“Permission for what?”
“To smoke.”
“Do I need it?”
“You always need it.” Her mother-in-law closed the box.
“Angelina, why be so strict?” Inés pinned the lace she had just woven.
“It doesn’t make sense to begin a habit that you won’t be able to keep up,” Doña Angelina said. “You’ll be lucky to be fed and clothed.”
“Are times so very hard?” Vicente had hinted that they didn’t have money, but the farm, the cook . . .
“It’s often difficult for a young couple,” Inés said.
“Times are always hard when you’re farm people. That’s why a man doesn’t marry until his twenty-fifth birthday.” Angelina tapped the cigar against the banister. “A son works for his father until then.”
“Your son came for me.” Valentina was proud that she sounded brave.
“The beautiful Valentina is here with us now,” Inés said. “Let’s be happy for Vicente.”
Angelina studied the cigar between her stained fingers, then brought it to her lips.
“Valentina, look at that rooster.” Inés pointed to the batey. “We named it Raúl.”
A rooster as beautiful as any peacock pranced up and down the batey, kicking up dirt with its gnarled feet.
“Why did you name him after Vicente’s father?”
“The rooster is always after the hens,” Inés said.
“This one, that one, he has them all.” Angelina tapped the cigar against the banister.
“What do you mean?”
Neither dama answered Valentina. She looked from one woman to the other and tried to decipher what was left unsaid.
A ruckus in el batey drew their attention. Raúl the rooster danced around one of the hens, dipping his wing down like a caballero asking a señorita to dance. He flapped his wings and flew up in the air. As he came down, he mounted a hen. Her squawks made Valentina laugh. Even Inés and Doña Angelina smiled.
“Raúl the rooster reminds me of this pirate in a French novela,” Valentina said. “He fascinated all the ladies on his travels.”
“How can a rooster be like a pirate? That doesn’t make sense.” Doña Angelina blew out smoke.
“You speak French?” Inés said.
“Not much, but I can read it,” Valentina said. “The nuns taught us.”
“The nuns permitted you to read French novelas? I never heard of such a thing!” Angelina tapped her cigar against the railing.
“We girls hid the books from them,” Valentina said. “They’re very exciting stories with lots of dashing pirates and handsome scoundrels and duels and love triangles. Everything you could want.”
“Nothing like real life,” Angelina said.
“In one of my favorites, a French mademoiselle took many lovers, all of them rich and handsome and brave. Some of them were killed in duels. Everyone wanted to win the hand of the beautiful maiden,” Valentina said. “It was so thrilling.”
“I don’t think the subject of multiple lovers is appropriate for the wife of my son.” Valentina’s mother-in-law stubbed out her cigar on the wood.
Inés looked up from her handiwork. “What harm can French novelas do to a young girl? Especially in the countryside, where there aren’t any pirates?”
“There are plenty of scoundrels in the countryside, as you well know,” Angelina said.
Gloria came out to tell Valentina that she was about to make the arroz con pollo that Doña Angelina had ordered for dinner. Valentina excused herself to go to the kitchen. A little while longer with her mother-in-law and she would have betrayed all of Mamá’s good training. The sooner they lived in their own house, the better.
•
Valentina dipped the washcloth into the basin of warm water she had heated on the stove. Elena had predicted that Vicente’s family cooked on one of those crude tabletop fogones put together with twigs and a tin can. She would write her sister that the stove was a brick charcoal pit, and that she was learning to cook like a good country wife. When Valentina wrote down Gloria’s recipe for sofrito, the servant, who couldn’t read or write, didn’t hide her pleasure. She had to guess at Gloria’s más o menos instructions. Gloria said, “Add a spoonful of salt, más o menos, measure más o menos three cups of rice to feed six people, to the beans add one or two or three handfuls of minced culantro and cilantro and cebolla, you’ll know how much when you do it, don’t forget la calabaza chopped into small pieces. Use the blade of the knife to smash ajo. Not like that—see how I hold the knife? Now watch how I use the palm of my hand. Did you know that garlic takes the sting out of bee stings? Sí, that is my little joke, but it’s true! Achiote oil will give the food color. If it’s too pale, add more. To make achiote oil, soak the annatto seeds in olive oil until it takes on a burnt red color—a day or two should do it, más o menos—or if you’re in a hurry, then heat the oil—use the seeds again until they lose color. We have an annatto tree in the yard. You know it? It has red pods, kind of spiky. Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”
She would write Elena about the strange couple Doña Angelina and Inés made, how her mother-in-law hated her and smoked cigars that she didn’t like to share. And the bedroom didn’t have a looking glass, would she mind sending her the one in her old bedroom along with her trunk? Once Vicente spoke to his father, they would make plans for their own home. Perhaps Vicente could persuade Gloria to come along with them to do the cooking and housework, and she would get a peona to do the washing. Also could Elena send on her things as soon as possible? A woman needed her things, even en el campo.
She wrung the washcloth over the basin. If Vicente had come back from la finca, they could have gone to the river to bathe. She had already promised him that she would never bathe in the river alone because the current could be strong and it was dangerous for a woman alone. This little wash would have to do. The door opened behind her.
“Slowpoke, come wash my back.” Valentina looked over her shoulder.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said.
¡Ay bendito! The washcloth slipped from Valentina’s fingers. The scream caught in her throat. She covered herself with her hands as she looked for the drying cloth.
“You’re not Vicente!”
“Raúl Vega, a la orden.” He didn’t bother to disguise his delight.
“I’m Valentina.” She bit back hysterics. “Vicente’s wife.”
“Welcome to the family, Valentina,” he said.
“Will you please go?” The cloth. If only she had the cloth.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of a man’s admiration,” he said.
Though his eyes were so like Vicente’s, she recognized that this man was nothing like her husband. He tipped his hat and closed the door behind him.
Valentina grabbed the drying cloth and hurried to push the chair against the door; the rooms in the house didn’t have locks. The rooms in her parents’ house didn’t have locks, either, but if a door was closed, one was supposed to knock. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. Raúl Vega, her husband’s father, her new father-in-law, had seen her naked! She sat down on the chair. Should she tell Vicente?