Read Online The Dark Bride by Laura Restrepo - Free Book Online Page B

an invisible sun with insipid tones of gray and brown, and watched Sacramento’s tiny figure as it moved away into the distance, along the edge of the Tropical Oil Company’s fence, toward the point at which the underbrush swallowed the path, where the pueblo ended and the Carare-Opón jungle began.
    â€œ Adiós, hermano mío . I hope you come back rich and powerful!” she shouted, waving her hand, and it was the first of many times that he would hear her say good-bye without a trace of sadness in her voice.

five
    The girl became an adult on that afternoon of insipid twilight when Sacramento departed. In accordance with the new name she had been given, she was no longer called Girl, rather Sayonara. She was never again seen engaged in childish brawls in the barrio, and if from time to time she opened the treasure chest, it was to adorn herself with jewelry and gaze at herself in the mirror.
    â€œThe mirror, always looking at yourself in the mirror,” Todos los Santos reproached her, seeing her absorbed and distant as if it were she who had left Tora. “You should know that the mirror is not an object of confidence because it is inhabited by Vanity and Deceit, two evil creatures that swallow everything they reflect. He who looks a lot in the mirror will end up spending a lot of time alone.”
    She no longer paid attention even to her friend Christ, or to Aspirina, who anxiously followed her everywhere; nor to the conversations of las mujeres on the patio, which she as a girl had followed as if hypnotized and without missing a single word.
    â€œ ‘Run along, girl! Go play, adult problems aren’t to be heard by tender ears,’ that’s how we had to shoo her away, but later came a time when she wouldn’t join us even when we especially invited her.”
    One day in May her state of stupefaction reached such a point that she threw to the pigs, instead of potato peels, the rose petals they had prepared for the passing of the Virgin in the procession.
    â€œThat’s what you call throwing pearls before swine,” joked the others. “If you continue in this manner, you’re going to end up throwing potato peels to the Virgin.”
    Only her hair seemed to keep her company during that period of isolated adolescence when she could spend the entire day bringing out its shine with a brush and arranging it into all kinds of styles: crazy woman, a Phrygian cap, Medusa, ragpicker, Policarpa Salavarrieta, or Ophelia drowned in the well, based on the characters that Machuca described in her stories.
    â€œHer hair purred like a contented cat when she brushed it,” Olga recalls.
    Sometimes she would steal a cigarette and smoke it in front of the mirror, breathing deeply and practicing slow gestures, elegant ways of lighting the match or exhaling the smoke, walking around in tight skirts and sitting with her legs crossed.
    â€œWhat are you dreaming about, girl?”
    â€œI’d like to have a herd of elephants and to see snow, and for my father to be a king so I could smoke cigarettes in the salons of his palace.”
    One torrential afternoon, Todos los Santos announced it was time for her to start working: señor Manrique had already been summoned, he had been informed that he would be meeting a young girl recently arrived from Japan who had not yet mastered the Spanish language, and he had shown himself to be in agreement with everything. Sayonara said all right, that it was all right by her, and Todos los Santos set about preparing the proper costume as must be done for amor de café, where illusion, theater, and duplicity predominate.
    â€œHadn’t señor Manriquito seen the girl?” I ask.
    â€œMany times. But since adults often look at children without seeing them, he had seen her scurrying around without ever really noticing her.”
    So the name, the client, and the date had already been chosen and now they needed to physically transform