The Eagle's Throne

3. MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO NICOLÁS VALDIVIA

You’re so insistent, my beloved and handsome Nicolás. I see that my letter failed to convince you. My lack of persuasiveness troubles me more than your lack of intelligence. That’s why I don’t blame you. I must be thick, clumsy, inarticulate. I tell you my reasons directly, and still you, such a clever boy, fail to understand me. The blame, I repeat, must lie with me. Nevertheless, I must admit that I’m not indifferent to your passion, which almost makes me want to go back on my word. Now, don’t think that with your fervent prose you’ve knocked down the walls of my sexual fortress — as you put it. No, the drawbridge is still up and the chains on the gate are padlocked. But there’s a window, my lovely young Nicolás, one that lights up every night at eleven o’clock.

There, a woman you desire slowly undresses as if being observed by a witness more human and warm than the cold surface of her mirror. That woman is seen by nobody and yet she undresses with a sensual slowness as if she were being watched. That creature is delectable, Nicolás. And she finds it delectable to undress before a mirror with the slow deliberate movements of an artist of the stage or the court (a fanciful image, I know), pretending that eyes more avid than those of the mirror are looking at her with desire — the burning desire you convey, you wicked boy, you mischievous young thing, desirable object of my desire only because you can be deferred. For the price of consummated desire — don’t you know yet? — is subsequent virtue or, even worse, indifference.

You’ll say that a woman of almost fifty is entitled to fend off the youthful and ardent but perhaps frivolous and transient passions of a garçon barely over the age of thirty. Believe that if you wish. But don’t detest me. I’m perfectly willing to delay your hatred and encourage your hope, my almost but no longer quite so naïve little friend. Tonight, at eleven o’clock, I will proceed with my déshabiller. I will leave my bedroom curtains wide open. The lights will be on so I might be wise, modest, and titillating in equal measure.

We have a date, my dear. For the moment, I can’t offer you more.