The Nine Guardians by Rosario Castellanos — Read

These wicker rocking-chairs are already very old, and how the woodworm have eaten them! We ought to buy a modern suite like the one Don Jaime Rovelo has in his drawing-room-"Pullman", they call it. But César evades the subject every time I bring it up. He says it's not that he's mean, but that this furniture's a legacy from goodness knows whom and that it ought to be treasured as a relic. Oh! He's going to scold me when he finds the portraits are covered with dust and the flies have done their little cakewalk across them. This very day, before I forget, I'm going to tell the maid to pass a cloth over them. She's Indian, a bit slow in the head. If only we had the ones from Comitán. They're really hard-working. But César didn't want us to bring any. Because of the cost, I suppose. So one's got to make do with what one has. It's easier driving a donkey. But I'm not going to start acting housemaid now. We weren't like that at home. What should we be doing with hoarding such bric-á-brac as if it were gold in a napkin? We were always too poor for that anyway. Mother was left a widow when I was five. What a task she had to bring me up! Making palm hats and shirts of unbleached cotton for the donkey-boys. Never a day went by that someone who'd come to collect what was owing didn't hammer at the door. If it wasn't the rent, it was the vegetable woman. Mother always received them very friendly, quite as if they were visitors. She told them the straits she was in and promised to pay when the money managed to get itself saved up. But we never did save any. Once, I remember-I was already one for the boys and liked to put on a bit of side, it was when the peddlers came down for the San Caralampio fair-I fell in love with some sandals I saw on a stall. They were leather sandals, the hide well tanned, and they cost three pesos-a fortune. Every day I passed to take a peep at them, terrified they might have been bought already. I don't know what moved my godmother's heart, but she suddenly became specially generous and gave me five pesos pocket-money. I rushed off to the stall where I'd seen the sandals. With the two pesos left I bought a pair of coarse black cotton stockings with clocks. The day I wore them for the first time I'd have given a lot if the streets could have been glistening clean and not so stony. I trod very gingerly so that my sandals wouldn't get scratched and dirty. It was the last night of the fair. There was a serenade of wind instruments, and I went down to sit on the church stoop. I stuck my feet out all I could so that people would see my new shoes. They pinched me and squeaked, but they were so pretty. Amalia, who was always jealous of me, nicknamed me "Sandalaria" and started the rumour I never took my shoes off even to sleep and that when I died they'd bury me in them. Then I began a three days' prayer to Santa Rita de Casia, who intervenes for things that are quite impossible, and asked her to fix me up the miracle that now and then-but not always-the sandals would turn into boots and Amalia'd think I owned two pairs. But before I'd ended the three days' praying some men came to impound all we'd got and they took away everything, even the sandals. They left us, as you might say, with nothing but a rush mat. We had to go and live in a single room. Mama slaved day in and day out to make a bit more so that we shouldn't suffer such tribulations, and at night she told her rosary and put everything into the hands of Divine Providence and went off to sleep sound as a dormouse. I was the one who used to pass the night awake and overburdened, worrying in case perhaps the man who brought us the straw for the hats wasn't trusting us any more. My face used to fall with shame when I had to go and talk to him and ask him to wait because we were expecting a money order, which was a lie, for who'd be sending us money orders when there was no one to help us, anywhere? So when César took notice of me and spoke to Mama, for his intentions were honourable, I saw heaven opening before me. Zoraida de Argüello. I like the name, and it suits me. But I was frightened of marrying a man so tall and so proper, and who'd got used already to living alone. For he'd had no sweethearts, not real sweethearts that is, not regular ones. Affairs he'd never lacked, otherwise he'd be no man, but I was the only girl he'd marry. My bridal gown was a joy to behold, embroidered with coloured beads as was the fashion then. César ordered it from Guatemala. He was rich and wanted to make a splash. But how topsy-turvy the world behaves. Now he says he's short of money and he even makes me give back the things I buy. I have to ask his permission first. How I blushed with shame in front of Doña Pastora! I went pale and red by turns as I invented tales that the weaves I'd chosen turned out not to be Guatemalan at all. "Let your mouth be the measure of that," said she, and she threw the money down on to the pile of sheets and refused to take them back. Oh! Mother never lived to see such things. While she was alive I was careful she lacked nothing. Even her supplies of chocolate I bought myself, scraping from what César gave me to spend. And little by little I paid off all her debts. The poor soul's last years were easier, though it always hurt her to see me like a hen bought on the market. And César's family thinks I'm not good enough because my surname is Solís, the lesser Solís family, and so I'm just a nonentity. But they couldn't say anything against my honour. When I married I was young and middling pretty. Afterwards came my bad turns and I simply shrivelled up living with such an intent, serious man who's like a holy sepulchre. Being older than me, he puts on airs and it almost makes me want to speak to him formally, but in front of him I'd be a slobbering ass to show it. Why should I be handing him my arm to twist? If he wants to pet me or come near me he's got to plead for it even now. I don't know how women can be so soft in the head as to marry just for the need of a man. Even supposing life were for ever. After Mario was born I was very poorly. Not another child, Doctor Mazariegos ordered. Pity, because I'd like to have had lots of children. They cheer a house up. César says why do we want more? But I know if it weren't for the two we have he'd have left me long ago. He's bored with me because I have no small-talk. And he was educated abroad. When we were courting he used to visit me in a frock coat, and he liked to explain to me the phases of the moon, which I never did understand. Now he talks to me hardly at all. Yet I don't want to be living apart like Romelia does. One's a hanger-on everywhere then, and fits nowhere. If one dresses up nice and goes out into the street they say one's being a coquette. If one shuts oneself in they think one's up to some monkey-business. Thank God I've two children. And one's a boy.