Free The Dark Bride by Laura Restrepo

the girl into Sayonara, or rather into an authentic Japanese woman, or more precisely into a fake Japanese woman but superior to an authentic one. In a glorified junk store called El Pequeño Paris, the madrina bought a black silk skirt, long and tubular, with a deep slit rising to mid-thigh. Then she marched twenty yards down Calle Caliente under the shade of her parasol to reach the Bazar Libanés.
    â€œLet me see that Japanese blouse,” she asked Chalela the Turk, indicating a red satin top with a gold dragon embroidered on the back that was being displayed on a mannequin.
    â€œThat blouse is Chinese, not Japanese,” Chalela the Turk advised her.
    â€œWhat’s the difference?”
    â€œThe Japanese lost the war.”
    â€œToo bad for them . . .”
    â€œToo bad.”
    â€œGood thing you told me. Then show me another one just like it, but in another color.”
    â€œI only have red and white left.”
    â€œWhite, then.”
    â€œBut the white one is Chinese too . . .”
    â€œYes, but at least it’s discreet. You wouldn’t go around in red if your country had lost the war.”
    â€œVery well, then,” said Chalela the Turk, and he wrapped the white blouse without understanding anything.
    They brushed the girl’s hair back, tied it in a ponytail, and yanked so tight they made her cry.
    â€œLoosen it a little, madrina, ” asked the girl.
    â€œThat wouldn’t do. This way it pulls your eyes and they really look Oriental.”
    Tana loaned her some cultivated pearl earrings, they duly hung the violet lightbulb that certified her Japanese nationality, and Olguita brought a reliquary that contained fragments of a martyr’s bones, assuring her that it protected young girls their first time.
    â€œThere have already been other times,” said the girl, which she had never mentioned before.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, keep the reliquary; it’ll protect you anyway,” answered Olga, kneeling at Sayonara’s feet as she adjusted the hem of her skirt.
    When señor Manrique was at the door fantasizing over the delights that the date promised, Todos los Santos took her disciple aside to deliver the final piece of advice.
    â€œNever, never let yourself be tempted by an offer of matrimony from any of your clients. Don’t forget that the pleasures of amor de café aren’t the same as the pleasures of the home. Señor Manriquito, I leave you with my adopted daughter,” she went on to say. “Daughter, this is Señor Manrique, treat him with affection, he is a good man.”
    When the old man was alone with the quiet, slender girl who had been assigned to him, he glimpsed such rapturous faraway places in her dark glances and high cheekbones, and perceived such warm apple and cinnamon well-being in her skin, that he didn’t know what else to do but to propose matrimony.
    â€œNo, thank you,” she responded with the silky voice, the good manners, and the discernment she had been taught.
    Todos los Santos slept in the kitchen that night and before dawn entered the bedroom, making her way through the air saturated with the scent of intimacy. Sayonara was no longer there and señor Manrique slept in the beatific placidity of satisfied dreams, naked, soft, and white like cottage cheese. His usual blue suit waited for him neatly at the ready on a chair, rigid and carefully laid out to allow its owner to resume his human form when he put it on again. The madrina made a silent inspection of the room and then rushed out to the patio like a madwoman, shouting to Sayonara. The girl, now without her goddess disguise, was disheveled and barefoot, bucket in hand, feeding the pigs.
    â€œSayonara, come here!”
    â€œYes, madrina ?”
    â€œWhere is the fountain pen?”
    â€œWhat fountain pen?”
    â€œWhat do you think? Señor Manrique’s gold fountain pen . . .”
    â€œI