Montserrat

Superstitions kept Cristina from living. A coin with a blurry face, a spot of ink, the moon seen through two panes of glass, the initials of her name carved by chance on the trunk of a cedar: all these would make her mad with fear. The day we met she was wearing a green dress; she kept wearing it until it fell apart, since she said it brought her good luck and that as soon as she wore another, a blue one that fit her better, we would no longer see each other.

Her fears were more personal. She inflicted real privations on herself; for instance, she could not eat strawberries in the summer, or hear certain pieces of music, or adorn her house with goldfish, although she liked them a lot. There were certain streets we couldn’t cross, certain people we couldn’t see, certain movie theaters we couldn’t go to.

“I’ve come to get my dog,” a young woman’s voice said. “He’s passed by this house so many times that he’s become fond of it. This house looks as if it’s made of sugar. Since they painted it, everyone has noticed it. But I liked it better before, when it was the romantic pink color of old houses. This house has always been very mysterious to me. I like everything about it: the birdbath where the little birds came to drink, the vines with flowers like yellow trumpets, the orange tree.”

One day I heard Cristina say the enigmatic words, “I suspect I am inheriting someone’s life, her joys and sorrows, mistakes and successes. I’m bewitched.” I pretended not to have heard her tormented words. Nevertheless, I started, God knows why, to learn what I could in the neighborhood about who Violeta was, where she was, and all the details of her life.

“The last days I saw her she complained bitterly about her fate. She died of envy. She repeated constantly, ‘Somebody has stolen my life from me, but she’ll pay for it. I will no longer have my velvet dress; she’ll have it. Bruto will be hers; men will no longer disguise themselves as women to enter my house; I’ll lose my voice, and it will pass to that unworthy throat; Daniel and I will no longer embrace on the bridge behind Constitution Station, imagining an impossible love, leaning over the iron railing as we used to, watching the trains go away.’”

Speechless, horrified, I left that house without revealing my name to Arsenia López; when she said goodbye, she tried to hug me, to show her sympathy for me. From then on, Cristina had become Violeta, at least as far as I was concerned. I tried following her day and night to find her in the arms of her lovers. I became so estranged from her that I viewed her as a complete stranger. One winter night she fled. I searched for her until dawn. I don’t know who was the victim of whom in that house made of sugar, which now stands empty.