A deaf farmer marries an obese girl for a bet; what she pulled out of her husband’s ear left everyone stunned." The morning that Clara Valdés became a wife, the snow fell on the Sierra de Chihuahua with sad patience, as if the sky itself knew that it was not a holiday, but of resignation".

si el cielo mismo supiera que aquel no era un día de fiesta, sino de resignación.

Clara, de veintitrés años, se miró en el espejo agrietado de la casa de adobe y alisó con manos temblorosas el vestido de novia de su madre. El encaje amarillento olía a alcanfor, a años guardados y a promesas rotas. No temblaba por el frío. Temblaba de vergüenza.

Su padre, don Julián Valdés, tocó la puerta con los nudillos.

It’s time, my daughter.

Clara cerró los ojos un segundo.

—Estoy lista —mintió.

The truth was uglier and simpler. His father owed fifty pesos to the local bank. Fifty. Exactly the same amount for which they were to hand it over in marriage to a man I had not chosen. In the house they called him “arrangement.” The bank manager called it a “solution.” His brother Thomas, who smelled of pulque from before dawn, called