LITMIR.BIZ

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and which she brought into the light at dawn. Mira, she would whisper to herself, fingering the imaginary parchment, these are the places where the heart has withered bit by bit. In the corner is the house that lies west of the Calle San Vicente, home to many of Seville’s booksellers and several women of ill repute. Moving east—the house of Doña Alicia first, and almost next to it, that of Doña Lucía. And then there is the city of Malaga, all sun-drenched and blue water, a dot so brimming with affronts that it threatens to spill into the sea and blur away the details of the parchment.

      The dots that were scattered across this map were responsible for making Doña Fernanda a very unhappy woman, a fact she used like a shield, revealing it at opportune moments to gain the upper hand. She was—in Mónica’s words—imperious, domineering and hard on the eyes, but Mónica had good cause to dislike her, so it is best, perhaps, to try to get at her through other means. What was true, because it had been passed on from generation to generation like a canker gnawing in the family mouth, was that Doña Fernanda had forever lamented having known only fourteen days of happiness in all of her life. For years, her family had waited for her to add one day to that count, but no fiesta, wedding or family celebration ever made an impression on her, and she died leaving those two weeks firmly imprinted in her children’s minds.

      What did make her happy (or at least less rancorous) were the visits of Don Pedro, her parish priest, a corpulent fellow with a knack for attracting all of the city’s gossip, and a ferocious appetite for kidneys and stewed beef. Every weekday afternoon, at exactly half past three, Don Pedro would amble over to the house of Doña Fernanda, making sure that all of Seville knew where he was headed and the ceremony with which he would be received.

      And what ceremony! The Seville of the time was not so much a city as a medieval court with rules of conduct that would have made even the most enamoured knight desist his courting in despair. Take the visiting hours as an example. Why was Don Pedro so insistent that he must arrive at the gates of the Medina house at no later than a quarter to four? The answer resided in the rules of etiquette that governed the lives of the Sevillanos of the time, for it was strictly held that all visits should occur between the hours of three and six, with the most formal visitors being received in the first hour, the semi-formal in the next and the most intimate arriving in the final hour between five and six.

      Don Pedro had been visiting Doña Fernanda for a decade and should have graduated to the final visiting hour long before, had he himself not strenuously objected. Claiming the hour between three and four was the only part of his day with some time to spare, time to be provided “to you, of course, Doña Fernanda,” he would say, hands on his chest, “to which I add all my attentiveness and my respect,” at which point the corpulent priest would attempt, with some difficulty, to bow and kiss Doña Fernanda’s hand, a hand that would be quickly retrieved before the cleric’s flaccid lips ever once managed to raze the lady’s clammy skin.

      The master servant of the house, a certain Don Raimundo, who hated the Church and, more than the Church, all of the priests, never failed to rail against the pompous prelate in the privacy of the kitchen at the back of the house.

      “That pious ass says he lacks the time to come visiting at a later hour,” he would complain to the other servants of the house. “I’ll tell you what he does with his time. The weasel spends it inside the bars of Triana, rubbing shoulders with the gypsies and thieves—drinking and laughing it up when he should be saying a Mass to save some poor bastard’s soul from the pit of purgatory. It’s just like a priest, isn’t it? A bleeding wound on the corpse of Spain.” Ay sí, Amén the servants would all respond with gusto, for Don Pedro had few admirers among the members of the group, a group who resented his daily visits, his disdaining gaze, his insistence on a cold drink of agraz and most especially, the special treatment he demanded for his hat.

      Ah, his hat. In the whole history of Seville, nothing had ever generated more conversation than Don Pedro’s black felt hat. It was an ordinary top hat, much like the ones worn by the men of the day, but it sat rather uneasily atop the priest’s head, contrasting oddly with his clerical collar and his long, black cape. That he should be demanding special privileges for his hat—“a cushion no less,” the master servant had guffawed to the cook, outraged, when first told of it, “That barrel of a priest is looking for a cushion for his hat”—was unheard of. Raimundo himself could hardly believe it, would not have believed it, had he not heard it from Doña Fernanda’s own mouth: “Raimundo, make sure Don Pedro’s hat is placed on that chair cushion by the door,” she had said.

      “I beg your pardon,” he had replied, earnestly confused, for many were the archaic customs in this land bottled for antiquarians, a land where one of its ancient kings—finding himself seated too close to the fire—preferred burning to death than breaking the rules of decorum by moving away from the fire or shouting for help. In this land of hierarchies, titles and entitlements, the worth of a man could indeed be determined by the treatment accorded to his hat.

      But never had a cushion been reserved for the head covering of a simple priest!

      Doña Fernanda had repeated her command on that day and had done so in such a way that the servant, no fool himself, knew that she too realized the idiocy of her request, that she hated giving the command nearly as much as the good servant hated receiving it, but that some things in life came at a steep price. What those things were, Raimundo could not even hazard a guess, but he could think no improper thoughts of her—not out of any respect, but because it seemed inconceivable that even a character as decrepit and despicable as Don Pedro could want anything improper with the lady of the house. And so Raimundo placated his ire by complaining unendingly about the situation to the servants under his command.

      As the scene began, Don Pedro was arriving at a quarter to four, late for his customary appointment with Doña Fernanda. It was a hot day in Seville, hotter than usual for May and the unseasonable heat, coupled with Doña Fernanda’s anxiety over the appearance of yet another dot on her imaginary map, had stewed inside of her to such an extent that by the time Don Pedro rolled in—not, in the end, more than ten minutes late—she had almost resolved to decline receiving him at all.

       If only she didn’t need him so.

      It is tragic to be burdened with a lack of confidants on whom anxieties can be deposited and whose kind words can erase fears, those imagined and those real, but Doña Fernanda—with her curt demeanour and imperious ways—had managed to alienate everyone but the priest and thank God for the sanctity of his robes, she thought, for many were the secrets she shared with him, always in confessional tones, so that the sanctity of his own vow to secrecy would compel him to keep her words guarded deep inside his breast.

      (It did not. Don Pedro did not consider Doña Fernanda’s confessions to be received in his capacity as a priest but as a respected guest who—ojo, señores—was even offered a cushion for his hat. Indeed he poured fuel on many a good hostess’s fire who—for the price of a paltry dish of garbanzos and beef—could learn of the goings-on inside the house of Don Ricardo Medina as if from the mouth of Doña Fernanda herself.)

      What ailed Doña Fernanda on most occasions were those dots—markers of her husband’s infidelities—and her husband’s infidelities were the stuff of legend in Seville, a city well accustomed to legends of the sort because it was home, after all, to Carmen, the Barber and Don Giovanni himself.

       Madamina, il catalogo è questo. One thousand and three and counting still.

      It was yet another indiscretion that had the señora in a state on this day, that had her brimming with anxiety and despair, that hardened her to the many entreaties of Don Pedro to “please forgive me for being late” and “Señora, I am at your feet” and so on until he finally tired of entreating and she tired of hearing him beg.

      (“It is amazing, Rosita,” he would tell his sister later, speaking of Doña Fernanda, “that our fair Seville ever produced a slab of stone such as this!”)

      “Give your hat to Raimundo,” Doña Fernanda told the priest gruffly, “and sit down quickly, as we have little time and much to discuss.”

      “I

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