"A Wedding by the Green" by Luisa Castro

translated by Jacob Rodgers

Being a lady requires many things and none. Being a lady means having meticulous manners and that particularly ladylike ability to keep anything from being too evident, including your manners. Simplicity should blaze a path through the sheer, handpicked dresses of one’s potential competitors. Even if you don’t know what to wear, distinction is ultimately a personal matter. 

This is what Marta was thinking as she got dressed for the wedding they’d been invited to. A wedding that would be attended by many ladies, as Rafael had told her. Zipping up, by then completely sure of her choice of dress, she realized that she’d wasted too much time going from store to store in search of the right ensemble. She had been so foolish, since the very day the invitation had arrived, in letting herself get carried away by her husband’s constant, insecure reminders not to make a poor choice. 

“It’s a sun hat affair. All the ladies wear sun hats and short dresses this time of year.”

Marta hadn’t worn a sun hat in her life. She was delighted that the time had finally come. 

“It’s the most important wedding of the year. The ladies will be looking spectacular.” 

Rafael’s warnings didn’t offend her. She was thirty, beautiful, and loved her husband. What more did you need to shine at a party? 

She would also wear her engagement ring, equipped with its massive diamond. It was the right occasion, though each time she plucked it from its felt box, she had to push away the overwhelming and conflicting feelings that came with the memory of the day he’d given it to her. It came not long before their wedding itself—out of season and a bit rushed—and she’d already given up hoping for it. They were having a drink at the Sandor. Rafael extracted the little black box from his pocket. Marta took the ring almost without reaction; she said thank you and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Rafael had given it a great deal of thought before unveiling the ring to her: 

“I know that your family has never been able to keep this tradition, but I want you to have it.” 

What a lovely way to spoil a present, given at the last minute and tarnished by the tears that Marta didn’t allow to form in her eyes. But she got used to it. Just like she got used to Rafael’s barbed comments. 

They’d been married for five years now and, as she put on her ring and got ready for the wedding they’d been invited to, Marta found herself thinking that she had more than earned that ring for all its value— which freed her from the dizzying task of trying to find the perfect sun hat—and that very few ladies by birth could pretend to the sophistication of the heart that is attained only through love—the kind that shines through even if you have a boat on your head. They were at that point in their marriage when she no longer asked him to zip her up—certainly not the zipper to the dress she’d chosen in defiance of his suggestions. She hadn’t asked his opinion about the hat she’d decided to purchase either. Theirs was a stable marriage: they got ready without bothering each other, left their child with family, and contentedly began their drive to the Pyrenees. 

“You look beautiful,” said Rafael, taking one hand off the steering wheel and placing it on hers. They may not have agreed on what was proper, but there was always an inner harmony between them. 

When they arrived at the small church in the countryside, all the guests had already begun to take their places to watch the bride and groom’s march towards the altar. Marta, with her black dress and the chimney sweep-style top hat she’d ultimately chosen, was pleased to see that no one else, no other lady, had opted for a similar outfit. It was September, it was still hot out, and all the other women were wearing sun hats and short dresses in pastel colors, as Rafael had predicted. Marta, in her outfit, more resembled the men, all wearing tuxedos and some wearing top hats, which gave her a fun, elegant, and playful look. She felt attractive and in love, and nothing made you look better than that. 

They sat together at the far side of the church and Rafael, his arm still linked with hers, informed her of the name and lineage of every guest who entered. That was when Louise appeared. Louise was an old girlfriend of Rafael’s, the woman he might have married if love, that righteous wrecking ball, hadn’t inflamed his heart at the same time as it had Louise’s, taking its vengeance by condemning him to the company of Marta, who would never be able to pick out a sun hat like Louise’s no matter how long she looked. 

Louise walked into the church and waved to them as she passed; she had the friendly smile of a former girlfriend, with a latticework sun hat falling over her face, a dress in pale pink—Rafael’s favorite color—a thin woman’s smile, dark skin, and forty radiant years. Ten more than Marta, ten full of wisdom, melancholy, and an entire life’s worth of advantage she had as the daughter of a family that recognized the value of such a large gem, of the engagement ring that Marta had received late, and which Louise would likely have worn better. She didn’t have to wait long to hear Rafael’s thoughts: 

“That’s it, that’s the hat.” 

The formality demanded by the situation, with all the guests already in their pews, prevented Rafael from getting up, sitting by Louise, and whispering in her ear, you look gorgeous, you look gorgeous, all those things Marta imagined her husband entirely capable of doing and for which she had prepared without a hint of embarrassment, with all the satisfaction that came with being the most beautiful woman at the celebration, the most lovestruck wife at the wedding. 

The guests had all entered. The church was overflowing with hats. Louise was by herself, accompanied only by her forty stunning years, with her grace and talent for negotiating cousins and close relatives as easily as she did the chiffon of her pink dress. She wore her heels and bag well. She gave the impression that she’d woken up that way. Even the early signs of old age on her face seemed to fit in here, alongside her happiness, as natural as if she’d just come from another party. And it wasn’t the first time she’d worn a sun hat, of course. When she approached to greet them, Marta watched the light and shadow filter through the woven straw onto her smile, her beautiful eyes, her mouth like fruit so ripe it was about to spoil, enhancing her beauty and brushing away her flaws. Now that was a sun hat; now that was a lady. Louise lacked just one thing: a wedding of her own. She still hadn’t had one, and sat by herself in the first row of pews in her capacity as cousin to the groom. Meanwhile, a small chasm opened up between Marta and Rafael, an invisible gap teeming with passions and uncertainty. Rafael shooed it away by squeezing her hand, his eyes fixed on his beautiful friend. 

After the ceremony, the guests gathered in the garden for cocktails. Two children from two important families were joining together; art and money uniting in a marriage desired by all, at a wedding that radiated youth and love. The bride, groom, and their family members were congratulated; the sun glimmered on the trays and glasses and in the ladies’ eyes and rings, as their high heels coquettishly buried themselves in the grass. Marta and Rafael walked hand in hand to the very center of the gathering. She ambled carefully to the table they’d been assigned by convention. Louise happened along their path. Rafael detached himself from Marta’s arm and courteously offered his to Louise as she looked for her place with cheerful, feigned disorientation. Marta didn’t go on. She waited, half-buried in the grass and tensing her calves as she’d seen the mother of the bride do, until her husband had finished gallantly guiding his unaccompanied friend to her seat. She ended up waiting a good while. As the ballet of greetings and recognitions unfolded and everyone took their seats, no one came to find Marta and keep her company. She waited without a sense of worry, with the resoluteness that came with the knowledge that her husband would return to his place sooner or later. The apparent chaos of the guests died down, and just about everyone was seated. You didn’t need to have any great wisdom about social matters, or even about the people under this canopy, to understand that the bride and groom should be the last to take their seats. Marta began to feel out of place, with her jet-black dress and her man’s top hat, as the crowd began to thin out. She headed for their assigned table without waiting for Rafael. The man beside her had the presence of mind to pull her chair out for her, though he didn’t introduce himself, and neither did she. She smiled discreetly, and decided to feel she was in good company with the empty seat that Rafael would occupy shortly enough. The eight guests sharing their table were already caught up in a crossfire of conversation when Rafael finally arrived, took his seat and, by his mere presence, dissolved the identity of this woman who had arrived at their table alone a few minutes before. 

The banquet went off without many surprises. A relaxed environment, predictable conversations, and an exchange of informalities and first names that Marta forced herself to remember even after she realized that the time still hadn’t come for people to make an effort to remember hers; it was a level of familiarity you had to gain slowly, from a place of invisibility. Still, she felt comfortable participating and listening without feeling the need to introduce herself or be introduced. She’d gotten used to these inverse conventions in Rafael’s circle. You didn’t have to introduce your wife even if she was a stranger because they would all inform each other later on, in their cliques and back in their respective homes. Marta had learned to see Rafael’s not introducing her as an act of deference on his part. At some future wedding, the familiarity by then acquired, someone would utter her name with total confidence and no one would be surprised, they would all know it, she would have entered their minds without needing to have been introduced; by then, time would have accomplished what previously had been omitted out of discretion. 

The top hat wasn’t helping. The other ladies, including Louise, were eating with their sun hats on. Marta decided to take her own hat off. It was a decision that everyone at her table approved of; convention mustn’t take priority over comfort. Marta’s top hat went straight onto the ground, and when the dessert arrived, a humorous disagreement between bride and groom pushed aside any thought of picking it back up. The dessert came in from one side of the canopy, a classic tiered cake with two figurines at its nuptial peak. The groom, from an aristocratic family, gestured in disapproval of the mise-en-scène on the cake that his newlywed had chosen, but a young, rich girl from high society can and should be the one making these decisions. As with Rafael and the absence of introductions, the groom would have preferred the absence of a cake to cap off their wedding. Marta liked this game of omissions. It was what enabled her to get up after dessert and the long stretch of table talk that followed to congratulate the bride and groom and mingle with the people she was beginning to get to know, without the top hat—which she put on and took off at her whim—bothering her in the slightest. 

The dancing began and the youngest guests and single women congregated on the dance floor. Louise was one of the first to go. Rafael and Marta danced without much rhythm. Louise, close by, was dancing more freely, the alcohol erasing her inhibitions. Her lack of commitment gave her the freedom to come and go, to chitchat and laugh, and that independence made her stunning in Rafael’s eyes. Marta was happy. Louise’s provocative presence was a minor allowance for a lady, and ultimately a sign of her superiority, the greatest proof that fate had unthinkingly favored her over all other candidates. What did it matter that Rafael was struck by Louise’s beauty? They were man and wife, and that overgrown-girl or underage old lady deserved, at the very least, a moment to stand out with her dazzling presence. Was Marta not obliged to give up her husband for one, two, three songs? After their first dance together, Rafael left Marta to dance with Louise, and Marta left the floor. No, being a lady was not a question of birth or manners, or even personality. Being a lady—she could see it now—meant watching your husband dance one, two, three pieces with another woman. Rafael and Louise continued on and danced a second song together. Neither of them glanced at Marta, as she watched contentedly from the sidelines, confident that at some point one of the men with whom they’d shared a table would take her back to the floor to dance, their courtesy a compensation for Rafael’s chivalry. But that didn’t happen and Marta became unsure what to do with her hands and her hat. Rafael and Louise went on dancing and she decided to leave and head to the bar where liquor was served. She ordered a gin and tonic and surprised herself by gulping it down, lost among strangers, without the slightest desire to go back to the dance floor. She thought that Rafael would come find her, that she shouldn’t fuss or move too far from the place she’d chosen to wait. But time dragged on and Rafael didn’t appear until she saw him across the way, talking to Louise, each with a glass in hand. She wanted to approach them but received no approving glances from Rafael. Though his body was a few yards away, he was facing straight at her. The only thing between them was Louise, her back to Marta. Rafael was absorbed in Louise, as if she were telling him something very serious. At no point did Marta’s husband make even the slightest gesture of recognition or I’ll be there soon, and Marta knew that she should keep her distance. Their mutual awareness involved those kinds of invisible signs too. She understood that it wasn’t just Louise who needed to chat with Rafael for a while, but that her husband needed Louise too, he had to give her that time—a glass and a conversation where they must have been updating each other on their feelings and their respective lives, after many months, maybe years, without seeing each other. Marta gazed at him from afar and felt even more love for her husband, now that she understood him. She loved him deeply then, though he didn’t spare her a glance. She loved him when she saw he had loved another woman, and that he may, it wasn’t so impossible, even come to love her again. Not only should she allow them that moment; the sight of the two of them actually intensified her own passion. Her husband became amazing in her eyes, and in a way Louise was the incarnation of a previous state of her love, where everything was beautiful, difficult, and precarious. Marta wanted to distract herself with the company of other people, but no stragglers stayed with her for long. It was as if they knew that they shouldn’t occupy her in this delicate moment when she had to retrieve her distracted husband. 

Eventually, Marta decided to employ her status as a wife. This was less an issue of not acting ladylike than it was not taking that act too far. All these women did it. They allowed their husbands to flirt and rejoined them later on. But at this point in the dance, Marta had already bolstered herself with the strength of her love. Louise, clearly inebriated, was holding a glass in one hand; with the other she held Rafael’s arm as he guided her along with the delicacy of a cicisbeo to a group into whose care he could deliver her. Marta had already set out on her path towards them when the scene unfolded before Louise’s family, the culmination of all her desires. Rafael couldn’t put off his friend’s advances. Marta, understanding, remained at a respectful distance, not to betray Louise’s weakness. In the same moment one of Louise’s aunts, the kind of woman who would be acutely aware of the value of Marta’s ring, stepped forward to apologize for her niece. 

“Oh, my dear Louise,” she exclaimed, embracing her and peeling her from Rafael. “Oh, my favorite niece, you’ll always be but a girl.” 

Rafael and Marta stayed with that group for a short while. Still in her aunt’s arms, Louise gazed at Marta, her eyes damp from the alcohol, her mouth contorted and sensual.

 “I have to thank you,” she blubbered at Marta, anchored to her aunt’s waist. “It’s wonderful to see Rafael so happy. I’m very happy, I’m happy too.” 

It was an ambiguous declaration, overly gracious, as was Marta’s attitude in listening to her with a smile, as was Rafael’s in courting her, but at that point in the festivities his wife had forgotten all about her top hat, Louise’s sun hat, the engagement rings exchanged at the wrong time, and the painful sight of a former lover who was collecting on what had never happened. Marta took in those words she would never have uttered. What had been omitted had become explicit, and Marta could think of nothing but leaving that place. 

They left the reception hand in hand, in a discreet communion that wouldn’t offend Louise’s eyes, that wouldn’t wound poor Louise. They got into the car in silence, without exchanging a word. Rafael started the car and drove distractedly, resting his right hand in Marta’s lap. She could sense how grateful he was towards her. She may not have made a good choice of dress or hat, she may not have been born in a home deserving of the ring she had on, and there were certainly things Marta would never learn, because they were the kinds of things that one learns in the arms of an aunt like Louise’s, in houses with greens and weddings with sun hats, but that day, after displaying her generosity and passing the test with Louise, Marta had won over Rafael a bit more. 

“You were wonderful, wonderful,” her husband repeated to her in the dark car, “with Louise, I mean. She was a bit annoying, honestly. I couldn’t get her off me.” 

Marta didn’t say a word about Louise that wasn’t modest, sincere praise. 

“She was a bit drunk, did you notice?” Rafael insisted. 

But there was no need for him to turn to rude gossip to earn Marta’s understanding. 

“Oh, was she? I didn’t notice. She looked beautiful. Where do these people get their sun hats?” 

They both laughed. For the rest of the way they maintained an eloquent, profound, conjugal silence. She hadn’t chosen the right hat, but she’d acted like a lady from head to toe. That Rafael had spent an entire wedding flirting with an old girlfriend meant nothing next to the solidity of their passion, their child, and his hand, which belonged to her alone, resting confidently in her lap. What did it matter that other people had witnessed his flirtations? Marta was prepared to love him with true abdication, the kind that could weather every Louise, every Rafael, and even herself. This was the answer she found. That night the highway stretched before her like a red carpet full of surprises, with the thrill once again sliding bountifully down its threads. Her marriage began to fall into place and grow strong, indestructible, with the promise of an intense, unspoken future. And she owed that to Louise. It was possible that Rafael would never cheat on her with anyone else, but it was probable that Marta would cheat on him. The tiny wound in her heart hardly hurt; ladies didn’t allow themselves such pain, Marta thought, free in that moment, superior. In order not to feel alone, in the center of that sudden, impassioned freedom, she gratefully took her husband’s hand as she dreamt—for the first time, and thanks to him—of other men, other loves.

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Luisa Castro is an award-winning author of numerous volumes of poetry, novels, and short fiction, most written in Spanish and some in Galician. She has published five novels, coming in as a finalist for the Premio Herralde for her first novel, The Box Spring (1990), and winning the Premio Azorín for The Secret to Bleach (2001) and the prestigious Premio Biblioteca Breve for The Other Woman (2006). She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study film at NYU and Columbia, has served as a director for many years at the Instituto Cervantes in Naples and Bordeaux, and has been a frequent contributor to major Spanish and Galician newspapers papers such as ABC, El País, La Voz de Galicia, and El Mundo. The story, “A Wedding By The Green,” is drawn from I Could Hurt You (Podría hacerte daño, 2005).

Jacob Rogers is a translator of Galician and Spanish prose and poetry. He was selected as one of the winners of the Words Without Borders + Poets.org Poems in Translation Contest, and his translations have appeared in Asymptote, Best European Fiction 2019, Copper Nickel, ANMLY, PRISM International, Cagibi, Lunch Ticket, Your Impossible Voice, Nashville Review, The Brooklyn Rail InTranslation, and the Portico of Galician Literature, with work forthcoming CONTRIBUTORS 211 in Columbia Journal. His translation of Carlos Casares’ novel, His Excellency, came out from Small Stations Press in 2017.