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ELOÍSA VIUDA DE CIFUENTES got out of bed before dawn as usual, and just as usual arranged three large pillows in a line down the middle of her bed and covered them with bedclothes. That way in the semidarkness, from the doorway and with her head slightly tilted toward the right, the bulge gave her the illusion that Rosalba, the magistrate, lay amid her lavender-perfumed sheets.

She stood naked by the door contemplating the silhouette she had fabricated, and imagined that she and the magistrate had just finished making love. It wasn’t unusual for Eloísa to see the bulge’s midsection heave or the entire thing turn onto its side. Later, after giving it some consideration, she would admit to herself that those movements were nothing but an optical illusion. But in the morning, before drinking her first cup of coffee, it was imperative that she lived her fantasy thoroughly, no matter how crazy it seemed.

Eloísa was in love with Rosalba, but nobody knew; not even Rosalba.

The church bell rang in the distance: a single set of five chimes that indicated to the villagers that it was time to rise and start getting ready for work. Inside her kitchen, Eloísa set a few logs on the ashes in the stove and put on the kettle. At that moment she felt something warm and damp running down her legs. She slid her hand along the inner part of her right thigh and confirmed, with great concern, that she had gotten her period a sun early.

Eloísa was a member of the Time Committee. One of her duties was to report to the magistrate her first discharge of blood every twenty-eight suns, which needed to coincide with that of the other four members of the committee. After drinking a full cup of coffee Eloísa walked out into the patio with a towel on her shoulder. She stopped in front of the large barrel she used to collect rainwater and noticed that it was empty. She remembered seeing it almost full the night before. Her boarder, the selfish Pérez widow, had gotten up before her and used it all to bathe herself.

Eloísa had been burdened with taking in the Pérez widow after a storm destroyed the old woman’s shack several rungs before. She hated sharing her house—especially with the Pérez widow—but didn’t complain because she, Eloísa, had signed that damned Communal Agreement, and she was a woman of her word. According to the document, “nobody owned anything because everybody owned everything,” or at least that’s what Eloísa had gathered from Rosalba’s speech. To Eloísa, signing the piece of paper also meant having to work, with three other women, a plot of land that had been abandoned since the men disappeared. The four women’s hard work kept the community supplied with coffee beans, avocados, papayas and squash, and even produced a little extra to be stored, together with other dry foodstuffs and fibers for blankets, in an adobe granary that the magistrate had had built in the ruins of a deserted house. But the new law wasn’t all bad. For instance, Eloísa no longer had to bid against other women to procure food. She didn’t even have to cook anymore. Every morning three matrons received from the magistrate a large basket full of fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, and eggs and meat when available. They cooked breakfast and dinner. Only raw vegetables were eaten at lunchtime.

AFTER CURSING THE Pérez widow in her head, Eloísa went back to her bedroom. She dampened the towel with the drinking water that she kept on her bedside table and scrubbed her body where it needed to be scrubbed. Then she set forth, naked as she was, to report her early period to the magistrate.

A few rungs before, Eloísa had become the first widow to go stark naked in public. “It took thousands of generations for the female body to reach perfection. Why should we hide it under a costume?” she had alleged.

The magistrate could have penalized her for public nudity, but her own body went numb and her mouth dry with admiration and desire after seeing Eloísa’s breasts. Rosalba thought they were marvelous: their light brown color, their firmness, their size and shape like a ripe grapefruit cut in half. They were so extraordinary that they might well have taken thousands of generations to reach such a level of perfection.

On one occasion, after being pressured by the town’s most pious women, Rosalba had stopped Eloísa on the street and made it clear to her that some parts of the female body must be covered, if only because they were very sensitive. But the magistrate was disarmed by Eloísa’s reply: “I can’t think of any part of the female body that’s less sensitive and more misused than a butt, and yet women have covered it throughout history.”

Being fully clothed soon began to seem strange, unnatural. For some it was simply a fair and practical solution to the growing problem of having to spend energy weaving new clothes, but for others it was just no longer conceivable that women were the only creatures in the world that had to cover the upper and lower part of their bodies. The older women were cautious. They believed nudity was just a trend—like miniskirts had once been—and they were not just about to become the laughingstock of the village with their dried-up posteriors and deflated breasts, the nipples of which lined up with their belly buttons. They cut the sleeves of their blouses and shortened the length of their skirts, and that was as far as they would go.

THE CHURCH BELL rang again. Two sets of five chimes each, which indicated that it was time for the villagers to stride toward the communal kitchen to which they had been assigned, to get their first meal. The bell-rings code had been developed by the schoolmistress, who also had volunteered to ring the bell until she had no strength left to pull the long rope tied to the clapper.

Feeling hungry, Eloísa reasoned that reporting her period could wait and instead hurried down the street toward the Morales’s kitchen. She arrived at the same time as the magistrate, who randomly ate in all three communal kitchens to ensure the quality of the food served and the promptness of the service. To Eloísa’s pleasure and surprise, the magistrate showed up completely naked, though covering her crotch with her appointment book. Eloísa had been working on Rosalba for rungs. Every time the magistrate complimented Eloísa on her olive-colored Indian skin and the many beautiful moles on her body, Eloísa replied, coquettishly, that she was certain the magistrate had many far more beautiful moles hidden underneath her clothes. Rosalba’s clothes had gradually begun to shorten a little here and a little there, and eventually she had gone down to her underwear.

“Your body puts the blue morning sky to shame, Magistrate!” Eloísa said enthusiastically. The same line—or a slight variation of it—had been used by Eloísa’s husband in a poem he’d written to her. Rosalba looked up at the blue morning sky. There was nothing in it but a lazy sun and a flock of white birds that kept flying in circles over the village. Then she looked down and laughed nervously, feeling as though her nudity was a rash that had suddenly started expanding all over her body. Eloísa stepped to one side and motioned with her fully extended arm. “After you,” she said. Rosalba walked sidewise through the door holding the book tight against her stomach and sat at the first table she came upon, followed closely by Eloísa.

The long table was partially covered with a piece of white plastic and several black flies that appeared to be glued to it. Orquidea, the oldest daughter of the Morales widow, emerged from the kitchen wearing one of her conservative long-sleeved brown blouses and a matching long skirt and carrying three large baskets filled with arepas. She stopped abruptly in front of the magistrate and shook her head disapprovingly. She distributed the baskets almost symmetrically along the table and quickly disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, her sisters Gardenia and Magnolia and the widow herself peeped out through the doorway and had a chuckle. Rosalba missed it, for Eloísa had engaged her in a conversation about the history of the heart-shaped birthmark she, Eloísa, had under her right breast.

A chunk of butter dancing on a chipped plate and two bowls of hot egg soup were delivered to the magistrate’s table by Julia, the youngest child of the Morales widow. She wore a tight red dress with a revealing neckline (though there was nothing to reveal), and she had a fresh purple orchid tucked behind her ear. After placing the two bowls on the table Julia tapped Rosalba on her shoulder, and with a few simple gestures and her expressive eyes let her know that she looked wonderful without clothes; that she—Julia—supported the magistrate’s decision wholeheartedly; and that she—Rosalba—shouldn’t pay any attention to her sisters because they were fat, ugly, mean and envious spinsters, or something to that effect.

The dining room filled up soon. Contrary to what Rosalba expected, her nudity didn’t get much attention. The women who didn’t arrive early enough to sit at any of the three tables carried their food outside and looked around for empty buckets and flowerpots, which they soon converted into seats. Their kitchen was not scheduled to get milk that morning, so they all drank their coffee black. Francisca pretended to squeeze her bare dark nipples into her cup. It was an old joke, but it still got good laughs out of the crowd.

Three sets of five bell rings were now heard, instructing the villagers to head for their specific workplaces. The Morales sisters began clearing the tables, while the women got up in orderly fashion, without interrupting their loud conversations and guffaws of laughter. Eloísa and Rosalba agreed to remain seated until the majority of the crowd was gone. Eloísa took the opportunity to tell the magistrate, in a slightly regretful tone, that she had gotten her period that morning. The law ordered that any member of the Time Committee who became irregular should be immediately substituted and never again considered for the task. She dreaded the public humiliation that most certainly would come with being dismissed.

“Don’t worry,” Rosalba whispered in Eloísa’s ear. “I’ll break the law just this one time.”

As Rosalba spoke, one of her aged, freckled hands landed on Eloísa’s bare thigh and swiftly slid down to the woman’s knee, then just as swiftly flew back to the table. She meant it as a caress, but to Eloísa it felt like the magistrate was wiping crumbs off her leg.

INSIDE HER OFFICE the magistrate walked back and forth, fighting her secret feelings for Eloísa. Was it mere physical attraction? Infatuation? Love? Whatever it was, it wasn’t right. Rosalba was of the opinion that sex between two women was unnatural. She was aware that some women in her village occasionally slept with each other, and she’d decided that as long as they were discreet, she wouldn’t meddle in their sexual affairs. That was before she saw Eloísa’s breasts. Those breasts, she thought, should be New Mariquita’s emblems. They should appear on New Mariquita’s flag and on the coat of arms. In fact, they should be the entire coat of arms. Period. Perhaps, Rosalba thought, she shouldn’t worry much about her feelings for Eloísa. After all, appreciating Eloísa’s body, watching the sensual way in which Eloísa wet her lips with her tongue as she spoke, and feeling Eloísa’s skin brush hers during breakfast were nothing but little sources of pleasure, like tying knots in a piece of string before weaving a shawl. Rosalba had never woven a shawl, but she had started dozens of them. It was the knotting phase that gave her pleasure; forming the little knobs along the strings of wool. Actually, weaving itself might ruin her enjoyment. Perhaps that’s how she should manage the situation with Eloísa: keep doing the little things that brought her pleasure, but refrain from weaving.

She was lost in reverie when Cecilia walked into her office. “The Solórzano widow just stopped by,” Cecilia said. “She came to report that one of the she-goats gave birth to a healthy kid this morning.”

“Ceci, my friend, there’s something I want to ask you,” Rosalba said, ignoring the news. “Let’s pretend that you have feelings for someone, anyone, but those feelings are of an unnatural kind. What would you do?”

“You’ve feelings for Eloísa, don’t you?”

There was no use in denying it to her perceptive secretary. “Yes. I think…I think I do.” Rosalba’s voice was full of guilt, as though confessing to a felony.

“Eloísa seems like a very passionate and romantic woman,” Cecilia stated; then she instructed Rosalba to, first, “Give her a bunch of flowers.” Second, “Send her a poem written on a perfumed sheet.” And third, and most importantly, “Don’t tell anyone.”

MEANWHILE, IN THE fields, carrying broad baskets tied around their waists Eloísa and Francisca had started picking coffee. Eloísa was a skilled coffee picker who collected a little over seventy pounds of cherries sunly, twice as much as the other coffee pickers.

“You’re not asking me, but I think the magistrate is in love with you,” Francisca said in a low voice. The two women were working on parallel rows. Because the trees stood between them, they could barely see each other’s faces.

“You’re right,” Eloísa replied. “I’m not asking you.”

Francisca ignored this harsh reply. “I wonder what’s like to be in love with another woman,” she said. “Do you think it’s wrong?”

“No. Love is a beautiful thing that can never be wrong, just like hate can never be right.”

Francisca fell silent. She stood quiet for a while but then, abruptly, as if her mouth could no longer contain the words, said, “Cecilia and I are madly in love.” Hearing herself say it out loud, Francisca felt liberated. “Cecilia and I are madly in love, Cecilia and I are madly in love,” she repeated again and again until she saw Eloísa standing in front of her, laughing hysterically. They laid their baskets on the ground, and Francisca began telling Eloísa about her long-term romance with the magistrate’s secretary. “We’ve been together for a ladder, six rungs and thirteen suns now.” It had all started, Francisca said, before the New Mariquita, when she still did housework for Cecilia in exchange for room and board. “One sun, I was untangling Ceci’s hair when the comb broke and a piece of it fell into her bosom. I started laughing, and we made some silly jokes about it, but then Ceci dared me to retrieve the piece of brush. I said to her, sure, but only if you let me do it with my teeth. We’ve been together since.” And when the Communal Agreement had come into effect, Francisca said, she and Cecilia had requested to be allowed to stay together under the same roof, arguing that they got along very well and could share the house and its duties on even terms. “But there’s a problem,” Francisca added. “As much as I want to shout in the middle of the plaza that we’re in love, Cecilia wants to keep it a secret. She thinks that what we’re doing is a sin.”

When Francisca finished her telling, Eloísa admitted to having deep feelings for Rosalba. “But there’s no story to tell,” she said. They promised each other to keep it all a secret until the circumstances were favorable for all four.

THE MAGISTRATE DECIDED to do what her secretary had suggested, except she inverted the order of the steps. A poem, she thought, would be the perfect way to start courting Eloísa. She spent the entire afternoon shut away in her house, writing and rewriting love verses. Before going to bed, she read them and decided that they were nothing but a rhyming list of the things she liked about Eloísa. She tried writing them again, and again she came up with a list, different from the first, even melodious, but a list nonetheless. She sat on the edge of her bed and tried to call to mind any poems she might have learned or heard during the course of her life. She remembered but two: patriotic, repetitious pieces she had recited in school.

If she had gone to sleep any sooner, she might never have thought of the verses that her late husband had written to her when he started courting her. Rosalba had kept them along with old letters and telegrams he’d sent her on the few occasions he went away. She was convinced that those yellowish pieces of paper would be the only proof future generations would have that men had once inhabited the village now known as New Mariquita. She pulled a sturdy chest from under her bed, unlocked it and looked through the writings, being careful not to crumple or tear up any of the priceless documents. The letters were dull, but the poems still captivated her. They gave her a yearning desire to love and be loved again. One in particular caught her attention, for she thought it described her feelings toward Eloísa much more beautifully and clearly than anything she could ever write. It was a two-stanza poem entitled “Say You Do,” neatly written in cursive calligraphy and signed, “Yours Faithfully, Napoleón.”

Rosalba copied the poem word for word onto a lavender-perfumed sheet of paper. When she finished, she rolled up the sheet, tied it with a red ribbon and put it in a drawer. Then she went to sleep, and she slept soundly.

Ubaldina, First Sun of Transition

The incessant ringing of the church bell announced the beginning of the four-sun term called Transition. Female time required that on the first sun of Transition, women write their personal goals for the next calendar rung and allow time for self-evaluation.

On this morning Eloísa was awoken not by the bell but by heavy knocks on her bedroom door. Before she had a chance to respond, her boarder entered the bedroom.

“The magistrate stopped by earlier and asked me to give this to you,” the old woman said, tossing the rolled-up sheet on the bed. Then she shut the door with a slam and disappeared quickly to avoid the daily scolding about how she seemed to enjoy slamming doors.

Eloísa hastened to untie the ribbon and read the poem.

SAY YOU DO

(A poem dedicated to the very graceful Eloísa)

Your charms have defeated me,

my darling, I need to know, do you love me,

do you love me,

as much as I do love you?

Please say you do,

say you’ll be mine forever,

say you love me, say you need me,

and the skies we’ll reach together.

Yours faithfully,

Rosalba viuda de Patiño

(Magistrate of the village of New Mariquita)

Eloísa read it three times, and each time she wept with joy. Anybody who could express her feelings in such a romantic way had to be a great lover. Like the magistrate, Eloísa, too, kept the letters and poems that Marco Tulio, her late husband, had written to her. She believed that love letters and poems, like flowers, shouldn’t be simply thrown away but replaced with fresh ones, and before this morning she hadn’t been given a fresh love letter or poem, much less a bunch of daisies to replace her withered ones.

After reading the poem, Eloísa decided that this morning she wouldn’t make a phony Rosalba out of her pillows and blankets. She got out of bed promptly and danced all the way to the patio, holding on to an invisible partner.

LATER ON, IN the coffee fields, Eloísa told Francisca the news about the poem Rosalba had sent her. They chuckled and made little jokes about it like a couple of schoolgirls. “I always thought the magistrate was an insensitive woman,” Francisca confessed, “but after hearing what she wrote to you, I have no doubt that she’s passionate and romantic.” And then she told Eloísa the two things she needed to do: First, “Reply to her poem with a poem of your own written on a perfumed sheet.” And second, “Give her a bunch of fresh flowers.”

SITTING AT HER desk in her office the magistrate had begun writing her personal goals for the next calendar rung: One: Have Eloísa be the last thing I see when I go to bed. Two: Have Eloísa be the first thing I see when I wake up.

Oh, but that couldn’t be. Her two goals implied sleeping with Eloísa and quite possibly having sex, and that, she remembered, would be as bad as weaving a shawl. Unless, of course, Eloísa and she slept together without touching. Or maybe they could touch just a little: an arm might brush against another arm; a leg might gently rub against another leg; their lips, slightly pursed, might touch softly and at once part without making that smacking sound that would turn it into a kiss. No kisses. A kiss was the equivalent of lacing two strings together, and Rosalba had no interest in weaving. Thank you very much.

As she thought of her goals, the magistrate became more anxious and confused. She hadn’t heard back from Eloísa, and her concern was growing into a fear of rejection that she hadn’t experienced since she was a maiden. Perhaps she had been precipitate in sending the poem. Maybe Cecilia had been right, and Rosalba should have given Eloísa the flowers first. Or maybe all of it had been a big mistake, and Rosalba should never have entertained the idea that Eloísa, a handsome younger woman with splendid breasts, would be interested in sleeping with an older and graceless thing with sparse graying hair and a large behind.

She arose and stood looking out through the window at the distant fields of maize and rice. None of that had been there two ladders ago. Back then, all she could see from her window was misery and desolation. She remembered that for several Transitions she had the same single goal on her list, To see from my office window a field full of large golden ears of corn, at a time when most villagers’ goals were to find the strength to leave Mariquita and start a new life somewhere else, or to find their old husbands or new ones.

Back then all Rosalba had needed to achieve her goal was a pair of strong hands and determination. But now it was different. In order to accomplish her present goals, she thought, she would need youth and charms she no longer possessed. How could she compete with the beauty and grace of younger women like Virgelina Saavedra?

She was weeping by the window when she heard a knock on the door, followed by the creak of rusty hinges, followed by small footsteps, followed by a question asked in a hesitant voice that Rosalba didn’t recognize: “Magistrate, are you in there?”

Rosalba wiped the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Who is it?”

“Francisca, Magistrate. Can I come in?” The last time Francisca had been to Rosalba’s office, she’d been seeking advice after having found a fortune under her bed.

“What do you need?” the magistrate shouted from inside her office, but Francisca was already opening the door that led to it. “Shouldn’t you be working on your personal goals, Francisca?”

“I only came to give you this,” she said, handing her a folded piece of paper.

“What is it?”

“It’s a note from Eloísa, Magistrate, but I swear I don’t know what it says.”

Rosalba snatched it from her and tossed it in a drawer. “Well, thank you much,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have goals to write.”

Rosalba waited to hear the door being closed, then took the folded note out of the drawer and read it.

KISS ME GENTLY

(This poem is dedicated, with all my heart, to the always beautiful and jovial Rosalba viuda de Patiño, magistrate of the village of New Mariquita)

Last night I dreamed of your kisses

Oh! Your kisses were so sweet

that when I opened my eyes

I found sugar on my lips

I can’t wait until night falls

hence I’m going to take a nap

if only in my dreams you kiss me,

kiss me gently, don’t wake me up.

Very truly yours,

Eloísa viuda de Cifuentes

Identity Card # 79.454.248 from Ibagué.

Rosalba read the poem, then brought the piece of paper close to her bosom in a tender fashion. “She likes me,” she said. “Of course she likes me. I’m a fine woman.” How could a smart woman like Eloísa resist spending a night with Rosalba? How could she not notice that the magistrate was bright and brave, loving and neat? And no, Rosalba’s breasts weren’t really that flabby, not for her age anyway. And yes, her behind was large indeed, but so was her heart.

Ubaldina, Second Sun of Transition

On the second sun of Transition women were expected to share their goals with a sponsor of their own choosing referred to as a madrina, who was expected to advise her protégé on how to carry out her goals.

At their home, a two-room house with two front windows covered with thick curtains that were permanently closed, Cecilia and Francisca lay in their pushed-together beds, sharing their goals with each other.

“My new goal is to make it public that we’re in love,” Francisca said.

Cecilia sat upright and stilted on her bed, her face turned toward her lover. “Francisca, we have talked about this before, haven’t we? Whatever happens in this house is nobody’s business. If you mention our secret to anyone, I swear to God you’ll regret it. You’ve been warned, and that’s that!”

But that wasn’t that. Francisca rose and stood in front of Cecilia with her arms crossed over her chest and her right leg slightly forward. “I told Eloísa,” she said.

Cecilia rose to face Francisca, panting. “How dared you tell Eloísa about us after I told you not to? María Francisca Ticora Rodríguez viuda de Gómez, you’ve betrayed my trust.” She started walking back and forth across the room, holding her head between her hands. Then, from a corner, she said, “I will never forgive you.” And soon afterward, from the opposite corner, she added bitterly, “And I won’t ever again rub your dirty feet.”

“Good!” Francisca replied, arms akimbo. “You’re lousy at it anyway. And now that’s that!” She stormed out of the room.

And, at least for that sun, that was really that.

ELOÍSA AND ROSALBA had gone out, separately, to pick flowers for each other. Eloísa remembered that the daisies her husband tucked between her breasts came from the Jaramillo widow’s front yard, so she went to the same place. As she cut the flowers, she visualized her long, delicate fingers placing each flower between the magistrate’s breasts, in the same tender way Marco Tulio had laid them in her cleavage. When she had enough daisies, she decided to personally deliver the bunch to the magistrate’s house.

While picking orchids in the woods, it occurred to Rosalba that Eloísa might be of the same thinking as Napoleón, her late husband. He had never picked flowers for Rosalba but instead gave her flowerpots with violets in bloom. “If God had wanted flowers to be used as accessories,” he used to say, “He would have made them grow behind women’s ears.” In her courtyard Rosalba had violets, camellias and begonias. She would take the one with the most flowers to Eloísa.

VACA STOOD STILL beneath an aloe that was perpetually suspended above the door for good luck. Except for her prominent jawbone—always working—nothing about her moved. She had truly become the embodiment of her nickname. Her real name was of Indian extraction: long and unpronounceable. People knew her as Vaca, but in her presence they called her only Doña.

“Buenas y santas, Doña,” Eloísa greeted her in a melodious voice.

Vaca lowered her big eyes and fixed them on the bunch of daisies that Eloísa held against her breasts. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to see the magistrate.”

Vaca considered this for a moment, then said, “The magistrate’s got an office and a secretary. Rosalba’s got a house and a boarder. Which one are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for Rosalba.”

“She’s not here.”

“Would you give her these daisies for me?”

Without making an audible reply, Vaca took the bunch of flowers away from Eloísa and swiftly turned around and went into the house.

“Please keep them in fresh water!” Eloísa shouted from the door, but the voluminous figure had already disappeared from sight.

THE MAGISTRATE’S DELIVERY of the plant to Eloísa’s house was not a pleasant experience either.

“Quit banging the door, for God’s sake!” the Pérez widow roared from inside the house before appearing in the doorway. Rosalba stood on the steps, holding with both hands a large flowerpot that contained a small camellia tree blooming with showy yellow-colored flowers. The Pérez widow, fully dressed, looked up and down at the naked magistrate and rolled her eyes. “Yes?”

“I’m here to see Eloísa, Señora Pérez.”

Señora Pérez brought her clenched hands to her waist and gave Rosalba a disapproving look. “Is that it? You interrupted my prayers because you want to talk with Eloísa?”

“Actually, I want to give her this camellia tree. Isn’t it beautiful?”

The Pérez widow heaved an impatient sigh. “Eloísa’s not here, so you and your bush can go look for her someplace else.”

“I’d rather leave the tree with you. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Well, I do,” the woman snapped. “Bring it in yourself and put it wherever it pleases you.” She went inside, muttering trifling complaints.

Rosalba laid the flowerpot in the hallway and left.

Ubaldina, Third Sun of Transition

In the beginning of female time, the magistrate and the schoolmistress had insisted that on the third sun of Transition, each woman find something about herself that made her unhappy and apply her mind to it. But the women decided against it, claiming that unless a woman’s traits affected her relations with others, she should simply accept herself the way she was. Rosalba and Cleotilde weren’t happy with the decision, but since the majority had agreed on it, they let it go. As a result of that, on the third sun of Transition the villagers had half a sun for themselves.

Rosalba knew that in her spare time Eloísa liked to go swimming. On her way to the river, Rosalba imagined Eloísa coming out of the water, the sun shining on her wet skin, her long black hair dripping cool water down her back. Once there, Rosalba stood on the bank, next to a large rock, scanning the clear waters for the woman she wanted to see. She made out five heads floating on the surface like large bubbles, the bodies connected to them distorted in the water. Eloísa wasn’t one of them.

“Get into the water, Magistrate,” Virgelina Saavedra called. “It’s nice and warm.”

Rosalba waved at her and smiled but didn’t move. She felt unsure of herself in the girl’s presence. Virgelina, the gaunt little girl who’d once put a stop to el padre Rafael’s Procreation Campaign, had grown into the most beautiful woman in Mariquita. Rosalba resolved to go back home, but when she turned around, she saw Eloísa coming down the road.

“I didn’t know you liked swimming, Magistrate,” Eloísa said.

“Oh, I love swimming. I just never bring myself to do it.”

“Well, let’s swim, then.”

Rosalba soon found herself surrounded by six women younger than herself, which made her very uncomfortable. She kept her body as low as she could and raised nothing but her head from the water; not even her arms, because suddenly she was all too aware of the stubborn wiggles of loose skin that hung from her underarms. Her body, she remembered nostalgically, was the same body that once had driven the three bachelors of Mariquita wild, to the point that they tossed a coin to decide who would have the chance to approach Rosalba first. It was the same body that kept her husband Napoleón home, next to her, while most married men were getting drunk at El Rincón de Gardel, or visiting the prostitutes of La Casa de Emilia. That body was now older, softer, grown a little square and wider at the hips. What a mistake this had been, coming to the river! She wanted to dissolve into the water. But she couldn’t, so she let the current take her down a little farther from the group. Eloísa followed her.

“Thank you for the beautiful camellia, Magistrate.” The clear water covered her body up to a little underneath her breasts, accentuating their shape and color.

“Thank you for the poem and for the beautiful daisies, Eloísa. And please, call me Rosalba.”

“I’d like to call you something else.”

Rosalba blushed. “And what would that be?”

“I don’t know…maybe Corazoncito?”

“Ha, ha!” Rosalba wiped the excess water off her face with both hands. “I think I’d prefer it if you made up a word. A word that’s just for me.”

“But why? Corazoncito must be the sweetest word in the whole world.”

“In the world you created with Marco Tulio,” Rosalba replied, feeling somewhat jealous of Eloísa’s dead husband.

Eloísa considered this for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “I never thought about it that way. How about…Ticú? No, Ticuticú? How about Ticuticú?”

“Ticuticú? Does it mean anything?”

“I just made it up. It means my sweetheart, darling Rosalba.”

“Well, then I love it.”

Eloísa laid her hands on Rosalba’s shoulders, and at the count of three, they submerged themselves together in the water, like little girls. Eloísa cupped her hands and gently slid them down to Rosalba’s breasts, which floated round and smooth in the water, and it was precious and extraordinary to discover how well hands and breasts fit each other. Eloísa’s fingers pressed, feeling the throbbing of Rosalba’s flesh, then let go, leaving on them ten slight indentations that presently vanished on the paleness of Rosalba’s skin.

Their heads now rose above the water, and their lips quivered as they smiled at each other nervously. Under the water their hands joined, taking turns to stroke and be stroked, fast, clumsily, acting on a wild impulse they could contain no more: Eloísa and Rosalba were two widows in love.

Ubaldina, Fourth Sun of Transition

On the last sun of Transition nobody worked. Not even the cooks: the villagers were encouraged to eat fresh fruits and raw vegetables. At sundown, everyone was asked to come to the plaza to take part in a celebration that honored femaleness. Feeling restless in her bed, Rosalba decided that she was in no mood for celebrations. She had come to realize that her feelings for Eloísa were much stronger than she’d originally thought, and it filled her with fear and some anger. For ladders her obsession with tying little knots in a string without ever weaving a shawl had worked just fine, but when she’d tried to apply the same notion to her feelings for Eloísa, she discovered that doing the little things that brought her pleasure alone, without wanting to go further, was simply impossible. She now wanted to make beautiful love to her. But it was unnatural. Is it really? And she was the magistrate, a public figure. But I have feelings just like anyone else. She spent the entire sun in bed, trying to come up with a solution to her problem. Eventually she did.

Every rung a different household was in charge of organizing the celebration. Tonight it was the Ospinas, and they had exceeded all expectations. The plaza was brightly lit, its four sides surrounded by tallow candles and festooned with chains of flowers: purple orchids, yellow daisies and white lilies dangled from the lowest branches of the mango trees.

When the women arrived, they split up into four groups that at first glance appeared to have been improvised, but that in reality had long ago been determined by the women themselves in direct ratio to their ages, and, less frequently, according to the type of work they did, their liking of potatoes or their disliking of onions, the number or kinds of maladies that constantly affected them, and many more factors.

The actual celebration was quite predictable, and this rung’s wasn’t an exception. It started, like it always did, with a drink. The women stood in line to get a full cup of chicha from the Villegas widow. The widow prepared the fermented maize drink at least five suns prior to the event to ensure its characteristic sharp, peppery flavor. Next, as always, the schoolmistress made everyone yawn by reading poems by some Alfonsina Storny. When Cleotilde was finished, the attention focused on Francisca, who entertained the audience with her usual jokes and imitations. “Do the teacher,” a woman would say, and Francisca would walk slowly with her back straight and her neck thrust forward, twirling an invisible mustache with two of her fingers. On this occasion, Francisca did the Pérez widow, Vaca, Julia Morales, the magistrate and, though no one requested it, a woman that was long gone: Doña Emilia, the town’s madam. The music was by the four Morales sisters’ “band.” The girls only knew half a dozen tunes, which they played over and over with their curious instruments made of old cooking pots and pans and lids. The women sang along and danced to the band’s lively rhythm. When the music stopped, the four groups of women quickly settled down to listen to the magistrate’s customary discourse. She always started with the same sentence: “A new rung is about to begin, and with it comes a new opportunity to improve ourselves as individuals….” By now most women had memorized it.

Rosalba rose from within the crowd and advanced slowly toward the front row, from where she was to deliver her speech. Before leaving her house, she had coated her entire body with eucalyptus-scented oil to repel the mosquitoes and other insects. As she walked among the women, the flickering light of the tallow candles reflected all over her shiny skin, making her look like a mythical goddess about to go up in flames.

She stood in front of the crowd, a blissful look on her face, and began talking:

“I’d like to express my gratitude toward the Ospina family for the effort they put into organizing this term’s celebration of womanhood.” The variation of her speech aroused the immediate suspicion of the villagers that the magistrate was up to something. “I don’t think our plaza has ever looked as beautiful or felt as cozy as it does tonight.” She looked around, smiling gracefully at the chains of assorted flowers hanging from the trees. “I’d also like to make an announcement,” she continued. The villagers were now certain that Rosalba was about to surprise them with a shocking statement: maybe an outrageous new decree. They held their breath and listened attentively.

“I’m in love with Eloísa,” she said, plainly and simply, holding her head up high. The crowd stared at her in stunned silence, then started bowing their heads, slowly, as though with growing shame.

“And I’m in love with Rosalba,” Eloísa shouted from the back. The women turned their heads, again slowly, toward where the voice had originated. Their prying eyes followed Eloísa as she walked toward Rosalba and planted a kiss on her mouth.

“I’m in love with Cecilia,” Francisca said out loud.

This time the women turned their heads not toward the confessed lover, but toward her woman. The pressure was such that Cecilia had no alternative but to stand up and, with her eyes fixed on the ground, admit to her sin: “I’m…in love with…with Francisca.”

“Virgelina and I are also in love,” Magnolia Morales declared. Both women rose to their feet and each put her arm around the other’s waist, smiling.

“And so are Erlinda and I,” said Nurse Ramírez. She extended her hand to the Calderón widow, and together they rose from the ground.

Other couples timidly disclosed their secrets, and when they ceased, a few single women started declaring their love for one another. The feeling was so contagious that some decided, at that very moment, that they were in love with the women sitting next to them and told them so. Even the ancient women, who hadn’t loved or been loved in ages, felt once again the strength of passion burning in their shrunk bodies.

The new couples as well as the old ones slowly began to disappear behind doors or vanish into the darkness of the night. And the few women who remained single, whether it was their choice or not, soon went back to their houses, to their bedrooms with their empty beds and clean sheets that would never get stained with blood or perspiration other than their own.

Only Santiago Marín and Julia Morales remained in the plaza, surrounded by orchids, daisies and lilies, and by the dying flames of tallow candles. They lay on the ground gazing at the sky, waiting for the twinkling light of a star to shine so that they could make a wish. And when the stars finally came into sight, Santiago wished that somesun, somewhere, he could be reunited with Pablo. Julia wished for the sun when she, too, could shout, like the women had done tonight, that she was in love—only with a man.

The flames of the candles surrounding the plaza died one by one, each with a hissing sound and a rapid succession of blue and yellow sparks.

The melting tallow solidified on the ground, leaving behind a strong smell of burned fat that presently dissolved into the thin air.

And the night, now full of stars, swallowed the fierce moaning of New Mariquita’s passionate women, and the gentle murmuring of its widows in love.

CHAPTER 12

Widows in Love