Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,30
piece of ordinary rope.”
“A piece of ordinary rope,” she repeated. “Will that work with a god?”
“It’s the symbolism that matters in most dealings. I’ll speak a word of power to the cord, and it will be as strong as a diamond. It will hold him, and I will do the rest. Do not be frightened,” he concluded.
“It is easy for you to say. I bet gods don’t need to fear many things while regular people have an assortment of fears to choose from,” she replied.
“You are not a regular person, not now.”
For how long, she wondered. And she had to admit to herself that part of what kept her next to him was not just the promise of freeing herself of the bone splinter or a sense of obligation, but the lure of change, of becoming someone else, someone other than a girl who starched shirts and shone shoes and had to make do with a quick glimpse of the stars at night.
“Do not be frightened, I say,” he told her and took her left hand with his own.
It was not a gesture meant to provide comfort, at least not the comfort that can be derived from the touch of another person. This would have required a trace of human empathy and affection. It was a demonstration, like a scientist might perform. And still her pulse quickened, for it is difficult to be wise and young.
“Feel here, hmm? My own magic rests in your veins,” he said, as if seeking her pulse.
He was right. It was the tugging of a string on a loom, delicate, but it ran through her, and when he touched her it struck a crystalline note. Upon that note, another one, this one much more mundane, the effect of a handsome man clutching a girl’s hand.
She pulled her hand free and frowned. She was not that unwise.
“If your cousin frightens me, I’ll run off, I don’t care,” she swore. “Angry macaws bite, you know?”
“I shall have to take my chances.”
She tapped her spoon against her glass, summoning the waitress, who poured more coffee and milk for them.
“Do you like it? This drink?” he asked her after the glass was refilled, a frown upon his brow.
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“It’s too thick and awfully sweet. The milk disrupts the coffee’s bitterness.”
“We must not disrupt the purity of the coffee bean,” she said mockingly.
“Precisely.”
She chuckled at that, and he, of course, did not find it amusing. Not that it would be likely that a god of death would be very merry, not even in Veracruz, where no one must wear a frown, and not even during Carnival, when every trouble must be thrown to the air, left to be carried off by the winds.
Thus they sat there, together in the café, the dark, serious god and the girl, as the night fell and the lights were turned on in the streets.
How short their hair was! Casiopea watched all the fashionable young women with their hair like the American flappers, serving as “ladies in waiting” for the Carnival queen. In Casiopea’s town no one dared to sport such a decadent look. Even face powder might be cause for gossip there. In Veracruz, during Carnival, there were plenty of painted faces and rouged cheeks and unabashed looks to go around. If her mother had been there, she’d have told Casiopea that such shamelessness should be met with scorn, but seeing the girls laughing, Casiopea wondered if her mother was mistaken.
The queen, after being crowned, waved at the crowds, and thus began the formal masked balls at the Casino Veracruzano and other select venues. But the revelers were not confined to the insides of buildings, and those who could not afford the masked ball tickets made their own fun in the streets and parks, drinking, dancing, and sometimes engaging in mischief. Lent would arrive soon, the moment to say farewell to the flesh. So now was the time to throw caution to the wind and carouse. No one would sleep that first night of Carnival, and sometimes they wouldn’t sleep for days, too preoccupied with floats, parades, and music to bother heading to bed. A thousand remedies would be available the next morning to fix the hangover many locals would suffer from. One local solution was the consumption of shellfish for breakfast, although others contented themselves with aspirins.
The buildings down Cinco de Mayo Street were decorated with streamers and flags, and the cars that ventured into the streets sported flowers and