Thus Were Their Faces

by Silvina Ocampo

  That day, Estanislao Romagán put aside the pile of clocks he was working on to see how the preparations for the party were coming along and to help out a little (he who even on Sundays and holidays never stops working). I was very fond of Estanislao Romagán. Do you remember that hunchbacked watchmaker who fixed your clock? The one who lived on the flat roof of this building in the little hut he built himself that looked like a doghouse? I called it the Clock House. The one who specialized in alarm clocks? Who knows, maybe you’ve forgotten him, though I can hardly believe that! Watches and hunchbacks can’t be forgotten just like that. Well, that was Estanislao Romagán. He would show me pictures of a sundial that triggered cannons at noon; of another clock that wasn’t a sundial, that looked like a fountain on the outside; and of another, the Edinburgh clock, with a stairway, cars, horses, figures of women in tunics, and strange little men. You’ll scarcely believe me, but it was wonderful to hear the different noises of all the alarm clocks going off, and the clocks striking the hour a thousand times a day. My father didn’t agree. For the party, Estanislao pulled out a suit he had stored in a little trunk between two ponchos, a blanket, and three pairs of shoes that belonged to someone else. The suit was wrinkled, but Estanislao, after washing his face and combing his hair, which is very shiny and black and reaches almost to his eyebrows like a Spanish beret, looked quite elegant.

  “Sitting down, with your head resting on the pillow, you will look very good. You have good posture, better than that of most of the guests,” my mother commented.

  “Let me touch your back,” said Joaquina, running around the house after him.

  He let her touch his back because he was very kind.

  “And who will bring me good luck?” he said.

  “You’re a lucky man,” responded Joaquina, “you have all the luck in the world.”

  But to me it seemed unfair to say that to him. What do you think, Miss X?

  The party was wonderful. Whoever says otherwise is a liar. Pirucha danced rock and roll and Rosita did Spanish dances, which she does well even though she is blond.

  We ate club sandwiches that were already rather dry, pink meringues, the little tiny ones that taste like perfume, and cake and candies. The drinks were delicious. Pituco mixed them, shook them, and served them like a real waiter in a restaurant. Everybody gave me a little of this, a little of that, and that way I was able to come up with at least three glassfuls altogether.

  Iriberto asked me, “Hey, kid, how old are you?”

  “Nine.”

  “Did you have anything to drink?”

  “No, not even a sip,” I answered, because I was ashamed.

  “Well, then, have this glass.”

  And he made me drink something that burned my throat all the way down. He laughed and said, “That way you will be a man.”

  It’s not right to do these things to a child, don’t you think, Miss X?

  People were very jolly. My mother, who hardly ever talks, was chattering away with some woman, and Joaquina, who is shy, danced by herself, singing a Mexican song she didn’t know by heart. I, who am so unsociable, even talked with the mean old man who always tells me to go to hell. It had gotten late by the time Estanislao finally came down from his hut all dressed and brushed, apologizing for his wrinkled suit. They gave him a round of applause and something to drink. He got lots of attention; they offered him the best sandwiches, the best sweets, the tastiest drinks. One girl, the prettiest one, I think, in the whole group, picked a flower from a vine and stuck it in his buttonhole. You could say that he was king of the party; he grew happier and happier with each drink. The ladies showed him watches that were broken or didn’t work right, though they all wore them on their wrists nevertheless. He looked at them smiling, promising to fix them at no charge. He apologized again for wearing such a wrinkled suit and said with a laugh that it was because he wasn’t used to going to parties. Then Gervasio Palmo, who has a laundry around the corner, came up to him and said, “Let’s iron it right away in my laundry. What are laundries for if not to press the suits of our friends?”

  Everyone welcomed the idea enthusiastically. Even Estanislao, who is a very moderate man, cried with joy and danced a few steps in time to the music from a radio that was in the middle of the patio. That’s how the pilgrimage to the laundry started. My mother, who was sad because they had broken the prettiest knickknack in the house and had messed up a macramé rug, held my arm. “Don’t go, sweetheart. Help me clean things up.”

  Paying about as much attention as if the cat had spoken to me (please believe me), I went running after Estanislao, Gervasio, and the rest of the group. Except for Estanislao’s clock house my favorite place in the whole neighborhood is the La Mancha Laundry. Inside there are hat blocks, huge irons, things with steam coming out of them, gigantic bottles, and a fish tank in the window with goldfish in it. Gervasio Palmo’s partner, whose name is Nakoto, is Japanese, and the fish tank belongs to him. Once he gave me a little plant but it died a couple of days later. How could he expect a kid to take care of a plant? Those things are for grown-ups to care for, don’t you think, Miss X? But Nakoto wears glasses, and he has very sharp teeth and enormous eyes; I didn’t dare tell him that what I really wanted him to give me was one of the fish. Anyone who knew me would understand.

  By then it had gotten dark. We walked for half a block, singing a song off-key that we made up. Gervasio Palmo, at the door to the laundry, looked for the keys in his pocket; it took him a while to find them because he had so many. When he opened the door, we all crowded together and nobody would go in, until Gervasio Palmo called us to order with his thunderous voice. Nakoto made us move to one side, and turned on the lights in the shop, taking off his glasses. We went into an enormous room I had never seen before. I stopped for a moment in front of something that looked like a horse’s saddle, to look at where they would press Estanislao’s suit.

  “Shall I take it off?” asked Estanislao.

  “No,” responded Gervasio, “don’t bother. We’ll iron it with you in it.”

  “And the hump?” asked Estanislao, timidly.

  It was the first time that I had ever heard that word, but I figured out what it meant by the context. (You can see I’m working on improving my vocabulary.)

  “We’ll iron it for you too,” answered Gervasio, patting him on the shoulder.

  Estanislao lay down on a long table, following Nakoto’s instructions. Nakoto was getting the irons ready. A smell of ammonia and different chemicals made me sneeze: I covered my mouth with a handkerchief, as you taught me to, Miss X, but in spite of that someone called me a pig, which seemed to me like bad manners. What sort of example was that for a child? Nobody was laughing except for Estanislao. All of the men were bumping into things: into the furniture, the doors, the tools, one another. They brought wet rags, bottles, irons. Though you may not believe me, the whole thing resembled a surgical operation. A man fell down on the ground, tripping me so badly that I almost killed myself. Then, at least for me, the fun part was over. I started throwing up. You know I have a healthy stomach and that my classmates at school call me an ostrich because I can swallow anything. I don’t know what happened to me. Someone grabbed me, pulled me out of there, and took me home.

  I didn’t see Estanislao Romagán again. Lots of people came to look at the watches and a van from Parcae Watch Repair Shop came and took away the last ones, among them my favorite, the one that looked like a wooden house. When I asked my mother where Estanislao was, she didn’t feel like answering me properly. As if she were talking to the dog, she told me, “He went away,” but her eyes were red from weeping over the macramé rug and the knickknack, and she made me shut up when I mentioned the laundry.

  You can’t imagine what I’d do to have news of Estanislao. When I find out I’ll write to you again.

  With warmest regards, your favorite student,

  N. N.

  MIMOSO

  MIMOSO had been on his deathbed for five days.
Mercedes fed him milk, juice, and tea with a little spoon. Mercedes called the taxidermist on the phone, giving him the height and length of the dog and inquiring about prices. Embalming him was going to cost a month’s salary. She hung up and thought of taking him there right away so he wouldn’t spoil. When she looked in the mirror she saw that her eyes were very swollen from crying; she decided to wait until Mimoso was dead. Sitting next to the kerosene stove, she filled a saucer and started giving the dog spoonfuls of milk again. He no longer opened his mouth and the milk spilled onto the floor. At eight o’clock her husband arrived; they cried together, consoling themselves with the thought of the embalming. They imagined the dog standing with glass eyes by the entrance to the room, symbolically guarding the house.

  The next morning Mercedes put the dog in a sack. Maybe he wasn’t completely dead yet. She made a package with burlap and newspaper so as not to attract attention on the bus and took him to the taxidermist.

  In a display case at the house she saw many embalmed birds, monkeys, and snakes. She had to wait. The man appeared in shirtsleeves, smoking an Italian cigar. He took the package, saying, “You’ve brought the dog. How do you want it?” Mercedes seemed not to understand. The man took out an album of drawings. “Do you want him to be sitting, lying down, or standing up? On a wood mount painted black or white?”

  Mercedes looked without saying anything for a moment, before replying, “Sitting down, with his little paws crossed.”

  “With his paws crossed?” the man repeated, as if he didn’t like the idea.

  “However you want them,” Mercedes said, blushing.

  It was hot, stiflingly hot. Mercedes took off her coat.

  “Let’s look at the animal,” the man said, opening the package. He took Mimoso by the back paws, and continued, “He’s not as plump as his owner,” laughing loudly. He looked her up and down; she lowered her eyes and saw her breasts through her tight sweater. “When you see him, he’ll be good enough to eat.”

  Abruptly, Mercedes put on her coat. She squeezed her black kid gloves in her hands and said, keeping herself from slapping the man or taking the dog away from him, “I want him to have a wood stand like that one,” pointing to one with a carrier pigeon on it.

  “I can see that madam has good taste,” the man mumbled. “And how do you want the eyes? Glass eyes are a little more expensive.”

  “Glass eyes,” Mercedes answered, biting on her gloves.

  “Green, blue, or yellow?”

  “Yellow,” said Mercedes vehemently. “He had yellow eyes like butterflies.”

  “Have you ever seen the eyes of a butterfly?”

  “Like the wings,” Mercedes protested, “like the wings of butterflies.”

  “That’s more like it. You’ll have to pay in advance,” the man said.

  “I know,” Mercedes answered, “you told me that on the phone.” She opened her wallet and took out the bills; she counted them and left them on the table. The man gave her a receipt. “When will he be ready to be picked up?” she asked, putting away the receipt in her wallet.

  “There’s no need for that. I’ll bring him to your house on the twentieth of next month.”

  “I’ll come pick him up with my husband,” Mercedes answered, suddenly rushing out of the house.

  Mercedes’s friends found out that the dog had died and wanted to know what they had done with the body. Mercedes told them that they were having him embalmed, and nobody believed her. Many people laughed. She decided it was better to say they had dumped him somewhere. Holding her knitting, she sat like Penelope, awaiting the arrival of the embalmed dog. But the dog didn’t come. Mercedes was still crying and drying her tears with a flowered handkerchief.

  On the appointed day Mercedes got a phone call: the dog had been embalmed, and all they had to do was go and get him. They lived too far away for delivery. Mercedes and her husband went to fetch the dog in a taxi.

  “We have spent so much on this dog,” Mercedes’s husband said in the cab, watching the numbers going up.

  “A child wouldn’t have cost more,” said Mercedes, taking a handkerchief out of her pocket and drying her tears.

  “Well, that’s enough; you’ve already cried plenty.”

  At the taxidermist’s they had to wait. Mercedes didn’t talk, but her husband was looking at her attentively.

  “Won’t people say you’re crazy?” her husband inquired with a smile.

  “So much the worse for them,” responded Mercedes, vehemently. “They are heartless, and life is very sad for the heartless. Nobody loves them.”

  “I think so too, sweetie.”

  The taxidermist brought the dog almost too promptly. There was Mimoso, mounted on a piece of dark, varnished wood, half sitting, with glass eyes and a varnished mouth. He had never looked in better health. He was fat, well groomed, and shiny; the only thing he couldn’t do was talk. Mercedes caressed him with trembling hands; tears burst from her eyes and fell on the dog’s head.

  “Don’t get him wet,” said the taxidermist. “And wash your hands.”

  “He looks as if he could talk,” said Mercedes’s husband. “How do you accomplish such miracles?”

  “With poison, sir. I do it all with poison, wearing gloves and glasses, otherwise I would poison myself. It’s my own system. You don’t have any children in your house?”

  “No.”

  “Will he be a danger to us?” asked Mercedes.

  “Only if you eat him.”

  “We have to wrap him up,” said Mercedes, after wiping away her tears.

  The taxidermist wrapped the embalmed animal in newspaper and gave Mercedes’s husband the package. They went out joyfully. On the way they talked about where they would put Mimoso. They chose the foyer of the house, next to the telephone table, where Mimoso would wait for them when they went out.

  At home, after examining the taxidermist’s work, they placed the dog in the chosen spot. Mercedes sat next to him, admiringly: this dead dog would keep her company just as the same dog had kept her company when he was alive, would defend her from thieves and from society. She caressed his head with her fingertips and, at a moment when she believed that her husband was not watching, she gave him a furtive kiss.

  “What will your friends say when they see this?” her husband inquired. “What will the bookseller at Merluchi’s say?”

  “When he comes to dinner I will put Mimoso away in the dresser or say he’s a present from the lady on the third floor.”

  “You’ll have to tell the lady that.”

  “Yes, I will,” said Mercedes.

  That night they drank a very special wine and went to bed later than usual.

  The lady on the third floor smiled when Mercedes made her request. She understood the perversity of a world in which a woman couldn’t have her dog embalmed without people thinking her crazy.

  Mercedes was happier with the embalmed dog than she had been with the live one; she didn’t have to feed him, didn’t have to take him outside, didn’t have to bathe him, and he didn’t mess up the house or chew on the rug. But happiness never lasts. Evil talk arrived in the form of an anonymous letter. An obscene drawing illustrated the words. Mercedes’s husband shook with indignation: the hot oven was cooler than his heart. He took the dog on his knee, broke him in various pieces as if he were a dry branch, and threw him in the open oven.

  “Whether or not what they say is true doesn’t matter, what matters is that they’re saying it.”

  “You’ll not keep me from dreaming about him,” Mercedes cried, going to bed still dressed. “I know who the perverse man is who sends these anonymous letters. It’s that vendor of pornography. He’ll never set foot in this house again.”

  “You’ll have to receive him. He’s coming to dinner tonight.”

  “Tonight?” said Mercedes. She jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen to make dinner, a smile on her lips. She put the steak next to the pieces of dog in the oven.

  She made dinner ear
lier than usual.

  “We’re having meat cooked in the hide,” Mercedes announced.

  At the door, even before saying hello, the guest rubbed his hands when he smelled what was in the oven. Later, when he was being served, he said, “These animals look as if they were embalmed,” looking with wonder at the dog’s eyes.

  “In China,” Mercedes said, “I’m told they eat dogs. Is that true or is it a shaggy-dog story?”

  “I don’t know. In any case, I wouldn’t eat them for anything in the world.”

  “You should never say ‘dog eat dog,’ ” responded Mercedes with a charming smile.

  The guest was amazed that Mercedes could talk so frankly about dogs.

  “We’ll have to call the barber,” said the guest, seeing some hairs in his meat cooked in the hide, and, with a hearty, contagious laugh, he asked, “Do you eat meat cooked in the hide with sauce?”

  “It’s a new recipe,” Mercedes answered.

  The guest served his plate from the platter, sucked on a piece of meat covered with sauce, chewed on it, and fell over dead.

  “Mimoso still defends me,” said Mercedes, picking up the plates and drying her tears, for she was laughing and crying at the same time.

  THE SIBYL

  THE TOOLS of my trade are in the police station: gold wristwatch, gloves, piece of wire, wooden box with lock and key, flashlight, pliers, screwdriver, and briefcase (to look more serious I always carry a briefcase). Weapons? I never wanted them. What are my hands for? I say. They are iron claws; if they don’t strangle, they punch hard, God willing.