Writing

Maruja still wears her father’s mourning as if the mausoleum had opened only yesterday. But beyond the clothes, what weighs on the youngest of the Cazaldo women is the errand her mother makes her run every Sunday, shouting. She must venture through the small-town streets of Gómez’s Caracas (not yet a city) to the office that had been her father’s. Walk beneath the blaze of noon. Sit and wait beside the antique fan. Hear the empty words of her brothers, who are no longer family. All to receive a share of that black box which, hidden in the back room, controlled the movements and the words of every Cazaldo. Even unseen, it warped her brothers’ kindness into self-interest and greed, and it is slowly driving Doña Antonia, her mother, to madness. For two years the box has ruled Maruja’s youth. But she is determined to sacrifice no more.

Saulo has to make it to the meeting. But after waking from his nap, the lights in his house won’t come on. The breakers hadn’t been thrown. The whole building has no power. “Someone else will sort it out by the time I’m back,” he thought, walking off, only to find the street’s traffic lights dead too. The whole country was in the dark, in broad daylight. Saulo will have to run through the city’s avenues to reach the meeting. But once he’s there, what will they do?