“Perdóneme, señorita,” he said. “Qué estás haciendo?”
“Eh?” said Lucie, looking up at the old man. “What did you say, Jim?”
“Yo no soy Jim, señorita. Mi nombre es Teodoro.”
Lucie blinked, and stared up into his wrinkled, kindly face. “Teodoro?” she repeated. “What are you doing on my raft?”
“Lo siento, señorita, pero no sé –”
“Are you heading south?” she persisted. “Because we are. If you need a ride, we can take you – can’t we, Jim?” She looked all around; supposedly for Jim. “Well, it’s just the strangest thing,” she said. “I can’t seem to find Jim. He must be taking a swim.”
But Teodoro, who spoke scarcely a word of English, had no idea what she was saying. He just spread his hands, and shook his head. He asked, “Quieres caminar juntos?”
“Eh?” said Lucie.
“Quieres caminar?” he said, turning his hand upside down, and moving his index and middle fingers back and forth, as if they were walking through the air. “Caminar juntos?”
Lucie sighed.
“Venga,” said the old man, waving his hand. “Vamos a ir a Clara.”
“Clara?” said Lucie, rolling the word all around on her tongue, not exactly knowing whom it signified – but feeling partial to it nonetheless. “I like that name,” she said. “Almost as much as Sylvie.” She looked up carefully at the old man, and asked him, “Do you know Sylvie?”
Teodoro shook his head; though probably not exactly in answer to the question.
“Hmmm,” said Lucie. “Do I know Sylvie?”
“No sé lo que estás diciendo, señorita. Venga! Venga conmigo!”
He held out his hand to Lucie; and, without thinking much about it, she took it. They walked down the streets together, in the dim glow from the lamps overhead, and the more brilliant whiteness of the moonlight.
“Jim will never find me now,” Lucie muttered. She peered out into the street, as if in a final attempt before giving up hope. “He’ll never make it without me! They’ll catch him, and send him back to the widow, just for the reward.”
Teodoro sighed, and passed a hand over his face.
~
Now, Lucie had been missed at Little Tortuga Street for some hours. Her absence wasn’t noticed in the morning, as the family was used to her sleeping in, on account of what drowsiness accompanied her pain medication. But come lunchtime, Mrs. Vicente began to wonder with Maríbel where she could be; and upon the latter’s checking her brothers’ little bedroom, and finding it empty, they began to worry.
When Alejandra arrived home, she was cornered by her mother and sister, and asked repeatedly whether she knew what had become of Lucie. Alejandra would have sneered, and inquired just why they thought she should know where the lunatic was – but she did no such thing, seeing as she didn’t want to do anything that would put her out of favor, and thereby make her mother wonder why she was coming home at such a time, when she hadn’t even been seen to leave in the morning (and in the same clothes, no less, as she had worn the day before). The truth was that she hadn’t come home at all, in between running out after Robert the night before, and the present moment. But most of her family had gone to bed early, and had perhaps confused the sound of the door closing upon Tomás’s departure, with what they thought was Alejandra’s return.
Clara had come in just at daybreak, and only a very little while after Lucie quit the place. When all the others woke, she was asleep; but Maríbel thought to go and rouse her, after learning nothing from Alejandra. So she shook Clara from her sleep, and asked her whether she knew where Lucie had gone? Clara answered that she didn’t know, but was sure that she was perfectly fine, wherever she was – though she couldn’t get back to sleep after her sister left her, for worry that was three times greater than either Josefína’s or Maríbel’s. She stared up at the ceiling, and wondered if she shouldn’t go out and search for Lucie. But she kept to her bed, and didn’t move.
Old Mateo and Eduardo came home that evening, at just the same time they always did. Of course Mrs. Vicente didn’t ask them if they knew anything; but you can be sure that she was on top of César, the very moment he walked through the door. He was late in coming, and seemingly cross, but Mrs. Vicente spared him nothing for that. Yet we all know, however, that he knew absolutely nothing concerning Lucie’s whereabouts, and so his mother was finally obliged to release him from her anxious talons.
When night fell down in all its murky blackness, everyone gave in to their fear, and began to imagine the terrible things that could happen to a young stranger, in that little part of the world. They began to think, the very thing that Robert Benoit had once predicted – and that was that they should hear of Lucie’s body being found, in a dark and deep ditch somewhere.
The black night was especially thick for Clara, who stood always by the window, never stirring and never sitting. Her eyes were fixed on the sidewalk. She wished every moment to see Lucie approaching: a thin, white speck that grew larger and larger, and finally stopped at the metal door below, to ring for her admission. She wondered if she was to blame; and decided that she was.
Finally César could put it off no more, and had to make the call that he had been dreading. It was eleven o’clock. The hoarseness of Robert Benoit’s voice suggested that he had been asleep; and that he was not at all grateful for having been waked. César explained the dilemma, and expressed the need for Robert’s presence at Little Tortuga Street.
“Why should I come there?” Robert demanded. “She’ll turn up eventually. She always does.”
César began to grind his teeth; but left off quickly with this less than helpful activity, and then started to speak again, just as calmly as he was able. “I think it would be best if you came right away,” he said.
Robert grumbled a good deal, and ended by disconnecting the line, without ever specifying whether or not he intended to come. Yet he arrived just before midnight, in his hat and coat, bleary-eyed and vicious. He threw himself down on the sofa in the parlor, laid his chin on his fist, and prepared to await his sister’s return in absolutely the most ugly humor he could muster.
It was well-nigh two o’clock, when the knock came at the door. Everyone (save Robert and Alejandra) rushed from the parlor in a wave; and when the door was flung open, to reveal Lucie on the arm of Teodoro, many cries of joy were loosed.
“Lucie!” exclaimed Clara, pressing forward through the little crowd to draw the bewildered young woman inside. Teodoro gave her up readily, having grown considerably uneasy over the course of their short journey, on account of what odd and nonsensical things kept popping out of his companion’s mouth. Of course, he didn’t know exactly what she was saying; but he sensed the strangeness of it just the same.
He spoke for a little with Mrs. Vicente, declined the offer of a refreshment, and then went on his way back down the hall. Mrs. Vicente closed the door after him, sighing with relief.
Lucie was ushered into the parlor, where she was set down on the loveseat beside Clara, who began immediately to pull the hair back from her face, and rub the streaks of dirt from her pale cheeks. Mrs. Vicente brought her a cup of hot coffee, and Maríbel gave her a damp towel; but she looked at both of these things as if she didn’t know what they were. In the end she only sighed, and pushed them away.
“Where were you, Lucie?” Clara asked, taking up the towel to finish cleaning Lucie’s grimy face. “Where have you been all day?”
Again, Lucie heaved a sigh; and when she looked to Clara, she only asked, “Have you seen Jim? I can’t find him anywhere.”
Clara looked to Robert in confusion. “Who’s Jim?” she asked.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” said Robert. “Most likely he doesn’t exist.”
“Ah, Jim!” murmured Lucie, taking up another strain of her lament – the sounds of which, if not the actual details, old Teodoro had gotten very acquainted with on their way to Little Tortuga Street. “I only hope you get to
Cairo!” she went on. “I can’t help you now.”
Clara tilted her head to one side, and pursed her lips, thinking. “Lucie?” she repeated.
Lucie made no answer.
“Huckleberry Finn?”
Lucie’s head snapped up, and she was at attention. She looked into Clara’s face, and said, “Do you know me?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” cried Robert. “Not another one of her damned books!”
But the rest of the party was mightily perplexed. They all looked nervously to Lucie; and then questioningly to Clara.
“Everything is fine,” she said to them. Then she rose up, and took Lucie by the hand. “Come on to bed, Huck,” she said. “You’ve had a long day.”
“Oh, haven’t I!” said Lucie. “But I won’t be able to sleep, not without knowing what happened. And on top of everything – I lost my raft! The wind blew something terrible in the night, and must have loosened the rope . . .”
If all the others hadn’t been puzzled before, they certainly were now. But Clara only nodded to them, and continued to lead Lucie out of the room. Halfway, though, Lucie stopped, and turned round to face her brother. “Why,” she said, “is that you, Tom?”
“No,” Robert spat vehemently. “It is not. My name is Robert, and your name is Lucie. I am sane, and you are not. I can’t believe I came here for this foolishness!”
He snatched up his hat, which he had perched on the back of the sofa, and jammed it onto his head.
“What is he talking about?” Lucie whispered to Clara. “I’ve never seen Tom so mad before. Do you think it was Aunt Polly who made him so? I remember my pap used to –”
“Hush now,” said Clara, squeezing her hand. “He’s only tired. Best to let him get to bed.”
“Well, all right,” said Lucie, hanging her head. “Goodnight, Tom.”
Robert said nothing; but only stared at his sister, with a tic in his right eye.
“Can’t you just say goodnight?” Clara hissed.
“I won’t!” he hollered. “I won’t. You want her, then you have her. You all seem to like her so damned much – well, just see how much you like her, after she’s done this about twenty times! I daresay you won’t be quite so fond of her, then.”
He turned to Lucie, and said, “You’re a dangerous little trollop, sister of mine. You’re enough to drive a man out of his mind – or off of a bridge! You’re a pretty little poison, you are!” He frowned. “Only not so pretty, not to me. Oh – I hate you!”
Suddenly Lucie’s eyes cleared; and she looked at Robert in a different way. Her lips twitched, her throat worked, and a single tear slipped down her cheek.
“Ah – you know me now, I suppose!” said Robert. “You should all thank me. She’s been known to stay that way for days!”
But no one seemed ready to congratulate him. Each face looked to him, with a varying amount of venom; and even Alejandra was made somewhat uncomfortable, by this merciless attack he made upon his sister.
“Well, then!” he said. “I see how it’s going to be. But like I said – keep her if you want her! Only don’t come crying to me, next time she turns up missing. And trust me – she will!”
He tugged at his lapels, hard enough to rip them clean from his coat; straightened his hat once more, and was gone.
18
The Snake Again
Lucie woke late next morning (indeed, it was nearly noon), and came out into the kitchen looking quite refreshed. Not that there was anyone to see her; for Mrs. Vicente was in the work-room with Maríbel, hard-pressed to complete a large job that had just been assigned her. This job was to produce a mother’s leaving-home present for her daughter, which was a quilt made entirely of the girl’s old baby things. Mrs. Vicente appreciated the sentiment of the gift (though, having borne five children herself, she of course had been obliged to conserve each one’s items of infancy, so as to make use of them with the next child; and so all of the children had had the same “baby things,” and there would have been nothing very special about making a quilt out of them), but her hands were growing cramped and stiff, and she became crosser every minute. Her eyes, which were not so sharp as they used to be, grew tired after about six hours’ hard work. So she left her daughter to one or two lighter tasks, and went to lie down for a while on her bed, to rest her blurry eyes.
Lucie saw her come out into the hall, and chirped out a very pleasant “Good morning.” Josefína didn’t turn her head, for her neck had a crick in it; but she responded just as cheerfully as she could, before pushing through the door to her bedroom. So Lucie was left alone with a bowl of cereal, whose brightly-colored marshmallow pieces pleased her immensely, and were in fact the only company she required.
César wasn’t at home, and Alejandra had quit the house very early in the morning (we can only guess where it was that she was headed at such an hour). But Clara was still asleep – for she had sat for a very long while the night before at Lucie’s bedside, unsure whether she should leave her, while she was so very obviously not in her right mind. Finally, however, Lucie fell fast asleep, and showed no signs at all of waking again; so Clara sat for a little time more, and then went off to her own bed, more fatigued than she could perhaps ever remember feeling.
The afternoon had already begun to wane, by the time she left her bed. First she looked into Lucie’s room, but of course found it empty. So she went out into the kitchen, and found a cereal bowl drying in the dish-rack beside the sink; but no Lucie.
A very soft noise came to her ear, and she looked towards it, to see Lucie sitting in the parlor before the little television. Her eyes were bright, and the color had come back into her face while she slept. She had changed from the sorry suit of clothes she wore the night before, and was looking very fresh and neat, there in the sunlight beside the window.
“Good morning, Lucie,” Clara said.
“Good morning, Clara! You’ve slept late today.”
“I suppose I did.”
Lucie laughed, and said, “Well, I think I did, too.” But then a look of worry came into her face, and she asked, “You’re not feeling ill, are you?”
“I –”
But Clara stopped on her way to the remainder of this sentence, and let it fall.
“What did you do last night, Lucie?” she asked instead.
Lucie puckered her lips, and thought for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I must have gone to bed early.”
~
The day went on just as usual. When Mrs. Vicente left her bed, she went back to her work; and by nightfall, she and Maríbel had reached the halfway point of their project. They retired from it feeling very satisfied, and went together to prepare supper.
Not long after Clara woke, César came home. He sat till dusk with her and Lucie, and they passed several pleasant hours together. He jumped up when he saw his mamá, and ran to greet her with a hug and a kiss. She batted him away, and told him that she’d had a very long day, but smiled at him nonetheless. So he offered very gallantly to help her with supper; and then waved Clara and Lucie into the fray. But César was neither particularly graceful nor dainty; and what with his good-hearted knocking about of elbows and pots, the work perhaps didn’t get done any faster with five, than it would have with just the two.
Mr. Vicente arrived with Eduardo at mealtime, and all the family (except for Alejandra, who was still missing) sat down together to a jolly dinner. There was much talking, and even more laughing; and no one made the slightest mention of a person named Huckleberry Finn.
Alejandra swept in just as supper was ending, made herself a plate, and sat down with a most frightful scowl upon her face. Eduardo asked her where she had been, but she told him to mind his own business. So then her father put to her the same question; and she was obliged to answer.
“Yo pasé el día con una amiga,” she said.
“Qué amiga?”
“Elena.”
“Yo pense que Elena estaba en Puerto Vallarta?”
> “Ella regresó.”
“Después de cuatro días?”
“Oh, déjame sola!” Alejandra said loudly. She pushed her plate away, and hurried from the table. She had told her father that she spent the day with a friend; and upon his saying that he had thought that friend was in Puerto Vallarta, her story was for the most part ruined, though she did try to preserve it. After she had gone, everyone was left looking at one another, and shrugging their shoulders in varying degrees of confusion. But Lucie knew, and Clara knew, very well where Alejandra had been; and they looked into one another’s faces, and frowned; for they knew that no good would come of it.
~
Lucie spent a long while thinking of Alejandra, and pitying her – for no one in the world knew Robert better than she did. But her thoughts were distracted, and indeed she forgot all about Alejandra, after the telephone rang, and Clara was called away.
Just as she knew where the one sister had been, so did she know where the other was going; and it put her in a very sour mood.
Surely enough, less than an hour after Clara had gone, she returned with Tomás. They came together into the parlor, and Tomás was greeted heartily. Then they sat down, and everyone began to talk, though the static was so very loud in Lucie’s own head, that she could scarcely hear anything they said. She spent her time trying to sift through it – and when that didn’t work, she tried to peel back a corner of it, as if it were a curtain. But each time she grasped it, it slipped from her hands as if made of water, and fell back into place.
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