Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [160]
The Alivio house was on a narrow street halfway down the hill leading to the docks. Municipal gas lamps reached to the corner, leaving the two steps to the door in shadows. Eugenio rapped the heavy knocker and an eye appeared behind a grille. It looked at him and took in Miguel, standing nervously behind his grandfather. The iron slide bolt scraped along a groove on the cement floor as the tallest man in San Juan opened the door. He was very black, wearing a colorful robe. His ears were trimmed with gold hoops, and several bracelets were wrapped around both wrists and ankles. His enormous feet were bare save for rings on his toes. He was Apolo, Socorro’s husband, and Miguel had seen him on the street many times, dressed like an elegant gentleman of leisure, but never in these colorful clothes with jewelry winking from every limb and his earlobes. Apolo led them down the corridor. Guitar music and women’s laughter issued through the heavy drapes screening the rest of the house. The air smelled of cigar smoke, candle wax, and perfume.
Apolo opened another door for Eugenio and Miguel to enter Socorro Alivio’s private study. Two caned rockers faced each other in front of a long table under a painting of a muscular Leda copulating with an enormous swan. Miguel wanted to study the painting, but given the circumstances, he was embarrassed to look too much in its direction.
Socorro was shorter than Tranquilina, but there was about her a settled roundness and confidence that singled her out as the elder of the sisters. Boys took pride in knowing which sister was which and speaking their names in meaningful tones. In this curtained room, Socorro seemed luminous, but on the street, she and her sister looked sickly pale, as if they never saw the sun, making the color on their cheeks and lips unnaturally bright in contrast.
She greeted Eugenio with red kisses on each cheek.
“Welcome,” she said to Miguel. “I was looking forward to meeting you.”
Miguel bowed, as to any lady.
Socorro smiled and touched his cheek. “Qué dulzura,” she said to Eugenio. “You’ve raised him well.” She served him wine, which Miguel downed in two big gulps. “It’s not unusual for a young man to be nervous the first time he comes here.”
“No need to be afraid, son. Tranquilina knows what to do.” Eugenio chuckled, and Socorro giggled as if tickled. He poured more wine for Miguel. “Go on, son, fortify yourself.”
A bit unsteady, Miguel followed Socorro to an upstairs room dominated by a four-poster bed covered with a colorful quilt. As soon as she closed the door behind her, another one opened and Tranquilina appeared on the threshold, her chemise and pantalets clearly visible through the lacework of a flounced robe.
“Hola, mi amor. Don’t look so scared. I don’t bite—unless you want me to.”
In addition to introducing Miguel to the Alivio women, Eugenio made sure he moved comfortably in upright society, where he left lasting impressions among tittering girls and their watchful dueñas. Miguel dazzled fathers and brothers with his horsemanship during the festivals of San Juan and San Pedro. He endeared himself to mothers by his obvious devotion to Leonor, always the first female he led to the dance floor at the parties and balls hosted by the military governors and other officials. He was a competent swordsman, although not as aggressive as Eugenio wished, and it seemed to him that Miguel went through the motions to please him, rather than to defend himself.
Following in the footsteps of their beloved teacher, Miguel and Andrés became regulars at don Benito’s drugstore, where other young men of leisure gathered to study and discuss politics. By the late 1850s and early ’60s, strictly enforced censorship