The Hidden Light of Mexico City

by Carmen Amato

  “Yes, you are. I want you to know you’ll be all right with me.” He put his hands in his pockets.

  She couldn’t keep standing there holding the wallet in middle of the crowded plaza so Luz put it in the Prada tote, trying not to think how reckless she was being. Eddo crooked his elbow, another of his charming courtly gestures, and she slipped her arm through his. A little thrill rippled down her spine as they walked through the woods to Avenida Mahatma Gandhi.

  '

  Eddo Cortez Castillo drove a late model Japanese SUV. It was smaller than the Vega’s Suburban but nicer inside, all charcoal leather and smelling like coffee from an empty Starbucks cup. Luz tucked the Prada tote under her feet so that no one looking inside the car could see it, and put on her seat belt. Eddo nodded his approval. He put the car in gear and bounced over the curb onto the street.

  “So do you usually sketch on Sunday mornings?”

  “When I can,” Luz replied but it occurred to her that she’d have to keep the conversation away from herself and what she did. “So. What brought you this morning?”

  “That’s a good question.” His eyes flickered as he checked his mirrors and turned onto Reforma. He drove skillfully, even better than Hector. “Art meant a great deal to my father. Said it gave him perspective.”

  Luz noted the past tense. “Did he pass away recently?”

  “Almost 15 years ago. Lost both my parents in a car accident.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Luz said. “Were you very close?” The car swung around El Angel, turned by the Sheraton and headed east on Lerma. They passed the United States embassy and her stomach fluttered.

  “We . . . we shared a lot.”

  “I know how you feel.” Luz thought about the timing. “My father died about the same time. Hit by a bus.”

  “Madre de Dios. I’m sorry.” The car stopped at a light. Eddo looked at her, warmth and sadness in his hazel eyes. The fact that they had both lost parents formed a small bond.

  A dirty street urchin scrambled onto the hood and the spell was broken. The child grinned and squirted soapy water from a plastic bottle onto the windshield. Eddo nodded at the child and Luz had the impression that he’d checked first to see if there were accomplices--men often robbed motorists as a window washer distracted them--but she hadn’t actually seen Eddo look around. Nonetheless she knew that he’d decided the situation was safe, as if the castellano man had the instincts of a street fighter.

  The child industriously cleaned off the windshield. Eddo tipped him 10 pesos. Luz was astonished; the going rate for a windshield cleaning was no more than 2 pesos.

  Eddo caught her expression as the light changed and the car moved forward. “He’s got a quota to make. If he doesn’t bring enough to his handler, he doesn’t get any food.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Luz said as if she’d never had nightmares of her brother cleaning windshields.

  “So do you take after your father?” Eddo asked as the car moved through traffic. “Was he artistic, too?”

  “In his own way, I think he was. I used to draw a lot of pictures for him--.” Luz caught herself. The pictures had been designs for things he could make in the forge such as candlesticks and lamp bases. If Eddo asked what her father had done for a living it would lead to a question about what Luz did for a living. “The museum,” she said hastily, trying for a neutral topic. “In the museum. What did you call me? ‘Kagemusha?’”

  “Sorry.” Eddo grinned. “It was just those big Japanese banners. They reminded me of the scene with the armies all lined up, the big banners rippling in the wind, all this great samurai armor and horses.”

  Luz stared at him. She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. The social gulf between them suddenly widened into a dark, sucking chasm. “It’s a movie?” she groped.

  “Yes. Kagemusha. A great movie by Kurosawa. Although a pretty obscure reference, I admit.”

  “A movie.” A safe subject, even if it made her feel stupid. “What was it about, apart from banners?”

  “Great plot.” He took one hand off the wheel to gesture. “Medieval Japan. Kagemusha is this peasant who impersonates a dead warlord. The impersonation is necessary to prevent the warlord’s enemies from defeating the clan.”

  Luz’s heart stopped and her back went rigid as he said peasant and impersonates. Of course. He was mocking her, telling her that he knew who she really was. He’d seen through her coffee-dyed blouse and scuffed work shoes and flat coarse hair. She dropped her eye to the door handle. But the car was still moving and all she could do was say “Really?”

  “Most beautifully shot movie I’ve ever seen,” Eddo continued. “Cast of thousands in medieval Japanese armor and of course those rippling banners. The military scenes were--.” He stopped. “I’m probably boring you.”

  “No, not at all.” Luz’s jaw was so tight she could hardly speak. “What happened in the end?”

  “Kagemusha does pretty well for awhile but eventually he’s revealed as an imposter,” Eddo said. “Gets run off. The clan is wiped out. Didn’t matter if it was the real warlord or the imposter, without him the army just fell apart. I guess the lesson is that appearance is everything.”

  He knew. If he’d come out and said he knew who she was she could have dealt with it, but no, he’d chosen this cruel, humiliating, upper class way to do it.

  “At least I think that’s what the movie was about.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “Saw it years ago in Paris in Japanese with French subtitles. I kept thinking that if I just knew what jusqu’á meant I’d know what was going on.”

  “It means ‘until,’” Luz managed.

  “Now she tells me,” he joked and deftly dropped the car into a parking space on the edge of the Jardin del Arte.

  Luz undid her seat belt, her hands shaking and her heart pounding. Everything was blurry.

  “Are you all right?” Eddo took the key out of the ignition and looked at her. “Do you have allergies?”

  Before she could answer, he reached over the armrest, pulled two bottles of water from a shrink-wrapped carton on the backseat floor, and held out one to her. “This city is the worst place in the world for people with allergies.”

  His face was full of concern, no deceit or hidden message there at all.

  “Yes,” Luz said. “Do you mind waiting?”

  “Take your time.”

  Luz found a tissue, blew her nose, and drank some water. He opened her door, like she was a queen, and they waded into the sea of paintings that was the Jardin del Arte.

  '

  They strolled slowly, occasionally being bumped into each other by the crowd. Jardin del Arte was big, about three city blocks long and one deep. They pointed out their likes and dislikes and Eddo listened as Luz explained the different techniques--“you mean ‘medium,’ right?”--acrylic, watercolor, pastels, oils.

  There were hundreds of canvases for sale. There were brightly colored rural Mexican scenes with the inevitable donkey, the inevitable old houses, and the inevitable dark-haired girls holding terra cotta jugs. There were rows of seascapes, mostly monochromatic monstrosities like the one in the Vega’s living room, and lots of odd modernistic things that neither of them liked. But here and there they found a few gems; a tiny painting of an apple that looked amazingly real, a series of white flowers against dark backgrounds, a filmy watercolor of the Xochimilco canals.

  “Watercolors are hard to use here, though,” Luz said regretfully. “You can’t hang a watercolor on a stucco wall. It’s not substantial enough. You have to hang oil or acrylic on stucco.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Eddo said.

  Luz tried to explain about texture and decorating with art but he laughed and said, “You should stop while you’re ahead. I know what ‘medium’ means,” and Luz said, “Well now, Kagemusha.”

  Finally there was nothing new to see. They drifted back to the car, talking about the few pieces they’d liked and the many pieces they hadn’t.
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  “You know,” Eddo said, putting the keys into the ignition. “I’ve never learned so much or had a better teacher.”

  “Thank you,” Luz said. She tucked the Prada tote under the seat like she’d done before.

  “May I at least buy you some dinner? In gratitude for no longer being so ignorant?”

  “I’ve imposed too much on your time already,” Luz said. She’d been planning to ask him to drop her off at the museum. She couldn’t keep up the charade forever.

  “But I’m the one asking.” He started the car. “There’s an excellent Argentine place at the Centro Commercial de Santa Fe.”

  The suggestion was unexpected and unnerving. Santa Fe was a huge mall at least 40 minutes from where they were, west on Reforma back past the museums, until the big street turned into the eight lane highway that ran through the new western suburbs. A bastion of the upper class, the Santa Fe mall was ostentatiously guarded by an army of private security in bulletproof vests. It had all the very best stores; branches of Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool, and specialty European stores like Massimo Dutti and Prada. Cinemas, restaurants, a betting club, and an enormous children’s play village rounded out the mall’s attractions. Luz had been there before, in her uniform, carrying Señora Vega’s purchases.

  “That sounds fine,” she breathed.

  '

  El Rincon de Santa Fe was the most elegant restaurant Luz had ever been in. Touches of wrought iron separated the big place into sections. The walls were covered in big sepia murals of gauchos riding through the pampas, punctuated with antique photographs and leather saddles and bridles. Dark bottles of red wine snaked along a high shelf above the bar. Guitar music invited patrons to linger.

  The waiter led them to a skirted table near the center of the room. Eddo took the seat facing the door to the mall. Luz could see the big bar over his shoulder.

  She looked around surreptitiously at the other diners. Was anyone staring at her? Did she look out of place? She caught Eddo’s eye and started guiltily.

  “I think the bathrooms are through the archway by the bar,” he whispered conspiratorially.

  “Thank you,” Luz whispered back.

  She found the ladies room, used the facilities, and then put on some of la señora’s lipstick, appalled to find that her hand was shaking worse than when she had the visa interview. There were a few other women in there, upper class women dressed in ponytails and tight designer pants and pretty tops. They took no notice of Luz.

  There was a menu lying on her place at the table when she came back. Eddo stood up as she approached and sat when she did. He’d taken off his jacket. The white short-sleeved shirt hugged his chest, revealing a heavily muscled but lean physique. Luz had an impure thought about what he would look like without the shirt.

  “What would you like to drink?” he asked.

  “What are you having?” She’d just do whatever he did.

  “I think I’ll have a beer.”

  Luz hesitated. Señora Vega never drank beer.

  “How about a sangria?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  The waiter came by and took their drink orders. They opened their menus and Luz nearly passed out. The prices were staggering.

  “What do you think, the mixed grill?” Eddo asked.

  Luz thought she might have a stroke. The mixed grill for two was 1200 pesos.

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  “And a salad?” he asked.

  But there was no salad fork, just a dinner fork and hadn’t Señora Vega drummed into her head the rules about the proper utensil for the proper food? If she ate her salad with the dinner fork would it be a dead giveaway? Would everyone notice? The fork and the prices and the day-long charade were all too much. “There’s no salad fork,” Luz said, mortified as soon as the words came out of her mouth.

  “Oh,” Eddo said.

  The waiter brought drinks, appetizer plates, a cold salad of bayos blancos, and small condiment dishes of chimichurra and salsa roja. Eddo murmured to him and the waiter immediately fetched two extra forks. He took their order for salad and the mixed grill, collected the menus, and disappeared.

  The sangria was tall and cool, the limeade and chilled red wine separated like oil and water in the glass. Luz swirled the two colors together with the straw and sipped. The sweet alcohol hit her empty stomach, warmth radiated out, and she relaxed a fraction.

  Eddo drank his beer directly from the bottle, like every other man she’d ever been with, and that helped, too.

  “So,” he said. “Tomato Tamayo. Your English must be pretty good.”

  “I’m practicing to go to New York. To see the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” It was the most personal thing she’d said to him so far and immediately felt like a mistake. She covered by serving him a plate of bean salad with artistic dollops of the garnishes.

  “Excellent. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Luz put some of the beans and garnishes on a plate for herself.

  “So you need to practice your English.” Eddo put the cloth napkin on his lap and Luz followed suit. “Maybe I can help.” He switched to English. “How are you this evening, Miss Alba?”

  “I am well, thank you,” Luz replied carefully in the same language. She racked her brain to find something to impress him. “How’re they hanging, sir?”

  He’d been in the middle of drinking from the beer bottle, holding it lightly, and his eyes widened over the neck as he choked. He nearly dropped the bottle and grabbed his napkin, laughing and sputtering beer. Luz froze, fork halfway to her mouth, as she tried to think what she’d done wrong. How are they hanging, how’re they hanging, but maybe it was how are them hanging.

  “Luz, do you actually know what that means?” He was back to Spanish, hazel eyes twinkling with fun.

  “A greeting. Something you say to friends.” Luz laid her fork in her plate, unable to eat a bite, knowing the blunder was somehow huge.

  “Male friends only,” Eddo said softly, leaning over the table, his face still twitching with suppressed laughter. “It refers to a man’s cojones. Literally. How are they hanging.”

  “Oh.” Luz clapped her hands to her face, utterly embarrassed. She’d said something vulgar to him. Again. First toilet paper, and then napkins, and now this, the worst of all.

  “Where on earth did you hear that?” Eddo leaned back and forked some beans.

  “Kids. From the school,” Luz fudged, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I feel like such a fool.”

  “Well, don’t. Just another part of a very memorable day.”

  The electric smile warmed her as he chuckled again and Luz started to laugh, too. The conversation moved on, to what they’d seen at Jardin del Arte and what they knew about other art bazaars in the city. Luz ate her beans and the delicious chimichurra relish. The sangria went down quickly, and Eddo ordered them both another round. She was well into the second drink when the main course came.

  The waiter laid out dinner plates and a salad big enough for four. An enormous charcoal brazier was centered on the table. Several different cuts of veal and beef sizzled on it, smelling like heaven.

  Eddo served this time, putting more meat and salad on her plate than Luz could possibly eat. They talked and ate and every time the conversation veered toward the personal Luz steered it away. She didn’t ask what he did for a living, despite her growing curiosity, afraid that he’d do the same, so the conversation stayed light.

  But somewhere between her second and third sangria, Luz realized he truly had no idea who she was because he asked her what type of books she liked to read.

  “Masters of the Light Within,” she replied, smearing the dark green chimichurra over a bite of mouth-watering beef, exactly as he was doing.

  “Masters of the Light Within,” he repeated. “This is revenge for Kagemusha, right? Aliens?”

  “Close. Painters.”

  “Ah. Of course. Lots of snappy dialogue? G
ripping plot?” His table manners were impeccable. She could have watched him eat all night.

  “More like a textbook,” Luz said. It was her favorite from Señor Vega’s study. “Profiles of famous painters.”

  “The only famous painter I know is Frida Kahlo.”

  “Yes, she’s in it. But she’s hardly my favorite.”

  “She’s not?” Eddo put down his knife and fork. “I thought she was a Mexican icon.”

  “Her paintings do define a certain Mexican style.” Luz had never had a conversation with someone who used words like icon. She felt like a part of her that had been asleep was waking up and spreading its wings. “But so many of her paintings are terribly depressing. Frida Kahlo was too absorbed with death for me.”

  “No, that’s not you at all.”

  “No, no, it’s not.” It was unnerving the way he had said that, as if somehow he knew her very well.

  “So if Frida Kahlo isn’t your favorite, who is?” Eddo pronged some beef.

  “El Greco,” Luz replied.

  “El Greco? I haven’t a clue. Tell me.”

  So she told him about El Greco, the man from the island of Crete who captivated Spain with his powerful images of Christ and the saints in the late 1500’s. El Greco’s most famous pictures were crowded with people, and Luz always felt he’d known what it was to live in Mexico. She got carried away as she told Eddo how his wife’s madness was the great tragedy of the painter’s life. People said El Greco was mad, too, or maybe he just had bad eyesight, because all his paintings had a strange vertical elongation to them, but Luz felt it was because the paintings were stretching toward heaven. Her artist’s hands demonstrated the vertical force of El Greco’s works and the feeling she always had of reaching toward God when she saw pictures of The Baptism of Christ or Burial of the Count of Orgaz.

  “If I’d had a teacher like you,” Eddo said. “I would have paid attention in school.”

  Their eyes met and Luz felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “So what are you reading?” She picked up her fork and started to eat again.