On the next day in Rosaria’s bohío—Eliot had taken to calling it the “witch doctor’s clinic”—Elvira again stroked his ribs, boiled the herbs, and sang her songs of Africa, and Rosaria rectified each small mistake. The two women, as usual, turned their backs when Will stripped to get into the tub. While he soaked, Elvira spoke about a ceremony called quinces. Her father had died when she was fifteen, so she’d had no one to hold a quinces for her. There was only Tío Enrique, who had become her guardian, but he did not want to give her a quinces because it cost a lot of money. In time, however, Rosaria persuaded her husband to part with a few pesos and throw a party in honor of Elvira’s womanhood. Rosaria had sewn her a new dress, people from all over town showed up, except the rich, of course, and there was music and dancing and feasting—plantanos and wine and porco arrosto marinated in the juice of the sour orange. And what was a quinces? Will wanted to know. From her description, he gathered that it was a kind of cotillion for Cuban girls who had reached the age of fifteen—hence its name—and its purpose was to declare that the girl was now eligible for marriage.

You must have had a thousand offers, said Will, leaping at the chance to flatter. She cast her eyes on the floor and shook her head. Then was it ten times a thousand? he asked, smiling to her back. She shook her head again. More still? A hundred times a thousand? A thousand thousand? Did all the young men in Cuba come to your door?

“Silencio, Will!” she burst out, daring in her anger to look at him. “Stop ridiculing me!”

Her expression was at once injured and furious, and the display of temper flummoxed him. “Lo siento, lo siento mucho,” he said, assuring her that, far from ridicule, he had intended only to compliment her beauty.

“The truth is I did not receive one proposal,” she said, with a ferocity that made him start. “Because of my uncle! He charges for everything, and he had his price for what my quinces cost him!”

Rosaria hissed, and her niece turned around and bowed her head, muttering that she was sorry, she had forgotten herself.

“My husband is very …” the old woman began, then paused, searching for the right word. “Protective. He is very protective of Elvira, and most of the young men in this neighborhood are afraid of him, even though he is a shrimp, let’s face it. He is el jefe in this neighborhood. He sells lottery tickets and he blesses them, for the luck, comprende Usted? He runs the cockfights and he blesses the roosters, also for the luck, and if the rooster wins, he takes half the winnings.”

“But why does that make the young men afraid?”