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  She was wearing an understated floral hat, in a pastel color, that contrasted with the white of her hair. Her gloves matched her hair, gleaming snow-white. She carried a mahogany walking stick with a silver head shaped like a swan. Her conversation was absolutely charming. The aunt pronounced herself delighted with Tita; she went on at length about her nephew’s excellent choice and Tita’s perfect English.

  Tita made her sister’s excuses for not being present, saying she was indisposed, and invited them to move into the dining room.

  The aunt was delighted with the rice with fried plantains and praised the bean dish to the heavens.

  When the beans are served, they are covered with grated cheese and garnished with tender lettuce leaves, avocado slices, chopped radishes, chiles tornachiles, and olives.

  The aunt was used to a different type of food, but that did not prevent her from being able to appreciate the wonderful meal Tita had prepared.

  “Mmmm. It’s delicious, Tita.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are lucky, Johnny, to be eating well from now on, because to tell the truth Katy is a very bad cook. Marriage is going to fatten you up.”

  John could see that Tita was upset.

  “Is something the matter, Tita?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you right now, your aunt would feel bad if we stopped speaking English.”

  John answered her, speaking in Spanish.

  “No, don’t worry, she’s completely deaf.”

  “Then how can she talk with us?”

  “She reads lips, but don’t worry, she only reads English. Besides, when she’s eating, she doesn’t know us from Adam, so for pity’s sake tell me what’s the matter. We haven’t had a chance to talk and we’re getting married in less than a week.”

  “John, I think we’d better call it off.”

  “But why?”

  “Don’t make me tell you now.”

  Tita smiled, trying not to let the aunt see they were discussing a rather delicate topic. The aunt smiled too, obviously perfectly happy, quite satisfied eating her plate of beans. It was clear, she really couldn’t read their lips in Spanish. Tita could talk to John without any danger. John stuck to the subject.

  “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was hard for Tita to go on speaking when she saw the look of sorrow that came over John, which he immediately tried to control.

  “While you were gone, I had relations with a man I’ve always loved, and I lost my virginity. That’s the reason, I can’t marry you anymore.”

  After a long silence, John asked:

  “Are you more in love with him or with me?”

  “I can’t answer that, I just don’t know. When you aren’t here, I think he is the one I love, but when I see you, everything changes. Near you I feel calm, settled, at peace. . . . But I don’t know, I don’t know. . . . Forgive me for telling you all this.”

  Two tears were sliding down Tita’s cheeks. Aunt Mary took her hand, very moved, and said in English:

  “How wonderful to see a woman in love weeping with emotion. I did the same many times when I was about to get married.”

  John realized that these words could make Tita burst into tears and that then the situation would be out of control.

  He reached out and took Tita’s hand and said, with a smile on his face to agree with his aunt’s:

  “Tita, it doesn’t matter to me what you did, there are some things in life that shouldn’t be given so much importance, if they don’t change what is essential. What you’ve told me hasn’t changed the way I think; I’ll say again, I would be delighted to be your companion for the rest of your life—but you must think over very carefully whether I am the man for you or not. If your answer is yes, we will celebrate our wedding in a few days. If it’s no, I will be the first to congratulate Pedro and ask him to give you the respect you deserve.”

  John’s words didn’t surprise Tita; they reflected his character. What surprised her was that he knew without a doubt that his rival was Pedro. She had not reckoned on his uncanny intuition.

  Tita could not remain at the table. Excusing herself, she ran to the patio for a moment, where she cried until she calmed back down. She returned in time to serve dessert. John rose to push in her chair and treated her with the same tenderness and respect as always. What a fine man he was. How he had grown in her eyes! And how the doubts had grown inside her head! The jasmine sorbet she served for dessert provided a great relief. Swallowing it, her body was refreshed, her mind cleared. The aunt was crazy about the dessert. She had never imagined that jasmine flowers could be eaten. Intrigued, she wanted to know exactly how to prepare a sorbet just like it at home. Very slowly, so the aunt could read her lips clearly, Tita gave her the recipe.

  “Crush a sprig of jasmine and put it in three pints of water with a half pound of sugar, mixing well. When the sugar is completely dissolved, strain the mixture through a piece of linen stretched over a container and then place it in the ice-cream maker to freeze.”

  The rest of the afternoon went wonderfully. As John was leaving, he gave Tita a kiss on the hand, saying:

  “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, I just want to assure you that you would be happy with me.”

  “I know.”

  Of course she knew. Of course she was going to take that into account when she made her decision, that crucial decision that would determine her whole future.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Next month’s recipe:

  Chiles in Walnut Sauce

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  December

  Chiles in Walnut Sauce

  INGREDIENTS:

  25 chiles poblanas

  8 pomegranates

  100 cashew nuts

  100 grains aged fresh cheese

  1 kilo ground steak

  100 grams raisins

  1/4 kilo almonds

  1/4 kilo walnuts

  1/2 kilo tomatoes

  2 medium onions

  2 candied citrons

  1 peach

  1 apple

  cumin

  white pepper

  salt

  sugar

  PREPARATION:

  Begin shelling the nuts several days in advance, for that is a big job, to which many hours must be devoted. After the nut is taken from the shell, you still have to remove the skin that covers the nut. Take care that none of this skin, not a single bit, is left clinging to the nuts, because when they’re ground and mixed with the cream, any skin will make the nut sauce bitter, and all of your previous work will have been for nothing.

  Tita and Chencha were finishing shelling the nuts, sitting around the kitchen table. The nuts were to be used for the chiles in nut sauce they would be serving as the main course at the next day’s wedding. All the other members of the family had gone, deserting the kitchen table on one pretext or another. Only those two indefatigable women were continuing to the bottom of the mountain. To tell the truth, Tita didn’t blame the others. They had given her enough help already this week; she knew quite well that it wasn’t easy to shell a thousand nuts without getting sick of it. The only person she knew who could do it without any sign of fatigue was Mama Elena.

  Not only could she crack sack after sack of nuts in a short time, she seemed to take great pleasure in doing it.

  Applying pressure, smashing to bits, skinning, those were among her favorite activities. The hours just flew by when she sat on the patio with a sack of nuts between her legs, not getting up until she was done with it.

  For her it would have been child’s play to crack those thousand nuts, which required so much effort from everyone else. They needed that enormous quantity because for each 25 chiles they had to shell 100 nuts; so it figured that for 250 chiles, they needed 1,000 nuts. They had invited eighty people to the wedding, between relatives and close friends. Each one could eat three chiles if they wanted, a fairly generous estimate. This was to
be a quiet wedding; nonetheless, Tita wanted to give a twenty-course banquet the likes of which had never been given before, and of course she couldn’t leave the delicious chiles in walnut sauce off of the menu, even though they took so much work—such a memorable occasion surely warranted it. It didn’t matter to Tita if she had black fingers after taking the skin off so many nuts. This wedding was well worth the sacrifice—it had a special significance for her. For John too. He was so happy that he had been one of her most enthusiastic helpers in the preparation of the banquet. Indeed, he had been one of the last to stop to rest. He deserved a good rest.

  At home in his bathroom, John was washing his hands, dead tired. His fingernails hurt from peeling so many nuts. Getting ready for bed, he was filled with intense emotion. In a few hours he would be closer to Tita, and that gave him enormous satisfaction. The wedding was scheduled for midday. He looked at his smoking jacket, draped over a chair. Everything he would wear was meticulously arranged, waiting for the moment to dress. The shoes shone their brightest; the bow tie, sash, and shirt were impeccable. Satisfied that everything was in order, he took a deep breath, lay down and, as soon as his head touched the pillow, was sound asleep.

  Pedro, on the other hand, could not get to sleep. A terrible jealousy gnawed at his entrails. He didn’t care at all for the idea of going to the wedding and having to endure seeing Tita together with John.

  He couldn’t understand John’s attitude at all; he acted like he had mush in his veins. John knew perfectly well what was between Tita and him. Yet he acted as if it were nothing. That afternoon, when Tita was trying to light the oven, she couldn’t find any matches anywhere. John, always gallant, had quickly offered to help her. But that wasn’t all! After lighting the fire, he had presented Tita with the box of matches, taking her hands in his. What business did he have giving Tita that kind of ridiculous gift? It was just a pretext for John to stroke Tita’s hands in front of Pedro. John thought he was so civilized —he’d teach him what a man does when he really loves a woman. Grabbing his jacket, he got ready to go look for John so he could smash his face in.

  He stopped at the door. He couldn’t contribute to any vicious talk about how Tita’s brother-in-law had gotten in a fight with John the day before the wedding.

  Tita would never forgive him. Angrily, he threw his jacket on the bed and went looking for a pill for his headache. The noise Tita made in the kitchen was magnified a thousand times by the pain.

  Tita was thinking of her sister as she finished shelling the last few nuts left on the table. Rosaura would have enjoyed this wedding so much. The poor thing had been dead for a year. They had waited all this time to hold the religious ceremony in honor of her memory. Her death had been extremely odd. She had eaten supper as usual and immediately afterward had gone to her room. Esperanza and Tita had sat talking for a while in the dining room. Pedro had gone upstairs to say good night to Rosaura before going to sleep. Tita and Esperanza couldn’t hear a thing, the dining room was so far from the bedrooms. At first Pedro didn’t find it odd that he could hear Rosaura breaking wind even with the door closed. He began to notice the unpleasant noises when one lasted so long it seemed it would never end. Pedro tried to concentrate on the book he was holding, thinking that drawn-out sound could not possibly be the product of his wife’s digestive problems. The floor was shaking, the light blinked off and on. Pedro thought for a moment it was the rumble of cannons signaling that the revolution had started up again, but he discarded the thought; it had been too calm in the country lately. Maybe it was the engine of one of the neighbor’s motorcars. But motorcars didn’t produce such a nauseating smell. How strange that he could smell it even though he’d taken the precaution of walking all around the bedroom with a spoon containing a chunk of burning charcoal and a pinch of sugar.

  That was the most effective remedy against bad smells.

  When he was a child, it was what they always did in the room where someone had had the stomach flu, and it had always worked to fumigate the atmosphere. This time it hadn’t done a bit of good. Worried, he went over to the door that communicated between the two bedrooms; tapping with his knuckles, he asked Rosaura if she felt all right. Receiving no answer, he opened the door: there he found Rosaura, her lips purple, body deflated, eyes wild, with a distant look, sighing out her last flatulent breath. John’s diagnosis was an acute congestion of the stomach.

  Her burial was very poorly attended, because the disagreeable odor Rosaura’s body gave off got worse after her death. For that reason not many people chose to attend. The ones determined not to miss it were the buzzards—a flock of them circled the funeral party until the body had been buried. Seeing they weren’t going to have a banquet, they flew off disappointed, leaving Rosaura to rest in peace.

  But Tita’s hour of rest had not yet come. Her body may have been crying for sleep, but she had to finish the walnut sauce first. That’s why, instead of thinking about the past, it would be a lot better to hurry up with the cooking so she could take a well-deserved breather.

  After the nuts have been peeled, grind them on the stone with the cheese and cream. Finally, add salt and white pepper to taste. Cover the filled chiles with this nut sauce and garnish with the pomegranates.

  FILLING THE CHILES:

  Fry the onions in a little oil. When they start to get transparent, add the ground meat, cumin, and a little sugar. After the meat has browned, stir in the chopped peach, apple, walnuts, raisins, almonds, and tomatoes until it’s seasoned. When it’s ready, add salt to taste and let the liquids cook off before removing from the heat.

  Roast and peel the chiles separately. Slice them open on one side and take out the seeds and membranes.

  Tita and Chencha finished garnishing the twenty-five trays of chiles and put them in a cool place. The next morning they would still be in perfect condition when the waiters would get them out and carry them in to the banquet.

  The waiters were running from one side to the next serving the lively crowd of guests. When Gertrudis arrived at the party, she got everyone’s attention. She drove up in a model T Ford coupe, one of the first to be produced with multiple gears. Stepping out of the car, she nearly dropped the huge wide-brimmed hat trimmed with ostrich feathers that she was carrying. Her dress with its shoulder pads was the most daring, absolutely the latest thing. Juan wasn’t one to be left behind. He was sporting an elegant tight-fitting suit, a top hat, and spats. Their oldest child had turned into a fine figure of a mulatto. He had delicate features, and his clear blue eyes stood out against his dark skin. He got his dark skin from his grandfather and his blue eyes from Mama Elena. He had eyes just like his grandmother. Behind them came Sergeant Trevino, who had been hired as a personal bodyguard by Gertrudis after the revolution.

  At the entrance to the ranch Nicholas and Rosalio, in fancy charro costumes, were collecting invitations from the guests as they were arriving. The invitations were beautiful. Alex and Esperanza had prepared them personally. The paper used for the invitations, the black ink used to write them, the gold tint used on the edges of the envelopes, and the wax used to seal them—all those were their pride and joy. Everything had been prepared the traditional way, using the De la Garza family recipes. But they hadn’t needed to prepare the black ink, for enough remained from the ink that had been made for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding. It was dried ink; all that had to be done was to add a little water and it was as good as new. The ink is made by mixing eight ounces of gum arabic, five and a half ounces of gall, four ounces of iron sulfate, two and a half ounces of logwood, and half an ounce of copper sulfate. To make the gold tint used on the edges of the envelopes, take an ounce of orpiment and an ounce of rock crystal, finely ground. Stir these powders into five or six well-beaten egg whites until the mixture is like water. And finally, the sealing wax is made by melting a pound of gum arabic, half a pound of benzoin, half a pound of calafonia, and a pound of vermilion.

  When this mixture has liquefied, pour it onto a table grea
sed with sweet almond oil and form into thin sticks or rods before it cools.

  Esperanza and Alex spent many afternoons following these recipes to the letter so they could make invitations that were unique, and in that they had succeeded. Each was a work of art. They were the product of crafts that have, unfortunately, gone out of style, like long dresses, love letters, and the waltz. But for Tita and Pedro the waltz “The Eyes of Youth,” which the orchestra was playing at Pedro’s request, would never go out of style. Together they glided around the dance floor, bursting with style. Tita looked splendid. The twenty-two years that had passed since Pedro married Rosaura had not even touched her. At thirty-nine she was still as sharp and fresh as a cucumber that had just been cut.

  As they danced, John followed them with his eyes, with a look full of affection and just a hint of resignation. Tenderly Pedro touched his cheek to Tita’s, and his hand on her waist felt hotter than ever.

  “Do you remember when we heard this song for the first time?”

  “I’ll never forget.”

  “I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about asking for your hand right then. I didn’t know that it would take twenty-two years before I would ask you to be my wife.”

  “Are you asking me seriously?”

  “Of course. I don’t want to die without making you mine. I have always dreamed of walking with you into a church full of white flowers, and you the most beautiful of them all.”

  “Dressed in white?”

  “Of course! There’s nothing to stop you. And do you know what? Once we’re married, I’d like to have a child with you. We still have time, don’t you think? Now that Esperanza is leaving us, we’ll need some company.”

  Tita couldn’t answer Pedro. A lump in her throat prevented it. The tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. Her first tears of joy.

  “And I want you to know that you can’t convince me not to do it. I don’t care what my daughter or anybody else thinks. We’ve spent too many years worrying about what people will say; from now on nothing is going to keep me away from you.”