Memories of San Juan

Chapter 16

“My, my!” exclaimed an old, fat woman, who had white hair extend till her knees, in a high tone mixed with curiosity and surprise. “Christina jus’ look at your guest! ‘Tis is Rosalina that the master has told us about continuously, isn’t that so?”

  “This is the beauty,” she answered blissfully and jolted me very gently on my back towards the old woman.

  Looking back at Christina, I colored at her statement. Once I was in the fat, cushioning arms of the woman, I heard her say something in Spanish which I couldn’t understand.

  “You are a very fresh milk, little one,” she declared back in the language I understood with a wide smile that made her chubby face conceal her minute eyes. “Oh, look at those full cheeks!” she exclaimed with a strong pinch on my skin that almost made me shriek. “And look at those tits!” Surprised by her statement, I remained quiet. “Christina, you should watch over this girl before some other chap grabs her before Richard even weds this fine missy.”

    Not being familiar with such a comment, I did not have an idea of what to say or how to respond to it so I just kept smiling as if I hadn’t understood her. Then all of a sudden the woman started to chuckle and hug me tightly with big kisses on my forehead and palms. I hadn’t been treated this way since the time when my mother’s mother was still alive. Remembering my own grandmother, I smiled and melted the ice as I also hugged the old woman back.

  “I’ve always wanted to have a daughter or granddaughter like you, but my children were always boys and boys.”

  “I call her the mother of the town’s men,” whispered Christina into my ear and then I understood why she had greeted me this way.

  “Oh I did not know,” I responded with amusement.

  “Zara, I need you to give me the same ingredients,” Christina said already interfering into the special moment.

  “Richard never stops taking the same soup?” the woman asked, already moving away from me like an unbalanced pile of heavy rocks.

  “No. He’s doctor says he should still have it every evening.”

  My attention drew closer immediately when I heard that sentence and Christina whose eyes were already watching me had worry written all over them. She must have said that without taking into account that I was here.

  “Leave us Rosalina for some time. Don’t bother yourself waiting, you can stroll down the beach and I’ll meet up with you shortly.”

  Without thinking or trying to figure out what next to do or state, I quickly left the stuffy store and walked directly away from the busy crowd farther down towards the beach that was, at the present, deserted. I also didn’t want to hear that. I never liked hearing secrets; they always disturbed my conscience making me feel like I knew something that could create a cloud of guilt above me.

  My eyes were following every of my feet’s steps and was getting some kind of satisfaction basically by seeing how the soft sand sank deeper into the ground every time my sandals would press on it. Not realizing how far I had already reached, my hair was all over my face, my sight barely clear enough to see where I was walking towards to, only my mind at the moment too concentrated to be able to even think of other things.