Now we do a little piece of the second part of the novel,
which is--
this first part is very romantic.
The second part is very funny.
And it's about the poor brothers who
are sons in this family of low-middle class
income in this city called La Concordia, which
is not romantic at all.
And it's full of frank-- [? Masonists ?],, just
Freemasons and Masonic lodges.
So these people are very--
they harvest tax.
And they're also very, very bright, but mainly very,
very funny.
Abuelo Chaguito met Brunhilda Casares, my step grandmother,
after he left Tia Celia at the convent in Chicago.
Brunhilda was a pastry maker from Caguas.
And I've never been able to eat a piece of wedding cake
without thinking of her because her hair was
the exact color of the golden batter she poured into her cake
molds.
She always kept a tin can full of freshly baked ladyfingers
at her house.
And whenever Abuelo Chaguito's grandchildren came to visit,
she'd offer us some.
The ladyfingers were just like her, much too sweet and full
of air.
After leaving Tia Celia at the convent,
Abuelo Chaguito boarded the Borinquen in New York
and set sail for Puerto Rico.
He was very depressed.
He dreaded sleeping by himself in his cabin
and going back to the house on Calle Esperanza alone.
He was strolling sadly on deck, cane in hand,
watching the Statue of Liberty slide by on the port side
and thinking of Adela when he saw a large woman leaning
on the railing with her blond hair braided
around her head in a golden crown.
When she turned around and face him,
she was laughing merrily apparently at nothing
since she was completely alone.
Chaguito approached her, introduced himself,
thinking she was an American.
'I'm Brunhilda Casares.
Very nice to meet you.
Have you been traveling long?
I've spent a month in New York.
My husband just recently passed away,
and I was staying with relatives.'
And she laughed a silvery laugh, winking at him puckishly,
though neither of them had said anything funny.
Chaguito made a bow and kissed her hand.
'I like women like you with an ample provision of everything--
caramel tresses, guava flan hips and derriere,
and large coconut-custard tits full of laughter.'
Chaguito was very surprised.
He wasn't usually so forward, but he
was sick of musty black habits, clouds of incense,
and mumbled talk of salvation, immolation, and sacrifice.
And he was enchanted by Brunhilda's laughter.
Adela had never laughed like that.
She was usually as stern as a sphinx.
Brunhilda looked at him as if what he had said
was the most natural thing in the world
and giggled softly, fixing a loose hairpin that
sparkled in the afternoon sun.
Her good humor seemed to spread out glimmering over
the sea in beckoning waves.
Three dolphins sprung immediately to the surface
and began to swim next to the ship,
curving their sleek backs playfully in and out
of the water.
Brunhilda pretended to be afraid of them
and drew closer to Chaguito so he
could smell the Bala Versailles essence she
had dabbed under the gauze flounces of her dress.
Chaguito didn't have to spend the night alone
in his stateroom after all.
He slept enmeshed in the sweet net of Brunhilda's hair.
After making love with her, he said to her,
'I'm so happy I met you.
I swear I could die in your arms.'
And that's exactly what he does (CHUCKLING) a while later.
When they arrived in La Concordia,
they were already married.
Chaguito walked through the door of 13
Calle Esperanza with Brunhilda proudly clinging to his arm.
'No one will have to worry about me from now on,' he told his
children heartily as he greeted them.
Brunhilda is young and strong.
With her to take care of me, I'll
never be a nuisance to anybody.
And a few years from now, you'll save yourself a pretty penny
because you won't have to put me in a nursing home,'
At first, the family was concerned
because Brunhilda was only 28 years old, half Abuelo's age.
They were afraid she might be a scheming, greedy woman.
But when they saw how she laughed at every little thing
and refused to take anything seriously,
they stopped worrying.
They were convinced she was a complete dunce.
The first thing Brunhilda did was to bake Chaguito her
special ponqué .
'I'm an artist in my own right,' she said as she brought
the cake into the dining room.
'It's not my fault that gourmet food is amongst the most
perishable of all the arts.
It's very difficult to cook one's way to immortality
because the tongue has such a short memory and gives only
ephemeral pleasure.'
She had been a locally famous pastry maker
before she met her husband, a Dr. Mediavilla
and have had her own catering shop in Caguas.
Dr. Mediavilla managed a nursing home for the terminally ill
in San Juan, El Angel de la Guardia,
and he had many patients.
But when they were married, Brunhilda
closed her pastry shop and moved to San Juan."