Chapter 1 #3
He urged a young station attendant to pile his suitcases together and tried in vain to spot his ride to the Inclán guesthouse.
The minutes ticked by. He wondered if the woman had changed her mind; perhaps she didn’t want to meet him after all.
If that was the case, he’d be in dire straits, having to dig into the last bills in his pockets to survive.
He was already dissatisfied with this venture and counted the money in his mind.
Ulises fanned himself with his hat. Suddenly, a boy who was eating an ice cream collided with him, staining the lapels of his beige suit with chocolate.
“Excuse us,” his mother said, and shoved the boy away, leaving Ulises to stare at his ruined suit with open-mouthed shock.
He took out a handkerchief and furiously tried to wipe off the stain, which seemed to have the effect of spreading it and making the mess look even worse.
“Mr. Linares?”
“Yes,” he barked irritably, and looked up at a young man in denim overalls who nodded politely at him.
“Hello, sir, Miss Inclán sent me to pick you up. Sorry I’m late, the car wouldn’t start this morning. Something happen to you?”
“It’s fine,” he said.
The man in the overalls helped Ulises with his luggage and they walked the short stretch to a white Ford that looked like it had seen better days. It wasn’t a jalopy, but Ulises could understand why it hadn’t started that morning. He climbed into the back seat.
Puerco Ahogado was nestled into the side of a mountain, and the narrow streets the car navigated were steep and bumpy; it was nothing like the slickness of a large city.
The driver spent the short ride from the train station to the house humming songs, indifferent to the condition of the road.
The houses they passed were odd, with overhanging eaves to keep the rains at bay, different from the houses in Mexico City.
A number of dwellings had formidable carved wooden doors and elaborate grilled windows, and he glimpsed interior patios studded with flowers, many orchids.
When the car stopped and the driver stepped out to unlock the double gates of the house, Ulises took off his sunglasses to better survey his surroundings.
The house was two stories tall, done up in the style of a bygone era, and the sight of it filled him with hope, for it was a large house that must have been constructed at great expense.
Nevertheless, he didn’t like the battered sign tied to the gate that read, in big block letters: Rooms for rent, by the week or the month.
Inquire inside. It cheapened the whole place.
The driver jumped back in the car and advanced a couple of meters, parking in an interior courtyard shaded by lemon trees.
In the center of the courtyard there was a fountain with no running water; it was filled instead with dry leaves and twigs.
The air was redolent with a citrusy scent that made him think of Seville.
Not that he’d ever been there, but his mother had spoken fondly about growing up among orange groves in Tamaulipas, and she said the orchards there rivaled those in Spain.
Ulises remembered how she kissed the top of his head and called him her prince and made pots of marmalade.
A bougainvillea of smoldering purple crept up the side of the front door, growing lush against old bricks and scratched wooden shutters.
There in the shadow of this burst of color stood a young woman in a brown skirt, a simple white blouse, and sensible shoes.
Her curly hair fell loose past her shoulders, and she wore no earrings or other ornaments.
She looked curiously at him, as most women did. He had a neatness, a blackness of hair, a whiteness of smile, that bewitched the lot of them. He was like a finely polished piece of silver.
He wondered if the girl was a maid who, like the driver, had been sent to greet him, but something about the boldness of her eyes made him doubt this.
As he approached her, smiling, ready to extend his hand in greeting, ready to charm her, she looked over his shoulder at the young driver standing behind him.
“Fito, can you take our guest’s luggage upstairs, to the Butterfly Room?” she asked, and then she looked Ulises up and down, like a woman examining a fish at the market. She smirked.
Her lack of deference established her identity. This was no housemaid.
“I’m Mr. Linares,” he said. “And who would you be?”
She began walking, no proper hello escaping her lips. “My aunt asked that you come to the sitting room when you arrived,” the girl said briskly.
He followed her with his smile firmly in place and spoke with a friendly voice. “Then you are Miss Inclán’s niece. She speaks fondly of you.”
Her aunt had done no such thing, it was a mere pleasantry that he thought might chip at her surly disregard, but the young woman did not reply, and the smirk turned into a chuckle. They walked in silence. Perhaps she’ll be trouble, he thought.
She led him into a room smothered by worn velvet curtains and upholstery that had faded with the passage of time and the might of the sun.
The furniture was old mahogany and walnut, polished and scented with beeswax, and, though out of fashion, solidly made.
A piano was tucked in a corner; the ivory keys were chipped and had a yellow cast to them.
The Turkish carpet on the floor had been patched to cover up damage—ancient stains, or else the holes left behind by frenzied moths.
Insipid watercolor landscapes adorned the walls, and there was a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a cross made from a palm leaf stuck to its glass, which no doubt would be replaced with a fresh cross after the next Palm Sunday came around.
It must have been a handsome house years before, fashionable in the days of gentlemen in top hats and ladies in corsets, now diminished in stature.
It was not at all to his taste. He liked everything brand-new.
Bright colors, metallic and chrome accents, mirrored finishes and black lacquer, animal prints, faux-bamboo coffee tables in bold brass.
He longed for the things he spied in newspaper ads, in films, like the divans on which lay gorgeous starlets, supine, with their gleaming locks brushed high.
The niece was still not speaking to him.
She drifted toward the piano and stared at him with those eyes that were both bold and curious.
He thought about attempting to initiate a conversation once again, but he was exasperated by her aloof treatment and stood stubbornly in place, looking at one of the watercolors as if entranced by the mediocre painting, ignoring her just as she’d ignored him.
But then, unable to contain himself, he glanced at her, and there she was with a hand resting lightly upon one of the piano keys, still looking at him with that piercing curiosity and that mocking twist of her lips. Annoying minx, he thought.
A dog pushed the door open with its snout, ran into the room, and began to bark at him. The girl’s focus snapped and she turned her face toward the doorway, which now stood wide open.
“Inés! Will you calm that animal down and get it out of the room?” asked a middle-aged woman.
This must be Perla Inclán, at last. He’d sent her his photo but had not asked for hers in return.
When she hadn’t bothered to mail him a snapshot, he’d assumed she’d have missing teeth or be balding or simply ugly.
He knew enough not to press for pictures; some women wanted to maintain the illusion that they were svelte sylphs budding with beauty and youth.
She was dressed all in dove color, wearing a prim blouse and skirt.
From her neck dangled a silver crucifix.
Her hair was pinned back in an unflattering bun that looked like a bread roll, her plucked eyebrows made her face seem too stark, and she had been too heavy-handed with the rice powder.
Well, she was no nymph in a grove, but she wasn’t a gorgon either.
Although her figure was too thin—he liked women with shapely curves and generous bosoms, not rail-thin waifs—her clothes had been cut with great care, flattering her, bringing out her best features.
Yet there was a severeness to her face that sharpened it in unpleasant ways, and the little lines bracketing her mouth and fanned around her eyebrows seemed to have been traced with a firmness that hinted at anger suffused with melancholy.
Yes, she was better put together than he’d imagined, though it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she was a hideous hag. In his line of business, looks were extraneous. Money was what mattered.
The dog jumped onto a bright yellow settee, horrifying the woman in the dove-colored suit. “Not there! That’s the couch that belonged to Monsignor Luis Manuel! Get that animal!”
She gestured to the younger woman.
The girl rushed to capture the dog in her arms and there was a struggle as it tried to escape her, but finally the animal was shoved outside the room and she closed the door.
Once silence reigned again, Ulises smiled his charming smile. “You must be Miss Perla Inclán. I’m delighted to meet you,” he said, and extended his hand. The woman shook it and gestured to a plush chair the color of old wine. He sat down.
“I hope you had a pleasant trip, Mr. Linares,” she said. She had a rich, dignified voice that matched her neat clothes and the shiny cross around her neck. He could picture her going to church each week with her mantilla upon her head and her hands firm upon the rosary.
A godly, serious woman who—as her ad had said—was “seeking a reliable, thoughtful gentleman for correspondence and friendship.” But even though she had the faint air of a Mother Superior at a convent, when he smiled that devilish smile of his, he saw in her eyes that her interest was piqued.
“The pleasure has increased now that I’m here,” he said, and the woman practically blushed as his smile widened, her dignified facade cracking a smidgen.