“Since she didn’t want to rest her back for a day? She knew that if she said this to her boss he wouldn’t believe her ribs hurt. So she used a lie that was more convincing than truth: she said to her boss that she couldn’t work the next day because having a tooth pulled was very dangerous. And the lie worked. Sometimes only a lie can save you. So, the next day, when the four tired Marias went to work, she had for the first time in her life the most precious thing of all: solitude. She had a room all to herself. She could hardly believe that all this space was hers. And not a word was heard. So she danced in an act of absolute courage, since her aunt couldn’t hear her. She danced and twirled because being alone made her: f-r-e-e! She enjoyed everything, of this arduously obtained solitude, the radio as loud as it would go, the vastness of the room without the Marias. She got, as a favor, a little instant coffee from the landlady, and, as another favor, she asked her for some boiling water, drank it all licking herself and in front of the mirror so as not to miss any of herself. The encounter with herself was a good she had not yet known. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my entire life, she thought. She owed nothing to anyone and no one owed her a thing. She even allowed herself the luxury of boredom — a quite unusual boredom.”
Note used in the 117th paragraph of The Hour of the Star. The handwriting is by Clarice.