Read Online A Woman of Seville by Sallie Muirden - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sallie Muirden
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yearns to follow in their wake. A part of me does join them in spirit.
I ignore the jeering crowd on pilgrims’ rise. The yellow women deserve our pity not our scorn. I get calloused hands from scratching bits of the skin on my palms while awaiting the penitents’ reappearance. How I envy their sisterhood, the way they exit the cathedral in rows with arms linked and heads held high. Purified, forgiven and privately sanctioned to sin again. Father Rastro has encouraged me to join the procession this year. ‘It would do you good to go, Paula.’ But to be herded inside and forced to confess before the flagellating mystics might make me feel worse, not better. I’ve told Father Rastro I’m still making up my mind. I cannot lie. But I cannot tell him the truth either. When the day comes around I won’t be there with the women in yellow.
Pulling open a dresser drawer I take out my make-up case. I barely notice my face in the mirror as I pat the powder on. You can only look at your face if your face consents to be looked at. There are so many people pulling on me, telling me what to think and what to do. Earlier in the afternoon the normally tolerant Harmen Weddesteegwas having his say: ‘Turn a bit more to the right, Paula. And keep still, won’t you.’ Even the ladder-man wants me to be something else, to become a circus performer for him. I can’t think to what purpose I could put the skill of standing on a ladder unsupported. Falling into balance is a futile enterprise.
But I can pull myself out of lassitude. Think of my mother once upon a time. When I was about three I swallowed a pearl. It is my first memory. Mama said it would come out of my bottom, but after her searching and pouring water on my faeces, no pearl was found. ‘You have a pearl inside you now,’ said Mama with a worried smile. I liked the idea of Mama’s pearl living inside me. I expected it to pop out of my naval if I ate too much. That pearl is probably still inside me, worn small by the constant washing of corrosive juices, a tiny seed-pearl sewn into the lining of my stomach. When I get a tummy-ache I imagine this may be the cause. With Mama I ate a pearl and didn’t die. With Mama there was happiness and happiness, and then there was nothing.
Descant chimes interrupt my thoughts. Violeta hastens to answer the front door. It’s too late to dress for Guido Rizi. I’ll receive him in my oriental dressing gown. Tonight I have a particular reason for wanting him to arrive, and soon. I smile brazenly at myself in the mirror, rub a thinlayer of wax across my lips to make them gleam, then pick up my candle-end and hurry downstairs.
The Bishop is wearing a civilian frockcoat rather than his religious robes, but I only notice what he’s holding in his hand. A parcel wrapped in brown paper. I take the gift and loosen the string. Inside is a tall bottle containing a medicinal balsam. ‘The witch hazel balsam,’ Guido Rizi informs me solemnly in his deep gravelly voice, as if he’s saying ‘the son of God’, or something sacred. I secrete a smile. From my frequent complaints, he knows that some time after a painting session the agony sets in. Lately I’ve been using this as an excuse to avoid intimacy with him.
I open the bottle and sniff the liquid. It smells pleasantly of myrrh and Mecca balsam. Guido Rizi offers to rub the substance on my neck and knees, but I excuse myself to perform this function behind a painted screen, the latter another acquisition from the Orient. As Guido purchased the screen for me, he will be happy to see me using it. And he is.
I start to massage the aching lower regions of my neck and some of the pain instantly subsides. ‘I could do a lot worse,’ I’m thinking. ‘I’ve done a lot worse. It is not his fault that I find him so unattractive.’
Later, naked and on my back with my legs spread apart, it feels as if a plucked quail is being forced inside my vagina.The skin of the meat is cold and loose, the
I ignore the jeering crowd on pilgrims’ rise. The yellow women deserve our pity not our scorn. I get calloused hands from scratching bits of the skin on my palms while awaiting the penitents’ reappearance. How I envy their sisterhood, the way they exit the cathedral in rows with arms linked and heads held high. Purified, forgiven and privately sanctioned to sin again. Father Rastro has encouraged me to join the procession this year. ‘It would do you good to go, Paula.’ But to be herded inside and forced to confess before the flagellating mystics might make me feel worse, not better. I’ve told Father Rastro I’m still making up my mind. I cannot lie. But I cannot tell him the truth either. When the day comes around I won’t be there with the women in yellow.
Pulling open a dresser drawer I take out my make-up case. I barely notice my face in the mirror as I pat the powder on. You can only look at your face if your face consents to be looked at. There are so many people pulling on me, telling me what to think and what to do. Earlier in the afternoon the normally tolerant Harmen Weddesteegwas having his say: ‘Turn a bit more to the right, Paula. And keep still, won’t you.’ Even the ladder-man wants me to be something else, to become a circus performer for him. I can’t think to what purpose I could put the skill of standing on a ladder unsupported. Falling into balance is a futile enterprise.
But I can pull myself out of lassitude. Think of my mother once upon a time. When I was about three I swallowed a pearl. It is my first memory. Mama said it would come out of my bottom, but after her searching and pouring water on my faeces, no pearl was found. ‘You have a pearl inside you now,’ said Mama with a worried smile. I liked the idea of Mama’s pearl living inside me. I expected it to pop out of my naval if I ate too much. That pearl is probably still inside me, worn small by the constant washing of corrosive juices, a tiny seed-pearl sewn into the lining of my stomach. When I get a tummy-ache I imagine this may be the cause. With Mama I ate a pearl and didn’t die. With Mama there was happiness and happiness, and then there was nothing.
Descant chimes interrupt my thoughts. Violeta hastens to answer the front door. It’s too late to dress for Guido Rizi. I’ll receive him in my oriental dressing gown. Tonight I have a particular reason for wanting him to arrive, and soon. I smile brazenly at myself in the mirror, rub a thinlayer of wax across my lips to make them gleam, then pick up my candle-end and hurry downstairs.
The Bishop is wearing a civilian frockcoat rather than his religious robes, but I only notice what he’s holding in his hand. A parcel wrapped in brown paper. I take the gift and loosen the string. Inside is a tall bottle containing a medicinal balsam. ‘The witch hazel balsam,’ Guido Rizi informs me solemnly in his deep gravelly voice, as if he’s saying ‘the son of God’, or something sacred. I secrete a smile. From my frequent complaints, he knows that some time after a painting session the agony sets in. Lately I’ve been using this as an excuse to avoid intimacy with him.
I open the bottle and sniff the liquid. It smells pleasantly of myrrh and Mecca balsam. Guido Rizi offers to rub the substance on my neck and knees, but I excuse myself to perform this function behind a painted screen, the latter another acquisition from the Orient. As Guido purchased the screen for me, he will be happy to see me using it. And he is.
I start to massage the aching lower regions of my neck and some of the pain instantly subsides. ‘I could do a lot worse,’ I’m thinking. ‘I’ve done a lot worse. It is not his fault that I find him so unattractive.’
Later, naked and on my back with my legs spread apart, it feels as if a plucked quail is being forced inside my vagina.The skin of the meat is cold and loose, the
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