Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [148]
Lola had folded each item between layers of muslin pillows stuffed with fragrant herbs. When he touched them, the garments felt as if they’d melt through his fingers.
This is what a lady should wear, he thought, silks and lace and pretty things. Other than the first time he saw Ana in San Juan, and later in her riding costume, he’d not seen her in anything but plain cotton, black, gray, navy blue. He longed to see her in finery, hair glistening. He wanted her to be different from Consuelo, from the campesinas, from the slave women, better dressed and more refined than the hacendadas and dueñas in Guares and its environs.
For the past three weeks, he’d been surrounded by disease and death. He now touched these lavish things, held them in his hands, caressed them. His fingers were scarred and callused, and he was afraid to damage the liquid fabric or the intricate needlework. But he needed to hold something beautiful in his hands.
He lifted the embroidered silk and lace clothes and spread them on the floor. He laid a corset underneath a bodice with short sleeves, its edges frilled with lace. He butterflied a skirt below it and placed gloves where Ana’s hands would be. He arranged a mantilla to frame an invisible head, and posed delicate stockings inside dainty kid shoes with satin bows ready to dance. He bowed in her direction, smiled, offered his hand, imagining Ana standing before him, perfumed and flushed with excitement, eager to let him lead her across the polished floor.
He closed his eyes to better see himself with soft hands and smooth nails wearing smart clothes—a white silk shirt, a black velvet chaleco with silver buttons, black pants, kid shoes with buckles, and a vermilion sash around his waist. He softened his knees and swayed from side to side. When he opened his eyes, Severo looked around, as if there were any danger that someone might see him behaving so foolishly.
Down on the hill, Ana studied the four rooms of the casona and saw what she had ignored for years. It was small and crudely made. The green walls echoed the color of the fields, so there was no respite for the eye from the vegetation. She suddenly felt claustrophobic and stepped onto the porch. The whimpering of the sick was intolerable, so she fled to the other end, away from the barracks. In the workshop, José banged something or other, and a bird trilled in the breadfruit tree.
Ana felt powerless. She hated the feeling that she was inadequate to what was happening around her. They depend on me to take care of them, she thought, and I don’t know what to do. I want to be a good mistress.
The morning had warmed. Conciencia was collecting more sacabuche, even though it had already proved ineffective against cholera. So had sweetened higüero pulp, crushed papaya seeds, guava root bark, and lemons. But they had to give the sick something to hope for. Clearing the miasma in the barracks did nothing either. In spite of every effort, she’d failed in her duty.
Ana felt a heavier burden than she wished to acknowledge, but wouldn’t call it guilt. She’d accepted her role as a slave owner and did everything she could to fulfill her obligations. She knew it was inevitable that the slaves would be set free someday, but jornaleros were expensive, unreliable, and didn’t work as hard. She hoped it wouldn’t happen in her lifetime.
From the first she’d sensed that she should never bow before Severo, that among the things he most valued was her strength of character. But there were moments, like now, when she wished she could allow herself the female prerogative to be weak, to cry loudly. She’d swallowed so many tears that someday she might