“Of course I remember,” Rigoberto lied, speaking syllable by syllable into his wife’s ear as if it were a shameful secret. “How could I not remember, Lucrecia. And then what happened?”
“Well, the two of them became friends and began to go out together. Armida, it seems, already had the plan in mind that turned out so well for her. From a maid who made beds and mopped floors to nothing less than the legal wife of Don Ismael Carrera, a respected, well-heeled big shot from Lima. And in his seventies to boot, maybe even his eighties.”
“Forget about commentary and what we already know,” Rigoberto rebuked her, playing now at being distressed. “Let’s get to what really matters, my love. You know very well what that is. The facts, the facts.”
“I’m getting to that. Armida planned everything very shrewdly. Obviously, if this little girl from Piura didn’t have certain physical charms, her intelligence and shrewdness would have done her no good. Justiniana saw her nude, of course. If you ask how and why, I don’t know. Certainly they bathed together at some point. Or slept in the same bed one night, who knows. She says we’d be surprised to learn how well-shaped Armida is when you see her naked, something one doesn’t notice because of how badly she dresses, always in those baggy outfits for fat women. Justiniana says she isn’t fat, her breasts and buttocks are high and solid, her nipples firm, her legs well shaped, and believe it or not, her belly’s as taut as a drum. With an almost hairless pubis, like a Japanese girl—”
“Is it possible that Armida and Justiniana got excited when they saw each other naked?” an overheated Rigoberto interrupted. “Is it possible they started to play, touching each other, fondling each other, and ended up making love?”
“Everything’s possible in this life, dear boy,” Doña Lucrecia suggested with her usual wisdom. Now husband and wife were welded together. “What I can tell you is that Justiniana even felt a tickle you know where when she saw Armida naked. She confessed as much to me, blushing and laughing. She jokes a great deal about those things, you know, but I think it’s true that seeing Armida naked excited her. So who knows, anything might have happened between those two. In any case, nobody could have imagined what Armida’s body was really like, hidden under the aprons and coarse skirts she wore. Even though you and I didn’t notice, Justiniana thinks that when poor Clotilde entered the final stage of her illness and her death seemed inevitable, Armida began to pay more attention to her appearance than she had before—”
“What did she do, for example?” Rigoberto interrupted her again. His voice was slow and thick and his heart was pounding. “Was she provocative with Ismael? Doing what? How?”
“Each morning she’d show up looking much more attractive than before. Her hair arranged, with small flirtatious touches that nobody would notice. And some new movements of her arms, her breasts, her bottom. But old man Ismael noticed. In spite of how he was when Clotilde died — in shock, like a sleepwalker, shattered by grief. He’d lost his compass, he didn’t know who or where he was. But he knew something was going on around him. Of course he noticed.”
“Again you’re moving away from the point, Lucrecia,” Rigoberto complained, holding her tight. “This isn’t the time to be talking about death, my love.”
“Then, oh what a miracle, Armida turned into the most devoted, attentive, and accommodating creature. There she was, always near her employer to prepare a chamomile maté or a cup of tea for him, pour him a whiskey, iron his shirt, sew on a button, put the finishing touches to his suit, give his shoes to the butler to polish, tell Narciso to hurry and get the car right away because Don Ismael was ready to go out and didn’t like waiting.”
“What does all that matter,” Rigoberto said in vexation, nibbling his wife’s ear. “I want to know more intimate things, my love.”
“At the same time, with an intelligence only we women have, an intelligence that comes to us from Eve herself and is in our souls, our blood, and, I suppose, in our hearts and ovaries too, Armida began to set the trap into which the widower, devastated by his wife’s death, would fall like an innocent babe.”
“What did she do to him,” Rigoberto pleaded urgently. “Tell me everything in lavish detail, my love.”
“On winter nights Ismael would shut himself in his study and suddenly start to cry. And as if by magic, Armida would be at his side, devoted, respectful, sympathetic, calling him tender nicknames in that northern singsong that sounds so musical. And shedding a few tears too, standing very close to the master of the house. He could feel and smell her because their bodies were touching. While Armida wiped her employer’s forehead and dried his eyes, without realizing it, you would say, in her efforts to console him, calm him, and be loving toward him, her neckline shifted and Ismael’s eyes couldn’t help but be aware of those plump, dark, young breasts brushing against his chest and face, which, from the perspective of his years, must have seemed like those not of a young woman but of a little girl. Then it must have occurred to him that Armida was not only a pair of tireless hands for making and stripping beds, dusting walls, waxing floors, washing clothes, but also an abundant, tender, palpitating, warm body, a fragrant, moist, exciting closeness. That was when poor Ismael, during his employee’s fond displays of loyalty and affection, probably began to feel that the hidden, shrunken thing between his legs, beyond all help from lack of use, was starting to show signs of life, to revive. Of course, Justiniana doesn’t know this but can only guess. I don’t know either, but I’m sure that’s how it all began. Don’t you think so too, my love?”
“When Justiniana was telling you all this, were you and she naked, my darling?” As Rigoberto spoke, he just barely nibbled at his wife’s neck, ears, and lips, and his hands caressed her back, buttocks, and inner thighs.
“I held her the way you’re holding me now,” responded Lucrecia, caressing him, biting him, kissing him, speaking inside his mouth. “We could hardly breathe, we were drowning, swallowing each other’s saliva. Justiniana thinks Armida made the first move, not him. That she was the one who touched Ismael first. Here, yes. Like that.”
“Yes, yes, of course, go on, go on,” Rigoberto purred, becoming excited, his voice barely making a sound. “That’s how it had to be. That’s how it was.”
For some time they were silent, embracing each other, kissing each other, but suddenly Rigoberto, making a great effort, restrained himself. And moved gently away from his wife.
“I don’t want to finish yet, my love,” he whispered. “I’m enjoying this so much. I want you, I love you.”
“All right, a parenthesis,” Lucrecia said, moving away too. “Let’s talk about Armida then. In a sense what she’s done and achieved is admirable, don’t you agree?”
“In every sense,” said her husband. “A real work of art. She’s earned my respect and reverence. She’s a great woman.”
“By the way,” said his wife, her voice changing, “if I die before you, it wouldn’t bother me at all if you married Justiniana. She already knows all your habits, the good ones and the bad, especially the bad. So keep it in mind.”
“And that’s enough about death,” Rigoberto pleaded. “Let’s go back to Armida and don’t get so distracted, for God’s sake.”