Chapter 44
“I still don’t understand why you need to see to her.
” It was the night before our trip. Tom and I on the landing, surrounded by packed suitcases waiting to be loaded into the car in the morning, the leather handbag of cash we had withdrawn because there were no ATMs where we were going and no one used credit cards.
He glanced skeptically at his watch. “It’s already nine. Can’t we just go to bed?”
“It’s just that I’m worried I forgot to give her our account number at La Conexión,” I explained, “and she won’t be able to get the mail.”
“Call her, then.”
“She doesn’t have a phone.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course she doesn’t.”
The simplest solution would have been to email.
The truth was, I felt a compulsion to be in her physical presence once more before we left, if only to confirm to myself her diminished stature after what Bill had told me, my ability to dismiss her.
Still, I had a tremor of nerves waiting, unannounced, for her to answer the door.
She greeted me as always. Unsurprised, happy, presumptuously turning back into the house for me to follow.
As I stepped inside, the first thing I noticed was Allan’s painting.
It struck me as suddenly smaller, both in size and achievement, than our conversations had made it.
This, and Louise’s old, limping body, put me at ease.
She had lit a fire in the living room, and there were two dirty wineglasses on the little inlaid table.
Seeing me notice them, she tilted up her chin defiantly, signaling that she wouldn’t explain herself, then went over to the record player on which the flamenco record was playing, repugnantly swaying her hips above her damaged legs with her back to me.
After a minute or so, she came hobbling back to the bed-cum-sofa, fishing up the pack of cigarettes from between the pillows.
“Smoke?”
She held the lighter forward, my hand lingering briefly on hers as I inhaled.
Smiling, she carried the used glasses away.
I sat, closing my eyes. I could hear her moving about in the kitchen.
It was like waiting for a lover with whom you know you’re going to end things, the strange jumble of longing and anger roiling below the surface.
I let the music wash into me, wondering vaguely how long I would stay; what, if anything, I would say before I left.
“Shall we try something new tonight?”
I opened my eyes to discover Louise holding a clear, unlabeled bottle of what looked like water.
“What is it?”
She poured some into a glass and handed it to me, motioning that I should drink it in one shot. It was incredibly strong and made me cough. Laughing, she refilled the glass, and I took another long, gulping swallow. It had a smoky flavor I liked very much.
“I first had it with Nuria. Allan and I were living in a half-finished place behind the church down the road. Two concrete rooms with one window. This was May and stifling hot. She gave me my first shower under a garden hose. ‘Just take off your shirt and lean your head back,’ she said. Once I tried it, I couldn’t stop.
We would do it standing in a washtub, shrieking, our nipples standing out to here. ”
I let go a short, derisive laugh. “Nuria sounds like quite something.”
“Yes. She was so completely up front. I remember she said it straight out, practically the first time we ever met: ‘Have you ever slept with a woman? We could do it all together the first time,’ she said. Allan and Fernando, too. She wanted to know what that would be like.”
“Was this the night of Bill’s party?” I couldn’t help it.
Louise arched her eyebrows imperturbably. “What are you talking about?”
“Why don’t you just tell the truth?”
“The truth! How sweet you are.” She reached forward, lifting my hair from my shoulder, letting it fall back with a faint slap.
I finished what was left in my glass, as the burn bloomed in my chest, thinking I shouldn’t have; I was already tipsy. Louise had begun humming tunelessly to the music, her face very close to mine. “You have a terrible voice,” I said. “You sound like my fucking mother.”
Louise laughed, shoving my shoulder in mock umbrage. “The woman who gave you that atrocious name?”
She smiled smugly as she tipped the bottle, filling my glass, and as though accepting a challenge, I again drained it, not taking my eyes from hers, which were leveled on me.
I had the sudden suspicion that she was attempting to read in my face how much I had discovered about her, that the second I broke the deadlock of our stare, she would know.
At the critch, critch of the needle reaching the end of the record, simultaneously we released each other’s gaze, Louise pouring more of the liquor into my glass, then into a second glass that seemed to materialize from nowhere.
My head was spinning. Time seemed to be moving discontinuously.
As if awakening from a sleep, I discovered myself staring intently at the record, circling and circling, the lift and fall of the needle a tiny boat riding above swells.
“I’m not keeping you up, am I?” I said, in an unfamiliar voice.
“It’s just, I like the music. Can we hear the other side? ”
“Only if you dance for me.”
“Dance!” I snorted, the sound I made ugly. “I do like talking to you, though, Louise. That’s the thing. You’re a crazy bitch, but I like you.”
“Imagination’s first duty is transgression.”
“You see? What the fuck does that even mean?” I had closed my eyes, letting my head loll back against the pillows as the room tilted and jogged sideways, not tracking when she said:
“You know what used to be in that field your husband is desecrating? Gnarled orange trees more than a hundred years old. Their fruit would become fermented in the sun, and all the raccoons got drunk.”
“Did they behave badly?”
“Mapache is the word in Spanish.”
“For drunkard?”
“Raccoon. And there were tarantulas”—she was playfully crawling her fingers up my arm, as I used to do with Ida and Henry—“and scorpions, and all manner of burrowing things that could crawl inside you and make a home. We built a bonfire to keep them away, even though it was terribly hot that night. The night Nuria introduced me to La Nina de los Peines, oh, other things…”
My eyes were still half closed. I heard her pouring more liquor.
Propping myself shakily on my elbows, I tried to focus on the glass swimming before me.
Somehow I couldn’t figure out what to do about the fact that I didn’t want it.
Open my fist and let it fall? Like Louise fell, I thought, saying aloud, “Who was here earlier?” I took a few big sips, only to make it go away.
“I bet it was the man from the Cuesta. That was so fucked.”
“You mean on your balcony? That was nothing.”
“But I saw you with him before, fighting on the arroyo path.”
“Fighting!” She tossed back her head, laughing to show it wasn’t anything. “My sweet Mia! You must never allow a man to think he has a hold over you.”
“Me?” I made a sneering smile. “I know about you. I know what happened at Bill’s party.”
“You don’t know anything, Allan and I, and Nuria and Navarro—”
“That reminds me. I’ve been looking at some Navarro prints. Actually, I’m thinking of buying one.”
“You!” Suddenly she was angry. “If anyone should own a Navarro, it should be me.”
I laughed at her. “Own a Navarro, you don’t even own a phone.”
“So I’m just a poor eccentric old woman, limping around with her cane, is that it? And you’re the rich lady who’s taken an interest in me, and now Navarro. The rich housewife chatting with all the vapid mommies at school. Oh, Fabiola tells me.”
“If you say so.” I tried to stand then, but it didn’t rise beyond a thought.
“You think you’re quite special, don’t you?
” Louise spat. “Quite something. Me, me, me. Do you know what my foster mother used to say? ‘Half the world doesn’t know you exist, and the other half doesn’t care.
’ ” She was staring in such fury that I involuntarily pulled my arm up to cover my face, and she grasped my wrists, saying roughly, “Stop that! What are you doing?”
“I don’t know; I’m so drunk. I need to get home.”
“Yes, by all means, hurry home to Tom! Ever the loyal housewife. You,” she said, letting go of my wrists, her tone suddenly confiding, “were made for more important things.”
I tried to stand again. When I couldn’t, I laughed, saying stupidly, “And you’re going to help me because I mean so much to you?”
“All I’ve ever done is help you! I love you, Mia.” Leaning closer, she repeated it several times, “I love you, I love you.” I managed to hold still through my revulsion while she wetly kissed my mouth.
Then I was leaning against my car, shivering slightly, every star visible.
Louise’s downstairs had gone dark. For moments, I tried to understand, with mounting panic, why I was here outside; had I done something terrible?
You think you’re quite special, Louise’s words echoed.
And you’re nobody, mine echoed back, distilled by hatred.
You’re a bitter, broke old woman, you could never own a Navarro!
But I could. It was the last thing I remember of that evening.