“Last time I looked they were trying to cook supper for the guests,” he said, and handed her the glass back.
On busy festival weekends Perla had her dinner at the café, but of course the guests would want a bite before heading to the town square. She glanced at the clock atop her dresser. It was still much too early to dress, and she continued sipping her sherry while she contemplated her father’s portrait, hanging above the desk. She’d covered it with a thin piece of black cloth for a year, supposedly as a sign of mourning, but also to hide his face.
She didn’t mind looking at it anymore, but for a while she’d been afraid of his steely eyes.
You’re dead, you’re finally dead,she thought.
They were all dead. Her whole family. She was the one left, her and Inés. She had an impulse to summon the girl, to make sure she was still in the house, that she had not vanished and left her alone among tired ghosts.
The heat was stifling, it was trapped inside the house, and no number of open windows could chase it away. She asked Ulises to fan her with one of her mother’s old lace fans that was cracked at the handle. An exquisite fan, tarnished by the yellowing ivory handle. But she liked these old things, these stale reminders of magnificence.
Inés had asked her once why they couldn’t remodel the house now that Perla’s father had passed away. She did not understand that fashions quickly fade; she did not appreciate the well-made furniture in the rooms, or the fine china safely tucked inside a cabinet. Perla respected traditions, she respected the house and accepted that it belonged to another time, but those démodé fashions conveyed more depth. In matters of clothing, though, she had longed for color and modernity. A spark ofthe new in this stately old house. Just like Ulises was a spark of something different, offering his luster to her.
“Fito tells me there’ll be much dancing tonight,” Ulises said. “The men in town dress in their best clothes and dance around.”
“Yes, some of that, and the young people will dance together. Music and dancing for three straight nights, and on the third night they’ll walk the statue of San Fidel around the town square, and he will vanquish evil for another year.”
“Fito says all unmarried girls have to dance with yellow ribbons in their hair.”
“Not all. I never danced. My father would not allow it.”
“What a pity. I think you’d have looked very sweet with ribbons in your hair.”
Perla was a creature keenly capable of taking offense, and she listened for any note of derision in his voice. Hearing none, she was pleased.
“My father thought it was vulgar. None of the girls from good families would dance back then, none of the ladies,” she said proudly.
“But Inés is going dancing tonight,” he said, and frowned. “I heard her telling Fito she’ll wear her dancing shoes.”
“Inés dances. But then again, Inés is not really an Inclán, and not really a lady.”
“Surely one can be a lady who dances.”
“Not her. She made a fool of herself the year my father died,” Perla said sharply. “After Salvador, one could never call her a lady.”
“Who was that?”
“A boy who stayed at the guesthouse.”
“How did she make a fool of herself?”
“She was unwise with him, and then he left town and left her behind. My father was livid when he learned about the affair.”
She looked up at the portrait. Why must she think about her father now? He had been on her mind all day. Disinterring the past,scrutinizing the years of mourning and the offenses committed against her. The echo of her father’s voice lingered in her ears.
It was probably because it was the first year she’d be at the festival out of mourning, no longer in blacks or grays. No longer the spinster.
“He wanted to beat her with his cane,” Perla mused, unable to stop herself from thinking about the past. About the dead. About her father in his last moments when he stared at her, his eyes…they became her sister’s eyes.
She had downed another glass and handed it to Ulises. “I’m terribly thirsty,” she said.
“You want more sherry?”
“Yes.”
He refilled her glass and carefully handed it to her, looking at her with a concerned expression that irritated Perla. “It’s very hot. There’s nothing to do on a hot day like this but drink sherry. My mother always said so, it cools the blood. I wish I could rub ice against my neck.”
“If only we had a refrigerator,” he replied.
