Saving the World by Julia Álvarez Read Free Book Online

Clearly, the boy was suffering enough with some nightmare terror in his head.
    â€œBenito!” I tried to sound cross. I went down on my knees. How long had he been there? “Come at once!” I ordered. But the child stared, wide-eyed, and squirmed out of my reach.
    I could not address this matter at present. My delay was now veering into rudeness. I let the coverlet fall again on my other visitor and hurriedly lifted my mantilla over my head. I did not have a glass to check my appearance. Indeed, I avoided all bright surfaces that might offer my reflection back. Perhaps it was all vanity, as our Francisco suggested, and not courtesy to the fainthearted as I told myself, but I always hid my face before going out into the world of men.
    T HE PARLOR HAD ONCE served as Doña Teresa’s receiving hall and it still gave off an air of its former elegance. She had left behind some of her fine furnishings: the thick carpet with a richly colored pattern, which her husband had purchased from a sea merchant; a long table on which visitors could lay down whatever they carried; some somber-looking chairs, which were uncomfortable to sit in, purposely so, Doña Teresa explained, chuckling. Her husband disliked the endless run of visitors and petitioners at his doors. So as to discourage them from lounging at their ease, Don Manuel had ordered his master carpenter to make him a half-dozen straight-back chairs with hard, ridged seats. They were impossible to sit in for more than minutes at a time. Doña Teresa always laughed heartilywhen she told the story. Sometimes she did seem to delight in her deceased husband’s recollected naughtiness.
    As if he had discovered Don Manuel’s ruse, I found our visitor standing, his back to me. He was perusing the large tapestry Doña Teresa had left behind on the wall, a depiction of the Virgin on her knees, head bowed, as the angel Gabriel delivered the mystifying news. The moment was known as one of the joyful mysteries, but as the rectoress of a foundling house I could not imagine that joy would be the response of a young virgin upon hearing such unwelcome news. “Let it be according to your word,” she was reported as saying. One of those scriptures that, the more I lived, the harder I found to believe. There were many such doubts these days, best kept to myself, I was discovering.
    I had entered the room, undetected, a skill I had perfected over the years, wishing to be spared the gawking of the curious. I took this opportunity to study our visitor. He was not much taller than myself, short for a man, though his uniform gave him the air of being somewhat larger than he actually was.
He came from the king!
We could expect Cándido’s refrain for days on end. Our poor boys had so little to recall of consequence that wasn’t grim. It would be a while before the memory of this happier incident dimmed.
    â€œOh.” Turning, the man looked startled to find a veiled lady in the room. Between us on the long table lay a rolled-up parchment and a book whose title I could not make out. Perched beside them was his tricorn hat. He glanced at it as if considering donning it in order to remove it in ceremonious greeting. Instead, he gave me a slight inclination of his head. “Doña Isabel Sendales de Gómez?”
    Y
Gómez, I thought, but did not correct him. So our Francisco had merely been echoing our visitor’s mistake. “How can I help you, Don … ?” I dared not risk the wrong name. My boys could be highly inaccurate in their reports.
    â€œFrancisco Xavier Balmis, honorary doctor to the royal chambers, surgeon consultant for the armies”—this explained the uniform—“director of the royal philanthropic expedition of the vaccine …” He stopped as ifhe were tired with his own importance. Or perhaps he had heard me sigh. I had to be careful. Being covered allowed my face to reflect feelings openly without