At the Mendozas diable, her father sits pig his teeth with his knife.
"I want to learn the piano, papa."
He tio pick his teeth with his knife. She didnt want to learn the piano at the damn vent; why does she want to learn it now? To be a lady, Papa; isnt she going to have a grand wedding, marry a fine man? "Papa, I want to learn the piano."
Teresa is spoiled, indulged ihing. But her father likes to tease her; hell drag out her pleading as long as he . He doesnt often have his daughter pleading with him. He cuts himself a k more meat, munches.
"And who will teach you piano in his hole, hm?"
"Johnny. Johnny at Aunt Roxanas."
Hes suddenly really angry. You see what an animal he bee.
"What? My daughter learn piano in a brothel? Uhe eye of that fat whore, Roxana?"
Maria leaps to her sisters defence, surging down on her husband with the carving knife held high. "Dont you insult my sister!"
Mendoza twists her wrist; she drops the knife. "Im not having my daughter mixing with whores!"
"I want to learn piano," the spoiled child insists.
"Over my dead body will you go to Roxanas to learn the piano, not now you are an engaged girl."
"Then, papa, buy me a piano, let Johnny e here to teach me."
A creaking wagon delivers a shiny, new, baby grand in the courtyard of the rotting hada, among the grunting pigs and flapping chis.
Effortlessly, its installed in Teresas room; entranced, she picks at the notes. "Kitty, kitty, the young man in the black jacket is ing to teach me piano. . ."
Her mother chaperones her, sitting, lolling in a rog-chair, sipping tequila. Johnny, , elegant, a stranger, damned, with a portfolio of musider his arm, has e to give Teresa lessons. First, scales. . . soon, y exercises. Johnny waits, watchful, biding his time.
Bored, her mother sips tequila and nods off to sleep. . . A y exercise; Teresa hasnt quite mastered it. Making a mess of it, in fact. On purpose? Johnnys presence makes her flutter.
Johnny stands behind her, showing her where to put her hands. His long, white hands cover her little, brown paws with the bitten fingernails.
She turns to him. They kiss. Shes eager, willing; hes surprised by her enthusiasm, almost taken aback. Despises her. Its going to be almost too easy!
But where is the sedu to be aplished? Not in Teresas bedroom, with her mother dozing in the rog-chair. Not in Johnnys room at the brothel, either, under Aunt Roxanas watchful eye.
"In church, Johnny; nobody will look for lovers there."
A huge, cavernous, almost cathedral, built in expectation of mass versions among the Indians, now almost in ruins, on a kind of bluff, brooding over the half-ruined village. Empty. And they make love on the floor of the church, the savage child, the vengeance-seeker. Afterwards, triumphant, she buries her fa his breast, shrieking flee; he is detached, rejoig in his own ess, his own wiess.
eresa wanders down the aisle of the church towards the altar, stands looking up vaguely at the rococo Christ. She pokes out her to her saviour.
"Ill be here again, soon. Im going to be married."
"Married?"
"To a fine bandit gentleman." Makes a face. "Because I have no brothers, I am the heiress. My son will i everything, but first I must be married."
"Oh, no," says Johnny, lost, goo his vengeance. "You wont be married. I wo you be married."
Suspicious, at first. Then. . .