Epilogue
A strong wind threatened to snatch away Bartolo’s hat, and he held on to it with one hand while he tried to discern in which direction he needed to go.
The city was a web of streets and alleys that defied him, even though his cousin had written down the directions to the chocolatier with neat penmanship.
If he didn’t return with a new suit and a box of chocolates for Gertrudis, his mother would have barbed words for him.
Bartolo was glad that he’d be leaving that weekend and heading back to Puerco Ahogado. Mexico City was too loud, too large, too chaotic. He missed the quietness of the mountains and the mist that descended from them, gently licking the roofs of the houses.
Here there was smog, claxons, the voices of street vendors, and the scent of fried foods. Neon signs and traffic lights, department stores with gleaming display cases. He feared he’d be asphyxiated when he slid into a crowded elevator, or run over by a convertible.
He’d gone to the city to get a new suit for his wedding. His mother had insisted that the suit be bought in Mexico City. Bartolo didn’t see the sense in that. A suit would be the same whether it came from a town or the capital, but his mother was particular with her ideas about the wedding.
Hence, Bartolo had contacted his cousins as soon as he reached the city, asking for their help in procuring a suit that fit his mother’s criteria, for he knew nothing about the shops in Mexico City.
They’d been pleasant, showing him around, and he’d bought a nice suit, and the wedding was bound to be a superb one.
Too bad about his bride. Not that there was anything awful about Gertrudis.
She had been properly reared and had all the virtues his parents found appealing in a lady.
It was only that Bartolo possessed a small amount of imagination, a quality that seemed lacking in his family, and he’d fantasized about eloping with Inés Inclán.
More than once, he’d daydreamed about her as he sat at his desk during his lunch break, thinking of her beautiful eyes and sensual mouth, and then pulling open one of the mystery novels he liked to read in a valiant effort to drive away any romantic notions, for she had always been beyond his reach.
His parents would have never agreed to let him pursue the girl. She had been considered a questionable young woman, even before the whole scandal. And what a scandal! It was one of the most memorable events in Puerco Ahogado’s history: Inés Inclán had run away with her aunt’s husband.
Perla Inclán had not explained everything that happened that day, and she probably never would.
She’d taken a tumble down the stairs, that was certain.
But whether this had been an accident, as Dr. Carrel assured the townspeople, or an attempt at killing herself, distraught over the discovery of her husband’s infidelity, as others whispered, was open to much speculation.
The concussion from the fall greatly affected Perla.
She had lain in bed for three whole days, delirious, suffering from vivid hallucinations, speaking about her past and her family, confessing to a litany of sins, and speaking with such foul language and rancor about many notable and esteemed people of Puerco Ahogado that the Zorrilla sisters and the other women in town who were tending to her almost fainted in horror a couple of times.
Dr. Carrel told everyone that these utterings were nightmares brought on by the swelling of the brain, yet word spread that Perla had killed both her sister and her niece and admitted it, even though Marisol Medina claimed that the day Perla fell down the stairs she’d seen Ulises driving Perla’s car, with Inés in the passenger seat.
Bartolo and Beto had found a trail of blood from the stairs to the front entrance, and a couple of bullets lodged in a wall, but there had been no body.
Anyway, once the delirium passed, Perla denied everything she’d said and declared herself innocent of any crime.
Father Anselmo was compassionate, aware that her utterings had been mad ramblings, but others were not so kind, and Lulú had been especially peeved at the insulting descriptions Perla had given of her dead brother and of Lulú herself.
Perla did not take steps to find her niece, her husband, or her missing car, though in her delirium she’d called Ulises Linares a thief and a criminal.
Uncharitable souls, like Fito, said it was because the car was likely to be soaked in blood and her niece dead, and under those circumstances it was best if the whole matter was forgotten.
Then again, Perla had fired Fito, so he was not likely to speak her praises.
She seldom stepped out of her home these days.
Much like her father before her, she seemed chained to the house by the shame of her circumstances, and if she chanced to walk down the street, leaning on the same cane that had belonged to Osorio Inclán—her left leg, injured in the fall, had not healed well—she soon circled back.
Bartolo supposed that if a thing like that had happened to him, if his wife had abandoned and humiliated him, he would have never been able to show his face in town again.
It was the sort of mark that would not fade, inviting either pity or scorn or a mixture of both, which he would not be capable of bearing.
Bartolo shook his head and stopped at a corner to look up at the name of a street, still trying to hold on to his hat.
The chocolatier was one of the best in the city, and he knew his mother would be irritated if he did not return with both the suit and the chocolates she’d indicated, but he was tired and beginning to wonder if he might procure a gift from another shop.
Finally, he managed to locate the chocolatier and was about to head inside when he heard a woman’s delightful laugh and turned toward it.
Lured, like a man following a siren toward jagged rocks, he began to walk away from the shop and a few paces behind the woman until she stepped into a restaurant.
He froze, his mind still trying to make sense of what he’d seen and heard: he had been following Inés Inclán. Or a woman who resembled Inés to a great degree. Her laughter certainly was like Inés’s laughter, an unruly, open laugh that made his heart speed up anytime he heard it.
He looked across the street, at the restaurant, recognizing it as one that his cousin had mentioned in passing; an expensive, exclusive sort of place with French dishes on the menu. He considered walking inside and finding the woman, to verify whether he’d seen Inés or merely a look-alike.
What were the chances? It wasn’t as if life were like one of his detective novels, where clues appeared in a neat order and mysteries were solved by the last chapter. Wasn’t it more likely that, caught in his memories of Inés, in his desire to see her again, he had imagined a woman resembled her?
He took off his hat and ran his hands around the brim, aware suddenly how shabby it looked, and the cut of the jacket he was wearing wasn’t any good either.
But then again, he hadn’t thought to venture into a nice restaurant that day.
He fidgeted, not knowing what to do, and suddenly he pictured an imposing ma?tre d’ who would kick him out if he dared to set foot in that venue.
A couple wandered into the restaurant and the coat upon the woman’s shoulders and the shiny shoes of the man immediately had the effect of making him look down at the button missing from his jacket. It was a ritzy spot; could he really sneak in there and look for her?
He tried to think hard about the details of the woman’s figure, her face, and compare them to his memory of Inés.
She was dressed in the nicest of clothes and she had a fetching hat, and if Bartolo had to be honest, he had not had a good look at her face.
It was more her silhouette that reminded him of Inés, and not even that, for he had never seen Inés in clothes that fit her so tightly, or in a dress of a vivid, astounding red that, paired with a fur stole, gave her the air of a movie star.
No, it was really her strut, the way she moved, and her voice that made him think of Inés.
Why had she been laughing? She’d been saying goodbye to someone. He didn’t recall whom she’d been talking to. A man, he figured. But he hadn’t paid attention to him.
It couldn’t be her, could it? Not in Mexico City, not in a place like that.
How would she have bought those clothes and the hat?
No one had heard from her since she left Puerco Ahogado, which meant she could be anywhere, but could she really be a few meters from him in that restaurant?
What happened to Ulises, was he still around?
Was he the man she had spoken to when Bartolo noticed her, was he the reason why she had laughed?
Perla had accused Ulises of being a criminal. Bartolo pictured Inés held against her will in this city, in the claws of a vile gang member. Yet the girl in his mind was not like the woman he’d seen, who had something much too certain and sophisticated about her.
The more he tried to remember Inés’s face, the more her features seemed to dissolve in his mind, and he was no longer certain the woman had anything but a passing resemblance to her.
If he were a man of the world, he would boldly march across the street, ask to be led to her table, and sit down in front of her. Then he would say, “I knew a girl who looked like you back in my town,” and she might look at him in surprise or she might look at him in recognition.
Men did that in detective stories, they questioned people and followed leads and had exciting encounters with devious women. But Bartolo couldn’t even summon enough courage to slip into the reception area.