Collected Stories by Gabriel García Márquez

Author:Gabriel García Márquez
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Magical Realism, Classics, Short Stories
ISBN: 0809590514
Publisher: Borgo Pr
Published: 1979-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Artificial Roses

Feeling her way in the gloom of dawn, Mina put on the sleeveless dress which the night before she had hung next to the bed, and rummaged in the trunk for the detachable sleeves. Then she looked for them on the nails on the wall, and behind the doors, trying not to make noise so as not to wake her blind grandmother, who was sleeping in the same room. But when she got used to the darkness, she noticed that the grandmother had got up, and she went into the kitchen to ask her for the sleeves.

‘They’re in the bathroom,’ the blind woman said. ‘I washed them yesterday afternoon.’

There they were, hanging from a wire with two wooden clothespins. They were still wet. Mina went back into the kitchen and stretched the sleeves out on the stones of the fireplace. In front of her, the blind woman was stirring the coffee, her dead pupils fixed on the stone border of the veranda, where there was a row of flowerpots with medicinal herbs.

‘Don’t take my things again,’ said Mina. ‘These days, you can’t count on the sun.’

The blind woman moved her face toward the voice.

‘I had forgotten that it was the first Friday,’ she said.

After testing with a deep breath to see if the coffee was ready, she took the pot off the fire.

‘Put a piece of paper underneath, because these stones are dirty,’ she said.

Mina ran her index finger along the fireplace stones. They were dirty, but with a crust of hardened soot which would not dirty the sleeves if they were not rubbed against the stones.

‘If they get dirty you’re responsible,’ she said.

The blind woman had poured herself a cup of coffee. ‘You’re angry,’ she said, pulling a chair toward the veranda. ‘It’s a sacrilege to take Communion when one is angry.’ She sat down to drink her coffee in front of the roses in the patio. When the third call for Mass rang, Mina took the sleeves off the fireplace and they were still wet. But she put them on. Father Ángel would not give her Communion with a bare-shouldered dress on. She didn’t wash her face. She took off the traces of rouge with a towel, picked up the prayer book and shawl in her room, and went into the street. A quarter of an hour later she was back.

‘You’ll get there after the reading of the gospel,’ the blind woman said, seated opposite the roses in the patio.

Mina went directly to the toilet. ‘I can’t go to Mass,’ she said. ‘The sleeves are wet, and my whole dress is wrinkled.’ She felt a knowing look follow her.

‘First Friday and you’re not going to Mass,’ exclaimed the blind woman.

Back from the toilet, Mina poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down against the whitewashed doorway, next to the blind woman. But she couldn’t drink the coffee.

‘You’re to blame,’ she murmured, with a dull rancor, feeling that she was drowning in tears.

‘You’re crying,’ the blind woman exclaimed.

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