Little White Lies (7 page)

‘Yeah, maybe you’re right. D’you think I gained weight?’

Embeth rolled her eyes. ‘
Betty!
I don’t believe you. Here we are, a week after graduation, and all you can talk about is hair and weight? Come on, there are so many other things worth talking about.’

‘Yeah? Like what?’

‘Well,’ Embeth said, considering, ‘like . . . like the war, for one thing. Did you hear about Medger Evers?’

‘Who?’ Betty yawned at her in the mirror.

‘Medger Evers, the civil rights activist. He was murdered yesterday.’

‘Oh,
him
.’ Betty inspected her nails. ‘The problem with you, Embeth,’ she drawled lazily, ‘is that you think too much. There are so many other things to focus on.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like what are you wearing tonight?’

‘Oh,
Betty
.’ Embeth shook her head. But perhaps Betty was right, in her own, rather myopic way. What was the point of getting all steamed up about a war that was being fought ten thousand miles away? She picked up another cashmere jumper. It was pale pink, a Betty sort of colour. ‘Here . . . I’m never going to wear these again. Would you like them?’ She pointed to the growing pile of pastel-coloured sweaters and cardigans.

‘Are you
kidding
? Ohmigod!
Thank
you, honey!’ Betty squealed, pouncing on the pile. ‘You’re an
angel
! These’ll look
so
good with those new pedal pushers I just bought – you know, the black ones? They’re
so
fashionable right now! Jackie Kennedy had on a pair the other day, did you notice?’

‘I was too busy focusing on what her husband was saying,’ Embeth said drily.

It was Betty’s turn to roll her eyes affectionately. ‘Like I said, you
think
too much, Em. Oh, I can’t
wait
to try these on.’ She clutched the sweaters to her chest, pressing her cheek into the luxuriously soft wool. She gave a deep sigh of heartfelt contentment. ‘You’re so
lucky
, Embeth.’

And this time Embeth had no idea what to say.

EMBETH
Avenida San Carlos, Caracas, Venezuela

The conversation at the dinner table was conducted, as ever, in Spanish, English and German, and occasionally all three at once. The discussions ranged far and wide – the war in Vietnam; Hurricane Flora, which was threatening Cuba; the Profumo Affair rumbling on in England; Martin Luther King’s Washington speech; the local presidential elections. The Hausmanns had a particular interest in the latter. The incumbent president was at the end of his term and there’d been talk of Uncle Jorge assuming leadership of the party. As always, opinions were sharply divided.

As the tenor of the talk around her rose and fell, Embeth laid her knife and fork to one side to indicate she’d finished, leaving half of her food untouched. Her mother glanced over approvingly. A lady
never
finished what was on her plate. She leaned back in her chair, only just managing to stifle a yawn. It wasn’t that she was bored – on the contrary. She found the men’s talk fascinating, but joining in was out of the question. Like the other women present, her job was decorative. She was wearing white, a splendid contrast to Miriám’s burgundy silk. Earlier that evening, just before descending the staircase to join the others, Miriám had threaded a beautiful ivory silk rose through her dark hair. ‘There, that’s better.’ She surveyed her daughter critically. ‘I
still
don’t understand why you cut it,’ she murmured, smoothing her own luxuriously long tresses in an unconscious gesture of protection.

Embeth sighed. It was a conversation they’d had practically every single day since her return. ‘I like it short,’ she said, careful not to let the irritation she felt slip through.

‘So unbecoming,’ Miriám murmured. ‘Anyhow, it’ll grow back. You look beautiful, my darling. Are you ready?’

‘About as ready as I’m ever likely to be.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Embeth! A little graciousness wouldn’t go amiss.’ Miriám didn’t wait for a reply but swept out of the room, her silk evening dress fanning out splendidly and fluidly behind her. Embeth had no option but to follow. Mother and daughter descended the staircase to the slow, appreciative applause of the men gathered below.

‘Mercedes!’ Miriám hissed at the now-elderly maid. Miriám couldn’t bear seeing half-empty plates strewn across the snowy white table. ‘Mercedes,’ Miriám whispered again, louder this time. She signalled urgently but discreetly across the table.
Fill up the empty wine glasses! Clear away those plates!
The penny dropped. Mercedes nodded and hurried out. Within seconds, the offending plates were gone and empty glasses were topped up. No one except Embeth noticed a thing. That was the way her mother ran the household, Embeth thought to herself, watching her, smooth, silent performance. Even the candles in the chandelier above the table lasted the exact length of the meal, no more.

She looked down the length of the table to the living room beyond, and beyond that, framed by the gently billowing white muslin curtains, to the veranda where they sometimes held cocktail parties overlooking the emerald pool. The night air was quiet and still. After the wintry silence of upstate New York, the soft buzz of the tropics, a mixture of warm, humid air and the barely audible hum of insects, was a welcome return. She could see their reflections in the huge gilt mirror at one end of the dining room. Maria-Luísa Gomez de Santander, the wife of the finance minister, was on her left, murmuring something inconsequential to her mother. Her perfume was thick and heavy, clinging to her skin like fog. She’d detected the faintest wrinkle in her mother’s nose as she was ushered into the hallway. Miriám disliked excesses of any kind.

Embeth stifled another yawn. She’d been back for almost six months and in that time, had done little else than attend dinner parties, the ballet, and opera . . . just as Betty had predicted. There was little else to do. The highlight of every dinner party held at home was gossiping afterwards in the kitchens with Sophia and Mercedes.

‘Did you
see
that one?’ An hour later, the men safely in the study with cigars and brandy and the women on the patio with coffee, Mercedes’ eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Like a turkey! She could hardly get her bosom into her dress! Any tighter and she’d pass out.’

Embeth and Sophia giggled together conspiratorially. Sophia and Mercedes took a lively interest in the comings and goings of the household. They knew more than their employers did about what really went on. Both had been with the Hausmanns for ever. Mercedes was a couple of years younger than Miriám . . . Embeth couldn’t exactly remember the intricate route of relationships by which she’d come to them – her mother had worked in service for Miriám’s mother, or some such – but she genuinely was one of the family. Sophia had been there almost as long – thirty years at least.

‘
Ay Dios
,’ Sophia murmured quietly, putting away the remains of a beautifully pink poached salmon. ‘And as for Señora Cabral . . . well, I wouldn’t like to guess where Señor Cabral was this evening.’

‘I
know
. D’you notice how they never go out together?’

‘
I
heard he’s got another little apartment in town—’

‘No, don’t tell us. You heard it from that little
puta
who works at the Madrigál place?’

‘How do you know?’

‘You’re not the only one with spies, you know—’

Embeth was comfortable in the way of a child, sitting at the table with her arms folded across each other, resting her cheek in the crook of one elbow. The gossip ebbed and flowed. The two women bustled good-naturedly around her, stopping occasionally to exclaim or protest or giggle. Miriám came in and frowned when she saw Embeth slouched over the kitchen table, but said nothing, just raised an eyebrow in that way of hers that said more than words ever could. Sophia hurried after her with the silver tray of coffee pots and exquisite porcelain side plates of
petits fours
that always accompanied the after-dinner coffees on the terrace.

‘So, I saw Señor Hahn here yesterday,’ Mercedes said as soon as they’d gone out, casting a sly, sideways glance at Embeth as she carried a stack of plates to the sink where the girl who did the washing up was waiting.

Embeth inspected her nails. ‘So?’

‘Don’t gimme that look,’ Mercedes grinned. ‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing,’ Embeth said lightly. She sighed deeply. Why couldn’t anyone find anything to talk to her about other than potential suitors? ‘He just came to say hello.’

‘
Claro que sí
and Prince Charming just stopped by to see
me
. Come on, spill the beans, girl!’

‘There
are
none,’ Embeth insisted. She slid off the seat. ‘Besides, he’s barely out of high school.’

‘
No exageres!
He’s older than you!’

‘Doesn’t look it. Anyhow, what’s the rush? I’ve only just got back.’

‘You gonna be an old maid if you don’t watch out,’ Sophia giggled, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Like me and Mercedes.’

‘You speak for yourself,’ Mercedes piped up. ‘I ain’t gonna be here for ever, you wait and see.’

Sophia cackled heartily. Both women were in their fifties. Their chances of finding husbands were long gone, though neither seemed to display any resentment. They’d both given their lives to the care and running of the Hausmann household. What, Embeth wondered suddenly, was their reward? She looked at them as though seeing them for the first time. Mercedes was almost completely grey-haired; her once thick, black hair, springy at the roots (yes, definitely ‘tar’ in the family in
her
case), was pulled back into a rather severe bun at the nape of her neck. Her body that had once been slender and slight had thickened; she looked every inch the plump, well-fed matriarch, except she was no matriarch. No family to speak of other than the Hausmanns, no children, no husband. What would happen to her when she was no longer able to work? What would happen to them both?

She brought the subject up the following morning as she sat watching her mother get dressed. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Her mother turned from her mirror to look at Embeth. ‘What do you mean, what will happen to her?’

‘When she’s too old to work, I mean.’

‘Gracious, Embeth, what a thing to worry about! She’ll be pensioned off. She’ll return to her family, of course.’

‘But she’s lived here all her life. We
are
her family.’

‘Embeth, that’s just the way it is. What on earth has brought all this on?’

‘Nothing,’ Embeth mumbled, picking at a loose thread in her skirt. ‘Nothing.’

She looked beyond the dressing table where her mother sat to the hills that were just visible through the half-open shutters. It had rained the night before, one of those sudden tropical downpours that come seemingly out of nowhere, shake the very foundations of the buildings with tremendous thunderclaps and flashes of steely white lightning, and then disappear, rolling over the hills to the south of the city and the vast
interiór
of the country beyond.

She let her mind roam free, as if the glimpse of green in the distance had sparked a restless, unspoken desire to break out of the confines of the house on a Saturday morning with its familiar rituals – a long, leisurely bath, followed by a breakfast of fruits and coffee on the terrace with the pool shimmering just out of sight; wandering into her mother’s room, watching her get dressed; then the drawn-out preparations for lunch. There would be guests, of course, and Mercedes and Sophia would be in charge of making sure the junior staff swept and polished every surface until it gleamed. Her eyes shifted unconsciously between two dimensions – the one, far off in the distance, a line of hills marking the limits beyond which she couldn’t see, and the other, the intimate, claustrophobic world of the house. Her skin tingled in rejection of it all.

‘Mama,’ she began again, more hesitantly this time.

‘
Sí, mi amor
.’ Her mother was dreamily distracted.

‘Why do I have to get married? Couldn’t I . . . couldn’t I get a job, or something? If it’s about money, I—’

‘Embeth, will you
stop
? What is the matter with you? Of course it’s not about money! What a thought! Don’t you want to have a beautiful home, children, a good husband . . . a good life?’

‘But why . . . why can’t I have those things
without
a husband? Why do I have to get married? And in any case, what’s the rush?’ Embeth looked at her mother and then wished immediately she hadn’t started the conversation in the first place. Her mother’s look was one of sheer incomprehension.

‘Oh, don’t be so
silly
! How can you have a child without a husband? No, don’t answer that. I don’t even want to
hear
it.’ Miriám turned back to her image. ‘Now go and find Mercedes for me. Tell her to bring me some salts. You’ve given me a headache and it’s not even noon.’

Embeth got up hastily from the bed and left the room. She’d been back for six months and there were days when it felt as though the centre had somehow fallen out of her world. Nothing made sense anymore, least of all her own thoughts. It was as if a veil that had previously obscured her vision of the world had suddenly been lifted. It was strange and bewildering. In her four years in Ithaca, safely away from her family and their silent but powerful demands, it had never occurred to her to rebel, to break free. She’d done what was asked of her. She attended her classes, attained and maintained her grades, the model student in more ways than one. But now that she was home again, a strange, unspecified longing had broken out in her, which she only now realised had been dormant all along. The pulls and ties that she’d subconsciously resisted now began to reassert themselves – a suitor, an engagement, a marriage . . . a family and a household of her own to run. She shrank instinctively from the gifts that were being offered but found that she had no substitute to take their place.

She pushed open her bedroom door and quickly closed it, leaning against it as if for support. Up there on the third floor, overlooking the gardens and the shimmering pool, the silence was of a different order. She looked over at the large double bed with its pretty counterpane and matching pillows, the thin, delicate mosquito net that hung draped above the bed and which Sophia untangled every night before she went to sleep.
This
was her life.
This
was what she’d been brought up to believe in, to cherish, and to want. So why didn’t she want it?