Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [165]
MR. WORTHY’S SUGGESTION
Leonor was not a melancholy person. She grieved the inevitable sorrows of a long life, she mourned the untimely deaths of her two sons, the passing away of parents, brother, sisters, and friends, but she always found her way back to her natural spirit, involved in her life and that of her loved ones. One morning, however, as she turned from the mirror after pinning her hair, she was seized by an overwhelming desire to cry. She faced the mirror again, as if the reason for the tightness in her chest and the sting of tears in her eyes could be found there. “I’m old,” she said aloud, surprising herself both by the sound of her voice and by the fact that she’d never uttered such an observation.
Eugenio peeked in from the alcove next door, where he slept when he came home late after evenings without her.
“Did you say something, dear?”
“No, talking to myself.”
He disappeared back into his room. She finished her toilette and left her chamber, afraid to face the mirror.
It was a busy month.
The city was observing the 355th anniversary of the conquistador Juan Ponce de León’s first settlement in Puerto Rico. The conquistador was exhumed from his place of rest in the Iglesia de San José, and eminent doctors from Spain in the presence of representatives of the queen examined the remains. His body was then reinterred in a new lead coffin within a cedar box in the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista. There was to be a Mass, a lecture, exhibitions, and dinners to commemorate the events. Besides attending the activities surrounding the observance, Leonor was to host a luncheon and coffees for the ladies of the Peninsular dignitaries.
She held herself together during the two weeks of ceaseless activity, but it was hard. Every word directed at her was an intrusion into a grief she couldn’t name. Her throat ached and nothing relieved the pressure around her chest except locking herself in her room to cry for a few minutes. Everyone in her household noticed her red eyes and distraction, but only Elena dared say something.
“Are you unwell?” Elena asked after she noticed that Leonor counted the same napkins for the luncheon four times before she got the number right.
“A bit tired.”
“It’s been hectic the past few days. Why don’t you lie down for a while? Bombón and I can finish with the linen.”
“Yes, that’s better.”
Elena’s and Bombón’s eyes followed her, worried, she knew, because she rarely took a siesta, and never before noon. She was drawing the drapes when Siña Ciriaca appeared, doubtless alerted by Elena. The maid helped her unlace her corset, took her shoes off, and covered her with a light blanket. The moment she was alone, tears sprung and Leonor let them slide down her temples. She dozed, but woke up when she bit her tongue in her sleep.
She couldn’t account for her sadness. Certainly it shouldn’t have come unexpectedly that at sixty-seven she looked like an old woman. She was aware that her looks had changed years ago, when clothes didn’t fit quite the same, when her hair changed color and grew sparser and less manageable. She’d adjusted her dress according to what her body accepted and seemed appropriate for her age; but until the past few weeks, she hadn’t felt the years quite so much.
“It’s all this activity around Ponce de León,” Eugenio said. “The exhumation was macabre.”
Leonor managed to get through the lectures and Masses, through the dinners with personages and the coffees with their wives, but she felt as if she was performing, while