Like Water for Chocolate

  As the beans weren’t as fresh as they might be, she knew they would take more time than usual to cook, so she put them on early. As they cooked, she took care of the chiles anchos, removing their seeds and membranes.

  After the chiles were deveined, she soaked them in warm water and finally pureed them.

  As soon as the chiles were soaking, Tita fixed breakfast for Pedro and took it up to his room.

  He was fairly recovered from his burns. Tita had not faltered in her application of tepezcohuite bark for so much as a moment, ensuring that Pedro would not be scarred. John had approved her treatment one hundred percent. Curiously, his grandmother, Morning Light, had begun experiments with this bark, and he himself had been continuing them for some time. Pedro was anxiously waiting for Tita. In addition to the delicious meals she brought him every day, another factor helped bring about his amazing recovery: the conversations he had with her after eating his meals. This morning Tita didn’t have the time to devote to it, she wanted to make the meal for John the best she could. Pedro, his jealousy erupting, said to her:

  “What you should do instead of inviting him to dinner is to tell him once and for all that you’re not going to marry him because you are going to have my baby.”

  “I can’t say that, Pedro.”

  “Why? Are you afraid you’ll hurt your little doctor?”

  “It’s not that I’m afraid, but it would be so unjust to treat John that way, with all the respect I owe him; I have to wait for the best time to tell him.”

  “If you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself.”

  “No, you’re not going to say anything to him; in the first place, because I won’t allow it, and in the second, because I’m not pregnant.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “What I thought was a pregnancy was just an irregularity; now I’m back to normal.”

  “So, is that it? Now I see what’s going on. You don’t want to talk to John because you’re starting to have doubts about whether to stay with me or marry him, right? You aren’t tied to me anymore, a poor sick man.”

  Tita couldn’t understand Pedro’s attitude; he was behaving like a child throwing a tantrum. He talked as if he was going to be sick for the rest of his days, but it wouldn’t be that long—in a little while he’d be completely healed. Perhaps the accident he had suffered had affected his mind. Perhaps his head was full of the smoke his body had given off when it burned and just as burnt toast changes the way the whole house smells, making it unpleasant, so his smoky brain was producing these black thoughts, turning his usually pleasant words into awful ones. How could he doubt her, how could he mean to behave this way, contrary to the principle that had always governed his treatment of others—his sense of decency.

  She left his room upset; Pedro, before the door was shut, yelled after her that she needn’t come back to bring him his dinner, she should send Chencha, so she’d have as much time as she liked for seeing John.

  Angry, Tita went into the kitchen and got her breakfast; she hadn’t made it earlier because her first concern was to take care of Pedro and then her daily work—and all for what? So that Pedro could offend her with everything he said and did, not once considering her feelings. It was definitely true, Pedro had turned into a monster of selfishness and suspicion.

  She prepared some chilaquiles and sat down at the kitchen table to eat them. She didn’t like to eat alone, but when it came right down to it she had no choice, since Pedro couldn’t get out of his bed; Rosaura didn’t want to get out of hers and stayed shut up in her bedroom, hermetically sealed, not taking any meals; and Chencha, having had her first baby, had taken a few days off.

  That’s why the chilaquiles didn’t taste as good as usual: for want of someone’s company. Immediately she heard some footsteps. The door of the kitchen opened, and there stood Rosaura.

  Tita was astonished at the sight of her. She was as thin as she had been when she was single. After just a week without eating! It seemed impossible that she had lost sixty-five pounds in just seven days, but so she had. The same thing had happened when she had gone to live in San Antonio: she had become thin very quickly, but all she had to do was come back to the ranch and she got fat again!

  Rosaura swept in and sat down facing Tita. It was time to confront her sister, but it wouldn’t be Tita who would start the argument. She removed her plate, took a sip of her coffee, and began carefully breaking up the ends of the tortillas that she had used to make the chilaquiles.

  They always cut off the edges of the tortillas they ate to throw them to the chickens. They crumbled the crusts from the hard rolls, too, for the same purpose. Rosaura and Tita stared unblinkingly at each other, and their eyes were still locked when Rosaura opened the discussion.

  “I think you and I are overdue for a talk, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, I certainly do. We have been ever since you married my boyfriend.”

  “Fine, if that’s what you want, let’s start there. With your wrongful claim to a boyfriend. You had no right to have a boyfriend.”

  “Says who? Is that according to Mama or to you?”

  “According to family tradition, which you were breaking.”

  “And I’m going to break with it several more times if I have to, as long as this cursed tradition doesn’t take me into account. I had the same right to marry as you did, and you had no right to stand between two people who were deeply in love.”

  “Not that deeply. You saw how Pedro switched to me at the least opportunity. I married him because that’s what he wanted. If you had had the tiniest scrap of pride, you would have put him out of your mind forever.”

  “Well for your information, he married you just so he could be near me. He doesn’t love you, and you know that perfectly well.”

  “Look, it would be better if we didn’t dig up the past; I don’t care what Pedro’s motives were in marrying me. The fact is he did. I’m not going to let you two make a fool of me, do you hear? I’m not about to let you do that.”

  “No one is trying to make a fool of you, Rosaura, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “That is nonsense! I’m painfully aware of the role you put me in, when everybody on the ranch saw you weeping at Pedro’s side, holding his hand so lovingly. Do you know what that role is? Laughingstock! You know, you really don’t deserve God’s mercy! As far as I’m concerned, I couldn’t care less if you and Pedro go to hell for sneaking around kissing in every corner. From now on, you can do it all you want. As long as nobody finds out about it, I don’t care, because Pedro is going to have to do it with someone who will, since as for me, he isn’t going to put so much as a hand near me ever again. I, I have some self-respect left! Let him go to a loose woman like you for his filthy needs, but here’s the thing: in this house I intend to go on being his wife. And in the eyes of everyone else, too. Because the day someone sees you two, and I end up looking ridiculous again, I swear that you are going to be very sorry.”

  Rosaura’s shrieking was added to by Esperanza’s insistent wailing. The baby had been crying for quite some time, but the volume of her sobs had been gradually increasing until it became unbearable. She must want something to eat. Rosaura rose slowly, saying:

  “I am going to feed my daughter. From now on, I don’t want you feeding her, never again, you’ll stain her with your filth. All she can get from you is a bad example and bad advice.”

  “There’s one thing for sure. I’m not going to allow you to poison your daughter with those sick ideas you have in your head. I’m not going to let you ruin her life either, forcing her to follow some stupid tradition!”

  “Is that so? How are you going to stop me? You must think I’ll let you stay as close to her as you are now, but mark my words, I won’t. When have you ever seen streetwalkers allowed to mix with girls from decent families?”

  “Don’t tell me you seriously believe that this is a decent family!”

  “My little family certainly is! That’s why I will conti
nue to keep you from getting anywhere near my daughter, or I will find it necessary to run you out of this house, which Mama left to me. Do you understand?”

  Rosaura left the kitchen to feed Esperanza, taking the mush Tita had prepared for her. She couldn’t have done anything worse to Tita. She had known how to hurt Tita most deeply.

  Esperanza was one of the things Tita loved most in the world. The anguish she felt! As she tore apart the last little piece of tortilla left in her hand, she wished with all her heart that her sister would be swallowed up by the earth. That was the least she deserved.

  All the while she was arguing with Rosaura she kept breaking off chunks of tortilla, until she had divided them all into minuscule pieces. Tita angrily slid them onto a plate and went out to throw them to the chickens, so that she could get on with the preparation of the beans. All the clotheslines on the patio were full of Esperanza’s snow-white diapers. They were the most beautiful diapers. They had all spent whole afternoons embroidering the borders. They swayed in the wind like foam-covered waves. Tita had to tear her eyes away from them. She had to forget that for the first time the child was eating without her if she wanted to be able to finish fixing dinner. She went back to the kitchen and set about preparing the beans.

  The chopped onion is fried in lard. When it has turned golden brown, add the pureed chiles anchos to the pan and salt to taste.

  After the broth is seasoned, add the beans with the pork and pork rinds.

  It was hopeless to try to forget Esperanza. Pouring the beans into the pan, Tita remembered how much the child liked bean broth. To feed it to her, she sat her on her knees, spread a huge napkin over her front, and gave her the broth with a little silver spoon. How happy she had been the day she heard the sound of the spoon hitting against Esperanza’s first tooth. Now two more were coming in. Tita was very careful not to hurt them when she was feeding her. She hoped that Rosaura would be, too. But how would she know, if she’d never done it before? She wouldn’t know how to prepare her bath either, putting lettuce leaves in the water to make sure she slept peacefully at night; she wouldn’t know how to dress her and kiss her and hug her and coo to her like Tita did. Tita thought it might be best for her to leave the ranch. She was disappointed in Pedro—and if Tita weren’t in the house, Rosaura could start a new life; the baby had to get used to being cared for by her real mother sooner or later. If Tita kept getting more attached to her every day, she would end up suffering as she had with Roberto. She had no claim, it wasn’t her family, and they could send her away at any moment, just as easily as one tosses away a stone while cleaning a pot of beans. John, in contrast, was offering her something different, the opportunity to establish a new family that no one could take away from her. He was a marvelous man; she loved him very much. As time went by, it wouldn’t be hard to fall deeply in love with him.

  She couldn’t continue her reflections because the chickens were starting to make a huge ruckus on the patio. It seemed they’d gone mad or developed a taste for cock-fighting. They were giving little pecks at each other, trying to snatch away the last chunks of tortilla left on the ground. They hopped and flew wildly in every direction, launching violent attacks. Among the whole group, there was one that was in the greatest frenzy, using her beak to peck out the eyes of every hen she could, so that Esperanza’s white diapers were sprayed with blood. Tita, stunned, tried to break up the fight, throwing a bucket of water over them. That only enraged them the more, raising the battle to a higher pitch. They formed a circle, each one setting dizzily upon the next. Soon the chickens were inescapably trapped by the force they themselves were generating in their mad chase; they couldn’t break loose from that whirl of feathers, blood, and dust that spun faster and faster, gathering force at every turn until it changed into a mighty tornado, destroying everything in its path, starting with the things that were closest—in this case, Esperanza’s diapers, hanging on the patio clotheslines. Tita tried to save a few diapers, but when she went to get them, she found herself being swept away by the force of the incredible whirlwind, which lifted her several feet off the ground and took her on three hellish orbits within the fury of beaks before flinging her onto the opposite end of the patio, where she landed like a sack of potatoes.

  Tita stayed flat on the ground, terrified. She couldn’t move. If she was caught in the whirlwind again, the chickens could peck her eyes out. That hen hurricane was boring a hole in the dirt of the patio, a hole so deep that most of the chickens disappeared from the face of the earth. The earth swallowed them up. After that fight only three chickens remained, plucked bald and one-eyed. And no diapers.

  Tita, shaking the dust off of her, looked around the patio: there was no sign of the chickens. She was more worried about the disappearance of the diapers she had embroidered so lovingly. They had to be replaced with new ones right away. But then that was no longer her problem—hadn’t Rosaura told her she didn’t want her around Esperanza anymore? Let Rosaura tend to her concerns and Tita would tend to hers, which at the moment was getting dinner ready for John and his Aunt Mary.

  She entered the kitchen and went to finish the preparation of the beans, but much to her surprise she found that the beans still weren’t done, despite the hours they had been cooking.

  Something strange was going on. Tita remembered that Nacha had always said that when people argue while preparing tamales, the tamales won’t get cooked. They can be heated day after day and still stay raw, because the tamales are angry. In a case like that, you have to sing to them, which makes them happy; then they’ll cook. Tita supposed the same thing had happened with the beans, which had witnessed her fight with Rosaura. That meant all she could do was to try to improve their mood, to sing them a song full of love: she didn’t have much time to finish preparing the meal for her guests.

  The best thing was to try to remember a moment when she had felt great joy and relive it as she sang. She closed her eyes and began to sing a waltz that went: “I’m so happy since I have found you, I’ve surrendered my love to you, and given up my soul. . . .” Images from her first meeting with Pedro in the dark room flooded her mind. The passion with which Pedro had torn away her clothes, causing the flesh beneath her skin to burn beneath the touch of those incandescent hands. The blood simmered in her veins. Her heart burst into a seething passion. Very slowly the frenzy had subsided and given way to infinite tenderness, leaving their shaken souls satisfied.

  While Tita was singing, the bean liquor was boiling madly. The beans allowed the liquid in which they were floating to penetrate them; they swelled until they were about to burst. When Tita opened her eyes and took a bean to test it, she saw that now the beans were done perfectly. That left enough time to get herself ready for Aunt Mary. Happy with life, she left the kitchen and went to her bedroom, intending to get dressed. The first thing she had to do was brush her teeth. The roll on the ground, when she’d been knocked over by the whirlwind of chickens, had left them full of dirt. She took some tooth powder and brushed them vigorously.

  They had learned to prepare these powders in school. They’re made by combining half an ounce cream of tartar, half an ounce of sugar, and half an ounce of jivia bone with two drachmas of Florentine iris and dragon’s blood, reducing all the ingredients to a powder, and blending well. Jovita, their teacher, was in charge of making it. She was their teacher for three years in a row. She was a small, slight woman. They all remembered her not so much for what she had taught them, but because she was such a character. They say she’d been left a widow at eighteen, with a baby. No one wanted to become stepfather to this child, which is why she had chosen to spend her life entirely celibate. Who knows how she adopted that resolution or how it affected her; as the years went by, the poor thing went completely out of her mind. She struggled night and day to put a stop to bad thoughts. Her favorite saying was “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.” She never rested a moment the entire day. She worked more and slept less all the time. In time, the work inside her h
ouse wasn’t enough to put her spirit at rest, so she was out on the street at five every morning to sweep the sidewalk. Her own and her neighbors. Then she expanded her field of action to the four blocks around her house and so on, gradually, until, in crescendo, she was sweeping all of Piedras Negras before going to school. Sometimes she still had bits of garbage clinging to her skin, and the students laughed at her. In the mirror, Tita saw that she looked like her teacher. Perhaps it was just the feathers matted in her hair because of her fall; but still, she was horrified.

  She didn’t want to become another Jovita. She removed the feathers, gave her hair a vigorous brushing, and went down to receive John and Mary, who were just arriving. Pulque’s barking had announced their presence.

  Tita received them in the living room. Aunt Mary was just as she had imagined her: a polite, pleasant elderly lady. Despite her years, she was impeccably turned out.