Nobody does, really. Why should they? Only in having clean clothes, clean floors, and enchiladas tapatías.

4 December 1935: The Queen Takes Notice

She was on her throne, the chair at the head of the mahogany dining table. It’s a wonder of the world she has fit her parents’ furniture into that room, including a cupboard for dishes. The old carved chairs are so enormous she looks like a child, feet swinging below her ruffled skirts and not quite reaching the floor. She was in a foul mood, sneezing, wrapped in a red shawl and scribbling away, putting names in the ledger book where she means to keep better track of expenses and sales of her husband’s paintings. One more thing she has taken over from Olunda, since moving in. All the names go in the book now, including the new kitchen boy, and what he is paid.

“Xarrizzon Chepxairt!” She grasped her throat when she said it, like choking on a chicken bone. “Is that really what people call you?”

“Not many people, señora. It sounds better in English.”

“I was saying it in English!”

“Sorry, señora.”

18 December: Second Audience with the Queen

She’s sick in bed still; Olunda says she’s twenty-five with the ailments of ninety. Kidneys and leg at the moment. Nevertheless she was propped up on pillows and dressed like an Indian bride: ruffled blouse, lip rouge, earrings, at least one ring on every finger, a crown of ribbons braided around her head. But she still looked half dead, staring up at the little windows at the top of the wall. Her bedroom is like a cement box, only slightly larger than the bed.

“Señora, sorry to disturb. Olunda sent me to get your plates from lunch.”

“No wonder she won’t come fetch the dishes herself, she’s ashamed of that jocoque.” She glanced up. “Olunda la Rotunda. Do they still call her that?”

“Not if they’re still alive, señora.”

“How does she get so fat on her own cooking? Look at me, I’m vanishing.”

“Fried bread with syrup is her secret.”

She made a little puzzled scowl. “And you, skinny creature. What’s your name?”

“It didn’t please you much the first time. When you wrote it in the ledger.”

“Oh shit, that’s right, you’re that one. The unpronounceable.” She seemed to wake up, sitting up straighter. When she looks at you, her eyes are like lit coals inside the hearth of those shocking eyebrows. “What does Diego call you?”

“Muchacho, mix some more plaster! Muchacho, bring me my lunch!”

She laughed. It was a good impersonation: it’s all in his eyes, the way he opens them wide and leans forward when he bellows.

“So, you make plaster for Diego’s lunch?”

“Never, señora. On my honor. He hired me first as a plaster boy, and a few months ago he moved me in here, to work in the kitchen.”

“Why?” She cocked her head, like a beautiful doll propped on the pillows. One among many, in fact. The bookshelf behind her bed was full of porcelain and cloth dolls. All of them, like her, look dressed up for some party that will be noisy for certain.

“He likes my pan dulce and blandas, señora. I’m good at soft dough, in general. On the plaster crew they used to call me Sweet Buns.”

“You can make blandas in this house? In that stupid little kitchen with the fuego electrico? You must be the Son of God. Tell Olunda to put you in charge of everything.”

“She wouldn’t take that kindly.”

“What do you think of that kitchen?”

A pause, for guessing the right answer. It’s well known that the Painter likes the house; a wrong answer in this interrogation could prove deadly. It felt like being back at the academy, but with a different category of officer.

“Everyone says it’s an outstanding house, señora.”

“Everyone will say horse shit smells like flowers,” she stated, “if they want to be popular with a horse’s ass.”

“And your opinion, señora, if I may ask?”

She frowned at the white wall, the metal-cased window. “Bauhaus,” she said, like a dog barking twice. “It’s a monstrosity, isn’t it? How do you even fit in that kitchen?”

“The same way you fit in your water closet. It’s the same size room, directly underneath.”

“But you’re twice my size!”

“Standing in the center of the kitchen, it’s possible to touch all four walls, exactly.”

“It’s that pendejo Juan O’Gorman showing off his modern ass. I don’t know what he and Diego were thinking, it’s like a hospital.” She gestured with the back of her ring-ring hand. “And stairs! To get up to that stupid bridge and go across to Diego, I’m supposed to go out the window and climb little steps up the side of the house like an acrobat. What shit. He’s not even worth it, I would kill myself, chulito. Who are you? Say it again, I swear I’ll try to remember.”

“Harrison. Shepherd.”

“Christ, I’m not going to call you that. Diego calls you what, again?”

“Sweet Buns.”

“The crew is very unkind to the plaster boys. As you know. But honestly, XARrizZON! It sounds like strangling. What kind of a name is that?”

“It was a president, señora.”

“Of what? Some place where they don’t have any oxygen?”

“Of the United States.”

“As I said.”

One more country is now to be held as a grudge, then. The mother country, the fatherland, two is all you get. Best to keep quiet, and stack the lunch dishes onto the tray. In two minutes César and Olunda would be fighting over everything left on those plates.

“You’re from Gringolandia, then,” she pressed.

“Born there, yes, señora. A half-citizen on my father’s side. My mother sent me back there to be educated, but it didn’t work.”

“Why not?”

With the examination ending now, a quick last grasp at redemption: “The school kicked me out.”

“Really.”

It was a good guess: now even the ribbons in her hair curled forward to hear more. All the dolls stared. “Kicked out for what, chulito?”

“For a scandal.”

“Involving?”