Free Eva Luna by Isabel Allende Page B

of the chair. I stood beside her, inspecting out of the corners of my eyes the iron utensils, rusty icebox, cats sprawled beneath the table, the cupboard with its fly-dotted latticed doors. It had been two days since I left Professor Jones’s house, but I was still bewildered and confused. Within a few hours I had become very surly. I did not want to talk with anyone. I sat in the corner with my face buried in my arms, and then, as now, my mother would appear before me, faithful to her promise to stay alive as long as I remembered her. A dried-up, brusque black woman, who kept eyeing us with suspicion, was fussing about among the pots of that unfamiliar kitchen.
    â€œIs the girl yours?” she asked.
    â€œHow could she be mine—you see her color, don’t you?” my madrina asked.
    â€œWhose is she, then?”
    â€œShe’s my goddaughter. I’ve brought her here to work.”
    The door opened and the mistress of the house came in, a small woman with an elaborate hairdo of waves and stiff curls. She was dressed in strict mourning and around herneck she wore a large gold locket the size of an ambassador’s medal.
    â€œCome here where I can see you,” she ordered, but I could not move, my feet seemed nailed to the floor. My madrina had to push me forward so the patrona could examine me: the scalp for lice, the fingernails for the horizontal lines typical of epileptics, the teeth, ears, skin, the firmness of the arms and legs.
    â€œDoes she have worms?”
    â€œNo, doña , she’s clean inside and out.”
    â€œShe’s skinny.”
    â€œShe hasn’t had much appetite lately, but don’t worry, she’s a good worker. She learns easy, and she’s got good sense.”
    â€œDoes she cry a lot?”
    â€œShe didn’t even cry when we buried her mother—may God rest her soul.”
    â€œShe can stay a month, on trial,” the patrona declared, and left the room without a goodbye.
    My madrina gave me her last advice: don’t talk back; be careful not to break anything; don’t drink water in the evening so you won’t wet the bed; behave and do what you’re told. She started to lean over and kiss me, but thought better of it, gave me a clumsy pat on the head, and turned and marched purposefully out the servants’ entrance—but I knew she was sad. We had always been together; it was the first time we had ever been separated. I stood where she left me, eyes on the floor, fists clenched. The cook had just fried some bananas; she put her arm around my shoulders and led me to a chair, then sat down beside me and smiled.
    â€œSo, you’re going to be the new girl. . . . Well, little bird, eat,” and she set a plate before me. “They call me Elvira. I wasborn on the coast. The day was Sunday the 29th of May, but I don’t remember the year. All I have ever done in my life is work, and it looks like that will be your lot, too. I have my habits and my ways, but if you’re not sassy, we’ll get along fine. I always wanted grandchildren, but God made me too poor ever to have a family.”
    That day was the beginning of a new life for me. I had always worked, but not, until then, to earn a living, just to imitate my mother, like a game. The house where I held my first job for pay was filled with furniture and paintings and statues and ferns on marble columns, but those adornments could not hide the moss growing on the pipes, the walls stained with humidity, the dust of years accumulated beneath the beds and behind the wardrobes. Everything seemed very dirty to me, very different from Professor Jones’s mansion where, before his stroke, he had crawled on all fours to run a finger around corners for dust. This house smelled of rotted melons, and in spite of the shutters closed against the sun, it was suffocatingly hot. The owners were an elderly brother and sister—the doña of the locket and a