January, p.2
January, page 2
“Good morning,” she murmurs.
“Morning.”
“Sit down, child.”
She’s an outsider in this big red kitchen where she has been summoned by her godmother, Doña Mercedes. What for? She no longer cares about anything besides this thing that consumes her days and nights, growing inside her like a dark mushroom, and she wonders if it shows in her eyes as they remain fixed on her worn-out espadrilles, two little gray boats on the tile floor, or in her hands crossed in her lap, or in her hair burned by the perm.
“Are you Alcira, Porota, or the other one?” the maid asks.
“I’m Nefer.”
“You’re looking pale, you know. And skinny…You could learn a thing or two from your sister.”
Nefer smiles weakly – a sad, faint smile – and looks down at her leathery hands, clasped tightly as if consoling one another.
“Which of the patronas called for you?”
“Doña Mercedes, she told me to come by today.”
“Oh, because the older one’s sick. Here, eat this, let’s see if we can get a little color into those cheeks of yours.”
“Thanks.”
The door opens and Luisa walks in with a handkerchief tied around her neck and a book in her hand. “Morning,” she says. “How are you, Nefer?”
“Goodandyou, Luisa.”
“Good morning, Miss Luisa,” the butler says didactically.
She sits down at the table and crosses her legs. She’s wearing pants that – as Nefer’s father says – make her look like a lapwing.
“How is everyone on the homestead?” she asks.
“They’re fine, thanks. They send their greetings.”
“Thank you. Is your father working on my new whip?”
“No – I don’t know.”
“I’ll take that as a no. I’ll have to go by and remind him.”
“Of course, you’re always welcome,” Nefer smiles.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” Luisa asks.
“It’s ten o’clock, miss.”
“Oh, good. I still have some time. See you later,” and she leaves.
Nefer smiles again. She often sees Luisa gallop past the outpost surrounded by a pack of dogs.
She eats slowly and the taste of the butter gives her a ray of hope.
“Oh, child, you could wash your hands before you eat,” says the maid. “Look how filthy.” And Nefer notices her five black fingernails framing the crust of bread.
Doña Mercedes’s voice precedes her and Nefer rushes to swallow. When the door opens she clumsily sets the bread on the oilcloth and stands up. Doña Mercedes walks in like a globe with two pink parentheses as arms.
“How are you, my child?” she says. “Go on, eat up. Your family’s doing well? You had a birthday recently, didn’t you? How old are you now?”
“I turned sixteen, ma’am.”
“Sixteen, that’s right. Alcira’s eighteen, correct? And Porota? How is she? Is she in the family way yet?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
The lady has been in the garden and her shoes are caked in mud. A pure sort of mud, Nefer thinks, somehow strangely clean.
“Three months since she got married, there should be news soon, don’t you think?” The lady laughs and places a hand bearing two rings against her large bosom.
“Well…” says the cook, “you have to be careful, the cost of living…” with a peal of laughter that sounds like ten pots clanging to the floor. The butler stands up haughtily and leaves the room; the lady mocks him with a wink and continues her chatter: “Everyone’s doing well, then? So, I got you this little gift for your birthday. I am your godmother after all.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Nefer murmurs, not daring to look at the soft parcel in her hands. “You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, it’s my pleasure. The mission starts tomorrow. Have you heard?” Nefer’s heart feels heavy. “Your mother knows already. I went by – oh, of course, you were there. Everyone will attend, I imagine. Well, you already know. Do you have to start work early? You do the milking, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well then, you can have something to drink for breakfast before communion. To drink, you hear me? No hardtack; something hot – café con leche or mate so you don’t feel weak. Your mother and I have already talked about it. I don’t know which priest will be coming but I’m sure he’ll be good, they always are. You’ve had your first communion, right? Yes, I remember now. Well, let’s all behave like good Christians, hmm? It’s only once a year we have the good fortune of hosting Our Lord right here, after all.”
Nefer feels like the room is spinning as she grips the rustling package in her hands. The rules of etiquette instilled by her mother forbid her from opening it. One must show gratitude for a gift regardless of what it is. But Doña Mercedes wants to see her reaction. The patrona takes the package, unties it on the table, and unfurls a red knit sweater with glass buttons.
“What do you think? Do you like it?”
Nefer thinks it’s sublime but knows not to show it.
“Yes, ma’am, thank you.” She’ll wear it tomorrow, she thinks, so Negro can see it…But then the shadow looms, the black mushroom swells inside her, rising to her throat, as she watches the lady measure the sleeve against her arm.
“Now won’t you look lovely,” the cook says as Doña Mercedes rewraps the package and Nefer stands blankly with her arms hanging at her sides, hardly noticing.
* * *
—
She leaves, slowly picking her way through the thistles. Her eyes linger on the dusty, brushlike horse’s mane. She looks at its impassive, docile ears, then back down to its withers, where a rough tuft of hair hangs over his neck.
Before, when she was happy – she now knows that she had been happy before – her eyes would wander far away, from the tree line to the wind pump to a herd of horses in the distance, a buggy on the road. Not anymore, now her eyes are as heavy as her soul, and if asked what she can see she would say only my hand, the reins, a fork, a plate, and nothing beyond that. But in truth she doesn’t even see those things. She sees nothing at all.
* * *
—
She carries the package in front of her on the sheepskin where it crinkles with every step the horse takes. She passes countless hoof prints on the road that the wind erases like a huge hand wiping them away. The ears of the dapple-gray horse twitch at the sound of an automobile that kicks up a trail of dust as an arm waves out the window. Luisa, Nefer thinks, on her way to buy cigarettes…and she watches as her horse’s hooves speed up in agitation along the road.
She dismounts when she reaches the gate: held shut by a rough branch that has been rubbed smooth by wire. She pulls it open and sidesteps the mud churned up in the night by the cows from the milking yard. In the yellow-green field the lapwings shriek and flutter and the pond gleams in the sun, prickly with reeds.
Nefer hops back onto the horse. Then she remembers an idea she had the night before and digs in her heels. Maybe if I gallop hard. The trees loom at the end of the trail and to avoid them she turns into the field of thistles. She gallops among the sleeping cows, her legs scratched up by the thistles, dodging anthills, terrifying the partridges who rise up with whispering wings and shriek in fright. The horse is lazy, but she urges him on with her heels, gripping the package in one hand and commanding the reins with the other. The horse picks up into a gallop as they splash through the shallow pond, water glistening on her legs and face and coating the horse’s mane with droplets. The twigs of duraznillos break with a snapping sound and the reeds sway their heads as she passes. Her galloping muddles the water and then the horse’s hooves clomp against dry land when she emerges on the other side.
Nefer turns toward the homestead and her teeth flash into a smile: she’s forgotten why she’d been galloping and she laughs, out of breath, “You’re getting fat, you old horse. Are you worn out?” The lapwings trace circles in the air and shriek all around her.
* * *
—
Nemi’s wagon is near the barn, packed and ready to leave like a little red and blue house on wheels. The Turk is putting away a suitcase, and through the open door Nefer sees the shelves inside the wagon lined with boxes and folded clothes.
“You’re leaving, sir…?”
“Yes. Too bad you’re just getting here now. Your sister had a look, lots of pretty things. You don’t need anything? I have some combs that won’t ruin your hair, fine things.”
“No thanks, I don’t need anything right now. Did she buy anything?”
“Some thread, real nice, white thread…”
The Turk closes the door, turns the key in the lock, spits, and grinds the spit into the dust with his espadrille. Nefer remembers the time he told them stories of his homeland, how a saint performed the miracle of filling his own tomb with blood. “You call us Turks but the Turks are our worst enemies,” he’d said. “My entire family had their throats slit by Turks. How about that?”
He’s rich, according to Doña María, he has a shop in the city and spends the year traveling the countryside with his merchandise. He carries a revolver with him in the wagon and at the end of his journey he returns home with several thousand pesos.
Watching him pack up, Nefer feels a kind of tenderness for the man.
“And where are you headed now, Bleis?” she asks.
“I’m going to see if I can keep going a little longer. It’s gotten late, already. One of the horses,” he pats it, “ran off to the big field and it took a long time to find him. Who knows what he was after…”
Nefer dismounts and pulls off the sheepskin. Juan walks up.
“Don’t let him loose, Nefer, I need him…”
“What’s that package?” Alcira shouts from an assembly of hens. “Did they give you something?”
Nefer unwraps the sweater, creased with newness.
“Hmmm,” Doña María murmurs, “nice…Must have cost her a pretty penny, don’t you think?”
“Who knows…” Alcira says. “What do they care about a few extra pesos? I like the color. But I wonder, why would she say red looks good on me and then turn around and give you something red?”
“Well…she’s my godmother.”
“Uh-huh,” says her mother, wiping her hands on her apron. “Tell me something…was that you who threw up last night?”
“Who? Me?…Why would I throw up?”
“Because one of the whips got left out and it was soiled this morning…”
“And why blame it on me?…It could’ve been a dog, couldn’t it? Or anyone else…”
“I don’t know, it’s just you’ve been acting strange. I don’t know what bug bit you…But I need you to go out and buy some meat now, we don’t have anything for lunch…”
Something lights up inside Nefer, maybe Negro is still lingering at the store, killing time. Maybe she’ll run into him…Afraid of the answer, she asks: “Wasn’t Juan just going out?”
“No, Juan has to stay here and fix the table leg…What’re you doing?” she asks as Juan rides up on the dapple horse. “Where do you think you’re off to?…Weren’t you going to fix the table?”
“Sorry, ma’am? Didn’t you say you needed some meat…?”
“Well, yes, but Nefer can go. What am I supposed to do with a broken table leg?”
“All right, ma’am whatever you say. As you like.” He silently dismounts, handing the reins and riding crop to Nefer.
“Hold on a minute, Juan, I’ll be right back.”
Nefer goes inside to look at herself in the mirror. She pulls her comb out of a dried cow’s tail on the wall and passes it through the un-permed part of her hair; she looks at herself for another moment, skeptical, and then goes into the kitchen and comes back out with a bag tucked under one arm.
“Ready…” she takes the reins and crop from Juan’s hand and jumps on the horse.
“One more thing, Nefer,” he says, “a pack of Particulares if you don’t mind, unfiltered.” He takes out the money, counts it, and hands it to her. “Thanks.”
Nefer knows that Juan’s hopes of getting to chat for a while at the store have sadly faded.
“Bye,” she says, kicks the horse, urging him into a gallop, and leaves.
The plains are a calm green sea under the sun and the trees beyond stretch up like a fleet of ships. Town is a dark spot at the end of the road, consisting of two shops and a few houses that have sprung up around the station. Nefer sees several dairy carts departing like toy boats with their owners at the masts. She recognizes them by the direction they take and by the horses, and she recalculates her chance of seeing Negro. Slim, because generally it’s his brother who brings the milk to town, and because it’s already late. If only they took the milk straight to the factory instead of the train, she’d have a better chance.
The ditches alongside the road are full of water from the recent rains and a small herd of horses graze, stepping in and out of the trenches. The animals, skinny and neglected, belong to three Basque brothers who live on a small plot of land. To save on hay, they let the horses roam free. Nefer feels sorry for the family, despite the fact that her mother can’t stop criticizing them. Not long ago a neighbor poisoned one of their dogs and they took revenge by castrating all of his dogs.
Crazy Basques, she thinks. What’s wrong with them? She pulls a little clump of wool from the shearling, puts it in her mouth and chews. It’s a habit her father has tried to break her of but she does it when he can’t see; it’s not often they’re on horseback together. It was ten years ago now that Don Pedro had the riding accident that sent him to the hospital and since then, by unspoken right, he stopped working. “Don Pedro’s never been the same,” people say, and it lends an aura of prestige to his thin dark figure drinking mate in the kitchen. Some days he saddles up the horse and rides to the general store, where he drinks and chats politely, but he normally stays out on the homestead, preparing strips of rawhide and braiding leather with his hands that resemble gnarled roots. He’s often called on to diagnose and cure ailing horses as well.
Nefer admires her father and fears her mother, whose body is three times the size of Don Pedro’s. Alcira is going to turn out like their mother, she thinks, and the thought cheers her up.
Several caracaras pick silently at a carcass sticking out of the water in the ditch. Poor creature. She tries to imagine the sensation of falling exhausted beside the road, with no strength left to react to the cowhands’ shouts and whips, eyes closing to die as the mooing of the herd and the whistles fade away, left alone in the night with the crickets, the lightning bugs, and the barking of faraway dogs.
Poor creature, she thinks again as she reaches town on the dusty road and some puppies run out of the first house to yip at her. The horse turns automatically toward the general store, with Luisa’s car parked out front, but Nefer urges him on to the butcher shop, a tin house across from the station. She dismounts hoping there won’t be too many people. She noticed that Negro’s cart was not parked outside the general store when she passed.
Another day lived for nothing, she thinks as she pushes open the screen door to the butcher’s. When she enters, a few other customers waiting in uncomfortable silence return her gaze.
“G’morning…” she says with half a voice.
“…G’morning…”
“Mornin’…”
She always has the same suffocating feeling in this little shop, with its sickly-sweet air, slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling, and the greasy counter. The daylight that filters in through the screened windows seems unreal and she can’t tell whether the flies are crawling inside or out. A tall, silent Basque man watches the butcher prepare his order and a whiskered old man waits with a cigarette hanging from his lips and his beret pulled down to his eyes. A girl stands beside Nefer, staring at the floor; they were classmates and the tension breaks with their simultaneous greeting:
“Hi.”
“How’re you?”
They fall back into silence, with their eyes fixed on the butcher’s greasy hands as he inattentively handles cuts of meat, chunks of flesh slapping loudly against the marble, his knife slicing and the saw grunting against the bones.
The Basque man takes his meat and hands over the ledger where the butcher notes his expense. Then he says goodbye and leaves. The little old man in the beret steps forward and says something, then the door opens and Luisa appears:
“Good morning. Did you prepare my order?”
“Yes, miss, here it is.”
“Thank you, goodbye.”
“Bye.”
Nefer thinks how easy it would be for the butcher to add extra monthly expenses to the Santa Clara ledger, as her mother is certain he does.
The other girl steps up to place her order and Nefer takes in her faded dress, her narrow back, and the messy braids crisscrossed at the nape of her neck. She thinks how they share a certain look, like little girls, that air of carelessness that Alcira and Doña María so often criticize her for. This thought floods her with a tide of anxiety as she remembers her secret. A sense of impotence rises to her throat, as if time has become something solid and she can almost hear its unstoppable current conspiring with her own body, which has betrayed her, tossing her to the mercy of the days. She grits her teeth and feels the blood drain from her face leaving her skin forgotten, stretched tautly over her bones. No, this can’t be, it can’t be real…Her senses retreat inward, toward the enemy lying in wait who she imagines like a pair of tireless eyes. It can’t be…The butcher is talking to her:
“Are you feeling sick, Nefer?”
She jumps:
“Sick? No…Why do you say that…? I’m hot is all…” and she hastily hands him the bag and the ledger without knowing what she’s doing or saying, “Short ribs please, or I’ll take some skirt steak if that’s all you’ve got, it’s all the same…”
