Tales from the Town of Widows

by James Canon

  “Magistrate, I came to see you because I’m in a quandary,” Francisca said at once. “And since you’re the most rational person in this town…”

  Rosalba looked up when she heard this flattery.

  “You see, I found a fortune under my bed this morning, and now I can’t decide whether or not I should leave Mariquita.”

  The magistrate’s eyes traveled quickly from the widow’s groomed hair to her knees—which was all she could see from behind her desk. “It looks like someone needs to be reminded about Mariquita’s law,” she said, looking aggravated.

  “Magistrate, this morning I learned that if something brings you unhappiness, you ought to rid yourself of it,” Francisca went on. “Unhappiness is all this town brings me. So on the one hand I think I should leave, but on the other hand I don’t want to abandon my dear friends to their terrible fate here.”

  “Did you hear what I just said, Francisca?”

  “Of course I could take a few of them with me, but which ones? And what would happen to the ones left behind? Please tell me, Magistrate, what would you do in my situation?”

  “Well, first I’d change back into mourning clothes, and then I’d contribute half of my fortune to Mariquita’s ruined treasury.”

  It was obvious to Francisca that the magistrate, like her friends, wouldn’t help her choose from the equally undesirable alternatives with which her new wealth had presented her. She abruptly turned and walked out of the office, thinking that, after all, Rosalba was not as rational as she’d thought.

  Outside a large crowd awaited her. The rumor had spread that Francisca had found a fortune and was giving money away. “Please help us!” they all said, their hands outstretched. The youngest one stroked Francisca’s hair, another one massaged her hands; one even knelt before her as in worship. Francisca got furious because these women had no self-respect. Why did they have to demean themselves? When she was poor, Francisca had never kowtowed to anyone for money. Not even her husband. “Have some pride!” she yelled at them, swatting at their obsequious hands as if they were stinkbugs.

  She hurried back to her house. Three of her friends were sitting on the steps, waiting for her.

  “We need to talk to you, Francisca,” said the Marín widow, whose head and upper face were wrapped in a black veil, making her broad nostrils look as though they were her eyes. Francisca invited the group into her house.

  “You shouldn’t leave Mariquita,” Police Sergeant Ubaldina said in a solemn voice.

  “You must wait for your husband’s return,” the Calderón widow added.

  “Vicente’s dead,” Francisca declared. “And so are your husbands.” She told the women about her dream and what the book had said, and then, to give some credibility to her outrageous statement, she asked each woman to close her eyes and imagine her husband’s face. After a short while, she asked them to tell her what they had seen. The three women were horrified to discover that all they remembered was hair coming out of a long nose or a large cataract in a black eye; that they had been weeping over an unkempt mustache, a gold tooth, or a hairy mole on a prominent chin. They couldn’t remember their men’s individual smells either, or the sound of their voices. Their husbands were but dusty pictures and trunks filled with wrinkled clothes that sooner or later would be eaten by insects. The three widows realized that their men had died in their hearts, and this thought filled them with guilt.

  But the guilt didn’t last very long. Encouraged by Francisca—who now, being wealthy, was also assumed to be smart—the three widows went home and changed into bright-colored dresses. Before noon they met Francisca on the outskirts of Mariquita. Each widow had brought a bag filled with her husband’s belongings and her own mourning clothes. They piled up clothes, pictures, books, baseball caps, unopened packs of cigars and even a billiard cue. At the count of three, Francisca shouted, “If it brings you unhappiness, rid yourself of it!” and set fire to the pile. They sat there, staring into the growing blaze, giggling nervously as the flames gave forth light of various brilliant colors.

  Before the end of the day Francisca went to church, confident that el padre Rafael would give her some good advice. The little man was fond of expressing his opinions and making recommendations. She knelt down behind a side panel of the basketwork folding screen that for years had served as the confessional. The screen, which had three panels, was intentionally folded in the shape of a letter U. Every evening before mass, the priest sat inside the U to hear confessions through the long, narrow openings he had cut on each side. Francisca didn’t need to tell el padre her story or ask for guidance—the magistrate had already told the priest everything he needed to know, as well as what counsel to give the confused woman.

  “You should stay in town, dear,” el padre began, his tone more a subtle mandate than a wise word of advice. “Mariquita’s biggest problem is not the lack of men but the lack of resources. How much money is it you found?”

  “Two hundred million pesos.”

  “Very good. Now, if you invest a part of your money in a lucrative business here, you’ll be reactivating the town’s economy. Say, for instance, that you decide to reopen your husband’s barbershop. First you’ll need to hire people to do the construction work, which means you’ll create jobs, which means people will get salaries and spend their money in our own smaller businesses, which means there will be demand for other products and services. You’ll be helping Mariquita tremendously, and at the same time you’ll profit from your investment.” El padre’s voice was low-pitched, his sentences calculated. “Trust my words, dear!” he said with fervor.

  From where she was kneeling Francisca couldn’t see the man who spoke the words she was compelled to trust, and she thought it was for the best. Ever since the first time she met him, Francisca had been somewhat troubled by the priest’s strange looks: his bald head never seemed a part of him—it was too large for his small frame—and his face, flaming pink, contrasted sharply and oddly with a black soutane that concealed the rest of him as if something deceitful and mysterious were living underneath it. Francisca had no other choice but to trust the man’s words. After all they were the only words of advice she’d been given concerning her quandary. She was silent for a while, contemplating her options. And then, as she glanced at the background of fading images and pews riddled with woodworm, she said, “How much do you want for the church, Padre?”

  The question caught the priest by surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m taking you up on your recommendation, Padre. I want to have my own business, and your church seems to be the most lucrative house in town.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “How much do you want?”

  “The house of God is not a commercial establishment!” he burst out.

  “Oh, Padre, you know very well it is too. People come here to buy peace of mind. They pay you to intercede for them with your invisible Lord.” The words poured easily from her, arousing el padre’s ire.

  “Be silent!” he shouted, his face redder than usual. “I will not have you speak about the Holy Church in your worldly terms.” He rose hurriedly and started to leave. But then stopped suddenly, as if he had forgotten something important in the confessional, and turned back. Addressing the screen behind which Francisca knelt, he said, “By God, you’ll be sorry you said that.”

  IF SHE COULDN’T have the church, Francisca would have to make do with renovating Vicente’s old barbershop and reopening it as a beauty parlor. Of course she wouldn’t rely on Mariquita’s women to support her business—they were too plain. Instead she would attract refined women from other villages. They would be so pleased that the next time they would bring their friends, who would in turn bring theirs, and before long Francisca’s salon would have its own distinguished patronage. Very soon I’ll be a business owner, she thought before going to bed, and that thought stayed with her even in her sleep that night.

  The next day she hired Orquidea, Gardenia and Magnolia Morales to repair the run-dow
n barbershop for her. Francisca asked them to remove from the walls two yellowed posters—one advertised pocket combs, the other brilliantine—and several hooks where men used to hang their hats and coats. She ordered them to take down the unpolished framed mirrors, the counters and shelves and drawers, and to take out the two old conventional barbershop chairs. She continued having things removed and thrown out until the old Barbería Gómez was nothing but an empty room with a rusty metal door. As Francisca exited the shop, she was suddenly reminded of her husband; not by his personal equipment and furniture, which now lay in a defiant heap in front of the building, nor by the two incomplete words cheaply printed on the glass window: BARBE ÍA G MEZ; but by a crack between the doorway and the sidewalk, which was still filled with burnt matches, cigarette butts, candy wrappers and large amounts of dirty hair. She ordered her three employees to clean the crack and fill it in with putty.

  Before going to bed that night, she looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t pleased with what she saw: a slender forty-six-year-old woman hoping to look thirty but actually looking over fifty. Her hair was smudged with gray, and the deep creases under her eyes looked more like ostrich’s feet than crow’s. Her hands were scarred by burns and cuts that would forever remind her that, unlike most women in Mariquita, she was unfit for the kitchen. She decided that, like the old Barbería Gómez, she too needed a major renovation.

  The following morning Francisca put on her best dress and shoes and packed a large amount of money in a bag. The rest of her clothes and food supplies, she put in boxes and left on her doorstep for someone poor to take. She went to the old barbershop and assigned specific duties to each of the three Morales sisters. She’d be back in two weeks, she told them. She stopped by the school and, after having an argument with the rigid schoolmistress, got permission to take Vietnam Calderón for a few hours. The boy carried her on one of his mother’s three mules to the main road, where Francisca took a bus to Ibagué, the closest city.

  When she arrived in Ibagué, she hailed a taxicab and asked the driver to take her to the best hotel in town. There she took a room. Later that day she went shopping at fashionable clothing stores. “I’d like to see trousers,” she said to the sales clerk. “Trousers and blouses in bright colors.”

  She spent several hours trying on pants and blouses and coats of different styles, lengths and colors. She paid dearly for dozens of outfits and pairs of shoes with heels so high she couldn’t walk in them. Then she bought purses and belts to match them, and costly brooches and jewelry and silk scarves and gloves and hats and stockings to complement them. That night, when Francisca got back to her suite in the hotel and her new wardrobe was delivered, she unpacked all the bags, unwrapped each item and carelessly threw everything on the large bed. She lay naked on top of the jumble of clothes and accessories and luxuriated in the feel of silk blouses and scarves against her skin. She covered herself with a fur coat and closed her eyes. As her fingers traced the soft fur and the scent of animal skin mixed with the sharp smell of her perspiration, she began to fantasize. She pressed the tips of her fingers into her cheeks and fancied that her face was covered with animal fluff. She stroked her long hair and imagined that it, too, had turned into fur; that that magnificent coat, those clothes and shoes and belts surrounding her, had changed her into something else, a wild creature she’d always longed to be. Feeling afraid of her own reveries, Francisca opened her eyes. The coat still wrapped around her body, she rose from the bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She was still the same Francisca: old looking, with wrinkles around her eyes and scarred hands. What the mirror didn’t reflect and she couldn’t yet recognize, however, was another woman, a completely different Francisca growing fast inside the old one. That night she fell asleep thinking about what she would do next.

  The following morning Francisca mistakenly wore a blouse that didn’t match her trousers that didn’t match her shoes that didn’t match her belt that didn’t match her purse, and she put on colorful makeup that, somehow and separately, matched everything she had on. She made an appointment with Ibagué’s most renowned hairstylist, a tall and strong man with long, black hair, who was nicknamed Sansón. Francisca walked into the salon looking like something which was in the process of transforming into something else, but was still far from achieving it, like an egg being hatched.

  “I want to look like that,” she told Sansón, pointing at a stunning woman on a shampoo advertisement taped to the wall. The man glanced at the picture and back at her.

  “It will cost you a fortune to look like her,” he earnestly said.

  “Then you’d better start right away,” she retorted. Sansón dyed Francisca’s hair, cut it, brushed it and blow-dried it; his assistants plucked out her eyebrows, curled her eyelashes, clipped her nails and toenails, painted them, massaged her feet, removed her light mustache, gave her a facial and applied fresh makeup to her face. By the end of the day she not only felt like a completely different woman, she looked like one too. She didn’t resemble the woman on the advertisement in the slightest, but her new appearance gave her an unquestionable air of refinement far beyond her expectations.

  The following day she registered for an intense one-week etiquette course with Don José María Olivares de Belalcazar, an old man who had fled his native Spain after the kingdom fell into the dictatorship of General Franco. Once in America, Don José María gave himself a noble title, marquess of Santa Coloma, which automatically made him a member of the small privileged upper class of Ibagué. (As the old adage says, “He who goes abroad presents himself as count, duke, or lord.”) The marquess made his living teaching etiquette because, according to him, “We discovered South America some five hundred years ago, and still these barbarians don’t know how to hold a fork.” Francisca was indeed the perfect illustration of his prejudiced statement: uncultured, unrefined, even vulgar. She learned from the marquess the most conventional rules of dining out. “First rule: Unfold your napkin on your lap soon after the host, not before. Second rule: The napkin remains on your lap throughout the entire meal and should be used to gently blot your mouth.” And so on. She also learned to use the correct silverware by starting with the utensil that was farthest from the plate. In her house in Mariquita there was only one fork, and it hadn’t been used since her husband had disappeared. Francisca preferred to eat with her fingers and a wooden spoon.

  With her fine clothes, new looks and good manners, Francisca finally hatched out. She dined at fancy restaurants and visited exclusive social clubs. She went to bars and cocktail lounges. She got drunk more than once, vomited inside a taxicab and in the lobby of the hotel, and had sex with another woman.

  Francisca had secretly wanted to have sex with a woman since she was young. She had once tried to make a sexual advance to a mildly retarded girl who came to her door selling blood sausages, but when Francisca tried to feel her breasts, the girl dropped the sausages and ran away screaming. But here in Ibagué, she was a foreign woman in a foreign city. Most importantly, she had money to buy whatever she wanted, including sexual favors from one of the hotel’s chambermaids. What happened was this: After Francisca threw up in the lobby of the hotel, the desk clerk called a young chambermaid and asked her to take Francisca back to her suite. In her room, Francisca couldn’t contain herself. She threw herself upon the maid. The maid refused her instantly, but after Francisca put a wad of pesos in the pocket of her apron, not only did she surrender to Francisca but she also seemed to enjoy herself.

  Francisca liked having sex with a woman. Perhaps when she got back to Mariquita she could order one of her employees—Magnolia, most likely—to have sex with her, and then have her mend the leaks in her roof, and have sex with her again, and then make her paint the walls of her house blue, and then repaint them red, then yellow, then green, and have sex with her in between each color, and when she ran out of colors she’d go into shades, a little lighter, a little darker, and so on.

  Before going back to Mariquita,
Francisca ordered new equipment, furniture and supplies for her beauty parlor. She gave the salesman a deposit, and he promised to deliver everything within two weeks to an address in Mariquita––a village he had never heard of and couldn’t locate on a recently updated map.

  IN THE MEANTIME, in the unheard-of village of Mariquita, the magistrate had met privately with the priest to mastermind a legal way of taxing Francisca’s fortune (currently there were no written laws pertaining to fortunes found under someone’s bed). They agreed that since the money had been found in Mariquita’s territory, Francisca was required to pay a percentage of her fortune for the support of the local government. Rosalba asked el padre Rafael how he felt about making the tax a round 50 percent. The priest said he liked that number very much because he had just turned fifty. He added in a brooding tone that Francisca should also be enforced to pay a percentage of her fortune for the support of the local church and the clergy. He asked the magistrate how she felt about making the tithe 20 instead of the customary 10 percent. The magistrate said that twenty was a lovely number, that when she was twenty she’d been the most beautiful woman in Mariquita. The priest said that she still was. They enacted the agreed percentages into law before Francisca came back.

  Francisca and her shopping bags and new suitcases arrived in Mariquita in a rickety 1947 red Jeep Willys a little before sunset. The Jeep went sluggishly up and down the main street, from the church to the market, from the market to the school and twice round the plaza, its obnoxious horn beeping incessantly. Everybody stopped what she or he was doing and took to the streets, the women wishing the driver was a handsome man, the children hoping they could get a free ride. They drew near the slow car, giving whoops of joy. The chauffeur was a hoary man about as rickety as the car he drove, who kept his head so close to the steering wheel that it looked as though the tip of his chin, not his hands, was directing the course of the Jeep. Alongside him, her back and shoulders squared against the passenger seat, was Francisca, smiling at her friends and neighbors. But no one recognized her. Not when the Jeep stopped in front of her house and the ancient driver walked around the car to open the door for her; not when one of her feet came out of the car, high-heeled, followed by one of her hands, well manicured, and a forearm full of rattling golden bracelets; not even when Francisca stood firmly on the ground, smoothing with the palms of her hands the creases that the long trip had left around the waist of her silky crimson dress. Only when Francisca opened the door of her house did a woman ecstatically groan, “Why, if it isn’t Francisca, La Masatera!”