The Spanish Daughter(73)
“It’s so bright tonight,” I said. Vinces seemed more alive than any other night, as if the city itself also wore its best garments for the festivities.
“President Baquerizo Moreno has a special fondness for us because of all the cacao we’ve produced,” Angélica said. “We were one of the first towns in the region to have electricity.”
“After producing eighty thousand tons of cacao a year, he ought to be grateful,” Laurent said, surprising me with his insight. It was the first time he’d said anything remotely interesting.
I stared at him as he absently rubbed Angélica’s hand. Maybe his frivolous image was just a fa?ade.
Teatro Olmedo was small but impressive. The auditorium was crammed with red-cushioned seats placed in a semicircle and raised boxes on either side. Cream-colored columns flanked the stage and a pair of carmine velvet curtains descended from an elliptical arch.
The place slowly filled up. I recognized a few faces from Bingo Night. Some greeted me with a nod, but others blatantly ignored me. The chatter around me was mostly in French rather than in Spanish. Apparently, this was the place where the Parisian community gathered.
Minutes before my sisters performed, I found myself in a strange state of nervousness—glancing behind me every so often, drying my hands on my pants. Meanwhile, Laurent was more interested in the people behind us than his wife onstage. As soon as the curtains opened, the room became silent. A sense of pride took over me. Sitting with their instruments under the warm lights, my sisters formed a breathtaking view. Their backs were perfectly straight, their necks elongated and graceful, their heads slightly tilted. They sat with such elegance and poise it was impossible to look elsewhere.
On cue, the two of them started playing. Their strings vibrated in flawless harmony to the sounds of Strauss, Chopin, and Debussy. Halfway through the recital, Catalina stood, holding her violin and performing with such concentration she seemed to have forgotten that half of the town was watching her. I’d never seen her more focused and unrestrained than tonight.
The master of ceremonies, a slender man with an overgrown white mustache that perfectly matched his bow tie and vest, announced that there would be a poetry reading in honor of President Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno, a poet himself. People applauded and cheered the absent president, whom Laurent seemed to have a lot of respect for and branded as a “liberal.”
When the poetry readings began, several audience members started to yawn. I, myself, had a hard time keeping my eyes open, but I was certain that my Cristóbal would’ve enjoyed this evening of arts and culture. My eyes watered. I longed to see him again.
After the recital ended, I met Catalina and Angélica backstage. I congratulated both and candidly hugged them for the first time.
When we arrived at the party, the parlor was already full. Busy waiters in black tuxedos carried trays of appetizers and French wine. Cradling a glass of champagne, I observed the people around me. Flushed and invigorated from the performance, Catalina attempted to talk to a cluster of women who had greeted her with side kisses and forced smiles.
Much like on Bingo Night, Angélica was more comfortable than ever. She thrived among this type of crowd: the elegant, the tall, the beautiful. She always had the right compliment and the perfect anecdote. People swarmed around her, especially men, and Laurent didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he gravitated toward a young man I’d seen that evening at the hacienda and he engaged in a conversation that seemed to be continued from another encounter. I recalled the silence in his bedroom while I hid under the bed and the close distance between the two pairs of shoes. I involuntarily glanced at Laurent’s new slippers.
When I looked up, I met a face I was not expecting to see tonight: Martin’s.
He raised his glass to me and I followed suit. The room turned warmer. He was one of those men who grew more attractive the longer you knew him. To me, he seemed the most striking in the group—not because of his looks, but by the way he carried himself. He moved across the room with a self-assurance that demanded attention. I took a long sip of champagne as he approached me.
But before he could reach me, I sensed a change in the atmosphere. The room became quieter, all laughter ceased. There was a tension I couldn’t quite pinpoint. My first thought was that Don Fernando del Río had arrived, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
At the center of all the glances were Angélica, who’d turned quiet and pale, and another woman, whom I’d never seen before. The first thing I noticed about the other woman was her eyes, the color of honey. She was just as fashionable as my sister in a silver silk frock embroidered with beads and rhinestone and a hat adorned with two feathers. But there were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks.
With a serious demeanor, she walked toward Angélica and extended her hand toward my sister. Without removing her eyes from the strange woman, Angélica accepted the handshake, though it looked like their hands barely touched. Instead of a shake, it was more like a polite squeeze done through their gloves. How different were the handshakes I’d received from men in my Cristóbal persona. They had been firmer and had transmitted a genuine openness that I’d never perceived in women, even in my closest relationships. But first, there had been challenge in the men’s gazes, an assessment of sorts that seemed to end with the truce of the handshake.