Whenever she closed her eyes she saw scenes from last Christmas, the first time Pedro and his family had been invited to dinner; the scenes grew more and more vivid, and the cold within her grew sharper. Despite the time that had passed since that evening, she remembered it perfectly: the sounds, the smells, the way her new dress had grazed the freshly waxed floor, the look Pedro gave her . . . That look! She had been walking to the table carrying a tray of egg-yolk candies when she first felt his hot gaze burning her skin. She turned her head, and her eyes met Pedro’s. It was then she understood how dough feels when it is plunged into boiling oil. The heat that invaded her body was so real she was afraid she would start to bubble—her face, her stomach, her heart, her breasts—like batter, and unable to endure his gaze she lowered her eyes and hastily crossed the room, to where Gertrudis was pedaling the player piano, playing a waltz called “The Eyes of Youth.” She set her tray on a little table in the middle of the room, picked up a glass of Noyo liquor that was in front of her, hardly aware of what she was doing, and sat down next to Paquita Lobo, the De la Garzas’ neighbor. But even that distance between herself and Pedro was not enough; she felt her blood pulsing, searing her veins. A deep flush suffused her face and no matter how she tried she could not find a place for her eyes to rest. Paquita saw that something was bothering her, and with a look of great concern, she asked:
“That liquor is pretty strong, isn’t it?”
“Pardon me?”
“You look a little woozy, Tita. Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’re old enough to have a little drink on a special occasion, but tell me, you little devil, did your mama say it was okay? I can see you’re excited—you’re shaking—and I’m sorry but I must say you’d better not have any more. You wouldn’t want to make a fool of yourself.”
That was the last straw! To have Paquita Lobo think she was drunk. She couldn’t allow the tiniest suspicion to remain in Paquita’s mind or she might tell her mother. Tita’s fear of her mother was enough to make her forget Pedro for a moment, and she applied herself to convincing Paquita, any way she could, that she was thinking clearly, that her mind was alert. She chatted with her, she gossiped, she made small talk. She even told her the recipe for this Noyo liquor which was supposed to have had such an effect on her. The liquor is made by soaking four ounces of peaches and a half pound of apricots in water for twenty-four hours to loosen the skin; next, they are peeled, crushed, and steeped in hot water for fifteen days. Then the liquor is distilled. After two and a half pounds of sugar have been completely dissolved in the water, four ounces of orange-flower water are added, and the mixture is stirred and strained. And so there would be no lingering doubts about her mental and physical well-being, she reminded Paquita, as if it were just an aside, that the water containers held 2.016 liters, no more and no less.
So when Mama Elena came over to ask Paquita if she was being properly entertained, she replied enthusiastically.
“Oh yes, perfectly! You have such wonderful daughters. Such fascinating conversation!”
Mama Elena sent Tita to the kitchen to get something for the guests. Pedro “happened” to be walking by at that moment and he offered his help. Tita rushed off to the kitchen without a word. His presence made her extremely uncomfortable. He followed her in, and she quickly sent him off with one of the trays of delicious snacks that had been waiting on the kitchen table.
She would never forget the moment their hands accidentally touched as they both slowly bent down to pick up the same tray.
That was when Pedro confessed his love.
“Senorita Tita, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to be alone with you to tell you that I am deeply in love with you. I know this declaration is presumptuous, and that it’s quite sudden, but it’s so hard to get near you that I decided to tell you tonight. All I ask is that you tell me whether I can hope to win your love.”
“I don’t know what to say . . . give me time to think.”
“No, no, I can’t! I need an answer now: you don’t have to think about love; you either feel it or you don’t. I am a man of few words, but my word is my pledge. I swear that my love for you will last forever. What about you? Do you feel the same way about me?”
“Yes!”
Yes, a thousand times. From that night on she would love him forever. And now she had to give him up. It wasn’t decent to desire your sister’s future husband. She had to try to put him out of her mind somehow, so she could get to sleep. She started to eat the Christmas Roll Nacha had left out on her bureau, along with a glass of milk; this remedy had proven effective many times. Nacha, with all her experience, knew that for Tita there was no pain that wouldn’t disappear if she ate a delicious Christmas Roll. But this time it didn’t work. She felt no relief from the hollow sensation in her stomach. Just the opposite, a wave of nausea flowed over her. She realized that the hollow sensation was not hunger but an icy feeling of grief. She had to get rid of that terrible sensation of cold. First she put on a wool robe and a heavy cloak. The cold still gripped her. Then she put on felt slippers and another two shawls. No good. Finally she went to her sewing box and pulled out the bedspread she had started the day Pedro first spoke of marriage. A bedspread like that, a crocheted one, takes about a year to complete. Exactly the length of time Pedro and Tita had planned to wait before getting married. She decided to use the yarn, not to let it go to waste, and so she worked on the bedspread and wept furiously, weeping and working until dawn, and threw it over herself. It didn’t help at all. Not that night, nor many others, for as long as she lived, could she free herself from that cold.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Next month’s recipe:
Chabela Wedding Cake
CHAPTER TWO
February
Chabela Wedding Cake
INGREDIENTS:
175 grams refined granulated sugar
300 grams cake flour, sifted three times
17 eggs
grated peel of one lime
PREPARATION:
Place five egg yolks, four whole eggs, and the sugar in a large bowl. Beat until the mixture thickens and then add two more whole eggs; repeat, adding the remaining eggs two at a time until all the eggs have been added. To make the cake for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding, Tita and Nacha had to multiply this recipe by ten, since they were preparing a cake not for eighteen people but for 180. Therefore, they needed 170 eggs, which meant they had to arrange to have that number of good eggs on the same day.
To get that number of eggs together, they preserved all the eggs laid by the best hens for several weeks. This preserving technique had been employed on the ranch since time immemorial to ensure a supply of this nourishing and indispensable food throughout the winter. The best time to preserve eggs is August or September. The eggs must be very fresh. Nacha preferred to use only eggs laid the same day. The eggs are placed in a cask containing crumbled sheep fodder, allowed to cool, and then covered completely. This will keep the eggs fresh for months. If you want them to keep for more than a year, place the eggs in an earthenware crock and cover them with a ten-percent lime solution. Cover tightly to keep the air out and store in the wine cellar. Tita and Nacha had chosen to use the first method because they didn’t need to keep the eggs fresh for that many months. They had placed the cask containing the preserved eggs between them under the kitchen table and were taking the eggs out of it as they put the cake together.
When she had beaten barely a hundred eggs, the phenomenal energy required for the task began to have a bad effect on Tita’s mood. To reach the goal of 170 seemed unimaginable.
Tita beat the mixture while Nacha broke the eggs and added them to it. A fit of trembling shook Tita’s body and she broke out in goose bumps when each new egg was broken. The egg whites reminded her of the testicles of the chickens they had castrated the month before. Roosters that are castrated and then fattened up are called capons. The family had dec
ided to serve capons at Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding because they would impress everyone with the quality of the dinner, as much for the amount of work required in their preparation as for the extraordinary flavor of the birds themselves.
As soon as the date of the wedding was set for the twelfth of January, they ordered two hundred roosters to be bought for castrating and fattening up.
This task fell to Tita and Nacha. Nacha because of her experience and Tita as punishment for feigning a headache to avoid her sister Rosaura’s engagement.
“I won’t stand for disobedience,” Mama Elena told her, “nor am I going to allow you to ruin your sister’s wedding, with your acting like a victim. You’re in charge of all the preparations starting now, and don’t ever let me catch you with a single tear or even a long face, do you hear?”
Tita was trying to keep that warning in mind as she got set to castrate the first chicken. The castration is done by making an incision over the chicken’s testicles, sticking your finger in to get a hold of them, and pulling them out. After that is done, the wound is sewn up and rubbed with fresh lard or chicken fat. Tita almost swooned when she stuck her finger in and grasped the testicles of the first chicken. Her hands were shaking and she was dripping sweat and her stomach was swooping like a kite on the wind. Mama Elena looked at her piercingly, and said:
“What’s the matter? Why the shaking? Are we going to start having problems?” Tita raised her eyes and looked at her. She felt like screaming, Yes, she was having problems, when they had chosen something to be neutered, they’d made a mistake, they should have chosen her. At least then there would be some justification for not allowing her to marry and giving Rosaura her place beside the man she loved. Mama Elena read the look on her face and flew into a rage, giving Tita a tremendous slap that left her rolling in the dirt by the rooster, which had died from the bungled operation.
In a frenzy Tita beat, beat, beat the cake batter, as if she wanted to complete her martyrdom once and for all. She had only to beat in two more eggs and the batter would be ready. The cake was the last thing to be done; everything else, all the food for a twenty-course meal and the appetizers that would precede it, was ready for the banquet. Only Tita, Nacha, and Mama Elena remained in the kitchen. Chencha, Gertrudis, and Rosaura were putting the finishing touches on the wedding dress. Nacha, with a loud sigh of relief, picked up the second to last egg to crack it into the bowl. Tita’s shout stopped her.
“No!”
Tita stopped beating the cake and took the egg in her hand. The sound was quite clear, she could hear a baby chick peeping inside the shell. She held the egg closer to her ear and the peeping got louder. Mama Elena stopped what she was doing and addressed Tita in an authoritarian voice:
“What happened? Why did you scream?”
“Because there’s a chicken inside this egg! Of course Nacha can’t hear it, but I can.”
“A chicken? Are you crazy? There has never been such a thing in a preserved egg!”
With two giant strides Mama Elena was next to Tita, grabbing the egg from her hand and cracking it open. Tita shut her eyes as tight as she could.
“Open your eyes and look at your chicken!”
Tita opened her eyes slowly. Surprised, she saw that what she had taken for a chicken was just an egg, and a fresh one at that.
“Listen to me, Tita. You are trying my patience. I won’t let you start acting crazy. This is the first and the last time for craziness! Or you will be sorry, I promise you that.”
Tita never could explain what had happened to her that night, whether the sound she had heard was just fatigue or a hallucination, a product of her mind. At the time, her best course seemed to be to go back to beating the eggs, since she had no wish to test the limits of her mother’s patience.
When the last two eggs have been beaten in, beat in the grated lime peel. When the mixture has thickened, stop beating and add the sifted flour, mixing it in a little at a time with a wooden spoon until it has all been incorporated. Finally, grease a pan with butter, dust with flour, and pour the batter into it. Bake for thirty minutes.
After spending three days preparing twenty different courses, Nacha was exhausted, and she could hardly wait for the cake to go in the oven so she could finally rest. Today Tita was not as good a helper as usual. Not that she made any complaints—under her mother’s watchful eye she didn’t dare—but when Mama Elena left the kitchen to go to bed, Tita let out a long sigh. Nacha gently took the spoon out of her hand and embraced her:
“Now we’re alone in the kitchen, so go ahead and cry, my child, because I don’t want them to see you crying tomorrow. Especially not Rosaura.”
Nacha stopped Tita’s stirring because she felt that Tita was on the verge of nervous collapse; though she didn’t know the word for Tita’s condition, she was wise enough to realize that Tita could not go on. Nor, in fact, could she. Rosaura and Nacha had never been close. Nacha was annoyed by Rosaura’s picky eating, which had gone on since she was a child. She left her food untouched on her plate, or secretly fed it to Tequila, the father of Pulques, the ranch dog. Tita on the other hand had always been a good eater; she would eat anything. There was just one thing Tita didn’t like: the soft-boiled eggs Mama Elena tried to make her eat. After Nacha had been put in charge of Tita’s culinary education, she not only ate ordinary food, she also ate jumil bugs, maguey worms, crayfish, tepezcuintle pigs, armadillos, and other things that horrified Rosaura. That’s how Nacha’s dislike of Rosaura began, and the rivalry between the sisters was now culminating in this wedding between Rosaura and the man Tita loved. Rosaura wasn’t sure, but she suspected that Pedro’s love for Tita was never-ending. Nacha was on Tita’s side, and she was doing everything she could to spare her pain. With her apron she dried the tears that were rolling down Tita’s cheeks and said:
“Now, my child, we must finish the cake.”
That took longer than it should have; the batter wouldn’t thicken because Tita kept crying.
And so, arms around each other, Nacha and Tita wept until there were no more tears in Tita’s eyes. Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more, like dry labor; but at least she wasn’t making the cake batter soggy, so they could go on to the next step, which is making the filling.
FOR THE FILLING:
150 grams apricot paste
150 grams granulated sugar
TO PREPARE THE FILLING:
Heat the apricot paste together with a little bit of water; after the mixture comes to a boil, strain it, preferably through a hair or flour sieve, but a coarser strainer can be used if you don’t have either of those. Place the paste in a pan, add the sugar, and heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture forms a marmalade. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before spreading it on the middle layer of the cake, which, of course, has previously been sliced into layers.
Luckily, Nacha and Tita had made several jars of preserves—apricot, fig, and camote with pineapple—the month before the wedding. Thanks to that, they were spared the task of making the marmalade filling the same day.
They often made enormous batches of jam, using whatever fruit was in season, which they cooked in a huge copper saucepan on the patio. The pan was set up over a fire, and they had to cover their arms with old sheets to stir the marmalade. This prevented the bubbles from boiling up and burning their skin.
The moment Tita opened the jar, the smell of apricots transported her to the afternoon they made the marmalade. Tita had come in from the kitchen garden, carrying the fruit in her skirt because she had forgotten a basket. She walked into the kitchen with her skirt held up in front of her and was startled to bump into Pedro. Pedro was heading out to get the carriage ready. They had to deliver some invitations in town, and since the head groom had not showed up at the ranch that day, the job had fallen upon Pedro. When Nacha saw him enter the kitchen, she left, practically at a run, on the pretext of cutting some epazote to add to the beans. Startled as she was, Tita dropped a
few of the apricots. Pedro quickly came over to help her pick them up. Bending down, he could see the part of her leg that was exposed.
To prevent Pedro from looking at her leg, Tita let go of her skirt.
When she did, all the rest of the apricots rolled onto Pedro’s head.
“Forgive me, Pedro. Did I hurt you?”
“Not as much as I have hurt you. Let me say that my intention . . .”
“I didn’t ask for an explanation.”
“You have to let me say a few words. . . .”
“I let you do that once, and all I got was lies. I don’t want to hear any more. . . .”
With that Tita fled from the kitchen into the room where Chencha and Gertrudis were embroidering the sheet for the wedding night. It was a white silk sheet, and they were embroidering a delicate pattern in the center of it. This opening was designed to reveal only the bride’s essential parts while allowing marital intimacy. How lucky they had been to obtain French silk at that time of political instability. The revolution made it impossible to travel in safety, which is why, if it hadn’t been for a Chinaman who dealt in smuggled goods, it would have been impossible to obtain the material, since Mama Elena would never have allowed one of her daughters to risk traveling to the capital to buy the things for Rosaura’s dress and trousseau. This Chinaman was a crafty fellow: he accepted notes issued by the revolutionary army in the North as payment for the merchandise he sold in the capital, even though the notes were worthless and not negotiable there. Naturally when he took these notes in payment, it was at a fraction of their value, but then he took them to the North, where they were worth their full value, and bought goods with them.