“Doesn’t he? How would you know? Even if his days are made of leisure, why should he spend them with you?”
“I don’t mean to take up all his time, but I don’t see—”
“He’s silly when he is with you. He completely forgets who he’s supposed to be. And do you think Howard would lethimhaveyou?” Florence shook her head. “The poor boy,” she muttered. “What do you want, hmm? What do you want from us? There’s nothing left to give.”
“I wanted to apologize,” Noemí said.
Florence pressed a hand against her right temple and closed her eyes. “You have. Go, go.”
And like the wretched creature that Florence had mentioned, that does not know its place nor how to find it, Noemí sat on the stairs for a while, staring at the nymph on the newel post and contemplating the motes of dust dancing in a ray of light.
16
Florence would not let Noemí sit alone with Catalina. One of the maids, Mary, had been ordered to stand guard in a corner. Noemí was not to be trusted ever again. Nobody said that was the case, but while she approached her cousin’s bed the maid moved slowly around, arranging the clothes in the armoire, folding a blanket. Needless tasks.
“Could you do that later, please?” she asked Mary.
“No time for it in the morning,” the maid replied, her voice even.
“Mary, please.”
“Don’t worry about her,” Catalina said. “Sit.”
“Oh, I…Yes, it doesn’t matter,” Noemí said, trying not to be upset about this. She wanted to maintain a positive façade for Catalina. Besides, Florence had said she could have a half hour with Catalina, nothing more, and she wanted to make the best of it. “You look much better.”
“Liar,” Catalina said, but she smiled.
“Should I fluff your pillows? Hand you your slippers so tonight you can dance like one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses?”
“You liked the illustrations in that book,” Catalina said softly.
“I did. I admit I’d read it right now if I could.”
The maid began fussing with the curtains, turning her back to them, and Catalina gave Noemí an eager look. “Maybe you’d read me poetry? There’s my old book of poems there. You know how I like Sor Juana.”
She did remember the book, which rested on the night table. Like the tome packed with fairy tales, this was a familiar treasure. “Which one should I read?” Noemí asked.
“ ‘Foolish Men.’ ”
Noemí turned the pages. There it was, the well-worn pages as she remembered. And there too was an unusual element. A yellow, folded piece of paper tucked against the pages. Noemí glanced at her cousin. Catalina said nothing, her lips were pressed tight, but in her eyes Noemí read a naked fear. She glanced in Mary’s direction. The woman was still busy with the curtains. Noemí pocketed the piece of paper and began reading. She went through several poems, keeping her voice steady. Eventually Florence arrived at the doorway carrying a silver tray with a matching teapot and a cup and a handful of cookies on a porcelain plate.
“It’s time to let Catalina rest,” Florence said.
“Of course.”
Noemí clapped the book shut and docilely bid her cousin goodbye. When Noemí reached her room, she noticed that Florence had been in there. There was a tray with a cup of tea and the handful of cookies, like Catalina’s.
Noemí ignored the tea and closed the door. She didn’t have an appetite and had forgotten to smoke a cigarette in ages. This whole situation was souring her to everything.
Noemí unfolded the piece of paper. She recognized Catalina’s handwriting on a corner. “This is proof,” she said. Noemí frowned and unfolded the letter a second time, wondering what Catalina had written. Would it be a repeat of that strange missive she had sent to Noemí’s father? The letter that had started it all.
The letter, however, was not her cousin’s as she’d thought. It was older, the paper brittle, and it seemed to have been torn from a journal. It was not dated, although it seemed to be the page of a diary entry.
I put these thoughts down on paper because it is the only way to remain firm in my resolve. Tomorrow I may lose courage but these words should anchor me to the here and now. To the present moment. I hear their voices constantly, whispering. They glow at night. Perhaps that might be endurable, this place would be endurable, if not for him. Our lord and master. Our God. An egg, split asunder, and a mighty serpent rising from it, expanding wide its jaws. Our great legacy, spun in cartilage and blood and roots so very deep. Gods cannot die. That is what we have been told, what Mother believes. But Mother cannot protect me, cannot save any of us. It is up to me. Whether this is sacrilege or simple murder, or both. He beat me when he found out about Benito but I swore there and then that I would never bear a child nor do his will. I believe firmly this death will be no sin. It is a release and my salvation. R.
R, a single letter as a signature. Ruth. Could this truly be a page from Ruth’s journal? She didn’t think Catalina would have faked such a thing, even if it bore an uncanny resemblance to the rambling letter her cousin had penned. But where would Catalina have found it? The house was large and old. She could picture Catalina walking the darkened hallways. A loose floorboard lifted, the elusive diary fragment hidden beneath the wooden plank.
Head bent over the letter, she bit her lips. Reading this scrap of paper with those eerie sentences could make anyone start believing in ghosts or curses or both. Of course, she’d never given credence to the idea of things that go bump in the night. Fantasies and fancies, that’s what she told herself. She’d readThe Golden Bough, nodding at its chapter on the expulsion of evils, she’d curiously leafed through a journal detailing the connection between ghosts and sickness in Tonga, and been amused by a letter to the editor ofFolkloredetailing an encounter with a headless spirit. She was not in the habit of believing in the supernatural.
