by G A Dazio
* * *
“Who’s there?” she heard Marcelina say from behind the door.
“Tia, open the door, please, it’s me,” she whispered back, apprehensively.
Through the partially opened door, she saw her aunt’s confused eyes first as they peered out into the darkened hallway to find Veronica. The girl shot forward into her arms and held fast to the woman with violent shivers, not so much from fear but from the terrible cold that overcame her in the corridor.
Marcelina shifted the girl off of her gently and shut the door as quietly as possible. Veronica noticed the interior bedroom doors were shut as Marcelina brought her over to the sofa in her anti-chamber, sat her down, and fetched some wine from a large armoire. Marcelina filled a wide crystal glass halfway to the top with a pink wine and handed it to her.
“Here, drink this,” she instructed warmly. “It will help you to calm down, my love.”
Veronica took the glass without examining it and began to drink. She had seldom tasted wine. Her mother didn’t think it proper at her age, though it was not at all uncommon in her house for any other young girl to be given it at parties or on feast days. She adored the shimmering color of this lovely pink varietal and she was only startled for an instant by the strange, sweet taste that washed down her throat.
“Not so fast, dear. Sip the drink. We don’t want you to fall asleep when we have so much to discuss. There now,” the woman said with a sparkle, “do you feel better?”
Veronica smiled in spite of her fears. In this moment, her aunt again seemed to resemble the astonishing woman she had always thought her to be. The girl was very happy to smile upon her aunt, prompting Marcelina to beam back even more lovely, tears welling in her eyes.
“I’m so frightened, I don’t understand what has happened. I thought General de Flores... I thought he would be the one you’d send. But it was not him, at all. Oh Tia, I don’t understand what just happened. It was Father Mateu who came to my room.”
“And was he sweet with you, dear?”
She hesitated in bewilderment. “Yes, he was very sweet to me, but I don’t understand why he would. I know he cannot do such a thing.”
“And what, dear, did he do with you?”
“He touched me,” she blurted out, “he touched my body all over and then brought himself on top of me and...”
“Did he have sex with you, sex the way I described it?”
“Yes, he did... but no, it was not like you described it, it was nothing at all like that. It was... oh, I don’t know what it was.” Veronica shut her eyes, and in her mind, she saw him all over again, the texture of his face, the sensation of his breath upon her.
“What, dear, what is it? You must tell me, love. Did he hurt you?”
The girl stopped. Her eyes opened swiftly, finding the woman’s worried gaze fixed upon her. “It was as if I died for a moment and knew peace. And I felt this pleasure, this sweet sensation that he brought out of me, and I felt it throughout my body. I didn’t understand it, but I was defenseless to stop it. I didn’t want it to stop.”
Marcelina smiled brilliantly at the girl’s words. “Well then, I will have reason enough to give him thanks in the morning. It seems clear he has done more than I asked of him. And he’s helped you to understand exactly why this conversation began.” She sat back on the sofa and exhaled quietly, her eyes finding nothing distinctive on the wall to stare at. “Good,” said the woman after a moment of glowing silence, “now we can continue.”
Chapter Nine
Throughout the night, they talked by the simple light of two candles, the darkness focusing Veronica’s absorption of her aunt’s word, suspending time as the present world was shut out. Marcelina was both more direct and loving than ever, and the girl thought of nothing beyond the woman’s words, and how she described her life’s experiences.
“Don’t think for a moment I don’t understand how you feel, or that I’m not overwhelmed with joy for you. If anything, I’m quite jealous of you right now. I truly wish there had been someone to guide me through it when I was your age. The confusion of it all overshadowed the entire event. But I must describe to you the first time I was with a man. It could be characterized as hardly more than a hurried stumble. You’re sure to look back on this night as if it were a fairy tale, I promise you.” Marcelina paused, searching her mind for the details that could not be recalled very easily.
“His name was Antonio, a servant in our father’s house in Madrid, the son of the stable master. Their small family lived in a cottage on the grounds. We were the same age and it was his good fortune to receive schooling from my tutors during most of our childhood. His family was much loved and cared for by my father, and he was given the opportunity to receive a formal education when a tutor was eventually called for my sister and I. Looking back at this, I find it hard to imagine my father ever married my mother, for they were so very different in mind or character. Mamá thought it a disgrace that a common boy—indeed, the stable master’s son—should even be allowed in the same room as her daughter and reminded father of her opposition as vehemently as possible whenever the chance arose. I suppose she did know more than a thing or two about a young girl’s viewpoint, considering how often she ignored me.
“Anyhow, Antonio was quite gifted. He excelled in all his studies to such a degree that he made your mother jealous and frustrated, particularly when the tutor had to explain many of the lessons over again. He sat apart from us, as my mother insisted, but he could hardly sit so far away as to be unable to see and hear our teacher. In time, though her opposition never changed, her attention to the matter did, and the divide shortened enough that we three children began speaking to each other in class almost every day. When he was seventeen and I fifteen, I began to come out of my shell, even before I was presented as a young lady. Despite the forces against us, we became true friends.
“Naturally, we were watched the entire time we were at study, so we bravely took it upon ourselves to meet in private. I made a habit of retiring every day to a small patio, just outside of the house, and would take to reading my lessons alone. My mother welcomed the opportunity for a bit of free time for herself and would only check on me now and then through a window. At that age, Lucía naturally couldn’t stand to be bothered by me, and gladly welcomed her own privacy from me. Confident in the arrangement that I had established for myself, I would quietly slip away when I could to meet Antonio in the farthest part of the gardens in the late afternoon. It was always near a grove of old olive trees on the far border of the gardens that would take ten minutes to reach. I always thought that I would gladly have walked a thousand miles just to see him alone.
“He tried to dress his best when he would come, and I made the same fuss privately with my own appearance. Antonio was such a different person when we were alone, so relaxed. He called me by my first name, never for a moment speaking to me as if I were too good for him. He was like a brother, and he was my true confidant.
“We would talk for hours sometimes, talk about everything that concerned us and our dreams for the future. Antonio often spoke of his plans and hopes to be supported by his father to attend the Academy when he turned eighteen, which we both knew was impossible. He would have the most frightened look upon his face when he realized that truth could not be fantasized away. You see, he would spend the rest of his life in the stables. His father was all too realistic when it concerned his future, making the point to shoot him down from the clouds when Antonio’s dream of an alternate life would light up his face. And what was worse, I myself knew the family expected Antonio to succeed his father in a few years when the old man retired.
“Those months of friendship flew by and Antonio became less and less the dreamer. Eventually, he did not even wish to attend our daily tutorial, though his father would not hear of his son refusing Papá’s generosity.
“During these meetings, we became closer in every way, ultimately falling in love and finding our way together in the
shade of those olive trees to make love. It was not nearly as without error as it was for you, I can assure you, for Heaven knows it was little more than awkward clumsiness at best. But we were truly in love, and I can honestly say I have never found that type of young passion for anyone again. He was so alive and real to me, and through this world’s facade of powder and lace, it all fell away.
“In due course, we found ourselves taking risks to venture out on a walk more and more often to make love under the trees. I was so in love with him that my lust began to blind me to my ordinary precautions. In hindsight, I wished that I could have foreseen something so obvious that happened shortly thereafter. I’m sure you realize what transpired.
“Lucía found us one day, having been sent to fetch me after it was reported to our mother that I was out walking alone. When she’d come upon us, she’d stupidly thought he was trying to hurt me. She naturally did not understand the true nature of our situation, courtesy of our useless mother, and had taken it upon herself to scream like a banshee with her finger pointed at us in vain. I might have behaved the same, if Antonio hadn’t already solved the mystery of physical love for me. Well, he had never moved so fast for me, to be sure, and he was no sooner dressed than she began to run like a hare through the garden, screaming for all heaven to hear. ‘The stable boy is trying to murder Marcelina!’ she’d cried. I need not tell you the uproar that met her when her legs finally brought her to the house. The servants were in a storm of disbelief at her screaming. I had tried desperately to get there before my father and his men would arm themselves with their guns to hunt the boy down.
“It was pure foolishness that I entertained, attempting to act as if nothing had happened and that Lucía had been lying just to make mischief. Our mother could see plainly that my clothes were improperly fastened and that my hair was a mess. She’d known instantly what had happened and had not bothered to speak the truth before my father understood that I was not hurt. Mother slapped me across my face so hard that I flew to the ground, prompting my father to grab hold of her, as if she had gone mad.
“I’d spent that night and the next day alone in my room. The servants were told they might not even speak to me when they brought me meals. In spite of this, one of them managed to tell me that Antonio had been so severely beaten by his own father, upon hearing the news from Papá, that they’d had to be separated to keep his father from murdering the boy. Papá asked his butler to bring Antonio into the servant’s quarters of the main house. This news helped me realize the scope of what we had done. I was also told that, upon being questioned, Antonio had stood up to his father in Papá’s presence and protested his love for me. It had pushed the stable master over the edge and he’d set upon his son with his fists, knocking him unconscious, and kicking him across the ground before Papá’s men could stop him.
“The news terrified me, for I then realized nothing could ever happen to me that would compare to what would befall Antonio for this outrage. The day I spent alone felt like a week, as they let the terrible burden of my fear fester. On the morning of the second day, a maid eventually came to inform me that my father had summoned me and that I was to dress and make an appearance before him and my mother.
“I’d been a storm of nervousness inside and each step to my father’s office had carried with it a dreadful weight. The first sight of his eyes, now darkened with the suffering of knowing, was like a sword through my heart. I loved my father unconditionally, you see. He was nothing like my mother. Even if the man had not been my hero, which he most certainly was, I would have loved him for the simple fact that he represented for me the thinker and scholar that my mother took every chance to scoff at in others. Yet, combined with his distress, I also saw love beaming through his sadness and knew instantly that if anyone would listen to my defense, it would be him.
“With my father in the room were Mamá, his advisers and associates, and Antonio’s mother. I later learned his father had taken to drinking heavily after the incident with Antonio. The stable master’s wife, Constancia, had put her husband to bed and had come to speak with my father privately. Her face had appeared serene in her unhappiness, as if she had accepted what had taken place and understood now what was to happen to her son, displaying a calmness I had thought to be brave. Yes, I think she was a very brave woman, and I wish I had known her more intimately. I happen to think it showed a great deal of courage to stand before my father, after what her son had done, when it was neither her responsibility nor her right to present herself in defense of something so defenseless.
“But I could find nothing but hatred in my mother’s eyes, who would not look to me for even a second. I imagine now she had much to hate on the occasion: that father had not yet killed the fiend who now slept under her very roof; that I was corrupted and had brought shame upon our family; even worse, that the mother of this animal had the effrontery to show herself in her lady’s presence.
“I’d said nothing, and had stood there in silence, and the servants closed the doors as they exited the chamber. I merely stood in the center of the room, staring intently, my eyes fixed upon the dark oak parquet pattern of the floor. All the while, I could feel his penetrating gaze upon my downcast face, his eyes probing me for any hint of what he was dealing with.
“Within seconds, I heard the very soft tone of his baritone voice instructing those present in the room to leave us. And with a most relieved swiftness, his men and Constancia had left, leaving Papá to quietly plead for mother’s cooperation. ‘It will be all right. Leave us that I might speak with her awhile, please,’ he’d said more gently to her. With a dramatic look of protest, she’d turned reluctantly and had made a point to storm out of the room, walking past me fast enough to upset my dress, her eyes still avoiding the sight of me.
“I was at last alone with my father in this enormous room, the room where I had spent so many nights with him, just watching as he worked at his desk with his secretary, talking to the man freely in my presence of all his business affairs and concerns for the city and country. In this room, I had often sat upon a small chair, backed away into a corner where I pretended to read my book, but rather watched him with adoration as he worked. I remember so vividly how he would stop his toils and turn his head around to find me there and shine his most love-filled gaze across the room, followed by a silent kiss.
“It was this love I thought of then, this horrible distance between us. And I could not help but to look upon him for a brief second to see his face once more. All the love was still there, more than ever in his warm eyes, structured underneath that handsome brow, framed with all of those golden waves. He was the most beautiful man I had ever known, and even in his distress, his beauty and love were all too powerful for me to look upon. I could not face such beauty, not after what I had done to him.
“At once, tears fell from my eyes and I battled with God to stop them. The mere thought that he would see them was horrible for me. And within those few moments when I’d struggled with my tears, I’d found that he had risen from his desk and came toward me to stand not more than a foot away. He had approached me without my knowing, startling me, and I’d looked up frightened to meet his eyes. In them, I saw all of his sadness and love through the haze of my tears, now falling uncontrollably. He was too beautiful in his suffering, and I’d let out his name in a whisper as he’d moved forward to enfold me in his arms.
“I’d cried out then, wrenched with violent sobbing that I could not have stopped to save my life. We simply stood there forever as he held me while I cried, telling me over and over that it would be all right. When I had stopped shaking, he’d brought me to his sitting area and I’d fallen down there with my head against his chest. And then we began to talk.”
“It was the first time we had ever talked about anything terrible. Our conversations had always been of our love or the tales of his boyhood, of what I thought of my studies, and what dress was my favorite that week. None of it had ever been in anger and none had ever bee
n about my having done something disobedient. It had seemed that I had finally accomplished something so terrible, even my mother had been without the authority to deal a sentence, and this thought had amused me as much as it had terrified me.
“His tone had been tempered, etched dully out of love and pain, though he’d tried to be organized and stern. My father was a very intelligent man and little could ever disturb him beyond reason. His calm and levelheadedness had been his most valued traits among those whom he’d dealt with in business, though to see him in this way would have shocked most, even under the circumstances.
“‘The house has gone mad,’ he’d said then, while he’d tried to find his composure. ‘His father vowed to kill him in my presence,’ he’d told me, smiling in agony and laughing dryly. Papá had been so taken with the stable master’s response, that he had forgotten for a moment why he’d been angry. He’d related how the man had sworn he would sacrifice his son, that no dishonor would fall upon his house... like Abraham to God. He hadn’t known what to say to the man.”
Veronica gasped at the stable master’s words and actions. “But you must have been so afraid for Antonio’s life! What did you say? What happened to Antonio?” She took another sip of wine and sat poised, tilted forward on the sofa in anticipation.
Sitting next to her niece, Marcelina leaned back, remembering that day as clearly as if it were the present. She could still recall the mix of emotions she’d experienced when she’d pleaded with her father for forgiveness.
* * *
“Papá, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, it was all my fault. I made him feel it was acceptable. He would never have dared if I hadn’t asked him to. I swear, Papá, it was all my doing.”
“No, no, my love, it is not right for you to sacrifice yourself for him now. He is not a fool, he is an educated boy, almost a man, who knew precisely what he had ventured to do.”