At last the Christmas season began. I had not counted on Aida's leaving home, and remembering that her parents lived in Badajoz, my torment was almost unbearable. Not once had l tried to tell her of my love. My letters had remained unwritten, and the algebra book unborrowed. There was still the brooch to find, but I could not decide on the sort of brooch l really wanted. And the money, in any case, was in Grandmothers purse, which smelled of Tiger Balm. I grew somewhat feverish as our class Christmas program drew near. Finally it came; it was a warm December afternoon. I decided to leave the room when our English teacher announced that members of the class might exchange gifts. I felt fortunate; Pete was at the door, beckoning to me. We walked out to the porch where, Pete said, he would tell me a secret.
It was about an asalto the next Sunday which the Buenavista Women's Club wished to give Don Esteban's daughters, Josefina and Alicia, who were arriving on the morning steamer from Manila. The spinsters were much loved by the ladies. Years ago, when they were younger, these ladies studied solfeggio with Josefina and the piano and harp with Alicia. As Pete told me all this, his lips ash-gray from practicing all morning on his trombone, I saw in my mind the sisters in their silk dresses, shuffling off to church for the evening benediction. They were very devout, and the Buenavista ladies admired that. I had almost forgotten that they were twins and, despite their age, often dressed alike. In low-bosomed voile bodices and white summer hats, l remembered, the pair had attended Grandfather's funeral, at old Don Esteban's behest I wondered how successful they had been in Manila during the past three years in the matter of finding suitable husbands.
"This party will be a complete surprise," Pete said, looking around the porch as if to swear me to secrecy. "They've hired our band."
I joined my classmates in the room, greeting everyone with a Merry Christmas jollier than that of the others. When I saw Aida in one comer unwrapping something two girls had given her. I found the boldness to greet her also.
"Merry Christmas," I said in English, as a hairbrush and a powder case emerged from the fancy wrapping, it seemed to me rather apt that such gifts went to her. Already several girls were gathered around Aida. Their eyes glowed with envy, it seemed to me, for those fair cheeks and the bobbed dark-brown hair which lineage had denied them.
I was too dumbstruck by my own meanness to hear exactly what Aida said in answer to my greeting. But I recovered shortly and asked:
"Will you be away during the vacation?"
"No, I'll be staying here," she said. When she added that her cousins were arriving and that a big party in their honor was being planned, l remarked:
"So you know all about it?" I felt I had to explain that the party was meant to be a surprise, an asalto.
And now it would be nothing of the kind, really. The women's club matrons would hustle about, disguising their scurrying around for cakes and candies as for some baptismal party or other. In the end, the Rivas sisters would outdo them. Boxes of meringues, bonbons, ladyfingers, and cinnamon buns that only the Swiss bakers in Manila could make were perhaps coming on the boat with them. I imagined a table glimmering with long-stemmed punch glasses; enthroned in that array would be a huge brick-red bowl of gleaming china with golden flowers around the brim. The local matrons, however hard they tried, however sincere their efforts, were bound to fail in their aspiration to rise to the level of Don Esteban's daughters. Perhaps, l thought, Aida knew all this. And that I should share in a foreknowledge of the matrons' hopes was a matter beyond love. Aida and l could laugh together with the gods.
At seven, on the appointed evening, our small band gathered quietly at the gate of Don Esteban's house, and when the ladies arrived in their heavy shawls and trim panuelo, twittering with excitement, we were commanded to play the Poet and Peasant overture. As Pete directed the band, his eyes glowed with pride for his having been part of the big event. The multicolored lights that the old Spaniard's gardeners had strung along the vine-covered fence were switched on, and the women remarked that Don Esteban's daughters might have made some preparations after all. Pete hid his face from the glare. If the women felt let down, they did not show it.
