Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

At that level of intimacy, Rose dared to ask her why Bolivia who was so pretty never married.

“She did try at least three times,” Socorro responded. “But she always ran away from it. Maybe her own beauty did her in. Look, I was always satisfied with my little Jamaican, always satisfied and proud to be Mrs. Salmon, although as you can tell it’s not the best last name, in English or Spanish, a fish. But Bolivia? Bolivia was always looking for something different, another thing, someone else. I was never able to understand the sense of dissatisfaction that made her chase illusions, whatever they may have been.”

And so went the story of those two destinies that at times met only to bifurcate again, Socorro happily married, and Bolivia not, although Bolivia had been a mother and Socorro had not.

“Bolivia had her two daughters,” Socorro said, “and I’m not going to deny that I envied her that, and in turn loved them as if they were mine, especially Violeta, the younger one. They’d come here to visit and that girl loved my porcelain collection, could spend hours looking at them, liked cleaning them with a wet rag, and I allowed it, as long as she was careful. Of course, she had her psychological issues, my girl Violeta, maybe bipolar, they’d say now, or anxiety-ridden, they didn’t know for sure; but she was a doll regardless, with that blondish hair and green eyes that lit the way like two lanterns. And really, it was just knowing how to deal with her, how to interact with her on her level. To calm her down, you know.

“On the other hand, with María Paz things have always been complicated. If the younger one was rebellious and difficult, the older one was worse. Let’s just say that she’s a temperamental girl and leave it there not to judge. My husband warned me from the beginning: ‘Watch that older daughter, she’s trouble, you’ll see, she’ll go from bad to worse, it’s a bad week coming if they hang you on Monday.’ Maybe it was just his paranoia, you know how we immigrants live in this country, so frightened to do something wrong, to behave improperly, to have the neighbors or the law come after us, that we panic when someone looks at us funny. Maybe it’s just a mental thing, up here, you know? An issue with the noggin. But we get psyched out anyway, can’t be helped. The lawn looks a little patchy and we think they can deport us for that. But, Mr. Rose, don’t judge my Marcus, he’s been good to me. Although he does impose certain conditions, and in that he is unequivocal and there’s no room for argument.”

Salmon had been pleased when María Paz decided to marry an American cop. He told Socorro that maybe the girl was rehabilitating herself and agreed to spend a large sum on the wedding present, a set of Czech glassware. When she went to jail, Salmon ordered that Bolivia’s oldest daughter could not set foot in their house again. “What if she’s not guilty?” Socorro had dared to ask. “She must have done something” was Salmon’s final answer.

“But tell me, when they were younger, did the girls ever live in this house in Staten Island?” Rose asked.

“No. It was a long time before Bolivia could send for her girls. And when they finally came, she was no longer living here. But they came to visit now and then, and sometimes would stay for the weekend, and we tried to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. You have to understand, Bolivia and I continued to be friends. But something invisible and sharp inside, like an icicle, had cooled what had been our sisterhood. And then later she died, and perhaps I haven’t behaved very well with the older daughter, I admit that. I just hope that Bolivia doesn’t hold it against me from the beyond.” Socorro glanced down in a gesture of confession, fixing her eyes on her leather sandals. “But don’t blame me entirely; you have to understand my husband’s convictions.”

“I imagine that this visit, the fact that I’m here, is something you are hiding from your husband,” Rose said.

“Well, you have come to revive phantoms that annoy my husband. I’m sorry, but it would not be good to shake the dust of certain events that put my marriage in jeopardy. Marcus is a man who does things by the book, and in spite of his generosity doesn’t forgive delinquency or bad conduct, or anything that is a threat to order and security, not to mention morality.”

“But you yourself admitted that it was possible María Paz wasn’t guilty.”

“But you try to explain it to Marcus, whose principles are unshakable. He’d never forgive me something like that.”

“Something like what?

Socorro began to trip over her words, said she regretted her lack of character, her submission to her husband, felt as if she had to justify her behavior to this stranger who had come to question her. She had always been weak, she said, with high blood pressure and frail health. What ills had she not been afflicted with, at least a dozen of the ones listed in Medical Care , and she went on to list all of them for Rose, counting them on her skinny fingers with the long fingernails: breast cancer, sinusitis, allergies, skin breakouts, hiccups that sometimes lasted for weeks. With all the visits to the doctor, all the hospital stays, the chronic fatigue, she had not been able to work or bear children. On the other hand, Bolivia was tireless when it came to work and strong as an ox, never taking a single day off, and not once in her life did she even have a cold. But Socorro was still alive and Bolivia was dead and buried before she turned fifty-two. Socorro had never had to work, but was never short of money. Bolivia, who never stopped working, was the type who never had enough for the rent. In the intensive care unit at Queens Hospital Center, a few hours after a sudden stroke had fried Bolivia’s brain, Socorro stood by the bed of her friend who was unconscious but still alive, and swore to her on the Most Holy Virgin that from that moment on she, Socorro Arias de Salmon, would take care of Bolivia’s daughters. “You can die in peace, my friend, I will watch over your daughters.” And up to now she had kept her promise, not entirely but well enough, or let’s say well enough when it came to Violeta and not so well with respect to María Paz. She confessed to Rose that she had set up a special trust fund so that she could continue to keep her promise to Bolivia concerning Violeta when she and Mr. Salmon were no longer alive.

“Almost all these porcelain pieces are Royal Doulton,” she said. “They’re worth a fortune. Look, this one is one of a kind. It will be worth almost seven thousand dollars when it is sold for Violeta.”

Under lock and key, behind glass, she had another half dozen Capodimonte pieces, and she asked Rose if he knew what they were worth, if he could tell they were originals, with seals of authenticity and everything, and in perfect condition.

“Look, with just this one here, Bolivia’s sick daughter has enough to live on for the rest of her life. I’ll show you,” Socorro said.

Rose examined it. It was a good-sized piece, made up of two figures on a sort of cloud, a man and a woman, the woman with an imperial air, a Marie Antoinette or Madame de Pompadour, wearing a tulle flounce dress and leaning down over a beggar at her feet. The beggar, or character down on his luck, gazed with an almost mystical rapture at the sumptuous cleavage of the lady. It could be said that he was gorging on that pair of porcelain breasts with his eyes, and Rose was annoyed with him, that beggar, because there was something base about him.

“Pretty piece,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Since Marcus and I don’t have kids,” Socorro explained with a hint of frustration, “Violeta will be the sole heir of all these treasures. It’s a debt I owe to Bolivia, my dear Bolivia, because I didn’t always do right by her, didn’t always do right. Perhaps because I was jealous, or envious, and no one is perfect, we know, certainly not me. And neither was Bolivia; she was no pot of honey, my friend Bolivia, you can be sure of that.”