Cloudburst: An Anthology of Hispanic Canadian Short Stories

The Doll

Enrique Fernández 93 The Doll Doña Gertrudis Guerrero had lived alone for thirty-five years. Her solitude was a personal choice, as she had a multitude of relatives scattered around the island who were anxious to welcome their wealthy relative into their homes. Gertrudis had lived alone and hadn’t left her house for thirty-five years because of that “shameless husband” of hers, as she usually referred to her late spouse. She was the only heir to a not inconsiderable fortune of her thrifty Galician forebears. Since her mother had died in childbirth, she had been raised in a boarding school in the capital. During one of her summer stays in the small town, she married Antonio Martí, a shop boy in her family’s hardware store. Antonio wreaked havoc among the girls in the town with his green eyes and his blindingly white smile. An accidental brush with Antonio when she’d gone to get some nails on the other side of the hardware store counter, followed by a look and asmile,hadledtotheeventsthatcausedGertrudistoannounce to her father her irrevocable decision to marry Antonio or to become a nun in the capital. Her father, eager for a male heir who would carry on the family business, preferred to accept the ultimatum, even though he mistrusted Antonio. The wedding banquet was the best the small town remembered, as the Galician spared no expense for his only daughter’s wedding. This excess, combined with the abundant food and drink, had a lethal effect on him, and the following week he expired on the store’s counter as he was cutting a reel of wire with pliers. His fears proved to be well founded when, several months after the wedding, Antonio began neglecting his marriage bed duties more than was to be expected. A charitable soul sent Gertrudis a note telling her that her husband could be seen at nightfall with a beautiful mulatto widow in a goods storehouse that Gertrudis’s father had built on the beach. That same evening, Gertrudis discovered the horrible truth by spying through the badly nailed planks of the storehouse. After considering solutions that consisted of different combinations of deaths and suicide, she Cloudburst 94 confined herself to barricading the front door. When Antonio came home and tried to get in, Gertrudis told him from the balcony that he was dead to her and that he should never go near her again. However much Antonio denied it all, asked for forgiveness, looked at her with his green eyes and, finally, threatened her, it was to no avail. For several weeks, Antonio didn’t give up, but Gertrudis nailed the windows and doors shut so conscientiously that he was unable to gain access to the house during any of his attempts at attack. What’s more, the deceased Galician had left a clause in his will that ensured his daughter exclusive possession of her inheritance. Antonio and his mulatto left town; years later he killed her in a motel in Miami after surprising her with another man, and then committed suicide. Gertrudis,duetoamixofunfoundedfearandshame,never left home again. The spacious house that she had inherited from her parents had a lovely interior courtyard with palm trees and a garden, which made her reclusion more bearable. She leased the hardware store to some relatives who punctually paid the rent. If she needed something from the outside world, she would, from the second-floor balcony, communicate with the many town errand girls who would bring her what was needed. After a few years she took on Benigna, a woman offewthoughtsandwordswithwhomshehadplayedasachild. Only a small circle of friends was accepted into her fortress. Locked away in the large house by personal decision, Gertrudis spent the years between household chores, the piano, solitaire and endless games of Parcheesi with her visitors. This retreat made her return to her childhood interests and take out dolls from trunks that had been forgotten when Antonio had arrived. Anotherofherhobbieswasreadinggossipmagazines.Thegreat romances and balls of European royalty helped to relieve the monotony of her days. Princess Diana of Wales, with her innocent simplicity, was undoubtedly her favourite. She studied her dresses and gestures attentively in the magazines’ fullcolour photos. She had been accumulating everything from tea sets with the faces of the royal family to porcelain figurines of the princess and Charles. But the jewel in her collection Enrique Fernández 95 was undoubtedly the...