Tales from the Town of Widows (12 page)

The following day she registered for an intense one-week etiquette
course with Don José María Olivares de Belalcazar, an old man who had fled his native Spain after the kingdom fell into the dictatorship of General Franco. Once in America, Don José María gave himself a noble title, marquess of Santa Coloma, which automatically made him a member of the small privileged upper class of Ibagué. (As the old adage says, “He who goes abroad presents himself as count, duke, or lord.”) The marquess made his living teaching etiquette because, according to him, “We discovered South America some five hundred years ago, and still these barbarians don’t know how to hold a fork.” Francisca was indeed the perfect illustration of his prejudiced statement: uncultured, unrefined, even vulgar. She learned from the marquess the most conventional rules of dining out. “First rule: Unfold your napkin on your lap soon after the host,
not before
. Second rule: The napkin remains on your lap throughout the entire meal and should be used to
gently
blot your mouth.” And so on. She also learned to use the correct silverware by starting with the utensil that was farthest from the plate. In her house in Mariquita there was only one fork, and it hadn’t been used since her husband had disappeared. Francisca preferred to eat with her fingers and a wooden spoon.

With her fine clothes, new looks and good manners, Francisca finally hatched out. She dined at fancy restaurants and visited exclusive social clubs. She went to bars and cocktail lounges. She got drunk more than once, vomited inside a taxicab and in the lobby of the hotel, and had sex with another woman.

Francisca had secretly wanted to have sex with a woman since she was young. She had once tried to make a sexual advance to a mildly retarded girl who came to her door selling blood sausages, but when Francisca tried to feel her breasts, the girl dropped the sausages and ran away screaming. But here in Ibagué, she was a foreign woman in a foreign city. Most importantly, she had money to buy whatever she wanted, including sexual favors from one of the hotel’s chambermaids. What happened was this: After Francisca threw up in the lobby of the
hotel, the desk clerk called a young chambermaid and asked her to take Francisca back to her suite. In her room, Francisca couldn’t contain herself. She threw herself upon the maid. The maid refused her instantly, but after Francisca put a wad of pesos in the pocket of her apron, not only did she surrender to Francisca but she also seemed to enjoy herself.

Francisca liked having sex with a woman. Perhaps when she got back to Mariquita she could order one of her employees—Magnolia, most likely—to have sex with her, and then have her mend the leaks in her roof, and have sex with her again, and then make her paint the walls of her house blue, and then repaint them red, then yellow, then green, and have sex with her in between each color, and when she ran out of colors she’d go into shades, a little lighter, a little darker, and so on.

Before going back to Mariquita, Francisca ordered new equipment, furniture and supplies for her beauty parlor. She gave the salesman a deposit, and he promised to deliver everything within two weeks to an address in Mariquita––a village he had never heard of and couldn’t locate on a recently updated map.

I
N THE MEANTIME
, in the unheard-of village of Mariquita, the magistrate had met privately with the priest to mastermind a legal way of taxing Francisca’s fortune (currently there were no written laws pertaining to fortunes found under someone’s bed). They agreed that since the money had been found in Mariquita’s territory, Francisca was required to pay a percentage of her fortune for the support of the local government. Rosalba asked el padre Rafael how he felt about making the tax a round 50 percent. The priest said he liked that number very much because he had just turned fifty. He added in a brooding tone that Francisca should also be enforced to pay a percentage of her fortune for the support of the local church and the clergy. He asked the magistrate how she felt about making the tithe 20 instead of the customary 10 percent. The magistrate said that twenty was a lovely number, that
when she was twenty she’d been the most beautiful woman in Mariquita. The priest said that she still was. They enacted the agreed percentages into law before Francisca came back.

Francisca and her shopping bags and new suitcases arrived in Mariquita in a rickety 1947 red Jeep Willys a little before sunset. The Jeep went sluggishly up and down the main street, from the church to the market, from the market to the school and twice round the plaza, its obnoxious horn beeping incessantly. Everybody stopped what she or he was doing and took to the streets, the women wishing the driver was a handsome man, the children hoping they could get a free ride. They drew near the slow car, giving whoops of joy. The chauffeur was a hoary man about as rickety as the car he drove, who kept his head so close to the steering wheel that it looked as though the tip of his chin, not his hands, was directing the course of the Jeep. Alongside him, her back and shoulders squared against the passenger seat, was Francisca, smiling at her friends and neighbors. But no one recognized her. Not when the Jeep stopped in front of her house and the ancient driver walked around the car to open the door for her; not when one of her feet came out of the car, high-heeled, followed by one of her hands, well manicured, and a forearm full of rattling golden bracelets; not even when Francisca stood firmly on the ground, smoothing with the palms of her hands the creases that the long trip had left around the waist of her silky crimson dress. Only when Francisca opened the door of her house did a woman ecstatically groan, “Why, if it isn’t Francisca, La Masatera!”

The large crowd stood watching the driver bring into Francisca’s house bag after suitcase after bag. Watching them go past, each woman began condemning, in her own mind, Francisca’s extravagance.

When the driver was gone, Francisca invited a small group of her friends inside her house. The rest of the people took turns looking through the window as Francisca tried on clothes and shoes and piled them up in every corner of her house, reminding them of their hardship. Among the women watching the spectacle from the outside was
Rosalba. She was feeling guilty about having issued the questionable decree that would dramatically tax Francisca’s fortune, so she’d come out in search of vindication for her behavior. But after gazing intently through the window Rosalba realized that Francisca had enough clothes to dress, at least once, the entire population of Mariquita, and as many pairs of shoes as a centipede had legs. Meanwhile nearly all the women in town had worn, day after day for almost four years, the same black dresses presently brimming with darns and patches. And those who had been stupid enough to listen to Francisca and burn their mourning outfits soon discovered that their colorful clothes were now too loose or too small, or had been eaten by moths. Most women had already worn the soles of their shoes so thin that they could feel the bumps on the ground. Some had even chosen to walk barefoot. Rosalba had no reason to feel guilt. Francisca’s avarice had vindicated the magistrate’s maneuver.

The next day was Saturday, market day. Early in the morning some women went fishing, others hunting, a few chicken throats were slit, grain was gleaned and the largest oranges and guavas picked from the trees. Products that were in short supply suddenly became available, and only the freshest, best produce found its way to the marketplace, where shortly after six all kinds of buyers and sellers convened to trade their goods. Francisca got out of bed early. She was hungry, but there was nothing edible in her house—before leaving for Ibagué she had purposely emptied her pantry. Now it was time to stock up her kitchen with the best products she could find. As she was preparing to leave, she heard a couple of knocks at the door. She opened it and found the magistrate, the priest and the police sergeant standing rather solemnly at her threshold. Francisca showed them in.

“I’d gladly pull a chair for you to sit if I could find any,” she said, scrutinizing the room—filled with piles of goods—for some sign of a seat.

“That’s not necessary,” the magistrate interposed. “I’ll be brief.” She produced a slip of paper from her handbag and handed it to Fran
cisca before beginning her formal statement: “A law has been passed that entitles the administration of Mariquita and the Roman Catholic Church to tax any amount of money found within the village’s perimeters.”

“Is that so?” said Francisca, showing no surprise.

“The document you’re holding contains all you need to know about the law, including the percentages you must pay,” el padre Rafael added, ratifying the magistrate’s notification.

Francisca flushed but didn’t answer at once. She was aware of the seriousness of the notice, which, of course, called for a sensible answer given in a seemly choice of words, a refined lady’s reply. “Get out of my house, you rabble!” she shouted at Rosalba, then tore the slip of paper and threw the pieces at her.

Police Sergeant Ubaldina stood between the two women in a conciliatory manner. This wasn’t necessary, however, because the magistrate remained surprisingly composed.

“I warn you, Francisca,” Rosalba said. “I will no longer allow any woman of Mariquita to go to sleep with an empty stomach while another is belching pork chops.”

“To hell with the women of Mariquita! I’m not sharing my money with anyone. Out!” She now pointed at the door, which she had left open.

“Think about it, dear,” el padre Rafael intervened. “Your good looks and fine clothes might make you stand out for a while, but you’re still a widow in a town of widows. Your soul, on the other hand—”

“To hell with you and your stupid church. Out!”

“You have until sunset to come to my office and pay the applicable taxes on every centavo you found, or I’ll have you banished from Mariquita,” the magistrate declared. Then the police sergeant, who until then had been quiet, couldn’t contain herself any longer. With a sardonic smile, she said to Francisca, “If it brings Mariquita unhappiness, we’ll rid ourselves of it.” The three turned at once and walked out of the room.

Francisca leaned her back against the door, feeling restless. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t report less than what she had unearthed because el padre Rafael knew the exact amount. Should she stay in town and contest the magistrate’s resolution? Or should she leave? She was in the same dilemma as two weeks before. No, it was worse now because the magistrate had only given her until dusk to make a decision. It was the magistrate’s threat, however, that incidentally helped Francisca decide that she would not go anywhere. Who did Rosalba think she was, to determine who got to stay in the village and who had to leave? If anyone should be asked to leave, it was Rosalba herself. She hadn’t even been born in Mariquita. Francisca would stick to her original plan of opening her beauty parlor, and she’d fight the magistrate. There had to be a law that protected a rich widow from being banished from her native village.

With that thought in mind, Francisca went to the old Barbería Gómez. The place looked just the same as when she had left for Ibagué. The Morales sisters hadn’t done a thing. Furious, Francisca went to the market looking for new employees, but no one there accepted her offers. Then she went about the village asking every person to work for her, increasing the salary as she moved from door to door, turning friendly, even pleasant, but no woman wanted to work for Francisca. She felt tired and hungry—with all the problems of that morning, she had forgotten to eat. She went to the Morales widow’s tent and ordered breakfast from Julia. The girl gave Francisca one of her worst looks, which said, among other things, that her presence was no longer welcome in their eatery. Francisca moved around the market attempting to purchase food from her old friends, but her business wasn’t wanted anywhere. She offered to pay twice as much money for a couple of plantains, three times as much for a yucca, and still the merchants refused to sell to her. She thought that her friends from the market, like the magistrate, were testing her pride. But Francisca viuda de Gómez had never gone down on her knees to anyone, and she was not just about to start doing it now that she was rich.

She went home hungry, feeling as though parasites were eating her intestines. All she had left in her kitchen was some water in a vessel and a gallon of kerosene for the stove. She boiled the water, poured it into a cup and added the last scrapings of salt left in a plastic container. She took small sips of the tasteless infusion, hoping that the strong feeling of hunger would go away. But it only became stronger as the clear liquid reached her insides.

Evening was nearing. Francisca sat on the floor and started playing with her nostrils: she covered the one on the right, and with the left one she smelled the stew of giblets that was being cooked next door. Then she covered her left nostril, and with the other one she detected the smell of tripe soup. She closed her eyes and continued this, her senses traveling from kitchen to kitchen until she was able to tell what each family would be having for dinner that night, and even which families were going to bed with nothing in their stomachs, like herself. Maybe she should pay the taxes so that everyone in Mariquita could eat well and wear clean clothes. Or maybe not. Why should anyone be given something if they hadn’t worked for it? She had offered them a well-paying job, and they had all refused her offer. Well, then, they deserved to go to bed hungry, she concluded.

She took the last few sips of boiled water, and suddenly started seeing, one by one, her own fears entering the house. Loneliness was the first to arrive—alone, of course. Francisca recognized it immediately because it coyly scoured the entire house for the right place to dwell. It finally settled inside the inner pocket of one of Francisca’s new fur coats and didn’t move again. Guilt came soon afterward, pointing at her with long reproachful fingers. It slid itself into a red silk blouse and, poking its fingers through the long sleeves, continued nagging at Francisca. Then, hand in hand, came Rejection and Abandonment. They moved freely about the room, disregarding Francisca. Before long they picked a pair of fancy spike-heeled shoes and each disappeared into a different shoe. Francisca realized that her fears had come together with her fortune. They had only been waiting for the right occasion, a mo
ment of complete weakness and despair, to reveal themselves. At present they hid among her dear new garments, from where they watched the swelling unhappiness of her eyes. There was only one thing to do.