Perla is spared the malady, but Natito falls ill and so does Encarnación. The doctor administers quinine to lower the fever, and when that doesn’t work, the siblings ingest a mix of huachichili and tabardillo with lemon juice and a spoonful of rum. They’re fed a bland diet of atole and milk.
Perla dips gauze into a bowl of water and wipes the sweat off her siblings’ foreheads. She rubs their feet with salt and wraps their bodies in warm blankets. Castor oil, crushed garlic, mustard plasters, and whatever other remedy people mutter about, they try them all.
Encarnación recovers. Natito dies, aged twenty.
His death leaves Perla’s sister in a stupor and the house as silent as a mausoleum. They spend the entirety of 1919 in mourning, dressed in stifling black, praying rosaries for her brother’s soul while their father locks himself in his office and their mother weeps.
Perla feels as if she’s been abandoned on a deserted island. Her father takes his meals in his room; their mother ingests laudanum early in the morning and remains in bed until the evening, with bouts of crying when she hasn’t been rendered numb by the tincture.
Encarnación is there in body, but her spirit seems to have flown away, somewhere far off, as if her soul is resting next to Natito’s grave. When Perla watches her, so quiet in the evening, with needle and thread in hand, she sometimes gets the desire to pinch her violently until she screams. To cause a reaction, to make her sister say something other than yes or no. To make her weep, like their mother weeps, because Encarnación doesn’t shed tears, she sits in a corner, darning socks and carefully stitching a shirt while Perla feels she might go mad, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.
In December their father informs the girls that he has arranged for them to spend time in the city with their aunt. The fresh sea air and the atmosphere of the port will lift their spirits.
“There’s a young man there you will meet. Your aunt will see to it,” he tells them.
Perla looks up at her father in surprise. “Who?”
“Norberto Bustillo, Lope Bustillo’s eldest boy. He owns La Ideal. If we joined forces, we’d be unbeatable. The coffee producers that are weathering this economic mess are the ones who are consolidating their businesses. Zardain and Sainz Pardo already merged their operations and restructured their offices, and they’re doing fine.
“It’s time you were married,” he continues. “Without Natito, I’ll have to depend on a son-in-law to manage the business. It will be a distinguished match.”
“Then it’s all been arranged?”
“For the most part. Lope thinks it’s a terrific idea, but Norberto must agree to it. I’m sure he’ll like you.”
Later, they lie in their beds, in the room they’ve shared since they were babies. Encarnación speaks, and her voice is soft and timid in the dark.
“Do you want to be married?” she asks.
“What a silly question. You heard Father, it’s time I married,” Perla says firmly, staring at the ceiling, although her heart has been beating nervously since their father spoke to them that evening.
“I know. I’m wondering what he’ll be like, I suppose. And what it’ll be like if you’re not around the house.”
“I’ll visit often,” Perla promises. “Besides, it’ll be good to see our aunt. We’re getting new dresses, did you hear? And shoes. We haven’t had anything new in ages.”
Everything has been black and gray, prayers for the departed and quiet misery. With their father’s financial troubles and the war, luxuries vanished from their household. No chocolates, or perfumes, or pretty pearls to adorn their earlobes. But the conflict will end soon, everyone says so, and their father’s debts will be paid and the strain on their family eased.
“I’m going to marry a king, and I’ll be a queen. Like Father told us when we were little.”
“I remember,” her sister says. “I’m happy for you.”
Perla smiles and waits, breathless, for the end of 1919 and the beginning of a wonderful new decade.
4
He woke from an uncomfortablesleep, courtesy of a lumpy pillow and a mattress that was likely as much an antique as the furniture in the house. It was a rude awakening. A maid, with a shuffling gait and her hair in a bun, opened the door and set a tray down on a table without any finesse. The loud clattering of silverware and dishes made him think, for a second, that a bomb had fallen over the house and he was going to have to claw himself out of the rubble.
Then the maid departed, wishing him a curt “Good morning,” and he lay staring at the ceiling, his heart still beating fast as he remembered he was in the countryside and shouldn’t be fearing any attacks. The damn air-raid drills had left his nerves shot. Here he didn’t have to think about skirmishes.
The breakfast consisted of a meagerportion of fruit, bread, and coffee. The coffee was good, but he immediately missed the comforts of the city. He fondly remembered his walks to the Hotel Reforma, where he had liked to breakfast at the Blue Terrace before his finances went to hell. Or else he headed to Sidralí for a brioche sandwich with ham and mustard accompanied by an apple-flavored soft drink. He even felt a slight pang of loss for the Café París, which he found too stuffy, the kind of place where so-called intellectuals went to discuss books and poetry and politics.
Afterward, he had planned to slip back into bed, but he got to wondering if they might have a newspaper in the house. Not that he wanted to read about battles and planes and Nazis stomping around Europe, but he felt he should at least take a peek and see what was on the front page, then peruse other sections that were more edifying.
He washed his face, combed his hair, and went downstairs. By the front entrance he found the houseboy, Fito, watering the plants. He asked him if they subscribed to any daily that he might read, and the young man bobbed his head up and down.
“Sure, we get the paper every morning. But Miss Inés takes it to her room. She’d have it.”
“Which one is her room?”