Pig's Foot by Carlos Acosta

Author:Carlos Acosta [Acosta, Carlos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781620400814
Google: aQ5unAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1620400812
Barnesnoble: 1620400812
Goodreads: 17252944
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The Broken Family

An hour after his arrival the following day, having bid farewell to Aureliano the coachman and greeted the neighbours, Melecio stepped into his house. In the five years he had been away his parents had aged a great deal. Betina’s hair was streaked with grey, she even had grey hair under her arms. But José looked worse. He was stooped now, almost hunchbacked, there was no other way to describe him: he looked old. Melecio had left behind two strong, healthy individuals and had come home to find two weak and wizened old people.

The new village schoolteacher said that he had missed them terribly, that he should never have abandoned them, but it was impossible now to turn back time. He brought his fingers to his temples as though he were suddenly getting a migraine.

‘You didn’t abandon us,’ said Betina. ‘You went to learn so that you could teach us all to read and write.’

‘It’s true, Melecio,’ said Gertrudis. ‘What is important is that you are here now.’

Melecio looked up and for the first time noticed his sister. He was thunderstruck. She had always been beautiful, but he had never imagined Geru would grow into a nymph.

‘A nymph?’ Gertrudis said curiously.

Melecio explained that there was something called Greek mythology, a collection of stories, myths and legends about the Greeks, people who live in Greece, a distant country as old as the world itself. In these stories, he explained, nymphs were spirits of nature, beautiful maidens who tended to the gods and dwelled in mountains, rivers, woods and springs. Gertrudis was pleased by Melecio’s description.

‘So I’m a nymph?’

‘See for yourself.’ Her brother gave her a box that contained an elegant cotton dress and a pearl necklace. Then, from another box, he took a flat object he called a mirror. Gertrudis’s mouth fell open as she studied herself in the mirror.

‘You see what I mean?’ said Melecio. ‘A nymph.’

Meanwhile, Betina opened the transparent container, the ‘cut-glass bottle’ as Melecio called it. She brought it to her nose and shuddered.

‘What a wonderful thing,’ she said. ‘It smells like rose wine.’

‘It does. But don’t even think about drinking it, it will give you an attack of the shits that could kill you,’ explained her son. ‘That is perfume. You wet your fingertips and dab it behind your ears and on your neck.’

Betina applied a few drops of this strange liquid to her throat and went over to show José. José said he did not need to see it, that he knew what perfume was, that the Santistebans had used perfume all the time and it was the most repulsive thing he had ever smelled.

‘Don’t be jealous, old man,’ said Betina.

‘Jealous of what? You’re not the only one who got presents.’

José tried on the black suit his son had brought him and looked at himself in the mirror. Betina threw her arms around him saying he was the handsomest old man she had ever seen and José prised her off muttering that he was not an old man, that he was still fighting fit.

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