Isabella looked around.
“Everything is untidy.”
“This is your chance then.”
Isabella agreed and went off, with military determination, to confront the chaos that reigned in my home. I continued reading. The story she had brought me had almost no narrative thread. With a sharp sensitivity and an articulate turn of phrase, it described the feelings and longings of a girl confined to a cold room in an attic of the Ribera quarter from which she gazed at the city with its people coming and going along dark, narrow streets. The images and the sad music of her prose spoke of a loneliness that bordered on despair. The girl in the story spent hours trapped in her world; sometimes she would sit facing a mirror and slit her arms and thighs with a piece of broken glass, leaving scars like the ones just visible under Isabella’s sleeves. I had almost finished my reading when I noticed that she was looking at me from the gallery door.
“What?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but what’s in the room at the end of the corridor?”
“Nothing.”
“It smells odd.”
“Damp.”
“I can clean it if you like …”
“No. That room is never used. And besides, you’re not my maid. You don’t need to clean anything.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“You can help by getting me another cup of coffee.”
“Why? Did the story make you drowsy?”
“What’s the time, Isabella?”
“It must be about ten o’clock.”
“And what does that mean?”
“No sarcasm before noon,” Isabella replied.
I smiled triumphantly and handed her my empty cup. She took it and headed off toward the kitchen.
When she returned with the steaming coffee, I had just read the last page. Isabella sat down opposite me. I slowly sipped the delicious brew. The girl wrung her hands and gritted her teeth, glancing now and then at the pages of her story that I had left face down on the table. She held out for a couple of minutes without saying a word.
“And?” she said at last.
“Superb.”
She beamed.
“My story?”
“The coffee.”
She gave me a wounded look and went to gather up her pages.
“Leave them where they are.”
“Why? It’s obvious that you didn’t like them and you think I’m nothing but a poor idiot.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say anything, which is worse.”