Page 6 of The Last Postcard

Was it the heat of the night that made Caterina’s hand so slick in mine? ‘Why must we wash?’ I asked her, as she pulled us up the stairs. ‘No one is looking at us.’

‘Someone’s always looking,’ she said, and gave us both a push into our room. We did as we were told, with a cloth and pitcher of water. Grumbling, I scrubbed my face and neck, my underarms, and did Elena’s while she shrugged into her blouse. She had breasts now, mostly, whereas I only had vague swellings that sometimes hurt in the night.

‘If I have to clear tables, I’ll get this blouse dirty and Morales will beat me for it on Sunday,’ I complained. Elena said nothing. Her face, always paler than mine, was paler than ever.

Caterina eyed us critically as she led us along the corridor. ‘Be good,’ she said, and her grip was hard. ‘Don’t talk back.’ She stopped outside the parlour. ‘Don’t cry.’

She pushed open the door. Inside were the four gentlemen from downstairs, almost done with a bottle of sherry. Abruptly, I realized what they wanted us for.

I couldn’t move. I had always known that I would have to do this one day, but Caterina and the others were older, fifteen or sixteen at least. Elena grabbed my hand, dragging me with her into the room as the door swung shut behind us.

I forgot how to do anything but breathe. One of the gentlemen was saying something, gesturing to a pair of chairs at the table. He was smiling, his whiskers damp with sweat and spirits. Another man eyed us, mouth occupied with his cigar, another blinked rapidly, as if he could not see us through the smoke.

‘Señoritas,’ greeted the first, ‘have a drink with us. Do you like sherry?’

Elena’s face was red to the eyes as she nodded, looking down at the tablecloth. I gripped her hand and stared into the corner. At the edge of my vision, I saw a little glass, brimming with sherry, pushed in my direction.

‘We have ordered some pasteles from the kitchen,’ the blinking man said, ‘and we have these for you. Sweet things, for sweet girls.’

He pushed a box across the table. It looked expensive, creamy pink cardboard decorated with golden swirls and the words Delicia Turca.

Elena was still staring at the cloth. ‘Gracias,’ she whispered.

‘Well,’ the first man said, ‘salud.’

I watched as Elena reached out and took hold of the glass before her. Her hands were trembling, and the sherry slipped over the rim on to her fingers. As she raised it, she glanced at me. Please, her look said, don’t leave me alone. That’s what made me copy her. I picked up my own glass and raised it to my lips and drank the sherry down in one.

It was disgustingly sweet.

The men were laughing at something. I looked up at last and found that it was me they were mocking. At my side, Elena still held her sherry. She had only sipped it.

‘That one might be dull but she’s got fire,’ the man with the cigar observed. ‘That’s how they make them on the streets: slow in every way but one.’

His lip curled at me. My stomach gave a lurch and a shudder, as if my guts were creeping upwards. I couldn’t take my eyes from his starched white collar, from his beautiful suit. I kept wondering what he’d done to get those fine clothes.

‘Come here,’ he said.

I wouldn’t have moved if Elena hadn’t let go of my hand, so abruptly that I swayed. It was as if she was backing into a corner without moving an inch, leaving me exposed. I stood, cold sweat on my back and a strange, bitter taste in my mouth. If I ran, could I reach the door? If I did, where would I go? My guts squirmed, climbing higher, making their way towards my heart, to wrap it, to shield it, to keep it from being crushed by the world.

When I stood before him, the man stared at me critically, chin to toe. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

I opened my mouth to tell him ‘thirteen’, but what came out was not sound. Instead, a sudden rush of vomit surged from the guts that were now in my chest, hot and furious, all over the man’s beautiful shirt front.

Through my stinging eyes, I saw his face and almost laughed. Then he was shouting in disgust and kicking me away from him, screaming that I was diseased. I fell back against the table, and something shattered, but I couldn’t see what; all I could think about was the nausea and my roiling guts as I vomited again. I heard voices, Morales’ voice, saying that I wasn’t diseased, just a stupid girl who wasn’t used to drink, and that if the gentlemen came with her, she would have the girls arrange baths for them, and another bottle of Tío Pepe, on the house.

When the scraping of chairs and curses finally stopped, I looked up, my lips shaking, my nose and eyes streaming. Only Morales remained, and Ifrahim, who must have arrived amidst the chaos, the tray of pasteles forgotten in his hand.

Morales hit me then, harder than she ever had before. It made me bite my tongue, but the wash of blood tasted clean, after the sherry and the sick.

‘You disgusting maggot,’ she said, wiping her hand on the tablecloth. ‘I always knew you’d cost me.’

I risked a glance at her face. The anger was gone, or trampled down deep where it didn’t show.

‘Out,’ she said.

I tried to speak, and choked. She didn’t mean out of the room, but the inn. It was impossible. The men, the clients, they might simply get up and leave, walk out of the gates and into the world, but I wasn’t like them. I had no money, no family, no name or friends to call upon. There wasn’t anywhere else for me.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please, I’ll work.’