The women fall silent, having completed their task of fathoming other people’s spirits. If they were overflowing with any satisfaction, it wasn’t that of malevolence. It was the satisfaction of having turned the implacable attention of the judge and witness that every resident of Ciudad Real was toward lives that were not their own, the sins and suffering of others.

Having passed through these rites of initiation, Julia began to be treated as an accomplice. After making so many useless forays, she was finally inside the circle. And she felt safeguarded by a wall of shared secrets, memories held in common. Invulnerable under the title of Coleta lady.

Idolina leaned toward her to murmur in her ear, “Fernando and César have just arrived from Tuxtla.”

Julia was barely able to hold back a startled gesture. She would not allow them to interrupt her salon. Idolina made a soothing motion. “They’re saddling up their horses.”

Amid the noise of voices, Julia strained for the other noise, so distant, so slight that she didn’t notice when it faded away.

Her muscles relaxed and her whole face took on a look of repose, of certain mastery. In that atmosphere, the gathering was drawn out longer than on other nights.

After accompanying her guests to the door, Julia made, as always, a final round of inspection through the house. Everything was in order. Even Fernando’s bedroom. No wardrobe had been opened, no object had changed its place. The only thing that caught her eye was a packet of letters tied with a ribbon lying on top of a desk.

Julia examined them. Ordinary envelopes, irregular handwriting, an uneducated person’s poor spelling. The name Ulloa written many times.

Julia pulled out a page and began reading: “a person who holds you in esteem but believes it more prudent not to reveal her identity. . . .” And then Julia’s own figure emerged. The letters twined together lasciviously, like two bodies in a bed, uniting her with Leonardo Cifuentes. Julia the adulteress. Julia the greedy woman. Julia the hypocrite.

Crude words and vulgar images denounced, condemned, and derided Julia. And behind every paragraph a hand could be discerned. The same hand she shook each day, which opened avidly to receive her largesse and closed forcefully on the booty. That hand had traced out these sordid marks with a schoolgirl’s application.

How long had she been like that, carved up like a side of beef and exposed to Fernando’s impassive gaze? She looked for a date to help her, without finding one. But some of the papers had begun to lose their color.

With clumsy fingers, Julia refolded the pages, replaced them in their envelopes, tied up the ribbon.

She gave a last glance at the empty bedroom, went out to the gallery and locked the door behind her.

A boundless night was spreading across the sky. Julia watched it, her eyes wide with fear.

XXIX

CHAPTER XXIX