Chapter 19: Chapter 17: Present Tenderness III.

Aquí está la traducción del capítulo:

Mrs. Prats and I walked side by side. She carried a plastic bag with what looked like butter tarts — those pastries that are very popular here.

If she had brought them to share, it would be my first time trying one.

"Chin up, dear," she told me, looking at me with eyes as sweet as her pastries. "Tonight is going to be wonderful — I promise we’ll have a great time."

I nodded, lifting my head, seeing Mr. Arrit’s house ahead of us.

She knocked. Three small, polite taps.

Two minutes passed and nobody answered.

"Do you think he’s home?"

"He should be," she replied. "Héctor! Deaf old man, we’re outside!"

At that moment Mr. Arrit appeared, broom in hand, with the look of someone who hadn’t been allowed to finish his work.

"I wanted to tidy up a bit before you arrived," he opened the door. "Come in — forgive the mess."

Mrs. Prats went in first, looking around.

I followed, somewhat shyly, hands folded, leaning in slightly.

"Please don’t apologize, Mr. Arrit — that was very thoughtful of you." I opened my eyes, taking in the house.

Chapter 17: Present Tenderness III

It was tidier than I expected. I had forgotten that a man always says "forgive the mess" right after he has just finished cleaning.

His order wasn’t the cold order of someone who cleans out of obligation — it was a different kind. As if it pained him to move things from their place. Just like me. That made my heart love him a little more.

But what arrived before the light was the smell.

Something sweet and cooked, with that acidic undertone that only fruits have when they’ve been on the fire for hours. In the kitchen, lined up on the windowsill like a row of small bright soldiers, were five glass jars with their lids sealed tight. One dark red. Two an orange that reminded me of Mrs. Prats’ scarf. The last two a yellow I knew well.

"Did you make these?" I asked.

"Every Thursday," replied Mr. Arrit, hanging the broom behind the door. "My wife used to say that jams are the only honest dessert there is, because they can’t pretend to be healthy."

"And which one is the yellow?"

"Peach with ginger." He lifted it. "My daughter’s favorite — back when she still came to visit."

I didn’t respond. I just looked at it for a moment longer before moving toward the dining room.

On the shelf above the fireplace, three frames. I didn’t look at them long. Just long enough to know that in all of them it was her — at different moments, with different hairstyles, but with the same expression. All I can say is that it was her. She was eternal.

Mr. Arrit’s tie hung on the back of a dining chair. Not the chair where he would sit tonight. The other one. The one beside it.

"Sit wherever you like," he said, going to the kitchen. "Graciela, don’t touch anything."

"I never touch anything," replied Mrs. Prats, setting down the entryway vase.

I sat in the center of the table, placing my bag on the floor.

Mrs. Prats arranged the butter tarts on the plate Mr. Arrit brought out, then pulled the deck of cards from her bag with the solemnity of someone drawing a weapon, slapping it on the table.

"You said you’ve never played, right, dear?"

I nodded. She smiled.

"The rules are simple — try to find correlations between cards." She pulled out two eights. "This is a pair. There are four cards of each number or face in total, so you can imagine some combinations."

Mr. Arrit slid the card box toward me, pointing to the back where all the combinations were listed.

"A few basic rules," the lady announced. "No cheating, no looking at other people’s cards, and whoever loses all their chips does the dishes."

"That rule didn’t exist when we agreed to play," said Mr. Arrit.

"It does now."

He set the coffee in front of me without asking. Black, strong. The same as always.

I took it in both hands.

"How many chips for each player?" I asked.

"Twenty," said Mrs. Prats, dealing them out with a speed that didn’t match someone who was supposedly there to teach me. "And you, being a beginner, get twenty-five."

"That’s fair," said Mr. Arrit. "Shall we begin?"

She shuffled the cards like a professional dealer, sliding them carefully across the table into our hands.

I looked at mine.

A pair of eights. Not an extraordinary hand, but enough to start understanding the table.

Mrs. Prats had something good. I knew before she opened her mouth — her shoulders rose exactly two centimeters when she looked at her cards, the way people do when they’re excited.

Mr. Arrit had something bad. His face made that easy to read. Mrs. Prats’ smile confirmed she had noticed.

"What’s wrong, dear — do you have something good?"

"Me?" I looked at my cards. "Honestly, I’m not sure."

"I’ll open with three," said Mrs. Prats.

"I’ll call," said Mr. Arrit, not backing down.

They both looked at me. "And me?" I looked at my cards and chips — I had five extra, so I could afford to risk it. "Call. Three."

Mrs. Prats smiled with the smile of someone who already knows how this is going to end.

"That wasn’t my round," said Mr. Arrit, dropping his cards. A pair of twos.

"Modest," said Mrs. Prats, revealing hers with a theatrical gesture. Three nines and two kings. "But enough to lose, Héctor."

"I’m still to go," I said, looking at my cards, watching Mrs. Prats’ face go pale.

"Do you have more than my full house, Ryne?"

I dropped my cards, showing my pair of eights. Watching the color return to Mrs. Prats’ face. That confirmed my theory.

"You frightened me, dear."

This isn’t won by whoever plays best. It’s won by whoever deceives their opponents best.

"That wasn’t good?" I said innocently, beginning my performance.

"No, sweetheart — but better luck next time."

I lost the next two hands with the same expression of someone learning to walk. Mrs. Prats explained after each hand where I had gone wrong, with that maternal patience she applied to everything. Mr. Arrit looked at me from time to time with an expression that was harder to read.

But I wasn’t watching my cards.

I was watching them.

Mrs. Prats tapped the table with her index finger when she had something good. Not repeatedly — just once, a nearly imperceptible tap, as if marking her own internal rhythm. She did it in the second hand and won. She did it in the fourth and won. She didn’t do it in the third, and lost to Mr. Arrit.

Mr. Arrit, on the other hand, didn’t touch anything. But when he had bad cards, he arranged his chips. He lined them up in a perfect row in front of him, one by one, with the same methodology with which he hung his tie and left his hat. As if external order compensated for the disorder in his hand.

Two more hands and I didn’t need to keep studying.

"Well, I think I’m on a streak," said Mrs. Prats, dealing another round. "Héctor has eight chips left, Ryne has twelve. Hehehe."

I glanced at mine — I almost smiled. Instead I made a small grimace of displeasure, something subtle, but which Prats noticed. She tapped the table with her index finger.

"I’ll raise five," she announced, her shoulders unable to contain her excitement.

Mr. Arrit looked at his cards. Then he arranged his chips in a line, one by one.

Bad hand.

"I’ll call," he said, with that dignity of his that he never abandoned, not even losing.

They both looked at me.

I dropped my eyes to my cards for a moment. Then to my chips. I made that visible calculation people do when they’re uncertain, biting my lip slightly.

"I don’t know," I murmured. "I think I’ll... call."

Mrs. Prats settled back in her chair — a small, almost imperceptible movement, of someone who is already celebrating too early.

Three cards came to the center of the table.

A six, a nine, and a king of hearts.

Mr. Arrit didn’t touch his chips.

Mrs. Prats did tap the table. Once, with her index finger, soft — almost as if without meaning to.

"Raise three more," she said.

"I’ll fold," said Mr. Arrit, leaning back.

I looked at the king of hearts for a moment.

"I’ll... hmm." I kept looking at my cards. "Call."

Fourth card. A king of clubs.

Something in the air of the table shifted.

Mrs. Prats didn’t tap the table this time. She just looked at her cards, then the center, then at me.

"Raise two," she said, in a tone slightly lower than before. Less certain. She was no longer celebrating. "That’s a lot of chips, Ryne. Are you sure? You won’t survive with two left."

"Maybe not," I murmured. "But you seem a little uncertain. I’ll call."

"You’re frightening, dear," she said. "But I don’t back down easily."

Fifth card. Another six.

Mrs. Prats arranged her cards between her fingers. She looked at them a second longer than necessary.

"Check," she said finally.

I put five chips in the center.

She frowned. She calculated what she had left, calculated what I had, calculated what was in the center.

"I’ll call," she said at last — though her index finger didn’t move once during the entire round.

"Mrs. Prats," I said, turning over my cards.

Two kings. With the pair in the center — three kings in total.

She looked down at my hand. Then at hers, which she dropped on the table without turning over. Two pairs — nines and sixes — a hand that in any other round would have been enough.

"Dear," she said, very quietly.

"Yes?"

"That grimace," she said, opening her eyes a little wider. "You did it on purpose."

I didn’t respond.

"Héctor!" She slapped the table with her palm. "She tricked me with her face!"

"I noticed by the third hand," said Mr. Arrit, picking up his coffee with an exasperating calm.

"And you said nothing!"

"It wasn’t my problem, Graciela."

"We’re a team!"

"Nobody said that."

I gathered the chips from the center with both hands, unhurried, listening to Mrs. Prats explain to Mr. Arrit — in generous detail and generous volume — exactly at which point he should have said something.

He responded in monosyllables.

She escalated.

I took a butter tart from the plate and took the first bite.

It was sweet. Too sweet, almost cloying, with that buttery flavor that lingers on the teeth. But the kind you finish anyway.

"Well?" Mrs. Prats asked suddenly, interrupting her own argument. "Are they good or not?"

I placed a hand on my cheek, closing my eyes. "They’re delicious."

She straightened up in her chair with a completely recovered dignity. "You see, Héctor? The girl has good taste."

"I never said they were bad," he replied.

"You never said they were good."

"They’re good, Graciela."

"That doesn’t count anymore."

Mr. Arrit looked at me over his cup with that calm expression of his, and in his eyes was something I recognized.

It wasn’t concern this time.

It was curiosity.

The kind that settles slowly, without announcing itself, in people who have just discovered that someone is not quite what they appeared to be.

"You’re ready, Ryne," said Mrs. Prats. "Now you’re the shark at the table." She adjusted her hair slightly. "Shall we continue?"

I nodded.