Tarnished Beauty Read Free Page A

mouth. “After the old bitch died she was devoured by rats, and they found her black tongue lying in a pile of bones and hair because even the rats refused to eat her filthy tongue.”
    â€œCarmen!” Gabriela gasped.
    â€œIt’s true, Ma. Why shouldn’t I say it when it’s true?”
    Normally Jamilet would have asked her aunt many more questions about the rats and how they happened upon the corpse and all matter of gruesome details, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the formidable bloody landscape that spread across her shoulders. It seemed impossible that she was looking at something attached to her own body. She reached a cautious hand around to dab her finger at the red edges on one shoulder. Her skin felt thick and alien, and it bubbled and puckered in places, like an overcooked tortilla. But this thing was uglier than anything she’d ever seen before. Uglier even than rats and snakes and slimy creatures that lived under rocks, causing most women and children to scream, and men to demonstrate their bravery.
    Finally, she found the strength to ask, “Will it go away, Mama?”
    Lorena took the mirror from her daughter and smoothed her nightdress back down as she considered what to say. Then her eyes brightened, and she set her jaw firmly. “Of course it will. We just haven’t found the way to do it yet, that’s all.”
    â€œBe careful what you say, Lorena,” Gabriela warned again, but she’d spoken with her daughter too many times on the subject to expect her to listen now.
    Lorena stole a glance at her older sister, who was preparing her second tortilla for consumption. “It’s true, Ma,” she said with an uncharacteristically defiant nod. “Why shouldn’t I say it when it’s true?”
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    Once or twice a year, Jamilet retrieved her schoolbook from the high shelf in the kitchen, where the spices were stored, to look upon the picture of the boy and girl on the cover. The blood had dried and faded into a faint shadow across their world. And when she opened the pages to study the shapes, and the intricate markings that she knew to be the mysterious code for words and stories, she felt a sadness quivering in the very center of her heart that she didn’t dare share with anyone. The people in her small world appeared perfectly content with their illiteracy. They managed by asking neighbors and even strangers coming to the door selling seed and wire fencing and such to help them decipher this or that. Once, Gabriela bought a soft, plastic, bristle broom, completely useless on her rough floors, so the salesman would do her the favor of reading a letter that had just arrived from Mexico City, only to discover that it had been delivered to the wrong address.
    In the quiet hours, when the work of the day was done, the women often sat around the kitchen table mending clothes, or doing their needlework. At these times Jamilet asked quietly, almost chirping like a cricket so as not to disturb the moment, if she might be allowed to return to school, but her request was never considered with a serious mind before it was dismissed, and she was left with nothing to hang on to but that resigned sadness in her mother’s eyes. Weary and detached as they sought a moment’s rest, genuine interest could only be generated by a new recipe for red beans they’d heard about at the market, or the latest gossip that the milkman’s son had fathered yet his third child out of wedlock. Sometimes their talk turned to more practical matters, like the need to hire a handyman.
    Upon hearing this, Jamilet would say, “If my father was still alive, we wouldn’t have to worry about paying a handyman.”
    The only sure way to get their attention was to bring up the subject of her father, and Jamilet took every opportunity to do so. She was intrigued by the furtive glances exchanged among the women, followed immediately by an