Chapter 12 #2
She held it up between her hands, her eyes fixed on him above the rim of the glass. There was a glint to them that heralded trouble, and a telltale flush that clearly indicated he was right and she’d started sipping booze already. He smiled blandly at his wife.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked with the utmost politeness.
“Why do you stare at my niece?”
“I what?” he asked, and though immediately he felt a flicker of fear, he spoke in a casual, easy way.
“Why do you stare at Inés? Today, when we had our reunion, you kept looking in her direction.”
“I’m not sure I did.”
“And later you stepped out of the room, and you were away for a while, chatting with her. I saw you from the window. You were by the front gate.”
Perla’s face was drawn and hard, and he realized he was standing in quicksand and must navigate this carefully.
He’d been careless, that was for sure, gazing at the damn girl with the same expression as the idiot cop.
Also, and this he hadn’t acknowledged until now, his wife was more observant than he’d thought.
He decided outrage was the correct response and spoke in an indignant tone. “I was smoking a cigarette, that’s what I was doing. I stepped out because I was bored, and my wife wouldn’t let me play dominoes. Am I supposed to sit next to your chair all night?”
“A husband is supposed to keep his wife company.”
“I’m here right now, am I not? After I smoked that one cigarette, I came back inside even though I didn’t play a single game of dominoes and had to listen to Lulú complain about her backache for a full forty minutes. You were too busy talking to Sarita Novo to notice.”
“I’m sure you didn’t hear a thing Lulú said, busy as you were eyeing my niece.”
“That again!” he exclaimed.
“Are you going to tell me she’s ugly?”
“No, she’s not. She’s pretty in the way small-town girls can be,” he said, and he knew this comment would irritate Perla greatly, for she herself was a small-town girl.
If they quarreled, if she was angry at him, then she’d be more likely to drown her sorrows with a bit of drink. At least, he prayed she would.
“I suppose you spent a lot of time with society ladies and starlets in the capital?”
“Yes, Perla. Sometimes I did. I went to nightclubs, I danced, and my dates didn’t stop me from playing dominoes or blackjack or whatever the hell I wanted.”
“I bet you wish you were back there sometimes.”
“Yeah, sometimes I do,” he said, and walked toward the door.
“Don’t you dare leave! I’m talking to you.”
“Good night, Perla.”
He closed the door behind him. There was the loud crash of a glass against a wall. He cursed and hurried away. He slipped into his room, heart beating fast, trying to figure out what he’d do in the morning.
If she didn’t drink the liquor, he’d have to spirit the bottle away.
Then again, just because she’d smashed one glass, it didn’t mean she couldn’t grab another and down the sherry.
He’d seen her rather inebriated on previous occasions, always in the privacy and comfort of her room, but as stinking drunk as though it were Carnaval.
The plan had been for Inés to find the body, but that had been when they’d both assumed everything would go smoothly. Now he figured he’d better poke his head in the room first, then summon Inés.
With this decided, he ought to have gone to sleep, but once again it was a maddeningly warm night. He had commandeered a rickety fan to provide a measure of coolness, but the damn thing whined as it spun its blades. The trickle of air that hit his face was not enough to allow him any comfort.
Near midnight, restless, soaked in sweat, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes and went downstairs to smoke on the front patio under the lemon trees. He was surprised to find Professor Nepomuceno sitting outside in a chair.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening. Can’t sleep?”
“The heat is getting to me. And you?”
“Gazing at the stars,” the professor said, and he looked up. “On cloudless nights you can stare at them and feel you might drown in their light. They are rare, fogless nights in Puerco Ahogado, and more precious than diamonds for that reason.”
“How poetic, Professor. You smoke?” he asked, and offered him a cigarette.
“I did, when I was younger, but I can’t afford it these days and I’ve lost my taste for it. I don’t suppose you have a hip flask with you?”
Ulises shook his head and lit his cigarette. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You know much about stars?”
“Yes. I know the names of constellations and stars. I used to teach them to my pupils. I taught them to Inés.”
“Somehow I can’t picture Inés sitting quietly at her desk listening to her lessons,” he said, smiling.
Nepomuceno folded his hands neatly upon his lap and returned the smile. “That was when I was no longer a teacher at a proper school, after I retired and came to the guesthouse. I’d let her borrow my books and talk to her about Ovid and Amado Nervo.”
“Do you miss the teaching?”
“I desperately miss it. I miss my youth. We never appreciate the life we have until it’s gone, and we turn to look back at the ruins of our world and the tatters of our soul.” The professor chuckled, then he extended a trembling hand in Ulises’s direction. “I might have a cigarette after all.”
“Sure.”
He handed Nepomuceno a cigarette and they smoked and looked at the stars. Afterward, he bade Nepomuceno a good night and slipped back into bed. In the morning, he tiptoed into Perla’s room; she was peacefully snoring. She hadn’t had a drink after all.
He stepped into the bathroom. The bottle wasn’t there, only the shards of broken glass. He looked around the bedroom, but fearing Perla would wake up, he slipped out again.
He found Inés in the hallway, looking curiously at him.
“She didn’t drink it,” he said. “I don’t know what she did with the bottle.”
“Maybe she put it back in the kitchen.”
They went to look downstairs but couldn’t locate it. Before they could conjecture about the missing bottle, a woman screamed. They ran in the direction of the noise.
Rita was standing with a broom in her hands, staring at Nepomuceno’s room with her mouth open.
Ulises stepped inside and saw the old man was sitting in his armchair, dead.
There were a couple of empty bottles by his bed.
One had been overturned, liquid spilled all over the floor and soaked into a rug.
He didn’t have to look at the label to know it was the missing bottle of sherry.
He stared at the scene, the shock of it numbing him. He didn’t even realize when Inés elbowed past him and began to cry. The noise was attracting the other members of the household, he heard the Zorrilla sisters loudly wondering what was happening, and the dog began barking.
He pulled the girl out. She felt boneless and he feared she might collapse, but he managed to drag her out into the hallway. He placed his hands on her shoulders and bent down his head to whisper in her ear.
“He drank it. The old coot drank it,” he said furiously.
“What’ll we do?”
“We’ll keep our mouths shut.”
He feared she would blabber, that the thought of the law would loosen her tongue, but at once she went quiet. Her face acquired a resolution that a soldier in battle would have envied. She nodded.
Because he couldn’t help himself, and because he thought she needed it, and he needed it too, he embraced her. An embrace so fast, so light, it was like holding on to a ghost. Then they parted, both terrified and silent.