“Doña Dolores—” came from every mouth like a murmur in response to her funeral oration. It sounded like “ora pro nobis,” and involved an admiring recognition that was worth living for. The children hung on to Vicenta’s apron, their faces a deathly white, their eyes like saucers. Doña Dolores raised a hand in the classic mob-stilling gesture:
“I propose to pay him homage once a year on the anniversary of his departure. He shall remain here, where he can be respected and honored as he deserves, but I appeal to your honorable sense of secrecy to keep this from misunderstanding outsiders as it would be very sad to have him who was a respected and important man of law involved in legal complications.” There was a strange leer on her face as she lighted two candles which had been placed on the desk and knelt in front of it.
“Doña Dolores—” The murmur rose again, and again it sounded like “ora pro nobis,” which smoothly turned to general prayer trailing among the kneeling figures along the corridor. Then Doña Dolores rose, and all, knowing that the audience was over, filed out silently, still crossing themselves with reverent fear.
When they had all departed, Doña Dolores put out the candles and locked the door of the shrine. Vicenta was standing in front of her, the children still grasping her apron. They looked like a petrified group and Vicenta said hollowly:
“I wouldn’t do that, Doña Dolores. It does not seem right.”
“Let anyone try and take him away,” Doña Dolores responded with threatening finality as she pocketed the key.
The next two days Doña Dolores spent several hours enclosed with her dead husband. On the third day she only stayed a few minutes and when she came out she telephoned the Señor Zacatecas to come immediately.
As soon as he arrived she took him into the room: “Look here, Señor Zacatecas. There seems to be something wrong with your work. There is a strong smell and then also stains in the face and hands. I have not looked further because I did not want to disarrange anything until you got here. Come and look for yourself. Don’t you notice the smell?”
They struggled past the furniture. The Señor Zacatecas bent close to the figure, he looked, he sniffed, he finally straightened up: “That cannot be helped, Madame, the job is good. I worked for hours on him. If you had called me sooner it would have been easier, but when you called me, he was already in pretty bad shape and it was hard work to get him in the position you see him now. I had to use special chemicals and after a while they react that way. But this is nothing. You keep the windows open for a while and it will wear off. I really don’t want to know any more about this affair. I may get in trouble. I only did it because we are both Spanish and must stand together, but I want no more of it” The Señor Zacatecas departed.
Doña Dolores opened the window and looked into the pallid abyss of the court. Her gaze then remained suspended in space for a long time and then she also left the room.
That first year went by slowly at first and then it gathered speed uneventfully. In the beginning Doña Dolores’s visits to her husband were frequent and the children lived in constant fear, stayed away from the house as much as possible and at night insisted that Vicenta sleep with them. Then after a few months the visits of Doña Dolores grew more scarce. She seemed to prefer to pour her eternal lamentations enriched by this magnificent new addition into the faithful, though inattentive ears of her servant. Then a few days before the anniversary, it was decided to pay a call on Don Hilarión to see that everything was as it should be.
They discovered that all the furniture had accumulated an alarming amount of dust, as had Don Hilarión. They considered the matter at length and finally arrived at the conclusion that everything had to be dusted, including the old notario.
“I thought it might be disrespectful,” said Vicenta, “but what can one do?”
“It is more respectful to clean him, to perform that duty instead of allowing him to accumulate dirt. After all, Vicenta, cleanliness is next to holiness.”
They left the room and Vicenta returned to it with duster and broom. She swept the floor as well as the furniture permitted and then dusted every piece with expert hand. When she came to Don Hilarión, she remained a while, duster in hand poised in midair, and then with a shrug of the shoulders, she began vigorously.
At the first stroke the duster caught the gold-rimmed spectacles and sent them crashing against the desk, one of the lenses breaking.
“Now I’ve done it!” poor Vicenta said in distress. She picked up the spectacles and with some effort she managed to balance them upon Don Hilarión’s nose, which seemed to have shrunk. Indeed, the whole figure appeared slightly shrunk and distorted out of position, and then she also noticed Don Hilarión’s face. It had also changed, for it seems that time passes even for the dead. His lips had receded somewhat and began to expose his teeth, with the suggestion of a macabre smile. The frown in his forehead was a bit accentuated. The whole face and hands looked much darker. Vicenta studied the whole thing for a while shaking her head and then left the room closing the door.
When the anniversary arrived Doña Dolores invited a few friends. They arrived endeavoring to cover their curiosity with an air of great reverence and when Doña Dolores opened the door of the sanctuary, they all crowded in with almost abject hurry.
Doña Dolores was about to deliver the speech she had prepared for the occasion when she caught sight as well as all the others of the expression on her late husband’s face. The lips now fully exposed the teeth in a decided broad smile and the frown had become marked to the point of ferocity. The contrast was, to say the least, disconcerting.
Doña Dolores approached the sitting figure and eyed it. She overheard snickers and giggles and even a remark or two from a couple of American guests about the skeleton in the family closet. They all seemed nervous, fidgety. A young lady became hysterical.
And then Doña Dolores’s eye fell upon the broken spectacles: “What is the meaning of this? Vicenta, come here. Explain!”
The dejected servant advanced twisting her apron in embarrassment: “Well, madam, the duster caught on the spectacles and they fell and—” She broke down and rushed from the room crying, her apron already a sausage in her hands, to seek refuge in the kitchen.
Doña Dolores looked at her husband’s face again and mused: “I wonder what chemicals that Zacatecas used?”
The guests seemed unable to restrain their risibilities. Their rampant fear had created a nervousness which found only this outlet. They gulped, inflated their cheeks, coughed applying their handkerchiefs to their faces, and grew purple.
Doña Dolores turned upon them, the livid image of righteous indignation: “Shooo, imbeciles!” she emitted with all her might.
And this was too much for the guests. With howls and roars, they stampeded out of the house, convulsed by loud, open, ribald laughter.
The ceremony had ended.
The second year went by even faster than the first. The family activities had progressively invaded the room. There were things there which had to be used. At first Doña Dolores or Vicenta entered on tiptoe and left silently, but later they hurried and forgot to close the door on their way out and the door was open most of the time. The children appeared to have lost their fear. They played in the corridor and once when their ball rolled into Don Hilarión’s office, Jerry walked in boldy, retrieved it, and as he was leaving, he stopped to study his father.