Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [38]
Every so often Severo stole something too temptingly available, like the day he took a copy of La vida es sueño from a used-book stall on the street while the vendor argued politics with another customer. And it gave him a thrill from time to time to pick a coin or two from a distracted or drunken señorito. But mostly, he delivered dossiers, swept the floors at Marítima Argoso Marín, read as much as he could, helped around the Delgados’ house, and tried to stay out of trouble.
His days folded into each other and his boyish squeak changed into a man’s voice. Noela teased him about the stubble growing on his chin and upper lip, and how his sleeves were too short for his arms and his breeches too tight. A few days later Padre Gregorio delivered a new change of clothes for Severo, collected from parishioners.
The shirt, pants, vest, and jacket were too big, but Noela took in the seams as he read to her. He buffed the shoes until the leather gleamed, and packed rags into the front to be removed as his feet grew. He wore the entire ensemble to church the next Sunday and noticed the admiring glances from girls and women.
“You already look like a man,” Noela said, and Severo realized that she was seeing him differently. Lately, he’d noticed that she sat closer to him than she used to, and while measuring him, and later making sure the clothes fit, she seemed to use her hands more than necessary for the tasks. But he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to get in trouble. One night, when the Delgados were out for the evening, Noela served his supper but instead of staying in the kitchen while Severo read to her, she said she was going to bed early. He was disappointed, because he had a battered copy of El conde Lucanor, purchased at the same stall where weeks earlier he’d stolen La vida es sueño. She left, her hips swaying in a way that made him wonder. She was probably as old as his mother, although Mamá would never shake her hips like that, nor had Noela done it before. He was confused and decided it was probably time for him not to spend so much time with Noela in the kitchen because he liked living in the Delgados’ house, and his job at Marítima Argoso Marín, and saving his money so that he could sail to América where he’d kick the ground to loosen gold nuggets. He finished his dinner, washed and put the dishes away, and took his usual bench at the kitchen table.
It was hard to concentrate on the first story in the book—“What happened to a Moor who was king of Córdoba”—when Noela shuffled in wearing a nightgown and an elaborately embroidered shawl that looked out of place among the blackened pots and pans, the smoking fireplace, the rough table and bench, the stone floor.
“When a woman tells you she wants to go to bed early, and moves away from you shaking her hips like this”—she showed him, with a coquettish smile that was as incongruous as her shawl—“she means she wants you to follow her.”
Severo was thirteen years old. He had urges and imagined what it would be like to be with a woman, but he had no idea what women meant or didn’t mean. “Did you want me to come to bed with you?” he asked Noela, making sure that what he was hearing was what she was saying.
“You’re kind to me and a very good boy, but now you’re an hombrecito.