Free The House of Impossible Loves by Cristina López Barrio Page A

knelt beside the dying woman and ran a hand over her hair. The woman opened her one good eye, murmuring the priest’s name. He brought his ear to her bloodstained lips, listened to her soft words. The priest buttoned his cassock, went to the sacristy, and returned a moment later with a stole around his neck and the tray of holy oils. He made the sign of the cross over the old woman’s face and gave her last rites. The smell of sorcery she had brought into the room disappeared, giving way to the aroma of blessed oil.
    Clara would never forget Padre Imperio’s hands tracing a cross in the air, his tenderness in anointing the oil, the faith on his tanned face, the devotion on his lips reciting words in Latin.
    “Come. She wants to tell you something.”
    When Clara’s mother saw her daughter’s face, she closed her eye. Clara leaned close to her lips and took her by the hand. The old woman whispered a few last words as her soul began to take flight. She squeezed Clara’s hand and died.
    Beyond the church windows, the sun stretched across the sky in tones of orange and gold.
    “She’s gone,” Clara said, resting a cheek on her mother’s chest.
    Padre Imperio stared, fascinated by her chestnut hair fanned out over her back, smooth in the sunlight, but he did not touch it.
    “Don’t be afraid,” he said, consoling her. “Your mother went in peace.”
    “I’m not afraid for her but for me.” Clara lifted her head. She was crying.
    “But you still have your daughter. Manuela, isn’t that right?”
    “She’s the cause of my misfortune. Her father would have returned if it weren’t for her.”
    “The sun’s up now,” the client interrupted. “I’d best get to work.”
    “Please take Clara home.”
    “Don’t ask me to do that, Padre. You must understand, I can’t, in broad daylight, and right through town? Look how she’s dressed,” the man protested, pointing to Clara’s Moorish pants visible under her dressing gown.
    “Go! I’ll walk home,” Clara said.
    The man hurried out of the church, climbed into his cart with its flour sacks now stained red, and left for his farm.
    Morning came to rest on the pew where the corpse lay; it came to rest in Padre Imperio’s eyes and in Clara’s tears. The priest removed his stole. Clara rose unsteadily to her feet.
    “Thank you.”
    “No need. I’m simply Christ’s servant.” He smiled.
    “I’ll be back to sit vigil.”
    “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”
    “Yes, you know I can’t read, not even the Bible you sent. Come read it to me again soon. Goodbye, Padre.”
    “Wait. You can’t go out like that. I’ll loan you the charwoman’s clothes. They’re not very elegant, but at least you won’t be out in public in your nightdress.”
    The priest led Clara to a small broom closet where a rough skirt and white blouse were hanging on a hook.
    “Take your time,” he said, closing the door.
    Clara listened to his footsteps recede.
    A short while later she found Padre Imperio kneeling in the side chapel dedicated to Saint Pantolomina of the Flowers. He had covered the old woman’s corpse with a blanket and put on his priest’s collar.
    “I won’t bother you any longer. I’ll be on my way now.”
    Padre Imperio turned to look at Clara. The clothes were too big, but her hair was still loose, her eyes the same.
    “Wait. Take my mule. I’ll come for her another day.”
     
    Clara crossed the town square on Padre Imperio’s mule and continued down the narrow streets to the gravel road. A few townspeople spied her with her silk dressing gown and harem pants tucked under her arm, her hair loose. Before long the old women in black shawls all heard how that vixen left the church on the priest’s mule, wearing his charwoman’s clothes, how the Laguna witch lay dead on a pew, run over by a cart. Before long they heard that this was not the priest’s first contact with that cursed family: his mule had been seen tied to the gate at Scarlet Manor on