Hilitos, Hilitos de Oro …
Que manda decir el rey que cuántas hijas teneis
Blanca Estela never thought that she would find herself longing to go to school. She had been relieved when classes had ended at her school, just before she and her mother had embarked on their journey to Revilla. And later, when they first arrived and she had been too scared to go even to Chabela’s store for soda pop, she would have never believed that the day would come when she would wish to join her new friends at their school. Every morning, after breakfast, she would see Mario, Mimi, Evita and Pedro pass by her windows on their way to school while she stayed behind. María Eva had asked Lilia why she didn’t send Blanca Estela to school with the other children, to give her something to do, but Lilia had pointed out that classes would be over in less than a month, which hardly made it worth the trouble for either Blanca Estela or for the teachers who now had to cope with preparations for final exams and assignments.
Thus it was that Blanca Estela waited impatiently on this Friday afternoon for her friends to come home from their classes, so they could all go to Sandra’s birthday party. Rosalía and Doctor Marín had decided to hold the party on Friday, which was Sandra’s birthday, rather than wait for the weekend, because Sandra and Jaime’s parents were expected to arrive either Saturday or Sunday, and their visit would, naturally, keep the grown-ups busy. By four o’clock, then, Blanca Estela was waiting at the front door in the new dress that Mamá Anita had made for her. It was striped in green and white with a ruffle at the hem and little, puffed sleeves. In her hand she held a small package wrapped in pink tissue paper and tied with a white ribbon.
It was a birthday gift for Sandra, a hair bow shaped and colored like a rose, which had survived the journey south in Blanca Estela’s suitcase. June and Linda’s mother had given it to her as a farewell present, but she had never cared much for hair bows.
Shortly after four Mario and Mimi arrived breathlessly next door and called out to Blanca Estela from the sidewalk that they would be ready as soon as they had washed up. Evita followed a few minutes later, and from her own front door across the street, she announced that she would be out again in a short time. After what seemed an eternity, Mario and Mimi emerged from their house. Blanca Estela was surprised to see Mario wearing long khaki trousers, instead of his usual shorts, a starched white shirt, and lace-up shoes which looked recently polished. As he came out the door he looked down at his feet and grimaced, from which Blanca Estela deduced that the shoes were pinching him. Mimi, following him, wore the white shoes which she had worn to church and a smock dress printed with tiny yellow flowers on a brown background. She, too, carried a small package wrapped in tissue paper.
Evita then appeared at her front door, and, since her house lay in the direction towards Doctor Marín’s house, she beckoned to them to join her. They crossed the street and stopped on the sidewalk where Evita stood, pausing before her for a moment, as she obviously expected them to do, to admire her new costume. With a well-developed sense of style, Evita (or perhaps María Eva, her mother, the dressmaker) had opted to wear, not the expected frilly party frock, but a simple navy blue dress with a pleated skirt and a sailor collar, encircled by a red tie. The three stood silently around Evita, feeling that compliments would be pointless when she was so clearly aware of her attractive appearance.
“What are we waiting for?” Mario asked gruffly. “Let’s go, or the party will be over before we get there.”
“There will be a piñata,” Mimi interjected, surprisingly.
“I know,” replied Evita, not to be outdone in having inside information. “Sandra thought that she was too old for a piñata, but the Doctor insisted on it because they also invited little children. Jaime did not like that. What are you giving her?”
Mario stopped to retie his shoe and did not answer, and Mimi said vaguely, “A bar of scented soap.”
“Oh,” said Evita, dismissively, and turned to ask Blanca Estela, “What about you? Did you get her something from across the river?”
Blanca Estela had noticed Mario’s embarrassment and Evita’s offhanded reaction to Mimi’s reply. She now felt that it would be a good thing for Evita to be snubbed, at least this time. She shrugged and answered with all the self-assurance she could muster, “I think Sandra should be the first to know what I am giving her.”
“Oh,” said Evita, this time sounding somewhat deflated. But after a moment, she added, “You are probably right. I was going to tell you what I have inside this box, but now I will give it to Sandra without telling anyone what is inside it.”
Until that moment, Blanca Estela had felt no curiosity about the contents of the small box wrapped in silver paper that Evita carried in her hand, but now she suddenly regretted the moral victory she had achieved over her. To disguise her chagrin she turned to look behind them and asked nonchalantly, “Isn’t Pedro coming, too? Wasn’t he invited?”
“He had to go straight home from school,” replied Mario. “He has to help his father with milking the cows.”
“Doesn’t he have other brothers to help, too?”
“He has two little brothers, but they’re too small to help.”
“When is your uncle coming back? He didn’t stay very long last week,” Evita interposed, feeling that they had discussed Pedro long enough.
“My uncle Raúl had to go back to work. He’s building a road,” Blanca Estela responded, trying to keep from showing how proud she felt to have a handsome and important uncle.
“My mother says that your three uncles were all very good looking,” Evita said, as if she were imparting information that Blanca Estela could not have known otherwise. “It was a disappointment,” she continued, “to the girls of Revilla when your uncles went away to study and married girls from the city. There are so few good matches for the girls here.” She looked very seriously as she said this, but then she brightened up, adding, “Of course, your uncle Raúl is still a bachelor. It’s too bad that my sister, Cristina, got tired of waiting and got married, though.”
This last statement puzzled Blanca Estela. Was Evita suggesting that her sister, Cristina, had once contemplated marrying the idolized uncle that she, herself, had only recently got to know? She felt unreasonably angry and disappointed. She wanted her uncle to be her own, unique discovery.
Fortunately she was distracted from any more disquieting thoughts by their arrival at the Doctor’s house. The heavy double doors stood open, and on the threshold they joined a woman who had two young children—a boy and a girl—attached to each of her hands. As they all entered, Blanca Estela looked around, full of curiosity, to see what the Doctor and Rosalía’s house was like.
The house was laid out much like Mamá Anita’s and the majority of the other big houses in Revilla. From the entryway, one stepped into a covered entrance that led directly to the patio. On one side, to her right, was the Doctor’s office, or more precisely, the waiting room, since his office was beyond the waiting room. An old man and a woman with a young child in her arms waited there, sitting silently in dark armchairs. To Blanca Estela’s left was the parlor. As she walked past the parlor door, she had a brief glimpse of a long sofa and several chairs covered in crimson cloth and of a low table with curving legs of dark wood and a white marble top, crowned with a large bouquet of wax flowers.
She could not see any more of the parlor because the shutters were half closed, leaving the room almost in darkness. Also, there was a young woman standing at the door, partially blocking it, while she kept the guests moving in the direction of the patio. Blanca Estela thought at first that it was Rosalía who stood there, but a closer look showed her that this was a taller, thinner and younger woman. Otherwise, the resemblance was great: the same fair skin and blue eyes, although the young woman’s hair was a pale gold and stood around her head like the halo of an angel, whereas Rosalía’s darker waves submitted to a more disciplined arrangement.
“Good afternoon, Perla,” Evita said, addressing the young woman. She, in turn, smiled at Evita and then broadened her smile to include all the group then entering. It was a particularly encouraging smile, like that of a brisk teacher or nurse, and it kept them moving in the correct direction, but not before Blanca Estela had had the opportunity to look closely at her face and notice a small gap between the two upper front teeth, and a sprinkling of tiny freckles across her otherwise perfect nose. Blanca Estela felt reassured that the angel was human.
“Perla is Rosalía’s youngest sister,” Evita explained to Blanca Estela.
That explained the resemblance.
In the middle of the patio, milling about, and only occasionally pushing or pinching each other, there were some twenty children of various sizes. Sandra, the guest of honor, stood surrounded by several girls who wanted a look at the gold chain and heart-shaped locket that she wore around her neck and which had been her aunt and uncle’s birthday gift to her. Jaime stood by himself at a distance from the group, feeling, no doubt, older and far more sophisticated than they. Only one girl, who seemed to be about his age, dared to approach him and tried to engage him in conversation, but he rebuffed her attempts.
Blanca Estela was surprised to see Leopoldo in the midst of the commotion, trying to suspend a piñata from a wire that stretched from one wall to a long pole stuck into the ground in the middle of the patio. Then she remembered that he was Rosalía’s brother and, therefore, Sandra’s uncle. Leopoldo was dark where his sisters were fair, but on his face was the same bright, cheerful smile that Blanca Estela had just seen on Perla. Leopoldo was undoubtedly handsome, but, comparing uncle to uncle, Blanca Estela thought that she came out ahead of Sandra. Her own uncle was even more handsome and charming than Sandra’s uncle, Leopoldo. She wondered, though, if her own father had been with her, would she have had any attention to spare for uncles?
Rosalía came out of the house then, through what appeared to be the door to the dining room. A long table had been set just outside this room, in the patio. It was covered with an embroidered tablecloth, and on top of it, Rosalía and another woman began setting platters full of cookies and several pitchers of lemonade. Finally, there came a large white cake under a glass dome. The children began edging closer to the table.
Rosalía noticed this and called out in her high, sweet voice, “First the piñata, children. First break the piñata. Leopoldo, is the piñata ready?”
“It’s ready,” he replied, descending from a stepladder. “Sandra, it’s in your honor. You go first.”
“I am too old for breaking a piñata, Uncle,” she responded, grimacing with embarrassment.
“Nonsense, you’re never too old for a piñata. Let me blindfold you. I’ll pull up the piñata quite high, so don’t think that you’ll have an easy time breaking it,” her uncle told her as he turned her around three times before putting a stick in her hand. After doing that, he ran to pull up the cord from which the piñata hung. The piñata was circular in shape with a center made of clay and little cardboard spikes surrounding it to represent the rays of the sun. It was all covered in a fringe of white and gold tissue paper and had a painted smiling face which seemed to tease them all as it bobbed up and down above their heads, always out of reach.
Sandra swung her stick three times, each time finding only air because her uncle would pull quickly on the rope. The younger children howled every time she swung, some afraid of the crash that would follow the impact, but many out of frustration, fearing that they would miss their own chance at breaking the piñata. The rest of the older children (except for Jaime and the girl who had finally gotten his attention) followed Sandra, also failing to make even a dent in the clay face, or even the cardboard spikes.
Blanca Estela, who had wondered how all those children could miss hitting the piñata when it was so close to them, got to experience the complete disorientation of being blindfolded and then turned around several times. She heard the whoosh of the air around her stick as she struck out repeatedly and felt quite humbled as she took off the blindfold.
As the children lining up for the piñata got smaller, the piñata got lower, and the excitement rose higher. Finally, the last child was allowed to strike the clay center until he had cracked it. Candy began spilling out of the piñata’s belly, and Leopoldo rushed to remove the stick from the child’s hands to prevent him from cracking any skulls with it, as well. This was always the trickiest part, when the child who had broken the piñata, still blindfolded, continued to swing the stick, unaware that the other children were scrambling around him to gather the candy that spewed out.
Blanca Estela hesitated before joining the melee, but she saw Mimi and Mario dive into the crowd and scramble around on their hands and knees, scooping up little cloth pouches tied with ribbon. In the midst of the mayhem she also saw Evita, the sailor collar of her dress askew, jumping and whooping triumphantly as she clutched a handful of the candy-filled pouches. Then Blanca Estela, too, dropped to her knees and snatched away a little green sack from a small boy, who was in the act of picking it up. He let out a howl of outrage, but she ran away, still holding on to her prize.
At that moment Rosalía and Perla began clapping their hands, calling out, “Children, children, it is time to cut the cake. Line up in a single file. Sandra, come here and blow out the candles.”
There was some quick shuffling while the children lined up, and Sandra, disheveled from the tussle like the others, approached the refreshment table. Rosalía put a match to the little pink candles which sprouted out of the white frosted top of the cake. Perla told Sandra to wish for something, and Sandra closed her eyes and held her breath for one dramatic moment while all the guests looked at her expectantly. She then opened her eyes, expelling her breath at the same time and blowing out all the candles at once. Polite applause followed while everyone waited eagerly for her to make the first cut in the cake.
After Sandra had cut the first slice, Rosalía took over, slicing quickly, and uniformly, which relieved the collective anxiety that there would not be enough cake to go around for all. Blanca Estela, who stood midway down the line, soon found herself receiving a slice of cake in a paper napkin from Rosalía. Perla, standing next to her sister, then nudged Blanca Estela towards the end of the table, which held the paper cups filled with lemonade and several platters of cookies.
Blanca Estela, her hands overflowing with cookies, cake and lemonade, walked towards a group which contained Sandra, Mimi and Evita, and joined them as they sat on a blanket, which had been spread on the ground. Sandra was telling the others that her parents and her little brothers were expected to arrive within the next day or two and that they, too, would bring her presents.
“What did you get today? Show us your presents,” said a girl whom Blanca Estela had never seen before.
Sandra squirmed uncomfortably and answered evasively, “I don’t know. I haven’t opened them all yet. My aunt says I should wait until... until later.”
“Why?” the girl insisted.
Sandra seemed at a loss for an answer, and Evita gave an audible sigh and looked witheringly at the girl. “It’s so nobody will be embarrassed,” she said in her high, clear voice. “In case somebody didn’t give Sandra a good present.”
Blanca Estela was amazed at Evita’s great perception and store of knowledge about social conduct in Revilla. People’s behavior here was obviously as subtle as the nuances found in the shades of color, as she had learned from playing the game about Doña Inés.
Perla approached them, saying briskly, “Children, if you have finished eating, there is time for some games. Nothing too rowdy because the doctor is still seeing patients in his office, and we can’t disturb him or the patients. How about singing some rondas? Do you know Mambrú se fue a la guerra?”
Blanca Estela felt something tighten at her throat. She did not want to hear the song about Mambrú going to war and never coming back. She was therefore relieved to hear Sandra say, in the pouting voice that she usually found annoying, “No, Aunt Perla, I’m tired of Mambrú. Let’s sing Hilitos de Oro.” She turned to Evita for support. “You know Hilitos de Oro, don’t you? It’s the one about the king who wanted to marry one of the golden-haired daughters of the poor man.”
“I like that one,” said Evita, jumping to her feet. “It’s so romantic! The daughters are just like your mother and your aunts. Do you think Doctor Marín is like the king? No, perhaps he is not rich enough. But maybe a king will some day ask for your hand in marriage, Sandra. It’s too bad, though, that you don’t have golden hair, like Perla. She looks like the picture of the guardian angel that my mother hung over my bed. Still,” Evita concluded kindly, touching her fingertips to Sandra’s hair, “your hair is a pretty golden brown, almost like golden threads.”
Sandra looked pleased at Evita’s qualified compliment. “All right,” she said, “let’s play Hilitos de Oro. Form a group to sing the king’s role. Who wants to play the king?”
“I would rather sing the part of the poor man,” responded Mario, who had come up to stand behind Blanca Estela.
She turned to him, whispering, “I don’t know this game.”
“It’s easy,” he answered. “It’s just like Matarilerilerón. One group walks towards the other, singing that the king wants to know how many daughters the man has. He is a poor man but very proud, so he answers that it’s none of the king’s business how many daughters he has. The king’s people say that they have been offended, and they’re going home. And then the poor man and his family say they didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, and to go ahead and choose a daughter for a wife, and the king chooses one, the youngest daughter, I think. Stay with me, and you will catch on quickly.”
They formed two groups, and Blanca Estela joined hands with Mario on one side and Mimi on the other. They were part of the poor man’s family who got to tell the king to mind his own business. Evita, without having to think very much about it, joined the king’s entourage. Sandra, after some consideration, concluded that she was meant to be the daughter who would be chosen by the king, and she had to link hands with Mario, who played her father, the poor but proud man.
Blanca Estela’s group strolled towards the other as it sang its verses, Blanca Estela merely mouthing the words, since she was afraid of making a mistake. Blanca Estela’s line then retreated to await the approach of the second team with its answer. When the king and his messengers finally announced that he would choose the youngest daughter, the one like a “newborn flower,” Mario led Sandra by the hand to join the king’s group, and they all applauded in recognition that Sandra was being honored through this game.
The doctor came out of his office, having finished with his last patient, and asked for lemonade. Rosalía brought him a fresh glass from the kitchen, and he wandered among the guests for a few minutes until several women stopped by the party to collect the youngest children. He was still chatting with the new arrivals when Blanca Estela, Evita, Mimi and Mario joined the stream of guests that was now steadily trickling out of the double doors, calling out their thanks and best wishes to Sandra.
As they walked home, the sun was putting on a final display of crimson and gold finery in the western sky before sinking behind the horizon. This was the time when they usually came out to play, but this evening they felt neither hungry for supper nor eager for more games. Evita was the first to arrive home, then Mimi and Mario, across the street and two doors down, and finally, Blanca Estela. When she crossed the threshold of her own house, she could hear Mamá Anita and Lilia conversing at the dining table. She called out that she was home, and Lilia asked her to join them.
“Do you want some supper, Estelita?”
She shook her head. The only thing she wanted was to take off her shoes that were beginning to rub against her heels. Either her feet had grown, or she had gotten out of the habit of wearing party shoes. In her hand she still had the little cloth bag filled with candy.
“Look what I brought you,” she said to both her mother and her grandmother.
Lilia burst out laughing, “Thank you, my love, but I think I’m past the age for eating candy from a piñata. We’ll save it for tomorrow, and you can eat it then. You look hot. Take off your dress and put on your nightgown... and your shoes, too. You look as if they pinched you. Did you enjoy yourself at the piñata? Tell us about it. “
“We had cake with white frosting, and we played Hilitos de Oro.”
Lilia frowned, perplexed, “I don’t think I remember that game.”
“It’s about the king wanting to marry the golden-haired daughter. Evita thinks that maybe someday a king will ask Sandra to marry him, but if I were the king, I would marry Perla instead. Her hair is like little golden threads, and it stands up around her head like the halo of the guardian angel.”
“I think this child is rambling,” Mamá Anita interposed. “Either she’s falling asleep, or she got sunstroke. Let’s get her to bed.”
She did not protest.
The following day, which was Saturday, Mario came for Blanca Estela at four o’clock, after she had had her merienda of milk and bread, to go to church for Catechism class. Blanca Estela and Mario were both part of the class being prepared by Father Mirabal to receive Holy Communion. On the way to church, they stopped at Chabela’s store, where Evita, Mimi and Pedro had congregated in the doorway after buying chewing gum. Those three had already made their First Communion the year before and felt slightly superior to the two who had not.
Neither Mario nor Blanca Estela felt great urgency to spend the next hour being drilled on the Ten Commandments by Father Mirabal and welcomed every opportunityto dawdle on their way to church. Comparing the movie star cards that came with the chewing gum was one way to postpone the religion class. They were just craning their necks to see the cards that Pedro held in his hand, when the unexpected and unusual sound of a car engine distracted them. They all looked up in amazement as a large car, cream colored and shiny with chrome, glided past them and came to a stop in the middle of the next block, in front of the doctor’s house.
“What a beautiful car!” Mario exclaimed. “The engine is so quiet, but you can tell it’s powerful. One of those V-8 engines,” he added, reverently.
“Yes, but who is it?” Evita interrupted, impatiently.
The doors of the car opened, and two men came out from the front seat. As the driver got out he turned to open the door to the back seat, behind him. They could see that he was a tall, thin man who held himself very straight and wore a light gray suit. The other man was heavier and shorter, but they could not see him clearly because he was stooping down, as if getting something from the back seat. A little boy of three or four came out of the door which the driver had opened, while from the opposite side there emerged a woman with a child in her arms. The heavyset man helped her out of the car and up the sidewalk. She was small in height and a little plump, although they could not distinguish her features clearly from the distance of half a block, they could see the short, golden hair done in frizzy curls.
“I bet those are Sandra’s parents,” Evita said.
“But there are two men there,” pointed out Mario. “Which one is the father?”
“Well, it must be the man holding the mother’s arm. I think I remember him from the last time they were here... about two years ago,” replied Evita.
“Then, who is the other one?” whispered Mimi.
“I... don’t know,” Evita admitted, “but I’ll find out.”
At this point, Mamá Anita came out of the house for some reason, perhaps responding to a presentiment that Blanca Estela and Mario had not made great progress on the way to Catechism class. Seeing them still standing outside the store, she raised her voice, “Blanca Estela, Mario, what are you doing? You are late already. Father Mirabal is going to scold you. Stop gawking and hurry up.”
Blanca Estela and Mario broke away from the others, running lightly on the hot sidewalks that burned their bare feet. As they ran past Doctor Marín’s house, they hoped to get a better view of the visitors, but the doors were just closing after them as Blanca Estela and Mario paused, for a moment, to gaze at the visitors from across the street.
On the following day, Sunday Mass had already started when Rosalía arrived in church, her high heels clicking intermittently on the tile floor as she vainly tried to tiptoe in silently. She was followed by her sister, Aurora, who led a young boy by the hand while Sandra flanked her on the other side. At the end, walking calmly but purposefully, came Perla carrying a little boy, between one and two, in her arms. The other parishioners turned to look at them, smiling, and greeted them with little nods of recognition.
Blanca Estela, who had been contemplating the wood carvings of the Stations of the Cross that adorned the top of the columns which lined the nave of the church, now turned her attention to the arriving women. The three were very much alike but also different from each other. Each one had hair of a different shade of gold, from the darkest of Rosalía’s to the palest of Perla’s. Perla was also the tallest and the most slender, as perhaps befitted the youngest. Aurora, Sandra’s mother and the middle sister, was the smallest and the plumpest. Their demeanors and expressions were also varied. Rosalía had a sweetness tinged with sadness. Perla seemed so enveloped in serenity that you expected to find her dreamy and abstracted and instead, you were surprised by her competent matter-of-factness. Aurora’s lips turned down at the corners, and little furrows marked her forehead, giving her a worried and discontented air.
Throughout the Mass the older of the boys beat a staccato with his feet against the pew, oblivious to his mother’s whispered protests. Finally, his young brother burst out crying, out of either aggravation at his brother or frustration at not being able to also kick the pew. The three sisters then left hurriedly, just after Communion, leaving behind them the echo of two wailing children, and were followed by an embarrassed-looking Sandra.
After the Mass, Mamá Anita, Lilia and Blanca Estela paused in the atrium to chat with María Eva and Evita. “It’s too bad that Aurora’s children could not behave during Mass,” said Mamá Anita without preamble.
“Yes, everybody was hoping to talk to Aurora after Mass,” María Eva agreed. “She’s looking tired. It’s those two youngest children, so close together. She had a difficult time with the last birth.”
“I wonder why Doctor Marín didn’t come to Mass with them. Well, I suppose he had to stay at home to entertain his brother-in-law. Blanca Estela said they brought a guest with them, too,” Lilia remarked.
“He’s a friend or a business partner of Aurora’s husband,” María Eva said. “He’s the owner of the car. I don’t know why they came with him. Ramón, Aurora’s husband, has his own automobile, but probably not as big or as elegant as this one. I have a feeling that the man really came for the dance. The Ladies’ Club is having the annual ball next Saturday, remember? I have been making Rosalía’s and Perla’s ball dresses. Rosalía’s is a very pretty lavender silk, but you should see Perla’s. It’s a sapphire blue taffeta. It will look beautiful on her. Actually, Rosalía picked out the fabric for her because Perla, as pretty as she is, is just not interested in clothes or cosmetics. She prefers helping the doctor with his patients, especially the children. As a matter of fact, when Aurora had her last child, and she was left so weak, Perla went to Mexico City to stay with her and looked after the three-year old, and even the baby. She stayed with them for about two months. We all wondered if she would meet somebody in the capital and get engaged there. She’s already twenty,” María Eva concluded her long commentary with a sigh.
“The man’s name is Enrique Alemán, and he came to Revilla to dance at the ball with Perla,” Evita said with the air of a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
“How do you learn these things?” María Eva exclaimed and then answered herself. “I suppose it’s the girls in the workshop. They like to pass on gossip, and this child is always listening.”
“It’s time that we went home to dinner,” Mamá Anita said, squinting to look at the clock on the municipal building across the plaza. “Are you coming, María Eva?”
“No, Doña Anita, I have to stay and talk to Father Mirabal about some tablecloths for the altar. Evita, do you want to go ahead with them?”
Evita shook her head.
“She hopes that Father Mirabal will give her candy, as he sometimes does,” María Eva explained.
“Mamá, perhaps I should stay to talk with Father Mirabal also, to see how Estelita is doing in Catechism class,” Lilia said, hesitantly.
“Mamá, I’m hungry,” Blanca Estela wailed in alarm. She did not want her lackluster progress in Catechism to be revealed in conversation with Father Mirabal. And, to Blanca Estela’s relief, they went home to dinner.
Late Monday afternoon Leopoldo paid them a short visit. Blanca Estela went to answer the knocking at the door and found him rooting through a small metal ice chest in the back of his Jeep. He took out a paper-wrapped package from it, which he carried into the house. Mamá Anita came to meet him at the entrance, drying her hands on her apron.
“Good afternoon, Doña Anita,” he said. “I hope you are well. Rosalía sends you a little something. It’s some ice cream and cake. Yesterday afternoon she had a merienda, just for the family, to celebrate the visit of my sister Aurora and her family.”
“Come in, Leopoldo. It is very kind of Rosalía to think of us. My granddaughter will enjoy eating ice cream. We don’t have it here. And since we don’t have a refrigerator, we’ll have to eat it before it melts. Blanca Estela, take this to your mother and tell her to serve it in the little crystal bowls. You will join us, Leopoldo.”
“Thank you, Doña Anita. I will stay for a little while, but I won’t eat anything. I had a very late dinner.”
Mamá Anita led the way across the patio and through the door into the kitchen, where Blanca Estela was already unwrapping the small container of ice cream. Lilia had set the large wedge of chocolate-covered cake in a porcelain plate. She smiled at Leopoldo as he came in, pushing her hair away from her face with a nervous hand.
“Good afternoon, Leopoldo,” she said. “You have brought us our merienda. Come and join us.”
“Thank you, Lilia, but I just ate.”
“You’ll take some coffee, then.”
“Thank you, that I’ll do.”
Lilia quickly poured him a cup of coffee and put the sugar bowl and a small pitcher of milk in front of him. She then began scooping vanilla ice cream into two delicate cut-crystal bowls. She passed one to Blanca Estela and the other to Mamá Anita, who pushed it away, gently saying, “You have the ice cream, Lilia. I don’t like to eat very cold things. But hurry, before it melts.”
Blanca Estela spooned the sweet, rich cream into her mouth greedily. She had almost forgotten how delicious it was. When she had finished, she looked longingly at what still remained in the ice cream container. Perhaps her mother wanted another serving, and Mamá Anita had not eaten any yet.
Lilia interpreted her look correctly and said, “Why don’t you finish the ice cream, Estelita? Your grandmother doesn’t want any, and neither do I.”
Blanca Estela served herself again and went back to savoring the ice cream, but more sedately this time. As she finished the last of it, she looked up at Leopoldo, sitting across the table. He was smiling at her. She had not noticed how gentle his brown eyes were.
Lilia was slicing the wedge of cake. She cut four slices, distributed them into four small plates and asked, “Leopoldo, won’t you have just a little cake with your coffee?”
Leopoldo did not answer at once, but he turned to gaze at Lilia with an expression that Blanca Estela could not fathom. Lilia held his look for a moment and then blushed and dropped her eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “I will have some cake.”
Mamá Anita, who had been unusually silent, now cleared her throat and reached for the plate in front of Lilia, saying, “Here, Lilia, let me pass that plate to Leopoldo.” After putting the cake in front of him, she continued, “Now, tell me, how is Aurora? I did not have the opportunity to talk to her after Mass. Are they staying long?”
“Aurora is well, but those two younger children wear her out. She and her family will be staying for at least a week. My brother-in-law brought a friend with him, too. They’re business partners in a store that sells electrical appliances. Ramón, my brother-in-law, and his partner left this morning for Monterrey on business. They will be back in a few days. Aurora and the children are staying with Rosalía. Last night they stayed with us, but my parents are old now, and those two young children were too much for them, although Perla is very good at handling them.”
“Where did the guest stay?” Mamá Anita asked.
“With Rosalía and the doctor. That’s why Aurora and the children stayed with us last night, so it would not be such a burden on Rosalía to put up that many people.”
“Are they all going to the ball next Saturday?” Lilia asked Leopoldo, still a little flustered.
“I think so,” he answered, keeping his eyes on her. “At least I heard Aurora and Rosalía talking about ball dresses.”
“Are you going to the ball, too?” Blanca Estela asked him and received a fulminating look from her grandmother, which meant that she was not supposed to take part in this conversation.
“I don’t know,” he answered, laughing softly. “I am not a very good dancer, but my sisters will probably insist that I go, even if only to dance with them. You remember, Lilia, how I used to step on your feet when I would dance with you? And you danced so well.”
Lilia pushed the cake crumbs around her plate with her fork without looking at Leopoldo, but Blanca Estela noticed her mother’s face turning very becomingly rosy, as if she had put on rouge. Mamá Anita cleared her throat again, and Leopoldo came out of the trance into which he seemed to have fallen as he looked at Lilia.
“I must go now,” he said. “Aurora is waiting for some milk which I bought across the river. Her children don’t like the milk straight out of the cow; it has to come from a bottle. If you ever need anything from the other side, just let me know.”
“Yes Leopoldo, thank you for offering,” Mamá Anita said, shepherding him out of the room as Lilia began to clear the table.
Blanca Estela was left sitting at the table, trying to remember the conversations she had overheard about her mother’s friendship with Leopoldo. What was it she had heard? Something about Leopoldo being sweet on Lilia before she had gotten married. Blanca Estela thought that Leopoldo still looked “sweet” when he looked at Lilia. If he had married Lilia, Leopoldo would be her father. If he married her now, he would still be very nice as a father. But then Lilia would pay lots of attention to him. A sense of disquiet stirred in her. She did not want her lovely, wonderful mother paying attention to somebody else, just to her.
“Blanca Estela, what is the matter with you? You look as if you had been struck silly, with that spoon in your mouth. Come and help me wash these dishes,” Lilia said, speaking to her more sharply than was her custom.
Blanca Estela felt hurt that her mother had scolded her, just when she was thinking how much she loved her. But then she told herself that there was no sense in worrying about things that might never happen.
On Saturday they had a very happy surprise. At about eleven o’clock Raúl arrived, unannounced. Blanca Estela was returning from the store with a kilo of tomatoes when she saw the pickup truck driving towards her and then stop in front of the house. She ran to meet him as he was getting out of the cab. When he saw her, he gave her a hug that lifted her off the ground and squashed the tomatoes against his chest. When he put her down, she ran inside the house, shouting, “Mamá, Mamá Anita, look who’s here.”
Both women came out of the kitchen, hurrying apprehensively and wiping their hands on their aprons. When they saw who it was, they broke out in smiles. They, too, were soon engulfed in his embraces. When she was able to speak, Mamá Anita told him to unload his suitcase and wash up because dinner would be ready at twelve, and he had better eat with them or she would be angry with him. Raúl laughed and said that even now, when he was at least twice as large as she was, his Mamita still struck fear in him when she scolded him and that of course he would eat with them.
While they were eating their dinner of stewed meat, beans in soup and guacamole with fresh corn tortillas, Raúl teased and joked with them. “You know, Mamita, I’m going to take you to a big city and open a restaurant where you will cook. Your carne guisada is the best I have eaten anywhere in the country.”
Mamá Anita waved away his comments and told him not to be silly, that she only cooked for her family.
“Tell me, what exciting things have been happening in Revilla? What are people talking about?”
Lilia told Raúl about the arrival of Aurora and her family and about the Ladies’ Club annual ball, which would be held that very evening. “Will you be going? Is that why you came today?” she asked.
“No, little sister,” he answered, laughing. “I did not have the vaguest idea about the ball. I remember now that they always have it in the summer, but I haven’t been to one in years. Besides, I did not bring a suit.”
“You still have several suits here,” Mamá Anita informed him. “I always keep them clean and pressed. All I have to do is air them out to get rid of the camphor smell. You haven’t gained weight since you had the suits made, after you graduated from the university. I think you have lost weight,” she added, accusingly.
“If I say that it is because I haven’t been eating your cooking, you will insist that I move back home. You have me trapped,” he responded, still joking. “There is no reason for me to go to the ball,” he added, more seriously. “All the girls I used to know and dance with are already married and have children. Who would I dance with? In the old days I could always dance with my baby sister, but now...”
Blanca Estela finally asked the question that had been troubling her. “Mamá, why can’t you go to the ball? You would have two dancing partners—Uncle Raúl and Leopoldo.”
Lilia blushed and looked at her plate while Mamá Anita turned to look at Blanca Estela with a shocked expression. Raúl put out a hand and touched her cheek very gently, without saying anything.
Finally Lilia, after taking a sip of lemonade, addressed her very quietly. “Estelita, I am in mourning... for your father. It is not proper—and I do not want to—go out to dances and parties. You see, I am sad, still sad, that he is... gone. That is why I wear black clothes.”
“But then, I...” she stammered, “I am sad, too... because of Papá. But you do not make me wear black clothes?”
“No, children don’t—shouldn’t—wear black clothes. Children should be happy. I want you to be happy. Your father would wish you to be happy. But grown-ups are different.”
“How long will you wear black clothes and not go to parties?”
“Oh, about a year, or whenever I feel that I am ready to enjoy those things again.”
Blanca Estela fell silent. It was all very complicated. Whenever she remembered that her father was dead, she did feel sad, although she did not remember him very well. Other times she did not think of him at all, and she laughed and played quite happily then. Was this wrong? Her mother did not seem to think so.
Blanca Estela asked another question: “If I don’t have to wear black clothes, can I go to the ball?”
Lilia and Raúl burst out laughing.
“Estelita,” said Lilia, “you’re not old enough to go to dances. Who would be there for you to dance with? Little boys don’t go dancing. These are grownup parties.”
She felt so dejected and looked so crestfallen that Raúl hastened to comfort her with a proposal. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Tonight, when the ball starts, we’ll drive in the truck to the plaza, and from there you will be able to see the guests as they arrive at the Hotel Cañamar. That’s where the ball will be, isn’t that right, Lili?”
“Oh yes, that’s where the balls are always held.”
That afternoon, in spite of Raúl’s protests that he had no intention of going to any dance, Mamá Anita took Raúl’s dark suit from the wardrobe to air it out and ironed a fresh white shirt for him. She also found a tie for him in a drawer of the bedroom chest. It might have been an old tie of Raúl’s or one of his brothers’, but she declared that it would do very well, in any case.
Across the street, in María Eva’s workshop, activity was also at a high pitch as women came to pick up party dresses that were just being finished. Even Evita was kept busy snipping loose threads and checking buttons and decorations. Blanca Estela, walking into the workshop at sunset, found Evita picking up pins and sticking them into a large pincushion. María Eva and her two workwomen were covering up the sewing machines as they finished the day. Evita had a serious and self-important air, and Blanca Estela, wanting to impress her, told her that her uncle was taking her in his truck to watch the arrivals at the ball. Evita was instantly alert and asked without preamble if she could go, too. Blanca Estela regretted her boasting then, but, having no alternative except to be unusually rude, said yes, of course.
When she left the workshop, she saw Mario and Mimi standing outside their house. Their father and older brother, who still intimidated her for some reason, were just getting into their old truck. She waited until they had driven away and then crossed the street to talk to her friends. “The Ladies’ Club Ball is tonight,” she announced to them.
“We know,” Mario said. “That’s why we are having electrical light tonight until two in the morning, instead of midnight. The ballroom will be ablaze with lights,” he added, wistfully.
“Would you like to come with me to see how it looks?” she asked him. “My uncle is taking me to the plaza to look at the guests. Evita is going too. We’re going in his truck.”
“Sure,” Mimi and Mario answered in unison.
Blanca Estela could barely eat her supper that evening. She wanted it to be dark, so her uncle would take her to the plaza to watch the arrivals at the dance. Her uncle kept teasing her, telling her that people wouldn’t arrive at the Hotel Cañamar until nearly midnight.
“But the lights will go out at two in the morning,” she cried out in disappointment. “It will be a very short ball. Mario told me about the lights, and he knows because his father and his big brother run the turbine for electricity.”
At eight o’clock, soon after the electric street lights came on, they left for the plaza, Blanca Estela and Evita riding in the cab with Raúl, and Mimi and Mario in the back of the pickup. Raúl drove to the plaza and parked the truck facing away from the church, which stood dark and empty this evening, its doors already shut. Blanca Estela and Evita got out of the cab and climbed in the back with the other two, the better to watch the hotel. They faced the municipal building, which was also dark, except for the illuminated face of the clock. A few yards away from the Municipal Palace, the Hotel Cañamar blazed with lights, as Mario had predicted.
The hotel was a two-story building with a row of balconies in the upper floors, which were guarded by iron balustrades turned and shaped as delicately as filigree. The ballroom was upstairs, Evita explained to Blanca Estela, and it had floors of such highly polished wood that they reflected the light. She had been to several wedding receptions there and could attest to that fact from personal experience. From the ceiling beams there hung crystal chandeliers that sparkled like diamonds, and the staircase that led upstairs curved up most elegantly.
What was downstairs, Blanca Estela wanted to know. There were some guestrooms and a restaurant, they told her, but the hotel was mostly closed nowadays. The owners only opened it for great occasions, like tonight’s ball and large weddings. They would be serving refreshments downstairs, in the restaurant, while the dancing went on upstairs.
“Look,” cried Mario, “the musicians have arrived.”
A bus had pulled up in front of the hotel, and some twelve or fifteen men got out of it, balancing instrument cases, and hurried inside.
“They also have a piano in the ballroom,” Evita commented. “One of those big black ones with a tail.”
Raúl got out of the cab and came to stand next to the bed of the truck. “We’re taller than you are, Uncle,” Blanca Estela teased him fondly, looking down at Raúl from her elevated platform.
“Indeed you are,” he answered good naturedly. “You will have a better view of the ball. Tell me what you see.”
Cars began arriving and parked first around the plaza and later along the side streets leading to it. They mostly carried women, who looked transformed this evening in their silk and chiffon dresses the color of gemstones and in soft pastels. Many of the men, especially the young ones, arrived on foot, looking hot and uncomfortable in their dark suits, for even after the sun had gone down, the temperature was still very warm.
Two automobiles drove up, one after the other, to the hotel entrance. The front one belonged to the doctor, who was the driver. Rosalía got out of the front seat, while from the back emerged Perla in the sapphire-colored gown described earlier by María Eva. Even from a distance the girl looked beautiful, tall and slender, the gold of her hair contrasting with the blue of the dress and—no doubt—of her eyes, also. A collective “Aahh!” escaped from the lips of Evita, Mimi and Blanca Estela. Leopoldo then followed Perla in getting out of the back seat of the car.
The second car, the cream-colored late model Ford that had so impressed Mario, contained its owner and driver, the tall visitor with the elegantly clipped mustache, and Aurora’s husband, who held the back door open, so his wife could get out. Aurora was also in blue, but a pale celeste—as Blanca Estela had learned it was called—draped tightly around her like the dresses of the movie stars. No doubt her gown had come from Mexico City. Following Aurora came Sandra in a pink dress of what looked like organdy.
Blanca Estela and Evita were taken aback with surprise and chagrin.
“Why did she get to come to the ball? I thought it was only for grown-ups,” Blanca Estela asked her uncle.
“I’m sure they made an exception for some reason,” he answered, trying to pacify her.
“Well, they are leaving tomorrow or Monday,” Mimi volunteered.
“That’s true,” Evita agreed and, after some consideration, added, “and she is older than we are, so maybe they’re trying to teach her how to behave at a ball. Of course, she is not going to dance; she will just watch.”
After escorting his sister into the ballroom, Leopoldo came out of the hotel and walked towards where Raúl was standing. The two men shook hands and embraced, and Leopoldo asked Raúl why he wasn’t coming to the ball. Raúl answered with the same reasons that he had given to Mamá Anita, but Leopoldo persisted. “All my old sweethearts are also married,” he said, and then stopped in confusion. “I mean,” he continued, “that we are both of about the same age. We’re probably the oldest bachelors here, so we’ll be in the same situation. Don’t let your mother’s work go for nothing.”
Raúl laughed, “All right, you have convinced me. I’ll go home and put on a suit and tie and join you here, so we can watch the dancing. Perhaps your sister Perla will dance with me.”
“She would like that. I think she’s afraid that Enrique, my brother-in-law’s partner, will insist on dancing all night long with her. He seems very interested in her, but there is nothing formal between them. I don’t even know if she likes him.”
Raúl told his passengers that it was time to take them home. Seeing Blanca Estela’s disappointment, though, he promised that tomorrow he would tell her all about the ball.
“All right,” she accepted, “but you must tell me whom you danced with and all about the dresses, and if Perla dances with the man from Mexico City. Don’t you like her? Why don’t you dance with her? She is beautiful. And,” she added, “tell me about Leopoldo too, whom he dances with.”
“Why about Leopoldo?” Raúl asked her, laughing. “Are you interested in him? He’s a little old for you.”
She bit her tongue and wished she had not said anything about Leopoldo. To cover up her confusion, she added, “But be sure to tell me about Perla. She looked so beautiful, just like the girl who married the king in Hilitos de Oro.”
He promised that he would recount every detail of the ball, and thus reassured she went home and to bed, still hearing the strains of the waltz, played by the violins in the shining ballroom upstairs. She had been asleep for hours when her uncle came home. The electric lights went out throughout the streets of Revilla, leaving only the stars to sparkle above.