“The odds are good I could, if she marries me.”
“I could help you,” she said, feeling breathless when she spoke.
He smirked. “I work alone.”
“Two is better than one. I know her; I’d come in handy.”
“And what would you want for your help?”
Freedom,she thought.
“We split the money down the middle,” she said. “You’ll need me. You don’t know her. She’s tough. Cándido’s been trying to marry her for ages and she won’t budge. She’s careful with her property, with her money.”
“Really, you’re too much,” he replied, and gave the cigarette a final puff before tossing it in an ashtray. “Get out of my room and let me sleep.”
“I’ll tell her in the morning if you don’t partner up with me.”
He stood up and looked at her, studying her face. “Not if I call her right now and inform her that her niece is a tart who tried to jump intomy bed. I have a feeling she’d believe me. I don’t think your aunt has a high opinion of you.”
He was bluffing, she was sure of it, but still her cheeks grew warm with mortification. She understood, in that moment, that she had a choice. She could run out of the room, shamed and afraid. She could forget about any freedom, about a life outside the walls of the house. She could cross off the days on her calendar and watch the years crawl by.
Or she could be bold.
She chose boldness and slapped him. He stared at her, open-mouthed, unable to utter a word, as if such an injury were inconceivable. Maybe it was. Maybe no one had dared to slap that pretty face before.
“We split the money down the middle. We split the money, or you get nothing.”
He rubbed his cheek and snorted. “Blackmail—”
“It’s not blackmail. It’s common sense. I assure you, you won’t get anywhere without me. Give it a try. You’ll see.”
He said nothing, still rubbing his cheek, quietly seething. She went back to her room with her heart beating fast in her chest.
I’ve gone mad,she thought. She was extremely nervous about what she’d done, half terrified he would speak to Aunt Perla and tell a horrible lie about her and she’d be put out on the street. But she was also glad, even giddy.
She wondered if her mother had felt like this when she ran away from home. And it was that thought that propelled her dreams that night, which were about her dead mother.
First her mother in the city, in front of her sewing machine, or else making dinner for her and her father, who came to visit every few days. The scents of that old apartment, of the flowerpots on the balcony. Then Mother taking her by the hand, walking her through the hallways of the house in Puerco Ahogado, which seemed immense to her young eyes. Her mother feeding the canaries on the patio and singing love songs to them. Sweet memories.
But then came her mother, dead at the foot of the stairs, with her eyes boring into Inés while the girl clutched her doll between her hands.
In the dream, even though her mother had broken her neck, she managed to speak, her tongue wagging inside her mouth. And then her mother’s body was shriveled and decayed, the black tongue poking out through the mouth of a skull. It spoke her name.
Inés woke up with a start. The morning sun was peeking through the curtains of her room. She opened the window, breathing in a mouthful of fresh air.
I must get out of here.
6
She was a bold one.He had to give her that. Damn girl. He cut himself shaving, thinking of her, his fingers clumsy as he dreaded heading down for supper. All morning he’d hidden away in his room, alleging he had a headache when the maid brought him the tray with his breakfast.
How could he have been so careless, so stupid? He should have burned the damn letters, but he’d saved them in case things didn’t work out and he needed to keep running the postal scams. His father would never have committed such a gaffe. His father had been clever. Ulises was an inept shadow of his old man.
As the hours passed, he calmed down. If the girl had spoken to her aunt, he would already have been shoved out the door. Perhaps she was afraid.
There was no sense in hiding from the firingsquad, so he went downstairs at the appointed time and sat down at the table with the Zorrilla sisters and Nepomuceno. Perla and Inés arrived shortly after, and the maid began serving everyone.
The conversation was ordinary. Talk of the weather, the food they were eating. The sisters fondly discussed their childhood while Nepomuceno tried to convince everyone that they might want to have a brandy, but no liquor was served.