The Fabulous Twin Sisters

'No, he don't say that, let me tell the story—'

'He say he has the power to—'

'That woman was with him, dress very poorly—'

'He has the power to take the—'

'We must rusho, big party tonight. Six hundred people—'

'No, no, not six hundred — always too much, you — he just invite some friends, couple of friends, you know—'

'Some friends! Ha! Many people coming, big Fiesta — we organize everything for him — but that Gregory, he very mean—'

'He kidnap his wife, poor thing locked up, you know, in asylum — yes, really—'

'He tell everybody he has power—'

'Poor Maggie, she good — very pretty. She good woman, no?'

'Very sweet — he say he can take the—'

'He can take the kiddies away, you know — she crazy — but—'

'He much more crazy! He totally nuts, you know. Bananas. I tell you!'

Two tiny brown women — identical twins. Enter any room and they own it, these two, always talking simultaneously in breathless, fractured English, their voices overlapping like a pair of instruments playing different songs in the same key.

What business do they have storming in here at this hour? Their chiffons and flying scarves trail behind them in every color imaginable, cackling as they march into the store, scooping items from shelves with the casual authority of women accustomed to taking what they want.

Estamos cerrado. Pilar follows in their wake, replacing each object the fluttering women grab — apparently at random, apparently for the sheer pleasure of grabbing. They are like a pair of gaudy parrots, these two, originally from South Africa but born in Malaysia, belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.

'Hey, chicas! The store is closed. Slow down, have a drink!' Maximiliano covers the distance between them in a few giant strides and inserts himself — physically, bodily — between the twins and the shelves, taking each by the elbow and steering the violently protesting women toward the bar.

Their squawks and flailing create a stir among the handful of men who had been nursing their last drinks of the day in relative quiet. The Basque bends toward one and then the other in turn, whispering something low and conspiratorial that draws bright pearls of laughter from both women at once.

'Jaime — champán para las chicas!' he shouts, and one of the twins flings her arms around Lorenzo's neck without preamble.

'Hello, darling — how you doing?'

Lorenzo, never one to disappoint, kisses her full on the mouth. The other twin has already pulled the Basque into a deep, unhurried French kiss. In the space of sixty seconds, the two of them have electrified the room — their noise, their perfume, their sheer unapologetic appetite for spectacle crackling through the air like a change in weather.

'We are closing—' Jaime protests, weakly, halfheartedly.

Maximiliano surfaces with bright red lipstick smeared across his face, a grotesque and delighted caricature of himself. He surveys the room with the gleam of a man who has just spotted an open door.

'Ah, you louse! No matter — come on, niñas, we go. We'll take our money elsewhere. This stink hole is nothing anyway. Come on!'

Pilar watches the spectacle with barely concealed exhaustion, willing them all to leave and take their chaos with them. She is bone-tired, longing for her small sanctuary — a book, a glass of warm milk, silence, sleep.

These people. One of the twins has raised a long, shapely brown leg in platform boots for Lorenzo to stroke and admire, as casually as one might show off a new bracelet. Herman Lonti, eyes gleaming with porcine interest, has maneuvered himself directly behind the one currently bent nearly horizontal in the Basque's bear-paw grip. Jaime watches it all with his tongue resting against his bottom lip. Even old José Clabet has roused himself in his corner.

'Pour champagne, Jaime — goddamn!' Maximiliano bellows.

'We must go—'

'Big party, many important guests—'

'Belgium consul—'

'Duchess of Alba—'

'Cannot stay—'

'Take champagne, we have the car—'

'Chauffeur waiting—'

'We just come for hearts of palm — she forget to buy, the cook, she so stupido — you know—'

'Ah, na — not true — no pay attention to this one—'

The room erupts into a dozen overlapping conversations, everyone suddenly shouting at the top of their lungs as though competing with the women, or with each other, or simply with the noise of existence itself.

Pilar watches it all from the edge — watching Jaime already peeling the foil from a bottle of Moët & Chandon, knowing exactly how this evening will unspool. Wordlessly, she picks up two cans of hearts of palm and places them on the bar. No one glances in her direction. The twins have arranged themselves on bar stools like twin ornaments — legs crossed, skirts hiked, cigarettes dangling from Brigitte Bardot lips — and every man in the room has rearranged himself accordingly.

They are, it must be said, genuinely lovely: the twins, known and adored all over the island for their wildness, their warmth, their sheer centrifugal force. They'll have their small private fiesta here first, and then the girls will coax the men along to the Belgian's mansion like pied pipers in platform boots. It would surprise no one if that man lit up the whole sky with fireworks before midnight. He is fabulously rich and long past ordinary satisfaction — he'll try anything once, twice if it amuses him.

Pilar slips away.

Outside, she tips her face up to the sky.

A zillion stars — a word that only sounds like an exaggeration — burn in the darkness above the island, and something in her chest slowly unknots. She has watched many things pass through this place: many people, many performances, many varieties of human excess and human longing. But none of it touches what is out here. The trees stand in their patient darkness. The moon goes about its business. The stars burn on, indifferent and constant, forever reshaping, regrouping, bending around whatever disasters — natural or manmade — human beings manage to produce.

Out here under the open sky you can feel it plainly: that all the boasting, meddling, scheming, and spectacle amounts to very little in the vast arithmetic of things. The omnipresent ALL continues regardless.

Peace settles in Pilar's chest like sediment finding the bottom of still water. Absently, she reaches down and rests her hand on the Podenco at her side, his tail sweeping slow arcs in the warm night air.

'Vamos, cariño. Adelante.'