by Bea Gonzalez
Sofia.
Doña Laura’s hands drop to her lap and she raises her eyes to the sky. A solution is making itself known to her; a light is beginning to shine in the dark. The old lady sits up. She lifts up her hands and then places them back on her lap. The tightness in her body has left; she is a woman defeated no more.
From afar, Sofia sighs. Her grandmother is back. She can see it in her posture, can see it in her eyes. But what could she be thinking? What plan would la loca be conjuring up now?
She will ponder it no more—has much better things to do with her time. She thinks of the upcoming meeting with Diego, sighs in the exaggerated way she used to mock in others until now.
Ah, el amor! Lovely, heady, a welcome respite from the tortures of the world. She walks to her room, forgetting about her grandmother, her aunt with the towel wrapped around her head, her mother who is still trying to get her husband to talk, still insisting that all secrets must be revealed. Only eighteen hours till morning arrives, she thinks. Eighteen hours that will seem as long as weeks to this young woman, experiencing the tortures of a real love for the first time in her life.
SCENE FOUR
A song with wings
Over dinner two men have come together to discuss the events of that afternoon. Very Useful has tied a large napkin around his neck and is slurping loudly as he makes his way through a splendid sopa de lima, trying to tell Diego everything he knows, between spoonfuls of chicken- and lime-flavoured broth.
“Why would Carlos Blanco Torres have encouraged Sofia to behave in that way today?” Diego is asking, referring to her extraordinary venture into the world of birdcalls.
Very Useful shakes his head back and forth, spoons the soup eagerly into his mouth.
“The boy fancies himself a radical of sorts. Likes to create scenes to drive his parents stark raving mad. What better show could he have orchestrated than one with the girl of his dreams—the very unsuitable girl—at the centre of it?”
“And how do you know Sofia is the girl of his dreams?”
“How do I know? How do I know?” Very Useful drops the spoon, wipes his mouth with his napkin before answering him with a scowl. “What don’t I know is a better question, you petit scoundrel—doubting me yet again when I am the only person capable of enlightening you about all matters of importance, from birds to dance to ghosts.”
Diego raises his eyebrows, waits for Very Useful to go on.
“The señorito’s interest in Sofia has been dear to me for some time, as dear as the interest in her shown by our very own …” Here Very Useful stops, brings the napkin to his mouth as if he is trying to plug himself up.
“As the interest shown by whom, Very Useful?” Diego asks, anxiety rising in his chest.
Very Useful changes the subject, tries to bring Diego’s attention back to the afternoon affair.
“Why do you think you were invited to the event in the first place, Diego?”
“Because I am Mr. Nelson’s assistant, I suppose.”
“Mr. Nelson’s assistant? The fop does not know Mr. Nelson. He has merely heard of his work from Sofia’s father, whom he has been courting in an effort to get to the girl herself. No, no, Diego, your invitation had nothing to do with our patrón.” Very Useful takes a sizeable bite from a tortilla and continues to talk as he chews. “It was the dandy’s way of unearthing what lies between you and the girl.”
Diego remains silent, thinks back to the afternoon affair.
“Why would Carlos be against the Díaz regime? Is it not odd for him to have such ideas, given the wealth under his father’s command?” he now asks.
“Ah, his ideas,” Very Useful replies, bitterness suffusing his tone. “Yes, it is quite common among the young of the fashionable set to indulge in such ideas—between their jaunts to the opera houses of Paris and New York, of course. First we hear the great voices sing in the opulent concert halls of the world and then we convene over cigars and scotch to devise the solutions to our problems back home. Do not be fooled by such radical ideas, mi amigo, they are merely one man’s revenge on the father he despises and not anything felt deep in the gut.”
“Very Useful, you surprise me. How much you know.”
“Eyes, ears and mouth, Diego. Eyes to see with, ears to listen with, mouth to spew the dross back out that has been ingested during a long life of watching and listening to things unfold in this world.”
Very Useful wipes his mouth now and puts the napkin on his plate.
“Let us not squander any more time on wastrels, Diego. The girl has invited you to meet her and we must devise a plan.”
Diego looks at Very Useful and smiles. “I have a plan already, Very Useful, I have been thinking of it since the afternoon. Listen …”
Very Useful leans over and waits eagerly for Diego’s words.
*
Morning!
Finally the sun has come up. Sofia gets up with a spring, hurries through the motions of washing and dressing. She has been counting the minutes to sunrise through a long night of fitful rest. She looks into the mirror, hopes her sleeplessness does not show on her face. Oh well, no matter, she thinks, the time is ripe for much more important things. She is sure Diego will be meeting her at the bookstore, is sure the moment of truth has arrived for them both. Inside a well-worn copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable she has hidden the note she has tenderly written to Diego confirming the intensity of her love.
But first—a hurried breakfast after which she will take her brother Bernardo aside—the only one who has been privy to Sofia’s secrets, the only one who can help make sure that everything proceeds according to plan.
Outside her room she encounters her father on his way to breakfast too, storm clouds hovering over his tired eyes.
“Is everything all right, Papá?” Sofia asks, concern in her voice.
“Of course, Sofia, of course,” he answers, thinking of course it is not. In a scant two hours he will be meeting with Carlos Blanco Torres at the store. The young man had requested a meeting just yesterday and Don Roberto fears only one thing will be discussed: the debt he owes to the young man’s father, the debt that has been mounting and mounting until Don Victor’s admonition to him just last month that the time had arrived to pay up.
But how? he had asked himself all through the long and sleepless night, how to save the hacienda that has been passed on from generation to generation now that the time has run out?
At the breakfast table, a subdued Doña Laura is cooking up a plan of a different sort. She knows now that it is to Don Victor Blanco that her son is in debt, knows also that it is Sofia on whom Don Victor’s son Carlos has his eyes set. What harm will it do to push her granddaughter a little his way? After all, marriage is the only means left for one to make one’s way in the world and she does not agree with her son that a union between the two is impossible, given the differences in their families’ position and wealth. Miracles can happen, can they not? It is true, this one could prove more daunting than turning blood into wine, she thinks now, looking over at Sofia, wondering if anything good could possibly be expected from the girl. But it will be worth a try. Doña Laura simply cannot think of parting with the hacienda that has been in her family for generations now. The loss would be the last nail in the coffin that has been waiting for her since her own husband’s death so many years ago.
At the store, Sofia and Bernardo help their father take inventory of their stock. Time to add up my worth, one book at a time, Don Roberto thinks sadly, remembering the days when his father still lived and they had rejoiced over the bits of knowledge that arrived monthly in this blessed sanctuary, a time long gone when sugar cane had been the plant of choice and Mérida was still a quiet, backwater town. There is, of course, no way to turn the clock back now. The henequen boom had changed everything. His only hope is that he will not be forced to part with the most beloved items in his own collection—the books that have provided so much consolation during a long, exhausting life.
&n
bsp; He leaves the store then, hoping to get help from the bank, hoping to be saved just as the last minutes tick on the clock. It will be a difficult proposition, he knows. No bank is of late prepared to take a chance on ailing landowners like himself, but Don Roberto feels compelled to make one more attempt. A man should give up only when he is dead, his father had often said. And miracles happen, do they not? He will give up hope only once all doors have been firmly closed.
Not long after he leaves, a customer arrives. Sofia turns around eagerly, expecting to welcome Diego into the store.
Before her, instead, stands none other than Carlos Blanco Torres, ivory-handled walking stick in one hand, a bowler hat on his head, all the confidence of an invading army stamped across his face. And what is he doing here today? she asks herself, crestfallen, fearful that her carefully conceived plan will now be ruined for good.
“Good morning, Señor Carlos,” she manages to say.
“Good day, Señorita Sofia,” he responds, smiling a confident smile, oblivious to the wariness that has come over the young girl who stands frozen before him now.
“What can we do for you today?”
“I have come in search of a book.”
Sofia smiles her best shopkeeper’s smile. “And what book would you be looking for?” she asks, hoping to be rid of him at once.
“In truth, not a book but a libretto,” Carlos tells her and then, seeing her confusion, adds, “a book containing the words spoken or sung in an opera.”
“I know what a libretto is, Señor Carlos,” Sofia replies, her voice terse, trying to keep her impatience from creeping into her tone. “But I am afraid that we do not have any here. The Librería Maya specializes in other types of books—philosophy, poetry, scientific works. We do have Rousseau’s Dissertation sur la musique moderne. I can get it if you like.” She turns towards the back, calls for her brother’s help.
“No, no, I am not interested in that book at all. Thank you, but I am very serious about collecting libretti, Señorita Sofia, have been doing so for many years now.”
Carlos smiles at her confusion. “Your father is expecting me to discuss this matter. Is he not here?”
“No, he has just stepped out for a while. Can I get you some other book, Señor Carlos? Or would you like to return shortly, once my father is back?”
“I am waiting for two of my servants to meet me here, Señorita Sofia. Will you permit me to stay on?”
“Of course, Señor Carlos, of course,” Sofia says, unsure of what more to add, trying with every breath to quell the anxiety that storms inside her gut.
Remarkably, two of Carlos’s servants now enter the store carrying a large gramophone in their hands. On orders from their patrón, they place the machine gently on the counter and then disappear as quickly as they have come.
“Señor?” Sofia says. And now what? she asks herself.
Carlos points to the machine. “A Nipper gramophone made by the esteemed Victor Talking Machine Company, a magnificent specimen as you can see, straight off the boat from the United States, as a matter of fact. Imagine, you can actually store fifty-two discs in the space of eight cylinders. Would you like me to show you how it works?”
“No, I would not,” the señorita answers, no longer able to keep the annoyance from creeping into her voice. “We are a bookstore, Señor Carlos, not a dance hall.”
The señor ignores this comment as he begins to fiddle with the gramophone, bringing a hand up in the air to stop Sofia from expressing any further thoughts.
“Shhh, listen, Señorita, be still for just one moment.”
Suddenly a song is filling the room, a song like no other she has ever heard before. It is the voice of the tenor Antonio Paoli singing from the stage of La Scala—Milan’s venerable opera house:
Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga e rider vuole qua.
Sofia knows little about opera, has not been privileged enough to have attended one in Mexico City or indeed here in Mérida, where the occasional company arrives to entertain the distinguished men and women of the region, the henequeros, who attend the spectacle brimming with diamonds and pearls, eager not to see but to be seen. Sofia does not know anything about this art form, cannot understand a single word of the aria that is being sung, but her heart can respond to the anguish she hears in the man’s voice. She can feel the man’s pain deep in her bones.
E seArlecckin t’invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliaccio … e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto;
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e’l dolor …
Señor Carlos, who has been standing there completely still until now, listening to the music with eyes closed, can no longer contain himself. He bursts suddenly and dramatically into song:
Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto,
Ridi del duol t’avvelena il cor!
It is at this moment that Don Roberto walks through the door, just in time to watch as Carlos belts out the last phrases of that incomparable aria, hands on his chest, eyes fixed on the ceiling above. Her father spots Sofia nearby, standing rigidly, her eyes opened wide, clutching a book to her chest.
Jesús and Mara, he thinks, what in heaven’s name is going on here? He cannot even imagine the possibility of his mother hearing of this. The consequences, he knows, would be too hard to conceive of, let alone borne by his weary shoulders, exhausted already from the troubles of the world.
“Señor?” he asks, looking at Carlos then at Sofia and finally at his son Bernardo, who is trying hard to say something but who is finding that despite his most earnest efforts, no coherent words will emerge.
Mercifully, it is el Señor Carlos himself who now speaks. “Ah, Don Roberto, just the man I came to see,” he says, stopping to slap the older man heartily on the back, “I have some business I would like to propose.”
Don Roberto nods and beckons the young man to the office at the back of the store. If he is going to be discussing his financial demise, he would at least prefer to do so far from his daughter’s prying eyes.
The young man marches behind him but not before stopping to bestow Sofia with yet another of his infuriating, confident smiles. The señorita nods silently and returns quickly to the list of books she is compiling, hoping this business of his will be taken care of promptly so that she can be rid of him soon.
When the two men finally appear moments later, they are all smiles and good cheer. “We understand each other then?” Carlos is asking Don Roberto, who seems as if his burdens have been removed from his shoulders for good.
“Sí, Señor Carlos, I am sure we will be able to help you find what you want.”
Carlos shakes Don Roberto’s hand and then proceeds to the front, where Sofia and Bernardo sit engrossed in the business of the inventory, heads down, pens in hand.
“Good day, Señorita,” Carlos says to her, bowing formally her way, whistling the last few bars of the aria once again before breaking out into song just as he opens the door.
Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto,
Ridi del duol t’avvelena il cor!
“An interesting young man,” Don Roberto says, watching him leave and then turning his gaze towards the gramophone Carlos has left behind.
“What business does he want with us, Papá?” Sofia asks, doing her best to show only the slightest of interest in the matter, though her curiosity feels more like a barely contained tidal wave.
“The Señor is willing to pay us very generously to locate some libretti for him. I confess it is not my usual type of business, but he insists that you, Sofia, have expressed a great interest in the opera and have offered to help him.”
Sofia would like to unmask Carlos as a liar, would like to insist to her father that she has never expressed such an interest, that the señor is taking liberties that do not belong to him, but she is aware of how much the business is needed at the store, feels humiliated by the thought that Carlos has found
a way to purchase her agreement with this ruse.
“Yes,” she says, to her father’s open relief, “I would very much like to learn about opera.” And there is some truth in her words—the music intrigues her, no matter the feelings she might have for the young man himself.
At the usual hour of one o’clock Sofia leaves the store in time to go home for the midday meal, devastated by the fact that Diego had not appeared for the meeting she had proposed. A battle now rages in her head—one side wishing to banish Diego permanently, the other unwilling to give up the fight before all hope has been completely quenched. She steps out to find Diego himself standing by the door.
“Will you come with me?” he asks.
“Go with you where?” she asks, annoyance and relief mingling in her chest.
“It is a secret,” the young man replies, laughter in his eyes.
She pauses, trying to vanquish the last vestiges of irritation that still linger in her mind.
“Wait,” she says. She runs back into the bookstore and instructs Bernardo on what he is to do and say back at the house.
Outside once again, Sofia finds Diego standing by a calesa, one of the horse-drawn buggies that transport the people of Mérida about. He helps her inside and she watches as the driver steers the buggy here and there without any clear direction until they are making their way out of town.
“Where are we going, Diego?” she asks, growing evermore confused about what he is planning, her anxiety quelled by the sheer joy she feels at being with him on this day, perfect, so perfect that when she remembers it later, she will be able to recall every moment, every sigh, every word.
They arrive at their destination in less than an hour’s time—a field to which they have often travelled with the group led by Mr. Nelson during these recent months.
Sofia is now even more confused than before.
Diego helps her out of the buggy, leads her to a familiar clump of bushes and trees. Sofia remembers this spot well, remembers all the times she had come here as a child accompanying her father while he searched for his beloved birds.
