hand. “I’m seventeen years old and a carpenter’s apprentice. But when Olvido and I marry, we’ll move to the city and I’ll study to become a teacher.”
“So you want to follow in your father’s footsteps, become as worthless as he.”
“My father was an honorable man who died for his country!” The taste
of that stew began to fill his mouth.
“What do you know about his death! You were just a miserable child. You still are!”
“You’re wrong. I’m a man and I love your daughter.” Esteban formed a fist around the rock.
“Don’t be ridiculous . . . you love my daughter. You’ve never even seen her face. All you want is the fortune she’ll inherit one day.” A tuft of Manuela’s hair fell into the puddle of chicken blood.
“That’s a lie. I’ve even seen her naked. More than once. You should know we’ve practiced those positions in that book of your mother’s. That’s how well I know her!” Esteban let go of the rock as the confession slid from his throat.
“Listen to me, boy, if you don’t go back to where you came from right now, I’ll rip out your guts. I should have done it the first time you were here.” Manuela’s white cotton gloves shone in the moonlight.
Esteban fled toward the pine forest, tasting his father’s warning like that very first time.
In the half-light of the entryway, Manuela pulled out the cane for beating rugs. The smell of lavender wafted up to Olvido’s room. Drowsy with fever, she did not hear the knock on the door or the conversation between her lover and her mother. Olvido saw the face of the moon through the window. Manuela burst in and caned her, then examined her hymen with a magnifying glass, as closely as if she were an entomologist.
“I’ll get a folk healer to restore it. This would be much easier if the Laguna witch were still alive. But you were born a whore like your grandmother. You will not leave this house until you are twenty! As for that depraved sex fiend who came to ask for your hand, to rub what you’ve done in my face, I will rip his insides out.”
Anyone else would have stayed away, but Esteban was too enamored and returned. The night had grown steely, with only a few stars. He climbed up the trellis to the window; he did not notice the moon hanging itself with its own white rays. Kneeling on the sill, he rapped on the glass as a star plummeted to its death behind him. Olvido heard something but hesitated. The wind was blowing, the wooden shutters bashing into Esteban. “Olvido! Olvido!” The girl recognized her name. She let Esteban in, then slapped him across the face.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was the fever, the cold, kissing you in the snow just once a week. It made me crazy. I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Did she cane you?”
Olvido lowered her eyes.
“I’ll kill her. If you ask me to, I’ll kill her right now and we’ll move to the city.” Esteban felt the rock in his pocket, Olvido’s finger on his lips, followed by a kiss.
Off in the distance, the new church bells began to ring in the frozen air—not a glorious melody, more of a funeral march. Suddenly, a cloud of gunpowder filled the room. Wearing nothing but a clean pair of gloves, her breasts hanging down to her belly, Manuela Laguna stood holding the rifle from the attic.
“So you’ve come back to fuck the honor of my home, have you, boy? All right, if that’s what you want, we’ll take this as far as it goes.”
Olvido stared at her mother’s pubic hair.
“If you let him go right now, I promise I’ll never see him again,” she begged, placing herself between Esteban and her mother.
The boy gripped the rock in his pocket so tightly, a sharp edge cut his finger.
“Shut up. Clearly you inherited Clara Laguna’s bad blood, and it’s going to cost you dearly.”
Manuela clicked off the safety and brought the gun to her shoulder.
“Move.”
“Madre, please. Let him go.”
“Not on your life.”
Manuela slammed the rifle butt into her daughter’s temple, and Olvido crumpled to the floor. A small stream of blood obscured her vision. It’s all a dream, she thought; I’m lying in the honeysuckle clearing. Esteban’s voice attacked Manuela: “I’ll kill you, you witch! I’ll kill you!” A shot rang out, gunpowder speckling the seascape on the wall. Maybe it’s a battle between pirate ships, Olvido thought. It’s all a dream; tomorrow we’ll kiss in the oak grove on top of the snow. The springs in the old chair creaked. Her mother had sat down with her legs spread and was delivering an ultimatum: “Fuck me or I’ll kill my daughter.” Shot in the arm, the boy pulled down his pants, today I made lemon pie but it burned because I was thinking of you, Olvido murmured, tomorrow I’ll make apple pie and bring you a piece at work, but he was rubbing his penis with a reluctant hand, you’ll savor it and I’ll lick the crumbs from your lips. The boy walked toward Manuela, quaking, tomorrow we’ll forget all about this, come, kiss me, tomorrow we’ll bathe in the river no matter how cold it is, Olvido begged, a bullet entered the rifle chamber, her mother fired and the bullet punctured the ceiling, I said fuck me, boy, he vomited and backed away from Manuela toward the window. Don’t worry, my love, tomorrow the church bells will play a love song, come, let me lick the sawdust from behind your ears, let me lick your splinters, he opened the window and the late-March cold cleared out the gunpowder, come, let me kiss the whorl at the back of your neck, let me kiss the dimple in your chin, the rock fell out of his pocket onto the floor, Manuela laughed, you were going to hit me with that, I’ll teach you how to kill, another bullet entered the rifle chamber and she shot him in the gut, come, come, Olvido screamed, Manuela approached with the rifle aimed at the boy’s chest, when no more than a breath away, she threw it on the floor and pushed Esteban out of the window, his skull smashing on a rock below, tomorrow . . . Olvido moaned . . . in the oak grove, you’ll look at me with your gray eyes . . .
10
THUNDER CRACKED AND split the sky, clouds piled one on top of the other, night closed in darkness. Olvido walked over to the window. Rain pelted her face and a gust of wind froze her cheeks. She started to shake when she saw Esteban’s body in the yard, immobile, a red halo around his head, sanctifying his death. She furrowed her brow—wanting to tear anger, pain in two—and a permanent crease formed between her brows, a crease that transformed her into an adult beauty. Olvido felt dizzy. She closed the window and contemplated the moonless sky through the glass, Esteban’s body being mourned by the shrouded stars. The cut on her temple still bled, dripping onto her chin, her dress. She crumpled to the floor, fainting.
Her mother had left the room, slamming the door in triumph. She would go back to bed on the first floor and sleep soundly now that there were no more gray eyes in town to ruin her plans for the future. Manuela finished grooming a cockroach she had set in perfumed water before undressing and heading to Olvido’s room to restore her honor. She tied a crimson leash around the insect’s swollen body. Then she pulled the drapes closed and crawled between stiffly starched sheets. It was then she sensed it for the first time, rising from her stomach to her breasts, that smell of fear, that smell of sex the boy exuded.
Dawn came earlier than usual that winter morning verging on spring. It was as if the sun, after the moon’s suicide, did not want to leave the world orphaned any longer. An orange glow slowly lit up the wintry mountains, turning white as it hit Scarlet Manor, wrapping the boy’s body in a shroud. Esteban already belonged to the yard. A gleaming puddle lay coiled on his belly, and a poppy sprouted from his lip. His blood and thick brains were frozen on the moss like morning dew. The storm that assaulted the night was still reflected in his eyes.
Olvido felt a stabbing pain in her temple when she woke. A trail of dried blood ran down her face to her neck. Her lips trembled to the tempo of memory; her teeth began to chatter. The light of a new day flickered in her icy, mourning heart. She got up and stumbled over to the window. Her mother was coming down the stone drive in the cart, the black horse trampling daisies. Behind her was another, larger cart. A beam of sunlight fell on the two occupants. They were thin and dressed in black. This procession shattering the dawn stopped beside Esteban’s body. Manuela got down from the cart, pointing to the boy’s pants around his ankles. Her mouth contorted in hate. One of the men took notes, while the other stared at the body being consumed by tha
t yard. A daisy sprouted from Esteban’s inner thigh. A few minutes passed before the men dared wrap the body in a blanket the same color as their mules. Esteban left the yard to the bump and creak of wood, but the abstract painting of his death remained on the moss for a long time to come.
The morning remained pale. Olvido pulled a chair to the window and sat cross-legged, holding vigil over Esteban’s absence as a wintry river seized her bones. She heard the pines rustle and recalled her first outing with Esteban on a bed of needles. She had no desire to eat or drink; she did have to pee but refused to move. Urine soaked her buttocks and thighs with a warm sense of well-being. She listened to the caws of a magpie that coveted her tears. The fruit trees and wild roses shook in the yard.
By afternoon, Olvido had begun to shake. Her damp nightdress clung to her skin. She wanted to get up and change, but her limbs had fallen asleep after so long in the same position, consumed with sadness. When she did manage to rise she decided to go out into the yard, and nothing would stop her. She pulled off her nightdress, pulled on a wool dress and coat. From the hallway, she could hear the crackle of wood in the hearth. Carrying her boots, she walked down the stairs and into the yard. She kneeled on the moss stained by her lover’s remains. She pulled out a pair of scissors and cut her bangs, then the tresses that hung to her waist. Clumps of hair fell on the icy red moss. The wolf’s howl returned, as did the steely cold. Olvido knew it was useless to look for the moon. Clouds crowded the last light of day, and she gave in to exhaustion. She laid her head on the moss, and death pricked her cheek. I will never forget you, she thought, pressing her body deeper into the moss, and I will never live again.
The House of Impossible Loves Page 13