Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
champagne and called for a toast, to the<br />
happiness of the engaged<br />
couple. When all four of them gathered<br />
together in the center of the<br />
living room to drink the toast, Pedro clinked<br />
his glass so violently<br />
against the others' that it broke into a<br />
thousand pieces and their<br />
champagne was splashed onto their clothes<br />
and faces.<br />
It was a blessing that Chencha appeared at<br />
this very moment, amid the<br />
reigning confusion, and pronounced those<br />
magical words supper is<br />
sen'ed. That announcement restored the<br />
calm and the good cheer that<br />
the occasion warranted but that they had<br />
been on the point of losing.<br />
When the talk turns to eating, a subject of the<br />
greatest importance,<br />
only fools and sick men don't give it the I I?<br />
attention it deserves. And, that not being the<br />
case here, in a fine<br />
mood, they all made their way to the dining<br />
room.<br />
During supper everything went very<br />
smoothly, thanks to the graceful<br />
intervention Chencha provided while serving.<br />
The meal wasn't as<br />
delicious as on some other occasions,<br />
perhaps because of the bad temper<br />
Tita was in while she prepared it, but neither<br />
could you say it wasn't<br />
pleasant. Champandongo is a dish with<br />
such a refined flavor that no<br />
temper can be bad enough to ruin its<br />
enjoyment. When they had<br />
finished, Tita walked John to the door and<br />
there gave him a big<br />
farewell kiss. John was thinking of leaving<br />
the following day, so that<br />
he could come back as soon as possible.<br />
Returning to the kitchen, Tita thanked<br />
Chencha for the great help she'd<br />
been and then sent her to clean the room<br />
and the mattress she would be<br />
using with her husband Jesus. Before<br />
getting into bed, they had to<br />
make sure they wouldn't discover the<br />
undesirable presence of bedbugs in<br />
their room. The last servant who had slept<br />
there had left it infested<br />
with those little creatures and Tita had not<br />
been able to disinfect it<br />
because of the hard work that followed the<br />
birth of Rosaura's<br />
daughter.<br />
The best way to eradicate them is to mix a<br />
glass of alcohol, half an<br />
ounce of spirits of turpentine, and half an<br />
ounce of powdered<br />
camphor.<br />
Rub this preparation everywhere there are<br />
bedbugs, and they will<br />
disappear completely.<br />
Withdrawing to the kitchen, Tita began<br />
putting the pots and pans<br />
away.<br />
She still wasn't sleepy, and it was better to<br />
spend the time this way<br />
than tossing and turning in her bed. She felt<br />
a mass of conflicting<br />
emotions and the best way to put some order<br />
in her thoughts was to<br />
start by putting some order in the kitchen.<br />
She took a huge<br />
earthenware pot and put it away in what was<br />
now the storage room,<br />
formerly the dark room. After Mama Elena's<br />
death they saw that no one<br />
was thinking of using it as a place to bathe,<br />
since they all preferred<br />
to use the shower, so to put it to some use<br />
they turned it into a<br />
storeroom for kitchen utensils.
Change language