“From a pattern, you mean.”
“Not this one, no,” she said, shaking her head and looking at the sketch. “That’s my own design.”
“You’re a seamstress?”
“It’s something I do, once in a while.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said, and his expression of admiration and surprise was genuine.
She clasped her hands together, a tad mortified, and glanced down for a moment before looking up at him again. “I’ve made several things for her. There are no department stores in town. Most women have their clothes made to suit their taste or sew their own garments. I suppose in Mexico City people pick everything off the rack.”
“Sure. They buy dresses at department stores like El Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool.”
“That’s where you bought your jacket?”
“You like it?”
“It’s fine. Slightly too boxy.”
He felt she was judging him again, those dark, deep eyes of hers staring at him fixedly, but he smiled and she smiled back, though she quickly raised a hand against her lips as if to conceal the mirth.
“Who’s coming to that special gathering tonight, do you know?”
“The crème de la crème of Puerco Ahogado,” she said. Her words wereproper and polite, but the sarcasm was clear all the same. He laughed. The sardonic quality of her voice was beginning to grow on him.
“And who would they be?”
“Sarita Novo, my aunt’s best friend. She spent two months in Paris when she was young, and she’ll be sure to remind you of that. Cándido and Lulú Sotomayor are bound to show up. He’s a lawyer, she supposedly suffers from an assortment of maladies: migraines and cholera and any disease she reads about in the paper. There are two policemen in town, Beto and Bartolo. They would not be able to solve a crime even if Valente Quintana assisted them; their job is usually to drag the town drunks to the station when they’re being too boisterous.”
“Who else?” he asked, smiling with delight at the descriptions.
“There’s Dr. Carrel. He was an army surgeon and still misses Victoriano Huerta. Manuela and Eduviges will make an appearance, though they’ll be late because they always bicker about each other’s outfits. And Professor Nepomuceno will be invited too. He’s the only one you can have a conversation with, when he’s not had too much to drink.”
“And you’ll be there, I assume.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, but her voice was subdued. She sat in front of the sewing machine and resumed her work, their talk seemingly at an end.
—
Later, when he went downstairs and the guests began to trail into the living room, Ulises thought Inés could not have provided a more accurate description of the people in attendance if she’d handed him snapshots of them.
They were for the most part a bunch of grotesque marionettes, clucking and sharing gossip with glee. The youngest man in the room was Bartolo, who had not bothered to change out of his police uniform. Perhaps he thought it made him look manly, but although he had to be in his twenties, he had a boyish appearance, with a wisp of a mustache above his lip, so that he looked like a child who had borrowed his father’s clothes.
The other police officer, Beto, seemed to be in his fifties, and he had a tired, indifferent air as he sat with his eyes almost closed next to a Victrola. Dr. Carrel and Nepomuceno were much older, both surely in their seventies, although Nepomuceno seemed to have had rougher years, the telltale flush of his face indicating his proclivities.
Manuela and Eduviges appeared to be their contemporaries, both dressed primly in dresses that reached their ankles, with tortoiseshell combs in their hair, like portraits out of a museum, like something Goya might have painted. Sarita Novo was Perla’s age, fortyish, her face powdered so white she resembled a corpse and her lips painted a sickening shade of red.
Last, but not least, there was Lulú, whose bones seemed to strain against her skin, whose round eyes resembled those of a fish, and who spoke in a voice that sounded like the shrill chirping of a canary. Her brother, Cándido, had the same slightly bulging eyes, but none of her nervous disposition. He sat in his chair, staring at Ulises with a cold, determined gaze.
Inés went around the room, carrying a plate with canapés and dispensing drinks with a mechanical air that made him think she’d served as a waitress at these reunions for many evenings. The dog followed her with a wag of the tail, hoping for crumbs.
As for Perla, once again she wore a dress that flattered her, yet she also used too much rice powder, just like her friend, and continued to style her hair in the most unappealing of fashions, pinned back from her face, showing off her wide forehead.
How strange, he thought, that the aunt and the niece should resemble each other so slightly. Even the ways they moved seemed starkly different. Perla’s perfect posture and careful gestures, the swish of her dress, hinted at extensive lessons in etiquette that had gone stale between the walls of the old house. Meanwhile, the younger woman lacked such refinement; she navigated the room with efficiency, avoiding obstacles, refilling drinks, lacking grace but demonstrating an energetic,determined rhythm that reminded him of a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower.
“The canapés are delicious, Perla. I do love it when you throw these tertulias,” Sarita said. “You know how to be a proper hostess. Many young people don’t understand how to receive guests anymore. They play the radio to entertain their guests. Mr. Linares, when we were younger, Perla and I both took piano classes with Natalia Figueroa. A piano: that is proper entertainment. This is a pleasant tertulia, I tell you, Mr. Linares.”
“You must call me Ulises.”