“I don’t want to dream.”
“I can’t sleep either.” She ran her tongue over her lips, the roof of her mouth, and rows of insects seemed to march up and down Santiago’s body.
“I thought I saw you had company.”
“An old friend, but he had to go.” She closed her fan, resting it in the palm of one hand. “I didn’t let him taste the cake.”
“Good. It was just for you.” Santiago’s voice cracked and his knees buckled as his anger gave way.
“That’s what I thought. I loved it.”
“Tomorrow I’ll make cinnamon cake and palmiers—a family specialty.”
“Do you come from a family of bakers?”
“No.” He smiled. “I’m the only male in a family of cursed females.”
“So the men aren’t cursed?”
“No, we are, too.”
“And as a cursed man, what is it you do?”
“I tell stories in cafés.”
“A profession right out of
The
Arabian Nights.
”
“Would you like me to tell you a story?”
“I’d rather you tell me about your family, what sort of curse you suffer from.”
“I’ll tell you how it all began so you can better understand.”
“Come over, then. We can get comfortable on the couch.”
The moon had dropped in the sky, balancing on clotheslines that crisscrossed the inner patio, and come to rest on her face. The neckline of her robe formed a V.
“Don’t move,” he begged. “I’ll tell you the story here.”
“All right.”
“Late in the sixteenth century, in a cottage along the coastal lagoon of Valencia lived a couple who dreamed of one day having children. For years they asked God to bless them with his grace, but the woman was now over forty and had yet to conceive. Their neighbors felt sorry for the couple, with no one to help them in their fields or bring joy to their home through laughter and games.
“One spring morning the farmer’s wife, a robust, cheerful woman, disappeared from the cottage without a trace. She returned a few days later, telling her husband she had been to a beach where an old woman sold her a spell to get pregnant. Nine months later, the farmer’s wife gave birth to a lovely little girl. The neighbors heard the news with some suspicion. How could a woman that old, that unattractive, have had such an extraordinarily beautiful child? It was only when the girl turned one that they denounced the case to the Holy Inquisition and the extent of her beauty led to disaster. The farmer’s wife was accused of having fornicated with the sea in a satanic ritual. The proof was irrefutable, for the girl possessed all of her progenitor’s attributes: her eyes were the color of water, her hair like the darkest deep sea, her skin as pure as the froth that forms in waves, and her lips coral red.
“They burned the farmer’s wife at the stake for being a witch, but though the farmer was judged, he was found innocent. He had fallen prey to his wife’s cunning; she had cheated on him with nature. The problem of what to do with the child arose. Upon seeing her, no one wanted to order her death, even if she was born out of witchcraft. They agreed the girl would be sent to a convent and raised under the watchful eye of the nuns. Yet no religious order would accept a girl with a background such as hers. They therefore wrapped the girl in a scapular and handed her back to her father. Having succumbed to drinking, he locked her in the stable with the calves.
“A gentleman dressed in fine attire came to the cottage a few months later.
“‘I’ll pay one silver coin if you let me see the daughter of the sea,’ he said to the farmer.
“The farmer stood perplexed. He went to the stable, unchained the girl from a post, washed her face, and showed her to the gentleman. The sight of such beauty, which had only grown over time, satisfied him so that he paid two silver coins, not one. From then on, men and women would come to the coastal lagoon just to see the half-human, half-marine creature. The farmer squandered the money on wine and women, while the girl—whom he called Mar or Sea in public but who was in fact baptized Olvido—grew wild with the stable animals. One evening when a duchess was admiring the girl, now twelve, she pointed to the woman’s magnificent yellow silk dress and spoke these words: ‘Lanai ursala.’
“The duchess paid the farmer one more coin than agreed because the daughter of the sea had spoken to her in the language of the waves.
“Around this time, a handsome young linguist from Castile traveled to the coastal lagoon and, one clear night, came upon the girl hiding in tall grass.
“‘I’m looking for the girl who knows the language of the sea,’ he said warmly, so as not to startle her.
“The girl pointed to her chest and replied: ‘Mar.’
“Do you know if her cottage is this way?”
“The girl reached up to the biggest star burning in the sky and said: ‘Ursala.’
“Her face was covered in dried dung. She was wearing rags that stank of the stable, and one of her legs was bloody, as if she had escaped from a trap. Feeling sorry for this creature, the linguist pulled a handkerchief out of his frock coat and wiped her face in the light of the moon. She reveled in his touch through the silk handkerchief.
“‘You are, without a doubt, the daughter of the sea,’ the linguist said, admiring her beauty.
“She again pointed to her chest and repeated her name.
“‘Speak to me in the language of the waves,’ he begged.
“The girl pointed to the moon and said: ‘Saluma.’
“‘Saluma?’ the linguist repeated, confused, as the girl smiled and pointed again at the moon.
“It was then the young linguist realized the truth: the girl spoke not the language of the waves but one she had invented, since no one had ever taught her a civilized tongue.
“For more than four years, the linguist taught her language and the ways of men while the farmer was at the tavern or the brothel.
“On the evening of her sixteenth birthday, the captain of a pirate ship came to the cottage determined to learn the secret to outwitting storms. The girl replied in perfect Spanish that she was unable to help for she did not know the language of the waves; her father was not the sea but that farmer who tried to con him. The captain beat the farmer mercilessly. The girl did not treat her father’s wounds, did not help him to bed, did not give him water to drink, did not answer the question that escaped his throat as he lay dying—‘Who taught you to speak, you traitorous bitch?’ She simply waited for him to die. When the linguist arrived for their lesson, she told him what happened and they immediately left for Castile.
“Once there, the linguist found work at a school and the girl completed her education with piano and sewing lessons.
“By the time she reached legal age and was introduced to society with her real name, the girl’s beauty had surpassed all reason and desire. On her birthday, as asked, the linguist gave her a yellow silk dress and, thanks to acquaintances, secured an invitation to celebrate at a ball at the Duke of Monteosorio’s palace. There the girl was captivated by the sumptuous furnishings, not to mention the jewels worn by the women dancing in the salon, for they shone brighter than the stars. And so, when Alonso Laguna, the duke’s son, fell in love with her at first sight and proposed, Olvido accepted.
“Upon hearing the news, desperate, the linguist confessed his love. Olvido threw herself crying into his arms and kissed him passionately. They made love all night long, but the next morning, when the linguist wanted her to write to break her engagement, she refused. ‘I’ll marry him,’ she said, ‘but you’ll come and live with us. That way our love will go on and we’ll be rich.’
“The wedding took place at the duke’s palace a few weeks later. A great banquet was prepared as well as a majestic dance that lasted until morning. The most illustrious citizens were in attendance, noblemen, even an envoy sent by the king to congratulate the couple on his behalf. During the celebration, Olvido could not forget the dark strands of hair that fell over the linguist’s brow, his firm chest peeking out through the flounce of his shirt, his cognac-stained lips as he said goodbye. When the party was over, she slipped out of her nuptial bed and galloped to the house she had shared with the linguist only to be met by the dark of night, for he had left forever.
“Time, the tyrant of life, gave Olvido ten years of dances, banquets, and dresses, not to mention a little girl. Perhaps guided by nostalgia, she named her María del Mar. Perhaps also guided by nostalgia, one spring morning when her husband was away on business, Olvido felt the urge to travel to her birthplace on the coastal lagoon. From behind the safety of carriage curtains, she peered out at rice fields misty in the dawn, stocky farmers, and the blue, frothy face of her father. When the carriage stopped in front of the cottage, she got out and walked to the stable. She missed feeling wet calf snouts on her legs, missed hearing their soft, sad mooing. Although the stable was filled with the half-light of sunset, she saw a man curled up in a corner. Strewn around were empty bottles of cognac. He was wearing a farmer’s pants, and his chest was covered with sores and parasites.
“‘Get off my property,’ she ordered.
“‘Salima, ursula,’ the man croaked.
“Olvido searched for the vagabond’s eyes amid strands of greasy hair and discovered they belonged to the linguist.
“‘What have I done to you, my love? What have I done?’ she lamented, taking him into her arms.
“‘Salima, ursula,’ he repeated, his eyes glazed.
“Olvido Laguna tore a cross on a chain from around her neck and threw it onto the ground.
“‘I,’ she declared in a burial voice, ‘daughter of the sea, renounce the God that robbed me of my mother and ask Satan to curse my name and that of my descendants. May my daughter’s honor be sullied, her heart lost to a man who will break it—and her daughter’s after that, and her daughter’s daughters. May a line of women suffer through the centuries everything that you, my love, have suffered for me. May this misfortune continue until the last drop of Laguna blood flows.’
“Olvido never returned to Castile. Some years later fishermen found the linguist’s body on the beach, his face puffy from wine and his once dark eyes now inexplicably blue. Olvido’s body was never found. Some say she was taken by her father, the sea, and rests in a coral grave. Others say she was devoured by the devil, paying body and soul for her condemnation of love.”
Úrsula’s empress manners slipped away as she listened to the story. Her eyes grew hazy and she forgot herself completely, and Santiago’s gaze embraced a silent ghost that seemed to have awakened against his will. To Úrsula, who had twisted her hair into a long braid, everything tasted of him: her lips, the moon, his words as they echoed across the courtyard.
“That’s how it all began. If you liked my story, I can tell you another tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. I can tell you stories forever.”
“You’ll be my Scheherazade. But remember—when I no longer like them, I’ll chop off your head.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“I must get to work. Good night.”
Úrsula’s flesh had begun to shred with inspiration as she watched him, listened to his story, plotlines flying through the inner patio on ribbons of skin.
“Can I watch you write until I’m tired enough to sleep?”
“You’re asking permission now?”
Santiago blushed.
“You crawl into bed and I’ll sing you a lullaby my grandmother taught me.”
Úrsula watched him walk away from the window and lie on the bed. The muezzin’s call to prayer softly filtered through the silence of the courtyard, reaching Santiago in a melancholy whisper. He closed his eyes. After two sleepless nights, he soon slipped into dreams.
That night, however, Úrsula Perla Montoya did not sleep. Any fatigue was erased from memory as she gave herself, body and soul, to the frenzy of the quill. She wrote her heart’s desire before it reached her fingers, as her skin tattered to shreds with the pleasure of Santiago, even at a distance, as her emotions merged with her spirit, taking her to the greatest literary climax any man had ever given her, a climax that lasted for hours and hours.
She wrote well past dawn, exhausting three pots of violet ink, staining her fingers, her face, her chest with rosettes of passion. Only when the sun left the Madrid sky did she have the strength to stop. She walked into the kitchen and ate a piece of cake, determined to keep Santiago inside her. Then, even though it was Sunday, she phoned her editor to say she had finally begun the novel and would be done quite soon. “It’ll be the best thing I’ve ever written,” she assured him. She hung up euphoric, analyzing the glory of her future success, humming the muezzin’s call, until, all of a sudden, as she lay in bed with one foot on the threshold of sleep, her stomach grew cloudy, felt empty, as if the cake had evaporated, leaving behind the unease of loss.
S
ANTIAGO LAGUNA DREAMED
of a storm. His heart froze when he woke and saw a mass of gray clouds whirling in the Sunday sky. The cut on his finger had split, its purplish edges oozing pus like insect bile. He stuffed his hand under his pillow, but the pain continued. He curled up with the memory of the indecipherable lullaby Úrsula Perla Montoya had sung. A while later it felt as if the sky was growing even darker and thunder reverberated through him. He heard the patter of rain on the pavement, on the tiles, and on the flat zinc roofs. The patter grew into a drumbeat, until it erupted in an apocalyptic boom. Yet Santiago was more worried that his mouth smelled of whiskey, not morning breath, that cigarette smoke with a touch of beer and Irish coffee assaulted his nose while dozens of faces stared at him, feverish under the stage lights, waiting for something he could not quite understand. It was only when a glass coffee mug shattered following another crack of thunder and the bar was overrun by a mass of honeysuckle that he realized he was still caught in the nightmare that had plagued him all night. He struggled to awake. The sky was still gray but not a drop of water had fallen. Sunday morning still savored the coming squall.
Santiago lit a cigarette and lay back on the pillow waiting for certain urges to pass—the urge to hug Padre Rafael, to give him his medicine, to watch over his siestas and tell him stories with the aftertaste of consecrated wine in his mouth. He waited five minutes, ten, until he was able to placate his nostalgia, replace it with his overwhelming desire for Úrsula Perla Montoya. The whole room filled with her. The dagger of her neckline tortured him, the point drove him to delirium, and his cut finger burned at the thought of touching her for the very first time. He arched his back and held his breath. The agony of waiting was far more pleasurable than spilling himself all over the sheets. Once recovered, Santiago searched for her in the windows, but her white shutters were closed. Instead he slipped into a warm tub, rested his head on a towel, and began to read
Evening Passions on the Divan.