The City of Palaces by Michael Nava Read Free Book Online Page A

pond in the center of the garden was anchored by a fountain carved with the symbols of the evangelists—a lion, an eagle, an ox, and a man. The fountain, too, was in disrepair and only a brackish trickle now reached the pond. At the far end of the garden was a mirador made of marble. The family crest and the date 1702 were carved over the entrance of the small pavilion.
    She sat on the bench in the pavilion and removed her veil so that she might better inhale the heavy fragrance of the flowers in the still, autumn air. She thought of Miguel Sarmiento, and the sadness with which he had looked at the infant when she had given him the baby to hold; it was the same sadness she had seen in the birth room. She recognized it as the sadness of loss, a loss to which he remained unreconciled. That pain she saw in his eyes was not unknown to her. She closed her eyes. Mingled with the scent of flowers were the smells of the stables on the other side of the garden wall. Now and then she heard the muffled whinny of a horse or the voice of a groom or stable boy.
    â€œAnselmo.”
    Her eyelids fluttered open and she looked around the garden to see who had spoken that name. There was no one else in the garden but a little black cat hunting lizards.
    â€œAnselmo.”
    That voice, that name, again. And then, with a small gasp, she realized that it was she who had spoken. Her voice was speaking the name she had not openly uttered in many years.
    She spoke his name again, consciously, deliberately. “Anselmo.”
    The cat looked up, distracted from its hunt by the weeping woman.
    S he had been tolerated in the kitchen because it was the domain of women performing women’s work, but when Alicia began to wander into the stables, she was brought before her father, a rare and frightening event. The marqués received her as if she were an errant servant. With scarcely a glance at her, he said, “Henceforth, you will stay out of the stables.”
    â€œI only wanted to see how they braid the horses’ manes.”
    He looked at her sharply. “Were you asked to speak?”
    Trembling, she replied, “No, Señor Marqués.”
    â€œGo.”
    She had run into the garden, weeping.
    â€œWhy are you crying?”
    She looked around for the questioner. A boy’s head appeared above the wall that was common to the garden and the stables. It was Anselmo, one of the grooms. He had been her guide on her excursion to the stables, telling her about the horses and how he took care of them. Now he jumped the wall and came into the garden.
    â€œDid your papá hit you?” he asked.
    He was two or three years older than she—fifteen or sixteen—a slender, cinnamon-colored boy with golden eyes. He smelled soothingly of straw and liniment.
    â€œNo,” she said. “He has forbidden me from visiting the stables. Now I will never see how you braid the manes.”
    He sat beside her on the bench and took a strand of her long hair. “I could braid your hair. Do you want me to?”
    His fingers in her hair, the whispered question, the lustrous sun, and the sweet smells of the garden produced in her a thrill that raised goose bumps on her then flawless skin and, without understanding why, but knowing she must, she pressed her lips to his. His mouth opened—her shock was quickly followed by the delicious sensation of his warm, wet tongue and the heat of his body radiating from beneath his thin shirt. As they pressed their bodies tightly together, she did not know whether it was his heart or hers that beat like a bird flapping its wings against its cage.
    On the warm autumn nights, he laid his zarape in the clearing among the roses to dispel the chill from the earth. Then, too, their naked bodies generated a heat so intense that curlicues of steam rose from them. She learned he was from Coahuila and had come with his family to the city looking for work when their small farm was taken from them