He leaned forward, smelling faintly of incense and copal, of candles burning on the altars. His eyes were so very black, so very deep, and she thought she’d never seen eyes like that, eyes dark and quiet as the grave.
She wondered if his lips might taste like sugar skulls.
It was terrifying.
Georgina wept. She tried to hide her face, mortified.
“What is wrong?” Death asked.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
He frowned. With a wave of his hand the pearls melted away.
“I see. Very well Georgina, perhaps we can revisit our agreement.”
Georgina rubbed her eyes and looked up at him.
“I want a day of your life. One day of your heart.”
“Just one day?”
“Only one. Tomorrow morning tell everyone you are sick and do not leave your room. I will visit you.”
“Yes,” she said.
And then he was gone, gone into the shadows, and she ran up the stairs to the dressmaker.
* * *
Georgina told the maids that she felt sick and locked the door. She went behind her painted screen and changed into a simple skirt and blouse. Death appeared early and Georgina sat down in a chair, not knowing what was supposed to happen.
“Perfect. A phonograph,” he said, and ran to the other side of the room. “What kind of music do you like?”
“I don’t like music. My father bought it for me.”
“What about films?” Death asked, as he fiddled with her recordings, picking one.
“I don’t watch films. I wouldn’t be going to a carpa.”
“Why not?”
“People are rowdy and my mother… oh, she would go insane if she heard I’d gone anywhere near that sort of place.”
“I love films. I love anything that is new and exciting. The automobile, for example, is a wonderful method of transportation.”
Music began to play and Georgina frowned.
“What is that?” she asked.
“You like it? It’s ragtime. Come on, dance with me.”
She wondered what she would do if her mother came peeking through the keyhole and saw her dancing with a stranger. What her mother would do to her.
“I don’t dance.”
“I’ll show you.”
He took her hand and pulled her up, two steps in the same direction onto the same foot, then a closing step with the other foot. It seemed simple but Georgina kept getting it wrong.
“What?” he asked.
“I didn’t think Death would dance. I thought you’d be more… gloomy. And thin.”
“So I’m fat, am I?”
“I mean skeleton thin, and yellow.”
“Why yellow?”
“I don’t know. Or maybe red. Like in Poe’s story.”
“My sister likes red.”
“You have siblings?”
“Lots and lots of them.”
Georgina, busy watching her feet, finally got it right and laughed.
* * *
Georgina noticed the glass of wine, the grapes and cheese and wondered if she should drink and eat. She recalled how Persephone had been trapped with only six grains of pomegranate. What would happen to her if she ate one whole cheese?
“You’re not hungry?” Death said, and lay down on the Persian rug as comfortably and nonchalantly as if he were having a picnic in a field of daisies instead of in her room. “What are you thinking about?” Georgina sat very neatly at his side, smoothing her skirt and trying to keep an air of decorum.
“What is your sister like?” she asked, not wanting to talk about Persephone.
“Which one?”
“The one that wears red.”
“Oh, her. She’s trouble, that one. Hot-headed and angry and crimson. She’s definitely not a lady. Or maybe a lady of iron. Tough girl.”
“And your brothers?”
“Well, there’s one who is like water. He slips in and out of houses, liquid and shimmering, and leaves a trail of stars behind.”
Georgina tried to picture this and frowned. But she couldn’t really see his sister or his brother as anything but skeletons in papel picado, pretty decorations for November’s altars.
The clock struck midnight, chiming and groaning. The twenty-four hours he had asked for would come to an end soon. Georgina wouldn’t see him again. Well, hopefully not until she was a very old and wrinkled lady. Probably a married lady; Mrs. Navarrete with five children and sixteen grandchildren, bent over a cane and unable to dance to any kind of music.
“And then I’ll die,” she muttered.
“Pardon me?” Death asked, his hands laced behind his head.
“Nothing.”
But now that the idea of old age had taken hold of her, now that she could picture herself in wedding and baptismal and anniversary pictures, grey-haired with time stamped on her face, suddenly she wasn’t afraid of death. She wasn’t afraid of death for the first time in years: she was afraid of life. Or at least, the life she was able to neatly see, the cards laid out with no surprises.
It was horrible.
“I hate my hair,” she said and she got up, standing before the full-length mirror, and she had no idea why she said this or why the silly chignon made her so furious all of a sudden.
Her fingers tangled in the curls at the nape of her neck and she pulled them, several pins bouncing on the rug.
“I like it,” he said, looking over her shoulder and at her reflection.
He smelt of flowers and incense. She thought Death would smell of damp earth and catacombs and be ice cold to the touch. But she’d been wrong about many details concerning Death. Curiously she slipped a hand up, brushing his cheek.
No, he wasn’t cold at all but warm and human to the touch.
In the mirror their eyes locked.
“Don’t touch me,” he warned her, “or something in you will die.”
“I don’t believe it,” she replied, and kissed him on the lips, even if she half-believed it.
He tasted sweet.
Death is sweet, she thought and giggled at the thought. He smiled at her, teeth white and perfect and then his smile ebbed and he was serious. He looked at her and she thought he was seeing through the layers of skin and muscle, looking at her naked skeleton and her naked self.
“If you touch me again I’ll take your heart,” he whispered.
“Then take it,” she said with a defiance she hadn’t thought she possessed, wishing to die a little.
She slept in death’s arms, naked over a rug of orange petals.
~ 2 ~
Georgina had spent the last seven years of her life thinking every day about Death. But now she did not think about him, not even for an instant; she did not think about life either. In fact, she thought and said very little.
Like a clockwork figurine she rose from her bed, ate her meals and went to mass. But she wasn’t really there, instead, she lay suspended in a sleepy haze, resembling a somnambulist walking the tightrope.
Sometimes Georgina would stir, the vague sensation that she’d forgotten something of importance coursing through her body, and then she shook her head. The feeling was insignificant, a phantom limb stretching out.
* * *
Georgina rode in her carriage down Plateros. Rosario snored while Georgina observed the men in top hats walking on the sidewalks and the cargadores shoving their way through the crowds. She’d gone to her fitting with the seamstress that morning. Her wedding gown. Now she thought about that day almost a year ago when she’d met Death underneath the stairs.
There was something she was forgetting.
There was something else.
But who cared? Wedding gown. Marriage. Life pre-written.
She was getting
married in a month’s time. Ignacio had bought her a necklace crammed with diamonds from La Esmeralda and her mother had cooed over the extravagant purchase. It would be a good marriage, her father said.
Georgina did not care.
And now she sat so very quietly, so very still, like a living-dead doll staring out the window.
Something caught her eye: a woman in scarlet, her dress so gaudy it burned even among the other prostitutes who were now starting to sneak into the streets as night fell.
Red.
Georgina had been in a trance for twelve months and she had not even realized it. In a little coffin of her own making, Georgina dreamed pleasant dreams. Now she awoke. Apple dislodged, glass crashing.
“Stop!” she ordered Nicanor, and the carriage gave a little jolt.
Georgina climbed out and went towards the woman.
“I know your brother,” Georgina said when she reached her.
The prostitute smiled a crimson smile, a hand on her hips.
“Do you? Bastard son of a bitch-mother. Run along.”
“No. I mean … I thought … do you know me?”
“He got a babe in you, has he? Go bother someone else dear, I’ve got to work.”
Georgina was confused. For a moment she thought she had the wrong woman. How could she be mistaken? What could she do? What could she say?
Georgina took a deep breath.
“He is like flowers made of blackness and when he kissed me he tasted like the night.”
The prostitute’s face did not change. She was still grinning with her ample mouth but her eyes burrowed deeper into Georgina, measuring her.
“What do you want?” asked the red woman.
“Where is he?”
“He’s not here. Not now.”
“Where is he?”
“What does it matter? You don’t want anything to do with him.”
“I said, where is he?”
The woman, taller than Georgina, looked down at her as though she were a small dog yelping at her feet.
“You should head home and marry your rich man, little girl. Forgetting is easy and it doesn’t hurt.”
“I have already been forgetting.”
“Forget some more.”
“He has something of mine.”
The red death, the woman-death, sneered.
“He’ll be at Palacio Nacional in ten days, but then he heads north. Catch him then or you’ll never catch him at all.”
She walked away leaving Georgina standing by the window of a café. Nicanor squinted and gave her a weird look.
“What are you doing talking to that lady, miss Georgina?”
“I’m doing nothing,” she replied and rushing back into the carriage slammed the door shut.
* * *
When Georgina returned home, her father was very happy and her mother sat on the couch, pale with watery eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The cadets at Tacubaya are up in arms,” her father said.
“They’re fighting at the Zócalo,” her brother said. “They’re shooting with machine guns from Palacio National.”
And then she thought Death would be at Palacio Nacional in ten days. He had arrived early.
“We’ll get Don Porfirio back,” her father said, and as usual he was already changing his allegiances, Madero completely forgotten.
* * *
It was like a party. A small and insane party. Her father talked animatedly about the events of the day, foretelling the brilliant return to the good old days, to Don Porfirio. But then the chattering grew sparse.
They said several newspaper offices had been set on fire. They said many people were dead. The roar of the cannons echoed non-stop. It got underneath their skin as they sat in the salon. Very quietly, very carefully, the doors were closed, locked with strong wooden beams from the inside.
The electricity had gone out and Georgina lay in the dark listening to the machine guns. They seemed very near.
She pressed a hand against her lips and thought Death must be there, outside, walking through the darkened city.
Her father had the carriage packed with everything he could think to carry. Even a mattress was tied to the roof.
“We’re going to Veracruz in the morning,” her father repeated. “We’re going to Veracruz on the train.”
Was there even a train left? The streets were teeming with prisoners that had escaped from Belén and they said the Imperial had been destroyed. Would there be any trains for them?
“We’re going to Veracruz in the morning.”
“Your hair, pull your hair up, girl,” her mother ordered, but Georgina did not obey her. It seemed ridiculous to worry about hair pins.
Her mother turned around to scream at the maids. Something or the other needed to be taken. Something or the other was valuable and they would have to pack it.
It was the tenth day.
* * *
On the tenth night Georgina tiptoed down the great staircase and stood at the large front door with the heavy wooden beam in place. Nicanor was sitting with his back to the door.
“What is it, miss?” he asked.
“I need to go out tonight,” she said.
“You can’t do that. They’re fighting.”
“I’ve got to go meet someone. And he won’t wait for me,” she took out the necklace. “I’ll trade you this for a horse and a gun.”
The necklace was worth a small fortune. That was what her father had said when he held it up and it shimmered under the chandeliers. Nicanor looked down, staring long and quiet at the jewels.
“I’ll be back by dawn,” she said.
“No, you won’t.”
“The fighting has ceased for the night. There’s no noise from the cannons.”
“What would you be looking for…?”
“A man,” she said.
“Does he really mean that much to you?”
What a question. What did she know? How dare he ask it? How could she answer it? But there were so many things she never thought she might be able to do, and she’d done them.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think he does.”
Nicanor took out a pistol.
~ 3 ~
The streets had transformed. The buildings had strange new shadows. It was a different city. Georgina rode through the night and the night had no stars, only the barking of dogs. She turned a street and a horse came her way, galloping with no rider on its back. The air smelled of iron and there was also another more unpleasant smell: somewhere nearby they were burning the dead.
Closer to the Zócalo she began to meet people, wounded men tottering by, and women. So many women. Tending to their wounded, with cananas across their chest and a gun at their hip. She wondered where they came from and who they were fighting for. They might be with Felipe Ángeles, called over to help Madero stall the wave of attackers. They might be anyone.
But he wasn’t there and his very absence struck her as unnatural. He must be hiding.
“I am not leaving,” she whispered, gripping the reins.
She rushed through streets that snaked and split and went up a hill. The city and the night had no end. She rode through them, not knowing where she was. Georgina believed she might be near Lecumberri or maybe going down Moneda. She saw a car pass her, shinning black, and kept riding.
She stumbled onto a wide street with a horse laying in the middle of it, its entrails on the ground. A group of rurales were walking her way. Georgina hid in the shadows, held her pistol and watched them go by.
She thought of death; a bullet lodged in her skull. She wanted to go back home.
“I’m not leaving. Show yourself, coward,” she muttered.
And then she saw him, or at last he allowed her to see
him, standing in an alley. He had a straw hat that shadowed his face but she recognized Death.
“What are you doing, Georgina?” he asked. “You’re far from home tonight. Why are you looking for me? We’ve made our trade.”
She dismounted, staring at his face of grey and shadows.
“It was not a fair trade.”
“I was more than generous.”
“You didn’t warn me,” she said, and she shoved him against the wall. “I’ve died.”
“Love is dying. Or maybe it’s not. It is the opposite. I forget.”
“Give me my heart. It’s of no use to you.”
“On the contrary. It’s of no use to you, my dear. For what will you do with this heart except let it grow stale and musty in a box?”
“It’s mine.”
“You couldn’t have missed it that much. It’s been a year and you haven’t remembered it at all.”
“It was not yours for the taking!”
“But you didn’t want it. You wanted to die and you didn’t want it anymore.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
He looked up, the shadows retreating from his face. He had shaved his moustache. He looked younger. A boy, and she a girl.
“I said a day and it was a day. What’s fair is fair. You had no right to sneak out with it.”
“I warned you,” he replied.
“You didn’t explain anything at all.”
“It was given freely.”
“For a day!”
“Sometimes one day is forever.”
“You are a sneaky liar, a fraud…”
“Go home Georgina,” he said. “My brothers are headed here. Madero dies soon and it’ll be very dangerous.”
“You’re killing him?”
“No. Not I. I’m killing an era. But one of my siblings will. Either way, you’ll want to go.”
The sound of bullets hitting a wall broke the quiet of the night. Then it faded. Georgina trembled. She wanted to run but she stayed still, her eyes fixed on Death and he looked back at her with his inky gaze. It was he who blinked and turned his head away.
“Persistent, as usual. What then? Oh, fine. Here, take your heart. Bury it in the garden like some radish and see what sprouts.”
He opened his hand and a flower fell upon her palm, a bright orange cempoalxochitl. She cupped it very carefully, afraid it might break as easily as an egg. She thought it would be difficult to walk all the way home with her hands outstretched, yet she was ready to do it. She’d put it in a box and ship it to Veracruz.
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