Chapter 4
He woke from an uncomfortable sleep, courtesy of a lumpy pillow and a mattress that was likely as much an antique as the furniture in the house.
It was a rude awakening. A maid, with a shuffling gait and her hair in a bun, opened the door and set a tray down on a table without any finesse.
The loud clattering of silverware and dishes made him think, for a second, that a bomb had fallen over the house and he was going to have to claw himself out of the rubble.
Then the maid departed, wishing him a curt “Good morning,” and he lay staring at the ceiling, his heart still beating fast as he remembered he was in the countryside and shouldn’t be fearing any attacks.
The damn air-raid drills had left his nerves shot.
Here he didn’t have to think about skirmishes.
The breakfast consisted of a meager portion of fruit, bread, and coffee.
The coffee was good, but he immediately missed the comforts of the city.
He fondly remembered his walks to the Hotel Reforma, where he had liked to breakfast at the Blue Terrace before his finances went to hell.
Or else he headed to Sidralí for a brioche sandwich with ham and mustard accompanied by an apple-flavored soft drink.
He even felt a slight pang of loss for the Café París, which he found too stuffy, the kind of place where so-called intellectuals went to discuss books and poetry and politics.
Afterward, he had planned to slip back into bed, but he got to wondering if they might have a newspaper in the house.
Not that he wanted to read about battles and planes and Nazis stomping around Europe, but he felt he should at least take a peek and see what was on the front page, then peruse other sections that were more edifying.
He washed his face, combed his hair, and went downstairs. By the front entrance he found the houseboy, Fito, watering the plants. He asked him if they subscribed to any daily that he might read, and the young man bobbed his head up and down.
“Sure, we get the paper every morning. But Miss Inés takes it to her room. She’d have it.”
“Which one is her room?”
“Same floor as you, sir, first door to the right when you go up the stairs.”
Up he went and knocked twice. “Come in,” the girl said.
He stepped inside. She was bent over a sewing machine and did not look up at him, her eyes on the piece of cloth before her. Her inattention gave him ample time to survey the room.
He did not spy anything of much worth; the furniture was unremarkable.
On a tall bookcase there were boxes with piles of wool, cards of black buttons, bobbins of ribbon, spools of thread, and lengths of cloth in a riot of colors.
In a corner there stood a tailor’s dummy with a piece of cloth wrapped around its waist and a measuring tape draped over its shoulder.
The décor consisted of pictures from newspapers and magazines pasted on the wall.
The young woman, rather than hiding jewels in a box or any valuable cosmetics, instead seemed to collect all manner of sewing implements, as though the bedroom were a dressmaker’s shop and not a bedroom at all. The wrought-iron bed felt almost like an afterthought.
As he looked around, he noticed sketches traced with a capable hand showing skirts, dresses, and suits. One of the sketches was the same dove-colored outfit Perla had been wearing.
The whirring of the machine stopped, and the girl looked up at him.
“Yes?”
“I apologize, Miss Inclán—”
“Inés,” she said, cutting him off. “Miss Inclán is my aunt. I’m Inés.”
“Inés, then. I apologize. The houseboy said you have the newspaper.”
“I take it to the dining room after noon. The Zorrilla sisters don’t care to read the paper, and Professor Nepomuceno wakes up late. He’s an insomniac. I’ll have it down in a bit.” She made a motion as if she were going to return to her sewing.
“I’m used to reading the paper when I have my breakfast.”
“Are you?” she replied. The question was almost a challenge.
“Yes, I am.”
She stood up, shoved aside a piece of cloth from a table, and handed him the daily. He tucked it under his arm.
“You’ll be wanting it every morning, then?” she asked.
“I would, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll hand it to you after I’ve read it early in the mornings, then.”
Her tone was polite enough, but her dark eyes stared at him mordantly, and he felt himself being judged. She thought him a fussy, annoying guest, didn’t she? Demanding the paper, interrupting her work. He felt rather irritated with her.
“By the way, my jacket. Have you had a chance to wash and press it?” he asked.
“Your jacket will be dry and ready for this evening’s gathering,” she informed him.
“Thank you.”
“Is that all, sir?”
It was, but by the way she tapped her foot and crossed her arms, he could easily read her impatience. He decided to linger longer, to annoy her.
He pointed at the sketch he’d been looking at.
“Is that your handiwork?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like your aunt’s outfit.”
“It should. I sewed it for her.”
“From a pattern, you mean.”
“Not this one, no,” she said, shaking her head and looking at the sketch. “That’s my own design.”
“You’re a seamstress?”
“It’s something I do, once in a while.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said, and his expression of admiration and surprise was genuine.
She clasped her hands together, a tad mortified, and glanced down for a moment before looking up at him again.
“I’ve made several things for her. There are no department stores in town.
Most women have their clothes made to suit their taste or sew their own garments.
I suppose in Mexico City people pick everything off the rack. ”
“Sure. They buy dresses at department stores like El Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool.”
“That’s where you bought your jacket?”
“You like it?”
“It’s fine. Slightly too boxy.”
He felt she was judging him again, those dark, deep eyes of hers staring at him fixedly, but he smiled and she smiled back, though she quickly raised a hand against her lips as if to conceal the mirth.
“Who’s coming to that special gathering tonight, do you know?”
“The crème de la crème of Puerco Ahogado,” she said. Her words were proper and polite, but the sarcasm was clear all the same. He laughed. The sardonic quality of her voice was beginning to grow on him.
“And who would they be?”
“Sarita Novo, my aunt’s best friend. She spent two months in Paris when she was young, and she’ll be sure to remind you of that.
Cándido and Lulú Sotomayor are bound to show up.
He’s a lawyer, she supposedly suffers from an assortment of maladies: migraines and cholera and any disease she reads about in the paper.
There are two policemen in town, Beto and Bartolo.
They would not be able to solve a crime even if Valente Quintana assisted them; their job is usually to drag the town drunks to the station when they’re being too boisterous. ”
“Who else?” he asked, smiling with delight at the descriptions.
“There’s Dr. Carrel. He was an army surgeon and still misses Victoriano Huerta.
Manuela and Eduviges will make an appearance, though they’ll be late because they always bicker about each other’s outfits.
And Professor Nepomuceno will be invited too.
He’s the only one you can have a conversation with, when he’s not had too much to drink. ”
“And you’ll be there, I assume.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, but her voice was subdued. She sat in front of the sewing machine and resumed her work, their talk seemingly at an end.
—
Later, when he went downstairs and the guests began to trail into the living room, Ulises thought Inés could not have provided a more accurate description of the people in attendance if she’d handed him snapshots of them.
They were for the most part a bunch of grotesque marionettes, clucking and sharing gossip with glee.
The youngest man in the room was Bartolo, who had not bothered to change out of his police uniform.
Perhaps he thought it made him look manly, but although he had to be in his twenties, he had a boyish appearance, with a wisp of a mustache above his lip, so that he looked like a child who had borrowed his father’s clothes.
The other police officer, Beto, seemed to be in his fifties, and he had a tired, indifferent air as he sat with his eyes almost closed next to a Victrola.
Dr. Carrel and Nepomuceno were much older, both surely in their seventies, although Nepomuceno seemed to have had rougher years, the telltale flush of his face indicating his proclivities.
Manuela and Eduviges appeared to be their contemporaries, both dressed primly in dresses that reached their ankles, with tortoiseshell combs in their hair, like portraits out of a museum, like something Goya might have painted.
Sarita Novo was Perla’s age, fortyish, her face powdered so white she resembled a corpse and her lips painted a sickening shade of red.
Last, but not least, there was Lulú, whose bones seemed to strain against her skin, whose round eyes resembled those of a fish, and who spoke in a voice that sounded like the shrill chirping of a canary.
Her brother, Cándido, had the same slightly bulging eyes, but none of her nervous disposition.
He sat in his chair, staring at Ulises with a cold, determined gaze.
Inés went around the room, carrying a plate with canapés and dispensing drinks with a mechanical air that made him think she’d served as a waitress at these reunions for many evenings. The dog followed her with a wag of the tail, hoping for crumbs.
As for Perla, once again she wore a dress that flattered her, yet she also used too much rice powder, just like her friend, and continued to style her hair in the most unappealing of fashions, pinned back from her face, showing off her wide forehead.