merino wool
kathryn paulsen (cont'd)

“Still?”

“Oh, you’re right. Times have changed. I’m very lucky to have Estrellita.” Because times had changed, or rather because Dona Elena had changed countries and had not met in her new country people from her old time, her guests these days would not say Estrella was lucky to have such a charming and considerate mistress to serve. They would think, perhaps, that such a pretty girl should be answering telephones in the handsome buildings where so many of them worked, or attending college, or engaged to marry a soon-to-be-wealthy young doctor, who would raise her socially to the position her beauty deserved. Even Elena believed in the good desserts of beauty.

Not that she was much disturbed by attitudes that would have seemed too extraordinary to her a few months ago. In this building made up of boring white and beige boxes dwelt the most wonderful diversity of persons, none of whom, besides the doctors and lawyers, Elena would have known in Madrid: divorced women, one who made a living by preparing small butter cakes for her wealthy friends, another who spent most of her time flying back and forth, to the Caribbean, Florida, or Europe (as did the unmarried stewardesses who also lived in the building); a woman who designed dresses who lived with a man who built engines; and a teacher, a photographer, a reporter, and a nurse - all of them women.

Those of them who became friends of Elena’s considered themselves lucky. Not only was she an ideal confidante since she assumed that the unhappy friend was, of course, in the right, that, of course, the straying lover was simply stupid, that the friend was misunderstood, unappreciated, but she was eager to give one good practical help in cleaning up one’s life, beginning at the bottom with the floors.

A woman living in Elysee Towers knew Elena had become her friend when Elena’s Spanish maid came to clean, under the supervision of her mistress who followed her around in white gloves. At the end of the cleaning Elena would raise her hands proudly, as if they and not Estrella’s had vanquished the dust. She would stoop and touch the floor and raise a finger, white as before. Elena’s friends said to each other that what Elena needed was a job, something that would use her apparently boundless energy and talent for organization. One of them, though doubting that Elena’s husband would approve, had gone so far as to suggest it to Elena directly.

Elena had shaken her head and chuckled. What would the friend suggest she do? The friend had floundered. Certainly Elena would never run a maid service or cater. You would be wonderful as a party giver, she said. And knew immediately, from Elena’s apparently mystified expression, that her idea was unwelcome, perhaps even offensive. Oh, there could be so many things, the friend had finished, sounding a little like Elena herself. With all your talents. Elena had nodded her head several times and said thank you.
Would Juan - Would he object? Elena finished for her. She’d looked at the ceiling s if for divine guidance. What do you think? She’d spread her hands. Besides, there is so much for me to do here. How would I ever find time for a job. Tell me?

It was at one of the cleanings, at the apartment of the dress designer, Carol, who lived with the designer of engines, that Elena met the man who was her guest today and who was fast on his way to becoming her friend, though this was only their second meeting. He had knocked on Carol’s door and seeing that there was someone with her, greeted her as a friend rather than a lover, so that not even so canny a woman as Dona Elena would have suspected anything between them. Then while Carol fetched the coffee he pretended to need, he was very attentive to Elena. He told her that he was at home afternoons, unlike most of the men in the building, because he was a composer. Elena confessed she had not heard his work but was sure it must be marvelous. It was wonderful that he had the leisure to write music. He said it was thanks to various generous foundations and to the state. The state? Was his music patriotic then? He laughed and said perhaps it was in its way. She had thought him charming and had found herself asking him to tea, just as she did her female acquaintances

He had left wondering why Carol had been cleaning her apartment at the very hour he had been expecting to make love with her, a time that the man she lived with was sure to be out. And which of them had been mistaken? Was it a sign that he should end the affair and let Carol marry her engineer as she kept threatening to do? He had looked forward to tea this afternoon with Dona Elena. Now he wondered whether to ask her advice about Carol; she seemed a woman who would give good advice.

Estrella, her feet still wrapped in their wool, brought them tea, holding her body so still that it seemed she must be in another room. When she finished she withdrew to the door, seeming at the same time to withdraw from the tea service any memory of her hands, bowed her head slightly and turned, leaving the door open. Looking through it into the hall, Elena knew she wanted it closed but couldn’t ask. Her guest also looked at the door, which, open, emptied the room of its warmth, took the glow from the highly polished surfaces.

“Do you feel a draft?” he asked. And looking up, “Is a window open?”

“Yes, but it is most of all the door.”

“Please do.”

Elena did not watch him walk to the door, but his slightly elongated eyebrows and mouth met her eyes in a reflection on the desk, and she raised them.

“You must come to dinner one evening,” she said. “You and a woman friend, you must surely have many. My husband would be delighted to meet you. He has a great love of music. And he becomes tired of speaking all day of politics and money.”

“Is your husband tall and slender with a long mustache?” She nodded.

“He appears very distinguished.”

“Yes, you might say.”

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