In the Name of Salome by Julia Álvarez Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m at work,” she adds.
    â€œIt’s someone called Marion,” Nancy mouths, holding her hand over the receiver. “She says she has to talk to you.”
    Camila shakes her head. At this moment, she cannot bear to be asked about the future. The past is too much with her.
    N ANCY HAS UNTIED THE first packet. “There’s a picture in this one. What a pretty lady!” She holds up the photograph. “Was this your mother?”
    Camila is tempted to say yes, as she would have said in the past when asked. In fact, as a young woman she used to give away this picture of her mother to her girlfriends. But the photo is of a painting, done after her mother’s death on her father’s instructions.“Actually that pretty lady is my father’s creation. I have the actual photograph somewhere.”
    The young woman looks at her, waiting for further explanation, as if she does not understand.
    â€œHe wanted my mother to look like the legend
he
was creating,” Camila adds. “He wanted her to be prettier, whiter . . .”
    Something shifts in the young woman’s eyes. She looks at Camila closely. “You mean, your mother was a . . . a negro?”
    â€œWe call it mulatto. She was a mixture,” Camila explains.
    â€œThat’s amazing,” the girl says finally, as if that is the safest thing to say.
    Camila does not know if the young woman is amazed by her mother’s color or by her father’s touch-up. But it was not just Pancho. Everyone in the family—yes, including Mon!—touched up the legend of her mother.
    Nancy has unfolded several letters. “I don’t have the best accent,” she protests before she begins reading.
    â€œYou will do fine,” Camila reassures the young woman. “I just need to get some idea of the content of each one. We’ll use those two boxes to sort them.”
    â€œYou mean, they aren’t all going to the archives?”
    â€œThey should all go to the archives, shouldn’t they?” In spite of Max, in spite of the others, let the true story be told!
    But for now, she wants her mother just to herself.
    â€œShall I label them something?”
    â€œWhat was that, Nancy?”
    â€œShall I label the two boxes so we don’t confuse them?”
    â€œLabel one ‘Archives.’” She thinks a moment what the other box should be called. “And just put my name on the other one.”
    S HE STARTS TO GIVE away her own things as if something inside her already knows where she is going, what she will need. She presents Flo on the first floor with a copy of Pedro’s
Literary Currents
,which includes his Norton Lectures from Harvard. To Vivian, she gives her records of Italian operas, Spanish zarzuelas.
    â€œSo, have you made up your mind where you are going?” Vivian asks.
    â€œNot yet,” she says, and she repeats the same thing to Marion, who calls again to say she has received Camila’s last letter.
    â€œWell, I want you to know that no matter what you decide, I’ll come in June to help you pack up.” Marion takes a deep, resigned breath, which she is meant to hear. “By the way, who is that young thing who always answers when I call?”
    â€œYou mean Nancy?” Camila revels in the pause that follows. “She’s my student helper.”
    â€œTell her to get on the ball. I keep leaving her my number and you never call.”
    Thank goodness for student helpers one can blame things on! “We’ve been so busy, sorting through years and years of papers.”
    â€œBe careful with your asthma,” Marion reminds her. She sends a motherly kiss over the wires, then calls back up a minute later because she forgot one for the other cheek.
    Nancy comes twice a week and on weekends. Soon they finish one trunk and start on the other. Every night she pores over her mother’s box: notes to her children; a sachet with dried purplish