Laurent and Angélica were playing cards in the parlor, while Catalina sat by herself with a book.
“Why don’t you join us, Don Cristóbal?” Angélica said. “We need a fourth player for Cuarenta. Poor Catalina never gets to play.”
Catalina raised her gaze from the book, expectant.
“Sure,” I said in a low voice. “But I don’t know the game.”
“Oh, it’s easy. Isn’t it, cher? My Laurent learned it in five minutes.”
Laurent nodded.
The four of us sat around the table and Angélica explained the rules. Cuarenta had a simple concept: the couple who reached forty points first won, hence the name. It was fast-paced and filled with colloquial terms. They said it was the most popular game in Ecuador, but Laurent reassured me that the aristocrats in the region called it a game for simpletons and drunks.
So odd to be playing cards in the middle of the day. I’d usually been frantic in the mornings: preparing chocolate for my customers, making sure the tables were set just right, paying my suppliers. Cristóbal often told me I worked too much. “At least take the weekends off,” he would say. But I told him those were the best days for business. Besides, I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to our empty apartment, void of children’s laughter and toys scattered throughout the parlor.
How different my sisters were. This life of luxury, of leisure, seemed to appeal to them very much. They probably wouldn’t give it up so easily.
After an hour of playing—Angélica and Laurent were the undisputed champions—Catalina excused herself and Laurent decided to go for a walk. I studied Angélica as she put the cards away.
Could she be the one who forged the check? Her husband? How to know what was in the heart and mind of someone else—what that person was capable of—other than by getting to know them.
“Have you ever traveled, Do?a Angélica?”
“Me?” She scoffed. “I’ve been to Guayaquil a handful of times and once to Quito for a wedding, but I was a child then.”
“What about outside the country?”
“Oh, no, never.”
I was shocked that someone who seemed so sophisticated, so at ease in her own skin, had been locked in this hacienda her entire life.
“I’ve always wanted to go to France, though,” she said.
“So do I.”
“You haven’t? But it’s right next to Spain.”
I shrugged.
“Why Don Cristóbal, I took you for a worldly man. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go there before you.” She winked.
“You should,” I said. “A woman like yourself shouldn’t be stuck in a small town all her life.”
She stopped her shuffling and looked at me as if I’d spoken in Polish.
*
In the afternoon, I met Martin at the fermentation warehouse. I was nervous to climb on Pacha again, but she was the only horse available and I had to get over my fear. If I was to run this plantation one day, I couldn’t let a finicky mare stop me. It was a minor accomplishment that she didn’t throw me down again, but our battle of wills made my ride much longer than it should’ve been.
Upon seeing me, Martin smiled. It was amazing how much a face changed when someone smiled, how much his eyes brightened. He was almost unrecognizable.
“So, you’re becoming friends after all.” He grabbed Pacha’s reins and brought her to a halt. “I didn’t expect you to ride her again so soon.”
“There are many things you don’t know about me, Don Martin.” My voice sounded graver than I’d intended.
I descended, too roughly for my taste. The grass was so tall it reached my knees. And sodden. I hadn’t even realized it had rained at the hacienda last night.
“Great timing, Don Cristóbal. Come on.”
The warehouse was filled with wooden boxes set up on concrete bleachers with a row of windows flanking them on either side. There were three levels of boxes. We climbed to the top and Martin pointed at the inside of one of the wooden boxes.
“This is where the beans start fermenting. We used to dig a small hole and place the beans inside, but Don Armand was told that this is a superior method. It makes the beans ferment more evenly.”
Large banana leaves covered the beans. He lifted one of the leaves, displaying the beans underneath, still white as coconut meat. A mild scent of alcohol emanated. “The leaves warm up the beans so they ferment. They stay here for two days and then we move them to those other boxes.” He pointed at the second tier.