“Thank you. I’m glad you’ll be here for tomorrow’s remembrance mass, it is a great comfort to me,” she said, and pressed a hand against his cheek. “My darling brother, how have you been?”
“Very well.”
“You are not missing any meals? Julia complains that you never have your breakfast and you stay out late. Let me see. Yes, you have dark circles under your eyes. Silly boy, are you behaving yourself?”
“I behave most properly. You can rap my knuckles if you think I’m lying,” he said. Luisa slapped his hand in mock admonishment. She smiled.
When Luisa Velarde was sixteen, her mother died, leaving her with the responsibility of caring for her siblings and running their house. Her younger sister, Julia, had already been thirteen and capable of fending for herself, but her little brother, Arturo, had been two years old. Luisa had endeavored to fill the role of mother for him, to ensure that he would never lack for anything.
When Luisa married a farmer from Hidalgo, she had wept bitter tears and Arturo had cried with equal abandon. Then, when he was nine, the family sent him to live with Luisa. The boy hadmissed his eldest sister. Besides, Julia had never been the mothering type. She was relieved to have the child in someone else’s hands, and Arturo’s father was a busy man who had no time nor patience for fussy children.
Arturo lived at the farm for a few years. The mountains, the gorges, the rivers and trees, did not suit him. When he turned fourteen, Luisa determined that he ought to attend a boarding school, for he was an intellectual, taciturn child. Alba’s father had tried to show him the ways of the farm, but he had not taken to it. He’d gone away, attended the boarding school, polished his French and his piano playing, enrolled in university.
By the time he returned to visit the farm, Arturo was a youth of nineteen with dreams and prospects. Alba was delighted by the sight of him, and even when he dropped out of university and their family chided him for it, she thought him a most brilliant man.
Each of his visits was delightful. No matter whether it had been more than a year or just six months since she’d last seen him, he seemed to have grown more sophisticated, his clothing more fashionable, his manners more attractive. He lived in the city with his father and Julia and attended all manner of dances, exhibitions, and gatherings. When he spoke, it was like sweeping into the pages ofEl Mundo Ilustrado.
Fernanda walked in carrying a tray with the mancerinas and the pretty carnation in a flower vase. Dolores walked behind her. In her hands she held a dish with a silver dome that concealed what lay under it. The staff at Piedras Quebradas was modest. Dolores and Belisario had worked there for ages, she as the cook and maid, he as the right-hand man to Alba’s father since long before he’d married. Jacobo had been there for a couple of years and Fernanda for almost ten months. During the planting weeks and the busy harvesttime, they hired a few extra hands.
They grew barley, corn, and beans in the fields. They kept chickens, pigs, rabbits, and goats. Her father’s most precious investment had been his horses. They had a beautiful white stallion that they put out to stud for a fee.
Her father had done well enough and yet there was no denyingthat theirs was a provincial life and a provincial existence. Alba worried that Arturo would find something lacking in his lodging or in the food. She had managed, through clever bribery and the use of sweets, to persuade the children to play in the nursery, at least for a little while. She did not want them stumbling into the parlor and running wild, playing at pirates, while Arturo drank his chocolate.
“But what is this?Une tasse trembleuse, pour moi?” he asked, and smiled as Fernanda handed him a cup. “And this warm chocolate. You needn’t have bothered, really.”
“I baked an almond cake, too,” Alba said, lifting the silver dome from the dish and motioning to the maids that they might step out and check on the younger ones.
“How lovely. You’re an excellent cook.”
“Not when it comes to making tortillas,” Tadeo said as he walked in and wiped the sweat from his brow. “She acts as if there are ants in the dough, she won’t palm them into shape.”
“I do make tortillas. I make everything,” Alba said angrily.
In truth, she was impractical, and liked to cook elaborate dishes or sweet treats. The thought of plucking a chicken or skinning a rabbit was abhorrent, and she submitted to such mundane tasks only when her watchful mother demanded it. But she didn’t want Tadeo speaking so bluntly about her, even if it was true.
“Well, your luggage is up in your usual room, Uncle Arturo,” Tadeo said. He plopped himself down in one of the armchairs while Arturo settled into the other one. “It looks like you’re coming for a year and not merely for the mass.”
“I thought I’d stay for a little while and help around the farm,” Arturo said, lifting the porcelain cup and sipping his chocolate.
“Help how?”
“Your father’s death is a great burden to your mother.”
“A burden we’re shouldering, yes.”
“You needn’t shoulder it alone.”
“Exactly what could you do for us?” Tadeo asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“I’m not as useless as you think, dear nephew,” Arturo said. Hispoise was admirable. Alba watched him with zeal, observing how he tilted his head and held his cup.
“I’ve never known you to be interested in tilling fields or butchering a pig.”
“It’s a balm simply to have you with me, dear brother,” Luisa said, and then she looked at Tadeo. “You must watch your tone, Tadeo, or your uncle will think you rude.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Tadeo said, but he stretched out his legs and shrugged with insolence.
Alba’s brother took after their father; he was broad of shoulder, tall, and strong, and although still young he had that shell of toughness of the Quirogas. Alba, on the other hand, was like her mother, like the Velardes. Delicately sculpted, elegant, with brown curls cascading down her back and long fingers that slid upon the piano keys with ease.
