The Crystal Frontier

6. Las Amigas

Tell them I’m not here! Tell them I don’t want to see them! Tell them I don’t want to see anyone!”

One day no one came to visit Miss Amy Dunbar. Even the servants, who never lasted long in the old lady’s service, stopped coming to work. Rumors circulated about Miss Dunbar’s difficult nature, her racism, her insults.

“There’s always someone whose need for work is stronger than their pride.”

It wasn’t so. The whole black race, according to Miss Amy, refused to work for her. The last maid, a fifteen-year-old girl named Bathsheba, spent her month in Miss Dunbar’s house weeping. Each time she answered the door, the rarer and rarer visitors first saw a girl bathed in tears, then invariably heard behind her the broken but still acid voice of the crone. “Tell them I’m not in! Tell them I’m not interested in seeing them!”

Miss Amy Dunbar’s nephews knew the old lady would never leave her house in the Chicago suburbs. She said that one migration — leaving the family home in New Orleans and coming north to live with her husband — was enough for a lifetime. Dead was the only way she would leave her stone house facing Lake Michigan and surrounded by forest.

“It won’t be long now,” she told the nephew responsible for paying bills, attending to legal matters, and looking after other things great and small that completely escaped the attention of the little old woman.

What she did not fail to notice was her relative’s tiny sigh of relief as he imagined her dead.

She took no offense. “The problem is that I’m used to living,” she invariably responded. “It’s become a habit,” she would say with a laugh, showing those horse teeth that with age protrude farther and farther in Anglo-Saxon women, although she was only half Anglo-Saxon, the daughter of a Yankee businessman who set himself up in Louisiana to show the languid Southerners how to do business, and a delicate lady of distantly French origin, Lucy Ney. Miss Amy said she was related to Bonaparte’s marshal Ney. Her full name was Amelia Ney Dunbar. Like all the other wellborn ladies of the Delta city, she was called Miss, Miss Amy, with the right to be addressed by both the title of matrimonial maturity and that of a double childhood; they were girls at fifteen and girls again at eighty.

“I’m not suggesting you go to a senior citizens’ residence,” explained her nephew, a lawyer determined to deck himself out with all the clothes and accoutrements he imagined to be his profession’s height of elegance: blue shirts with white collars, red ties, Brooks Brothers suits, oxfords, never loafers on workdays, God forbid! “But if you’re going to stay in this big old house, you’ll need domestic help.” Miss Amy was about to say something nasty, but she bit her tongue. She even showed the whitish tip of that organ. “I hope you make an effort to hold onto your servants, Aunt Amy. The house is huge.”

“It’s that they’ve all left.”

“You’d need at least four people in service here just to take care of you the way it was in the old days.”

“Those were the young days. These are the old days, Archibald. And it wasn’t the staff who left. It was the family. They left me alone.”

“Of course, Aunt Amy. You’re right.”

“As always.”

Archibald nodded.

“We’ve found a Mexican lady willing to work for you.”

“Mexicans are supposed to be lazy.”

“That’s not true. It’s a stereotype.”

“I forbid you to touch my clichés, young man. They’re the shield of my prejudices. And prejudices, as the word itself indicates, are necessary for making judgments. Good judgment, Archibald, good judgment is prejudgment. My convictions are clear, deep rooted, and unshakable. At this point in my life, no one’s going to change them.” She allowed herself a deep, slightly lugubrious breath. “Mexicans are lazy.”

“Try her out. These people are eager to serve and accustomed to obeying.”

“You’ve got your own prejudices, see?” Miss Amy laughed a little as she arranged her hair, which was so white and so old that it was turning yellow, like papers exposed to light for a long time. Like a newspaper, said her nephew Archibald. All of her has become like an old newspaper, yellowed, wrinkled, and full of news no longer interesting to anyone.

Archibald went to the Mexican section of Chicago frequently because his firm defended a lot of cases involving trade, naturalization, people without green cards — a thousand matters having to do with immigration and labor from south of the border. He also went because at the age of forty-two he was still a bachelor, convinced that before embarking on marriage he had to drink the cup of life to the dregs, with no ties, no family, no children, no wife. Chicago was a city where many cultures mixed, so Miss Amy Dunbar’s only nephew chose his girlfriends according to ethnic zones. He’d already gone through the Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese, Hungarian, and Lithuanian sectors. Now the happy conjunction of business and amatory curiosity brought him to Pilsen, the Mexican neighborhood with the Czechoslovakian name of a beer-producing city in Bohemia. The Czechs had left and the Mexicans were taking over little by little, filling the neighborhood with markets, luncheonettes, music, colors, cultural centers, and, of course, beer as good as Pilsen’s.

Many people came to work as meatpackers, some legal, others not, but all respected for their dexterity in cutting and packing the meat. Miss Amy’s nephew, the lawyer, started going out with one of the girls in a huge family of workers, almost all of whom came from the Mexican state of Guerrero and all of whom were linked by blood, affection, and solidarity, and occasionally by name.

They were extremely helpful to one another. Like a great family, they organized parties and, like all other families, they fought. One night, there was trouble and the result was two deaths. The police didn’t waste time. There were four killers, one of them named Perez, so they rounded up four Perezes and charged them. As they barely spoke English, they couldn’t explain themselves or understand the charges, but one of them, visited in jail by Archibald, claimed that the charges were unfair, based on false testimony intended to protect the real murderers. The idea was to sentence the suspects as soon as possible and close the case; they didn’t know how to defend themselves. Archibald took them on, and that’s how he met the wife of the defendant he’d visited in jail.

Her name was Josefina and they’d just been married— about time, too, since they were both forty-one. Josefina spoke English because she was the daughter of an ironworker named Fortunato Ayala, who’d fathered her and then abandoned her in Chicago. But she’d been in Mexico when everything happened so she hadn’t been able to help her husband.

“He could learn English in jail,” suggested Archibald.

“He could,” said Josefina without really agreeing. “He wants to study English and become a lawyer. Can you make him a lawyer?”

“Sure, I can give him classes. And what about you, Josefina?”

“I have to get a job so I can pay you for the lawyer classes.”

“No need for that.”

“Well, I have the need. It’s my fault Luis Maria is in jail. I should have been with him when everything happened. At least I speak English.”

“I’ll see what I can do. In any case, we’re going to fight to save your husband. Meanwhile, he’s got the right to study, to keep himself busy, while he’s in jail. I’ll look after that. But tell me why Mexicans rat on other Mexicans.”

“The ones who come first don’t like the ones who come later. Sometimes we’re unfair among ourselves. It isn’t enough that others treat us badly.”

“I thought you were like one big family.”

“The worst things happen in families, sir.”

In the beginning, Miss Amy wouldn’t even look at Josefina. The first time she saw her confirmed all her suspicions. Josefina was an Indian. Miss Amy couldn’t understand why people who were in no way different from the Iroquois insisted on calling themselves “Latinos” or “Hispanics.” Josefina did have one virtue. She was silent. She entered and left the old lady’s bedroom like a ghost, as if she didn’t have feet. The rustle of the maid’s skirts and aprons could be confused with that of the curtains when the breeze blew off the lake. Autumn was coming, and soon Miss Amy would be closing the windows. She liked the summer, the heat, the memory of her hometown, so French …

“No, Aunt Amy,” said the nephew when he wanted to argue with her, “the architecture of New Orleans is completely Spanish, not French. The Spaniards were here for almost a century and gave the city its shape. The French part is a varnish for tourists.”

“Taisez-vous” she would say to him indignantly, suspecting that this time Archibald was involved with some Latina or Hispanic or whatever these Comanches who had come too far north were called.

Josefina knew the old lady’s routine — Archibald explained it in detail — and opened the bedroom curtains at 8:00 a.m., had breakfast ready on a small table, and came back at noon to make the bed. The old lady insisted on getting dressed by herself. Josefina went off to cook and Miss Amy came down to eat a Spartan solitary lunch of lettuce, radishes, and cottage cheese. In the afternoon she sat in front of the television set in the living room and gave free rein to her perverse energy, commenting on everything she saw with sarcasm, insults, and disdain for blacks, Jews, Italians, Mexicans. She delivered it all out loud, whether anyone heard or not, but she alternated these disagreeable comments that paralleled the picture on the television with sudden, unexpected orders to Josefina, as to Bathsheba and the others before her. My plaid blanket for my knees. The Friday tea should be Lapsang souchong, not Earl Grey. How many times do I have to … See here, who told you to move my glass marbles? Who else could have moved them but you, dummy? You’re useless, lazy, like all the black women I’ve ever known. Where is the photograph of my husband that was on the night table last night? Who put it in that drawer? I didn’t do it, and there’s no other “person” here but you, absentminded, useless. Do something to earn your pay. Have you ever worked hard a single day in your life? What am I saying? No black has ever done anything but live off the work of whites.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied on the new Mexican maid. Would she say the same things to her that she did to the fragile and weepy Bathsheba, or would she have to invent a new repertoire of insults to wound Josefina? Would she hide the photo of her husband in a drawer again so she could accuse Josefina of moving it? She spied on her. She licked her chops. She prepared her offensive. Let’s see how long she lasts, this fat solid woman with a delicate face and fine features that seem more Arabian than Indian, an ash-colored woman with liquid, very black eyes and very yellow corneas.

For her part, Josefina decided three things. The first, to be thankful for having a job and bless every dollar that came in for the defense of her husband, Luis Maria. The second, to carry out to the letter the instructions of the lawyer, Don Archibaldo, as to his aunt’s care. And the third, to risk making her own life inside the big house facing the lake. This was the most dangerous decision, and the one Josefina recognized she could not avoid if she intended to endure. Flowers, for instance. The house needed flowers. To her cramped maid’s room, she brought the violets and pansies she always kept on her dresser, along with the lamp and the religious pictures that were her most important companions after Luis María.

For Josefina, there was an intensely mysterious but real relationship between the life of images and the life of flowers. Who could deny that flowers, though they don’t speak, still live, breathe, and one day wither and die? Well, the images of Our Lord on the cross, the Sacred Heart, the Virgin of Guadalupe were like flowers: even if they didn’t speak, they lived, breathed. Unlike the flowers, they never withered. The life of flowers, the life of images. For Josefina, they were two inseparable things, and in the name of her faith she gave to flowers the tactile, perfumed, sensual life she would have liked to give to the religious pictures as well.

“This house smells musty,” Miss Amy exclaimed one night as she ate dinner. “It smells like a storage closet, as if there’s no air, musty. I want to smell something nice,” she said to Josefina in an insulting tone, sniffing for a kitchen odor as the maid laid the plates and served her vegetable soup, staring at Josefina’s armpits for a telltale stain, an offensive whiff. But the maid was clean. Every night, Miss Amy heard the water running for Josefina’s punctual bath before bed; if anything, she felt more like accusing Josefina of wasting water, but she was afraid Josefina would laugh at her, pointing toward the immense lake, like an inland sea.

Josefina placed a bouquet of tuberoses in the living room, a room it had never occurred to Miss Amy to decorate with flowers. When the old lady came in to watch her evening television after dinner, she first sniffed the air like an animal surprised by an enemy presence. Then she fixed her gaze on the tuberoses; finally she exclaimed with concentrated rage: “Who’s filling my house with flowers for the dead?”

“No, these are fresh flowers, they’re alive,” Josefina managed to say.

“Where did you get them?” growled Miss Amy. “I bet you stole them! You can’t touch other people’s gardens around here! Around here we have something called private property, capisce?”

“I bought them,” Josefina said simply.

“You bought them?” repeated Miss Amy, for once in her life bereft of arguments or words.

“Yes.” Josefina smiled. “To brighten up the house. You said it smelled musty, closed up.”

“And now it smells like the dead! What kind of joke is this?” Miss Amy shouted, thinking about the photograph of her husband hidden in the drawer, the misplaced glass marbles: she, not the maids, was responsible for those things, she offended herself to offend the maids — no maid must take the initiative. “Remove your flowers immediately.”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

“And tell me, how did you pay for them?”

“With my own money, ma’am.”

“You spend your salary on flowers?”

“They’re for you. For the house.”

“But the house belongs to me, not you. Who do you think you are? Are you sure you didn’t steal them? The police aren’t going to come to find out where you robbed the flowers?”

“No. I have a receipt from the florist, ma’am.”

Josefina left the room, though behind her lingered the scent of mint and coriander that she caused to emanate from the kitchen, having taken to heart her mistress’s complaint that the house smelled like a storage closet. Miss Amy, uncertain as to how she should attack her new employee, imagined for a moment lowering herself to the indignity of spying, something she’d never done with her other servants, convinced it would mean giving them a weapon against her. It was her greatest temptation, she admitted it to herself, to enter the maid’s room secretly and poke around in her possessions, perhaps discover a secret. Of course, that would mean showing her hand, losing her authority, the authority of prejudice, lack of proof, irrationality. Others had to come and tell her things, that the room was a pigsty, that the plumber had to come unplug the toilet, which was blocked up with filth — what could you expect from a black, a Mexican?

Lacking the pretext of the plumber, she had made use of her nephew Archibald. “My nephew informs me you never make your own bed.”

“He can make my bed when he gets in it to screw me,” said a sharp-tongued young black woman who left without saying good-bye.

Miss Amy wanted to lure Josefina into her own territory — the living room, the dining room, the bedroom — force her to reveal herself there, to make a big mistake there, to see herself there, in the bedroom after breakfast, in the ornate hand mirror that Miss Amy suddenly turned so as to banish her own reflection and force Josefina to look at herself. “You’d like to be white, wouldn’t you?” asked Miss Amy abruptly.

“There are lots of güeritos in Mexico,” said Josefina impassively, without lowering her eyes.

“Lots of what?”

“Blond people, ma’am. Just as there are lots of blacks here. We’re all God’s children,” she concluded plainly and truthfully but without sounding impolite.

“Know something? I’m convinced Jesus loves me,” said Miss Amy, pulling the covers up to her chin, as if she wanted to deny her own body and be like one of those cherubs who are all face and wings.

“Because you’re a good person, ma’am.”

“No, stupid, because he made me white. That’s proof God loves me.”

“As you say, ma’am.”

Wouldn’t this Mexican woman ever answer back? Would she ever get mad? Would she ever retaliate? Did she think she’d beat Miss Amy that way, by never getting mad?

She expected everything except that Josefina would retaliate that very night after dinner as Miss Amy watched a news program to prove to herself that the world was hopeless.

“I put your husband’s picture in the drawer, the way you like to do it,” said Josefina. Miss Amy sat there open-mouthed, indifferent to Dan Rather’s commentary on the situation of the universe.

“What does she have in her bedroom?” she asked her nephew Archibald the next day. “How has she decorated it?”

“The way all Mexican women do. Pictures of saints, images of Christ and the Virgin, an old ex-voto giving thanks, and God knows what else.”

“Idolatry. Sacrilegious papism.”

“That’s the way it is, and nothing can change it,” said Archibald, trying to pass along a little resignation to Miss Amy.

“Don’t you find it disgusting?”

“To her, our empty, undecorated, Puritan churches seem disgusting,” said Archibald, inwardly savoring the excitement of sleeping with a Mexican girl in Pilsen who covered the image of the Virgin with a handkerchief so the Virgin wouldn’t see them screw. But she left the candles burning— the girl’s delicious cinnamon body shone … It was useless to ask tolerance of Miss Amy.

“By the way, where is Uncle’s photo, Aunt Amy?” Archibald asked with some sarcasm. But the lady pretended not to hear, as she knew that the next day she wouldn’t be able to tell Archibald that the maid had put the photo away.

“What do you think of my husband?” she asked Josefina as she took the photo out of the drawer to put it on the night table.

“Very handsome, ma’am, very distinguished.”

“You’re lying, you hypocrite. Take a good look. He was at Normandy. Look at the scar crossing his face like a bolt of lightning splitting a stormy sky.”

“Don’t you have pictures of him before he was wounded, ma’am?”

“Do you have any pictures of Christ on the cross without wounds, blood, just nailed, dead, crowned with thorns?”

“Yes, of course. I have pictures of the Sacred Heart and the Christ Child, very beautiful ones. Would you like to see them?”

“Bring them to me some day.” Miss Amy smiled mockingly.

“Only if you promise to show me your husband when he was young and handsome.” Josefina smiled tenderly.

“Impertinent,” Miss Amy managed to mutter when the maid left with the tea tray.

The Mexican made a mistake — Miss Amy almost cackled with pleasure when she saw Archibald again — the idolater made a mistake. The day after the conversation about Christ and the wounded husband, Josefina brought the old lady her breakfast as usual, placed the bed tray over her lap, and instead of leaving as she usually did, rearranged the pillows for her and touched her head, stroking the old lady’s forehead.

“Don’t touch me!” shouted Miss Amy, hysterical. “Don’t you ever dare touch me!” she shouted again, upsetting the bed tray, spilling tea on the sheets, knocking the croissants and jam over the bedclothes.

“Don’t judge her harshly, Aunt Amy. Josefina has her sorrows, just as you do. It’s possible she wants to share them.”

“Sorrows, me?” Miss Amy raised her eyebrows all the way to where her hair, arranged that afternoon to give her a youthful, renewed look, began. A white inverted question mark adorned her forehead, like this:¿

“You know very well what I’m talking about. I could have been your son, Aunt Amy. It was an accident that instead I ended up being your nephew.”

“You have no right to say such things, Archibald.” Miss Amy’s voice was muffled, as if she were speaking through a handkerchief. “Don’t say that ever again, or I won’t allow you back in my house.”

“Josefina has her sorrows too. That’s why she stroked you yesterday morning.”

Did Archibald achieve his goal? Miss Amy divined her nephew’s Machiavellian plot, and she knew that Niccolò Machiavelli was the Devil himself. Wasn’t the Devil called Old Nick in English legend? This Miss Amy knew because as a teenager she’d had a part in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, and the first person who speaks is Machiavelli, transformed into the Devil, Old Nick.

She sat with the window open to the park. Josefina came in with her tea, but Miss Amy didn’t turn to look at her. It was almost autumn, the most beautiful season on that lake, with its prolonged winters, daggerlike winds, brief springtimes, insolently coquettish, and summers when not a leaf stirred and the humidity hovered as high as the fiery red in the thermometers.

Miss Amy thought that her garden, however familiar to her, was a forgotten garden. An avenue of cedars led to its entrance and to the view of the lake, which was beginning to turn rough. This was the beauty of autumn, always nostalgically mixed, in Miss Dunbar’s eyes, with the punctual appearance of the maple buds in spring. Nevertheless, her garden was now a lost garden, and this afternoon — without consciously planning to, almost without realizing what she was saying, convinced she always talked that way to herself but enunciating the words clearly, not for her maid, who just happened to be standing behind her holding a tea tray, but as if she were saying something she had said before or would have said in any case — she remarked that in New Orleans her mother would appear on the balcony on special occasions wearing all her jewels so everyone could admire her as they walked by.

“It’s the same in Juchitán.”

“Hoochy what?”

“Juchitán is the name of our village, in Tehuantepec. My mother would go out to show off her jewelry on feast days.”

“Jewelry? Your mother?” said Miss Amy, more and more confused. What was this maid talking about? Who did she think she was? Did she have delusions of grandeur?

“That’s right. It goes from mother to daughter, ma’am, and no one dares sell them. The stones come from far away. They’re sacred.”

“Are you telling me that you could live like a grand lady in your hoochy town and instead you’re here cleaning my bathrooms?” said Miss Amy with renewed ferocity.

“No, I would use them to pay lawyers. But as I was saying, in Juchitec families jewels are sacred, for fiesta days, and pass from mother to daughter. It’s very beautiful.”

“So they must wear them all the time, because by all accounts it’s a perpetual feast day all year round — this saint, that martyr … Why are there so many saints in Mexico?”

“Why are there so many millionaires in the United States? God has his own plan for distributing things, ma’am.”

“Did you say you have to pay lawyers? Don’t tell me my idiot nephew is helping you!”

“Mr. Archibaldo is very generous.”

“Generous? With my money? He’s got nothing beyond what he’ll inherit from me. Charity may begin at home, but his home isn’t mine.”

“No, he doesn’t give us money, ma’am. Not at all. He’s teaching my husband law so he can become a lawyer and defend himself and his friends.”

“Where is your husband? What does he have to defend himself against?”

“He’s in jail, ma’am. He was unjustly accused—”

“That’s what they all say,” said Miss Amy, grimacing sarcastically.

“No, it’s true. In jail, the prisoners can learn things. My husband decided to study law to defend himself and his friends. He doesn’t want Don Archibaldo to defend him. He wants to defend himself. That’s his pride, ma’am. All Don Archibaldo does is give him classes.”

“Free?” The old woman made a fierce, unconscious grimace.

“No. That’s why I’m working here. I pay with my salary.”

“Which is to say, I pay. That’s a good one.”

“Don’t get mad, ma’am, please. Don’t get upset. I’m not very clever, I don’t know how to conceal things. I’m not lying to you. Excuse me.”

She walked away, and Miss Amy sat there wondering how her maid Josefina’s sorrow could in any way resemble her own — evoked with such lack of delicacy by her nephew a few days before. What did a criminal case involving Mexican immigrants have to do with a case of lost love, a missed opportunity?

“How is Josefina working out?” Archibald asked the next time they saw each other.

“At least she’s punctual.”

“See? Not all stereotypes are accurate.”

“Is her room a mess with all those idols and saints?”

“No, it’s neat as a pin.”

When Josefina served tea that afternoon, Miss Amy smiled at her and said that soon autumn would really begin and then the cold. Didn’t Josefina want to take advantage of the last days of summer to give a party?

“Just to show you my heart’s in the right place, Josefina. You told me a few days ago that there are lots of parties— fiestas — in your country. Isn’t there something coming up you’d like to celebrate?”

“The only thing I want to celebrate is my husband’s being declared innocent.”

“But that might take a while. No, I’m offering you a chance to throw a party for your friends in the back part of the garden, by the grape arbor.”

“If you think it’s a good idea …”

“Yes, Josefina, I’ve already said this house smells shutup. I know you all are very spirited people. Invite a small group. I’ll come out to say hello, of course.”

On the day of the party, Miss Amy first spied from the dressing room on the second floor. Josefina, with her mistress’s permission, had set up a long table under the arbor. The house filled with unusual smells, and now Miss Amy watched a parade of clay platters piled with mysterious foods all mixed together and drowned in thick sauces, little baskets of tortillas, pitchers holding magenta- and amber-colored liquids.

As the guests began to arrive, she watched them closely from her hiding place. Some were dressed in everyday clothes — that was clear — but others, especially the women, had put on their best outfits for this special occasion. There were short jackets and T-shirts, but coats and ties as well. Some women wore pants while others wore satin dresses. There were children. Lots of people.

Other people. Miss Amy tried to use her intelligence to penetrate those black eyes, the dark complexions and wide smiles of her maid’s friends, the Mexicans. They were impenetrable. She felt she was staring at a wall of cactus, prickly, as if each one of those beings were really a porcupine. They wounded Miss Amy’s gaze just as they would have wounded her hands if she’d touched them. They were people who cut her flesh, like a sphere one could imagine made of razor blades. There was no way to take hold of them. They were other, alien; they confirmed the old lady’s revulsion, her prejudice.

Now what were they doing? Were they hanging a pot from the arbor, then giving a child a stick, blindfolding him, and watching while he swung blindly until he hit the pot and it fell in pieces and the other children rushed to pick up candies and peanuts? What? Had someone dared to bring a portable phonograph to play raucous music, guitars and trumpets, wolf howls? Were they going to dance in her garden, hug each other in that filthy way; were they going to touch, laughing uproariously, arms around one another’s waists, caressing one another’s backs, about to laugh, cry, or something worse?

As she had promised, she appeared in the garden. She had her cane in her hand. She went straight to the second piñata and smashed it. Next, she struck the record player. To all, she shouted, Out of my house. What do you think this is? This isn’t a cheap bar, this is no bordello. Get out of here and take your blaring music and your indigestible food somewhere else. Don’t abuse my hospitality, this is my house, here we do things differently, we don’t keep hogs in the kitchen around here.

The guests all looked at Josefina. First she trembled, then she became calm, almost rigid.

“The mistress is right. This is her house. Thank you for coming. Thank you for wishing my husband good luck.”

They all left, some staring at Miss Amy angrily, others disdainfully, still others fearfully — but all with the feeling we call shame for others.

Only Josefina remained, standing tall, unchanged.

“Thank you for lending us your garden, ma’am. The party was very nice.”

“It was an abuse,” Miss Amy said through clenched teeth, disconcerted. “Too many people, too much noise, too much of everything.”

With a swing of her cane, she swept the platters from the table. The unaccustomed effort overwhelmed her. She lost her breath.

“You’re right, ma’am. Summer is coming to an end. Don’t get a chill now. Come back to the house and let me make you your afternoon tea.”

“You did it on purpose,” said a visibly annoyed Archibald as he nervously fingered the knot of his Brooks Brothers tie. “You suggested she give the party only to humiliate her in front of her friends.”

“It was an abuse. She went too far.”

“What do you want, for her to leave you like all the others? Do you want me to have you put away in an asylum?”

“You’d lose your inheritance.”

“But not my mind. You could drive anyone insane, Aunt Amy. How smart my father was not to marry you.”

“What are you saying, you ingrate?”

“I’m saying that you did this to humiliate Josefina and make her leave.”

“No, you said something else. But Josefina won’t leave. She needs the money to get her husband out of jail.”

“Not anymore. The court turned down the appeal. Josefina’s husband will stay in jail.”

“What will she do?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to talk to you either. You come to my house to insult me, to remind me of things I want to forget. You’re risking your inheritance.”

“Listen to me now, Aunt Amy. I renounce my inheritance.”

“You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. Don’t be a fool, Archibald.”

“No, really. I’ll renounce it unless you listen to me and hear the truth.”

“Your father was a coward. He wouldn’t take the final step. He didn’t ask me at the right moment. He humiliated me. He made me wait too long. I had no choice but to marry your uncle.”

“It’s that you never showed my father affection.”

“And he expected it?”

“Yes. He told me so, several times. If Amy had showed she loved me, I’d have taken the final step.”

“Why? Why didn’t he do it?” The voice and spirit of the old lady broke. “Why didn’t he show he loved me?”

“Because he was convinced you never loved anyone. He needed you to give him proof of your affection.”

“Are you telling me my life has been nothing but a huge misunderstanding?”

“No. There was no misunderstanding. My father convinced himself he’d done the right thing not asking you to marry him, Aunt Amelia. He told me that time had borne him out. You’ve never loved anyone.”

That afternoon when Josefina served tea Miss Amy, without meeting her maid’s gaze, said she was very sorry for what had happened. Josefina took the unfamiliar words calmly. “Don’t worry, ma’am. You are the owner of the house. What else is there to say?”

“No, I’m not talking about that. I mean about your husband.”

“Well, it’s not the first time there’s been a miscarriage of justice.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What, ma’am? Don’t you know?”

“No, Josefina, tell me.”

Then Josefina did raise her eyes to look directly into the faded eyes of Miss Amelia Dunbar, dazzling the old lady as if her eyes were two candles. She told her mistress that she was going to continue fighting, that when she chose Luis Maria it was forever and for everything, the good and the bad. She knew that was what they said in the marriage ceremony, but in her case it was the truth. Time passed, the bitterness was greater than the joy, but for that reason love itself got greater and greater, more certain. Luis María could spend his life in jail without doubting for a single moment that she loved him, not only the way she would if they were living together as they had at the beginning but much more, more and more, ma’am, do you understand me? Without pain, without malice, without pointless games, without pride, without arrogance, each of us given to the other.

“Will you allow me to confess something to you, Miss Amelia, without your getting angry with me? My husband has strong hands, fine, beautiful hands. He was born to carve meat. He has a marvelous touch. He always hits the mark. His hands are dark and strong, and I can’t live without them.”

That night, Miss Amy asked Josefina to help her undress and put on her nightgown. She was going to wear the woolen nightgown. The autumn air was beginning to make its presence felt. The maid helped her get into bed. She tucked her in as if she were a child. She arranged the pillows and was about to leave, wishing her good night, when Miss Amelia Ney Dunbar’s two tense, old hands took the strong, fleshy hands of Josefina. Miss Amy brought her maid’s hands to her lips, kissed them, and Josefina embraced the almost transparent body of Miss Amy, an embrace that while never repeated would last an eternity.