and put them in a new bag. Throw the old one in the trash.”
“Oh!” complains Arroyo Hondo. “If only mine were like yours and even took an interest in golf. But what can you do? These days he’s all caught up in another blessed charity to help I don’t know which nuns who have I don’t know what foundation. I swear . . . It’s as though he’s forgotten he has children of his own! Tell me, at the rate he’s going, what will be left for those boys to inherit? And in any case, you give the poor the things they need and what do they do? They sell it all. And the women popping out baby after baby. There’s no help for them. The poor love being poor.”
Children
“And who is Estefanía dating these days?” asks Bella Vista.
“Jan Luis,” replies Los Cacicazgos, “the eldest son of the Menicuccis who own the Formosa Supermarkets.”
“Jan Luis?” wonders Piantini. “But doesn’t he have Down syndrome?”
“That’s just gossip,” chides Cacicazgos. “You know how people are. It was those rumors that broke them up the first time. . . . Okay, the boy does look odd, and he may have a speech impediment and a learning disability, but he comes from a good family and, most importantly, he’s completely in love with my daughter. I told her the same thing. But no, no matter how much I tried to talk some sense into her, the little fool could not be dissuaded: she did not want to be a “retard’s” girlfriend. I left her alone, because love can’t be forced—until I found out that she’d been seen with a boy from Alma Rosa, perish the thought. I picked up the phone and called Jan Luis, I did. I stuck my nose in where it wasn’t my business, but isn’t that why we’re mothers? I told him that if he really loved my daughter that he should come to her birthday party that Friday. It worked wonders. The boy arrived with a brand new BMW, a pink bow on the hood. Ah, such a nice touch. . . . They made up then and there and I told her to thank the Lord for sending her a man who loves her so much, because not even her father, in his entire life, has ever given me such a gift. I even gave them permission to take it for a spin—with the chauffeur, of course, because Estefanía doesn’t have her license and the boy is forbidden to go anywhere near a steering wheel. . . .
Daily Life
“Today I needed to go to Prin to exchange a little dress I bought for Paola’s baby, but, really, who can find the time?”
“The same thing happened to me, darling. I mean, imagine: I leave the house first thing to go to the gym, then stop off to pick up my evening gown from the cleaners. From there to Zara to see if I can find a belt to go with the shoes Sandrita brought me from Miami. By then it’s two o’clock, I’ve got an armload of packages, and just ask me if I found the darned belt. And the 27 de Febrero in such gridlock that, if I didn’t have Henry, the chauffeur, I’d have left the Mercedes right there in the middle of the road and walked home. Needless to say, I’m dead tired by the time I get through the front door.”
Many other topics were discussed, but one thing led to the next until they all ended up discussing something about which they were of a single mind:
Maids
“They’re all worthless.”
“They’re all thieves.”
“It’s so difficult to find a good one!”
“And when you do, it’s so difficult to keep her!”
“So true. They’re so proud that the littlest thing offends them.”
“I’ve had good luck hiring evangelicals and Adventists. Although, of course, they won’t lift a finger on Saturdays.”
“Even the saintliest ones bring men into the house.”
“And if she doesn’t steal from you, then the men she brings in do.”
“If I were to tell you . . .”
“And my God, how they eat!”
“The bad part about the ones that stay with you for a long time is that, bit by bit, they gain your trust and then they start to ask for favors and raises and loans. . . . I trade them all in for new ones at the end of each year.”
“I had one that would try on my clothes. I discovered it purely by chance. Obviously, I had to burn everything in the closet. That same day I went to Miami to go shopping. You know how it is, one calamity after another.”
“Oh, but I had one who tried to steal my husband. She’d make herself up every morning. Braided her hair, makeup, nails, tight little dress, like she was going to a party. And with that man, who’s a tiger. . . . I said to him: No, in my house, the prettiest one is me. I sent her packing right then and there.”
“I had one that started every day drunk.”
“I walked in on one masturbating.”
“My God in heaven! Where?”
“In her room—but tell me, is it, or is it not, my house?”
“Some of them stink.”
“Well, to me they all stink.”
“And what about the flood of children?”
“They have their first ones at thirteen or fourteen. . . .”
“Such ignorance!”
“I had one who couldn’t even write her numbers.”
“But, darling, I had one who signed her name with an X.”
“And those names they have. . . .”
“So stupid.”
“So ridiculous.”
“Sugeidy.”
Laughter.
“Primores.”
Laughter.
“Leididí.”
More laughter.
“Gracieusse!” said Adeline, giving a firm, curt clap. Her friends started laughing, buoyed along by the mood of the moment, but suddenly their laughter turned into shrieks of terror. Several dropped their glasses, which shattered as they hit the floor. The unanticipated screams served as prologue to an aghast silence.
We couldn’t see what had happened from where we were sitting, so we got up and peeped in. We couldn’t immediately identify the cause of the terror. We were entranced by the panicked ladies: petrified in various postures of fright, some covering their mouths with both hands.
But then we saw what they had seen.
It was a Congo so dark her skin glinted bluely. Her hair was a disaster, spiky and unkempt, as if she’d just had the restraints from an electroshock session removed. She was very short, with long arms and an abject face. She was barefoot and covered her nakedness with a scant yellow skirt and an old pink blouse. Both were far too small for her, as though a little girl had transformed into a woman
