Page 4 of The Familiar

She stood with her mistress in the quiet of the bedchamber, both of them holding on to the black gown, as if intending to fold it up together, put it away, forget it.

“You will come to supper tonight,” Valentina said. She licked her colorless lips. “When we serve the fruit, you will perform.”

Luzia could think of nothing to say except “I cannot.”

“You will,” said Valentina, a smile beginning to form. “You must.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Valentina seized her wrist. “Stop this,” she hissed. “You mended my skirts. You fixed the bread. You will do this or I will set you out on the street tonight. Think of what it would mean to be a woman alone, without occupation, without protection. Think before you deny me again.”

Luzia couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of this moment. She could not do as Valentina asked. The magic was meaningless, a bit of fun, a trick of the eye, and in the hands of a poor but pious Christian woman, nothing to fear. But if anyone looked too closely, what would they see? If someone bothered to examine Luzia’s lineage, to ask who her parents were, her grandparents? Her father’s family was Portuguese. Maybe that would make her past harder to trace. But what of her mother’s people? All of them dead and buried or burned, but as dangerous to her as if they stood praying in the street. Say you are a simple girl, a stupid girl, who learned a few magic words, who was merely playing a game. And when Doña Valentina demanded to know where she had learned these things, then what would she say?

Valentina must have seen some capitulation in her face because she released Luzia’s wrist and patted her gently on the hand. “Put on a clean apron before you join us. And don’t hunch like that, as if you’re waiting for the next blow.”

Luzia went about the rest of her duties that evening in a kind of trance. She helped the cook make the cold salads, and roll out the pie crust, and thinly slice the ox tongue. She filled little bowls with lavender and warm water for the guests to wash their hands. Aunt Hualit liked to describe the feasts at her rich friends’ houses where hundreds of dishes were served, and jesters and dancers performed between courses. But fish pie and ox tongue and salad were the best the Ordoños could manage. Luzia carried the pies up the stairs and set them on the heavy table at the side of the dining room. Valentina would serve.

Up the stairs, down the stairs. The courses passed, one by one, faster than they should, an indication that the conversation was stalling and that the night would not be deemed a success. Luzia arranged the tongue on a plate, ladled sauce into a pitcher, listened to the cook mutter Escárcega, Escárcega, Escárcega, as if the playwright’s name was a curse.

She thought of what Valentina had said about her posture and stood up straight, but it was difficult to lose the servant’s shuffle she’d worked so hard to perfect. Best not to be seen. Best not to be noticed. All she wanted was to run to Hualit, but then she’d have to admit what a fool she’d been. What have I done? she asked herself, again and again. What might I do?

The answer of course had to be nothing. She would simply fail to do anything. She would stand at the head of the table looking foolish, maybe spill something on herself. She would endure a bit of humiliation and Doña Valentina would too. Maybe she’d kick Luzia into the street, but maybe she’d take pity, or maybe she wouldn’t be able to find another girl miserable enough to accept her sorry wages. Maybe the guests will go home before the fruit is served. Luzia looked at the pears, red and swollen with wine, sitting in their pretty dish. She listened, hoping to hear the scrape of chairs as the diners above rose from the table, the front door opening and closing as they said their goodbyes. Instead, only Doña Valentina’s voice came, her whisper descending the stairs like a curling finger of smoke. “Luzia.”

The cook laughed when she saw Luzia tying a clean apron around her waist. “Putting on your best gown?”

“I hear Quiteria Escárcega has two lovers and lets them both take her at the same time,” Luzia said, and savored the brief spiteful pleasure of the cook’s mouth popping open. She picked up the pears in their silver dish.

I’ll go to Aunt Hualit, she thought as she climbed the stairs. I’ll walk to Toledo and start a new life. She’d become a beggar like her father had. Except even that wasn’t safe work for a woman.

“Luzia will serve,” Doña Valentina instructed when Luzia entered with the pears.

Candles blazed along the sideboard, the dining table, the mantel. This was expected in a nobleman’s house, but Luzia knew they’d be eating bread and sardines for weeks to account for the expense. Don Marius slumped at the head of the table looking grim and bored.

Luzia made her slow way around the room, awkwardly supporting the dish of pears in the crook of her elbow, an unwieldy spoon in her other hand, conscious of the silence, the lack of chatter or laughter. She could feel Valentina’s eager eyes upon her, the other guests deliberately ignoring her—just two tonight, Don Gustavo and his bejeweled wife.

When at last she slid the final pear from the dish, she turned, feet tangling as she lurched toward the door.

“Luzia!” Valentina said sharply.

Luzia stood frozen, the silver dish in her arms.

“Is there something wrong with her?” the woman whispered, her ropes of pearls gleaming like light on water.

“Put the dish down and come here,” Valentina said, her voice high and bright. “Luzia has something to show us, a bit of entertainment for our guests.”

At this, the woman leaned forward. “Does she sing? I love a villancico. You can hear them singing down at the market in the morning.”

Don Marius shifted in his seat.

Doña Valentina took a burnt roll from her pocket and set it on the table. It looked like someone had thrown a rock through the window and it had landed among the precious glass goblets and old-fashioned metal trenchers.

Don Marius’s laugh was unkind. “Have you gone mad?”

“Is it a trick?” asked Don Gustavo, stroking his beard. “I met a girl in Córdoba who could fit a whole orange inside her mouth.”

Doña Valentina pursed her lips at the obscenity, but that was all she could do. “Luzia,” she urged.

Some reckless part of Luzia wanted to reach for the roll, to correct it, make it a thing of appetite once more, but she kept her hands still at her sides. Would Valentina wait until morning or cast her into the street tonight? If she did, would Hualit take her in? Do nothing, she told herself. Be nothing. If she willed it, maybe she would vanish slowly into the stone walls.