The Sisters of Alameda Street

by Lorena Hughes

  “What did you expect?” Amanda was already on her second glass of beer. “Sebastian’s father was dying. He couldn’t possibly have had a head for engagements.”

  “If you don’t mind, I was talking to my daughter.” Rafael turned to Claudia. “I don’t like long engagements nor do I want another old maid in the family. At your age, you should’ve already given me two or three grandsons.”

  “Claudia is only twenty-one!” Amanda said.

  Claudia blushed.

  “Can’t we have a pleasant conversation for once?” Ana said. “Lili is going to wish she never came to San Isidro.”

  Malena hoped it didn’t come to that, but this trip might not end so well after all. As harsh as these people were, they would have no qualms in telling her to leave and never come back once they found out who she really was. And who knew what Rafael would do to Ana then.

  Chapter 2

  From the passenger seat of the 1956 Chevy Bel Air, Malena racked her brains for a reason as to why her luggage wasn’t at the train station. She’d already done more lying in one day than in her whole life, and coming up with logical explanations wasn’t easy. As Javier drove, he tapped the steering wheel of his father’s automobile to the rhythm of a guaracha on the radio.

  “Javier?” Malena’s voice cracked a bit. “You don’t have to wait for me while I get my valise. I can take a taxi back.”

  “There’s only a few taxis in San Isidro. You would have to be very lucky to find one when you need it, and besides, my mother would kill me if I left you alone.” He shifted gears. “Don’t worry about me. I’m grateful for anything that keeps me away from those four walls at the store.”

  “You don’t like your job?”

  “I wouldn’t mind it as much if I didn’t have to work for my father.”

  “Even more reason for you to go back to work soon. I don’t want to cause you problems.”

  She ought to just ask him to stop the car so she could hide in the marketplace at the end of the block. Never show her face in the Platas house again.

  “It’s no problem. Really,” he said.

  No, she couldn’t leave San Isidro without answers. Not when her mother was so close. It was surreal to know that she’d already met her. It gave her a small thrill despite the anxiety building up inside her gut. She hoped all the lies were worth it, though. If Lili showed up at the house while they were gone, Malena would be boarding the bus back to Guayaquil before the day was over.

  Through the windshield, she spotted a run-down two-story building with pink trimmings and a row of windows. Four large columns stood before the entrance and an old sign in gold letters read THE GUAYAQUIL & QUITO RAILWAY CO. Her father had once explained that in some stations, there was still an English sign because an American company had built the railway at the beginning of the century.

  Javier parked by the building and removed the key from the ignition.

  Maybe she should just tell him the truth. He might know something.

  “Wait, Javier. I have something to tell you.” She focused on the Bel Air logo on the dashboard.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My valise is not at the train station.” She squeezed one of the gloves sitting in her lap. “It’s in a hotel room.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  How could she think for a moment that Javier might know anything about his mother’s indiscretion or his aunt’s secret lives?

  “I arrived last night but didn’t want to show up at your house so late.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” His eyes looked darker than they had earlier. “It wasn’t your fault if the train arrived late.”

  She was afraid he could see right through her, quiet as he was. She didn’t know him well enough to know if he was irritated or if he didn’t believe her.

  “Which hotel is it?”

  “It’s near”—she swallowed—“the bus station.”

  Javier started the car and turned on the radio. “Nuestro Juramento,” one of her father’s favorite boleros by Julio Jaramillo, filled their silence. Her father. If he hadn’t been so secretive, none of this would be happening.

  In the light of day, the hotel appeared worse than it had at nighttime or even in the morning. The outside paint was peeling, the windows were cracked and dirty, and graffiti marred the walls.

  “You stayed here?” Javier asked.

  “I know it’s humble.” She eyed the burnt-out H in the hotel sign. “But I needed a place to stay and it was raining when I arrived.”

  Thank God for last night’s rain, which had provided her with the perfect excuse.

  “It’s not that it’s a humble hotel, it’s just not …” He lowered his voice. “A very decent place.”

  The noises next door made sense now. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  Javier unlocked the door and stepped out of the Chevy. He walked around the car, tapping the hood as he went by, and opened the passenger door for her. She hesitated before taking his hand. She was not used to holding men’s hands, much less a stranger’s. Good thing she had gloves on to cover her sweaty palms. For once she was grateful for her grandmother’s fussiness about wearing gloves at all times (it was a true sign of a lady, she would say, even in scorching weather).

  In the restaurant across the street, an impeccably dressed young man stared at her from one of the outside tables. Malena had only seen suits like his in movies and magazines. In her hometown, men always wore guayabera shirts or light suits—anything else would have made them sweat like a Turkish bath. This man, however, looked like he had stepped out of one of those American comedies and didn’t belong in this town, much less in such a modest neighborhood.

  His dark eyes never left her face, not even when he took a sip from his drink. She headed for the entrance, where Javier held the door for her, and walked inside.

  There were voices in the living room of the Platas household. Malena froze behind Javier. Lili could be there. The front door was still close enough to flee before having to go through the humiliation of explaining herself to the family.

  “Are you coming?” Javier set her valise by the staircase.

  She followed him into the living room. Ana, Amanda, and Mamá Blanca were the only ones in the room. Malena exhaled. Lili had not arrived. Yet. The women stopped their chatter as soon as they saw her, the way people do when they are caught gossiping. Probably about her.

  “What took you so long?” Ana asked Javier, picking up a pair of socks from a handwoven basket sitting on the coffee table. “Your father has been asking about you.” She inserted a burnt-out light bulb inside a sock, stretching the hole on the tip so she could mend it properly.

  “Well,” he said, “the valise wasn’t exactly where we expected it to be.”

  Malena fanned her cheeks with her gloves.

  Amanda sat back, rubbing the sides of the rocking chair. “Doesn’t surprise me. As disorganized and crowded as the train station is.”

  Javier’s gaze set on Malena. Please don’t say anything.

  “Well,” Ana said. “Go back to the store before your father comes again.”

  “Yes, go,” Amanda said. “Poor Claudia is all alone with him.”

  “Amanda …” Ana said.

  Only when Javier had left the room did Malena remember to breathe again. She was safe. For now.

  Mamá Blanca patted a spot beside her on the couch. “Come here, child. Tell us everything about your mother.”

  Her mother? How ironic for them to ask about her. “There’s not much to say about my mother.” Her glance traveled from Ana to Amanda, who picked up a Burda magazine from the coffee table. Say it. Just ask them.

  “I don’t really know her,” she blurted out.

  Ana sighed, but kept her gaze on her needle.

  Mamá Blanca shook her head. “For once I would like to meet a mother and daughter who didn’t quarrel,” she said. “But it would be abnormal.”

  Mamá Blanca rested her palm on her che
st for just a second. No. This wasn’t a good time to talk. Not in front of Mamá Blanca. What if she gave the woman a heart attack with the news? It would be better to wait for Alejandra to be present anyway.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Amanda told her. “Grab a sock and sit here.”

  Malena picked up a pair of socks and a needle from the table, even though she’d never mended a pair of socks in her life. La Abuela hadn’t been around long enough to teach her. Ana handed her a roll of olive thread. Her wrist was now well covered with the sleeve.

  “Is your mother coming any time soon?” Mamá Blanca said.

  “I don’t know, Doña.” Malena hadn’t thought of the possibility of Lili’s mother coming until now. Great. Now she had one more thing to worry about.

  Amanda leafed through her magazine. “Must be hard for her, living among men.”

  Malena tried to pass the thread through the needle’s tiny eye.

  “Let me see that.” Mamá Blanca took the needle and thread from Malena’s hands. Squinting, she licked the tip of the thread and attempted to introduce it into the needle.

  “I told you, Mamá. You need new glasses.” Ana took the needle from her mother’s hands. She did the task effortlessly and returned the needle to Malena.

  “There’s always something with you,” Mamá Blanca told Ana. “First it was the teeth, now it’s the glasses.”

  “And you never listen.” Ana renewed her sewing. “You need dentures and you know it.”

  “I’m not dying with someone else’s body parts,” Mamá Blanca said.

  Amanda laughed. “They’re not real teeth.”

  Mamá Blanca tilted her head, admiring her work. “If God wanted me to die with teeth, He would have never taken them from me.”

  Amanda sighed. “Ay, Mamita.”

  “Lili, we should call your mother to tell her you arrived,” Ana said.

  “Good idea,” Mamá Blanca said. “The poor soul must be worried.”

  Malena jabbed her finger with the needle. She couldn’t talk to María Teresa. She couldn’t fool her. But there was no excuse not to call her. Ana stood up.

  “Come on.”

  “Now?”

  “Of course.”

  Malena’s legs obeyed Ana, even when her brain ordered them to stay in the living room, where she was still safe. But her legs, her quivering legs, were done listening to her. They followed Ana to a room between the stairs and the kitchen door, a small study filled with bookshelves. A sky blue telephone and a typewriter sat side by side on the desk. Perhaps the same typewriter where her mother had written the letter now buried in the bottom of Malena’s purse. Ana pointed at the phone.

  “Would you like to call her yourself?”

  “No.”

  Ana studied her face for a moment before picking up the receiver. Still watching her, she told the operator María Teresa’s number. They waited in agonizing silence for the call to go through.

  “Hello? Yes, this is Ana Platas de Dávila. Is María Teresa available?”

  Malena dug her nails against her palms. What was she going to tell this woman? Ana nodded as she listened to the person at the other end of the line.

  “I see,” Ana stared at Malena.

  What did she see? What?

  “All right, thank you.” Ana put the receiver down. “Your mother went into town. We’ll try again later.”

  Malena let out a slow, quiet breath and released her fists. She followed Ana to the door but a framed black-and-white picture hanging by the door caught her eye. Four young women and a teenage boy sat by a fountain looking straight at the camera.

  “Who are they?” Malena asked before Ana walked out of the room.

  Ana glanced at the picture. “My sisters and I.”

  “But there are four girls here.”

  “We used to be four.”

  Ana pointed at a young woman in the center of the frame. “This was Abigail. She died ten years ago.”

  Abigail. Her heart sank. How many prospective mothers was she going to have? Worse yet, her mother might be dead after all.

  Sitting on the bed, Malena brought the coral bedspread to her legs, running her fingers over the sea of creases her body had created under the covers. She didn’t want to upset any part of Claudia’s room, including the bed that would only be hers for the night. Only tonight. Tomorrow, she would somehow gather the courage to speak to the Platas sisters. Assuming, of course, that Lili wouldn’t arrive at this very moment and demand her spot in this bed. She looked at her enlarged shadow against the wall. She shouldn’t be here, in this strange house, in a room that didn’t belong to her, using a name that wasn’t hers.

  At least this place didn’t smell like a public restroom, like the hotel room had. It was a minor consolation that she didn’t have to spend another night there. Just thinking about it gave her an itch in the back of her head.

  Claudia, in her pink nightgown and robe, entered the bedroom. She had her wavy brown hair down and her clothes in her hand. She looked like an angel floating into the room. She hung her clothes on the back of the vanity table’s chair. Malena’s presence had taken away that small privilege from Claudia, the privilege of undressing in her own room. The silence between them lingered. Say something. But she couldn’t think of anything to say. Under normal circumstances, she would have been elated to share the room with another girl. For most of her life she’d wished she had a sister to talk to in the darkness, just before dozing off. And now she had Claudia, who could be that sister she had longed for, or at the very least her cousin.

  “Your family is very nice,” Malena said.

  Claudia raised an eyebrow.

  Malena reconsidered her words. Maybe nice was not the best way to describe Claudia’s family. That evening, during dinner, Rafael Dávila had gotten into another dreadful argument with Amanda over Carlos Gardel’s true nationality. Apparently, there was a big controversy over whether he’d been born in Argentina, Uruguay, or France. Unable to reach an agreement with his sister-in-law, Rafael had scolded Javier for his lack of productivity at the store, at which point Alejandra had left the dining room. No, they weren’t exactly nice, although Malena had been grateful for Mamá Blanca’s smiles across the table and Ana’s attentiveness.

  “You’ve always lived with your aunts?” Malena said.

  “Ever since I can remember.” Claudia removed her robe and set it on the foot of her bed. Her movements were controlled, slow, as if she didn’t want to break or upset any of the objects around her.

  “Your Tía Alejandra … she never married?”

  “No.”

  “And …” Malena caught a glimpse of the rosebuds in the wallpaper. “Your mom said they had another sister … Abigail?”

  Claudia opened her night table’s top drawer. “Did you bring your rosary?”

  “No.”

  Claudia handed her a white marble rosary and knelt by her bed, facing the cross on the wall.

  “Come here,” she told her.

  Malena obeyed. The floor was cold against her knees. In Guayaquil, the floor was always so warm she’d never imagined it would be different anywhere else. She crossed herself, after Claudia, mimicking her solemn demeanor. She hadn’t prayed since her grandmother died. But maybe prayer was exactly what she needed now.

  Claudia started the Credo. Just when Malena had brought her crossed hands to her forehead and closed her eyes, a strident sound wrecked her momentary peace, as though God Himself was scolding her for her web of lies and deceit.

  The chime of the doorbell vibrated in her ears, in her head, in her entire body. She didn’t dare look at Claudia. She didn’t trust herself to conceal her fear—the fear of being discovered now that Liliana had finally arrived.

  Chapter 3

  Amanda sat on the rocking chair with her eyes shut, enjoying Libertad Lamarque’s rendition of “El Tango de Malena”—her favorite tango. Her throat ached. This song always had the power to unlock buried emotions in her, especi
ally when Libertad sang it. Thank goodness she was alone.

  The shriek of the doorbell removed her from her trance. Damn. It was so rare to hear this version on the radio anymore. She hoped whoever was at the door would go away.

  The doorbell went on again, and this time it was a long, impatient sound.

  The kitchen door opened and Trinidad crossed the living room threshold, tightening the strings of her apron. Amanda heard a man’s voice at the front door, but couldn’t detect what he was saying. She sighed. Libertad would have to wait for another day. She stood up and shut the radio off.

  “Who is it, Trini?”

  She recognized Bernardo’s stocky frame behind Trinidad.

  “It’s Mr. Bernardo.” Trinidad’s eyes shone and a smile she never used appeared on her plain face.

  “Bernard,” he corrected with a French accent and brushed past the maid, his old brown hat between his hands and his complexion darker than the last time Amanda had seen him.

  “Good evening, Madame. Forgive me for coming this late.”

  “This is a surprise,” Amanda said. “I didn’t expect to see you until next month.”

  “I know, Madame, but we need to talk.”

  Amanda pointed at the couch in front of her. Bernardo sat on the edge of the seat, his hat resting on his knees.

  “May I take your hat, Señor?” Trinidad offered.

  Bernardo brought his hat closer to him. “No.”

  “Trini,” Amanda said. “Would you bring some coffee, please?”

  “Just water for me, s’il vous plaît.”

  Trinidad hurried to the kitchen, her lengthy braid bouncing back and forth as if attempting to catch up with her quick stride. She was only this lively when Bernardo came. Trinidad always reminded Amanda of a Mannerist portrait without the elegance. Her body was exaggeratedly elongated. Long enough to look awkward: oval face, ostrich neck, and bony fingers.

  Amanda returned to the rocking chair. “So, what is it?”

  “I’m quitting, Madame.”

  “What?”

  Bernardo wiped the sweat off his forehead with a mended handkerchief. “I can’t continue to work for that Italian brute.”