"I? Oh, I was thinking of Italy. What were you thinking about?"
"Don Fernando. Caterina. Life and death."
"I was thinking of home. Very foolish of me. I guess I'm ... well, sentimental." He patted his bald spot.
"You've been homesick as long as I can remember," she said.
"Come, come now," he said. "I haven't been that bad, have I?"
Chavela went about opening windows and candle flames wavered from the cool, damp but refreshing air. The clack-a-clack of hundreds of blackbirds resounded from their roosting place in the Indian laurels at the lagoon end of the garden.
Gabriel lit a kerosene lamp and placed it on the piano and excused himself.
"Good-night, Angelina ... I must visit Viosco ... he's sick ... thanks for the coffee...."
She hunched on a sofa, her feet under a velvet cushion, eyes on the irresolute candles. Shall I confess to Gabriel that I like to walk naked in my fur? Shall I tell him about the girl at the convent? Shall I tell him why Raul married me? Confess. Must we all confess, confess how lonely we are?
Later, in the chapel, she prayed for Vicente and herself. The place was dimly lit but the darkness and her rebozo could not shut out the Petacans, the lame, the sick, the hungry: they whimpered for clothes, medicine, alms: they fought for food, stole, got drunk, killed. They had never crowded about her before and their ghostly presence drove her to her room.