“We won’t tell them at first. We’ll just serve them, and once they get used to it, we’ll explain everything. Or we can bring them here and they’ll figure it out.”

On Monday when I came home from school I saw that my aunt had been convinced. For dinner Isabel served a salad of lettuce and breaded, fried fish. For dressing she brought out several spicy sauces, salt, and slices of lime. From the kitchen I watched as my family devoured that new dish with their usual appetite. My aunt also ate it, but not as much and somewhat reluctantly, with the expression of a martyr absorbed in her sacrifice. I didn’t eat a bite. The next day they had chop-suey and on Wednesday different kinds of mushrooms in guajillo chili sauce. That whole week Isabel kept coming up with delicious dishes. After a few days and for no apparent reason, the cockroach population in our cupboard had diminished. My aunt was overjoyed and called her sons over to explain to them what was going on.

“Don’t tell your father yet,” she advised. “I don’t think he’s ready.”

My cousins seemed upset at first. The younger one threw up that evening and refused to eat for several days. However, soon enough we all got over our prejudices and began to enjoy our supremacy over the cockroaches immensely. So great was the animosity we felt toward them that we’d think up all kinds of ways to torture them. The family’s favorite recipe was cockroach ceviche, which Isabel would prepare in front of everybody. To make it she’d dry the wretched things using fragrant herbs, as you would grasshoppers, and once purged, she’d leave them to marinate in lime juice for a few hours. I now know that many people develop allergies to cockroaches. Just the insects’ presence will make their eyes puffy and watery. However, maybe because of the highly scrupulous way Isabel cooked the cockroaches, nobody in the family developed that kind of reaction. Ingesting the cockroaches not only helped us end the plague, it also fostered a kinship among us. I began eating with the family again, being careful with my manners, and my cousins stopped segregating me for my ill breeding. Nothing like a family secret to strengthen the unity between its members.

Clemencia alone did not participate in these feasts. If before she had kept to herself, now her gastronomic reticence marginalized her completely. One night I was awakened by a whispered conversation. Isabel and her mother were having a heated discussion in their room. I put on my sandals and went out to listen through the door.

“It may be the solution, but you don’t have the right. It’s not fair what you’re doing,” said the old woman on the verge of tears.