THE DELIA MYSTERY

When Miss Delia Fernández died, all our people attended her funeral; the men for a kind of respectful affection towards a fallen monument, the women especially for curiosity to see their house inside, which had not seen anyone in the last ten years except an old servant who had worked there since he was young (a combination of gardener , errand boy and cook).

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Miss Delia, lived in a large concrete house, rectangular, two floors, a basement, at the back of the house was a door that led to the kitchen. Where the servant came and went.

Among the murmurs of women for wanting to enter, just out of curiosity. They run into the servant at the front door; which, it was not opened for forty-seven years, after her boyfriend left.

The servant was a little old and somewhat hunched; he raises his head slowly, and sees them from bottom to top and leaves, never seen again.

They listen, as they pass the door to a group of men, who were in the room - poor Delia! "She lived very lonely, since the death of her father" says one, and a neighbor comments: - "but it was very strange! Fix themselves in that picture "he stood up with a whip in his hand and Delia standing behind him and noticed they were painted in front of the open front door" - "what a strange family".

He tells another neighbor Mr. Serapio, a well-to-do of the town, who was in his youth, trying to woo her but his father never allowed him to approach her. - "I thought he even approached me, the day of his father's death, and he did not leave me."

"I remember that day, the house smelled of rotting meat, as if it came from the depths of the earth, his father had been dead three days, she did not allow anyone to come near, she even told everyone that he was not dead".

"We came to believe, that after his recovery, he would open up to other people."

Another member of the town (Pablo) says: - "Poor Delia! It lasts a lot.
And a Miss Vanessa, she asks: -Why?

Mr. Pablo responds to him: - "he died of 85 years of age" alone! Suddenly Senaida, who had entered the room with other curious ladies, interfered, muttering and saying: "Do you know what happened after the death of your father?" Everyone responds: -No!

And another lady -What happened?

Senaida responds: - "two years after her father's death" I had seen her with the foreman! of a contractor who made the sidewalks around the block, he was from abroad, a tall, dark, handsome boy, with eyes lighter than the color of his skin. And he says: - What was his name?

Mrs. Florentina answers: - "That was: Fermín Abreu, if he was handsome, where there was a group of people laughing he was in the center". -But, he treated his black workers very badly.

Another lady says that she entered with them: - People said that they would get married! - "Because they saw them every afternoon driving around in her car". Until they stopped the work, and they did not see it anymore.

Says Mr. Pablo: - "Poor Delia!"

Another Lady of the group says: But good! If my brother told me that he was attracted to men, not women, and he spent his time drinking in the "Gato Negro" bar.

And Senaida says, exalted: - "how!". -you are right! The lady replies.

Senaida says: "I remember forty-eight years ago, when they left, she bought a suit with her shirt, stockings, shoes, tie, silver accessories and sent them to engrave the initials F.A. in gold, very expensive paid! As a man, in the clothing store where I worked.

The lady says: - Then for who it was!

Says Mrs. Florentyna, "Many years ago she went to my mom's store to buy a glass crockery, curtains and lamps.

Another man says: - I saw a long time ago Fermin enter the house through the back door the servant was waiting for him !.

Suddenly some Gentlemen began to wonder about the bad smell that was in the house and the great amount of dust that invaded it, as if my own shadow was attacking me. They thought it was coming out of it, starting to decompose.

Someone approached the coffin and said: "She's very pale, and with very nice gray lead hair; no, she's not!.

Says the apothecary, - "Many years ago Mrs. Dalia went to the store asking for the best rat poison, I looked her up and down ... Ufffff I felt a chill that ran all over my body; and it is for the rat or for ... Looking at me fixedly, I gave it to him !.

Suddenly, one of the ladies, proposes to check the house.

A group of women were encouraged to do such work, and they begin to check the whole house, and they run into a clausulated room; They make the decision to call several men, to knock down the door and enter the room.

With surprised faces, they came across a pair of mute shoes and a pair of stockings put on as if they had just recently removed it, they saw the curtains of pale pink lace very worn, the two lamps, the bag especially folded over the dresser, and They look at the bed and saw a very worn shirt and pants, glued to the sheets, covered a corpse, with a smile drawn eternally on his face, and had placed horns on his head and look at the other side of the In bed, she was sunken and on her pillow, they observed a lock of gray hair.