Her stumbling, distracted progress caught immediate attention in San Juan. Several villagers tried to stop her, help her. She shook them off.
A small boy was sent running for the doctor: “The Señora Ross is sick from the sun!”
In this manner, Mrs. Ross came to the corner on her own street, saw Dr. Herrera striding toward her, Serena standing beyond him at the gate.
“Here now, what’s this?” demanded the doctor. His square-jowled face showed concern as he took Mrs. Ross’s arm, helped her along the walk.
“Let go of me!” ordered Mrs. Ross. The doctor only gripped her arm tighter.
Serena held the gate open, stood to one side as they approached. Her flat face was firm in its indignation. “I told her not to go out. But, oh, no; she insisted.”
“I’m perfectly all right,” said Mrs. Ross.
“She forced me,” said Serena. “Yes! She forced me to get her things. And now: look!”
Mrs. Ross focused her attention on the doctor. There was a Merthiolate stain on his shirtfront. “I’m perfectly all right,” she repeated.
But she stumbled on the first step up to her porch, experienced a wave of dizziness. Good Lord! she thought. Maybe I’m really getting sick! Dr. Herrera’s hand felt comforting as he steadied her.
“One is not as young as one once was,” he said.
“That’s what I told her.” Serena brushed past, clattered on ahead, lifting her skirts out of the way as she climbed. “I told her that very thing.”
Perhaps it was a suggestion, or all the walking around after the days in bed, or a retreat from reality … or even a germ. Mrs. Ross found herself in her own bed with a fever that climbed higher and higher as night fell over San Juan.
She lay back on the perspiration-soggy sheet, stared at the ropero beyond the foot of her bed. It stood there in its tall, carved mahogany splendor with the mirrors on its doors glistening, and it grew more and more alive as the darkness deepened. She told herself that it was just the place where she hung her clothing, a piece of furniture, a sort of closet. But the thing grew faces and arms in the darkness. And when the neon cross atop the church a block away was lighted, the mirrors picked up reflections of it that were shattered by the blinds.
The ropero glared at her with purple eyes.
Mrs. Ross twisted against the clinging sheet. It was so hot. She searched for strength to throw off the cover, failed. So hot. Her head felt light, whirling. The night, the fever—everything grew indistinct, rambling. People moved about. Lights flickered. The purple eyes glared.
It was all a great incoherency.
For a while, Mrs. Ross thought she was back in the northland. There was a strong impression of her old entrance hall with its red velvet draperies and the smell of the oil heaters in everything and the sound of the girls squabbling somewhere. She imagined she could hear the clapboards creaking in a cold snap, felt the old, never-forgotten chill and thought: I didn’t make it away to the sunshine. It was all a dream. I never made it.
And there was a girl who stayed right there—right in the shadowy flickering beside the bed. It was Gertie, but not Gertie. The face and hair were more like Serena’s. Still, the voice echoing in Mrs. Ross’s head could not be mistaken: Gertie’s voice. The woman kept chanting: “Men are all alike. Men are all alike. Men are all alike. Men are …”
Mrs. Ross thought she would go mad with the repetition. She muttered in English: “Make her go away. Make her stop that.”
Serena, seated at the bedside in the light of a single candle (there had been another failure of the “generation”), heard the unintelligible English, leaned forward. She pressed a damp cloth to Mrs. Ross’s head as Dr. Herrera had instructed. The aged skin looked dry, leathery.
“Pobrecita,” whispered Serena. Poor little one.
A tear ran down Serena’s right cheek, fell onto the single white sheet covering her employer. The tear left a round mark that faded quickly in the heat. Abruptly, the candle guttered, dimmed. It took several heartbeats for the light to resume its yellow wavering.
Serena had tensed, every muscle frozen while the light flickered.
Now, she took a quavering breath, crossed herself. (Everyone is San Juan knew it made the most terrible danger for a lone candle to go out beside a sickbed.) She gathered her nerve, scurried out into the dark house, returned with a handful of fresh candles and saucers to hold the candles. Only when they were burning securely all around the room did she resume her seat.
Toward midnight the fever broke. Mrs. Ross drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep. Serena curled up on the serape rug beside the bed, there to stir upright every time Mrs. Ross shifted. Twice, Serena arose to replace candles.
In the morning, word went from doorway to doorway around San Juan: “Mrs. Ross still lives. Her fever is gone, but she is very weak.”
Paulita sent her aunt to the church to light a candle before the Virgin. A number of candles were being burned there for Mrs. Ross. She was close-fisted, rich, sharp-tongued, and a Protestant. But most agreed she was fair. And being close-fisted was a virtue of sorts—admired, at least. And she had made many jobs in San Juan, and there was all that time she had spent helping Paulita.
Beneath the concern lay the unvocalized feeling that they would hate to lose any village “institution.”
Even those few who did not like Mrs. Ross said: “Better the devil you know that the devil you don’t.”
And the procession of herbal remedies resumed.
Convalescence fell into a slow, orderly ritual. The sudden attack of fever had frightened Mrs. Ross more than she cared to admit. She ate the broths Serena prepared, took Dr. Herrera’s pills, even sampled the Jamaica tea. The tea was sickly sweet and astringent, left her mouth with an alum pucker. Its dregs killed the potted begonia on the windowsill beside her bed.
The death of the plant was interpreted as a very bad omen by Serena until she reflected that sometimes these things went by opposites, the flower being taken in place of the human.
Don Jaime returned on the afternoon of the fourth day after the fever. Passage of his long black Buick was noted even behind doors in the village by the familiar squeaks and the thumps of its tires on the cobblestones. He called on Mrs. Ross within the hour, bringing a basketful of purple-spotted orchids from the jardín de vidreo at Jocotepec. But Dr. Herrera had barred all visitors, even one who was a very old friend (and possibly even closer than that if one believed the stories).
The orchids were sent in with Serena, accompanied by a sealed note that, while a good example of Latin overstatement, failed to say anything about the mysterious trip to Mexico City with Hoblitt.
“San Juan is prostrate with grief at your illness, and I am the most grief-stricken of all,” he wrote. “Make haste to bring the sunshine of your health back to our hearts.” He signed it: “Your devoted servant,” and then the official touch, “D. Jaime Cervelles y Madera, El Presidente de San Juan.”
No one could ever get Jaime to sign himself any other way, Mrs. Ross reflected. She dropped the note onto her bed stand, thinking wryly that Serena certainly would make the opportunity to read it and report its contents.
A wasp climbed over the orchids that Serena had enshrined on a small table brought in from the hall and placed at the foot of the bed in front of the ropera. Mrs. Ross prudently kept her attention on the wasp as it lifted itself, circled the room, buzzed out the open door.
From outside there came the clop-clop of a burro train passing: quick-footed and light, a sure indication they were empty. A thin trail of charcoal smoke hung on the bedroom air: a sign that evening meals were being prepared in the neighborhood.
Mrs. Ross wished she could have talked to Don Jaime. But she did feel weak, and it was so much trouble to argue with Serena. Lassitude hung like a fog around Mrs. Ross.
The Hoblitt problem will have to wait, she thought. Jaime knows the danger. I’ve done everything I can. She sighed. I cannot be responsible for such things when I’m this ill.
And a small prayer hovered just behind her lips: “Please don’t let anything happen to Paulita.”
Serena came in from the hall with a green cup containing broth. She still wore the bandage over her burned finger, although the gauze had been grimed by various juices and sauces from the kitchen. Her brown dress hung sack-like, with stains on it marking the day’s activities: a teardrop of tomato pulp on the breast, a grease spot at the belt line and again near the hem, a smudge of whitewash on the left shoulder where she had rubbed against a wall.
Mrs. Ross blinked at the sight. The woman just let herself go when there was no one around to keep after her!
Serena’s face wore its brave-in-the-face-of-doom smile. She held out the cup. “Chicken broth, Señora. It makes the strength to return.”
Mrs. Ross accepted the cup, blew at the steam curling from the liquid surface.
“You must drink it hot,” said Serena.
Anger gave Mrs. Ross a surge of strength. “I’m not going to scald myself!” She held the cup gingerly. Even the handle felt hot. “Have you heard anything about Hoblitt?”
Serena straightened a fold of the bed covers. “He is gone, Señora.”
“I guess you won’t get to pose for him after all,” said Mrs. Ross. She watched Serena’s face for reaction.
Serena shrugged. “As you said: artists are fickle. Now, drink the broth.”
“What is happening around the village?”
“Dr. Herrera says I am not to gossip with you. It wastes your strength. Drink the broth. It will soon be time for your medicine.”
“Your dress is a sight,” said Mrs. Ross. “You’ve spilled things all over it.”
Serena spoke through stiff lips: “It makes very much more work when someone is ill! There is no time left for me to do things for myself.”
“Have you been watering my plants?”
“Everything is cared for, Señora. No evil befalls. Now drink the broth.”
“Did Dr. Herrera tell you when I could have visitors?”
“When you are stronger, not before. Please drink the broth. You must drink it hot.”
“I wish to see Don Jaime as soon as …”
“Señora! The broth. Please?”
Mrs. Ross could feel her false strength fading. She sipped the liquid, found its temperature just bearable. The chicken flavor covered something faintly aromatic—a distant flower pungency. She mentally shrugged, downed the broth.
Best not to ask, she thought.
Serena smiled benignly, took the cup, slap-slapped out of the room.
***
Chapter 10
On a Tuesday morning, eight days after the fever, Mrs. Ross donned a blue housecoat, ventured out of bed for the first time since her illness. Dr. Herrera had said she could get up tomorrow, but she felt impatience growing as her strength returned. And it was so degrading—this being really ill—all the intimate attentions that had to be turned over to another human. She looked down beside the bed for her slippers. They were gone. Serena had kicked them underneath the bed again.
The maid could be heard working downstairs: a rattle of pans, the quick patter of sandals. Tantalizing odors of food drifted into the bedroom.
Mrs. Ross grasped a corner of her bed’s headboard to steady herself, shuffled to the window, raised the blinds all the way. She sensed that it was a symbolic act. Her knees felt rubbery, but it was a delicious sensation to stand there, feeling the sunshine pour across her body.
A shiver passed through her as she remembered the delirium. I did make it to the sunshine, she thought.
Serena had replaced the potted begonia on the windowsill. The new plant appeared sickly, claw branches reaching toward the outside and with only a scattering of pale green serrated leaves. Mrs. Ross couldn’t classify it.
I must ask Serena what this plant is, she thought.
She looked past the plant to the lake. Toward the near shore the water held a deep ultramarine tone shading to cobalt. But farther out, the color faded into grey, then white—reflecting a fleecy billow of cumulus clouds piled over the distant hills: the first storm gathering of the season.
It’ll be raining soon, she thought. I must get Serena to bring my herbs in from the balcony after the first showers or they’ll be drowned. She took a deep breath of the warm, muggy air, thought: I’ll have Jaime in tomorrow to find out about Hoblitt. Doubtless there’s some simple explanation. Most likely Hoblitt had no money, and Jaime—being soft in the heart as well as the head—personally escorted him out of town. It’d be just like Jaime.
The thought amused her.
And I must check my herbs to make sure Serena has been giving them proper care. You have to keep after her every second to get things done.
Mrs. Ross crept back across the serape rug, enjoying the rough wool under her bare feet. She turned, sank onto the bed. Sunlight threw a golden pattern across the blue housecoat. She pulled up the garment, drank in the sensation of warmth on her knees.
Tomorrow I will sit on the balcony for a while, she thought. It’ll be good to talk to Paulita. And she told herself: The girl will be a little sad, no doubt, when Hoblitt doesn’t return. Maybe this will teach her a lesson.
But the next morning when Mrs. Ross opened the French doors and looked down through the openwork of the balcony, Paulita’s window stood closed, empty. The barred iron shutters had been pulled together, and Mrs. Ross could see the edge of the big padlock where they joined. Shards of plaster lay on the sidewall from a freshly cracked place on the wall beside the window. Raw adobe showed where the plaster had been.
No one has swept, thought Mrs. Ross.
There came a sudden roll of thunder from across the lake. Mrs. Ross felt a constriction in her chest, thought: Could anything have happened to Paulita?
She turned, stumbled back into the house, calling: “Serena! Serena!”
There came a clatter of sandaled feet pounding up the back stairs. Serena burst through the swinging doors beside the sideboard. Her face was all staring eyes as she stepped just inside the room. She was panting with exertion. One long braid hung forward over her breast.
The door slapped to stillness behind her.
“Where is Paulita?”
“Oh …” Serena took a deep breath, steadied herself with a hand on the corner of the sideboard. “The way you called … I thought …”
“Has something happened to Paulita?” screamed Mrs. Ross.
“I did not tell you. The doctor said I was not to spend so much time gossiping.”
Mrs. Ross fought down panic. “What has happened?”
“It is nothing bad, Señora. They have taken Paulita to Guadalajara to fit her with braces on the legs. Don Jaime himself has taken them in his automobile. Paulita will be able to walk a little easier. Is that not a good thing?”
Mrs. Ross exhaled in relief, took a moment to regain her composure, then thought: Braces. Why didn’t I ever think of that?
She said: “When does Paulita return?”
“They said on Saturday, Señora.”
And Mrs. Ross thought: I wonder where they got the money for such a thing? She knew that the Romera family existed on a small pension and infrequent checks sent by an uncle who ran a charter boat in Veracruz. Perhaps they have been saving for this, she thought.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” said Mrs. Ross. “My plants need watering. You’ve been ignoring them.”
“Señora!” Serena’s round face stiffened with outrage. “Every day I carried the big watering can out there and cared for your plants. Every day! Not once did I …”
“Then get about it!”
Mrs. Ross turned away, shuffled toward her bedroom. She realized she was being unfair. The herbs looked as healthy and lush as they ever had. But there must be something she’s let slide, she thought. I’ll find it as soon as I can get around better.
Saturday morning Mrs. Ross felt almost her old self. She got out of bed debating whether to give the house a thoroug
h inspection or to hire the village taxi for a tour of her tenant properties. She opened the ropero, studied the ranks of her clothing, chose a gray dress with emerald piping at the collar and sleeves.
A swaying string of cobweb that dipped from the top of the ropero to the wall caught Mrs. Ross’s eye. She frowned.
The house comes first, she decided. If it’s anything like this room it must be a shambles!
There were voices outside by the front gate. Mrs. Ross slipped into the grey dress, buttoned it, listening: Serena with a tradesman. A squawking chicken raised a hubbub somewhere down the street, set the dogs to barking.
Serena finished her bargaining. Mrs. Ross adjusted the belt of her dress, heard a burro driver call to his animal, the abrupt rhythm of hooves on cobblestones.
Downstairs, a door closed with a heavy thump.
Mrs. Ross left her bedroom, crossed the hall to the upstairs sitting room, thence to the red-draped French doors. The odor of her potted herbs hung heavily there. She pulled back a corner of the draperies, peered down through the balcony railing.
Paulita sat at her window, black braids tied with red bows. Morning sunshine poured in on her, washed her cheeks with golden light. The Hidalgo beauty stood out strongly in Paulita this morning: proud curve of neck, a tiny smile on the passionate lips, the flashing dark eyes.
Mrs. Ross smiled. Everything will be as it was.
Paulita was knitting on something green this morning. Her fingers flew across the work with a sharp rhythm.
I’ll just say hello, thought Mrs. Ross. She opened the doors, stepped outside, leaned across the riotous green of the parsley.
It was then that Mrs. Ross noticed Paulita’s self-conscious attention to the knitting, the way she avoided looking up when it was obvious that she must have heard the French doors.
Mrs. Ross became aware of a noise beneath her balcony, looked down.
Hoblitt!
He was bent over his sketch pad. The duck curl of blond hair pointed upward at the nape of his neck.
Mrs. Ross had the sensation that time had slipped backward, that she had lived through this moment before. Then a sense of horrible fascination overcame her as she realized that Hoblitt was not sketching, but was using the pad to conceal something from Paulita. Sunlight glistened off nickel-plated metal. Mrs. Ross could not quite see what it was he held in his hand, but her mind leaped to its own conclusion: He has a gun! Good heavens! He’s found out about Paulita’s legs!
A Thorn in the Bush Page 5