She wondered how she ever got through the performance.
She must have done well. The audience stood, clapping for her, yelling her name. She must have finished the play without missing a single cue, but did not remember even speaking her lines. Her performance passed in a daze, as if she was in a nightmare from which she could not awaken.
For the first time since the opening night of the play, she refused to come out to take her bows. “I’m too tired. I shall probably fall down and die,” she told Pierre.
“I’ll just have to say that you have taken ill.”
“No! I’ll come out. The audience mustn’t ever think I’m weak. That they’ve won,” she said, panicking.
He stared at her curiously.
She took her final bows but did not look to the right. She held her head high, her eyes sparkling, and smiling with a false bravado.
She left the stage and hurried to her dressing room, feeling a sense of urgency. She slammed the dressing room door behind her.
She no longer had to change in a broom closet but had the spacious dressing room of the star. Amelita was still ill in the hospital and had gotten no better. The doctors in Albuquerque scratched their heads at her condition.
Salia required no maid to undress her. She clutched her piedra imán to her chest, twirling. When she stopped, she was wearing her own clothing, which was as fashionable as a dress could be, bought in Madrid. She felt like throwing the piedra imán across the room. She didn’t dare change into clothing like she’d seen in magazines, and raise even more suspicions among the villagers.
She hung her head, feeling like Samuel shoved a knife through her heart. Why did he have to come at all, if only to flaunt another woman in my face? This proves he was only slumming. He said he had many women, so I should have been prepared and have no right to feel hurt. There is really nothing between us. I have no hold on him. Quit acting like a jealous fishwife! Stop it! Stop it! He doesn’t care if my heart splinters, cutting me to pieces.
She poured a glass of water.
Someone knocked.
Her hand shook, spilling her glass of water.
The door was flung open and there stood Samuel, with the other woman’s arm draped through his.
“How dare you! I never gave you permission to enter.”
“You may be the star but this is my theatre, Miss Esperanza. In case you’ve forgotten.”
“I have not forgotten, Patrón,” she said, softly.
“Really? Your silence all these months contradicts your words,” he snapped.
“This may be your theatre, but this is my dressing room while I am performing here, and I demand privacy.”
As she expected, Samuel ignored her demands that he leave. He merely lifted his eyebrow in that infernal way he had as if to say, make me. She felt like smacking him across the face.
“I have brought a fan to meet you,” he said, bowing. “Emilia, this is New Mexico’s newest star, Salia Esperanza.”
The woman held out her hand, gushing over her singing.
Salia squeezed her hand a bit too tightly. She did not return the woman’s curtsy. Her eyes were hooded, examining her rival. “It is easy to give a great performance when one has such material to work with, E-mule-la,” she said in a thicker than normal Spanish accent.
He chuckled, his eyes sparkling at her wit, knowing Salia thickened her accent on purpose, but her ploy did not work. The slower Emilia stared back at her with worshipful eyes, unoffended at being called a mule.
“Artists are a bit eccentric,” he explained to Emilia. “Never mind Miss Esper-ass-a’s frigidness,” he said in a thicker than normal Eastern accent.
Salia gasped at the insult, and then dismissed them both with a haughty wave of her hand. “You have introduced your lady. Now you may leave.”
Silence. He didn’t contradict his relationship with Emilia. Salia gave him a dirty look.
“I hear Miss Galli-Curci has been ill. That makes you the reigning Prima Dona, doesn’t it?” he said.
“Yes, but since the opera is now over, I believe she can recover and go back to where she belongs,” she said, icily.
He placed his top hat over his heart, saying, “I warned you, Emilia, that Miss Esperanza is not compassionate.”
“Not everyone deserves compassion,” Salia said.
“I agree. It’s a good thing she was moved to a hospital in Albuquerque; else the good residents of Madrid might have tried to hang you as a witch again.”
Emilia gasped, but they ignored her, as if she wasn’t even in the room with them.
“Oscar Hughes tells me there is talk in Madrid about you feeding Miss Galli-Curci a hocus-pocus gruel with mashed up worms, and her suddenly taking ill. How fortuitous for you.”
“A woman like Miss Amelita wouldn’t be caught dead eating gruel. People will talk, because they are jealous.”
“Except for you,” he said, harshly.
She turned her back on the couple and arranged a dozen roses in a vase, humming to herself.
He growled at her, “Who gave you the flowers?”
“A fan. A gentleman from Santa Fe. He has come every night to see the opera.”
Emilia stood helplessly, watching Samuel and Salia. Their flashing eyes were locked in the mirror.
Samuel said in a slow, threatening voice, “And, exactly, who is this gentleman?” He said the word, gentleman, in a biting tone.
“None of your business.”
A hesitant knock came at the door.
Samuel swung the door wide, glaring at a small, blonde-haired man. “Salia’s busy,” he barked.
The man ran away from the dressing room.
Salia picked up the vase of roses and threw it at Samuel.
He moved, and the vase hit the door, crashing to the floor, spilling water and flowers. Remarkably, the vase only cracked.
“How dare you,” she hissed.
“Samuel, I’m hungry. You said we’d go back to your house for a late supper,” Emilia whined.
“Okay, Darling, we’ll go back to my place,” he said, grabbing her elbow. He slammed the door behind him, not even looking at Salia.
She walked over to the vase with every intention of opening the door and throwing it at him, this time hitting him on the head. She picked up the vase and slipped on the water. She fell on her rear end and this time the vase broke when it crashed to the floor. “A perfect end to a hellish evening,” she sobbed, pounding her knees with her fists. He called her darling.
Darling.
Darling.
Finally, she realized her dress was wet. It would serve him right if I caught cold and died, she thought, sniffling.
But in the end, she shimmied out of her dress, drying herself with it. She removed her wet underwear and put on a white linen shift. With shaking hands, she removed her hair pins. “There. That looks better,” she said to the mirror.
Up, her hair had looked too much like Samuel’s woman. What was her name? E-mule-la?
She picked up the biggest piece of glass from the floor and sat at her dressing table, stabbing the wood with it. “E-mule-la. E-mule-la,” she kept repeating until there was blood all over her dressing table. She had clutched the glass so tightly she cut herself. A jagged line split the middle of her hand. The cut was deep, but the pain nothing compared to her aching heart.
The wound must be seen to. I don’t want the satisfaction of his knowing that I’ve bled to death because of him.
She viciously ripped a piece of fabric from the hem of her shift, wrapping her hand with it and applying pressure to the wound.
She dropped the sharp piece of glass in her cape pocket and left her dressing room. The glass scratched against her leg as she walked, nicking a piece of her heart each time her boots clicked against the hollow theatre floor.
Like every night, a taxi was waiting for her outside the theatre.
She entered the darkened taxi and shut the door.
“Home, Miss Esperanza?” the d
river asked.
“No, Pablo, I would like you to take me to the Big House.”
She grabbed at her cape pocket, squeezing the glass through the velvet.
36
Salia huddled in the back seat of a taxi parked indiscreetly by the Big House. Samuel’s car was in the drive. She hugged her cape tightly around her shivering body, pulling the furred hood over her head. She stared intensely at the windows of Samuel’s house. It was late, and she had not yet had dinner. She wondered if Samuel and E-mule-la had eaten and pictured him, reaching across the table, squeezing E-mule-la’s hand.
She rubbed her own hand, feeling an intense burning from the cut she inflicted from the piece of glass in her cape pocket. She shook her head to dispel the image of her rival being quartered and served up for Samuel’s dinner. Other, more disturbing images entered her mind, as her eyes roved to the master bedroom.
She sat for about 45 minutes, watching the dimly lit house.
She could stand no more of this torture. She rolled down the taxi window, begging in a hoarse voice to be taken home. “And be quick about it, Pablo,” she said in a frantic voice which scared even her. Her hands shook as she flung the piece of glass out the window. There were easier, less graphic ways to murder, less disturbing to her peace of mind.
She found no peace by the time the taxi stopped at her house. She had not left a welcome light on. With a heartfelt sigh, she opened the door and walked into the living room.
There was a creaking noise, and her heart jumped to her throat. The noise sounded like the rocking chair.
She shoved her hand in her pocket and clutched her piedra imán. “Grandma?” she said, fearfully.
The creaking stopped.
A voice spoke from the darkness, “I thought your grandmother was dead or was that, also, a lie?”
“You,” she hissed.
“Who were you expecting—your boyfriend?”
She flicked the lamp on, and the harsh light exposed Samuel, his body dwarfing the chair.
“Where have you been all this time?” he growled. “The play was over hours ago. Were you with him?”
“Who?” she said nonchalantly, pulling off her glove from her uninjured hand, one finger at a time, to give herself something to do, other than gawk at him. She imagined him in her living room so many times these past months that the reality of his being here was making her nervous.
“You know damned well who. Your gentleman caller from Santa Fe.”
She removed her cape and threw it on the sofa, disregarding the light shining through her white shift, making the dress transparent. Samuel could see she wore no underwear.
He jumped up from the chair, and before she could react, he grabbed her arm and shook her. “Is that how you dress when you go out on a date?” he snarled. “What did he do to you that he tore your dress? A little rough play? Is that how you like it now?”
“Where’s your girlfriend?” she said, breathing heavily and trying to break free of his grip. “Did you tuck her away in your bed?”
“She’s on the train, back to Albuquerque.”
“At this time of night?” She snorted. “Now, who’s lying? There is no train, Patrón.”
“Not usually,” he conceded, “But there is that extra locomotive sitting on the tracks.”
Her eyes sparkled. So, the other woman had ridden back to Albuquerque, not in style, but in the locomotive not designed for passengers. E-mule-la would have to stand all the way back to Albuquerque, just like the mule she was.
He grabbed her other wrist, twisting both arms behind her back. He shoved her against him, holding her snugly with his hands fanned across her buttocks. “I could kill him,” he said in a husky voice.
“Who?” she said in a dreamy voice, rubbing her cheek against his chest.
He groaned.
She pulled him closer, gyrating her hips.
He growled low in his throat. “Damn you, Salia. Damn you to hell.”
“Yes, I am surely damned, but for right now, you are in my house. Why did you come, Patrón? To stare at me with hatred in your eyes?”
“You know why I’m here, Salia. You knew I’d come. You knew I couldn’t stay away.” He yanked up her shift, sliding his hand up the inside of her thigh. He kissed her, like a man dying of hunger.
She tugged at his hair, moaning softly.
He cursed, lowering her to the rug.
He made love to her, as if he was punishing her.
He made love to her like a man possessed.
When it was over, he lay on the rug, blinking up at the ceiling. “I’m the one who’s damned,” he mumbled.
“I haven’t ever been with any other man but you. I couldn’t imagine being with any other man.”
“Then why didn’t you telephone me?”
“You didn’t give me your number.”
“I thought, well, you don’t have a phone. Then, why didn’t you write me?”
“You told me good-bye,” she pointed out.
“You didn’t even invite me to come see your opera.”
“It’s your theatre.”
“Yes, but I wanted you to invite me. I needed you to invite me.”
“I was upset because I thought you were through with me.”
“I thought we were at least friends. All these months. Not one word,” he said, hurtfully.
“You never asked me to write. I didn’t have your address.”
“At first, I made excuses for you. I thought, maybe, she doesn’t know how to write.”
She held her chin up proudly. “I am not ignorant. I know how to write.”
“But then, I thought, maybe a telegram. But none ever came.”
“You could have written me,” she said.
“Then, it dawned on me that if you were singing in an opera, you must know how to read. It followed that you probably know how to write.”
“Your good-bye sounded so final,” she said in a small voice. “You left me. Here. All alone. In Madrid. Without you. While you went off to your other women.”
“Damn it, Salia,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “I asked you to come with me. Does that sound as if I wanted to be rid of you?”
“I’ve missed you so,” she said, rubbing her forehead against his.
“You get under a man’s skin. There were nights these past months when you came to me in my sleep, and writhed beneath me. Then you would vanish, leaving behind your purring in my ear. I’d awaken, sweating, in the middle of the night.”
“Are you going to see your girlfriend when you go back to Albuquerque?” she said with agony.
“No,” he said with finality.
“But there are others, like her. Scores of them. A rich, handsome, virile man like yourself.”
“I don’t want to be pursued for being rich. And I’m not so sure about the handsome part. But, I definitely like the virile part,” he said, chuckling.
He placed her hand on his belly, encouraging her to move it lower. “Touch me,” he said in a husky voice. “All these months I’ve hungered for you, Salia. How I’ve wanted you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Just don’t ever parade one of your girlfriends in my face again, or else.”
“Or else what? Are you going to hurt me? I’m hurting for you right now, Salia.”
“Don’t make jokes. Not about that. You hurt me tonight, Samuel. You hurt me bad.”
“So, you were jealous?” he said, cocking an eyebrow at her.
“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes brimming with tears.
“You get under my skin and crawl around like a snake,” he confessed.
“Don’t talk of snakes,” she said, shuddering. “Not here.” She looked around the room, as if seeing ghosts.
“Salia, there have been no other women since you. I hunger for only you. I desire only you.”
She wanted to believe him but he had a reputation, even if his eyes swirled with raw emotion, his face naked with need.
He cros
sed his heart with her finger. “I swear, Sweetheart, that there’s only you. I don’t know why I brought her here. It was stupid of me.”
She didn’t know whether she was more excited by Samuel’s confession or his endearment. “Yes,” she agreed, “You were stupid.”
“I give you my heart, Salia, something I’ve never given any woman before.”
“And I give you my undying devotion, Samuel. My strength. My magic.”
“Your magic? Do you mean your chili seeds?”
“Don’t make fun of that which you have no understanding of,” she said, punching him playfully on the arm.
“I’m not going back,” he suddenly announced.
Her heart skipped several beats. She could feel it thumping loudly. Somersaulting. Flip-flopping. Hopping madly about. But he didn’t seem to notice. He was staring up at the ceiling with a look of wonder. He said, “One morning I was shaving and saw you in my bathroom mirror, not my reflection, but your beautiful face. I turned around to my bedroom window across from the mirror, expecting to see you looking in. I thought, perhaps… No…I hoped you changed your mind and came to Albuquerque, and that you longed for me, as much as I wanted you with me.”
He turned his head and pierced her with his eyes. “But as you know, you weren’t there, looking into my bedroom window.”
“No. I never spy on people,” she said, shifting her eyes away from him.
“I spun back around to the mirror, and there you were still. I reached out my hand to touch you, but all I felt was the cold glass. I begged you not to leave me, but you faded from me, leaving my reflection. Yet, your face was still etched in my mind. All these months how you’ve haunted me, Salia.”
She rested her head on his chest and he kissed the top of her head. “You always smell like peaches. I swear, I’ve been craving peaches all winter,” he said.
“And I have been craving you, Patrón.”
“I want you to come live with me at the Big House, Salia. I intend to make Madrid my main place of business.”
She sobbed openly.
“Come now,” he joked. “Surely my moving here isn’t that painful to you?”
The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation Page 22