While he talked excitedly, Miss Lucy reached a decision. Somehow, before her vacation was over, she’d get from Mario his mother’s address and she’d write and send her money, enough money to finance Mario at college. A mother surely would accept it even though her son might be too proud to yield to persuasion.
“Is that one of the pyramids?” It was Ellen’s disappointed voice that broke the chain of Miss Lucy’s thought. “Why, it’s nothing compared to the pyramids in Egypt!”
Miss Lucy was thrilled, however, by the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. And as she gazed at their somber, ancient magnificence, she felt that strange inner elation which she had felt on the morning when she had genuflected and crossed herself in the church at Taxco.
“I’m not going to climb up all those crumbly steps,” said Ellen peevishly. “I’m too old and it’s too hot.”
And Vera, though never too hot, was far too old. She stood at the foot of the pyramid, her coat hanging sleevelessly over her shoulders, the inevitable cigarette held in her clawlike hand. “You go, Lucy—you’re young and active.”
Lucy went.
With Mario’s help she climbed to the very top of the Pyramid of the Sun and she was hardly out of breath when she reached the summit, so great was her sense of mystic exaltation.
They sat alone and close together on the summit, this cultivated woman past fifty with a degree from Bryn Mawr, and this almost ignorant boy from an adobe hut in the hinterland of Guerreros. They looked over the vast design of the square where the ancient village had been with its Temple of Quetzalcoatl of the Plumed Serpents, gazing down at the Road of the Dead which led from the Temple to the Pyramid of the Moon.
Mario started to tell her of the sacrificial rites of the feast of Toxcatl which, in ancient days, took place once a year.
As he talked, Miss Lucy half-closed her eyes and visualized the scene: the assembled public hushed in the huge square beneath them; the priests, each in his appointed place on the steps of the pyramid; the spotless youth who was, of course, Mario.
And because it was Mario who was being sacrificed in her mind, sacrificed to the futility of life and beauty, she felt a warm human pity for him and instinctively her hand went out—the hand with the cheap sapphire ring that would not come off—and it found his, and was held fast in his warm brown fingers.
Miss Lucy was hardly aware of it when Mario’s arm slipped round her, and his dark head dropped against her breast. It was not until she became conscious of a smell like warm brown sugar, which was his skin, and a smell of flowery oil which he used on his hair, that all Philadephia came rushing back. She jumped up hastily—jumping out of the centuries to this practical moment when two friends would be waiting at the base of the pyramid, hungry for lunch—and there were a great many steps to descend.
On the way home Miss Lucy decided that she and Vera would take the back seat, so Ellen sat in front and argued with the sulky Mario.
When they reached the pension, Miss Lucy said quickly, “It’s a Sunday tomorrow, Mario. You’d better take a holiday.”
He began to protest. When Lucy repeated, “No, not tomorrow, Mario,” his face fell like a disappointed child’s. Then his expression changed, and his dark eyes looked squarely, challengingly into hers.
As she turned into the house, Miss Lucy felt her heart pounding. The intimacy of that glance had brought into the open the thing which she had not dared to contemplate before. She was quite certain of it now.
Somehow—for some reason that she did not understand, and in some way that her simple mind had never dreamed of—Mario desired her.
He desired her physically.
That night, before she went to bed, Miss Lucy did something she had never done in her life before. She stood in her plain cotton nightgown for several minutes before the long Venetian mirror in the sumptuous room and took stock of herself as a woman.
She saw nothing new or startling—nothing external to balance the startling changes which were going on inside her. Her face was not beautiful. It never had been, even in youth, and now it was uncompromisingly middle-aged. Her hair was almost white but not white enough. It was soft and plentiful and sat rather prettily on her forehead. Her eyes were clear and pleasing in themselves, but surrounded by the lines and shadows natural to her age. Her breasts were firm beneath the cotton nightgown but her figure was in no way remarkable. In fact, there was nothing externally desirable either about her face or her body. And yet she was desired. She knew it. For some reason a handsome Mexican youth found her desirable.
Miss Lucy was sure of that.
There was no nonsense about Miss Lucy and she knew that young men often make up to rich older women in the hopes of eventually obtaining money from them. But Mario, apart from the fact that he’d refused all financial offers, did not even know that Miss Lucy was by far the richest of the three ladies. Only a Philadelphia lawyer or a member of their old Quaker family could possibly know how rich Miss Lucy really was. No, if Mario had wanted money, he would have concentrated on Ellen, who held the purse strings and never for a moment let it be known to anyone that it was Miss Lucy’s money she was dispensing.
There was nothing about Miss Lucy, drab, black-clad Miss Lucy, to suggest wealth. True, her mother’s engagement ring had a rather valuable diamond in it. But only an expert jeweller would recognize that. As for the flashy white sapphire ring, that wasn’t worth anyone’s time or energy and Miss Lucy would have gladly given it to Mario out of gratitude if only she could have got it off her finger.
No, there were thousands of other women in Mexico City with far more obvious signs of wealth. There were young, beautiful women and any one of them might have been pleased and proud to have Mario as an escort and—yes, Miss Lucy faced it uncompromisingly—as something else.
And yet … suddenly Miss Lucy became frightened at the illogicality of it all.
Some virginal instinct stirred in her and warned her of—danger.
And because there was no nonsense about Miss Lucy, she decided that she must do something final about it. Lying there quietly beneath the sheets, she came to her great resolution.
Miss Lucy and Vera were waiting at the bus station. Both of them hugged their coats around them as if cold. Vera was always cold, of course. But today Miss Lucy was cold, too, despite the splendid warmth of the spring sunshine. Her eyes—and her nose—were red.
They were waiting for Ellen, who had been left behind to deliver the final coup de grâce to Mario. The bus for Patzcuaro was leaving in twenty minutes.
At last Ellen appeared. Her nose was red too.
“You shouldn’t have done it, Lucy,” she snapped. “It was cruel.” She thrust two one-hundred-peso bills into Lucy’s hands. “I thought he was going to hit me when I gave him these:” She sniffed. “And he burst into tears like a child when he read your letter.”
Miss Lucy did not speak. In fact, she spoke very little during the entire length of the tiring bus journey to Patzcuaro.
The three women had been sitting since dinner around their table on the veranda overlooking the serene expanse of Lake Patzcuaro. Ellen, restlessly voluble, was discussing possible plans for the next day. Miss Lucy was, apparently, paying no attention. Her eyes studied the evening grey-green waters of the lake with its clustering islands and its obscene bald-headed vultures that squawked and fought greedily over scraps of carrion on the lake shore.
After a short time she rose, saying, “It’s getting a bit cold. I think I’ll go to my room. Good night.”
Miss Lucy’s room, with its small veranda, commanded a view of the lake from another angle. Below her, in the growing darkness, the fishermen were pottering with their boats, talking in low, sibilant voices or singing snatches of Michoacan songs.
Miss Lucy sat watching them. She was thinking of Mario, missing him with an intensity that was almost painful. She had thought of him constantly since she left Mexico City and now was appalled at her harshness in dismissing him by proxy through Ellen. She sh
ould have spoken to him herself. She would hate to have him think … The thoughts went on with a goading persistence. She had done him a wrong, hurt him….
At some indeterminate stage of her reverie she became conscious of a white-clad figure moving among the fishermen below. Miss Lucy’s gaze rested on him and then her heart turned over. She strained forward and peered into the darkness. Surely, surely, there was something familiar about those light, graceful movements—that small, compact form.
But it couldn’t be Mario! She had left him hundreds of miles away in Mexico City, and Ellen had been particularly instructed not to tell him where they were going.
The figure in white moved away from the lake shore towards her window. He passed through a shaft of light from an open door. There was no doubt about it now.
It was Mario.
She bent over the balcony, her heart fluttering like a foolish bird. He was only about fifteen feet below her.
“Oh, Miss Lucy, I have found you.” He spoke in the slow, careful Spanish which he reserved for her. “I knew I would find you.”
“But, Mario, how…?”
“The bus company told me you had come here. I got a ride and I have been waiting.”
She saw his teeth gleaming as he smiled at her. “Miss Lucy, why did you go away without saying adios?”
She did not answer.
“But I am back now to take care of you. And tomorrow you and I—we will go on the lake. Before the other two ladies are up. You and I alone together. There will be a moon and then the sunrise.”
“Yes …”
“At five o’clock in the morning I come. I will have a boat. Before even the birds awake I will be waiting here.”
“Yes, yes …”
“Good night, carissima.”
Miss Lucy went back into her room. Her hands were trembling as she undid her dress and slipped into bed.
And she was still trembling when—in the middle of the night, it seemed—a low whistle beneath her window told her that Mario had come for her.
She dressed swiftly, patted her soft hair into place, threw a coat over her shoulders and hurried downstairs. The hotel was very quiet. No one saw her as she made her way through the deserted lobby and no one saw her as she went down the slope to where Mario was waiting for her with the boat.
He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Then he drew her gently towards the boat.
She did not resist. It was as though he were Destiny leading her onward towards the inevitable.
Mario had been right. There was a moon—full and lemon-white, it shed a weird light on the opaque waters of the lake.
Miss Lucy was in the bottom of the boat, lying on her coat. It was cold, but she did not seem to notice it. She was watching Mario as he stood up in the boat, guiding it skilfully past the other craft into the deep waters of the lake. He had rolled his trousers up beyond his knees and his legs looked strong and somehow cruel in the moonlight. He was singing.
Miss Lucy had not realized before what a beautiful voice he had. The song seemed sweet and ineffably sad. Mario’s eyes caressed her as his gaze travelled downward from her face and rested on her hands which lay impassive on her lap. The cheap sapphire sparkled in the moonlight.
Miss Lucy was not conscious of time or place as the boat moved slowly towards the secret heart of the lake with its myriad islets. She was not conscious of the dimming stars and the moon paling before the dawn. She felt only a deep, utter tranquillity, as though this gentle almost imperceptible motion must go on forever. She started at the sound of Mario’s voice.
“Listen, the birds.”
She heard them in the cluster of small islands that were all around her, but she could see only the vultures that hovered silently overhead.
Mario rested from his rowing and produced a parcel. It contained tortas, butter, and goat cheese. He also brought out a bottle of red Mexican wine.
He spread butter on a torta with his large clasp knife and handed it to Miss Lucy. Suddenly she realized that she was very hungry. She ate wolfishly and drank from the bottle of the sweet Mexican wine. It went to her head and made her feel girlish and happy. She laughed at everything Mario said and he laughed too, while his eyes still caressed her.
And so they breakfasted like honeymoon lovers, as a sunrise splashed red gold over the lake, miles away now from anyone, with only the visible vultures and the invisible songsters to witness them.
When the last torta was eaten and the bottle drained, Mario took up his paddle again and propelled the boat deeper into the heart of the lake, on and on without speaking.
As soon as she saw the island, Miss Lucy knew it was the one Mario had chosen. It looked more solitary, more aloof than the rest of them, and there was a fringe of high reeds around its edges.
He steered the boat carefully through the reeds which were so tall that they were completely hidden in a little world of their own. When they reached the shore, he took her hand and raised her gently with the one word, “Come.”
She followed him like a child. He found a dry spot and spread out her coat for her. Then, as she lay down, he sat with her head in his lap. She could see his face above hers very close; could see those dark eyes set a little too close together; could feel the warm breath, wine-scented, that came from his lips.
She closed her eyes knowing that this was the moment to which everything had been leading—ever since the day in the church at Santa Prisca when she had first met Mario. She could feel his hands caressing her hair, her face, gently, gently. She felt him take her hand, felt him touch the sapphire ring.
The moment he touched the ring, she knew. She could feel it in his fingers, an outflowing, obsessive desire. The whole pattern which had seemed so complex was plain.
His hands moved upward. His fingers, still gentle, reached her throat. She didn’t scream. She wasn’t even frightened.
As his hands tightened their grasp, the full mouth came down upon hers, and their lips met in their first and only kiss.
Mario threw the bloodstained knife away. He hated the sight of blood and it had disgusted him that he had had to cut off a finger to get the ring.
He hadn’t even bothered about the engagement ring that had belonged to Miss Lucy’s mother. It was a plain, cheap affair, and for weeks now the great beauty of the sapphire had blinded him to anything else.
He spread the coat carefully over Miss Lucy’s body. For a moment he considered putting it in the reeds, but it might float away and be discovered by the fishermen.
Here, on the island, it could be years before anyone came, and by that time—he glanced up at the vultures hovering eternally overhead….
Without looking back Mario went to the boat and rowed towards the deserted mainland shore. There he landed, overturned the boat, and pushed it free so that it would drift into deep water.
An American woman had gone out in a boat on the lake with an inexperienced boatman. They had both been drowned. The officials would never drag so big a lake to find the bodies.
Mario made his way in the direction of the railroad track. He could board a freight car and tomorrow perhaps he would be in Guerreros.
He was sure his mother would like the ring.
THIS WILL KILL YOU
Harry Lund lay in the bathtub. Above him two pairs of his wife’s nylons dangled wetly on the rail which supported the shabby grey-white shower curtain. He could hear Norma preparing Sunday breakfast in the kitchen downstairs.
After twenty-one years of marriage Norma’s morning noises were so familiar to him that they brought exact visual pictures. He could see the inevitable cigarette dangling from her mouth while she squeezed oranges on the cluttered enamel table. Norma never dressed on Sunday mornings. He could see her thin body, draped in the old pink quilted robe, bustling about the kitchen.
Every day Harry Lund’s aversion to his wife began a fresh attack on his nerves during those moments in the tub. He was a lazy man. He liked his comfort. He liked lolling in warm water, r
elaxing before the effort of a day at the drug store, or, better still, relaxing with the knowledge of a long, indolent Sunday ahead. But he could hardly remember a time when he hadn’t lain there in the steamy, cramped bathroom taut with hatred.
It was strange, then, to find himself on this particular Sunday morning lying in the same tub, hearing the same kitchen noises, and yet completely free of hate. In fact, the sounds downstairs were almost exhilarating. Even the mental image of his wife’s sharp, too-intelligent face with its critical black eyes and short greying hair brought no distaste.
This change of attitude was caused by the fact that he knew now that Norma would not be with him much longer.
He knew this because last night he had decided exactly how and when he was going to kill her.
The thought of murder, flirted with at first and finally embraced as a lover, had lived with him so long that now it had become an old friend. In consequence, he felt no awe at what he had planned to do. No guilt, either. He had let himself forget the shabby motives which had made him lay siege to the plain, enterprising girl who had graduated with him from Pharmacy School and to whom he had never been really attracted. He had forgotten how convenient it had seemed at the time to have for a wife a fully trained pharmacist. He had even forgotten the attractions of her little inheritance which, combined with his, had been sufficient to buy a drug store and launch his career. He had never admitted that it had been due to her drive and slogging hard work that this career had reached a modest success.
He only knew that he, the handsome Harry Lund, was a figure of tragic suffering chained to a woman who had never appreciated him and whom he could never divorce.
Because he couldn’t divorce her. Half the drug store was her property. Even if he could scrape up enough money to pay her off, she would never sell. He knew that. The store was Norma’s whole life and she clung tenaciously to what she wanted.
The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow Page 26