“You look tired.”
“I was up late, working.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
She slid into the minuscule kitchen and put the kettle on the burner. She’d always wanted a nice kitchen. This one was falling apart. Peeling linoleum and sagging counters. But the landlord would never fix it.
She prepared two cups of coffee and brought out the sugar bowl. She was very proud of the dainty sugar bowl. It was real porcelain. She’d bought it at La Lagunilla, haggling until the woman selling it brought down her price. It wasn’t very ladylike to haggle, but Maite would bicker over a miserable peso like a furious wolf if it was necessary. It often was.
Maite placed the cup of coffee before him, and he smiled. A couple of days before she’d thought about inviting this man to her apartment, and there he was. And of course now that he was here, sitting in her dining room, she wasn’t sure what to say to him, although in her imagination she had asked him to fuck. Easily and plainly. Just because she could.
Maite was boring, and she was tired of being boring. But she couldn’t, didn’t quite, want to go there.
She wouldn’t be any better than the man with the floaty pens, who also collected pictures of pinups, his hungry eyes classifying every woman alive, measuring her, sliding her into the drawer of his memories. Their legs, their breasts, their torso. He’d been a sleaze, but she was somehow worse.
You’re perverse, she thought. Deep down, you’re a monster of perversity and you know it. All you have is cheap fantasies.
“How long have you been working at the print shop?” she asked.
“A couple of years, part-time. It’ll take a while to find something else. I dropped out of university so it’s not that easy getting a decent job.”
“What did you study?”
“Literature.”
Better than poetry, she thought grimly. Though not by much. Maybe he’d spend the rest of his life in that print shop, growing bent and grayed.
“Where do you work?” he asked.
“I’m a secretary at a law firm.”
“You like it there?”
“I hate it,” Maite said honestly, stirring her coffee and taking a sip.
“You could quit.”
“The pay at another job wouldn’t be any better.”
“It might be more fun.”
How odd, she thought. To think of a job as “fun” or “not fun” when a job was simply a paycheck. She supposed it was his youth that made him think like that. Ten years in the trenches, and he’d burn through those ideas.
Youth. All he had was his youth. He wasn’t attractive; he was too hairy for her taste and not nearly as sophisticated as she might have wanted. Still, he’d dated Leonora, and Leonora was beautiful. Maybe that’s how it went for men. It didn’t matter if you were the Hunchback of Notre Dame, you still had a chance to romance Esmeralda.
“How did you and Leonora meet?” she asked.
“At Asterisk. I’ve been designing flyers for them for a while, helping Jackie out like that and with other stuff. Leonora started showing up and we got to talking and we had a lot of stuff in common, so we started going out together.”
“For how long?”
“Over half a year. She’d just arrived in the city. She was a bit provincial, but not for long. And she was eager to make friends, to meet people, and everyone wanted to meet her. She has a glow about her, as you know.”
Maite didn’t know. She didn’t know this woman at all. She thought of the island in Secret Romance; she pictured the girl writhing on a stone altar.
“I felt I’d hit the jackpot, you know? I was crazy about her. I took her out, drove her wherever she needed to go, we talked for hours.”
“What happened?”
He grimaced a little, as if he were picking at a scab. “Emilio happened. Every weekend he’d come to Asterisk, looking for an easy fuck. He sleeps with anything that moves, and I guess he thought it was a good place to pick up girls. Lots of young people to snack on.”
“And he met Leonora.”
“He met Leonora,” Rubén said, nodding and drinking his coffee. There was a pause; he scratched his wrist. “The thing is we used to make fun of Emilio. Leonora and I, we thought he was another bourgeoisie pig looking for a thrill. He was stuck-up, thought so much of himself simply because his money had helped start the collective. Every time he walked into a room, he was wearing sunglasses, and he’d whip them off, like a cheapo movie star. It was funny.”
“But obviously she thought he was nice,” Maite said, a little angrily. She didn’t like Rubén talking about Emilio like that. Emilio was classy, and Rubén was being bitter about the whole thing. As if anyone could blame Leonora for trading up.
Rubén looked at her, frowning. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what bullshit he told her, but she believed him. She dumped me and they started going out. She did it nicely, told me she didn’t want to cheat on me. Like she was doing me a favor, you know. Very gently. And I’m not even sure she didn’t cheat on me.”
“Oh,” she said and wondered if the girl had ever received Rubén with the scent of her other lover still on her crimson bedsheets. Or if she’d been more careful, if they’d only met in the safety of Emilio’s home. In distant places where prying eyes couldn’t reveal their secret.
“She was very sweet to me toward the end, and the thing is, when Leonora is sweet it’s because she’s making up for something. She feels guilty. That’s Leonora’s problem. Guilt always catches up with her; it weighs her down and she suffocates. She must have cheated on me.”
She pictured beautiful Leonora tearfully telling Rubén it wasn’t her fault. It had just happened. They could remain friends, and she was so sorry. In her mind, Leonora’s tears streamed down her face, under her large sunglasses, lips parted. Like in the comic books. But it hadn’t been a comic book. It had been real. Like Cristóbalito had been real.
“But you still like her,” Maite said, almost accusingly.
“Yes, well, ain’t that the thing? No one said I was smart,” he told her with a chuckle. “Just because someone stops loving you, it doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”
She felt bad for him. He was a loser, like Maite. Both of them a couple of dumb fucks sitting in the silent dining room—the music had stopped playing.
“I felt like that about a boy, once,” Maite admitted. “He broke my heart and still I wanted him back. I’d sit at night and cry my eyes out. I thought I’d die when he left. I wanted to die. I would have, if I weren’t such a coward.”
If this was a comic book, she thought, there’d be a panel flashing back to a distant point in the past. And Maite, holding her heart out in her hands, like a maiden in an Aztec sacrifice.
But Rubén didn’t seem to be listening to her; he wasn’t looking at her. “I want her to come back. To be safe.”
She stretched out her fingers, patting his hand, which was resting by the cooling cup of coffee, but even then he didn’t seem to realize she was there. He let out a sigh and smiled a little, and then she pulled her hand back, resting it in her lap.
She felt more lonely, sitting in front of this man, than she’d felt in ages.
“I guess I’m a little tired after all,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we should go in the morning. I don’t think I’m up for a long drive. Do you have a blanket I can borrow? I can take the couch, no problem.”
“You want to stay here?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but someone beat up our friend, and that someone was also around Asterisk today. Maybe it’s the guy from the DFS who went to your office, maybe someone else. Either way, I don’t think you should be alone.”
She wished to laugh. This young man was inviting himself into her apartment. How funny. That he should fulfill her wish,
now she didn’t really want him around. He’d made her sad.
“I have a blanket,” she said, and she went to her room and brought it out to him.
It was too early to sleep, but he had already taken off his shoes and was lying horizontal on the couch, an arm over his eyes. She put the blanket on him, and he thanked her, his voice sounding muffled.
It was early, so she sat in her atelier, carefully turning the pages of an old issue of Secret Romance while Lucho Gatica sang about his one and only love. She thought of Emilio Lomelí, who looked like one of the beautifully drawn characters in the comic book, and Leonora, who resembled the heroines who cried their way through such publications. And then she thought of Rubén, sleeping in her living room, with a gun in a paper bag at his side, who didn’t look like anyone except maybe the blurry faces in the background of a panel. And Maite, who wasn’t even a blurry face, who wasn’t included in any issue.
18
THE SKY WAS gray when they left the apartment, yet it didn’t rain. It was like the whispered broken promise of a half-hearted lover.
They spent most of the journey in silence. Maite wasn’t sure how to treat Rubén. They were not friends. No, not quite, she thought, watching him as he sat behind the wheel. In her lap there was a copy of Secret Romance, which she flicked through aimlessly.
She rolled the window down. She flipped through another page of her comic book. All the while she kept thinking she didn’t know Leonora, she had no business in this car, with this man. Maite had enough problems with her debts, her broken vehicle, her family, to be taking on anyone else’s problems. To become involved with a bunch of commie kids who were being watched by DFS agents.
She resolutely stared into the rearview mirror and told herself she wasn’t going to give in to mundane concerns. Not that day. Come tomorrow, yes, she’d dress in her office clothes, grab her purse, and take the bus to work. Right now, though, she didn’t have to consider any of that.
Besides, she hadn’t gone on an outing in so long. It was always work or worry; maybe the movie theater if they had a good film. At least she was leaving the house. She was going somewhere. Anywhere would do.
“I hope you slept well,” Maite said after a while, because she wanted to at least pretend they might be friends. “The couch isn’t very comfortable.”
“It was fine. I was really beat. A marching band could have come into the room and I wouldn’t have known. Are you a morning person?”
“Pretty much. All I need is a cup of coffee and I’m out the door.”
“I wish I was like that. I get up in stages.”
“In stages, really?”
“Yeah, first roll out of bed, then roll onto the floor. That sort of thing. Leonora is the same. No, she’s worse. She’s terribly lazy. You won’t see her out of the bed until noon. She’s always late to class. When I tried to wake her she would always say, ‘No, five more minutes!’ Five was not five. More like fifteen.”
He smiled. She pictured Leonora, looking adorable with her messy hair and her rumpled clothes. The disarray would enhance her beauty. When Maite woke up she looked a mess. No man would have been charmed by that sight.
Prettiness is currency, she thought. All doors open for you if you’re pretty.
“What are you reading?” Rubén asked.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at the magazine in her lap. She’d tightened her grip on it. “Secret Romance. Comics, you know.”
For a moment she expected he would beam at her with interest, maybe ask her about the artist who drew the illustrations. After all, he was an artist of a sort. He spent his time with painters and poets and people in that milieu. You’d expect someone like that, someone with a sensitive soul, to understand her pursuits. But he chuckled.
“Really? Like what, like for kids?”
Maite glanced at him, felt herself blushing.
“These are not for kids. They’re like novels. Except with pictures. Just like novels,” she said, smoothing the page of the magazine with her palm and trying to keep her tone level. It wouldn’t do to pick a fight in the car, halfway to Cuernavaca. If they fought, maybe he’d toss her out. She’d be left to walk by the side of the road.
“I think my mom reads stuff like that. Nurse romances, yes, that’s it.”
Maite had read plenty of nurse romances, and she supposed this was similar. But it annoyed her to think that he was comparing her to his mother. She wasn’t that old. Her palm slid harder against the paper, the cheap ink smeared against her hand.
“What’s that name…Barbara…Barbara Cartland! Doesn’t she write that syrupy stuff?”
“It’s not syrupy. This one has an adventure. The hero is in a coma and now the heroine is going to have to rescue him. At least, I think she will. It’s not syrupy.”
“No?”
“There’s a scene. A scene with an Aztec sacrifice,” she said.
“That sounds different.”
There wasn’t, was there? No. The Aztec sacrifice was something Maite had dreamed. A stone altar and a woman lying upon it. Why, then, had she said that? It had been so lifelike, for a moment. That image. She even knew what the heroine was wearing: white, so the splash of blood upon her chest would be more vivid.
“It’s not kids’ stuff!” she said, her voice high-pitched, almost breaking.
He looked at her in surprise, and she felt mortified. She looked at her fingers, dark with the ink.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”
“No, no,” she said. “It’s fine.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face toward the window. Red and white. She saw red and white behind her eyelids, and when she opened her eyes again there was the gray sky. They sank into silence after that.
They arrived at Lara’s house at noon and rang the bell. A woman in her thirties, a scarf knotted around her neck, opened the door. She was wearing khaki trousers and a white blouse. It gave her the look of a European hunter on a safari. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Hi,” Maite said. “We’re looking for a journalist. For Lara.”
“I’m Jessica Laramie,” the woman said. “Everyone calls me Lara. And you are?”
“I’m Maite. And this is Rubén. Emilio Lomelí gave us your address.” Maite felt his name alone was like the key to a magical kingdom, which would open any door, but the woman looked at them curiously. Maite’s fingers were still a bit dirty from the ink, and she felt like placing her hands behind her back, hiding them.
Her dress didn’t have pockets so she couldn’t slide her hands into them and tuck them out of sight. It was an ugly dress, too. The journalist’s clothes looked simple but chic. Maite’s dress was dark navy, the collar reached her chin. Her mother had gifted it to her the year before. She had no idea why she’d worn it, and now…ah…her horrid hands.
“Everything’s all right with Emilio?” Jessica asked.
“With him, yes. But we were wondering if you’d talk to us for a few minutes. It’s about a friend of ours, and he thinks you might be able to help us,” Rubén said. “Please, we’ve come all the way from Mexico City. Do you have five minutes?”
The woman tilted her head, probably trying to figure out what was up with them. The young man in a wrinkled t-shirt and blue jeans and the secretary who looked exactly like a secretary, wearing her prim dress. The journalist probably thought they didn’t seem like Emilio’s usual friends. No, Maite imagined Emilio’s friends as a crowd of glittering people, very fancy, very smooth.
“Come on in,” Jessica told them.
They followed the woman into a small living room with rattan furniture and a multitude of cacti. There was a bookcase with ceramic figurines and pots made of barro negro, and another bookcase with stacks of magazines and books. The woman sat in a low chair, and they took the ratt
an couch.
“So who’s your friend?” the woman asked, grabbing a box of cigarettes that was resting on a circular coffee table and taking one out.
“Leonora. She came to see you. Now she’s disappeared. We’re worried about her,” Rubén said.
The woman lit her cigarette and pressed it against her lips. “I see. I’m not sure why you’re here, though.”
“You’re one of the last persons who spoke to her, and maybe you know where she might be.”
“Aha. She didn’t leave me an itinerary, you know.”
“Perhaps if you told us what you talked about?”
The woman shook her head. On the circular table there was also a glass, half empty, and the woman raised it to her lips, the ice clinking against the rim. “We talked about a possible story. I can’t discuss the particulars with you. You’ve made a long trip for nothing.”
“We know about the photos,” Maite ventured, wondering if that might get them anywhere. She clutched her hands tight before her. No one would be able to see the stains on her hands if she maintained that pose.
The woman set the glass down again, then crossed her legs and rested her elbow on her knee, leaning forward. She had long fingers, a good manicure. The tips of her nails were white half-moons. “You’ve seen them?”
“No. But we have a good idea of what’s in them. Anyway, we need to know what you talked about,” Rubén said. “We’re Leonora’s friends, we swear to god. You can phone Emilio and ask him if he knows us.”
Jessica didn’t reply. She kept looking at them.
“We’re trying to find out what happened to her,” Maite added. Now she clutched her hands harder. Now she was a supplicant.
The journalist sighed. “I imagine the same thing that happens to everyone that goes missing these days. You want to know what Leonora and I talked about? Exactly that. The disappearance of activists, the wiretapping of phones, the massacre in San Cosme on Corpus Christi day.”
“You were there?” Rubén asked.
“No. But plenty of my colleagues were.”
Velvet Was the Night Page 18