Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

280 reframing latin america
“Love of my life!” sobbed the señor.
Señora Laurita seemed moved for a few seconds.
“Señor!” shouted Josefi na. “The señora’s dress has been scorched.”
Nacha looked at her disapprovingly. The señor scrutinized the señora’s
dress and legs.
“It’s true . . . even the soles of her shoes are burnt. My love, what happened?
Where were you?”
“At the café Tacuba,” answered the señora composedly.
Señora Margarita wrung her hands and drew close to her daughter-in-law.
“We already know that the day before yesterday you were there and that
you ate a cocada. And then?”
“Then I took a taxi and I came home on the beltway.”
Nacha lowered her eyes, Josefi na opened her mouth as if to say something
and señora Margarita bit her lip. Pablo, on the other hand, seized his
wife by the shoulders and shook her forcefully.
“Stop playing the fool! Where were you for two days? . . . Why is your
dress burned?”
“Burned? But he smothered it.” Laura blurted out.
“Him? . . . That disgusting Indian?” Pablo shook her again in his fury.
“He found me at the door of the café Tacuba,” cried the señora, frightened
to death.
“I never thought you were so low!” said the señor, and he pushed her
back on the bed.
“Tell us who he is,” asked her mother-in-law, softening the voice.
“It’s true, isn’t it Nachita, that I couldn’t tell them he was my husband?”
Laura sought her cook’s approval.
Nacha commended the discretion of her employer, and remembered that
day at noon that, she, distressed by the condition of her mistress, had suggested:
“Perhaps the Indian of Cuitzeo is a witch.”
But señora Margarita turned on her with glaring eyes and responded
almost screaming: “A witch? You mean an assassin!”
Afterwards, they would not let señora Laurita leave the house for many
days. The señor ordered that the windows and doors of the house be guarded.
The cook and the maid checked in on the señora continually. Nacha refrained
from expressing her opinion on the matter or from speaking about
peculiar incidents. But, who could silence Josefi na?
“Señor, at dawn the Indian was at the window again,” she announced
while bringing in the breakfast tray.
The señor rushed to the window and found more evidence of fresh blood.
The señora began to cry.
“Poor thing! . . . poor thing!” she said between sobs.