the muffled clink of teaspoons and cups on the silver tray that she held solemnly, as if they were objects of worship.
"Come in," he heard the hard voice on the other side of the door first, and then, when he went in, Inés' faint scent was lost in an unfamiliar, dense perfume that occupied everything, as if it too formed part of the invisible presence, the enclosed solitude and the clothing and furniture of another time that surrounded Doña Elvira. It isn't the aroma of a woman, he thought, but of a century: this was how things, the air, smelled fifty years ago. Without looking up, Inés made a vague curtsy and left the tray on a table near the window. "Leave now," said Doña Elvira and didn't look at her, because she had been observing Minaya since he came in, and even when he helped her to sit next to the tea table, she continued watching him in the closet mirror, clumsy, solicitous, bending over her, conscious of the silence he didn't know how to break and of the cold, wise eyes that had already judged him.
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"Y OU LOOK LIKE YOUR MOTHER ," she said, contemplating him at her leisure behind the steam and the cup of tea. "The same eyes and mouth, but the way you smile comes from your father. The way my husband and all the men in his family smiled, and even your grandmother Cristina, who was as good-looking as you. Haven't you seen her portrait that my son has in his bedroom? All of you smile to excuse your lies, not even to hide them, because all of you have always lackedthe moral sense needed to distinguish between what is just and what isn't, or why that should matter to you. That is why my poor husband excused himself before committing an error or telling a lie, never afterward. For him there was nothing he did that could not be pardoned. His smile was never more candid or more charming than when he informed me he had sold a farm with a thousand olive trees to buy one of those Italian cars, Bugattis, they were called. He took it and a slut to Monte Carlo and returned in a month without the car or the slut, and, of course, without a cent, but he did come back with a very elegant dinner jacket and a bouquet of gladiolus and smiled as if he had traveled to the Cote d'Azur only to buy me flowers. My son, on the other hand, has never even known how to smile like his father, or like yours, who also was an extremely dangerous liar. He's been wrong as often as either of them, but with all the solemnity in the world, as if he were taking Communion. He went voluntarily into that army of the hungry who had taken half our land to divide it among themselves, and he almost lost his life fighting against those who were really his people, and as if that were not enough he married that woman who was already used goods, you understand me, and even wanted to go to France with her. But I'm sure you're not entirely like them, like my husband and my son and that madman your father, or like your great-grandfather, Don Apolonio, who infected them all with his deceptions and madness but not with his ability to make money. All of them liars, all of them reckless or useless, or both things at the same time, like my husbandâmay God have mercy on his soulâbut if he had taken a few more years to die, he would have left us in poverty, with that mania he developed for collecting first thoroughbred horses and then women and cars. That's why, when he was a deputy, he became such good friends with Alfonso XIII. They had the same enthusiasms, and neither one bothered to hide them. Your father probably told you that when the king came to Magina in '24, he took tea with us one afternoon, in this house. The people with titles were green with envy when they saw the friendliness the king displayed toward my husband, who after all was the son of a man who made his money in the Indies and whose only coat of arms was invented for him by your grandfather José Emilio Minaya, the poet, who I think was the only man who could deceive him, he
"Come in," he heard the hard voice on the other side of the door first, and then, when he went in, Inés' faint scent was lost in an unfamiliar, dense perfume that occupied everything, as if it too formed part of the invisible presence, the enclosed solitude and the clothing and furniture of another time that surrounded Doña Elvira. It isn't the aroma of a woman, he thought, but of a century: this was how things, the air, smelled fifty years ago. Without looking up, Inés made a vague curtsy and left the tray on a table near the window. "Leave now," said Doña Elvira and didn't look at her, because she had been observing Minaya since he came in, and even when he helped her to sit next to the tea table, she continued watching him in the closet mirror, clumsy, solicitous, bending over her, conscious of the silence he didn't know how to break and of the cold, wise eyes that had already judged him.
Â
"Y OU LOOK LIKE YOUR MOTHER ," she said, contemplating him at her leisure behind the steam and the cup of tea. "The same eyes and mouth, but the way you smile comes from your father. The way my husband and all the men in his family smiled, and even your grandmother Cristina, who was as good-looking as you. Haven't you seen her portrait that my son has in his bedroom? All of you smile to excuse your lies, not even to hide them, because all of you have always lackedthe moral sense needed to distinguish between what is just and what isn't, or why that should matter to you. That is why my poor husband excused himself before committing an error or telling a lie, never afterward. For him there was nothing he did that could not be pardoned. His smile was never more candid or more charming than when he informed me he had sold a farm with a thousand olive trees to buy one of those Italian cars, Bugattis, they were called. He took it and a slut to Monte Carlo and returned in a month without the car or the slut, and, of course, without a cent, but he did come back with a very elegant dinner jacket and a bouquet of gladiolus and smiled as if he had traveled to the Cote d'Azur only to buy me flowers. My son, on the other hand, has never even known how to smile like his father, or like yours, who also was an extremely dangerous liar. He's been wrong as often as either of them, but with all the solemnity in the world, as if he were taking Communion. He went voluntarily into that army of the hungry who had taken half our land to divide it among themselves, and he almost lost his life fighting against those who were really his people, and as if that were not enough he married that woman who was already used goods, you understand me, and even wanted to go to France with her. But I'm sure you're not entirely like them, like my husband and my son and that madman your father, or like your great-grandfather, Don Apolonio, who infected them all with his deceptions and madness but not with his ability to make money. All of them liars, all of them reckless or useless, or both things at the same time, like my husbandâmay God have mercy on his soulâbut if he had taken a few more years to die, he would have left us in poverty, with that mania he developed for collecting first thoroughbred horses and then women and cars. That's why, when he was a deputy, he became such good friends with Alfonso XIII. They had the same enthusiasms, and neither one bothered to hide them. Your father probably told you that when the king came to Magina in '24, he took tea with us one afternoon, in this house. The people with titles were green with envy when they saw the friendliness the king displayed toward my husband, who after all was the son of a man who made his money in the Indies and whose only coat of arms was invented for him by your grandfather José Emilio Minaya, the poet, who I think was the only man who could deceive him, he
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