Dr. Brinkley's Tower

by Robert Hough

  The stallion spat out the cloth and reared, almost striking the hacendero on the head with a hoof. Diamante landed and then reared even higher, this time producing an equine shriek so loud it was heard in every nook and corner of Corazón de la Fuente. The hacendero took another, alarmed step backwards. A depthless, weighty silence descended — gone were the cawing of ravens, the crackle of cooking fires, the call of hungry children. The hacendero was breathing hard, his back against the wire fence of the enclosure. Diamante glared at him through eyes born in hell. In that awful moment the hacendero faced the possibility that his horse — always so high-spirited, always so sensitive — had turned rogue altogether.

  A second later, the hacendero discerned a tinny, barely perceptible music. The moment he heard it, he realized he’d been hearing it all along; the only difference was that, in the intensity of the moment, he had finally started to perceive it. He listened harder and made out the squeak of violins, the thrum of a washtub bass, and the ear-repulsing yodel of a gringo country-and-western singer. He dug a forefinger into each ear and experienced a diminishment of the wincing, ghostly sound; this proved it wasn’t a product of his own frantic mind. He then looked in either direction, trying to determine its source. He saw nothing, and for a moment he wondered whether he had somehow developed the same madness as his horse.

  Then he realized what was happening. Dropping to one knee, he placed his ear against the wire surrounding his paddock, and finally he heard what had been tormenting his animal.

  Will the circle be unbroken

  By and by, Lord, by and by?

  There’s a better home awaiting

  In the sky, Lord, in the sky …

  { 19 }

  VIOLETA SAT IN LOW LIGHT, AT A ROUND WOODEN table marred by coffee-cup rings. Her headphones were in place. In front of her were a glass of water, a vase filled with several dozen white roses, and a microphone resembling a dinner plate. Across from her was a large rectangular window; manning the switches and levers on the other side was a controller named George Peters, who had taken over from Brinkley after the first week’s program.

  Violeta felt exhausted. That afternoon she had advised callers suffering from job loss, ailing children, malignant growths, palsies, missing pets, chronic indigestion, cheating spouses, arthritic parents, and truant children. She had to wonder whether all Americans led such tragic lives, or whether it was just the people who called her radio program. Either way, it made her feel a little sad about the human condition — if people as fortunate as the gringos couldn’t be happy, then who in the name of Jesús could?

  — Miss Rose, Peters said. — We have a Mrs. Jane B of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the line.

  — Hola, Violeta said. She heard the usual nervous shifting and throat-clearing. Then there was silence. — Missus B? she asked.

  — I am here.

  — How I can help joo today?

  — Oh, Miss Dawn. It’s my … it’s my father.

  — Go on.

  — It’s just that … well, Miss Dawn … my father worked hard his entire life. His entire life, Miss Dawn. He had great plans to travel with my mother. They were going to go to Oregon to visit my aunt, and they were even thinking of crossing the border to Canada and do some fishing. They had so many plans, Miss Dawn. My father retired last year, and it seemed that the very next day he came down with a nasty cough. He went to see his doctor, and discovered he had cancer in his lungs. He was a heavy smoker, you see. Within three months he died.

  Violeta felt her throat constrict.

  — And now I can’t help but feel … oh, Miss Dawn, I can barely even say it … but I feel bitter with the Lord for letting a man work so hard his entire life, only to take that life away when the man finally had some time to enjoy it. I can’t sleep, and sometimes I find myself crying for no reason, as if the frustration of it all is about to swallow me whole. Do you understand, Miss Dawn?

  —Jess, Violeta said, her voice trembling. — I understand.

  — I love listening to your show and I trust your advice and I wondered if there was anything you could recommend.

  Violeta paused and bit one of her nails. Her eyes were moist.

  — Missus B? Close your eyes. Now try picture your father’s favourite place. Did he have one?

  — He did, Miss Dawn. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but he loved to fish, and there was a little watering hole just down the lane from his house.

  — Tell me, Missus B.

  — Well, there was a live oak tree and he’d sit on one of the lower branches that hung over the creek. And there was a break in the trees, and sun would pour in through that break around two o’clock and he would sit there feeling all right with the world. Right where he sat there was a little eddy, and he said that the catfish loved to pool in that eddy because there was no current and the water was warm and it was as though they were waiting for him. That’s what he told me, they practically jumped out of the water. And sometimes, when I was little, my ma and I would go there and picnic with him, eating sandwiches next to him on that branch of the live oak tree, and above us the sky was a deep, rich blue and the ground was the dark green of a forest, and I don’t think I ever saw him looking so content. And I swear, I swear, the three of us always came back singing.

  — Missus B?

  Violeta paused.

  — Please trust me. He is there now.

  The program ended with a field recording of nocturnal tree frogs that Dr. Brinkley had made during a foray up the Amazon. It was a trip, he’d told Violeta, during which he’d consumed snake blood for sustenance, learned how to hunt with blow darts, and contracted a malarial fever so brutal he’d begun speaking in the voice of his forefathers. As she walked towards the XER lounge, Violeta’s theme music gave way to the accordion music that signalled the hour hosted by Mrs. Fay Parker, a Del Río native and author of the locally available cookbook Victuals for Visitors. Violeta took a seat, closed her eyes, and attempted to calm herself.

  The station manager came into the room.

  — Miss Dawn, he said.

  — Hola, Dale.

  — Dr. Brinkley would like to have a word with you.

  Violeta gulped. — What does he want?

  — I’m not sure, Miss Dawn.

  Violeta combatted a strong sense of foreboding. She’d been on the air for a full month, and the show probably wasn’t getting any listeners. She stood, attempted to console herself with the knowledge that at least she’d tried her best, and followed Stollins up the stairs towards the medical clinic. They walked along the third floor of the Roswell Hotel, down a hallway padded with thick maroon carpeting. All sound was muted, and the light thrown by the sconces seemed purposefully restful. They stopped at the end of the hall, before a door bearing gold lettering that read John Romulus Brinkley. The manager tapped and looked expectantly at the grain of the wood.

  — Yes? said a voice from inside.

  The station manager opened the door just a little. He poked his head inside and said: — Miss Dawn is here, sir.

  — Well for Pete’s sake, Dale, don’t just stand there. Show the young lady in!

  Stollins grinned and backed away from the entrance. Violeta stepped inside Brinkley’s office, trying to not look awed. This was difficult. A pair of crystal chandeliers descended from the ceiling, a sofa upholstered in zebra hide stretched along the far wall, and the walls were lined from floor to ceiling in dark, smooth wood. But what most drew Violeta’s attention was the better part of a rhinoceros’s forequarters, affixed to the wall over Brinkley’s left shoulder.

  — Ah, said the doctor. — The rhinoceros. Do you notice anything different about it?

  — No, she muttered.

  — Look closely …

  He was speaking in Spanish, and she followed suit. — I’m sorry, doctor. I’m afraid I’m not an expert.

  — The horns, señorita! There are three of them! Do you see?

  He sprung from his chair, and touched a knobby black
protuberance between the horns that Violeta had assumed was an overgrown wart. — This, the doctor proclaimed, — is a South American rhino. From the Paraguayan lowlands, no less. I bagged it in a marsh during a respite from my medical studies. An impressive specimen, you must agree. Not too many people even know that Rhinoceros sondaicus so much as exists in South America. Most people think they come only from Africa.

  — Sí, doctor. I thought this as well.

  — You wouldn’t believe what they have in the jungles of Paraguay. A lion that looks a little like the sphinx. A small, spotted tiger. A toucan with a hornbill the size of a mariachi trumpet. I’m no expert, but I’d say they have variations of everything but elephants and the odd marsupial. Oh yes, it’s a hunter’s paradise. You should go someday.

  — I can’t tell you how much I would like to travel, doctor. He stood smiling at her. — I suppose you’re wondering why I requested the honour of your presence.

  — Sí.

  — Come now, Miss Rose, no need to be coy. You must have some idea.

  — Is it about the show?

  The doctor threw back his head and laughed. When he again looked at her, his eyes had narrowed into gleaming slits. — I suppose it is, Violeta, I suppose it is! I’d very much like to show you something …

  The doctor rose and crossed the floor of his office, a manoeuvre that necessitated a quick dodge around a statue of a cherub whose skin was the teal green of an agave frond. He reached a door that, Violeta assumed, belonged to a closet.

  — Ready?

  He pulled open the door, revealing a small room stuffed to the ceiling with letters, postcards, boxes, and parcels, all of which immediately tumbled onto the polished wooden floor. This cascade took half a minute, and when it finally ended, Brinkley beamed and said: — Have you ever laid eyes on such an outpouring of public approbation?

  — No, sir.

  Brinkley whooped. — Oh, Violeta, your modesty is astounding. You really don’t understand, do you? Violeta, the popularity of a radio personality is judged by how much mail he or she receives.

  He paused for effect. — You, my dear, are by far the biggest mail-puller at Radio XER.

  Violeta looked again at the spill of mail, which had tumbled all the way to the tips of Brinkley’s fine leather shoes. She grinned bashfully. Brinkley reached down, picked up an armful of letters, and threw them in the air.

  — All that mail, Violeta asked. — It’s really for me?

  — Yes! exclaimed Brinkley. — Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Not only are you the biggest mail-puller at XER, but my sources tell me that you’re out-pulling Miss Rosalita Dusk at Radio XEX in Villa Acuña and Miss Rosaurita Day at Radio XED in Ciudad Juárez. My sources tell me, Violeta, that you’re out-pulling more than the two of them put together. Listen to me, Miss Dawn. Sales of my goat-gland operation and my patented Dr. Brinkley post-operative tonics have risen by thirty percent since you’ve gone on the air. By thirty percent! At this rate I’ll have to build another clinic. I’m thinking of New Mexico … Oh, I almost forgot! The other day I received an invitation, and a most pressing one at that, to attend to the reproductive ills of an Indochinese emperor, and by gum, I might just go. The remuneration, of course, will be substantial. As my papa always said, Son, you gotta make hay while the sun shines.

  Violeta lowered her gaze and felt a blush coming to her cheeks. — I’m just glad I could help, she said.

  — You know what I think it is? It’s your way, Miss Dawn. When you speak, you do so with this sort of … how do I put it?… empathy. Yes, that’s it. There’s a caring there. The other mediums, when they speak, they sound mendacious by comparison. Miss Dusk, with her smoky voice and Germanic vowels — she sounds like she’s running a two-bit con, all the way. And Miss Day, with all that swooning and crying — too obvious, every second of it. But you … when you tell them their cancer is going to go away, or their husbands are bound to quit the bottle, or their lives will be better in the new house, you sound as if you really hope this will happen. You sound as though you’ve had your own share of pain in this world, and can understand exactly how they are feeling.

  Brinkley rose and peered at Violeta with a look of self-satisfaction. He tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his vest and rocked on the heels of his oxfords. — Tell me, Miss Dawn. How much am I paying you?

  — Seventy-five dollars a month, doctor.

  — In that case, let’s raise it to one hundred. You deserve it, Miss Dawn. You deserve every penny.

  Violeta smiled broadly. — Oh, Dr. Brinkley, I can’t accept …

  — Oh yes, you can, my dear. And by gum you will.

  Violeta went home that night with an ermine stole — a bonus gift from Brinkley — wrapped around her. Though it was far too warm for the border and raised a blotchy, unattractive heat rash on her shoulders, she wore it to bed that night, and then she hid it under her bed the next day, afraid it would be pilfered by one of the consumptive thieves who were now as common as houseflies in Corazón de la Fuente. The day after that, Violeta returned from school to find her mother in a state of advanced excitement.

  — Look! Malfil said, while hopping from foot to foot. — One of Dr. Brinkley’s drivers delivered this.

  She handed Violeta a single white envelope bearing the words Señorita Dawn. Violeta accepted the envelope and admired it for a moment. It was bordered in gold leaf and, if she wasn’t mistaken, scented with an essence of rose petals.

  — Open it! Open it, mija!

  — All right, mami.

  Violeta carefully inserted a nail into a tiny break in the seal and tore it open in a slow, steady line. Inside was a single bleached-white card. Her lips moved as her eyes roamed the surface.

  — What is it?

  Violeta gazed at her madre, a look of disbelief in her eyes. — It’s Dr. Brinkley. He wants me to … he wants me to join him and his wife for dinner after the show next week!

  That week, Malfil and Violeta Cruz travelled to nearby Nava, their moods so enlivened they argued only once, in the middle of the trip, when Malfil suggested with a smirk that the good doctor looked at Violeta with more than professional respect in his eyes. In response, Violeta challenged her mother by saying Mami, he is a married man. Malfil in turn accused Violeta of suffering from either the naivety of youth or sheer stupidity, at which point Violeta accused her mother of being filthy-minded and rude. For the next ten minutes they both sat stiffly, gazing from their respective sides of the bus.

  In Nava they looked up a locally famous seamstress who was rumoured to make gowns for the wife of the Coahuilan governor. By the end of the week Señora Veracruz had produced a sea-blue dress with ruffles running around the neckline, a tapering bodice, and a ballooning of fabric at the hips.

  — Mija, Malfil said, with tears in her eyes. — You look like a goddess.

  On the morning of Violeta’s invitation, her mother took her to Corazón’s newest business establishment: two and a half weeks earlier, a peluquería had opened on one of the side streets connecting avenidas Hidalgo and Cinco de Mayo in the east end of the pueblo. There a middle-aged woman named Tabita rinsed Violeta’s sumptuous dark hair with rosewater and then piled it atop her head in a decorative fall of pins, ribbons, and barrettes. When she was done, Violeta looked five years older, and her piercing jade eyes seemed as big as plums. Her walk home was accompanied by frank stares, repeated calls of Mamacita! and at least one proposal of marriage.

  Once at home, Malfil treated what little was left of her daughter’s fingernails with a paste made from crushed beetle shells, which tasted so bitterly poisonous that Violeta wouldn’t be tempted to succumb to her favourite nervous habit in front of the Brinkleys. That afternoon the two waited together, Malfil turning to her daughter at one point and saying: — You are my whole world. You know this, don’t you, mija?

  — Sí, mami, answered her daughter. — I know this.

  — If anything ever happened to you I would die.

  — Mami,
said Violeta. — Please.

  Her limousine arrived at five o’clock. In evening slippers last worn by her mother at her own wedding, Violeta barely survived the dusty, uneven laneway separating her house from the open door of the vehicle. She arrived at the station at half-past and, as always, lubricated her vocal cords with a cup of hot water flavoured with lemon. She was behind her microphone precisely at six o’clock, at which time the Rose Dawn theme filled the station.

  It was a draining show. Violeta found that she couldn’t concentrate on the stories told by her listeners, and several times she had to ask them to repeat themselves, which she got away with by pleading that she had accidentally fallen into a regressive trance. At two minutes past seven o’clock, the broadcast booth relinquished to Fay Parker, the portly host of Victuals for Visitors, Violeta took a seat in the XER lounge. Her thin hands gripped her kneecaps. At five minutes past seven, Dale Stollins arrived. He looked at her.

  — Why, Miss Dawn, you do look lovely today.

  He led her outside and helped her into the limousine. As they drove, the driver kept sneaking glances at her in the rear-view mirror. Violeta, meanwhile, gazed out the backseat window, savouring the soft, buttery leather beneath her. The town of Del Río thinned as they drove. The houses grew farther and farther apart, until they were replaced altogether by neatly furrowed grape fields, old wooden barns, and pastureland. They passed beneath immense weeping cypress trees that hung over the roadway and tickled the top of the limousine. Violeta opened her window and felt the warm breeze on her face; she could hear the chirrup of crickets, the soft purr of the car’s motor, and the throaty bedspring wheeze made by bullfrogs. They passed a swamp, and for a half-minute or so she could smell putrid water. When they finally stopped, the sun was just starting to drop, turning the sky a dusky purplish colour.