At daybreak Alberto arrived. He was with two friends. He said nothing. He held out his arms to his mother and wept. Afterwards — Berta remembers this as she watches Hebe pick up the vase and the fallen rose petals from the table — everything was effortless and strange. The morning brought on a feeling of great weariness. And sleepiness, an overpowering sleepiness that she had to struggle against. Amelia arrived with the newspaper, took out the milk bottles, served coffee, raised the blinds. Alberto had gone out. When he returned, he asked about their mother. Hebe said:
“She’s asleep. She had to have another shot.”
Alberto asked the women to stay in their rooms until the wake could be prepared in the living room. An hour — perhaps two — later he said:
“It’s all right now.”
Berta wanted to forget. She wanted to erase the memory of a day and a night and half of the next day, to forget her home full of people, full of flowers, then with only a few persons who spoke in muted voices. She wanted to forget Hebe rejecting the attentions of Horacio, her fiancé, to forget how Hebe, taking her by the arm, led her into the kitchen and there, amidst cups holding the remains of coffee, astonished her by saying:
“Do you remember Enrique Arenal? You must. Of course, you were very young then — twelve or thirteen. He was that boy who lived next door on Serrano Street. I’d like him to be here now.”
What had gotten into Hebe? Was it possible that on a night like this she could be thinking of a man so removed from everything? No doubt it was she who had asked him to come. Enrique Arenal must have been the stranger at the wake who had spoken but a few words with Alberto. How changed Hebe seems! It will be better if she breaks up with Horacio. Why go on with something that would end up making them both unhappy? But it’s all too soon, she thought. Papa liked Horacio. Ending the engagement with him would be like betraying Papa.
Hebe has returned with the empty vase. Berta can wait no longer to ask her not to commit that selfish betrayal.
“Hebe—” she says.
The telephone rings. Like someone snatching a weapon from the hand of a madman, Berta grabs the receiver. Hebe takes it from her firmly, gently.
“I’ll answer it,” she says. “Hello!” She falls silent, turning pale. The words she is hearing seem to bring a throbbing to her cheeks. This accentuates her pallor. Her motionless lips, from which the blood has drained, appear pale even through the glistening red lipstick. Hebe’s gaze falls on Berta, who persists in standing there. With the expression of one who is persuaded after offering great resistance, Hebe concedes:
“Yes, this is Hebe. But of course I recognized you. Your voice is the same. But I can’t believe it. No, I just can’t... No honestly, it makes me happy but very sad at the same time. You’re all right, you say? Well, we’re doing the best we can, considering the terrible thing that has happened. A trip? You’re trying to make me feel better. A trip is different. A trip promises a return. No, I just can’t accept it. Poor Mama... She’s sleeping.”
Hebe lowers her voice. Berta turns to reassure herself that the house is immersed in silence.
“Yes, a lot of drugs to make her sleep. Before that, early in the morning, she acted as if she didn’t understand that something frightful had happened to us all. Anyone would have thought that she wasn’t suffering in the least. Closer to us, do you say? I can’t hear you very well. Yes, I know it’s not the noise. Just the opposite. Your words sound fuzzy. Hello! Hello! There, now I can hear you. How can you say that? Why wouldn’t I forgive you? No, I’m the helpless one, who can’t find the words to tell you what I want to say... But the only thing I want to know is that you are happy, content... There’s a noise now. What is it? Trains? You’re talking from a station. Are you alone? Oh dear, poor thing... Berta’s here, beside me. I’ll tell her. Yes, in those words. No, Alberto has gone out. Something he had to do. Urgent, he said. No, we’re not alone. Aunt Carmen is here, too. She’ll stay with us and spend the night. The Oddone sisters just left a moment ago. Do you remember them? They used to live around the comer on Serrano Street. Maria looks very old, but she’s still the same, the way she used to be. But you should see Elisa. A pound of makeup on her face, like a clown... But how can I be talking about these things now? On a day like this. No, I’m not crying. What makes you think I am? You think that’s funny, don’t you? You think I’m crying and looking ugly the way I did when I was a little girl. But you...”
Hebe is weeping now. The tears roll down her cheeks, forming two glistening streaks.
“I just can’t bring myself to say that word. Afraid, you say? But I always loved you. I love you now. No, what can I expect to find in Horacio? He probably doesn’t realize that he means nothing to me now. I could lean on a chair, on a wall, on anything but him. You have to go? Please don’t, not yet. Don’t leave me alone.” Alone because Hebe cannot see her sister, who is regarding her with surprise, with pity, with scorn. “I have so many things to say to you still. No, it’s not the same. It’s not the same that you already know it. I have to say them to you. Hello! Hello! Can you hear me? It’s terrible, those trains again. What do you care if that man is coming down the platform for you? Be calm. Don’t worry about that. I’m strong and I won’t. What? Not ever again?” She cries out as if she had been struck. “Never again?”
“Hebe, are you out of your mind?” Berta says to her. “Give me the phone. That’s enough!” But she withdraws her gesture when she sees that her sister is smiling, when she sees in her eyes the expression of a tenderness that she does not understand.
“That’s all? Just good night?” says Hebe. “Yes, rest. Rest peacefully.”
She replaces the telephone receiver, but without releasing it. Then her hand opens slowly in the movement of a strange and beautiful creature. Berta is standing there. Hebe sees her once more. Hebe says:
“It was Papa.”
— translated by Donald A. Yates
Satan and the Printer
by Tom Tolnay
Another story in honor of Halloween comes to us from small press publisher and printer Tom Tolnay, who reflects here on a potential hazard of his trade. Letterpress printing has become an art kept alive by only a smattering of publishers in the United States and Europe, but it was of course the primary means of printing in the 1830s, when this story takes place...
The printer arrived at daybreak, lifted the iron door latch, and let himself inside. His face was wan, his eyes shot with red. In the faint, frosted light he hung his jerkin on a wooden peg, then wrapped his apron around him. A tug secured the leather visor over his head, which was covered with wiry, rust-colored hair. Motionless as he estimated the number of rough-edged sheets on the shelf, he became part of the stillness around him, nothing more, it seemed to him, than an inanimate implement of his trade.
Since winter had not fully seized the village, and since he was expecting more manuscript to be brought to him that morning, he decided not to take the time to lay a fire in the stone chimney. He moved sluggishly to the far wall, climbed onto a long-legged stool, and lit the oil lamp. A greenish light hesitated over the work counter before sketching a pale halo, quivering, on the ceiling. He cupped his hands around the glass globe of the lamp. Soon his fingers became warm enough to handle the tiny bits of type without fear of dropping them.