The House of Impossible Loves by Cristina López Barrio Page B

Bernarda hid away to cut off that piece of hair where Clara had slapped, swallowing it eagerly with a piece of fruit from the pantry.
    Any other stomach would have cramped in unbearable pain, but Bernarda could digest anything her mistress’s love demanded and not feel the slightest prick of indigestion.
    “Go on and prepare dinner for the men tonight,” Clara ordered when Bernarda returned to the kitchen, her anger subdued. “And stop following me around!”
    Bernarda grunted in reply. She plucked a chicken and disemboweled a rabbit, working as close to her mistress as possible, keeping an eye on which ingredients she touched.
    The magic smell from the pots Clara’s mother stirred rose up over the gypsum counter where Clara worked, over the table in the middle of the room where Bernarda plucked and skinned the meat for lunch and dinner, intermingling with the whiff of blood, snaking among the ropes of garlic and onion hanging from the wall, through the cupboards, and over the dining room table where clients were served.
    When Bernarda was alone, she stuck her hand in the pots, scooped out the ingredients her mistress had touched, and saved them jealously to cook later. Sometimes she went through the bother of replacing them with others that looked the same—but did not bear Clara’s touch—but most often she indulged in her feast without worry. And so potions to cure evil eye suddenly became remedies for a migraine or young love. The old woman’s credibility was being undermined by these alterations, and she could not understand why. Until one day, suspecting the cook’s voracity, she hid behind the door and caught her stealing a pair of frog’s legs. The Laguna witch whipped Bernarda so hard she never stuck her hand in a pot again, and settled instead for licking clean the utensils Clara had used for tomato sauce or porridge.
     
    Another of Clara’s distractions was to oversee the grooming of the three women who now worked for her. The most recent arrival, a shepherd’s daughter from a nearby town, had a habit of sticking tufts of wool behind her ears, receiving clients with ears that stuck out and smelling like a flock of sheep. If it weren’t for her wet nurse’s breasts flapping about in her dressing gown, few would have been willing to lie with her. Before sending her into the parlor, Clara dressed her in negligees and Moorish pants that complemented her skin and hair, and inspected behind her ears. If the girl disobeyed, Clara docked her Sunday pay or cuffed her across the head.
    Although the girls were about her own age, Clara rarely spoke to them about anything other than brothel affairs, chores, or tricks of the trade to better satisfy clients. This was her business and her revenge, and there was no room for friendship or chitchat. For that, she met with the dead gentlemen in town once a year. They understood her better than anyone. And yet sometimes she was jealous of the secrets Ludovica and Tomasa shared, wondered what it might be like to have a living friend to share her happiness, dreams, and sorrows.
    One day Clara decided to shave Bernarda’s circus beard and sideburns. Though the cook did not have to satisfy clients, when they wandered into the kitchen for a taste of her stews, they were startled to see her tugging on her whiskers in the light and shadow thrown by the lamps. Bernarda squirmed and squealed like a pig at slaughter the morning Ludovica and Tomasa led her to a chair on the back porch, the Laguna witch approaching with a razor, a bowl of water, and a bar of soap.
    “Quiet! It’s not like we’re going to slit your throat!” the old woman yelled, rolling her blind eye.
    Bernarda calmed the moment Clara appeared, letting her mistress cover her face with a warm cloth, lather it, and shave it as she reveled in the closeness of Clara’s breath and touch.
    From that day on, Bernarda would run her hands over her face in search of any hair that would draw near the soft, fragrant skin